Bloodlines: Everything That Glitters (5 page)

With blood covering my hands and smeared on the knees of my pants, I stood up and tenderly removed my hand from my brother’s grip. “Corey!” I wailed, breaking out into another sprint. The warm August air whipped through my hair, cooling the paths the tears made as they blew into the wind.

“Just hang in there,” I whispered into the wind.

“What’s the problem?” Corey questioned meeting me on the side of the destroyed building.

“Ash, he’s losing blood fast,” I grabbed her hand and practically drug her to my brother’s side.

             
“He’s going to be alright Alizarin, calm down.”

“My brother laying here about to die and
you’re telling me to calm down?” I bawled, still pulling her arm. I had to admit I felt bad about having to grab her, the bruises her father left were still very visible and I’m sure very sore.

When we finally reached the back of the shed, Corey knelt down and examined his body. Ash was still holding on, but just barely, blood still trickling from his back.

“You have healing and I can transfer, it’s really a simple operation.”

I looked at her then down at my brother, she wasn’t making any sense. “If you’re talking about that thing that what happened with the handprint when that bastard slapped me, I’d hardly call that healing,” I reasoned, new tears already beginning to form in the corners of my eyes. “I never told you my name, how do you know it?” I asked, puzzled.

“I heard your brother call you that.”

I shrugged then shook off the unease for the sake of Ash. “So what are we going to do? We have to save him.”

“What we’re going to do is take the spike out of his chest, we’ll both lay a hand on him. I’ll transfer his wound to you and then you’ll heal yourself.”

I thought about it for a minute and thought it made sense. “Ok well let’s get started.”

Don’t let me die, Alizarin
.

I knelt down at Ash’s side; he was still hanging on for dear life. “You’re not going anywhere,” I smiled, running my fingers through his messy hair. “We’re a pair remember?” Another forced smiled.

Two of a kind.

I stared down into his eyes again, fear and sadness making their way from the bottom of my stomach and up into my chest, his lightly tanned skin had already begun to turn pale. I grabbed his right hand and laid my left on his chest,
We’re going to have to take the spike out Ash so just sit tight.

We’re else am I going to go?
He turned up one corner of his mouth to smile but he no longer had the strength.

I smiled at him and lifted my hand from his grasp and placed both hands on the spike. “Are you ready to do this?” I asked Corey. My hands had begun to shake.

“When we get it out we will not have much time, so we’ll have to work fast,” Corey said.

This was no doubt the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. I got a good grip of the spike and pulled on it as hard as I could, Ash gurgled and winced in pain and agony, the blood was seeping out of his slightly parted lips. He no longer even had the strength to talk, let alone scream.

It’ll all be over soon, don’t worry you’re going to be alright
. I prayed.

Once the spike was out I quickly threw it to the side and put my right hand on his chest. “Am I supposed to think or say something in particular?” I panted as I looked over at Corey who was in full concentration.

“Open yourself up,” she said head still lowered.

After closing my eyes, I let everything I was holding in go- the worries, the pain and most of all the fear. I sat on my feet, gradually feeling light headed and weak as my chest unexpectedly started to rip open and my own blood now stained my shirt.

“It’s going to hurt a little but don’t take your hand off of your brother,” Corey said lowly.

The pain was more than a little; it was 3x more than a lot. The intensity slowly increased the longer I held my brother, agonizingly ripping and tearing. Only after what seemed like forever of baring the unbelievable pain heaving in my chest, my eyes rolled back and I toppled over, my entire body feeling numb and lifeless. When I could finally move enough to open my eyes, Ash and Corey were up and on their feet looking like nothing had ever happened.

“You can get up now,” Ash said offering out a hand to help me up.

I took his hand and stood. When I was on my feet I looked down into my shirt to see if there was a scar. “Good thing you didn’t almost die during bikini season, or else I may have had a real problem with this new scarred tissue.” I dusted the dirt from my knees and gave my shirt another once over. “We can’t go back the house like this.”

“Too soon,” he said, before nodding his head in agreement with the second thing I’d said. “We have clothes in the trunk.”

We made the minute walk back to the car in thirty seconds, all of us eager to get away. “We need to get out of here fast, no telling where that bastard went.” I took the keys out of my pocket and threw them in Ash’s direction, “You’re driving.” 

“All we wanted was a little gas,” I said to Ash as we both ducked down to get into the car. I looked off into a distant tree and saw something move in the shadows just before Ash had started the engine.

“There‘s another station or something just twelve minutes from here, if you guys want to change there” Corey spoke up from the backseat.

“There wouldn’t by any chance happen to be an invisibility power in store for me would there? That would be the most useful right now.”

“Actually there is! How did you know?” Corey replied enthusiastically.

“Really?”

“No.”

I pouted a little, but then smiled, she’d fit in nicely. Moving on to more important business, I let my next question for in my brain as nicely as I could make it; although being really upset about it.             

“Why didn’t you tell me your dad was like us?” I said, a hint of frustration building in my throat.

“I don’t know,” she replied sincerely.

I fastened my seatbelt and sat back in the seat and rested my head. “Well why did you decide to drive the truck into the store?”

“If I would have used my powers, I’m pretty sure I would have killed him. Besides, that store was the basis for so much of my pain, I hated it more than I despised him.”

I could understand that much after what I had just experienced firsthand. “Where do these powers come from?” I looked down at the brown mixture of my blood and that of Ash’s as it started to dry and began sticking to this newly developed scar, I slowly peeled the shirt away and looked down at it. “If I can heal, why do I have this scar?”

“You’re your most vulnerable when exposed to wooden weapons. It’s like that for most of us. But at least for you all it leaves is a scar; the rest of us might not be so lucky. No one really knows where they come from, just be glad you have them.”

“Obviously, they’re hereditary,” Ash responded, gripping the wheel as his encounter played in his head.

I saw it just as clearly as he did and I couldn’t force the feelings away though I gave it my all. I stared down at the tear in his shirt and saw he didn’t share my scar. Not realizing I was holding my breath, I exhaled before I turned purple. “Don’t say I don’t love you,” I sighed.

“Your love for me was never in question,” he smiled, reaching over to pat my knee.

Emotions got the best of me as I realized if he would have died the last memory I would have of him would be rolling around over shards of glass and broken wood for a reason I didn’t care to remember. “Why is this happening, Corey?”

“I can’t answer those questions for you, because I don’t know. Who left the juice for you guys to find and why did you decide to drink it?”

Our minds raced, I hadn’t been the one to find the cursed juice so I stared at Ash. “Why’d you have to go and drink the juice?”

He kept his attention on driving but I could see the frown on his face. “You drank it first! I only drank it because you did.”

I squirmed in my seat, something was wrong with my back- a massage was definitely needed. “Shoot,” I mumbled, bending over to touch my toes in an attempt to stretch my back. “Does your back hurt?” I questioned Ash.

“No, why?”

A sharp jab hit my spine, racing all the way to my head. “Stop the car,” I whispered at first. When Ash didn’t hear me I yelled, “Stop the freakin’ car!”

Immediately the car stopped in the middle of the street and I struggled to unlock the door. When I finally got it open ad was out of the door, my legs barely made it to the shoulder of the road as I stumbled to where the grass was. Everything came up, I felt like I was throwing up all of my guts as it spilled out into the grass.

Ash was out of the car and ran over to hold my hair back. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, I’m fine now,” I answered, getting up from the ground.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Want me to take you to a hospital or something?”

“I’m good, I swear. Let’s go,” I said, getting back into the car.

Corey sat quietly in the backseat looking out of the window. “An unfortunate side effect.”

Somehow I felt like she was sitting on information, since I wasn’t sure what I was looking or what was even going on for that matter, I couldn’t exactly say what it was she was hiding. “Why the hell didn’t Ash spill his guts on the side of the road?”

“Because I’m a man, I can handle my own,” he answered. “So how did you know I would be able to lift the truck? And Aliza, you owe me $20.”

“I can sense other powers,” Corey replied plainly.

“Now when you say ‘powers’ you mean that we have more than one?” Ash marveled.

“Well yeah you two are the only other people besides my dad that I know with powers though. As you can probably tell, I don’t get out much.” She replied, staring out of the window.

“So how many do we have?” I questioned.

“Powers only show when they’re activated or triggered. The stuff in the bottles triggered the first and I see that as time has passed, three have surfaced for Alizarin and the same amount for you, Ash,” she replied.

“You know, I always knew I was special,” he said smiling at the road.

“
Yeah- special ed,” I choked. I leaned my head against the window and looked at the surrounding trees. My sunroof was still open, only now the air that came through was less inviting. I felt dirty.

Ash didn’t reply, just kept his eyes on the road. “So which three? Can I fly? Do I have laser vision?” he urged.

I laughed at his apparent reference to Superman.

“What’s so funny?” he responded. 

It was actually pretty damn hilarious that we were sitting here talking about this like it was a part of normal conversation; as if everyone we knew had consumed super juice and were later cursed with mutation. But for the sake of peace, I nudged his arm with my elbow and smiled. “Nothing Super-Dork.”

“Don’t hate, appreciate,” he teased.

I turned slightly around in my seat and faced Corey, she was writing something in a little blue worn out journal. “So what do these powers do?”

She looked up from her notebook and smiled warmly. “Time will tell.”

I shrugged and turned back around in my seat, beside me Ash was smiling from ear to ear, his no longer private thoughts consumed me; images of shock and confusion flashed in front of me and I exhaled sharply. “Why me?” I mouthed, shaking my head in disappointment of the powers that be. “By the way, consider me saving your life that solid and the $20 I owed you.”

I let outside sound soothe me as I still forced fluids to stay in my stomach; not only did the person that left that poisoned juice ruin my life, they were killing me slowly, and if I ever found out who it was- I’d return the favor,
gladly
.

Nikko

Saturday April 10, 2010

From the first moment I laid eyes on her, she kept my heart racing. Everything from the way she smiled to the way her long hair blows gracefully in the wind and even how he
r eyes twinkle when she’s excited.

“She has to be the one,” I told Wade as we rummaged through the potions on Benjamin’s messy and cluttered shelves.

“I trust you, bro. I’m just saying, I hope your right, or else a completely useless teenage girl is about to ride into a challenge only Ikuista can overcome,” he replied casually.

“I’m telling you, once you see her, you’ll know.”

I channeled through the rooms space and quickly found a large enough bowl to mix the potion in. “Besides, I think Centure would know her own granddaughter,” I continued.

Wade stopped looking on the shelves and turned around to face
me. “Oh my god! You filthy beast.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking. She’s practically our cousin, pervert.”