Destined For a Vampire (21 page)

When I found her, she was leaning up against the coat closet just inside the front door, working hard at undoing the strap around her ankle that held her shoe in place. I watched as she struggled to remain upright, wrestling with it while she balanced on one high heel-shod foot. I doubted she could do that stone cold sober, much less this deep in her cups.

Finally, with a frustrated growl, she slid down to the floor and brought her foot up closer so that she could work at the buckle.

“Need some help?” I asked, having seen her fight with it long enough.

Mom looked up, glaring at me from under her mussed bangs. “Not from you,” she said hatefully.

“What’s the matter, Mom?”

“The same thing that’s always the matter,
Ridley.
You let Izzy die and I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

I’d heard this a few times before. Occasionally, Mom would get a hold of a nasty mood and, when coupled with vodka by the gallon, she would tell me where she really felt the blame for Izzy’s death lay—with me.

Regardless, though, it was always an excruciating slap in the face to know that anyone would dare blame me for the death of the sister that I loved so much. I’d gladly have taken Izzy’s place—many times I’d wished it had been me instead—but that wasn’t an option. She was practically dead as soon as the car struck the tree.

From the second we’d hit, Izzy’s fate had been out of my control.

But that would never be enough for Mom. She would mourn the loss of the

“good daughter” for the rest of her life. That, in turn, meant that she’d always point the finger of blame at the survivor—me.

It aggravated me when I felt tears collect behind my lashes.

“I didn’t let Izzy die, Mom,” I said, my voice betraying me with a tremble.

“You did! It should’ve been you, not her,” she spat angrily, tearing at the strap that crossed her ankle.

I bent to help her loosen the buckle.

“I wish it had been, Mom,” I said quietly, sniffing softly, hoping that my distress would remain undetected.

Mom grabbed my chin and jerked my face up, our eyes meeting.

“Don’t you dare try to make me feel guilty with your tears. You can’t fool me. She would never have been on that road if it weren’t for you. You don’t deserve to cry for her.”

“Mom, please. You know I would never hurt Izzy. I’d give anything to have her back.”

“Hush,” she said, turning her face from me. “I can’t stand to hear it anymore.

Just get that shoe off and leave me be.”

Again, my body betrayed me. As I nimbly worked the shoe loose and away from Mom’s foot, my tears peppered the tile of the foyer floor. I stood and handed her the shoe I’d just removed.

She took it from me, flinging it angrily down the hall toward her bedroom.

“Get out of my sight!”

Without so much as another glance in her direction, I turned and walked back to my room. When I closed the door behind me, I leaned back against it, hating the pain that suffused my chest. It was bad enough that I’d lost my sister almost four years ago, but in a way, I’d lost my entire family that fateful night, too.

My mother had drowned, first in her tears, then in her bitterness, now in her alcohol. And my father, he’d run away. Though he’d never really left home, left
us
, he was long gone, all the time, even when he was present on the weekends. He was just a shell of the man he used to be.

At least they can still manage to pretend
some
of the time,
I told myself consolingly. I thought of my new curfew, of how I’d been restricted from being out by myself after dark. Even though it was an inconvenience, in a perverse way, I cherished the limitation. It was a reminder of what life used to be like when they cared, what life was probably like for other kids whose parents were actually present and accounted for, emotionally anyway.

Pushing away from the door, I reminded myself that I would only have to deal with it for a little while longer, until I graduated and was forced to figure out what to do with about my future since my lifelong plans were basically a shambles.

But I’d think of something. I had to.

Feeling suddenly lost and melancholy, I switched off my lamp and curled up on my comforter, listening to the louder-than-normal night life that was singing outside my window. I fell asleep almost immediately, still exhausted and lethargic from my earlier tussle with Drew.

My eyes snapped open and the red clock numbers read 2:17. I was still curled up on my right side, facing the window, as the mattress dipped behind me. A cool hand slid over my hip, splaying across the skin of my belly where my flannel shirt lay parted.

I snuggled back into Bo. I didn’t need to turn around and look. For one thing, I knew from his body temperature that I wouldn’t be able to see him. He was freezing. I knew exactly who it was, though. Every cell in my body welcomed his closeness, all my senses opened up to take him in, like flower petals opening up for the sweet, wet kiss of the rain.

His cool lips grazed my neck, sending chill bumps down my left arm.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered against my skin.

My heart squeezed and my throat constricted with emotion. I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I knew. As I’d suspected, he hadn’t been gone very long when I’d awakened and he must have been close enough to hear my mother’s vicious barbs.

Tears burned my eyes as the pain of her comments came back in a flood.

That’s why I put them out of my mind. It hurt too bad to think about them.

“I know,” I said quietly. “But it still hurts.”

“I know,” he said.

A single tear somehow managed to escape my tightly squeezed lids.

Immediately, the cool air began to dry the wet trail it left on my cheek. When I felt composed enough to speak, I asked, “Drew?”

“Shh. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Though I wanted to know, I didn’t think I could handle one more thing on that night. Silently, I reached down and brought Bo’s fingers to my lips. His hands were so strong, so capable, but I knew that there were some things in life that even Bo couldn’t fix.

********

I reached out to the place beside me, the place where he’d lain. The comforter was icy where his body had been. He couldn’t have been gone very long.

Rolling over, I buried my face in the covers. They still smelled of him and, as always, my body reacted instantaneously with an ache that was becoming a part of my genetic makeup.

Thoughts of his sweet tenderness, his amazing ability to comfort me without saying a word brought me back to the myriad reasons for my distress. My mother, Izzy, Drew, Summer and Aisha, Trinity, some nebulous girl that floated out there on the horizon, waiting for the perfect moment to tear my life apart—all of it started buzzing around inside my head at once.

With a renewed determination that was matched only by the vampire blood-induced energy that I felt infusing my muscles, I pushed back the covers and hopped out of bed. I was going to take a hot shower and I wasn’t coming out until all the bloody residue from last night’s drama had been washed away, as well as all the negativity that seemed to permeate my entire life. Whatever the future held, I was going to enjoy the present. I was going to live and love like there was no tomorrow.

For all I knew, that might be the case. At the rate I was going, on any given day there was a distinct possibility that tomorrow might never come.

Having the essence of Bo pouring through my veins seemed to help everything, that or it simply altered my perspective enough to view things differently. Even though I couldn’t see him or necessarily feel him in that way I did when he was near, I felt like I carried him—or some part of him—with me all the time, as if he was with me at every turn, for every step.

When I got to school, I expected the majority of the talk to be about the recent disappearances and the even more recent attacks, as they had been every day for weeks. But today, the buzz was a bit different.

I heard snippets of conversations about the death of an elderly woman in neighboring Sumter. I was puzzled as to why that would be noteworthy at our high school, but I thought little of it. I knew that if there was even a scintilla of a juicy story there, it would be discussed at our lunch table
ad nauseum
.

I didn’t have to wait that long to find out, though. Mrs. Dingle was already on it.

Perched atop her desk, the petite middle-aged woman pushed her frameless glasses up her not unattractive nose and flicked the paper open in front of her. When she began to read, I knew that she, too, had found the story something of an interest.

Sixty-one year old Maggie Jenner was found dead in her second floor
apartment early yesterday morning. Jenner, reportedly attacked in her own bed,
was brutally mauled and dismembered. Police originally suspected that Jenner was
the victim of an animal attack, but after further investigation, authorities discovered
that Jenner’s apartment door was locked from the inside and her windows were
inaccessible from the ground, suggesting that she was the victim of foul play.

Though an animal attack has been officially ruled out, police have yet to name any
suspects in connection with Jenner’s untimely death. Lead Homicide Detective Alan
Forbes was interviewed on site. He made a brief statement, only to say that police
are following several possible avenues in relation to the case.

As Mrs. Dingle was reading, I kept thinking that the victim’s name sounded familiar somehow, but I just couldn’t place it. She quickly moved on to another story and then the bell rang, so it was easy to put the question out of my mind for the time being.

I coasted through the day, distracted and, strangely, a little happy. Lunch dampened my spirits a bit, though. I sat in Drew’s seat again, only today I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him. It made me queasy to think about Drew being miserable enough to want to die and Bo possibly giving in to the urge to kill him, whether Drew wanted and deserved it or not. As much as Drew and I had butted heads since our breakup, I still didn’t want to see anything bad happen to him, anything worse than vampirism, that is.

Bo did pretty well with his condition, so I didn’t think it was the worst possible fate. But apparently Drew disagreed. It made me wonder if there was more to it than what I’d originally thought.

Thinking about that was like unwrapping a gag gift. I was much more comfortable when vampirism was glamorized. I didn’t want to think of it as being such a torturous existence that someone would want to die because of it.

My angst and growing disillusionment over vampires was only reinforced when Aisha didn’t show up at our table. I hadn’t seen her all day, which wasn’t entirely unusual, but no one else had either, and that
was
out of the ordinary. She had an unmistakable way of being recognized, seen and heard wherever she went.

She was very much like Trinity in that way.

I managed to shake off most of my funk by the time lunch was over, and my spirits were bolstered when I saw Aisha making her way across the field for practice.

I ran out to meet her.

She looked a little worse than she had the day before, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with her. Lately, my suspicions ran toward vicious supernatural causes for nearly everything. Nothing was just an accident or bad luck anymore. I suspected vampires were at the root of everything from black eyes to pale skin to bad moods.

“Hey. Missed you at lunch today,” I said lightly, falling into step beside her.

“Uh, I overslept so I just waited until after lunch to check in.”

Aisha seemed to be going out of her way to avoid eye contact. I bent my head and engaged her on purpose.

“Is everything alright? Did you remember something else?”

“I’m fine,” she said, meeting my eyes quickly then looking away.

I stopped. “Aisha, if something’s wrong, you need to tell me. Maybe I can help you.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She tried to sound sincere, but I wasn’t convinced.

“I can tell something’s up, and you can talk to me. You can tell me anything and it will stay between us.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Ridley. Seriously.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Aisha.”

“I’m not pretending,” she said, laughing nervously.

“Seriously, I might know—”

“Ridley!” she snapped. “Drop it. There’s nothing you can do to help me.

Now just let it go.”

She stormed off and I stood rooted to my spot in the grass, watching her go.

Now I
knew
something was up, but I had no way of finding out what it was if she didn’t trust me enough to tell me, if she wouldn’t talk to me.

Aisha walked right up to the group and started chatting, but I knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t herself. She was less animated, less energetic and she just didn’t look good. But obviously, she wasn’t ready to tell me anything.

I made up my mind right then that I would just have to convince her that she could trust me, that I could and would help her.

I jogged back and started practice.

As we worked through a new cheer, I traded hats between captain and standin base cheerleader. Since Trinity and Summer were both gone, we had to make some adjustments, which put me into the mix in a totally different way.

The last part of our new cheer included some simple shoulder stands. Even though I wasn’t really the size that bases usually were, I moved one of the smaller girls over to pair with me so that we could make it work. As a couple, we were next to Aisha and her partner.

As we were moving through the second rehearsal of the cheer, Aisha faltered on her climb and fell from Mia’s shoulders. She landed with a dull thud on the ground and lay there for a few seconds, addled and breathless.