Dirty Blood (3 page)

“I told you not to go out in that weather last
night,” she said sternly, making a smooth switch from nurturer to
lecturer.

“What weather?” I tried to remember last night.

“That brutal wind that whipped through,” she said.
“Obviously. I mean, I told you that last night, too. It was just
brittle out there and there’s this flu bug going around.” She
gestured to me, like I was the official carrier or something.

I stared blankly back at her, trying to figure out
what she was talking about. I mean, I knew being sick could make my
brain fuzzy, but I had no idea what she was talking about. I hadn’t
gone anywhere last night. I opened my mouth to tell her that, but
she just kept talking.

“Anyway, I hope George doesn’t get this, too. He
doesn’t need this slowing him down. Not with those recruiters
coming around.” She turned back to me, eyes studying. “He is okay
though, right? I noticed it wasn’t him who dropped you off. Is he
sick, too?”

“I-I don’t think so.”

“So who did drop you off?”

“Um…” Okay, obviously I should remember this; my mom
was certainly sure that it’d happened. But I just had no idea.
Everything was fuzzy, from the time I’d gotten home from school
until – well, now, basically. I kept my mouth shut, though. I was
afraid that if I mentioned that, my mom would whisk me away to the
closest emergency room. I looked back at her expectant face; I
still hadn’t answered. “Um, Angela.”

She nodded and rose, looking halfway satisfied.
“Well, I need to get going. Julie has the morning off and I need to
water everything before we open.”

Mom owned a flower shop in the tiny scrap of land
that was known as downtown, though Frederick Falls’ version of
downtown wasn’t very impressive. We didn’t even have our own mall.
You had to drive to the next county over for that. Still, she did
okay here - Her passion and talent for all things botanical had
apparently skipped a generation with me - and as confused and achy
as I might be, I didn’t want to keep her from it. Nor did I want
her hovering.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

I nodded and settled back against the pillow trying
to give my achy muscles some relief.

“I’ll make sure I’m home for dinner,” she said,
heading for the door.

“Okay. Hey mom,” I called. “What time did I come in
last night?”

She gave me a strange look. “Ten-thirty. Right on
time for curfew. Why?”

“Just wondering. Have a good day.” I forced a
smile.

She smiled back, still with a question in her eyes,
and disappeared down the hall. A few minutes later I heard the
front door open and close and the key slide in the lock. Then,
silence.

For the next hour I lay in my bed and tried, without
success, to remember the details of last night. Mom had said I’d
gone out with George, and I remembered making plans with him at
school but the details were still hazy. I squinted with the effort
of recalling the conversation we’d had after last bell…

“Tay, look, I know things have been rough on you. My
schedule and the team and my weekends away… I get it. But at least
give me the chance to work it out,” George had said.

I’d tapped my foot impatiently at that. “George, it’s
not really about any of those things. It’s about you, or the new
you, I guess. You’ve changed and I just don’t think I can do this
anymore.”

“My life has changed,” he argued. “Football has
always been a part of me, though, and deep down I’m still the same
person.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You blew me off two days
in a row to do an interview for the school paper. Half the front
page is your picture.”

“Social networking is necessary at this point.” It
was his voice but the words were that of a stranger, a new George
that I just couldn’t connect with, try as I might. I tried to think
of a nice way to just say it and get it over with. But I’d never
been good at endings, breakups especially. George took advantage of
my silence and pressed on. “Tay, we’ve been friends since middle
school. Do you really want to throw all that away?” His eyes were
soft and pleading; reminiscent of the old George. It was a look
that normally would’ve made me cave or breathe faster or
something.

But I’d been down this road already and given him
plenty of second chances. “George, look-”

He cut me off. “Let’s go out tonight, just you and
me. Do something fun. It’ll remind you of the real me. The real
us
.”

“George-” I rubbed a fingertip in circles on my
forehead, trying to smooth out the tension.

“Please, Tay. We can shoot some pool.”

Okay, my weakness for pool aside, the offer was
tempting. Some part of me felt like I owed George this much. Like
he said, we’d been friends for a long time. And I could feel my
resolve wavering. I hated feeling… mean. “Fine. Pool tonight. Then
I decide, and you don’t argue.”

“Deal.” George grinned and I could tell he viewed
this as a victory.

“George.” Eddie, George’s best friend, waved and
called to him from down the hall where he stood with half the
football team. George glanced over and then turned back to me with
a guilty expression that I’d come to recognize well over the past
couple of months.

“Crap. I made plans with Eddie to go over some of the
unedited footage from our last game. His dad said we could view it
in their media room on the big screen.” He must’ve seen my
expression and rushed on before I could respond. “It’s the first
team we’ll face in playoffs, and we need to learn their signals.
I’ll be done in plenty of time, though, promise. I’ll pick you up
at six.” Then he flashed me a brilliant smile and strode away…

My memory went fuzzy after that and I let the images
fade away. I couldn’t even remember leaving school. What bug could
I have possibly caught that had erased my memory of an entire
evening? I wasn’t even sure the flu could cause something like
this. But what else could it be? Nothing like this had ever
happened before. Not even the night of my friend Sam’s sixteenth
birthday party; I’d had way too much to drink that night; some
fruity concoction that had smelled like strawberries on alcoholic
steroids. The highlight had been when I’d fallen into the pool and
almost drowned. George had jumped in and ‘saved me’ by pulling on
me until I realized it was only four feet of water. Even then, I’d
remembered most of it the next day- unfortunately - which was why
I’d vowed never to drink again. But this… this felt different. I
was starting to get worried.

I sighed, and rolled over, ignoring the ache it
caused in my shifting muscles. Random pieces of clothing littered
the carpet in my room; evidence of my tendency towards laundry
procrastination. Nearest my bed, a scrap of bright red fabric
caught my eye. A silk v-neck blouse, my favorite, lay in a heap,
under a still- damp towel. I reached down and yanked it free,
trying to remember when I’d last worn it. I thought it was still in
my closet. Then I looked closer. The shirt was torn in several
places, the silky fabric hanging by threads in some places. I
stared at it as an uneasy feeling washed over me. A picture flashed
in my mind: me, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror,
hair disheveled and sticking out. The tattered shirt hung off my
shoulders and exposed my ribs on either side. Bloody scratches
showed through the tears in the fabric.

I dropped the shirt, and sucked in a sharp breath.
Hesitantly, I pushed the covers away and lifted up my Pink Panther
pajama tee. In several places along my ribs, I could see scratches
running jaggedly down my torso. They were clean, and shallow, like
I’d been in a fight with a cat. Only problem, I didn’t have a
cat.

“What the…?” I said, to the empty room.

“Could’ve been worse,” a male voice answered.

My head snapped up. A boy with bronzed brown hair and
eyes to match leaned against the frame of my bedroom door.

I gripped the covers, my knuckles white with the
effort. “Who are you? What are you doing in here?” Despite my
voice’s earlier croaking, I managed a shriek just fine.

“Calm down, Tara, I’m not going to hurt you,” he
said.

His tone was calm and a little patronizing, but he’d
said my name with familiarity. That surprised me enough to block
out the fear for a moment. “How do you know me?”

“The same way you know me. We met last night. I’m
Wes.”

“I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave, or
I’m calling the police.” I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand
without breaking eye contact. I held it up in the air, like a
weapon.

He pushed off from the doorway, taking a step into
the room. The black leather of his jacket crinkled as he moved.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you any more than you already are, but
I’m not leaving, either, so you might as well put the phone down.
Besides, you agreed to ‘discreet’ remember?”

I stared at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean,
hurt me more than I already am? Did you do this to me? Did we-?” Oh
God. Visions of after school specials and date rape warnings from
Health class danced in my head.

Halfway across the room, he turned and grabbed my
desk chair, spinning it around to face the bed before sitting down.
“No, I didn’t.” His lips twitched. “And no, we didn’t.”

I breathed a silent prayer of thanks and then
returned to glaring at him. “But you know who did this to me?”

“Yes.”

I waited, and then realized he wasn’t going to say
more. “Well? Are you going to tell me who it was?”

“I haven’t decided.”

I threw my hands up in frustration. “Then why are you
here? What do you want?”

“I told you, I want to talk to you.”

Something about the tone of his voice, the cadence of
his words, unnerved me. It was familiar, but it wasn’t. I stared at
him for a full minute, waiting for some memory to fall into place
about where we might’ve met. Nothing came, but I got that same
uneasy feeling I’d had when the torn shirt had been in my hands;
something unfamiliar and unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I
know it probably sounded silly because I’d only been around him for
a few minutes, but I got the distinct feeling he was nothing like
anyone I’d ever met before. Not even close.

I squared my shoulders. “So talk,” I said, trying to
sound tough.

But he didn’t, not right away. He just continued to
watch me with cool, studying eyes. They roamed my face and arms,
and then glanced speculatively at the comforter I still held up to
my chin.

“Strong, amazingly strong,” he said quietly, almost
to himself.

“What?”

“What do you remember about last night?” he asked,
abruptly.

His eyes found mine and I was struck by their unique
color. Last summer, I’d taken a trip to California, to visit my
grandmother. She and I had hiked to the top of a bluff that
overlooked a forest, thick with redwoods, and picnicked there, just
the two of us. His eyes reminded me of the redwoods; a swirling
mixture of tawny brown.

I blinked, trying to remember the question. “Nothing,
actually. Which is pretty frustrating, let me tell you. Are you
finally going to tell me where these scratches came from?”

“Like I said, it wasn’t me. I just happened to come
along at the right time.”

“What does that mean?”

My cell phone rang, cutting off his response. I
looked around, only to remember I still held it in my hand. I
loosened my grip and glanced at the screen.

“Go ahead,” Wes said, gesturing towards the ringing
phone. “I’ll wait.”

I flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

“Tara?”

“George. Hey.”

“Are you okay? Angela was in the office and heard
that your mom called and said you were sick.”

I hesitated. I’d fully intended to disclose my
situation –a.k.a. scream for help - to the first person who called
and then wait to be rescued from Wes, the crazy bedroom stalker. I
glanced over at him, wondering why he’d even let me answer the
phone at all. If he was going to hurt me, he could’ve done it
already – and he definitely wouldn’t have let me take this call.
His eyes glinted back at me, in a silent challenge. He was willing
to risk me telling someone? Why? What exactly was going on
here?

“Yeah, I’m sick,” I said finally. “The flu, I
think.”

“Listen, Tay, about last night. I really think we
should talk about this.”

As soon as I realized where this was going, my
headache began pounding in time to George’s voice. “George, I don’t
feel good. Now’s not a good time.”

“Okay, I get it.” I could almost hear his shoulders
slumping. “Can I call you later?”

I hesitated. “Yeah, sure.”

We hung up and I found Wes watching me. “You didn’t
scream for help.”

I met his eyes; yep, definitely a challenge there. “I
want to know what’s going on. What happened to me last night?”

“You were attacked.”

I nodded. His answer wasn’t all that surprising. I
had figured as much, after seeing the scratches on my abdomen. I
just hoped that ‘attack’ didn’t mean… I wouldn’t think about that.
“Attacked by who?”

“Her name was Liliana.”

“I was attacked by a
girl
?” Okay, I know that
probably sounds sexist, but I’d fully expected my attacker to be
male. I mean, I’m a seventeen year old high school student. I’ve
seen the after-school specials. I know what “attacked” usually
means for a girl like me.

Wes ran a hand through his hair, further tousling it,
and shifted in the chair. “What do you remember?”

“Nothing.” Then I added, “Actually I remembered one
thing, a flash of something really. Of looking at myself in the
mirror, bloody and bruised. But that’s it.”

“Hmm. It must’ve worked better than I thought.” He
was staring at a spot on the wall; he seemed to be talking to
himself again.

His reticence was really getting annoying. “Would you
just spit it out already? Why was I attacked?”