Bad Bloods: November Rain

by Shannon A. Thompson

  Robert started the morning with half of an apology. All the fighting was very unlike us, but we did it anyway and found ourselves redefining what our relationship was. It had always been platonic—that of a brother and a sister—but he had found me on the streets, and he had taken me deeper into the streets where I was nearly killed. How he found the streets was still beyond me, but I knew it had almost killed him too. The blood bonded us, and because of our bond, I could decipher what he intended to say. I was allowed to leave. He couldn’t force me to stay inside, but he wished I would.

  I didn’t.

  Right after the sun began to rise, I snuck into Briauna’s room, careful not to wake the various kids who shared it with her. She was the only one I knew who could sense me coming, the only one who wouldn’t react when I touched her hand to wake her. I half-wondered if her scales had come with a set of animal instincts that went beyond the average human, and I fully wondered it when her eyes popped open, shining a reflecting light like a cat’s, before dimming down to her hazel irises. Other than that, she didn’t budge.

  “I need you to cover for me,” I explained in a hushed tone. I had already asked too much of Catelyn and Steven.

  Briauna propped herself up on her elbows, only to lay back down and scratch at her scales. A few flaked off. “Just come back.” She closed her eyes as if it were easy to sleep.

  I didn’t press anymore. I just left and was running down the street before I knew it. Everything from the past week passed by me as my arms and my legs pumped. I was just a girl out for a morning run, nothing more, nothing less.

  The cool breeze wrapped around me, and the memories blended in with the bare trees swaying down the street. For a moment, I swore I saw the browns, yellows, and reds of fall, but the colors were long gone—disappearing during the time I was in the blood camp—and now, branches pointed the way, each arm twisting toward Shadow Alley.

  Everyone knew why there was an abundance of trees behind the fence. They acted as an additional fence, another blockade to stop people from visiting the field where the Western Flock was massacred. I had never seen the field myself, but Catelyn had. She said it looked like any other field. Nothing special about it. Nothing but history haunting it. Losing all the space by closing it seemed more destructive, but Niki—during one of the only times we had spoken—suggested damage we couldn’t sense. Radiation or something worse penetrated the field, left over from a bad blood who sacrificed himself during the police raid. I never asked where she heard the rumor, and she never clarified, but I believed her. People used to speak of how the snow fell red that night, and I had seen red snow before. It was the same shade used on a particular street name sign. Debary’s Lane. My parents’ street.

  I stopped at the edge of the alleyway and peered around the corner. My father had been a cop when I was a kid, but now, I doubted he worked. I didn’t think my mother did either, although I couldn’t remember what she had done. How they supported themselves was beyond me, but the little time I had to spy didn’t help resolve my questions, and there was one big one I could never forget.

  My sister.

  I had never met her, but I had seen her, and I doubted I would ever know her name. I was five when I left, and five more years passed before they had her. It was almost as if they had counted each year of my life before they brought a new life into the world. That meant she was seven now. She even looked like me. With long, blonde hair and small features, we both resembled our mother. Our father was nearly the opposite—a stocky, rough man with brown hair—but I remembered his hugs the most.

  I stared at the stoop, a single slab of concrete that hadn’t changed in twelve years, and as the memory pulled me, I took a step forward. I had never taken a step into Debary’s Lane. I had only watched it from Shadow Alley. But now, I was different. I had begun by running and I had survived by running, and for the first time, I could retrace those steps. All fifteen of them.

  The crimson door glared back at me, but the russet doorknocker was a giant eye, a reminder of Charlotte’s gaze. It hadn’t even been there before. The door used to be green.

  I stepped back, and the gravel slid beneath my heel. I fell, and a sound escaped my mouth. It wasn’t a millisecond later that I heard it: voices coming from inside the townhome.

  I scrambled to my feet, sending gravel powder into the air as the door began to shake. Someone inside was panicking just as much as I was panicking on the outside. I had three seconds, and it took me two to cram myself in between a wall and the neighbor’s AC unit.

  “Honey?” The high-pitched voice sounded strained as she stumbled into the street, only a few feet in front of me. I could see the mole on her neck. My mother.

  A man with graying hair followed her, and he didn’t speak until his hand landed on her shoulder. “She isn’t here.”

  My mother never looked at him. “She was.” Rapid blinking caused her blue eyes to sparkle. “I heard her—”

  “It was probably a cat.”

  “Serena was here.”

  My name. She said my name, and I couldn’t breathe a single word. I hadn’t seen her up-close since I was a child. Half of me expected she had forgotten my name, presumed I was dead, enjoyed that they could start over without me, their bad-blooded child.

  “Momma.” It was her. My sister. She had brown eyes like our father, and she rubbed the right one like she had been sleeping on the couch. I wondered if the couch was still next to the window. “What’s going on?”

  My dad’s hand moved from my mother’s shoulder to my sister’s. “Why don’t you go back inside, sweetheart?” Not her name. I wanted to know her name.

  When she heard his tone, she stopped rubbing her eye. “Serena was here?”

  My hand curled over my own mouth, and my fingernails dug into my face. Their voices blended as my heartbeat consumed my eardrums. I was hot again. My whole body was hot.

  “Serena.”

  My focus returned with agonizing adrenaline, but I didn’t budge. My father had spoken my name, but now, he was alone, and he wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at the wall, his eyes darker than I remembered. If he glanced five feet over, he would’ve seen me, but he stared at the ground as he pulled a notepad from his back pocket. I had been wrong. He was still an officer. The Vendona city-state symbol—a magnolia—was etched into the front.

  I watched him as he scribbled down a note. When he was done, he stepped out of sight. I waited five minutes before I dared to move. My knees ached, but I ignored the pain as I crawled out from the crevice.

  Right when I was about to take off sprinting, I looked back. A rock and a piece of paper sat in the exact place where I had sat the night I met Robert and ran away.

  I snatched it and ran away again.

  The main square was full of shoppers, workers, and gossipers, and I blended into the crowd with ease. I walked with them, pretending to be one of them, and waited until my hands stopped shaking. I waited until the memory solidified with my emotions, and when everything stilled, I leaned against the nearest wall.

  Air filled my lungs as I took a deep breath, and then I shivered as I exhaled. My hand dug into my pocket, and I pulled out the small piece of paper.

  Scribbled on the front was my name. It was the only thing I knew how to read. When I unfolded the paper, a small note stared back—nothing more than a drawing to me. I couldn’t read it, and I crumbled it into my pocket like I didn’t want to.

  It was then that I saw him.

  Daniel walked through the crowd, but it wasn’t much of a walk. It was more like stumbling and I had never seen Daniel stumble. Not once. Not even when he was fighting. But he was wearing the blue-and-white plaid jacket and it fluttered amongst the crowd of black coats and gray sweaters. He was practically asking to be arrested.

  I took a step forward and then I stopped. Daniel continued to walk slowly, like he didn’t even know where he was. He looked drunk and the rest of the crowd ignored him like he was. Still,
the first cop to lay eyes on him wouldn’t be so kind.

  I sighed before I pushed myself toward him. “Daniel.”

  He didn’t respond to his name, but it was definitely him.

  I grabbed his arm. “Daniel.”

  He mumbled incoherently until his eyes met mine. His usual mossy stare was dim and his olive complexion had paled significantly. Still, he smiled a ghost’s smile, one that disappeared as quickly as it came. “Serena.”

  I tightened my grip but surveyed the crowd. A few people were staring. “Are you okay?”

  “Whatdidyousay?”

  He indirectly answered my question. He wasn’t okay.

  I cursed as I shoved my arm under his. He was hot. Too hot. And not in the flattering way. “I’m taking you to Cal’s.” My parents’ house was only two blocks away from Calhoun’s den, so we weren’t that far. I only hoped an officer didn’t stop us on the way.

  “He’ll be mad,” Daniel mumbled, his voice barely audible against the shopping crowd.

  “That’ll make two of us,” I retorted as I pulled him—hard. He was dragging his feet and I struggled beneath his weight. Still, I pushed forward.

  After twenty minutes of stumbling and tripping, I dropped Daniel at the bottom of Cal’s doorstep. He tried to talk to me, but I ignored him as I stomped up the small steps. My fist shook the door as I pounded on the flimsy wood. When he didn’t answer, I shouted the old man’s name. “It’s me, Serena.”

  Almost immediately, the door cracked open. His caterpillar eyebrows stared back at me. “What are you doing here?”

  I stuck my thumb over my shoulder. “Your son—”

  I didn’t even finish my sentence before Cal yanked the door open and pushed past me. He was down the steps and giving me orders in seconds. “Get his other side,” he said as he lifted up Daniel’s right arm. Even with one arm, Calhoun was a step ahead of me.

  As I grabbed Daniel’s other arm, Cal continued speaking, “Lay him on the couch by the window. He’ll need fresh air.”

  I followed the old man’s orders, and Daniel collapsed on the couch like a lifeless dummy. He was breathing and his eyes were open, but they focused on the ceiling as if it were as far away as the sky. His cheeks were bright red.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, never taking my eyes off him.

  “He’s sick.”

  As if the two words were a trigger, Daniel’s gaze slid over to me. “I’m not sick.”

  “He’s lying,” Calhoun interrupted.

  I continued to look at Daniel. His head bobbed like he wanted to argue with Cal again, but he inhaled a shaky breath. He was definitely sick. Small beads of sweat collected near his brow, and he raised his hand toward his hairline, only to grab my hand instead. “I need you,” he said, each word escaping like it held a vital definition of existence.

  I fought the urge to keep holding his hand, and I pulled away. When he repeated it, I sat down on the floor next to the couch. “Just get some sleep.”

  “I do,” he managed a whisper, and it crawled over my shoulder. It was not what I was expecting to hear.

  I glanced back at him.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “Shut up.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them. I didn’t even know where they came from, but my insides were twisting like I was going to be sick too.

  His pupils shifted, and the corners of his lips curled, but he nodded and laid back again. This time, he closed his eyes, and his breathing went quiet. I stood up.

  “He’s still breathing,” Cal spoke from the kitchen, calmer now.

  My face burned as I realized the old man had heard everything Daniel had said.

  Cal’s beady eyes locked on mine like he heard my thoughts. “He’s very sick.” The words didn’t compute because I was too busy staring at Cal’s hand. He had a needle—a giant needle—in his grasp, a medical bag sitting on the counter. I had missed where he had pulled it from.

  “What are you doing?” I managed, ready to find a way out, but Cal gestured to me with open palms.

  “Calm down,” he instructed. “I do this all the time. I need you to get his shirt off.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it, Serena.”

  I heard my little sister say my name when Calhoun said it. The day flooded through me, and then I was moving again. I didn’t think. I just obeyed.

  I grabbed the jacket and yanked the cloth until it was off one arm. Then, I leaned over him, dug my arms beneath him, and pulled until the freed cloth was on the other side of his body. When I got the jacket off his other arm, I started on the shirt.

  My fingertips slid against his stomach, and his skin burned against mine. His powers were electric bursts of sizzling pain, and I clenched my teeth as his pain seeped into my veins. It was a side effect of my powers. By absorbing someone’s abilities, I also absorbed other bits of that individual. In this case, my head spun. My stomach cramped. My whole body ached. I had to close my eyes to concentrate, and my concentration helped me pull off the white T-shirt.

  I stepped away as soon as I could and found myself sitting on the carpet before I could breathe again. His powers were melting away, and with it, his illness. But I could see Cal, and watching him made me wish Daniel’s illness had kept me blind.

  Cal’s needle was shoved deep inside Daniel’s arm, and the metal’s shape was outlined in his skin. I wanted to look away, but Cal’s one word held my attention. “Aspartame,” he muttered as he slowly pulled the needle out. A drop of blood poked out of Daniel’s skin, but it dissipated as if it had never existed. The needle hole went with it. He was still healing his injuries, but my mind was damaged with confusion.

  “Aspart—what?”

  “Aspartame,” Cal repeated, walking back to the kitchen without looking at me. He turned on the water as he continued, “One of the most dangerous chemicals known to man. Caused too much cancer to count.” He dropped the needle into the sink, and the clanging metal rang around the room. “Also helps rejuvenate any bad blood.” His dark eyes met mine with the softness they held on the day he walked me home. “We used it in the military to keep you all alive until the end.”

  Torture. The Separation Movement. The killings that brought on the bad blood nickname and the massacres that caused the bullet holes in our streets. They were lined with aspartame, and Cal had just injected Daniel with it.

  “It’s also in Diet Coke—the old stuff,” Cal continued to speak calmly, as if we were talking about flowers or the weather. He began washing his hand like he was about to bake cookies. “It’s only sold in certain places anymore.” His eyes flicked up to me. “Old Man Gregory’s for one.”

  Cal’s stare said it all. Daniel had told him about Robert, and Cal knew Robert was associated with me. Cal also knew where I lived. I assumed Daniel did too. And now, I knew that Cal was in the army—the same army that had been ordered to take us all out after the infamous “first” bad blood.

  She was discovered thirty years ago, and she was only four when she killed an entire congregation of religious people. The story remained unclear in a factual sense, but the rumor was generally the same. People recognized her powers—whatever they were—as a new god, and about the time they began to worship her, her powers had killed them all, suddenly and viciously. A former vice-president had been among the victims. Politics took over, and Vendona’s hatred passed a segregation law. It turned into an execution law in a matter of days. And Cal had obeyed it.

  “I was eighteen when I enlisted,” he said it like it mattered. It didn’t. He would’ve been one year older than I was, and I would’ve never enlisted to kill children. “The first one I killed”—he turned off the water—“he looked a lot like Daniel.”

  I swallowed.

  Cal took a breath, which allowed me to concentrate on Daniel’s breathing. It had calmed. Whatever Cal had done was helping.

  “I’m not that boy anymore,” Cal clarified, just as emotionles
s as he had been when ordering me to remove Daniel’s shirt.

  I glanced over, wanting to make sure that Daniel was, in fact, breathing—that I wasn’t imagining the noise—and I thought I’d never be able to breathe again. Daniel’s right shoulder faced me, and there was nothing normal about it. His olive complexion had been replaced by thick, red bumps. One line shot through the flesh where he had been sewn up, but the injury was still clear. His shoulder had almost been taken off.

  The photo I had seen of him as a child suddenly made sense. The scar was the remnants of that memory.

  “I thought he could heal,” I stuttered, realizing that Cal had kept speaking and I had only managed to interrupt him. I didn’t hear a word he said, and now, he was silent.

  He ran his hand over his buzzed, black hair, and he took two steps away from the island. Two steps was all it took to enter the living room, and from where he stood, he stared at Daniel’s single scar. “He can’t heal illness.”

  Even Daniel had a weakness, but Cal had avoided what I wanted to know.

  “What—” I tore my eyes away from the scar to stare at Cal’s stoic expression. “What happened to him?”

  Cal didn’t answer, and I didn’t bother repeating myself. I didn’t have to. I reached over, grazing Daniel’s scar with the hope of absorbing that information into me, but my powers never worked that way, and hope wasn’t something Daniel and I had.

  Upon my touch, Daniel flinched, and his left hand swung up to grab his old injury. My hand was pinned in-between his grasp and his scar, and the bumpy flesh seared against mine. I gasped, trying to control myself as I stared at his twisted expression. Small tears collected at the edges of his eyes. He trembled.

  Slowly, I rotated my hand and wrapped my fingers around the back of his hand. “Daniel.”

  When I spoke his name, his chest sank and a loud sigh escaped him. I exhaled with him as I inched my touch away from him. It suddenly made sense—the way he had approached me in the kitchen when I first woke up after losing consciousness. He knew what it was like to hate the touch of another person. He knew distance was the best way to touch me, and I was only seeing that about him now.

  “Never seen him calm down that quickly,” Cal noted as he sat on the couch against the far wall. I hadn’t even noticed the man pass behind me, but now I stared at him. He had probably killed dozens of bad bloods, but he had saved Daniel. He had shared food with me and walked me home, but he could sneak behind me like a hit man, and he looked at me like he had plans for me. Just like any officer. “What do you want, Serena?”

  My knees popped as I slowly stood up and inched away from Daniel. I kept my eyes on Cal.

  “You can’t help him,” he said.

  “You can’t either.” It was the truth. No one could help Daniel. No one could help any of us, and Cal stared at the wall like he wasn’t hearing anything he hadn’t heard before.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate your help today, Serena, I do,” he began, “but you should’ve left him where you found him.”

  Anger bubbled inside of me. “The cops—”

  “He has a fake ID.”

  His words sliced through me. A fake identity meant Daniel didn’t have a real identity. It meant Calhoun hadn’t legally adopted him or legally registered him or kept him as his son. It meant Daniel was someone else, someone I didn’t want to see, but someone I knew whose life was on the streets. I knew it the entire time. He had to be in the Northern Flock, and Calhoun was confirming it.

  “Daniel Wilson,” Cal clarified. “It’s my last name, but it’s fake for him.”

  Wilson. It was the name Daniel told me first. It would’ve been easy for him to keep the lie, but he hadn’t. He had told me his real name—Daniel—and Calhoun was filling in the rest. Neither of them wanted me to be a stranger, not even from the beginning, and bad bloods were always supposed to be strangers.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Cal’s angular face somehow softened. “I can get you a fake ID too.”

  His single sentence held an underlining message in the same way Robert’s had that morning. Calhoun knew I didn’t have a real identity, and they were offering me a place—a place next to them.

  I stepped back. “I should go.”

  The three words hadn’t left me for very long by the time I grabbed the door handle. Cal didn’t even have time to respond. I darted out of the apartment as his voice echoed behind me, “See you later.”