A Bite at the Cherry
RITA STRADLING
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Rita Stradling
Edited by Serious Moonlight Editing
Cover Art by German Creative
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book in any form or by any means. For subsidiary rights please contact the author.
Email: [email protected]
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Acknowledgements
A Bite at the Cherry
Chapter One
Ever since I was small, my mother always said that life sucked and then you died. It worked as an answer to most questions. If I were asking where my application for free school lunches was, she’d say, “I just had it. Fuck. You know, January, life sucks, and then you die.”
After today, I was starting to think that my mother was a drunken profit. She got it backward, though. I died, and now I have to suck . . . blood. Trust my mother even to get black-out prophecies wrong.
Under a neon sign that read, Quick and Cheap Liquor, I stood staring down at a slip of paper nestled in my palm. After a week of handling the note, it had worn down, and the message on it was barely legible, but I could still read the fateful words.
You’re a vampire. You need blood soon, or you’ll start killing people. Call this number.
Under it, there was the phone number I’d called early this morning. When I’d called, a mechanical prerecorded voice picked up, only listing off this location, this time, and eighty dollars for eight bags. Then, the phone disconnected.
The door behind me dinged, and a man who was probably in his mid-forties walked out. He paused as we made eye contact, holding the door open. “You coming in?”
“Thanks, but no — I’m waiting for someone.” I grinned as I shoved my hands deep in my pockets.
The guy was probably about my mom’s age, maybe a little older, dark hair, kind smile, fatherly looking. He strolled over to where I was standing. “It’s after midnight. Are you waiting for your parents or something?”
I paused, not exactly sure how to answer. Aside from a few homeless guys, this man was the only person I’d seen come in or out of the twenty-four-hour liquor store for a while. But I didn’t know the mode of operations for asking a random guy on the street if he was the one you were supposed to meet for blood. Was this the kind of guy who’d be selling bags of blood to random vampires?
My teeth ached, making the situation even more uncomfortable. It was something that was happening more and more in the last seven days. My incisors would start throbbing, and then I’d feel a sharp prick on the insides of my gums, telling me that my eyeteeth had stretched into fangs.
You need blood soon, or you’ll start killing people.
The words echoed again and again in my mind.
Rubbing my tongue over my aching teeth, I made sure the enamel was still blunt before answering the guy. “I’m waiting for someone I arranged to meet over the phone this morning.”
Is that you? I tried to convey the question in my tone.
The man offered me a hand. “Frank. What’s your name?”
My gaze fell to his outstretched hand, fixing on his wrist, where the bright overhead lights illuminated his blue veins. Saliva filled my mouth, and pain seared through my gums. This close, the faint thumping sound of his heart echoed in my ears. That new development had only started a few hours ago, and it was seriously disconcerting, hearing people’s blood pumping.
You will start killing people, January. You will start killing people.
“My name is August,” I lied, taking the man’s hand and shaking it once.
“This is your month, August, huh?” His grin spread wide, but the smile didn’t quite meet Frank’s eyes. “I think I might be the person you’re here to meet — why don’t you tell me a little more about this call.”
“I’d honestly rather you tell me about this phone call . . . if you’re the person I’m supposed to meet, wouldn’t you know why you’re meeting me?” I tugged my hand back from his sweaty palm and found the man reluctant to let me go. The dude was giving me some serious Creepy Old Man Pervert vibes, but I didn’t know if that was a vampire blood delivery-dude thing or not.
A little way off, a truck roared to life, its headlights blazing. The engine gunned and the vehicle veered across the street, heading straight for the liquor store. For one second of shock, I thought the massive truck grill was going to slam straight into me, and I wondered if I could be hit and killed by a vehicle twice in one week. Could I even die?
Then the brakes squealed, and the truck slammed to a stop directly before me. I threw an arm over my face, blinded by the headlights. Pain seared in my eyes, and it took a moment to clear my vision. When I did, Creepy Frank was gone.
Crap.
“Really?” I said, throwing up my hands toward the giant truck. “There is an empty lot, and you have to pull into this space with your brights on?”
The driver didn’t respond, and they didn’t turn off their lights. The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Picking fights with random truck owners after midnight at a deserted liquor store wasn’t going to make this night any better.
The searing tooth pain struck again, and I covered my mouth. Screw this. I was going to have to try the number again and hope that I didn’t get murderous in the meantime. I could fume at the random trucker for scaring away Creepy Frank, but this was my own damn fault. It had been a full week since I woke in the morgue with this note rolled in my hand.
Dying and rising undead was pretty much a blur now. I remembered the old rusted truck, veering across two lanes of oncoming traffic and popping the curb at full speed. The grill had slammed into my chest, and the world had snuffed out like a candle. There was a blurry grayed-out memory of a cold metal table, the rolled note in my hand, and a long walk over rough pavement. It will forever be a mystery to me if I walked out of one of the local hospitals or the coroner’s office or somewhere else entirely, and I’m still not sure if I was wearing clothes. The next day, I woke in my bed, still clutching the note. My mom hadn’t even noticed that I was missing. When I tried to remember the details of the event, I only succeeded in giving myself a headache.
It didn’t feel real. Vampires didn’t exist.
I started to believe that I had imagined the whole thing until four days ago when my fangs descended for the
first time. I should have called the number right away, but instead, I hid in the dilapidated house I lived in with my mom, dodging all social connections, with only my hundred-pound Shepherd mix for company.
This night was a bust, and Bailey would be wondering where I was anyway, lying by the door, whining, and pissing off my mother.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I resisted the urge to give the trucker a one-finger salute and headed down along the liquor store. I made it twenty feet when behind me there was the shushing sound of a window lowering, and a guy called out, “Where are you going?”
The words were harsh and demanding, and I felt two-parts fear and eight-parts annoyance when I peered back over my shoulder. My heart skipped a beat as I got my first real clear view of the person behind the wheel of the truck. He looked about my age, sixteen, maybe a little older, with dark hair falling around chiseled features. He had a strong, square chin and high cheekbones that made me immediately think of movie stars and male models. His eyes were a startling shade of yellow-brown that almost seemed to glow in the low light.
I cleared my throat and threw my thumb over my shoulder. “Home. My mom is probably already calling the cops.”
His brow furrowed and he gave me a look like I was speaking to him in some unknown language.
After thirty seconds of heavy silence, I waved. “Okay, bye.”
I wasn’t even sure why I was still talking to this extremely rude guy. Actually, that was a lie. I knew exactly why I was still here. I was waiting for the random to call out, “Surprise! I didn’t scare off your blood dealer. I am your blood dealer. Here is blood, blood, blood.” My teeth ached again, and I spun away and rushed along the liquor store.
“Your mom is still alive?”
The question, spoken softly, was startling enough to stop me in my tracks. Looking back to the truck, I mouthed the words, “What the fuck?”
“Is your mother still alive?” the guy said, articulating every word. “Or did you kill her?”
I felt the blood drain from my whole body, leaving a hollow feeling in my stomach. “Of course not.”
But even as I said it, I wondered if that was what I’d been risking. Except for daily trips to this very liquor store, my mother had been at home all week. At no time had I even considered drinking her blood, but would that change? Would I find her passed out on the couch and bite deep into her veins? Was that what was coming?
The guy tilted up his ridiculously perfect chin. “Prove it. Prove she’s still alive.”
I rolled back my shoulders and attempted to stand tall before crossing back to the truck. “Are you the person I’m supposed to meet?”
The guy just watched, his eyelids narrowing as I closed the distance and stopped a few feet from his window.
“This is my first time.” I rocked back and forth on my heels, feeling an incredible amount of vulnerability next to this silent truck guy who seemed like he knew what I was going through. Maybe. He at least knew that I was dangerous. “I’ve only been like this for about a week.” I cleared my throat. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Yes.” The one-word answer was clipped.
“So . . .” I glanced around the storefront, seeing only the empty lot. Turning back to the truck guy, I winced a little as I said, “I have the money. Do you have the bags?”
The whole situation made my heart sink. Living where I did, I saw these types of transactions every single day. Hell, before my mom’s ex-boyfriend got picked up for dealing coke to local college students, this would take place daily in our living room. But I never imagined that I would be the one with a pocket full of twenties, waiting for a stash so I could get through the night. I’d never taken a sip of alcohol, and now I didn’t have any choice but be dependent on some blood dealer.
“First you have to prove that your mother is alive. You walk home, I’ll follow in my truck, you get her to come out — then you’ll get your blood.”
There were so many things wrong with that suggestion. This guy could be a teenage murderer — okay, that was pretty unlikely. If either of us were going to turn into a spree killer, it looked like that was going to be me. Already, my gaze fixed on the dude’s neck, seeing the gentle quiver of his pulse. I forced my eyes away and cleared my throat. “What if we both walk to my house and then back here — that way we can pretend we’re normal high schoolers and this isn’t supremely fucked up.”
He considered me for a few seconds, his gaze narrowing, and then he rolled up his window. Damn it. He was going to say no, and I couldn’t let him. I needed that blood, or I was going to end up losing my shit and biting someone.
I had no clue what my bite might do. For all I knew, biting someone could turn them into a vampire. An intense hunger could overtake me, and I could drain the person dry. I had four days to imagine all the horrible consequences of biting someone, and I had a good imagination.
To my shock, the truck door opened, and the driver climbed out and slammed his door behind him.
Chapter Two
The truck driver was huge. He was probably a full foot taller than me, and I was five-six. He looked like a quarterback, broad in the shoulders with lean muscles everywhere else. He wore jeans and a button-up under a letterman jacket. Like, if those Halloween superstores sold rich, preppy costumes, this is what would be in the bag. His shoes were brand-new, expensive-looking sneakers without a scuff on them.
In contrast, I was wearing an old, ripped t-shirt that could double as a dress, especially since it fell well below my cutoffs. My long blond hair was a giant knot coming out of the side of my head, and I’d shoved my feet into rain boots, even though we were having a late-summer inland California heatwave. Even at 2 a.m., the air made sweat gather in my pits and behind my knees, and it had probably been about four days since my last shower.
There was a loud beep, and I almost fell over before realizing that the guy had remote-locked his truck. Jumpy? Me?
“What are we waiting for?” He asked as his gaze scanned the parking lot.
“Nothing. I didn’t think you were going to get out.”
“Then let’s go.” The words were a demand, and as much as I wanted to snap something back, this dude was pretty much holding my life in his hands. So, yeah. I could swallow my pride and get this shit over with.
The guy didn’t say a single word to me as we approached my house. I had often suspected that my mother chose the cheapest possible residence near the city’s twenty-four-hour liquor store. Quick and Cheap Liquor was less than a mile away from our dilapidated one-story. The streetlamps sputtered, and cracks fissured the concrete. For the last quarter mile, only the gibbous moon illuminated the road. This was when the night came alive to my vampire eyes.
A mouse skittered along the street, its body glowing golden. The boy beside me pulsed with a crimson light with swirls of blue and yellow. Seeing life in the darkness was the only other difference I’d had since my death, but when the lights went out, the world came alive with color.
“Thank you,” I said as we grew closer to my house, “If you were the one I was supposed to meet, that other dude was probably going to stuff me into his van or something. So, yeah, thanks.”
The truck guy peered over slowly. “I was protecting him from you.”
Ouch.
I turned back to the road, deciding that we could take this next hundred yards in silence. “Wait here, please,” I told the guy as I stepped up onto the cracked stones of my walkway. Feeling a twinge of embarrassment, I looked up at my house. I really should care less about what this prep school blood dealer thinks of my living arrangements, but yeah, the view was humiliating. The place was two shades from condemned with half of the windows shattered and boarded up by yours truly. I’d painted the boards so during the day, colors swirled over the façade, but in the darkness, it just looked like a condemned hovel.
Barks ripped through the night along with a loud thumping on the front door.
“Crap,” I whispered, as I
peered at the house to the left of ours. It remained dark, but I hastened my pace. Most of our neighbors were awesome, but the couple next door picked fights with my mother and started dumping their trash into our yard when my dog Bailey kept them up.
“It’s me, girl,” I said as I quickly unlocked the front door and opened it wide.
The moment the door was open, an enormous furry body came lunging for me. Giant paws landed on my chest, and a thick tongue licked my nose. “Down . . . down, Bailey,” I staggered under her weight, and gently moved her away and onto the floor. Scratching her head, I nudged past her wide body. “She’s usually better behaved, but she’s worried. I’ll be right —”
“You have a dog?” The guy asked as if having a dog was a rare, almost unheard-of thing.
When I turned back, the dude had walked to the front step, which was way closer to my house than I wanted any random person I didn’t know. I never brought people home — for many reasons, and this guy was even less welcome than the general public. “Wait here, okay? I’ll get her to come and say hi.”
“January?” Mom’s voice called out from somewhere in the house.
“Here, Mom,” I hollered back. “Don’t come out, yet, someone is here.”
I turned back to the guy, holding up a hand as a wave of mortification swept through me. “Wait here . . .”
It was too late. My mother stumbled in from the back. She was wearing clothing, thank all that was holy, but her pants were soaked in the crotch and down the legs. The reek of urine filled the house, making the wet spot’s source unmistakable. Her eyes were barely open, and she staggered straight into the wall, bouncing off it and falling onto the cracked linoleum floor.
Damn it.
“Dude, can you give me five minutes?” I waved behind me at the guy but didn’t wait for his response. “She’s alive, see? I’ll be so fast. Don’t go. Bailey, stay.”
Bailey sat her big old dog butt down a few feet from the door, looking up at the dude on the doorstep. Between her massive size and positioning, she almost managed to look the part of guard dog, but her long, bushy tail swishing across the patchy carpet completely ruined the effect.
A Bite at the Cherry: A High School Vampire Bully Romance (Blackburn Academy Book 1) Page 1
