right,” he said. “She just needs the proper vitamins in her diet, and she’ll be just fine.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cecile
demanded. “How could you possibly know any of that? You
aren’t her doctor. Or have you been watching her?”
Cryder’s eyes went wide for a quick flash before
returning to normal, and with a calm voice he responded, “My
father’s a doctor.”
“Your father’s never even met Rena, and is there a
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reason you didn’t answer my questions?” She turned to me.
“You can’t possibly be buying this.”
“I don’t know,” I hedged. After all, I was experiencing
some unsettling symptoms, and whatever was in his thermos
had made me feel better. I’d much rather think that whatever
was going on could be easily managed with a protein shake, or
whatever that was.
“I want to know what’s in the thermos,” Cecile said.
“It’s a nutrient blend my family makes,” Cryder said.
“As long as she has some every day, her condition won’t
deteriorate.”
“This is insane. You’re insane.” Cecile tugged at the end
of her ponytail. “I’m calling my mom.”
Cryder sighed. “Wait.”
“I knew it. I knew you were sketchy.”
“I’ll call the police,” he said. “Will that convince you?”
“Why would I believe you? You’ve done nothing but
lie!”
“Because I’ll do it right here where you can listen, okay?
I’ll call them and report what we saw in the park, and you can
listen, and then we’ll talk about Rena.” He lowered his voice,
and I wondered if maybe now it was me he didn’t want to
hear. “I care about her.”
“She’s my family.”
“I know that. I know you care for her too. I’m asking
you to help me.”
Cecile hesitated. Then she pressed her lips together.
“Call the police.”
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
I closed my eyes and let their voices wash over me as
they made the phone call. Much as I didn’t want to believe it, I
thought Cryder might know what he was talking about. I had
felt different lately. I wished I could have more of the strange
drink right now—I craved the strength it seemed to give me. I
still didn’t feel fully recovered from my dizzy spell. I faded in and out of full awareness, lulled by the sound of Cryder
reporting our experience to the police, and let myself drift in
the fantasy that he was telling a scary story, that all of it had happened to someone else. It didn’t go with Mrs. Danvers’
plush sofa cushions, with the familiar cast of the
environmentally-friendly light bulbs Cecile insisted on. It
didn’t go with me.
At some point, without my full awareness, the phone
call ended. Cryder and Cecile were talking now, talking like
they didn’t hate each other. They sounded like cautious allies.
“She has been different,” Cecile said, a note of fear in her voice, and I longed to reassure her that everything would be okay. As
soon as I woke up, I would do that.
“I knew from the moment I met her,” Cryder said.
“Is that why you wanted to take her out? Was it all a
ruse to evaluate her health?”
“The date was real,” he said. “My. .feelings. Are real.”
“I still don’t trust you.”
“That’s okay.”
“And it’s really just a vitamin drink?”
“You just saw her drink some,” he pointed out. “If I was
poisoning her, you’d see some sort of ill effect.”
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Cecile frowned. “I suppose that’s true, but let me sniff it
or see what’s in there.” Her hand was out, waiting for the
thermos.
“You can sniff it all you want.” Cryder handed over the
thermos, his eyes glued on Cecile as he spoke. “You don’t have
to believe me about the rest of it. Just. .please, see that she gets some of this every day. If she doesn’t, things will get worse for her.”
“What will happen?”
“I can’t say, exactly.”
Cecile blew out a frustrated puff of air. “This would be
a lot easier if you could say, you know.”
“Yes, I realize that.”
“I’ll do it. I will.”
“Thank you.” I could hear the relief in his voice. “You
don’t know how much that means to me.”
“Oh, don’t flatter yourself. I’m not doing it for you.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Can you show yourself out? I think Rena and I need
some time.”
“Of course.”
A pause. Then, “Does she have a phone number where
she can reach you?”
“Here.” The sound of pen scratching on paper. “Call
any time.”
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
Chapter Seven
“DO YOU THINK I SHOULD BE DRINKING IT,
too?” Cecile rolled Cryder’s thermos back and forth between her
hands. “I mean, if it’s such a powerful vitamin, maybe…”
“Trust me, you don’t want to.” I closed my eyes and
threw back my spiked orange juice like a shot, trying not to
grimace as I swallowed it. “It makes everything taste like crap.”
“Really?” She spun open the lid to the thermos and took
a deep inhale. “It doesn’t smell that bad.”
“I’m not even totally convinced I should be drinking it.
We don’t know what it is.”
“He said vitamin.”
“Right, and I’m sure it’s FDA-approved.”
“You feel better though, right?”
I had to admit that I did. Cecile had been adding
Cryder’s mystery supplement to everything I drank for a week
now, and I actually couldn’t remember when I’d felt healthier.
Not only had I had less dizzy spells, but I’d also been sleeping
better, waking up more easily, and feeling more energetic all
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day long. Whatever was in the thermos, I could no longer deny
that it was having some kind of positive effect.
Which didn’t make me feel that much better about my
situation. What was wrong with me? What kind of illness
could be so easily cured, not by doctors or medicine, but by a
foul-tasting concoction that I wasn’t even allowed to know the
ingredients of? And how had Cryder known after seeing me
pass out one time that this was what I needed?
“He seemed like he was expecting it,” Cecile had said
when I asked her. “Like he knew all along that you were sick,
or whatever, and he was just waiting for some kind of
evidence. Once he found it, he could give us the drink.”
“You’re saying he knew when he asked me out?”
“I mean, who brings a thermos of spooky vitamin juice
on a date, right? He must have known.”
Well, that was even creepier.
That night I’d called Cryder to try to get better answers
out of him, but he’d been as vague as ever. “I’m really sorry,”
he’d said, sounding as if he truly meant it. “I just can’t
explain it. Not yet.”
Near tears with frustration, I had to swallow three times
hard before answering. “Cryder, this is unreasonable.”
“I know. I understand.”
“Maybe I should just go see a doctor.” This was my
trump card. Surely if I threatened to cut him off, to stop doing
what he wanted, he would have to give me answers. He didn’t
need to know that I had no plans to give up his drink. How
could I, when it made me feel so alive?
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
“If that’s what you think is best,” Cryder had said.
Damn it.
Now, watching Cecile fidget with the thermos, trying
to force the vile drink (whatever it was, it did not mix well
with orange juice) down my throat, I realized that if I wanted
answers, I would have to find a way to get them on my own.
“Cecile?”
“Yeah?”
“Plans today?”
“Not yet. Why? Do you want to watch that Vietnam
War documentary?”
“I told you I didn’t want to watch that. It’s depressing.
No, I was wondering if you’d go somewhere with me.”
“Where?”
“Well...to drive around, I guess.”
She stopped rolling the thermos. “What, just around?
Not to anywhere?” She raised an eyebrow.
“I mean…” God, this was going to sound crazy, wasn’t
it. “I thought we could try to find out what Cryder’s up to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean follow him.”
“You want to stalk Cryder?”
I sighed. “I don’t know if I do, but I feel like we should,
to get answers.”
“He is a bit on the scary side.”
I nodded. “He’s bizarre. He shows up out of nowhere,
asks me out after bumping into me on the street once, then on
our very first date he’s packing this wonder drug that’s a
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mysterious cure-all to some sickness that he knew I had before
I even did.”
“Exactly.”
“Plus, he was super sketchy about that body we saw in
the park.” I had been saying this to myself in the shower every
morning, trying to detach from the phrase and the event
enough that I wouldn’t shudder every time the words left my
mouth, and I thought I just about pulled it off. “Didn’t that
strike you as weird? I was a mess after that date, and he didn’t
even seem like anything particularly alarming had happened.
He didn’t even want to call the cops, Cecile.”
She frowned. “That was weird, yeah. Well, how are we
going to stalk him? Do you even know where he lives?”
“I know what his car looks like.”
“You just want to drive around town until we see his
car? Rena, that’s insane.”
I bit my lip and mumbled, “It is, isn’t it?”
“We’ll use Google Earth.” She reached behind her and
pulled her laptop out of the backpack hanging on the back of
her chair.
“What? How?”
“This town’s not that big.” She was already typing,
focused intently on the screen. “And there can’t be that many
bright yellow cars. We’ll map them all and just follow each one
up until we find him.”
* * *
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
There were seven bright yellow cars in town, it turned
out. We ruled one of them out automatically because it was
clearly a Hummer, and Cryder drove a sedan. Cecile created a
map that would lead us from one car to the next and uploaded
it to her phone. She also insisted that we each wear sunglasses
and tuck our hair into hats.
“To stay undercover,” she explained, helping me push
my ponytail into her father’s old Chicago Cubs baseball cap.
“You’re having way too much fun.”
“What’s wrong with fun? Besides, you don’t want him
to recognize you, do you?”
“He knows what your car looks like, Cecile.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t remember.”
“Can we just get going?”
She tipped her sunglasses at me and pulled out of the
driveway. “Sure thing, stalker.”
“I’m not a stalker.”
“This is excellent, you know. I never thought you’d
want to do something like this.”
I didn’t answer her. The truth was, I didn’t want to do
this. I wanted a normal boyfriend, one who wouldn’t make me
feel the need to disguise myself and drive around town spying
on him. One who wouldn’t take me on dates where dead
bodies showed up. With a boy like that, a normal one, Cecile
would have been right—I never would have wanted to do this.
Cryder was so weird that he was making me weird.
The first two cars on our map weren’t Cryder’s. The
first one we passed was about a hundred years old, so
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egregiously rusted that I couldn’t possibly mistake it with
Cryder’s semi-new, tidy vehicle. The second one was packed
with baby toys and a car seat.
“Is this it?” Cecile asked, coasting slowly past a driveway
so we could get a good look at the third possibility.
I peered out the window. It certainly looked like
Cryder’s car. “I think it might be.”
“Do you remember the license plate?”
“No.”
“We should really start memorizing the license plates of
the guys we date.”
“That’s creepy, Cecile. Who does that?”
“I don’t know. Who does any of this?”
“Touché.”
She turned the car around and parked it on the side of
the street about a block away. “Let’s wait here a while and see
what happens.”
“You don’t think we should knock on the door?”
“If he was going to answer any questions to your face,
he’d have done it already. We need to get some dirt on him.
Catch him doing something he can’t explain away. Then we
can confront him.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to see Cryder doing
anything he couldn’t explain away. I was still holding out hope
for him to be a decent guy.
Cecile sunk down in her seat, and after a moment I did
too. I looked out over the dashboard at the house. It was small
but incredibly well-maintained. The other homes on the street
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
ranged from cared for to totally unkempt, but the house that
might’ve been Cryder’s was one of the nicest. The white paint
was fresh, and the lawn looked as if it had been mowed
yesterday. Even the grass looked greener.
“Look,” Cecile hissed.
The door was opening. I dropped lower in my seat, so
low that all I could see of Cryder as he emerged was the top of
his head. He locked the door, looked around as if he sensed
our eyes on him, and then made his way to his car. He climbed
in and backed out of the driveway.
“What do we do?” I asked.
In answer, Cecile started the engine and pulled slowly
away from the cur
b.
“Don’t get too close,” I said.
“Obviously.”
My only experience of Cryder’s driving so far had been
reckless and frightening, but to be fair that was in an
emergency situation. So, I was relieved to see that he was more
reserved now. He kept to the speed limit and stopped at every
stop sign. Of course, his responsible driving probably meant
that he was also doing regular mirror checks, which meant he
was more likely to notice we were behind him… “Fall back a
little,” I told Cecile.
“Would you stop being so paranoid?”
“You’re the one who made us put on costumes!”
Fighting under our breath was increasing the air of secrecy
around the whole thing. I felt like a covert operative in an
intelligence agency, like the stakes were much higher than they
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really were. The truth was that if Cryder caught us, I’d look
like an idiot and he probably wouldn’t want to see me again,
but we wouldn’t be in any danger.
At least, I didn’t think we would.
Of course, I hadn’t thought we’d find a dead body on
our first date, either.
Actually, who knew how serious this situation was?
“Cecile, please,” I said.
She let out a frustrated huff and tapped the brake,
letting Cryder pull several more feet ahead. “If he makes two
turns in a row, I’ll lose him, Rena.”
I rubbed my palms on my jeans. They were starting to
sweat. “I just don’t want us to get caught.”
Cryder stopped outside the grocery store. He didn’t
park, though, just put on his flashers and left the car running
at the curb right outside the doors. Cecile pulled into a parking space at the back of the lot, where we could keep his car in
view. “What is he doing?”
“Shopping, I guess. This is pretty normal behavior.” I let
out a relieved breath.
Her eyes were narrowed. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Why doesn’t he just park, if he’s shopping?”
“He probably just had to run in for one thing.”
“That’s kind of weird.”
“Not as weird as the rest of it.”
“Still.”
“You’re reaching, Cecile.”
BLOOD ORIGINS- BOOK ONE
“I thought you wanted to know what he was up to.”
“Yeah, well, I wanted it to be nothing.”
“Let’s wait and see.”
A moment later Cryder emerged with a single grocery
Yearn For Blood (Blood Origins Book 1) Page 6
