by Vremont, Ann
I didn't answer. He ran his hands up my arms and cupped my face.
“So you have,” he whispered, his voice sounding far away. “But not much.”
He offered a wet laugh that made goosebumps rise up on my arms. “You find a cutter at school or something?”
Holding my face, he wouldn't let me look away. I blinked once before I answered, “No.”
He dropped a hand down to my neck and traced a vein. “I could find out in a heartbeat, mija.” He put his lips to the skin, held them there, while his hand trailed back down my side.
“Was it one of the cops that takes you to and from school, then?” Oscar slid his hand between us and trailed his thumb over my jeans' zipper. “You give him a little taste of this in exchange?”
“A dope head,” I answered at last, knowing that he'd keep pushing me until I answered. “Passed out at my uncle's house, I made it look like he cut himself.”
His lips left my neck to brush against my mouth.
“Smart, mija. But not subject to repetition, eh?”
“No.” I tried to slide away but his body and easy strength blocked me.
“I'm going to give you something, Lee, if you make me a deal.”
I moved backward, trying to evade him by pulling myself up onto the counter. He jerked me back down and wrapped his arms around me, one hand immobilizing my head.
“Listen to the deal before you start going all loco on me.”
I answered through clenched lips. “What is it?”
Oscar laughed and gave me a little shake as if to show me I wasn't so tough. “You're not going to give us up to the cops.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And not because you're doing us any favors.” Another laugh, another shake. “What do you think happens when the world finds out about us - about vampires?”
I swallowed hard at the word. No one had said it yet - not Army or his brothers, certainly not me. I'd been working like hell to avoid it.
“C'mon, Lee, tell me. What happens?”
I shook my head.
“Think, mija. All the disease, all the little wannabes out in the world? Cancer, Ted Bundy. We're not the monsters anymore.”
I forced my head back a few inches in his grasp so that I could look at him. “Don't kid yourself, Oscar.”
He flicked his lower lip out at me with a wet, angry snap. “Whatever, little girl. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me all the silicon implants and their coke head boyfriends don't want what I am selling? The strippers, the pimps, the grade-schoolers and their grandmothers, they'd all be begging for it.”
Oscar pulled my head back towards him and whispered his challenge in my ear.
“Tell me I'm wrong.”
I couldn't tell him he was wrong. I knew too many addicts who would swallow anything if there was the smallest promise that it would take away the fear and failure for even a couple of hours. “You're not."
“Good. So we're clear? You leave us alone, we'll leave you alone.”
“Yeah, now let go of me.”
Our bodies already were touching - hip to hip, chest to chest - but he managed to pull me closer still.
“I said I was going to give you something.”
“Don't you mean take?” Twisting, I tried to squirm loose.
“So vain, Lee.” Wrapping my hair around one of his hands, Oscar chuckled at me. “Someone been chasing after that little box of yours so long you're starting to think it has value?”
He punctuated his question with a bite to his lower lip. The sharp teeth sliced the skin, creating a thin ribbon of blood. He smoothed the ribbon away with his tongue and then pulled me into a kiss.
His tongue, tipped with his blood, pressed against my lips, coaxing them open. Growing hunger whimpered inside me. He kissed me deeper, his top lip covering mine, his bottom lip against my tongue as he licked at my upper palate.
Oscar didn't have to hold me now. The slow spill of his blood into my mouth made me knot my hands in his shirt. I had to lean against him to steady myself. Opening my mouth wider, I prepared to bite down, to take more than the stingy offering he was teasing me with.
“Hungry, Lee?” Laughing, he pushed me back. “Sorry, mija, no more than a blood kiss for you.”
For the first time since I'd met him, his face looked flushed. I thought I saw microscopic drops of blood beading on his forehead. Drawing a deep breath, I scented that I was right. He was sweating blood.
Reaching out, I touched his bottom lip, caressed it for a second before he moved another step back.
"I have to say, Lee, there's a lot of promise in the appetite you're showing."
Danny, for the moment, was forgotten. I wanted Oscar's blood, could sense how much power was flowing through him. He was older than all of them - Army, Nestor, the other hairy little animals that had gathered around me like I was a human trough.
“Why so little?” I asked and stepped toward him.
He straight-armed me back against the counter. “I think you just might make it, Lee.” Dropping his gaze, he took in the line of my body once again. “You're certainly well camouflaged for a predator.”
I caught his arm and ran a fingernail along the pale green line of a vein. “You still didn't answer me.”
“It's in the kiss, mija, in the blood - if you're strong enough to find it.”
He backed slowly away, his hand going up in warning whenever I threatened a step forward. At the sliding glass door, he pulled my cell phone and battery from his pocket and set them on the tiled floor. By the time I reached the patio, he already had the bike out on the street and was speeding away.
Chapter Eleven
The phone rang as soon as I put the battery back in. Danny's voice crackled over the line, sounding worried and asking me where the hell I was at and was I safe. It was the first time in over a week he'd talked to me.
“I'm okay.” I answered. The place still had patio furniture and I sat down, my face turned up to the sun. I was still having a hard time believing that Oscar had kept his word and left me unharmed.
“The phone says you're near the corner of 54th and Cheery Lynn, is that right?”
Pulling the phone from my ear, I looked at it a second. Shit, I thought location tracing from a cell was one more thing cops put in movies to make people paranoid. “Sounds right,” I answered after I could hear him calling my name over the phone's speaker.
“Is anyone there with you? What happened to the phone?”
“I'm alone. He took the battery out at the school.” Remembering my back pack, I stood and walked toward the gate. Oscar had tossed it just inside. Scooping the bag up, I returned to the chair.
“He who?”
“Can someone check on Casey?” I wasn't going to let him ask twenty questions after bailing on me for a week, at least not until I knew Casey was okay.
“Your family is fine, Lee. We checked everyone's location once we realized you were missing.”
Sirens blared a few streets over.
“Is that you?”
“Yes, can you come out front, is it safe for you to do so?”
“Yeah.” I shouldered my bag and walked through the side gate just as an unmarked car with a siren in the dash pulled onto the lawn.
Danny jumped out from the driver's seat. A second later, he had hold of me by the shoulders, his sharp gaze inspecting me for any sign of injury.
Satisfied that I was fine, he steered me towards Mike. “Put her in the back seat and keep an eye on her.”
“Hello, I'm standing ri-”
“Lee…” The way Mike said my name made it sound like a friendly warning. Cupping my elbow, he led me to Danny's car.
Making me sit inside, Mike leaned in. “No kidding, Lee. I thought I was going to have to Taze him to calm him down.”
Sick, I know, but the thought made me happy. Not Danny getting Tazed by his friend, but him being maybe a little crazy with worry. Even now, I could see it on his face - a heightened level of concern that wasn't the
re in the gazes of any of the other cops responding to the scene.
“What now?” I asked Mike.
“More forensics.” He was watching Danny talk to one of the uniformed officers. “You see this guy touch anything?”
My hands were in my lap, I looked down at them and studied their fine lines.
“I see…just you, huh?”
I didn't nod, but offered a slight tilt of my chin.
“What?” Danny's voice, sharp, drew my gaze up.
Mike backed away. “Sorry, bro. Had to ask.”
The cold flick of Danny's eyes in Mike's direction suggested differently. “Just watch her. I'll ask any questions,” was all he said before turning back to the house.
Once Danny and the other cops were in the back yard, Mike dropped his voice and his eyes hardened at the sides. “Little girl, I hope you realize how bad he's got it for you.”
I looked at Mike but didn't say anything. I had chased after Danny's regard for the last few weeks. Now that I could feel the weight of it in my hand, it kind of scared the hell out of me.
“His shield doesn't mean shit to him any more. So you better not be playing any games with him.”
I didn't get a chance to tell Mike I wasn't playing any games. Danny came around the corner, his car keys in hand.
He nodded at Mike. “You have a ride back to the station?”
“Yeah, no worries.”
“Good.” Danny slid behind the steering wheel. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Seat belt.”
I looked toward the front seat. He shook his head and locked the doors. Putting the car in reverse, he pulled off the lawn and onto the street.
“Call your uncle, let him know you're okay and you're going to be a while.”
I pulled the phone out and punched the first few numbers in before pausing. “How long?”
“Until you finally start telling me the truth.” He looked back again and we both tried to outstare the other.
“Yeah.” He put the car in drive, still staring at me in the rearview mirror as he started down the street. “That's what I figured.”
I finished dialing, put the phone up to my ear and looked away. Somehow, I was going to have to keep my bargain with Oscar a little while longer without losing Danny in the process.
Joan answered the phone, tight voiced, her anger vibrating through the phone like static. I stared out the window and cried the last of my little girl tears Oscar had mocked as I listened to her tell me I was eighteen now and she didn't want me back in her house. When she finished, I hung up and tossed the phone on the seat.
“Did they know someone went by Casey's sitters?” I waited until I was sure I could talk without Danny hearing the tears in my voice.
He pulled into a Circle K, put the car in park and looked back at me. “Did the guy tell you that?”
I gestured at the phone. “He showed me.”
He started to reach for the cell.
“His phone, I mean. He took the battery out of mine while we were standing in front of my locker.”
Danny turned back to the front seat and started texting something into his own phone. “I wondered why you just walked off campus with him.”
“No, really, I just developed a taste for being tortured, was kinda hoping for a little afternoon bind time,” I drawled. “Why the fuck else would I have left?”
Danny glanced back, his blue-grey eyes darkening to black. He unlocked the car doors. “Up front.”
When I slid into the front passenger seat, he grabbed my face with one hand and thumbed my cheek.
“Were you just crying?”
I pushed his hand away. “Joan told me not to come back.”
He touched my shoulder and then reached higher to push a strand of hair behind my ear. “Look, I live in the school district. You can stay with me while we get things worked out.”
We skirmished another minute or two before certain concessions were made - like how I didn't want any more escorts to school - before I relented. It was a kindness on his part, letting me argue with him like that. We both knew I had no place else to go.
“I need to pick up my clothes.”
He dropped his hand to the torn out knee on my jeans. “More of this?”
I shrugged. I'd been dressed in rags through most of high school - Sandy or Paul drinking their way through any money they found their way into. My clothes were just another thing I lied about so that people thought it was a style.
Danny had started the car and was pulling onto the street. Cutting across traffic, he changed directions.
“I've got a better idea.” He smiled for the first time this afternoon. “Stores are still open.”
Chapter Twelve
Two hours later we were in Blush's, Danny carrying two heavy shopping bags from the stores we'd already visited. With the female sales clerk hovering around us, he cleared his throat. I looked at him and saw the flush of pink on his freckled cheeks. Blush was all nightgowns and underclothes with a few baubles thrown around the store for good measure.
“Maybe I should leave my card with you and wait outside on this one?”
The clerk's giggle felt like a sucker punch to my gut. There was something disturbingly familiar about it. Reaching out, I grabbed Danny's arm and, for the first time since we'd walked into the store, I looked the girl full in the face.
She was blonde, sun bronzed with deep set green eyes. I didn't know her, but felt like I did. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, she was naked.
Only I knew she wasn't.
“Whoa!” I hit the ground and looked up to find Danny and the clerk leaning over me. Reaching up, I touched the sleeve of her white blouse.
“If she's stoned-”
Danny flipped his badge open with a hard stare at the clerk. He picked up the pajamas I'd already selected and the underclothes and shoved them at the girl, then handed her his bank card. "Ring these up."
I pulled myself up onto one of the pink velour benches that cut across the store. Danny placed his fingertips against my throat while he looked at his watch. Concentrating, I forced my pulse to beat at a human pace. Back at the counter, the girl's bare breasts danced over the register, blood seeping down from her throat.
Her mouth stayed closed but her giggle still vibrated through the store.
Oh, Oscar!
I jerked my head up and looked wildly around.
“Lee…”
“Did you say something?”
“Just your name. I think it's finally hitting you. Are you having flashbacks?”
'I was, but I couldn't tell him that. Not when the flashbacks I was having weren't my own.
Danny pushed my knees apart and pressed my head forward until it hung between them. “There's a water cooler by the front door, I'll be right back.”
The clerk returned, naked from head to toe, her torso finger painted with blood. “Look, I don't care if your boyfriend is a cop, I don't need some junkie puking in the store.”
“Oscar.” I whispered the name, worried Danny would hear it. The clerk's head snapped in my direction and her green eyes narrowed. Putting my finger to my lips, I warned her to shut up as Danny came back and she marched her blonde ass back to the register to finish bagging the sale.
It's in the kiss. That's what Oscar had said. Only it was clear now that he was being poetic when he said it. “It” was really in the blood. That's what he had been talking about when he hinted at draining Army and seeing me in the process. Oscar had been with this girl. He had bled her and fucked her. And because he had seen it, so could I.
Danny came back with a paper cup filled with water. I didn't want to look at him yet, so I sipped and let my gaze wander around the bench and nearby table. There was a mannequin's bust on the side table, with a tiered necklace of glass beads and a garnet crucifix around the dummy's throat. I reached out, fingering the cross.
I'm not sure what I expected - probably not that I would get singed or burst into flames. I already knew the books
and movies were wrong about a number of things. But I know I expected something other than the bland, tactile sensation of glass beads and the cold metal backing.
“Pretty,” Danny said, kneeling beside me.
“Yeah.”
I finished my water and started folding the cup in on itself.
“Do you believe, Lee?”
“A month ago, I would have said 'no.' Now?” I shrugged.
He smiled and took the cup from me. “Well, that's a start.”
He told me to wait on the bench while he went back to the checkout and got his card and the bags from the clerk. I rose to meet him on unsteady legs when he came back. He wrapped his arm around my waist.
“You need to go to the hospital?” he whispered in my ear.
“No, please. Just take me to your place.”
***
I spent the ride to his place with my seat down, eyes closed and my fingers twitching as Oscar's memories swirled through my mind. I saw all the ways he fed, human and animal. I saw the man from the house with the tattooed hands. He was on his knees. Army was dead on the floor, his corpse caving in on itself.
A second too late I realized we had already pulled into Danny's drive and the garage door was opening. I bolted upright and he wrapped a hand around my arm as I reached for the door handle.
“Fuck, I'm sorry, Lee. I wasn't thinking.”
He rubbed the spot on my arm where he'd grabbed it. “You sure you don't want to go to the hospital?”
“Yeah - I'm sure.”
He came around to my side and helped me out. Passing into the house, he said, “Then you're well enough to talk about this afternoon.”
I kept my mouth shut and let him steer me to the living room and the couch. He switched a light on and then sat down next to me. Turning, he pulled a leg up on the cushion and leaned toward me, his face just as hard as it had been this afternoon when he'd pulled up in his cop car.
“So the sketch - was that picture complete bullshit?”
I shook my head.
“But some of it was?”
A nod. I scooted further down the couch, away from him. He followed after me until I had nowhere to retreat.
“And this guy today, I know you can ID him. But you won't.”
