by M. Leighton
“Because this person was a vampire.”
Bo nodded again.
“And you think you’re a vampire.”
Again, a nod.
“Alright, so you say you are, in fact, a vampire. Let’s just go with that for a minute. If I’m not mistaken, vampires are dead. Yet you told me not five minutes ago that you’re dying. How do you explain that?”
“Well, first of all vampires aren’t technically dead right from the start. We can ‘die’,” he said, using air quotes. “But we can only die the same way once. The venom, it mutates our cells, our DNA, causing us to regenerate very quickly. When we do, we’re sort of immune to whatever harmed or killed us. We can no longer be killed that way, not again.”
“So these people that you killed, you think they’ll…come back?”
“Oh, no. They’re very much dead.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, shaking my head. “Then how did you kill Trent Long? I’m confused. ”
“The only way you can actually, truly kill a vampire. I destroyed his heart.”
“Well, if that’s the case then what do you mean when you say you’re dying?”
Bo returned his attention to the heart in his hand. He leaned back against the desk and held it up to the moonlight pouring through the window, peering through the thick bubbles of heart-shaped glass. He didn’t speak until he lowered it.
“I know I’m dying because I’m killing myself.”
My heart lurched in my chest. I wasn’t expecting that.
“What? Why?”
“The very last blood that pours from a vampire’s heart contains memories of his life, his knowledge, his experiences. But it’s toxic. Very toxic. These men that I hunt, one of them will lead me to the person behind my father’s murder, but to learn that, I have to drain them before I kill them.”
Out of all that, out of all the questions that his explanation generated, the only thing I could think of was that he was killing himself. For a moment, I was drawn into his world of make believe.
“So you’re killing yourself to learn who killed your father?”
“Yes.”
“Your life is worth so little to you that you’d just throw it away for revenge?” That hurt more than I was ready to acknowledge.
Bo looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine in the low light of the room. As they did the first time I saw him, they burned into me, searing me all the way to my soul.
“I had nothing to live for until I met you.”
Despite what he was telling me, despite the fact that he was crazy or sick or deranged or something, my heart swelled inside my chest. It was as if he held my heart in his hand rather than the glass paperweight. It was no longer mine to control. And it felt just as fragile.
That’s when it hit me. What if he’s telling the truth? The way he looked in the basement, he barely looked human at all. What if vampires really are real?
“But you said the only way to kill a vampire is to destroy his heart.”
“Correct.”
“So you should be fine then, right? I mean, you should…come back,” I said, searching for the right phrase.
“The poison attacks the organs, Ridley. Including the heart.” His expression was grave, hopeless.
“Is that why you looked the way you did earlier?”
Bo nodded, dropping his head in either shame or embarrassment. I wasn’t sure which. “It’s worse for a day or two after I drink the…the poison.”
“Well, can’t you just stop?” Finally, I felt brave enough to step toward him. “Can’t you just let it go, let them go, before it’s too late? Can’t you just… live?”
Bo shook his head sadly, lowering his gaze once more to the heart he held in his hand.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why? Why can’t it be exactly that easy?”
“I’ve taken in too much of their blood. I can tell that it’s killing me. The human blood that I drink, from the blood bank, is barely keeping me alive now and I don’t know how much longer that will last,” he confessed. “I’m having to drink more and more, but still this form wears down that much more quickly.”
“This form? What do you mean?”
“We—vampires—regenerate so quickly, our cells multiply and divide so fast, that they have a translucent appearance once we’ve metabolized our food. Kind of like we’re in a constant state of flux, like we’re growing too fast for light or human eyes to track,” he explained. “But the blood that I drink is used up fighting off the effects of the poison most of the time, so I can’t maintain a human appearance for as long as others.”
A sinking feeling began in the pit of my stomach and seeped into my arms and legs, making them feel like lead, like dead weight. “What do you look like when it wears off, when the poison’s gone and the blood’s gone?” Even after the question was out, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
Bo’s lips curled up into a bitter, mirthless twist. “Invisible. I look like nothing.”
I knew that answer alone would spawn hundreds of questions, but right now my focus was on his demise and just how imminent it was.
“So, what will happen when you,” I paused, swallowing the enormous lump in my throat. “When you die?”
Bo looked out the window. “I don’t know. The only information I’ve been able to find out about it is that draining a vampire will kill you, poison you. That’s it.” He shrugged. “Nothing else ever mattered until now. The only thing I cared about was finding out who killed my father.”
“How long do you have until…”
“I don’t know that either, but I’d say not very long.”
I felt the sting of tears and, though I blinked them back, there was no stopping the drops of heartbreak as they welled in my eyes.
The words to the song that was now playing, Wild Horses, stabbed at my heart.
I have my freedom, but I don’t have much time. Faith has been broken, tears must be cried. Let’s do some living, after we die. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Wild, wild horses couldn’t drag me away.
“There has to be something that we can do,” I said, trying to still my trembling chin.
A look of sheer agony crossed Bo’s face as he laid the glass heart back on the desk and crossed the room to me. Slowly, gently, he pulled me into his arms. He was giving me the chance to pull away, to turn away, and my heart wrenched all the more at his tenderness.
“This is why I should’ve stayed away from you,” he whispered against my hair.
“Don’t even say that. I wouldn’t have traded this time—however much we have—for anything,” I said, leaning back to meet his eyes. “Not for anything.”
Bo’s eyes searched my face for a few seconds before he lowered his lips to mine. He kissed me with such sweetness, such hopeless softness, that my throat constricted even further. When a light saltiness reached my tongue, I knew that my tears had finally overwhelmed my eyes and spilled down my cheeks, mingling with our kiss.
Bo dragged his lips away and leaned his forehead against mine, his eyes still closed.
“I wish I could just walk away from you. Just walk away and leave you alone, to live your life,” he breathed.
“You can’t save me from pain, Bo,” I cried.
“I can when I’m the one who brought pain into your life.”
“You think you’re the only pain I’ve known? I know all about pain and loss,” I said, pulling back once more to look into his eyes. “My sister died in a car accident three years ago and I was with her. I survived when I shouldn’t have and everyone in my life wishes it had been the other way around. I might as well have lost my entire family in that accident, so I know all about loss.” I reached up and touched his face, which was burning hot. “But even after that, after surviving all that, I don’t think I could survive losing you, Bo. Not you. Not you,” I sighed, leaning my head against his chest.
I felt his arms come around me again, hugging me close to his feverish body.
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“You’re burning up,” I murmured. “Is that part of it?”
“Sort of. My temperature will run hot while I metabolize the blood I just drank. When my body starts to cool, I know I need to feed soon.”
That explained a lot about his widely varied body temperature. Until recently, I must’ve always seen him when he was nearing a feeding.
“So I guess you feed before school and it wears off throughout the day?”
“Yeah. A couple of times I’ve had to run home in the middle of the day. It just depends on what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if I exert a lot or get overly excited, I burn more energy.”
Bo was rubbing his hand slowly up and down my arm and, even in these terrible circumstances, I felt a tiny flame of desire flicker to life deep in my belly.
“So when you say excited, what kinds of things do you mean?”
I heard Bo’s breath hitch in his chest. When he finally let it out, it hissed through his pursed lips.
“Let’s not talk about that right now. You’re liable to get a first hand look at what happens.”
Bo pushed me back to arm’s length and took a step away from me. When I looked into his eyes, I knew why. He was feeling the same kindling of passion that I was and he was struggling to resist it.
We were saved from further temptation when my father called my name from the living room.
I yelled in answer, mainly to keep him from coming in search of me.
“Coming!” When Bo cringed, I cast him a sheepish look. “Sorry.”
He grinned and my heart skipped a couple of beats.
“No problem. I should’ve known, being a cheerleader, that you’d have some serious lungs on you,” he teased. “I guess that’s my cue to leave, huh?”
Before I could answer, he turned and walked back to the window.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” I was anxious, almost fearful, to let him out of my sight, afraid that I wouldn’t see him again.
Bo stopped at the window, still facing away from me. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Every fiber of my being cried out in answer, even before I could get the word off my lips. “Yes.”
Bo looked back at me and smiled, a breathtaking lift of his lips that said he was pleased with my answer. I couldn’t help but smile in return. “Then yes, you’ll see me tomorrow. I’ll call you, ok?”
“Ok,” I said, walking to the window.
“Ridley!” Dad shouted again.
I turned my head toward the door this time, so that I wouldn’t blast Bo.
“Coming!”
When I turned back to the window, Bo was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning, I woke with the most confused feelings I’d ever had. I was elated that Bo and I had talked. It seemed he was feeling the same thing for me that I was for him, whatever that “thing” was. But on the other hand, I was beyond distraught that he was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I ended up doing neither. Instead, I got up and showered to get ready for church.
Just over an hour later, as I walked down the aisle, I realized that it was the first time since Izzy’s death that I’d actually wanted to be there. I finally felt like I needed God, like I wanted Him in my life. I’d purposely avoided Him since the accident three years ago. I hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with God in a long, long time.
I guess it was both sad and disgusting that I would wait until I needed something to go to Him, but at least I was going. I’d been to church enough to know that going was the main thing. Most people put it off, but when they finally make up their mind to go, most of them do it when they’re at the end of their rope. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of humanity.
All through the service, I prayed intermittently, listening with half an ear to the sermon about redemption and eternal life. At the end, when the pastor performed his standard altar call, I shuffled down the pew and walked quickly up the aisle to kneel at the base of the pulpit.
With every ounce of my soul, I reached out and I begged for divine intervention for Bo. I knew that nothing was impossible for God and that if He willed it, Bo would live. I didn’t know how, but I knew it could happen, and at this point, I was willing to try virtually anything.
On the way home, I noticed that, also for the first time since Izzy’s death, I didn’t feel like a pretender. I watched Mom and Dad interact in the front seat. I listened to them tiptoe around any subject with the slightest bit of significance. It was like seeing two actors film a made-for-TV movie about the humdrum life of a humdrum southern family. There was no depth, no genuineness, no truth. There was only the façade, the superficial veneer I’d come to know so well.
Back at the house, I was surprised when Dad came knocking on my bedroom door right after we got home, telling me that I had a visitor. Not having heard an engine, I assumed it was Bo. My heart beat in an excited tap dance at the mere prospect of seeing him.
The sun was shining brightly, but it was a cool day, another indication that fall had arrived. I quickly changed into jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt that said Sweet Baby Ray’s across the front, pushed my feet into my Sketchers and hurried out the door.
My smile faltered a bit when I saw Drew standing in the foyer instead of Bo.
“Oh, Drew. Hi,” I said, trying to recover.
“Expecting someone else?”
His tone was sharp and he was eyeing me suspiciously. I doubted that anyone else would’ve been able to detect the venom in his tone, but trust me, it was there.
“No, I’m just surprised. That’s all,” I said, coming to a stop several feet from him. “What are you doing here?”
“You said we’d talk later,” he said, shrugging. “Is this ‘later’ enough?”
“Yeah,” I replied, shaking my head. “Of course.”
“Let’s take a ride,” he suggested.
A tiny twinge of apprehension shot down my spine, but I reminded myself that this was Drew. We’d dated for over a year and I knew him well. I had nothing to fear.
I thought of my phone and how Bo was supposed to be calling me today, but I knew that I shouldn’t go back to my room for it. If Bo called while I was with Drew, it was sure to make matters worse. Much worse. So, in the interest of preserving relations with Drew, I left it.
“Alright,” I finally said, preceding Drew to the door. Before I opened it, I stopped and called out to my parents. “I’m taking a ride with Drew. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I heard a mumbled acknowledgment coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. That was about the most response I could expect, so I left.
At the car, it didn’t escape my notice that, unlike Bo, Drew didn’t bother opening the door for me. I climbed in the passenger side and he slid in behind the wheel. Wordlessly, he started the engine, pulled out of the driveway and then we sped off down the street.
After we’d traveled several miles, I had to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence.
