Blood Like Poison

by M. Leighton

  Lars called to Trinity and, with a delighted squeal that brought her eyes back to life, she turned and ran toward him. He pulled her up against his huge frame and kissed her.

  I knew without looking that every eye was trained on them. The kiss was so steamy it was embarrassing to watch. It didn’t belong in public. It belonged in a boudoir on black satin sheets with no one else around. Just as I was about to turn away, not interested in seeing Lars swallow Trinity whole, his eyes popped open and he met my gaze from across the way.

  Although warmth did leap to life in my belly, my head was far too aware of what was going on for me to be swayed by his tactics. In a defiant gesture, I hiked my chin up a notch, a silent challenge for him to give me his best shot. I was no easy target.

  Abruptly, tossing one last scathing look over my shoulder, I turned on my heel and walked to the gaggle of gawking cheerleaders, snapping commands as I went, spurring them into action.

  Slowly, reluctantly, their attention turned back to the task at hand, a difficult half-time routine we’d been practicing for our next game, the Friday after next. When they were all tending to their role in the choreography, I glanced back over my shoulder. As I suspected, Lars and Trinity were gone.

  ********

  The next morning, I lay in bed looking at the ceiling. The first lights of dawn had painted an intricate, shifting pattern on the smooth surface. My heart was still heavy, but maybe not quite as heavy as it had been.

  Last night, Mom was more herself. By that, I mean she came stumbling in at 11:45 wasted. I personally believed she was the only person in the history of time who actually drove better while intoxicated. She’d never so much as been in a scrape or gotten a speeding ticket while she was loaded. Sobriety, on the other hand, was a whole different story.

  Thankfully, she hadn’t needed much in the way of care. It was one of her fairly self-sufficient and pleasant binges. She chattered on about work-related things, citing people and places I knew nothing about. But she laughed a lot, which was infinitely preferable to the times she came home a crying, drunken mess.

  The most important thing I noticed was that she didn’t mention Lars one time. It was as if she didn’t even remember meeting him. In fact, she’d acted confused when I asked her about him. I could only assume that the blood, or whatever he did to her, had worn off and she was once again my mother. Flawed though she was, I was glad to have her back.

  Spending the evening without so much as talking to Bo turned out to be extremely unpleasant, but when I compared it to Trinity and her drug-addicted behaviors, I thought my feelings were surprisingly normal for someone who was in deep like, or whatever I was in.

  I was hesitant to call it love yet, especially since Bo’s most recent confession. I wanted to know that, when love finally found me, it would be real. I also wanted to know that it happened for all the right reasons. So as long as there was one tiny seed of doubt in my mind about me and Bo, I was going to put off naming my feelings for him for as long as I possibly could.

  It seemed that Bo was somehow able to sense my inner struggle. Without me even having to ask, he had graciously given me some space. I gave him huge credit for that, and, though we’d been apart only hours (that felt like weeks), that time had been very revealing.

  There was no denying my intense yearning for Bo’s company. There was a physical need, yes, but there was an emotional longing that far outweighed it, by several tons in fact. I’d dissected and closely examined each and every one of my feelings for Bo and it didn’t take me long to realize that I crave his presence and all that comes with it—his smile, his laugh, his confidence, his closeness, his voice, his smell, his touch, the safety that I feel when he’s around.

  But I also came to the important conclusion that I was still me whether Bo was around or not. I was happy when he was close and miserable when he wasn’t, and there was no doubt that his influence had made me a better person in many ways. But either way—with or without him—I was still me, unlike Trinity who seemed like a totally different person altogether since Lars had come into the picture.

  Sliding out from beneath the covers, I decided to go ahead and take a shower, give myself plenty of time to prepare for the day ahead. I was going on a field trip to see Lucius tonight and somehow—instinctively I guess—I knew it would be a very significant visit.

  The day ticked by uneventfully. I passed Trinity on a few occasions and each time, she cast me an odd look that appeared to be a mixture of hatred and curiosity. Beneath her tan, she was even paler than she’d been the day before and I wondered if I’d been too late in my warning.

  I was leaving my locker, heading through the empty hall toward the cafeteria, when Trinity sprang around the corner and surprised me.

  “Trinity,” I gasped, throwing a startled hand up to my throat where my heart was lodged. “You scared me.”

  Trinity didn’t say a word at first; she just stepped slowly forward until she was almost in my face. When she didn’t stop, but continued to approach me, I began taking a step backward for every step she took toward me.

  She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes as if in ecstasy. “He’s right. I can smell your blood,” she said. When she opened her eyes to look at me, I saw that Trinity was still in there; she’d just been liberated from the constraints of humanity. “Right through your skin.”

  “What?” Even as I stumbled back, away from her, I played dumb. “What are you talking about, Trinity?”

  Her lips curled up into a malevolent sneer. “Oh, I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, Ridley.”

  “No, I don’t. I think—”

  “In that case, would you like me to show you?” Her eyes were wide and innocent for a moment, but then her devilish smile slid back into place. “I’d really like to show you, Rid.”

  “Trinity, you don’t have to do this.”

  For the first time, fear of Trinity—real fear—lanced through me. I could only hope that she didn’t pick up on the nervous tremor in my voice.

  “Oh, but I do,” she said quietly, still stalking me.

  “No, you don’t. You don’t have to live this way. You can survive without hurting people.”

  Her bark of laughter sent a cascade of chills raining down my back. “And why would I want to do that?”

  Looking into her eyes, it occurred to me that I’d never fully realized the sickness, the blackness that resided inside Trinity. This would be a dream come true for her. And Lars must’ve known that. He could probably sense evil, smell it like some kind of hell hound.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “But it’s not the fun thing to do, is it?”

  “Trinity, if you hurt me, they’ll hunt you down and throw you in jail,” I warned, grasping at straws. Truthfully, if anyone could get away with murder, it would probably be Trinity. She’s about as diabolical as high school kids come.

  She knew that, too. “They’d have to catch me first,” she said, confirming my suspicion.

  “Well, the police might not, but Bo would find you.”

  I saw the flicker of fear, the flash of uncertainty dash across Trinity’s face. It was only there for a heartbeat before it vanished, but I saw it and now I knew. She had enough sense to be afraid of Bo.

  As quickly as it had come, the fear was gone, replaced by more bravado. “And Lars would find him.”

  Now was not the time to back down; I had to go for the kill, pull out all the stops.

  “Seriously, Trinity? After all of a few dates, you think Lars is going to fight for you? To risk his life for you?”

  There it was again. Just a trace of the insecurity I knew Trinity harbored deep down. She kept it hidden, well-concealed from the masses, but it was still in there, lurking just beneath whatever god-like power she felt coursing through her body. Though it was tiny, it was still enough for me to work with.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Just remember that, Trinity, when you t
hink about doing something stupid. We’ll be watching.”

  I chose that moment to make my exit. Well, more like my escape. Although I thought the confrontation had ended in my favor, I wasn’t willing to risk pushing my luck any further.

  Besides, now I knew that not only does Trinity know about Lars and Bo, she’d apparently become one of them.

  After that, I was antsy to get to lunch, to tell Bo about my discovery. Unfortunately, by the time I got outside, Savannah had already lured him to the picnic table and they were embroiled in a discussion with Devon about the superior acoustic stylings of Slash’s Gibson over Eric Clapton’s Fender.

  Strangely, it was a conversation that penetrated my otherwise-consumed brain fairly rapidly. For one thing, I actually knew who they were talking about because I loved classic rock. Secondly, I was pleasantly surprised that three people—at this school, in my now very small circle of friends, that weren’t burn-outs—liked that kind of music, too. In a bizarre but good way, it was as if our four lives were fated to become intertwined.

  Bo waited for me after Chemistry and walked me to my car. We were both silent during the walk. It wasn’t really an uncomfortable silence. It was one that seemed to be filled with all sorts of things that needed to be said, things that loomed on the horizon. I didn’t really want to talk about most of it now, however, preferring to wait until after our visit to Lucius. With that in mind, I introduced a fairly innocuous subject that I actually did find interesting.

  “So you like classic rock, huh?”

  The way Bo’s face relaxed made me realize that he was feeling the same tension that I was.

  “I love all kinds of music, but that’s what I listen to most.”

  “You know, it’s weird, but I realized today that I don’t know very much about you.”

  “I was attempting to remedy that the night I took you to my basement,” he said with a wry grin.

  Bo skipped ahead and then turned to walk backwards, facing me.

  “Oh.” I bit my lip in frustration. I felt like the end of that conversation had come way too soon.

  Bo stopped, forcing me to stop as well. His expression turned serious.

  “Do you still want to know me?”

  Looking into his eyes, I knew what he was asking. It was much more than Bo asking if I wanted the answer to trivial questions about him. He was asking if I still wanted him in my life.

  There was only one answer I could give, at least if I was being honest.

  “Yes.”

  For all the questions and doubts that I had, none of them had affected the way I felt about Bo. Beneath all the muddy waters that contained the particulars, my heart still cried out for him.

  The tension he’d been carrying around his mouth melted away and he smiled. It was a genuine curve of his lips that engaged those dimples at the corners of his mouth. I hadn’t realized until that moment what a rare treat they were and how much I missed them.

  “Then come with me to my lair,” he said in his best Transylvanian accent.

  A shiver coursed through me when I silently finished that comment with I want to suck your blood.

  Bo took the keys from me and drove us to his house in my car. He parked at the back of the house and we got out. We walked to the top of the basement steps, and as I looked around, I couldn’t help but hope that, this time, no vicious rival vampires showed up.

  Always in tune with me, Bo turned as he unlocked the door. “I bet you’re having flashbacks of vampires chucking trees at your head, aren’t you?”

  My mouth dropped open, not because he’d picked up on my train of thought so perfectly, but because he’d left out that little tidbit of information somewhere along the way.

  “He threw that tree at me?”

  Bo cringed, nodding. “I told you, these are not nice people.”

  “How are you so different?”

  As soon as the question was out, I regretted it, and Bo’s expression just made me feel that much worse about asking.

  “I didn’t meant it like—”

  “I know you didn’t,” he interrupted. “And I don’t have an answer for you.” As I watched, the happy, relaxed lines of his face vanished into thin air. My heart sank; it was my fault that they were gone. “In fact, I’m not convinced that I’m that much better than they are.”

  He pushed the old red door open and flipped on the light switch. Holding the door wide, Bo stepped to the side so I could precede him.

  The first thing I noticed was the intensity of that tangy smell that I associated with Bo. It seemed concentrated in this spot, like the further I walked into the room, the stronger it got.

  I stopped and looked around. The floor of the room was concrete, painted a dark gray like the walls. A daybed was pushed up against one wall. It was covered with a black spread and a mountain of pillows in varying shades of gray. Beside it, in the corner, was a small table, and on its surface a half-burned incense stick and a lighter.

  Across from the daybed was a shelf that held a stereo and various pictures and mementos, along with rows and rows of CDs. I trailed my fingers along them, reading the names as I went. Bo was right; he listened to a little bit of everything.

  There was truly classic rock like Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones. He had 80’s rock like Tesla, Motley Cru, and Def Leppard. There was some 90’s music sprinkled in, bands like Nirvana, Dave Matthews Band, and Santana. He even had a Backstreet Boys CD. When I saw that one, I had to smile.

  On top of that, he had a few country bands, some blues titles I vaguely recognized and a few more current groups like Train, Nickelback, The Fray and even some Pink. He had a very eclectic palate.

  Bo closed the door and walked to the stereo to turn it on. When he hit play, I was curious to hear what he’d been listening to most recently. I recognized the beginning guitar riff instantly. It was Guns ‘n Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine.

  He turned to lean back against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankles and his arms over his chest. He seemed content to quietly watch me as I looked around.

  I pointed to a picture of an older man, a face that was featured in all of the pictures scattered around. “Is this your dad?”

  Bo nodded.

  I figured as much. In some pictures, he was by himself. In some pictures he was with Bo’s mother. But in every picture, he was there, like the image of a ghost that refused to fade with time. I thought of Izzy’s room. I knew all about those kinds of hauntings.

  My heart ached for Bo’s loss. It wasn’t a shrine really, but I could see that Bo probably got a lot of his motivation from the articles in this room. His relationship with his dad was written all over the place.

  There was a baseball mitt, a football, some tennis balls with faces drawn on them, a floppy fishing hat and fishing pole. There were some model cars and a model airplane, projects I guessed Bo completed with his father. The whole room was like the sad history of a life cut short and the evidence of a son who couldn’t let go.

  The one thing that I found odd was that Bo was not featured in any of the pictures with his family. I wanted to ask him about it, but I’d already done enough to taint his good mood. I could wait until another time to find my answers.

  I slid my eyes over to Bo. He was watching me closely, an inscrutable look on his face. I glanced away quickly. I felt as if I was intruding on a very intimate family gathering.