I wondered if it would look like blood.
“Did I hear something about a video game, coz I’m pretty sure someone promised me Mortal Kombat.” Jules’ blonde head peeked over the fence, and someone else’s much more tanned hand waved by her ear. I knew it could only be Aurora—she was too short to see over the fence.
I looked to Connor as the girls came around to the gate. He shrugged with a not at all innocent smirk on his face.
Jules held the latest Mortal Kombat video game in her hands and waved it at my dad. “Connor brought the movie, Mr. Mavus, and there is no way we are watching it without me first schooling you with Sub-Zero. Finish him!” she announced in a hilariously accurate approximation of the game’s iconic announcer. The pink sundress she was wearing in no way lessened the affect.
“You’re on, Miller.” My dad pointed at Jules with a dramatic flourish. When he dropped his arm, he turned to Aurora. “And you, young lady, need to inform your mother that she is way overdue for hosting our next block party. I wouldn’t think she’d be so slow to plan something that gives her Korean fortitude the chance to drink me under the table again.”
Aurora flipped her hair with one hand, the other clutching a large, button-covered tote bag slung over her shoulder. “I’ll tell her, if it means the parents are at my house while we get yours for the night.”
Dad laughed. “Remind me not to vote for you when you run for office.”
There was a great rustling of activity as he ushered the girls inside, who each shot me a smile—without asking about yesterday or if I was okay or any other telling, grating questions—and Connor gathered up his baseball bag and removed his gear.
I just stood there a moment, awed by everyone, but especially by Connor, who’d obviously orchestrated this. The feeling of normal was small, and probably wouldn’t last, but it was better than feeling the panic creep up again.
I nudged Connor’s shoulder as we headed inside.
“I know,” he said, “you love me.”
“I really, really do.”
Chapter 7
Connor
Connor grinned at Emery as his friend climbed into the Thunderbird next to him, toting his brand new cell phone that hopefully wouldn’t die as easily as the last one. Without even a ‘good morning’, Connor passed Emery a small oval case.
“What’s this?”
“So you don’t have to keep squinting all the time.”
Emery opened the case to discover a pair of dark aviator sunglasses that Connor had snatched from the props of their freshman school play—Who Dunit... and to Whom? “But you love these. And I already have sunglasses.”
“Not that cool, you don’t.”
“True…”
“And you need them more than me.” Connor nodded definitively and pulled out of the driveway as Emery donned the aviators.
“Thanks,” he said.
The smile that graced Emery’s tan face, and the small sigh of relief he offered once the bright light from the sun was blocked, made Connor’s stomach flutter.
Tan. Emery was naturally darker skinned, though he’d looked sickly pale up until he fed from Connor the other night. This thought successfully distracted Connor from his dreamy musings and launched him into a diatribe on vampires and white skin that lasted all the way to school.
“But dead skin still tans,” Emery said as they walked inside. “Someone brought it up in Biology once.”
“I did.” Connor rolled his eyes. “Do you actually think of your skin as dead?”
Emery stuttered over his feet, nearly shouldering into the lockers they passed. “I…don’t know.”
“Well I’m going with ‘no’. And besides, there’s an obvious reason why vampires wouldn’t be tan anyway.”
“Who’s talking about tan vampires?” Nick McPherson joined them as they neared the music alcove that split off into the band and choir rooms.
Nick played percussion in Jazz Band. He was broader than Emery and easily could have been on the football team, but he preferred access to power tools over blunt trauma. He had a sort of quiet intensity that everyone agreed could easily turn to nefarious purposes if not given direction, which was why they always made sure he helped with backstage for the plays. His tightly coiled black hair stayed perfectly still a she bobbed his head to the last refrains of the music he’d been listening to, before pulling out his remaining earbud.
Emery widened his eyes at Connor, but since he was still wearing the aviators, it just looked like his eyebrows arched.
“Back me up, Nick,” Connor said, taking the interruption in stride. “Why would vampires be pale even if it’s been proven that dead skin tans in the sun?”
“Why would a vampire go out in the sun?” Nick frowned. “If it bugs ‘em, even if it didn’t burn ‘em, like, go up in flames, wouldn’t it make sense they’d avoid it? Normal people who stay indoors most the time are still pale.”
Emery stopped at the choir room door. “Oh. Right. Okay, I concede, that was a stupid idea. Even someone with darker skin would naturally get paler over time.”
“Thank you,” Connor smirked.
“They still wouldn’t turn porcelain if they started out mocha.” He pointed subtly at himself. Nick nodded, since his skin tone was more like coffee, no cream.
“Point,” Connor conceded.
“What brought this on?” Nick asked.
“Once Bitten was on last night,” Connor said, unperturbed. He watched Emery flinch and then relax out of his tension.
“What’s that one about?”
“Vampire queen turns virgins into vampires to keep herself young, and Jim Carrey is the only older virgin left. So, you know, you’d be safe if that lore was true.” Connor patted Nick’s shoulder with his left hand, wearing his teal prosthetic again since it was the best for playing the piano and they’d been warned about starting a new song today.
“Nice,” Nick said with a glare, “so you wanna give me the play by play of your last—”
“Bye, Em!” Connor shoved Nick toward the band room.
Emery choked out a laugh, “See you guys after,” and waved goodbye as he slipped into the choir room with a look of decided resignation.
Connor didn’t envy him the array of questions he would most likely face from his fellow choir kids—there had already been quite a few curious looks from passing students on their way inside that Connor had done his best to distract Emery from.
He and Nick headed for Jazz Band across the alcove, Nick shooting Connor a sly smirk before they parted inside—Aurora wasn’t the only one who knew about Connor’s crush on Emery, the bastard.
Most of the other students were already in their chairs, warming up their instruments or chatting, including Aurora with her clarinet and Jules on alto sax. Aurora had her Sailor Moon planner out, as always, and Connor flashed her a smile as he sat down at the piano. His mom had taught him, ensuring he could play his scales even before his first prosthetic.
Five minutes later, Mr. Nellis, the band director, was just starting to introduce their new piece of music when the intercom went off, preceded by a sharp beeping noise.
“Attention students. I’m afraid that due to the presence of a new bomb threat this morning, we are going to have to evacuate for a full sweep. Please file out of your rooms and follow your instructors as we’ve gone over in the rehearsed protocol.”
The principal’s voice sounded tired, as sick of this nonsense as the students were, punctuated by the loud groan that filled the resonant band room as soon as the intercom went silent—after another annoying beep. This led into persistent beeps every ten seconds to indicate they were in a state of RED ALERT, as Connor called it.
“You heard him,” Mr. Nellis said with a deep sigh. “Instruments away but left in their place
s, and lineup at the door.”
“If they add a single day after graduation because of all this time we’re missing,” Jules grumbled as Connor joined Nick and the girls in line, “screw it, I am done. I mean, we’ll have already walked. What are they gonna do?”
“We don’t actually get our diplomas when we walk,” Aurora said in a bored tone, still half buried in her planner, “it’s empty. They mail it to us later. So they could still refuse to mail yours.”
Jules wailed dramatically.
They paraded out of the room, meeting up with the students from Honor Choir. Emery shuffled in line when he saw them so he could walk parallel.
“Do you think it was in that bathroom again?” he asked as they passed the girls room just outside the music alcove.
“Probably,” Nick shrugged.
“Urg, what is the point?” Jules snarled.
“Time out of class, duh,” Connor said. “Which is stupid if they force us to make up the time later. This is how we know it’s a freshman. No bigger picture mentality.”
“It’s not like there’s a real bomb,” Aurora said, at last tucking her planner into her shoulder bag—she’d never had a normal backpack for as long as Connor had known her. “And that would be the smart thing if you really wanted to take out students—make a bomb threat but then don’t actually have it be a bomb.”
“What do you mean?” Emery asked with a scowl. He still had the aviators on, which wasn’t completely unheard of given Jazz Band and Honor Choir were Zero Hour classes that started at 7:30, so a few students sleepwalked their way through the first couple songs.
Almost the entire school was in attendance by this time, just not all of them were in classrooms. Those who had been in the commons area, waiting for normal classes to start at 8:15, were lined up and led outside by the assistant principal.
From there, the entire school trekked across the street to nearby Trinity Lutheran Church where they smushed into the sanctuary and basement depending on grade level. All of this without being able to go back to their lockers if they’d left their coats in there, which was most of them. Connor hadn’t brought a coat, so he was grateful he’d chosen a warmer sweatshirt today since it wasn’t supposed to get above forty degrees.
“I get it,” Connor said, addressing the group. “Think of how many times we’ve practiced this evacuation protocol, and how many times we’ve done it for real since the threats started. If you actually wanted to cause trouble, you could turn a bomb threat into a school shooting and be way more successful.”
“How do you figure that?” Jules asked with an elegantly raised, blonde eyebrow.
“Yeah?” Nick’s expression mirrored hers, though not quite as regally, since his eyes always looked a little twitchy.
“Everyone knows the path we’re taking to get to Trinity,” Aurora said. “All anyone would have to do is write the threat and then setup shop on the roof. Then once the majority of the school is outside heading across the street…open fire.”
“Genius, really. We’d walk right into a trap.” Connor looked back up at the roof as they exited the building, which prompted the others, and a couple students who were close enough to overhear, to do the same.
“Are you two seriously plotting how to successfully pull off a school shooting?” Emery hissed at them. His sunglasses looked perfectly in place now, as several other students pulled on theirs for the walk.
Connor and Aurora looked at each other.
“Good point,” Connor said. “If anyone in authority overheard the two kids in school who actually have regular access to firearms having this conversation, we might be in trouble.”
“Academic discussion does not constitute condoning something…but agreed,” Aurora gave in. “And speaking of guns,” she flipped her hair as if unbothered by that dose of reality, “for Jules’ birthday this summer, I was thinking we could take her to the range. Let her try your dad’s . 22 and my mom’s Glock.”
“Really?” Jules’ eyes lit up. She had been angling for an outing at the shooting range ever since the first of them turned eighteen. She was the baby of their entire class and didn’t turn eighteen until July.
“The rifle or the handgun?” Connor asked. “Because the handgun is Mom’s.”
Jules’ face split into an even wider grin. “Both. Definitely both.”
“Do you think you’ll have that prototype gun arm ready in time, Con-Man?” Aurora asked. “You keep making promises and not delivering.”
“Yeah…Mom’s been putting the veto on that pretty hard, but Dad’s wearing her down. Right, Em?” When Connor didn’t receive any answer, he turned to look at his friend. They were almost across the street to the church, but Emery’s attention had drifted. “Hey, you okay?”
“Sinuses still bugging you, Mavus?” Aurora asked.
Emery’s attention snapped back to them. “Huh? No, I…I’m fine, I just…felt like someone was watching me for a moment.”
“Well someone probably is, remember?” Connor said. “Police babysitter?”
“Right,” Emery said, but his frown indicated he thought otherwise.
“You have police following you, Mavus?” Nick said.
“Just to be safe.” Emery’s shoulders tensed at this opening for further questions about what had happened Friday night. The kids in line with Emery all conspicuously tilted their heads to hear more. “I’m, uhh…not allowed to talk about anything while they’re still investigating,” he said, using the rehearsed lines Connor had given him. Tim hadn’t actually told them that.
Connor elbowed Nick in the side with a pointed raise of his eyebrows and a hinting chin-jut at Emery.
“Cheer up, man,” Nick said as he caught on, his voice a low but encouraging rumble. “It’s a shame about the Leonards. They were cool. But at least we get to spend the next hour playing Egyptian Ratscrew. You got the goods, Aurora?”
Aurora shot him a triumphant smirk as they shuffled into the church and down the basement stairs. She pulled a deck of cards from her bag. “Don’t I always?”
~
Today the game had quickly gone down from our group and two others to just me, Connor, and Aurora. She had sharp nails and was lightning fast—a ringer if there were ever any newbies to the game. Nick sat with his hand poised, ready to slap back in if any doubles appeared. Anyone who came over hoping to pry me for details about Friday night was drowned out by the game.
Egyptian Ratscrew, Egyptian War, ERF—whatever name someone gave it, it was the best card game in history, if a little dangerous at times. The main fun came when there were doubles and it became an evil Slapjack—best reflexes won.
I was focusing half of my attention on the game and half on making sure that when I did slap doubles, I didn’t break any bones if there were hands beneath mine. No one had grimaced more than usual so far.
What I was having a harder time controlling was how fast I was. I told myself to hold back with a lighter touch, but once the speed around the circle got going and doubles appeared, I was nearly impossible to beat today. Connor kept shooting me little half-smirks, the only one who knew why I had an edge.
The rest of my senses were sharpened too, something we’d discovered right away over the weekend. I remembered how well I could smell Connor when we were alone in my room. That was still true. It took him three weeks to grow peach fuzz, so he rarely smelled like aftershave, but he used mint-scented shampoo. I’d never noticed it the way I could now.
I let my nose drift around the circle while we played. Jules had this green tea perfume she’d mentioned, but it didn’t smell like green tea to me, more like fresh and earthy. Aurora smelled like strawberries, probably from her body wash. Nick—I coughed and missed a passing pair of doubles. Nick needed new deodorant. Though I was probably the only one who could pick up on the subtleties; it’s
not as if Nick straight-out smelled bad.
I drifted back to Connor’s mint. I really liked that smell, though I think I liked it even better the way it had been Saturday morning, mixed with sawdust and smells from the stage. He smelled like that after a day in his workshop, too; the renovated side of their garage where he and his dad made prosthetics.
I missed another pair of doubles and shook my head. Day-dreaming about how Connor smelled was definitely on my ‘too weird to share with him later’ list. I must have been distracted after what happened outside.
For a moment I’d had that feeling like someone was watching me, that eerie prickling in my periphery, and when I looked, I could have sworn I saw someone duck out of view around the school. I was pretty sure my babysitter was remaining in a vehicle, not stalking around school grounds. Whoever was supposed to be watching me had probably been called in to help with the school sweep anyway.
But then, who had been outside? Even with my new eyesight, whoever it was had been fast enough that all I caught was a blur of black leather.
“Head in the game, Mavus,” Aurora chided me as I missed a pair of Jacks this time.
But it was too late. Even as a superhuman—which Connor kept reminding me I was now—I lost a few turns later as my failed slapping revealed that the rest of my hand was a whole lot of nothing.
Chapter 8
Connor
“I’m just saying, it’s awesome to do a play with equal parts men and women, but hard to be a hundred percent happy about it when one of the female characters runs around in lingerie the whole time as the proverbial dumb blonde bimbo,” Aurora said without looking at Connor. Her eyes were trained on the stage beyond the curtains, her headset securely in place as stage manager, and her long hair rolled into a perfect bun at the back of her head.
Life as a Teenage Vampire Page 6