A Bite at the Cherry: A High School Vampire Bully Romance (Blackburn Academy Book 1)

by Rita Stradling

  Even though I knew it was coming from the moment Nana called me, my heart dropped. I’d already decided against taking the scholarship, but I had needed it to be still on offer so I could compete. At least, I thought it did.

  “You see . . .” he leaned forward, and his voice softened. “You see, darling, there were some real concerns with your mother. If you had been someone who won the scholarship fairly, it would be a different matter. But my wife really felt that she had spoken hastily the other day. At least it was only a week. You’ll understand.” Even though it was only eight thirty in the morning, the man headed over to one of his bookshelves and poured himself a whiskey. He immediately set the drink aside and returned to the desk. Sitting before me, he threaded his fingers together. “I am very sorry about this, January.”

  “Can I still compete in the trials?” I asked, my voice suddenly hoarse.

  “You are registered, and I have no intention to go to all the trouble of unregistering you.” He clicked his tongue. “But, darling, you’re not going to win. You will be competing against athletes with perfect records who have been training for this a long time. I’ll be honest with you right now. I truly believe that my wife wanted to give you the scholarship under some misguided notion that you and our son Justin would end up together. Gina fancies herself a clairvoyant, you see.” He gave me a look that was both sad and vulnerable, and I almost, almost felt bad for the man. He cleared his throat again and loosened his tie. “Well, last night, Justin revealed that you and he had been dating in secret for about a year now. This is what I think truly convinced Gina that her fantasies were misplaced. In her mind, you would be something that changed him for the better, and obviously, as you weren’t a new relationship in his life, that wouldn’t be the case.”

  Points to me for seeing that coming.

  Mr. Roberts pushed his glasses up his nose and studied me carefully. “Is it true that you two have been dating?”

  “Not dating, no.” I swallowed hard. “We’ve known each other for a while now, but we’ve never dated. Justin didn’t want me to have the scholarship. He told me that he would sabotage me. He probably just figured out what the best thing to say was to make that happen.”

  “No one ever said my son was dumb, too smart, maybe, but never dumb.” Pride laced his voice, and it turned my stomach.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t been warned. Justin told me point-blank that his parents would do this, and that he would do everything in his power to make it happen. I shouldn’t even care. I was going to turn down the scholarship anyway. Why did it feel like a betrayal?

  “Well . . .” I stood and offered Mr. Roberts my hand, “I still plan to compete. I’m doing it just for the enrichment of the experience with no expectations whatsoever. But Lucas and his friends have worked really hard to help me, so I owe them doing my best even with little to no hope of success.”

  “Well, I think that is an excellent attitude, and I applaud your decision.” He gave me a firm handshake. He clearly thought that the rejection needed a healthy dose of patronage before I could escape the confines of his office.

  It was two days until the trials began, and I was going to fucking do this.

  As I headed for the door, it swung open and just missed beaming me in the face. Gina Roberts stood in the doorway. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and her posture suggested that she was carrying a hundred pounds of invisible weight. “Hello darling,” she said to her husband while heading into the room. At the desk, Gina turned to face me. The beaming grin on her lips didn’t come close to reaching her eyes. Fuck you was written all over her smile. “And well hello, Miss January.”

  “Good morning to you both.” I made a beeline for the door.

  “Sweetheart?” Gina Roberts called after me.

  My stomach clenched so hard when I turned around that I wondered if it was menstrual cramps, even though I hadn’t had my period since I died. It was something I tried to never think about. But, seeing Gina Roberts’ saccharine smile, I knew that she was the source of the pain.

  “Yes, Mrs. Roberts?” I asked.

  “When exactly did you and Justin start your relationship?” she asked.

  “We hung out, but we were never a couple.”

  “And, what did you do exactly when you hung out?” She asked.

  “Damn it, Gina.” Mr. Roberts smacked the desk. “I am putting my foot down here as I should have done in the first place when you insisted that I give this girl the scholarship.”

  “I suggested it under a false understanding,” Gina said as she slipped her hand over the desk and covered Mr. Roberts’ hand with her own.

  “It was a false understanding of your own making. You do remember that her grades have been consistently stellar all throughout high school.”

  “In schools like those . . .” Gina paused to shrug, “Who knows what the teachers are like and what they’ll accept.”

  There was a very dark edge to her statement, and even if the surface words were merely offensive, I understood her underlying message. She was calling me a whore. Oh, how the winds had changed.

  “No, Gina. I will not let you demonize this poor girl. Justin is responsible for his own actions and decisions. If anything, this girl was probably a good influence on him —”

  Gina breathed out a mocking laugh.

  “— and even if she wasn’t a good influence on him, Justin is about to be eighteen in three weeks. He’s too old for this Brenda made me do it playground behavior. Justin wasted his junior year, and this young lady is not responsible for his lack of progress. It’s bad enough that we dangled a cherry before her and snatched it away. I don’t want to hear that you are making her life any harder than it already is.”

  I wished so much that his statements were true. I was not responsible for Justin’s decisions. I stopped taking responsibility for other people’s addictions a long time ago. But Gina Roberts was also right in wanting her son far away from me.

  “Of course not, darling,” Gina said as her smile returned to her face. She tapped her husband’s hand. “I would never hold January responsible. I simply adore her mother, and this young lady says she’s not in a relationship with my son.”

  “No, we’re not.” I stepped back toward the door. “I don’t care what you think of me, but whether I’m at Blackburn or Hampton, the only thing I’m going to focus on is being healthy and happy. If Justin wants to get better, he has to do it himself just like everyone else in the world.”

  They both stared at me, looking a little shocked.

  “You really do think very highly of yourself, don’t you?” Gina Roberts asked.

  I didn’t have any civil response to Gina, so I just turned around and walked out. By the time I made it down the hill, I had regretted every single word I said in my temper. Gina Roberts was ready to hop on the blame train. And, even though I told Mr. Roberts that Justin purposely sabotaged me, at the end of the day, they thought I should be so honored to have Justin’s attention at all.

  Heat radiated off the concrete as I headed down the access road. The smell of burnt rubber rose from my shoes, and I knew that I should run, but the oppressive heat was too cruel. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, my soles burned.

  A note waited on my door when I arrived.

  We need to talk. Unblock my number and call me when you get this. Please.

  -Justin

  I pulled it down, trudged up to the second floor, and tossed his note in the trash. As I sat at my table and rehydrated with slow sips of water, I got my first good news of the day in the form of a message from the BNP. While I was in the meeting with the Robertses, the BNP called me to tell me that my application to volunteer was approved and they’d love to see me tomorrow if I was free. A tear of relief slipped down my cheek as I called them and said, yes, I would see them tomorrow morning. I would miss four precious hours of studying time the day before the trials, but I would finally be entirely free of Justin Roberts.

  Chapter Twenty-on
e

  “All right, January,” Sleepy McSleepster said as he turned over the open sign on the door. His hand came up and hid a yawn. “We close at noon every day that the BNP has a surplus, but that can fluctuate quickly. If we have another disaster, we’ll need you for long hours.”

  Sleepy was actually named Gary, and Gary was the BNP Phlebotomist. The BNP local office was barely a hole in the wall of a small brick building on the fringes of midtown. There had been a steady flow of people coming in all day, and Sleepy had immediately put me to work making them comfortable, giving intake forms, and providing juice after they donated. Seeing as that workload wasn’t a problem, he had me sign paperwork that said that I was legally bound to keep all information I learned confidential, and then he added inputting records into my workload, along with sending the data to both processing and the lab. When that wasn’t a problem, he added in labeling and bringing both the small testing vials and the larger donation pints into cold storage.

  So, by the end of the day, I had access to personal health histories and the means to erase all records of blood donations as well as the opportunity to slip packages of blood into my backpack, which I did as Gary snuck into his office for his second nap.

  Yes, I felt guilty about it. But the alternative was either getting someone addicted to my bite, dying, or killing people. Every time guilt hit, I whispered, “Blood surplus.”

  My guess was that a blood surplus rarely lasted long, and I would need to steal even in a blood shortage, but for now, it soothed my guilt.

  “Good work today,” Gary said as he headed back toward his desk. “Are you available Monday?”

  “I can do Monday, Wednesday, Friday,” I said as I hefted up my backpack and headed toward the door. If I came in three times a week, I could change up my stealing schedule. It was Wondermart all over again. I told Susie that I wouldn’t live that way now, but it was a lie. I would always do what I needed to survive, physically and emotionally.

  I shouted back a goodbye and then headed into the midday heat. The library was only six blocks away, but within one, I was starting to fear that the blood I stashed in my backpack would boil. I was going to have to come up with a better system. My other fear as I jogged through the park, was that the blood bags would break. How the hell was I going to explain a blood-soaked textbook to Zack and Lucas when it came time to return the books tomorrow.

  I got into the glorious air-conditioning of the public library and made an automatic beeline to the restrooms. As soon as I was in the stall, I took out the bags, relieved to find they had only heated to room temperature. As disgusting as it was, I sat on the toilet, extended my fangs, and drank all three of my stolen blood bags like salty, metallic-tasting juice boxes. After I was done, I folded the bags up real tight, wrapped them in toilet paper, and threw them away in the sanitary dispensary.

  The tingling warmth that filled me from drinking the blood was a mere shadow of what I experienced each time with Justin. But I was full by the time I left the stall. Finding the bathroom empty, I washed out my mouth, but I still tasted the iron tang of blood. I probably smelled like it too. I was going to need to start to carry around a toothbrush and toothpaste. I made do with a stick of gum, inspected my shirt for any stray drops, and then headed out into the central area of the library.

  This was my new life.

  This was my new reality.

  I would leave Hampton, volunteer and steal blood, and then head to the public library to drink plasma juice boxes on the toilet.

  I would have to be okay with that.

  Lucas and Zack waited in the noise-cancelation room, and a new wave of guilt hit me as I took the seat across from them. “Shit. I forgot you guys were going to take off work to help me, and I have bad news.”

  “Is it that Mr. and Mrs. Roberts pulled the plug on you, Blondie?” Zack asked as he leaned back in his chair and webbed his hands behind his head. “We know.”

  “Mr. Roberts called to tell me that while my help was appreciated in the past few days, they were redirecting their scholarship toward its normal path. He added that since all of my labor was unnecessary, they no longer planned to compensate me.” Lucas leaned his elbows on the table and grinned over. “Which means that Mr. Roberts completely forgot that he never offered to compensate me.”

  “Which means . . .” Zack added with a smile in his eyes, “That Lucas could probably tell Mr. Roberts that he’s offered to compensate for all kinds of work and just forgotten about it.”

  Lucas barked out a laugh. “That will be the day. I’m pretty sure this forgetting to pay thing is a one-way street. Anyway, we’re still in if you are.”

  Unzipping my backpack, I pulled out Zack’s calculus and biochem textbooks and sighed. “You know that there’s pretty much no chance that I’m going to get in, right? Maybe subsidizing my scores with the academic test will inflate my other scores enough to pass, but there’s no way that my character interview and obstacle course scores will put me in the top point five percent.”

  Lucas shrugged. “As far as we’re concerned, if you ace the test, we helped you on and you’re good with it, we’re one hundred percent good, and we’re proud of what we did here with you.”

  “Those rich assholes love to play these beneficent gods with us.” Zack’s chair slapped down, and he leaned in next to his brother. “We’d like to think rebelling against that matters, even if it doesn’t end up making a bit of difference to them. And, at least we all got a potential friend out of it — God knows that we could use more of those.”

  “Thanks.” His words actually did make me feel better because I might not get a scholarship out of this, but if we managed to keep in contact, I could have just made four or five new friends. God knew that I could use more of them too.

  We dove into cramming the last five chapters of the calculus book. Between the bags of blood and the new surge of determination I felt with the Baldwin brothers’ kindness, the algorithms and theorems came with an ease I hadn’t felt up to this point, and six hours later, we were closing the calc book while our stomachs grumbled. I offered to buy the guys burgers, something I budgeted for in advance, but the Baldwin brothers insisted that they would pay for themselves before they immediately invited everyone in the Bad Boys Club. We ended up piling into a booth at the wonderfully familiar Alfred’s Country Diner.

  The announcement that the Robertses were pulling my scholarship went over with a chorus of grumbles and complaints, but I got the feeling that this crew wasn’t all that surprised. No one said, “What the hell?” But Mia and Michael said something along the lines of, “The Robertses are assholes.”

  “Or, maybe the Robertses have it right.” Everyone turned to look at Patrick, who was glaring at me from the end of the table.

  “Surprise, surprise,” Michael muttered from a few seats down.

  “Hey Patrick, all of us . . .” Susie paused to gesture around the table, “came to support January the night before her trials. If that’s not why you’re here, please just leave.”

  Patrick didn’t even seem to notice, he just leaned back and smirked. “Rumor is, this chick has been dating Justin Roberts since last summer. All this time, they were meeting up in secret.”

  From the glances that more than one person at the table shot my way, they’d heard this rumor as well.

  The look Patrick was leveling on me was pure hate. “Rumor is that she’s the reason he turned into the guy we now call Satan and the reason that all of us have been going through hell for a year now.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Mia demanded loud enough to have a couple of the nearby patrons glare at our table. “Every time a guy does something bad, everyone tries to find the nearest person with tits to blame it on. There’s no such thing as an evil temptress. It’s a trope that enforces patriarchy.”

  “All right.” Zack held up his hands. “Here, here. This is getting a little deep for January’s support dinner. Patrick, you’re welcome to shut the hell up or leave and cool
off somewhere else,” Zack said. “Mia, while I have about ten counterarguments and always enjoy a verbal spar with you, let’s table that debate for when we all have full stomachs, yeah?”

  Patrick stood from the table. “You’re going to fail. We all know that, and we’re just here for a laugh.”

  “Seriously, Patrick; you know what the difference between you and the legacy kids are?” Mia asked as she crossed her arms.

  He turned his glower on her. “I’m sure you’ll condescend to tell me. Though I do seem to remember that you are a legacy kid.”

  “There’s no difference, Patrick,” she snapped. “There’s no difference between you and the people who mistreated you. You’re just angry because you want to be bullying from their side of the fence instead of ours. You’re the only one who came here for a laugh. The rest of us are here because we like January and we wish she could join us next year.”

  “Except you’ll never be on our side of the fence, Mia. You’re just on vacation. As soon as the summer is over, you’ll be one of them.” Patrick shot her the middle finger and walked out of the diner.

  “Who’s getting a milkshake? I don’t want to do it alone!” Susie called so loud that it was clear she was changing the subject.

  On my other side, Mia leaned across Lucas. “Please feel free to forget Patrick is alive.”

  “Thanks, Mia. Already forgotten,” I said, looking down at the milkshake list. In the few times I’d come here before, I’d ordered water or lemonade. Ordering a drink that cost as much as your meal just seemed ludicrous to me, but tonight, I decided to splurge. I’d planned to pay for the Baldwin brothers, anyway.

  We all toasted with milkshakes and talked about happy nothings, and for one blessed night, I got to pretend that this was my group of high school friends, and I would soon be joining them at the Academy.