Bloodlines

by Trisha Lynn

Chapter Four

  After lunch she had American Literature and then Chemistry and that made up the remainder of her day. American Lit went by easily enough, she sat next to Amber Martin who had bright red hair and pretty green eyes and a silly giggly laugh that always made Adeila smile even if what the girl was laughing at wasn't even funny to her. She actually enjoyed the class. Mr. Jones was a really pleasant teacher with an easy teaching style.

  Adeila breezed out of the class, talking to Amber about the newest TV series they were hooked on. Erik caught up to them and smiled at Amber. “Hello, ladies. May I escort you?” He put his arm out for both of them, and it was so silly, both girls giggled and humored him.

   Erik was slowly, each day acting more and more like the sweet boyfriend she knew he could be. He'd never been this silly and happy with Sadie in public, and it made Adeila feel like they may actually have a shot with this whole relationship thing.

  When they dropped Amber off at her locker and continued on to her Chemistry classroom, her hand was still on his arm, and he smiled at her and touched his other hand to hers for a brief second. They were certainly making progress.

  “I'm really looking forward to this afternoon.” His voice lowered, and was so incredibly sexy that she almost tripped trying to stare at him. She'd never heard that husky tone and it made her slightly weak in the knees.

  She couldn't just drool stupidly and not respond. “Me too.”

  He shocked her further by pressing another very innocent kiss to her cheek before leaving her at the door.

  She was grinning like a complete fool when she stepped into the classroom. She instantly saw many students standing at the front of the classroom and she looked toward Mrs. Anderson, who ushered her over to them.

  Once all students stood along the front wall, Mrs. Anderson finally address them.

  “As you all may recall we were studying the effect that soda and other harsh drinks have on our teeth. But first I'd like to introduce our new student.”

  The new kid with his strange golden, hazel colored eyes stepped out from the right side corner and into the center by the teacher’s desk.

  “This is Loki Staghorne. Please make him feel welcome.”

  Several greetings and welcomes went through the classroom, before Mrs. Anderson continued. “Now we are having a lab today, so before taking our seats I'd like to assign lab partners and get right into this.”

  She grabbed a paper off her desk, and gestured to where several one liter soda bottles were lined up on a table, varying brands and types.

  Mrs. Anderson began reading off names for lab partners, but Adeila was barely listening, her focus was on so many things. Erik, mostly, but also on the uncomfortable feeling that was plaguing her just being in the same room as this new guy.

  When she heard her name, she looked up, but had clearly missed whose name was connected to hers. She looked about, assuming that student would come to her. Her eyes connected to one of the only students left standing, his golden hazel eyes were locked on her.

  He began walking slowly over to her, and her heart dipped in her chest and that tell-tale weird buzzing zinged up her arms, causing the hair on her arms and back of her neck to stand at attention. Goosebumps broke out all over her, and she gulped as he moved within a foot from her.

  She watched, dazed, as he extended a hand towards her. She just stared at it, and then her attention climbed up to his wrist. With a jolt, she noticed the tattoo. It was a light blue color tribal around his wrist and up his arm. Snaking all the way up into the sleeve of his t-shirt; many different designs interlocking. She'd never really thought too much about tattoos, even though she was turning eighteen in a month, she'd never really been able to decide on something to get inked to her body forever. His were beautiful though, and mysterious. She'd never seen tribal so flowing and intricate.

  He looked around, and then back at her. “I thought this was an acceptable greeting around here?”

  There was humor in his voice, and she gulped again. Like the saliva in her mouth was just too much, she kept having trouble getting it all down. The electric feeling, like static - much like when you first take a sweater out of the dryer - buzzed all along her and it was seriously creeping her out.

  She nodded, solemnly, and blew a breath out of her parted lips. Just being this close to him intensified the feeling, she didn't really want to touch him, but he had given her no polite choice. People were starting to stare. Steeling herself, she took his hand in hers. His palm was rougher then she'd ever imagined teenagers hands could be, and she could almost hear the snap of the electrical current as it zinged up her arm. She quickly dropped his hand and turned away, blowing out a breath as her stomach knotted.

  She was his lab partner! How was she going to get through this? Fate was cruel. To her surprise he moved around her and grabbed a soda at random, then picked up the cup that consisted of incredibly disgusting dentures, which made Adeila almost nauseous. How her teacher acquired these was not something she wished to ever find out, and hoped that that was part of the speech she'd spaced out on. He also jumbled the items to grab the lab sheet they were supposed to fill out. Feeling completely useless, she came over and grabbed the paper.

  She mumbled a sorry, and he shrugged. “I had it.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and moved to an open lab station.

  They worked in companionable silence for a few moments setting things up, pouring their soda into a cup, then putting the dentures inside. The lab insisted that they would be putting the cup with soda and dentures in a cabinet and checking on them a week later. Goody. But in the meantime they were supposed to fill two cups and put some plastic paper thing inside of the soda cup and see what the results were.

  They did this, unspoken between them; Loki was the demonstrator and she the observer and writer. They worked well together. He told her exactly what he was doing next, and she wrote things down. He was highly intelligent from what she could make out from the way he spoke; if not a little odd in some of the ways he said things, as if he was from a different country, although he didn't appear to have much of an accent.

  His eyes were mesmerizing, whenever they met hers, she was held. Spellbound. They were many different colors, flecked and ringed. Her first impression of hazel was an understatement. They began as deep green, and then faded to honey gold with flecks of dark gray in the center. She'd seen nothing like that in her life, and she'd always been interested in people's eye colors. She'd always known how interesting hazel eyes could be, they were probably the most beautiful of colors, because they could contain so many flakes of different colors, but his eyes in particular were intriguing.

  She mentally shook herself, this kid was weird, and creeped her out. She should not find anything about his eyes attractive at all, or his tattoo. But she couldn't help it, she was fascinated by both.

  She found herself desperate to find out what his tattoo meant, or tattoos, depending on how you looked at it. It appeared to all interlock and connect, but she couldn't be too sure. Staring at it too much would certainly make her look insane. Its style was like a mixture between Celtic, tribal and Polynesian. She noticed some stars scattered throughout the lines. Some lines were strong and straight, some soft and intertwined. Like it was some kind of secret message, or map.

  She had to shake herself out of the thoughts to focus on the paper in front of her. The buzzing within her blood was still there, like a headache that was a constant ache instead of a deep pain. She could almost ignore it, until their eyes met and held, then it rushed and fizzed just a little more. She tried really hard to focus on the lab, but found that her panic of this whole situation was starting to get to her.

  The last few minutes of class, they were supposed to clean up, then put their little denture project into the cupboard. Loki got up to put their experiment in the closet for them, as she finished putting their names on the paper and a few more random notes. When he came back, he sat briefly to finish getting his things together; she
stood up to start cleaning up and went to reach for a cup with dark soda in it. She clumsily toppled it over onto the table, the liquid rushed across the table and onto Loki's lap. He jumped up, quickly, but before he could avoid it entirely, some liquid did land on his pants. He grabbed something from the table as he leapt up but she barely noticed in her utter horror.

  “OH MY GOSH! I am so sorry!” She grabbed paper towels that were luckily close by and handed him several. She hovered about him, as he dabbed at his jeans.

  “It's fine. No harm.”

  “No really! I am so, so sorry! I'm so clumsy. I knock drinks over on my friends, like, all the time.”

  He looked up at her, and smirked. “Yeah, I bet you do. This happens to me all the time too.”

  She briefly scoffed at his humor, but couldn't help but feel incredibly guilty that she had gotten soda on the new kid’s pants. Some first day.

  He picked up the overturned cup and began mopping up the mess on the table. She almost hit herself on the head at her stupidity and slowness. She rushed over and began helping him. The teacher came over and tsked them and told them to be more careful.

  Loki smiled, otherworldly enigmatic, and waved the lab paper. “Saved it.”

  He handed it to the teacher. The teacher smiled and batted her lashes, clearly feeling the effects of his magnetic smile.

  Adeila slunk her shoulders and thanked him for saving the paper. Quick thinking on his part, and she really was grateful, but she couldn't even bring herself to return his smile.

  She mumbled “I'm sorry” numerous more times as they cleaned up the mess together; she barely even noticed the charged feeling when they brushed elbows because she was so embarrassed.

  After they'd cleaned up and thrown away soda soaked paper towels, they washed their sticky hands, moving silently and easily together. Not that either of them noticed it. Silently they walked back to the lab table and collected their bags, he thrust his over his shoulders, and waited for her to do the same.

  “Loki, I'm -”

  He held up a hand. “Adeila, really. I get it. You’re sorry. It's fine, seriously. Last class of the day. I'm not here to impress anyone, who cares if I have a soda stain. Wouldn't have been a real first day, in a new school, if something hadn't gone wrong. If this is the least of my worries, I'm pretty sure I can handle it.” He smiled, reassuringly.

  The bell rang. She looked up and then back at him and bit her lip.

  “I know it's just-”

  “Adeila, if I hear I'm sorry one more time, I'm going to dump soda on you just so we're even.” He grinned, the humor lighting his eyes. They turned a warm honey golden color with his emotion, and for the first time she didn't feel creeped out by the charged feeling. More mesmerized then anything. That was her word for how she felt around Loki. Mesmerized or maybe mystified.

  Something was off about him that was for sure, but she hated to admit this encounter made her feel less creeped out by him. Maybe because he wasn't being a jerk, at all, for something that most people would have been pissed about.

  “Okay.” Was the only response she could muster as she gazed at him. Just then she felt a hand on her arm, she looked at it a moment before following it's appendage up to the face. Erik.

  “Hey, I got worried when you didn't come right out.” Erik's eyes went to Loki, and they remained there. The two studied each other.

  She swallowed. “Ah, Erik, this is Loki. He's the new student.”

  They shook hands. She confessed. “I dumped soda on him from our lab experiment.”

  Erik laughed, and ran a hand up her arm. “Sorry about my girl's clumsiness dude, happens to the best of us.”

  She whipped her head up and stared at him. She remembered knocking a cup of grape soda over at Marissa's party, narrowly avoiding him. He really did know all about this situation. It was the my girl part that got her. He was laying claim to her, finally. She couldn't help it, her mouth hung slightly open when she turned to Loki. He was smiling thinly; it wasn't even a fraction of the smile he had given her moments before. This smile seemed forced, and didn't match his eyes.

  Erik looked down at her, then back to Loki. “Hey, see you around man.”

  He gripped her arm, and began walking to the door way, ushering her along with him. She looked over her shoulder, and waved at Loki. He watched her go, and she snuck one more peak at him as they rounded the doorway. Something about the way he was looking at her, like recognition or awareness. Something she could not decipher. It was so odd, but not in the disconcerting way.