“I suppose that’s all you really need to know, huh? Well, if you ever want a tour of the hemoshake plant, let me know,” she said. “It’s located beneath the hospital and I can get you the VIP tour.”
“Okay,” I said. “I had no idea the plant was here. That’s kinda cool.”
Octavia leaned over and patted my knee. “You also have no idea why I’m here, do you?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered truthfully.
“I’m here because your momma knows I can tell if you’ve bitten someone. I have a gift.”
Hope blossomed in my chest. “Awesome! Because I really need to know what happened.”
“I know you’re worried; I felt it all the way in my office when you stepped into the hospital.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a box. “Let’s get this going. I’m going to do two things with you, okay? The first thing I’m going to ask for is a venom sample.”
“Seriously? But I just gave one to Mom.” I looked over at Momma.
“How much do you need, Tave? I’ve got a vial, but I’m still planning to run a test against the venom in the boy.”
“Just a couple of drops.” Octavia opened the box and pulled out a stick that looked amazingly like a pregnancy test.
“Do I have to pee on that?”
Octavia’s laugh was deep and full of warmth. “No, honey. I’m working with the Vampire Commission to get a patent for this little test. If you bit Noah, there will be some of his DNA residue in your venom. But this test is only about seventy-five percent accurate, so I have to continue to develop it until I get much more precise results. I think we’re going to call it Clearbite Easy. Clever, huh?”
“Uh, sure. The Vampire Commission?”
Tave stared at Mom.
“Lizzie, have you not told this child anything about our world? Shame on you.”
My mom just laughed as she handed Octavia the vial. “Don’t blame me. This child is much happier pretending that vampires are just a myth. I’ve given her the history, and I promise to tell her more in the future. It was just easier to let her pretend, until now. It felt safer that way. You know, with Clive going back to the Serpentines and all.”
Tave waved her hand dismissively. “Your husband was weak. Good thing you had me to get you through. Now, AJ, I need you to close your eyes and hold out your hands, palms up. I’m assuming your mother has taught you how to focus on the white? I need you to do that for me now. And I have to warn you, whatever you start seeing I’ll see as well. Are you ready?”
“I guess so.”
I did exactly as she instructed. Octavia held my hands in hers, and I focused on the white.
It took a few minutes to get the canvas behind my eyes to go blank. I’m sure some part of me was resisting. Part of me didn’t want to know if I had bitten Noah. A very strong part of me.
But finally the white appeared, and I relaxed a bit. My palms grew warm. The heat spread from my hands, up my arms, into my body.
The white sparked bright, and suddenly it was Saturday night again. I was watching myself with Noah. I saw his anger when I stopped things. The more I watched, the more alive my own anger grew.
My mind flashed forward. But the only thing I could see was darkness. I felt only fury. Fierce anger like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
Suddenly, I was no longer standing in the dark; I was running through the woods—crying. My shirt was soaked with blood and I was hysterical. Where was everyone? What had happened?
Octavia released my hands, startled.
“AJ, AJ!” she said.
She and my mom were both calling to me, but I couldn’t seem to come back to them. I couldn’t find them.
I heard a smack and my face stung. “AJ, dammit! Wake up,” Mom yelled.
The connection was finally broken, and I collapsed back in the chair, exhausted. I looked at Octavia’s face, and a sense of dread bloomed inside me.
“Did I bite Noah?”
“Honey, something definitely happened, but I have no idea what. I couldn’t tell if that was a real memory or a dream. This has never happened before,” she said. “I saw you running, I felt your panic, but your thoughts were blank. Empty. There was nothing but fear and anger. And blood.”
She picked up the Clearbite Easy test and said, “The good news is, the test is negative.”
“Yeah, but with only a seventy-five percent accuracy,” I said. “And I did slice his tongue, so shouldn’t it read positive?”
“The DNA transfer happens when you actively inject someone with your venom. An incidental slice to the tongue wouldn’t do it,” Tave assured me.
My mom looked at me. “If Octavia’s test says you didn’t bite Noah, then I believe it.”
I wished I could be so sure.
Chapter 9
Octavia had left and I was finishing off a hemoshake trying to recover when the intercom buzzed.
“Excuse me, Liz, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a police officer here asking to see AJ.”
“Just a moment, Laura,” Mom said. She walked around the desk and held my hand tightly. “You don’t have to speak to him yet if you’re not ready.”
“Why would he want to speak to me?”
“I’m sure they’re interviewing all the kids at the party. Like I said, if you’re not ready—”
“No. I’m fine. Just don’t leave me.”
Mom opened her office door and invited the officer inside. My nervousness zipped out of me when I saw Cody Littleton. Thank God it wasn’t the big dog, Sheriff Al Christopher. Cody is just a couple of years older than me, so he is a puppy compared to Big Al.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Cody said, removing his tan deputy hat as he entered the room. His reddish brown hair is cut military short, which would be intimidating if it weren’t counterbalanced by his freckled face and soft green eyes.
“Hiya, AJ,” he said with a nod.
“Hey, Cody.”
He walked over to the couch and sat next to me, placing his hat on his lap. He played with the rim like he was nervous. “I’m real sorry about your friend. And I’m even sorrier that I have to ask you some questions.”
“It’s all right.”
He pulled out his spiral notebook and flipped through a couple of pages. “Several people reported that they saw you and Noah together on Saturday night. Is that true?”
I glanced over at Mom, and she reassured me with a smile. “Yes,” I answered.
“How together were you?”
“What do you mean, Cody?” my mother snapped.
He glanced nervously from his notebook to me to my mother. “I’m sorry, Dr.—”
“It’s Fraser now,” Mom said, when he hesitated at her last name.
“Dr. Fraser. I do apologize for having to ask such an indelicate question. But we have reports that AJ and Noah were quite close on Saturday night, if you get my drift.”
My cheeks burned red—almost as red as Cody’s. Maybe having Mom stay for my questioning wasn’t such a brilliant idea. Nothing quite like being questioned about your sex life in front of your mom by the southern version of Ron Weasley.
“I get your drift just fine, young man. What does that have to do with his death?”
“Well, ma’am. It seems your stepson was seen with Noah, too.” He cleared his throat. “He apparently caught AJ and Noah in a compromising position. We have reports that Ryan was jealous and angry. And since he was the last person seen with Noah and since it looks like Noah had been in a fight before he died…” He trailed off to let us draw our own conclusions.
“That’s not what happened,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I mean, it was kinda what happened, but not exactly. And I knew Ryan had nothing to do with Noah’s death. “There was no way Ryan beat Noah up and just left him there. He’s not that guy.”
“Oh? Well, by all means, clear this up for us, AJ. All we want is a firsthand account of the situation.”
“Noah and I did go off into
the woods together and we did make out for a little bit. But then I stopped things because it was getting out of hand and I wasn’t ready.”
“And he was okay with you stopping?”
“No. He tried to force me to touch him and when he stuck his tongue down my throat again, I bit it.”
“And is that when Ryan found you?”
“Yes, but not just Ryan. Bridget Craig and Malia Gervase were with him.”
“What happened then?” he asked, steadily making notes on the pad.
“I told Noah off, and we left.”
“All of you?”
This wasn’t fair. I had to tell the truth, even though my gut told me Ryan hadn’t done anything. If anyone was to blame, it was me. I couldn’t lie to a police officer, could I? No. Never. I couldn’t.
Not even for Ryan.
“Yes, we all left together.”
Never mind, I guess I could. Great. Looks like I just purchased a one-way ticket on the handbasket to hell.
Cody cocked a copper eyebrow. “You and the girls, right?”
“No, all of us. Ryan, too.”
“Hm,” Cody said, scribbling another note. I leaned over to try to see what he was writing, but he closed the notebook before I could get a good look.
“Hm, what?” I asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about, AJ. Thank you for your time. We’ll be back in touch if we have any more questions.”
Cody placed his hat back on his head and tipped it toward Mom. “Thank ya kindly, Dr. Fraser.”
“You’re welcome, Cody. Give my best to your momma.”
Mom closed the door, then turned back toward me with her arms folded across her chest. “What’s gotten into you?” she accused. “First you booze it up at a party and now you’re lying to a police officer. This is just not like you, AJ.”
“What?” I said, trying not to stammer. “What do you mean?”
“I saw that look on your face just before you answered that last question. You lied to him.”
I sighed. “Mom, do you think Ryan beat Noah up?”
“No. But—”
“But nothing. He didn’t. I know it, and you know it.”
“You lied to keep him out of trouble. That is never a smart thing to do. You need to call Cody right now and tell him the truth.”
“I already told you, we all left together.”
“Ariel Jane, this will come back to bite you in the ass, and you know it.”
“Well, it’s something I’ll have to live with, then. Ryan couldn’t do that to Noah. He couldn’t do that to anyone.”
“AJ, you’re not a liar. You’ve never been a liar. Why do this?”
My heart felt like a wrung-out washcloth. She was right. The truth had always been important to me, even though I live a lie every day. Now that I think about it, honesty is important because I live this lie. It’s not easy being one thing and pretending to be something else.
Lying didn’t feel right. But I could live with it, because Ryan getting into trouble over something I know he didn’t do would’ve felt much, much worse.
“Ryan wasn’t there. We all left together.”
With those four words I completed my transformation from Dudette Do-Right to Little Miss Deviant.
Guilt clung to me like Saran Wrap as I drove home. The more I tried to shake my brain clear, the more layers of cling wrap I had to fight. My gut knotted and my heart hammered as I worked to force any thought of Noah out of my brain.
But I couldn’t get rid of him. The more I struggled, the more I felt suffocated by my own apprehension.
I pulled into the driveway to find Ryan waiting for me.
“We need to talk,” he said as I closed the car door.
“Can’t this wait?”
“I don’t think so. C’mon.” He grabbed me by the elbow and escorted me to the backyard. A tire swing swayed gently in the breeze, practically inviting me to sit down. So I did.
“I’m tired, Ryan. I really don’t have anything to say.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, his brown eyes dark with worry.
“Never better.” I laughed bitterly and toed the ground, launching the tire into a creaky sway.
“Cody Littleton came to see me today,” Ryan said. “He thinks I beat Noah up and left him unconscious.”
“Yeah, I got that feeling. He came to see me, too.”
“I wanted to kill Noah, but I didn’t.”
“I know that. You don’t have it in you to hurt someone like that. If you were that guy, I wouldn’t have ever gone out with you in the first place.” Much less let him under my shirt.
“I’m really sorry about Saturday night.” He paused. “I miss you.”
I missed him, too. I looked into his dark eyes and sighed as a blanket of chills covered me. It would be so easy to forget today. To forget Noah and the possibility that I was evil in a short skirt and just run away with Ryan like my parents had done. Of course, we all know what a good idea that had been.
“Ryan, I—”
Ryan stopped the swing and pulled me into a hug. I breathed in his scent. Earthy, spicy, and magically delicious. He pulled back, took my face in his hands. I closed my eyes and brought my hands to his arms, waiting for a kiss that shouldn’t happen, but one I needed with every drop of blood in my body.
He leaned in and I mirrored the motion, sliding my palm along his arm to his hand. I felt him flinch and it startled me. I opened my eyes and pulled his right hand off my face and glanced at his knuckles.
My heart fell when I saw the bruises and swelling. Grabbing his left hand, I removed the Band-Aids that covered his swollen knuckles. Dried blood crusted around the open wounds.
“You lied to me.” The irony of the situation hit me in the gut like an iron mallet.
“No.”
“Yes. You did. And I covered for you.” My hands were shaking. My voice cracked.
“I never asked you to do that, AJ.”
“I told Cody you left with me last night.”
“Why would you do something so stupid? Now it just makes me look guilty!”
“Isn’t that what you are?” My insides were a jumble of live wires sparking and shocking their way through my system. Had I been wrong about Ryan? Did he beat Noah up and leave him there for me to suck the remaining breath from his unconscious body? Were we like some anti-superhero duo, working together to spread our evil stepsibling karma across the planet?
“I covered for you! I lied for you! I hate liars and now you’ve turned me into one.”
“I never asked you to cover for me, AJ. Don’t blame your stupidity on me. Living a lie can be a bitch, so either come clean or deal with it.”
Who the hell was he talking to about living a lie? I was the queen of dichotomy. Perfect little human girl on the outside. Raging out-of-control vamp on the inside. I knew lies. I just didn’t like liars. (Yes, I know. I’m also a hypocrite.)
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you. I hope you’re ready to take your own advice. So you want me to call Cody and tell him, or are you going to, as you put it, ‘come clean or deal with it’?”
“I didn’t kill Noah,” he said quietly.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
His silence was all the answer I needed. “The water can get really cold in the River Denial,” I said.
And I should know.
Chapter 10
What else could go wrong?
(Okay, just for the record, one should never ask that question, ’cause inevitably something else will happen….)
It really wasn’t like Ryan to keep things from me—especially important things like “Oh, by the way, I beat the shit outta Noah last night but I didn’t kill him. He was alive and kicking when I left.”
The truth was, I no more believed Ryan killed Noah than I believed in Santa Claus. The bigger truth—no matter what my momma and that “bite” test said, I still had doubts about my own innocence. I could only hope I’d feel better when Momma got those venom
test results back.
The guilt weighed like a wet blanket, heavy on my back and shoulders, as I thought about Noah. Suddenly I could smell moss and wet leaves. As I had been in my mom’s office, I was transported back to Saturday night, to the moment I licked the sweat from his neck. My heart kicked it up a notch and my mouth watered.
But a movement by the window startled me. I shifted to glance outside as the hairs on my neck stood on end. I quickly scanned the woods.
I was going out of my mind. As if someone was really out there watching me. From my second-floor window. What a schizo.
My cell phone rang as I crossed myself and pulled the shade down. My Catholic guilt might make me paranoid, but it didn’t hurt to cover my window, anyway.
I sat down on the edge of my bed and answered, “Hello.” Spike stretched and meandered over to me, plopping down on my lap.
“Hey,” Malia said. “Are you okay? You nearly plowed me over running out of the office today.”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I had just found out about Noah and was totally out of my head. Sorry about that.”
“No prob. Finding out about Noah nearly did everyone in. They released us after the announcement today. You could’ve heard a pin drop in the gym when they told us. Except for the sniffling, it was dead quiet.”
Dead quiet. How appropriate.
“So, anyway, I was calling to warn you about tomorrow,” Malia said with an edge to her voice.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Can you believe Crabby Crandall scheduled a pop quiz for tomorrow? She’s giving us a ten-question test over tonight’s reading assignment. That woman is completely out of her mind! She knows everyone is in shock over Noah and that the reading won’t get done. Oh, and I heard they’re having a memorial service tomorrow. You wanna go after school?”
I sighed and felt my shoulders slump. The very idea of going to Noah’s memorial service made me sick to my stomach. “Yeah. Let’s go together. I’m sure Bridget will come, too. So, how did you find out about the test? Is it on the syllabus?” The one I didn’t get.
“I don’t think so. I was still registering during her class, so I didn’t get a syllabus. I overheard her talking to her evil minion assistant outside of the teachers’ lounge after all the students were dismissed today. They were both so giddy, their dried-up raisin faces were almost plump with delight.”
Bite Me! Page 6