Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance

by Larranaga, James Michael

  “Over here, Darius.”

  She’s in the family room that overlooks the lake and she’s with her parents on an L-shaped couch. Now I’m self-conscious. I remember the beanbag chair.

  “This is Darius,” Shelby announces to her dad.

  “He’s in Vampire Club,” Mrs. Rork adds. “Isn’t that right?”

  I nod as if yes, I’m a charter member of V-Club. Apparently it’s important to the Rorks that their daughter hang out with other soon-to-be Vamps.

  “Hello,” Mr. Rork says, standing from the couch, shaking my hand.

  He’s dressed in a suit and tie, hair combed straight back with lots of gel that glistens with each head movement. His smile gives way to sharp fangs. He’s a dapper, corporate Vampire, the total package.

  “Shelby mentioned you’re in a band,” he says, “and you’ll play at her party next week?”

  “Yeah, we were checking out the backyard. There’s plenty of room on the stage,” I say, pointing out the window.

  He stands, walks to the window and looks out at the stage. He’s tall, over six three, and in good shape. There’s no soft belly on Mr. Rork. How old is this Vampire?

  “What kind of music do you play?” he asks me.

  “They play everything,” Shelby says to her dad. “They even have their own songs.”

  “Uh, we’re eclectic, I guess. We play Goth Rock and Punk. We also cover blues and rock songs for the older people.”

  “So what you’re telling me is it might get loud?” Mr. Rork says. He makes a ridiculous air guitar with his hands, and Shelby rolls her eyes.

  “We should warn the neighbors,” Mrs. Rork says.

  “The louder we play, the better my voice sounds,” I joke. “Yeah, you’d better tell the neighbors.”

  “Very good!” Mr. Rork says, with a pat on my shoulder.

  “Shelby, are you giving Darius a ride home?” Mrs. Rork asks.

  “I told her I’d run home,” I say.

  Mr. Rork sits down between his wife and daughter. They’re like the model parents, seated together at the end of the day, sipping wine, watching the sunset. Would my parents have done this if my dad were still alive?

  Shelby leans toward her dad and whispers, “Isn’t he perfect?”

  I pretend like I didn’t hear it, but I’m curious about what she means. I’m perfect for what?

  “I can drive you home, Darius,” Shelby says, standing from the couch.

  “No, really, I need to run anyway. I’m getting in shape, and it’s only a couple of miles from here.”

  “Getting in shape? You’re skinny as a rail. Are you training for something?” Mr. Rork asks.

  I can’t tell them about the upcoming fight. If parents find out, then the school finds out, then it becomes a tangled mess. I’m too far into my training to blow it now. “Training for a 5k race.”

  “The Halloween Haunt?” Mr. York asks.

  At first I’m taken aback by the question. Where had I heard of that race before? Then I remember Mr. Striefland mentioned it when I bumped into him on my morning run.

  “Yeah, that one,” I say.

  “My dad’s running it, too!” Shelby says, offering me a high five from the couch.

  I slap her hand. “Oh, cool…awesome.” Fuggars! Why does Shelby’s dad have to be one of those fit Vampires like Jack?

  “You look like you’re in great shape. What pace do you race at?” Mr. Rork asks. “I bet you run least at a seven-minute mile,” he says, sipping his wine.

  I know nothing about running or racing, no clue what he’s talking about. Jack never mentions pace. All he says is “jog to burn off the Soda.” I never wear a running watch, and I never care how fast I’m running.

  “I’m a jogger, Mr. Rork. Slow as a turtle. I just run to keep in shape.”

  “Darius is actually very athletic,” Shelby says, as she reaches and holds my hand.

  “Ah, I bet you’re being modest,” Mr. Rork says. “I look forward to seeing you at the starting line next week. It’s the same day as Shelby’s party, so we’ll both have to hustle back in time, right?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” I reply. “Well, it’s getting dark and I need to hit the road…”

  Mr. Rork hops up from the couch and escorts Shelby and me to the front door. He reminisces about his running, how he’s overcome injuries by cross-training and testing different running shoes. He shows me the Nike running app on his phone and the 120 miles he’s logged in the past month.

  He looks down at my Converse high-tops. “You’re not running home in those, are you?”

  “I left my Nikes in my locker.” A total lie because I don’t own running shoes. I borrow Jack’s, and I have no idea what brand they are.

  “You want to borrow a pair of mine? What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Dad, gross, no!” Shelby says.

  “It’s only a couple of miles,” I insist. “I can run in my shoes. Thanks.”

  “Well, you’re young. Your legs can absorb the shock,” he says.

  Shelby and I walk out the door along a stone path that’s bordered by a low hedge near the house, with flowers on the other side. When we get to the driveway, we walk over to Shelby’s MINI and I open the back hatch and fetch my backpack.

  “You’re running home with that on your back?” Mr. Rork asks from the front door.

  “Yeah,” I say, strapping it on tightly.

  “How heavy is it?”

  “Maybe ten pounds?”

  “Ah, to be young again! You kids are amazing,” he says, before he steps inside and closes the door.

  I wait for a second before giving Shelby a quick kiss, nothing too sensual in case her dad is watching from the front windows. She holds onto me, trying to prolong the kiss, but I pull away.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t bite you. Not in my own driveway, with my parents spying on us,” she says with a subversive laugh.

  Stepping back at arm’s length, I see her parents’ shadows behind the sheer drapes. Shelby sees them too, but seems to enjoy tormenting them with teen love and the threat of biting. He mom isn’t in favor of biting, and I doubt her dad is, either. As for me, Shelby is starting to feel more dangerous every time we meet.

  “I’m late for dinner, and I need to run a few miles.”

  “Off you go then,” Shelby says. She turns and runs up the stone path and opens the front door. Before she closes it she blows me a kiss and says, “Remember, you can’t run forever!”

  Her words give me a foreboding feeling: Every day, in every way, I’m becoming Bitten and More Bitten.

  My phone shows it’s 6:10 p.m. so I decide I’ll time myself. I’m not sure of the exact distance, but I know of a path on the other side of the lake that should make this trek shorter than if I run on the road the entire way. I like Mr. Rork’s running app, so I go online while walking up the driveway and download it.

  I begin my run home in the cool, dry October air with the sun setting behind me. Shelby’s street winds back and forth so much that I find myself running in the middle of the road, as if I own it. I’m like one of those marathon runners, leading the pack, so far out front you see nobody behind me. I think about the 5k run that I’ve committed myself to, and run harder and faster down the road, testing my fitness. I can definitely complete a 5k race. The question is, how fast can I compete in a race?

  By the time I reach the running path along the lake, I’m approaching the beach where Weezer and I would hang out as kids. It’s too cold for swimming today. There’s a silhouette of a man fishing off the end of the dock, casting his line into water that looks like glass until the lure breaks a ripple of circular waves.

  My lungs feel hearty and they’re not on fire like on my first runs, but tonight my stomach is bothering me. I’m so hungry and thirsty for my evening dose of Blood Orange Soda that I feel as if I’m pushing myself too hard. Every stride I take brings me that much closer to home and to my drink. This actually worries me, because I never considered whether S
oda could be addictive. Will it be hard for me to stop drinking it once I’ve transformed? Where will I get my blood then? Jack never mentioned it. All he says is to not share the Soda with anyone.

  My phone beeps in my hand and I raise it to see that I’ve reached my first mile. I’ve just run a 6:50 mile, which sounds fast to me. I don’t know much about running, and I push onward towards a long uphill climb. At this stage, the path drops off and I have to run along gravel on the shoulder of the road. I move with the flow of traffic, and cars blow by me as their tailwinds carry me forward, occasionally stumbling on the ruts in the gravel.

  Seeing Shelby’s parents makes me think of my own parents. What would their marriage have been like if my dad hadn’t transformed into a blood-thirsty Vampire? And am I really making the right decision to transform? Is Weezer making a better decision to wait longer?

  Another car blows by me and I hear music blasting and teens laughing and shouting: “Gladiator!” out the windows, followed by another burst of female shrieks and laughter. The tailwind from the car pulls me along and I sprint with it down the hill. I can see heads in the back window looking at me. It’s a car full of girls from my school, and I realize I have an audience. The car slows enough for me to catch up and as I approach, they pull onto the shoulder of the road, rolling along slowly.

  “What are ya running from?” a girl in a letter jacket asks from the back seat. They must be soccer girls. They’re all sweaty, with knee-high pads wrapped around their shins.

  “Not running from anything.”

  “Wanna ride?” the driver asks, lowering the volume on the stereo. The girl riding shotgun looks in the side mirror and adjusts the headband in her strawberry-blond hair.

  Pacing myself with the car I say, “No, I only live a mile from here. Thanks, though...”

  The girl with the letter jacket leans out the back window, her brown hair waving like a flag in the wind. “You’re fighting Bao next week. You’re the Gladiator.”

  “Yep.”

  “Hope you win. He’s such a Juicer a-hole!” she shouts.

  The label Juicer catches my attention, and I stumble on the gravel. “Say that again?”

  “He’s a total a-hole!” she says, yelling into the wind.

  “I know. What did you mean about Juicer?”

  The driver accelerates the vehicle. I can see she’s testing my speed and stamina. I increase my pace.

  “Bao, he’s a Juicer,” letter jacket girl says. “He and his friends party on Soda.”

  I’m running faster now, almost at my top speed, because I desperately want to learn more about Bao’s partying. “He’s drinking Blood Orange Soda? How do you know?” I ask between breaths, my arms pumping as I run.

  “Everyone who parties knows who the Juicers are. They’re the ones with muscles and all the rage!” she shouts back as the car speeds off the gravel and back onto the pavement.

  Slowing myself, I walk through a cloud of dust as I watch the car pull away. If she’s right that Bao juices on Blood Orange Soda, then I might not have any edge over him in this fight. And if his friends are juicing too, this fight could be a total disaster.

  By the time I walk through the kitchen door, my mom is finishing the dishes before she leaves for work. She seems pissed off at me when I set my backpack down next to Kira’s. She’s pissed because this is a change in our normal routine. Usually I’m home after school, or at least by dinner, so we can all have face time before she leaves. Mom’s arms are crossed, her purse draped over her shoulder. She already looks tired, and her night shift hasn’t even begun.

  “Where have you been?” she asks, looking back at the clock on the stove.

  “I went to Shelby’s house after school.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  “You could’ve called your sister.”

  “I sent her a text—”

  “Not until you were already late,” Mom says. “I’m happy you have a girlfriend, but you need to be home in the afternoons.”

  “Sorry!”

  “What were you doing at her house? Were her parents home?”

  I know where this is going, and I can’t blame her for bringing it up because I was in Shelby’s bedroom, after all.

  “Yeah, her mom and dad were home,” I explain. “I went to her house to check out the backyard. We’re playing a gig at her party next weekend.”

  She nods as if it at least sounds plausible. I notice that she’s lost her energy again. The spark she regained from the blood transfusion is totally gone now. Her alabaster skin has lost its glow, and her eyes seem to stare through me into some distant place that holds her transfixed.

  “Mom, are you feeling all right?” I ask, reaching out and resting my hand on her shoulder.

  She blinks with a forced smile. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine. Honey, there’s meatloaf in the oven. Remember to get to bed at a decent hour.”

  She kisses me on the forehead and walks past me. I turn to see her closing the door and she winks at me through the door’s windowpane. Ordinarily a wink like that might mean that everything’s cool, but knowing my mom’s condition, I’m left feeling sad.

  I need to eat! I’m famished and thirsty at the same time, and I open the refrigerator door and find a cold Soda waiting for me next to a milk carton. Cracking open the twist top, I chug the drink like it’s the last bottle of liquid on the planet. I finish it so quickly, so easily, that I reach for another bottle behind the milk carton. Do I dare drink two? I’m already feeling a surge of adrenaline, and I’m twisting off the cap and drinking a second bottle of the “juice,” as the soccer player girls call it. Every little bit has got to help me, right?

  This bottle I drink slower than the first because my body is no longer starving for it, and I’m feeling lightheaded. The aroma of meatloaf radiates from the oven and I grab a dishrag from the sink, lifting the pan out onto the stove when I accidently burn my right thumb on the pan. Ouch! I drop the f-bomb loud enough that Kira shouts down from her room.

  “What happened?”

  My singed thumb throbs. “Nothing, I touched a hot pan!”

  “Nice one!”

  “Thanks for your concern,” I say to myself.

  I reach over to the sink and run cold water over my thumb, expecting that stinging, throbbing pain that comes from burns, but the pain is minor. Stopping the water, I dry off my hand and squeeze my thumb, feeling pressure, but no throbbing. The pan is hot. Steam still rises from the meatloaf, so I know my thumb touched a super-hot pan. I hold my thumb up for inspection, and it’s completely healed.

  This is interesting. I forgot how Vampires heal faster than Normals because Vampire blood coagulates much faster. My transformation has progressed to the point where my body can heal itself. The question is, how much can it heal? I look across the kitchen at the butcher block of steak knives. Not a mortal wound, of course, just a thin slice along my arm…

  Removing my hoodie, I toss it onto one of the chairs and roll up the sleeve on my left arm, high enough that my mom wouldn’t notice. I grab a sharp knife and dangle it over the inside of my forearm. My heart rate increases and I’m feeling reckless, with no fear. I take another swig of Soda and breathe twice to calm myself before sliding the tip of the knife along my pale forearm for a quarter-inch gash. I feel pressure, and the red blood emerges from the cut before dripping onto my mom’s kitchen floor.

  There’s really no stinging, no pain. It’s as if I’ve cut into somebody else’s body. I set the knife on the counter and hold up my dripping limb. Most people would panic by now but I’m cool, almost in a trance, as I watch the blood thicken and the dripping slow to a puddled wet patch of red. I’m healing. I squeeze my skin to see if blood will pump out of the wound, but the gash narrows into a light scar before my eyes.

  Reaching for the Soda, I drink the last few swallows and lean against the counter, watching my arm as Kira enters the kitchen from the family room.

&nbs
p; “What happened? You cut yourself!” she says, looking down at the spatters of blood on the floor.

  “No! I mean yes, but not by accident.”

  She steps closer, eyeing the knife on the counter and blood on the ground.

  “You cutting?” she asks. “I know an Emo girl from my school who—”

  “I’m not a cutter,” I insist. “I’m a Goth, not an Emo…actually, I’m a Vampire!”

  I hold up my arm. She approaches slowly and touches it. “You scarred?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow, that’s freaky,” she says. “I wanna be a Vampire!”

  “Wait your turn,” I say. “You know how invincible this makes me? I can jump, practically fly, and my wounds heal. There’s no way Bao can hurt me.”

  “Unless he drives a stake through your heart,” Kira points out.

  “Okay, there’s one way Bao can hurt me,” I acknowledge. “I don’t think he would do that.”

  Most of my concerns and fears of Bao and his juicing melt away. This could be a tough fight for sure, but he’s a Normal. He’s not invincible. He will bleed. He will feel pain, and that should give me the edge that I need.

  Kira opens the fridge and pokes her head inside, grabbing a carton of milk, then turns back to me.

  “You’re not totally invincible. Now that you’re a Vampire, you could contract V2 just like mom, right?”

  Leave it to my sister to be the buzz kill!

  Of course there are pluses and minuses to everything in life. When I chose to transform, Mr. Striefland warned me that it wouldn’t solve all my problems. I transformed anyway. Now that I’m a Vampire and I have the strength and skills to protect myself, I’m realizing I’ve made myself vulnerable in a different way. Maybe that’s why my mom was cautious about me transforming in the first place.

  There’s no turning back now.

  Typing my journal notes for English Lit while sitting in bed, I follow tonight’s chatter on Twitter and Facebook. Everyone from my school is excited about tomorrow’s football game, and I notice cliques trash-talking others. Some people are really into sports and school spirit, but this is ridiculous. Scrolling from one friend to another, I see my name tagged in a couple of posts. I follow the threads, and somebody has posted my Facebook profile photo, the one of me flipping Bao the finger. And the photo is captioned: “The Gladiator.”