Blood To Blood

by Ifè Oshun

  But once I returned to Sawyer, the fog and the thought of everything else evaporated as I stood before him, fascinated by his presence. Of all the things Justin said, I chose just one word and let it roll around my head a little.

  Boyfriend.

  I'd never had one before. Had never felt butterflies flutter alongside quick little fish swimming in my insides. I simultaneously wanted to devour him and protect him. I felt insane. And I loved it. His eyes locked with mine and our fingers intertwined. I marveled at his gorgeous face towering above me, as my fingers itched to pull the elastic from his low ponytail and watch his hair cascade around his square jaw.

  “To answer your question,” he said referring to our interrupted conversation, “my Nana’s immortal. She suggested I come here so I wouldn't feel so alone.” Mortals with immortal DNA. That was what Mom had been hinting at. “I came here to find a place to call home. And I found you.”

  He ran a finger across my cheekbone, and that entire side of my face felt warm and tingly. I had to remind myself there were other people in the room.

  But I also told myself that since I knew all about him, it was time he knew all about me. My eyes, half shut from the pleasure of his touch, opened completely as I took his hand in mine and summoned a waiter. “AB,” I ordered, “with a splash of O. No ice. Ten, please. And a mineral water.” Sawyer’s head cocked at a questioning angle and his eyes narrowed as they searched my face. “I'm sorry for walking out of your place like that,” I said, stroking the inside of his wrist. “I knew that if I stayed I would end up spilling the beans. Or spilling your blood.”

  “What...?” The word came out of him as if he suspected there was more, but wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.

  The waiter returned with the glasses of blood. “I wanted to show you who I really am,” I picked up one glass. “But I had to protect my family. And I wanted to protect you from me.” With that, I downed the glasses at immortal speed. He studied me, then the empty glasses, before turning an astounded stare back to me.

  “You’re drinking blood,” he finally said in a quiet voice. I nodded. He then held my gaze so calmly and completely, I knew there was nothing more I would ever hide from him.

  “Eventually, I would have found a way to come back to you,” I revealed. “I can't stay away for too long.”

  “I wanted to get you outta my head and pretend it didn't matter,” he said. “But I couldn't. And it does. I can't stay away at all.” He smiled as I hovered over the couch. “By the way,” he said with a gleam in his eyes. “I was never glamoured. Glamour protection was one of the first things Nana taught me. When you turned away and said ‘No, Daddy’ it gave me enough time to put the shield up.”

  I swatted his arm in disbelief. “You knew!”

  “I knew your Dad practiced magic, so I figured you did, too and you’d tell me when you were ready. I never thought there was all this.” He waved at the empty glasses.

  Suddenly, I remembered I was supposed to be on a date with Markus, and that it’d been over a half hour since I’d left him sitting there. Feeling like an awful friend, I excused myself and searched the Nest for him. Nada. Maybe he got lucky with Tattoo Guy. I turned to see Sawyer in front of me, holding up the new bomber jacket as if he’d already done it for me a million times. “I’ll take you home,” he said with finality, as if there could never be another option. I offered him my shoulders where he placed the jacket before wrapping me in his arms.

  28. LOVELY NOTES

  Soon Sawyer was bundling me into his sleek, bronze Audi. I commented on the new-car smell.

  “Just got it a few days ago. Figured if I was going to be taken seriously, I needed to have a car.” His glance suggested he meant being taken seriously by me. I nestled myself into the deep leather seats. Being so close to him in the confines of the car drove me crazy. It took major effort to not grab him and drain him dry. I could do it, faster than anyone who might happen to look through the window could see. He wouldn't even know. But I would know. For eternity.

  Sawyer was unaware of the dark thoughts crowding my mind. “Does the heat bother you?” he inquired politely as he pulled into the downtown traffic,

  “No. Neither does the cold. My body just adjusts regardless of the temperature.”

  The dark thoughts continued. One taste of his blood wouldn’t satisfy me; I would want more. Much more. I studied his profile. The rise of his nose, the plane of his cheeks. The way the streetlights brought out silvery highlights in his hair. I could never feed from Sawyer. To turn him into a donor would be unfair to him. Unfair to us. And I could never take the chance of losing control with him. I needed him just the way he was. For as long as he was.

  His long, pale hands capably handled the steering wheel as he made a curb-hugging turn. Silently, I thanked the heavens that he liked to drive fast. “Angel. What exactly are you?” He threw a knitted-brow glance at me. “Aren't you supposed to have fangs?”

  “I don't sleep in a coffin. Or turn into a bat.” He chuckled and waited for an answer while I fumbled with the right words. I'd never had to explain what I was before. “I’m immortal. Just like your Nana. There are many types of immortals… I am what’s known as Shimshana.” I furtively checked his reaction to this. He met my eyes briefly before returning his attention to the road.

  “We are the original blood drinkers. We look like everybody else. We don’t need fangs. We’re warm-blooded and we love the sun. Like everyone else, we feel pain; we get sick, injured, etc. At the Nest, there’s lots of blood drinkers, but we all have something in common. We want to, need to, connect fully with our humanity.”

  “Do all Shimshana sing?”

  “Not like me. All immortals have unique abilities of varying degrees.”

  I sighed and looked out of the window. How much could I tell him without scaring him off? Too much information too soon might push him away and I couldn't bear that now. “My voice can fix things, and hurt people.” Kill people would be more accurate, I thought. “I can also move really fast, go through solid objects, and freeze time.”

  I had to give him credit for keeping a steady hand on the wheel. He blinked a few times before composing his face. The alternative rock emitting from the radio was the only sound for an eighth of a mile.

  We parked outside of my house. He switched off the ignition and turned to me. His eyes looked wild and they studied me for a long moment. “I know it's a lot,” I blurted. “I'll understand if you keep driving away, back to your studio, and refuse to have anything more to do with me outside of music.”

  He answered by cupping the right side of my face with his hand. He leaned toward me and I felt my lips involuntarily part. His eyes searched mine. “Angel,” he breathed seductively, “can I please come inside?” For a few seconds, I forgot where I was. Literally. I actually had to shake my head as if that would help me get back to a normal un-Sawyer-fied state. I then nodded, speechless, before directing him to our parking behind the house.

  Dad met us at the door. “Angel,” he said sternly, “if you are going to be getting home at this time of night, you should call. Your mom was worried.”

  “Um, sorry Dad.” I prayed he wouldn’t ask about Markus.

  “I told you both she was okay,” Cici said as she and Mom walked down the stairs in slippered feet.

  “That’s what the lock is for, Abraham,” Mom said gently. She looked exhausted, and I felt a pang of guilt for the worry she’d experienced. “Thank you for bringing Angel home, Sawyer,” she continued.

  “Guess one of them had to,” Cici said with a sly grin. I felt my face burn.

  “Make yourself at home,” Dad said with a grudging tone. “But don’t get too comfortable.”

  Embarrassed beyond reason, I dragged Sawyer away.

  “What’s the lock?” he asked as we made our way down the hall.

  “Cici and Dad are telepaths of a sort. They lock onto my mind in order to monitor and damage control me twenty-four-seven. As a newborn,
I’m dangerous, unstable, and can easily kill. I’ve killed already.”

  Humiliated, I couldn't even look at his face to see his reaction to my latest bombshell. But he gently lifted my chin and forced me to look into his eyes. They were calm, and fearless. “I know you won't hurt me, Angel.”

  Did he not hear what I just said? Maybe he had a death wish. “How do you know that, Sawyer?”

  “You could’ve killed me that first day in the studio. I thought you were kissing my neck. You were close, weren’t you? But…here I am.”

  His faith in me released the difficult words that came out in a rush of emotion. “It wasn't you, it was me! I killed Heist. With my voice. He died because he heard me sing!” I lost it then. He took me in his arms as I sobbed with guilt I didn’t even know I was still carrying. He stroked my back, methodically, as if he were pulling the stress out of me with his gentle touch. Eventually, I calmed down.

  “Your face’s a mess,” he said gently.

  I looked at his once-white shirt. “Your shirt's red, pink, and white.”

  He wiped away my tears with the ball of his thumb and regarded the red on his finger. “Whoa.”

  “You still want to stay?”

  “Angel, I'm not scared. I've seen some pretty frightening things. Right now I want to hear all about you.”

  I opened the door to my room and sat on the bed. He pored through my CD collection. “May I?” he asked while holding up my iPod. I tried my best to sound casual, and told him yes, but inside my stomach was in knots. To me, playlists are kind of like the window into one’s soul. What if he didn’t like my playlists? Or thought my podcasts were boring and my songs juvenile? I bit my lip and pretended I wasn’t watching him like a hawk while he read my playlists. He nodded and smiled with pleasure. “I thought I was the only one who listened to this band.” He held up the iPod to show me the track. It was a Boston underground rock band with a rabid, local following. Our eyes met, and my stomach relaxed.

  I couldn't believe he was standing in my room, and was glad I'd taken the time the day before to pick up the laundry and books previously strewn all over floor. Sawyer softly hummed a tune as he ran his fingers over the bindings of the titles on my bookshelf. I listened to the blood surge through his veins…the hypnotic beat of his heart... I took a deep whiff...mmmm...

  “Angel,” he was saying. I shook myself out of the daze and focused on his words. “How does it feel? To do what you do?” He came to the bed and sat on the edge, as far away from me as he could. My boyfriend was smart.

  “It's still all so new,” I answered. “I didn't mature until after I met you.”

  “Mature?”

  I explained the process to him, how a mortal child turns into an immortal adult.

  “So the day before you changed was the day Heist died?”

  “Yes,” I answered with my head bowed in shame.

  “It wasn't you. You didn't kill him.”

  I looked at him, completely puzzled. “How do you know?”

  Sawyer’s eyes were slightly glazed, and focused on a spot somewhere over my left shoulder. The hair on my arms stood up. “He just told me,” he replied. “He's telling me to let you know he just had a bad asthma attack. You weren't the trigger and your voice didn't make it worse. He's been wanting to tell you since that night.”

  I'd seen some weird stuff in the past weeks, but this took the cake. Even more than angels, ghosts were a complete mystery to me, and I didn’t know anyone else who communicated with them. But here I was with Sawyer, talking to Heist’s ghost. And his death wasn’t my fault. My voice hadn’t killed him after all! I imagined Heist’s smile and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

  “We miss you and love you Heist,” I said to the air.

  Sawyer smiled. “He knows that.” He responded to whatever ghostly words he heard and his face grew serious. “Thanks for the heads-up, man.” I watched Sawyer's face as his eyes, shining like emeralds witnessed what I couldn't see. I moved to his side and carefully took his hand. Soon I could tell from his facial expression that Heist was gone. I searched his eyes as they slowly refocused on the room. And then on me. Every other sound, every other heartbeat ceased to exist. I heard nothing, and no one, except him.

  “I have something to tell you,” he whispered. “It’s hard for me to feel this way. I have to concentrate even harder. To make sure nothing weird happens. To you. The object of my. Affection.”

  “I have something to tell you, too,” I whispered back as if I was in a confessional. “I got shot because of my own stupidity.”

  He seemed to turn this fact over in his mind. “I lost control,” he said. “That time in the dressing room right before your Garden gig.” The memory of the one time I heard his heartbeat speed up confirmed my suspicions. Sawyer’s continual concentration was focused on regulating his own heartbeat. I was amazed by the strength of his will.

  “When you said everything changed, all I wanted to do was show you how right you were.” His fingers caressed mine. “That’s why I had to get out of there. As I watched you onstage, how incredible you are, my love took over. I’m sorry for what happened—”

  “Sawyer, the audience fights at the Garden. None of that was your fault. It was all me. I know that for a fact.”

  Relief and joy mixed on his face before it grew serious again. “That may be, Ms. Brown. But it just means I’ve got to keep doing what I’m doing. Keeping a tight reign on my feelings so that nothing does happen.”

  The intensity of his feelings and how they might affect me didn’t concern me, but I almost wished he would heed this warning of my reckless behavior for his own safety and shun me completely. Yet, a part of me knew it wouldn't matter; something, whether it was one of us or the music, would bring us back together. Still, my baser instincts continued to clash within me. Eat him or love him? The pleasure I would derive from biting him would be overshadowed by the damage done. As Mom said, it would be an unfair advantage. I knew then and there that although I may feel compelled to bite Sawyer, I could not, would not allow it to happen.

  “Well, I may be an idiot,” he continued, “but I can't imagine not having you around always.” He reached out for a lock of my hair. He slowly rubbed it between his fingers before bringing it to his nose. “It’s almost unbelievable how nice you smell, Angel.” He closed his eyes and deeply inhaled. My heart thumped against my ribs. He rubbed the lock on his face where it mingled with and got slightly caught in his five o'clock shadow. His eyes gleamed with something I’d never seen before, an emotion I couldn’t identify but felt down to my very bones, as he slowly caressed the line of my jaw. Through it all, I kept my hands to myself in a supreme effort to keep Sawyer safe.

  “I know this is difficult for you, Angel. Heist just told me about your appetite. And your...relationship with Justin. So forgive me, but it's time for you to eat.”

  “Sawyer, no!” I shrank away from him in horror.

  For a second, he was confused by my outburst. Then the light of understanding came on in his eyes. “Silly girl. I'm not offering myself to you. Wait right here, please.” He rose and left the room and I marveled over how at home he seemed, as if he belonged in my space. I listened to him as he made his way to the kitchen and started rummaging around the fridge. He hummed the same tune from earlier. The notes were soothing and the colors felt good to my eyes. By the time he came back with a couple pitchers of blood, I was starting to get a little peckish.

  “Which one would you like to start with?” His long fingers gestured toward the selections. I pointed at one blindly, ignorant of who it was, only able to keep my eyes locked on him. He poured a glass full, and placed it on the side table at my elbow before returning to his previous seat on the far edge of my bed.

  I grabbed the glass and downed it. He shook his head slightly as if to wrap his mind around the flash of movement and the suddenly-empty glass. “Thanks,” I said.

  “More?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He
poured. I drank and we kept our eyes on each other the whole time. A light bulb seemed to go off above his head. “The thermoses you were always drinking from. Blood?”

  I nodded while continuing to drink. “It was the only way to not eat all of you.” I drank way more than necessary, but it was better to overdo it. I desperately needed to be certain that Sawyer was safe.

  “The tune you keep humming, what is it?” I asked.

  “I was humming a tune?”

  “Yes. Twice. Once in the kitchen, and when you first came into my room.”

  “I wasn't aware of it,” he said with a bemused expression.

  Again, we were completely on the same page. He ran out the door and down the stairs. I gave him the head start before sliding through the floor to take a seat at the grand. He ran into the family room and saw me already sitting there. “Cheater,” he mumbled before sitting down next to me. His closeness instantly ignited the space between us with electricity.

  “I remember every musical arrangement I hear,” I revealed to him.

  He placed his hands gently on the keys and turned his handsome face to mine. “Then sing it for me, Angel. Sing the tune you've brought out of me.” I did. “Again, please Angel,” he sang. His voice made my name sound like a caress and thrilled me down to my toes. I sang it again, and this time he accompanied me while his fingers found the right chords. I watched the notes dance before my eyes as he fleshed it out into a sweet ballad.

  “That's beautiful,” I said in awe. I started to sing a soft counter-melody, no words, just the open-mouthed hum that comes right before you get the lyrics to a new song. When his body began rocking back and forth with the flow of the music, our shoulders touched. The shock of the contact took my breath away. We both stopped. “I can almost see the notes when I'm with you,” he said, sounding as awed as I felt.