Drain You

by Beth Bloom

  I trembled and gripped his hand. “What do we do now?”

  “Just wait. Wait for them to drink.” He stared ahead, so bleak. “Pray to God.”

  So we waited. James and I sat like that forever, camouflaged in the bushes, deep in the leaves. Time passes strangely when you’re doing nothing and saying nothing yet terrified out of your mind. Maybe we waited thirty minutes, maybe three hours. Gnats buzzed in our ears. Ants crawled on my shoes. We were in the trenches.

  I’d almost started to meditate when a sudden sound broke our trance: a car driving up the alley on the other side of the guesthouse. Doors swung open, loud music blaring from a stereo, then the car turned off, doors slammed, and footsteps clicked against concrete, coming closer.

  Then there was the sound of a door opening on the far side of the house. Apparently there was another entrance facing the alley. And apparently people were coming over. They’d come in. Stiles and Sanders had guests. No, no, no, no, no.

  We heard voices in the living room, muffled but recognizable. Dewey. Cooper. The gang was all here. James looked at me and mouthed the word Who. I shook my head sadly and mouthed back, Two more. This was going to get so much worse.

  Footsteps came closer, and James yanked me facedown into the foliage just as Dewey’s hand snatched the curtains open. Neither of us moved a muscle. More muffled voices. The footsteps went away.

  Every nerve in my body was pulsing, a blur of electricity. My lips were pressed against dirt and leaves, my hair tangled in branches, my mind in fragments.

  I tried to get a grip. I slowly sat up and peeked through the bushes, through the window. Dewey was on the couch, legs crossed, talking to Cooper, who was over by the kitchen. I tried to concentrate on their words, but I couldn’t make out any of the conversation. I closed my eyes to focus on the syllables, but then James tapped me and pointed, his eyes wide with shock. I looked up.

  Cooper was in front of the fridge, one hand on the door, the other tilting back a tinted glass bottle. He was drinking.

  James didn’t breathe and neither did I. We watched, frozen, so frozen it felt like my heart had stopped. I was like James.

  Cooper finished the bottle and set it on the counter. Dewey kept talking, gesturing with his hands. We kept waiting. Then the wait was over.

  Suddenly Cooper dropped to his knees and clutched a hand to his throat, coughing violently. Dewey leapt off the couch, shouting. Cooper’s face turned more blue than pale, and then he fell to all fours, hacking, losing control. For a moment he thrashed back upward, his face lit up for us to see. It was all there: dread, chaos, pain, death. Cooper was dying. Again. This time for good.

  But before we could celebrate, Stiles was there, bent over Cooper’s body, screaming at Dewey. He grabbed the empty bottle off the floor and sniffed it. Sanders was there now too, crossing the room, yelling something at both of them. Then Stiles snapped his fingers at Dewey, who was grabbing bottles from the fridge and putting them on the counter while Sanders started pouring them down the drain. There were dozens of them.

  Then Stiles crouched back down by Cooper, who was still twitching slightly, and stared at his body.

  I tried not to. I did anyway.

  He was dead. Realizations floated up like fog from somewhere deep inside me. This is what death looks like. Is supposed to look like.

  Then James was shaking me. “Get in your car!” he scream-whispered. “Go, drive to your house!”

  But it felt like nothing. My body was just a shell, just a guesthouse. Sometimes people lived there and sometimes no one did. It felt empty now, and one day it’d be empty forever.

  “Come on, get up!” James was pulling at my arm. I let it happen.

  Then I was up, on my feet, watching James’s face, animated, panicked. His mouth made the strangest shapes.

  “Do you understand me?” I heard James asking.

  I tried to nod but looked back inside instead and saw Sanders walking toward the front door, yelling something at Stiles. Then he opened the door and slammed it shut behind him.

  “Wait, where will you be?” a weird voice asked from my throat.

  “I’ll follow you.” James’s hand around mine, dragging me across the grass.

  “Why?” Night air, my feet breaking into a run.

  “Don’t talk, just go, now!”

  Everything was a tunnel—we were hurtling along the only path, one destination. We were past the brick wall, past the main house, onto the street. A man walking his dog stopped and waved, but I didn’t understand what he was doing in this reality so I didn’t wave back.

  James shoved me toward my car, shouted one last “Go!”

  I came to. I was here. A thousand things were happening.

  Now I was the helpless kitten, hoping someone would take me home.

  18.

  GANG

  I don’t know what I thought about during the drive to my house. Maybe James, maybe dying, maybe nothing. I have no memory of it. There was a blur of streets and signs and stoplights and the feeling that everything in my life was accelerating to some fatal crash. But suddenly I was parking in my driveway, James right behind me, and my hands were shaking. I looked through the windshield at my house, and the realization hit me hard: This place was no longer safe. Nowhere was, not anymore.

  A flashback of Stiles shaking Cooper, sniffing the bottle, outraged, calculating. Something in his black eyes said it: He knew I was the one responsible. I didn’t know what to do tonight. I had no idea how to make it to tomorrow morning.

  And instead of focusing on that, instead of figuring out a way to help all of us, a different, darker thought floated up in my mind. Maybe Stiles had never wanted to kill Libby. Maybe he’d just wanted to turn her into one of them. Maybe he had, and Libby wasn’t human, and our rescue was for nothing. I couldn’t swallow. I’d started all this, and I didn’t have the power to end it.

  Then there was a knock on the glass and James was at my window, mouthing the words, Quinn, there’s no time. I dropped my head in my hands and stared at the floor. I wanted to cry and cry and not stop until the car was full of tears and I drowned. But that’d take forever, and I didn’t have forever. Like James said, there wasn’t any time.

  “Fine,” I said through the glass, then took a deep breath, flung open the door, and walked up the stone steps toward my house.

  When I got to my front door, I turned around to take James’s hand, but he wasn’t beside me. He was back by the Lexus, leaning against it. He wasn’t coming in.

  I shouted, “James,” desperately.

  “I’ll wait out here. Just grab some clothes. Hurry.”

  I stared at him, then nodded. This was only our first stop tonight.

  Inside all the lights were on. Even weirder, my parents were home. A new panic set in. Any interaction with my mother and father required a minimum of half an hour, which was half an hour more than I had to burn tonight.

  I sprinted upstairs to my bedroom and emptied my LeSportsac of all the stupid crap I carried: papers, pens, notebooks, an extra bra, socks, sunglasses, mascara, lanyard string, locker key, glitter nail polish. I surveyed the rest of my room for stuff to pack. I grabbed a pair of Docs, some cutoff shorts, a Nirvana shirt, my dad’s cardigan, and that was it. I had no idea if that was enough, because I had no idea when I’d be back.

  Racing down the stairs, I remembered to smile. My parents loved when I smiled.

  “Quinn, is that you?” my mother called from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, I was just grabbing some stuff.”

  In the kitchen my mother and father were dancing happily around each other, working in separate stations—Mom on dishwasher, Dad on Tupperware—listening to some funky Stevie Wonder song on the radio. Look at them. More amazing people I loved, more amazing people I’d let down.

  “Got your note. Or whatever you’d call this.” My mother held up the paper, stained with some sort of sauce, and waved it like a piece of evidence.

  “So you know I’m sle
eping over at Naomi’s tonight. Good,” I said, super casual, perching on a stool and setting down the keys to the Lexus. I only needed to hold this act together another five minutes and then I could bounce.

  “No way, José. You’ve been out two nights in a row,” my dad said, looking over from his saucepan. “I think that’s enough.”

  My father’s logic. Still lost on me.

  “But Dad, I slept at home the night before last. So…technically this would only be the second night out, and that would be enough. Then tomorrow night I’ll sleep at home.” My own logic. Equally lost on them.

  “Uh-uh, I don’t think so,” Mom said. “Movie night at home with us. You can call Naomi and invite her to sleep here.”

  “Compromise,” Dad said, very pleased.

  I considered a new counterattack. The smell of whatever they’d cooked was making me dizzy. And hungry. But James’s words echoed: There’s no time.

  “Sorry, can’t do it,” I said. “I promised Naomi I’d sleep over. Her parents are out of town and she’s watching the house, so she needs company. She gets scared at night.” Then I pushed it even further: “I’m just trying to be a good friend.”

  Was anyone buying this? Somewhere Naomi was laughing her ass off. I hoisted my bag over my shoulder to indicate that I was leaving, that our conversation was wrapping up.

  “You know, you can’t just write a note saying you’re taking the car. That doesn’t count as asking for permission,” my mother said. “And what dress are you wearing?”

  “Focus, Mom. Morgan had a flat tire, he was stranded. It was an emergency.”

  Shameful.

  But the very sound of his name instantly softened her scowl, and she reached and gave me a tender rub on the hand. If I’d just bring Morgan over for dinner one night a week every other week, I could probably do whatever I wanted forever. Knowing that made me want to smash something.

  “That was nice of you. But you’re not roadside service. Next time ask. You may now go to your friend’s house.” My mother put her arm around me. She squeezed me. Suddenly I wished I wasn’t in such a rush.

  “Thanks, Mom.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and hugged her middle like a teddy bear. “But I gotta motor. Morgan’s outside waiting.” I excused myself from the embrace. As long as they went on just like that—dancing, cooking, smiling, eating, expecting very little out of a totally impossible teenage girl—everything would be okay. My smile, in that moment, short but sweet, was totally real.

  “Can’t promise we’ll save your leftovers,” my father warned, with his head in the fridge.

  “That’s okay. I don’t eat vegetables.”

  That made both of them laugh. It was good to see.

  I’d done it. In and out and in seconds flat. I skipped down the steps, relieved to be free, happy to be alive, about to sing out for James, when suddenly I saw them. James. With Sanders. In front of my house. Talking. My heart felt like it puked in my chest. Sanders was on my front lawn. He could kill my parents. He could kill me. I froze in place, staring at the vampires.

  They exchanged some final words and shook hands. Then Sanders turned his head, caught my eye, flashed a grin, and walked away, down the street, into the night. I wanted to scream until I lost my voice. I dropped down to the grass instead.

  I heard James approaching. He bent down next to me and asked, “You ready?”

  My mind was cracking, the pieces shipping off to every character and every scene in my life. Of course Stiles and Sanders had been here before—at least one of them had—but they’d never let themselves be seen. Even after we stole Libby and they had every reason for revenge, they still never crossed that line. Now that line was just chalk, blow on it and it blows away.

  “Come on, we have to get back.” James’s hands guided me to the car.

  “What was he doing here?”

  “He wanted to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Fixing this.”

  “Why was he at my house, James?”

  “I’m working it out.”

  “We can’t leave my parents here.”

  “They’ll be fine. They’re safe,” he said, opening the door and pushing me into the passenger seat. Once inside he started the engine and was instantly speeding, going almost fifty, weaving through the winding canyon roads.

  I clenched my fists, gripped the leather of the seat.

  James looked over at me. “Sanders and I are going to make a deal.”

  “You can’t trust that piece of—”

  “It’s done,” he interrupted, sterner.

  “It’s a trick. Whatever he’s saying, it’s a lie.” The twins didn’t play nice, and they certainly didn’t play fair.

  “No. He doesn’t want to fight. He’s sick of all this.” We were all over the road, going way too fast.

  “Spare me. He’s lying. He’s evil.” The worst. The second worst.

  “Quinn, I’m asking you to trust me.”

  “Does he know we killed Cooper?”

  James met my eyes, then looked back to the road and ignored me.

  “Does he know it was us?” I yelled.

  “He knows, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t care about Cooper any more than we do.”

  “But…it wasn’t meant for Cooper. Do they know that?”

  James nodded.

  “So we’re dead,” I said. I couldn’t process another tragedy. One per day was my max.

  “No, we’re fine. I just have to make sure.”

  “Make sure how?”

  He paused. “We’re meeting later.”

  James was meeting Sanders later.

  “Are you stupid? That doesn’t make any sense. Stiles will be there and they’ll kill you and I’ll never see you again!” My voice was a wail. I punched the car door.

  “I obviously wouldn’t go if I thought that was true.”

  “Please don’t go. Stay with me.”

  “I’m making it easier to stay with you. I swear. Whatever I have to trade with him, I’ll do it.”

  “What is there to trade? Except me?”

  “Something else that Sanders wants.”

  Then we were there, cruising down the Sheetses’ driveway, parking, sitting in silence. I turned to look at James, and he leaned in and kissed me, hard. When I kissed him back, he pulled me over the seat divider onto his lap and we locked lips, the steering wheel jamming into my spine, my knee banging the seatbelt buckle, my elbow the window, my head the sunroof. We breathed in each other’s mouths and eyes and ears. He slipped a hand up my thigh, under Naomi’s dress. I grabbed his face.

  “Please don’t go,” I whispered.

  “I’m not leaving for hours. I’ll be with you all night, until you’re asleep.”

  “I won’t fall asleep. How could I?” But I was exhausted. I could already feel my body aching for bed.

  “Come inside.”

  My stomach groaned. Loudly.

  “I’ll feed you.”

  “You’re trying to sedate me.”

  Then he leaned forward, pushed me closer to the steering wheel. “Let’s go.”

  “To your room?”

  “No, the main house.”

  “They don’t want me in there.”

  “I don’t care what they want,” he said. “I need you all together tonight. Can you understand that?”

  I could. I wanted to be together with everyone too. James, Whit, Mom, Dad, Morgan, Libby, even Naomi. Stella Block. Jody Bennett. Tori, for heaven’s sake. I wanted everyone to be together and make it through tonight together.

  We started walking toward the front door, holding on to each other tightly. I thanked God for this closeness, anything we could share now that wasn’t tears or shouts or freak-outs. And I thanked God we were close because when we got about twenty feet from the door I spied it lying there, white with blue-red lips, contorted, gross, deader than dead.

  Cooper’s body.

  James froze and held up an arm to stop me from ge
tting closer. As if I wanted to. I stared at it, hypnotized. I waited for it to disintegrate, turn into ash, disappear. I waited for it to catch fire, dissolve, explode. I waited for the supernatural. But Cooper’s dead body was like a regular dead body. Aside from the bluish lips and glassy eyes, he looked pretty much the same as he did the last time I saw him, at Libby’s party, in the kitchen. I tried to remember him like he used to be, when he was just a jock I saw around school sometimes, pre-bloodsucker, the salad days. But the memory was too faded. All I could see was his body in front me, dead for the second time.

  My emotions cycled through a Ferris wheel of changes, from terrified to disgusted to sad to okay to completely psyched. I crested on the last one. One of the four was gone, hallelujah. No one would miss him.

  “Go back to the car!” James shouted at me. He didn’t want me to look at it.

  But I’d already soaked in the sight. Actually seeing one of them dead was like a revelation: It could totally be done.

  “Did you hear what I said?” James was still shouting, more frantic.

  I pretended to walk away.

  Then I heard him run to the house, open the door, and start calling out for Whit and Naomi. Once he was gone, I turned back around and stared some more at Cooper. I thought of all the horror movie endings where the villain jumps back up, not dead, for some maniacal final fight. I stepped slowly toward his body and, when I got close enough, kicked it. It felt like nothing. Double dead.

  Then a voice said, “What are you doing?”

  I looked up.

  Whit was in the doorway, watching me nudge a corpse with the tip of my Converse. He looked haggard and crazed, like he’d been ripping his hair out. “Will you just get inside, please?”

  “James told me to go back to the car.”

  “So he didn’t tell you to play with the body?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Get in here.”

  I walked around Cooper to Whit, who put his arm around my shoulder in an exhausted way and led me through the door and into the living room, where Naomi was balled up on the couch, crying into James’s lap. His hands stroked her hair and rubbed her back, alternating. It’d only been a couple of hours, but somehow it seemed like days since I was last here. So much had happened.