With a renewed determination that was matched only by the vampire blood-induced energy that I felt infusing my muscles, I pushed back the covers and hopped out of bed. I was going to take a hot shower and I wasn’t coming out until all the bloody residue from last night’s drama had been washed away, as well as all the negativity that seemed to permeate my entire life. Whatever the future held, I was going to enjoy the present. I was going to live and love like there was no tomorrow.
For all I knew, that might be the case. At the rate I was going, on any given day there was a distinct possibility that tomorrow might never come.
Having the essence of Bo pouring through my veins seemed to help everything, that or it simply altered my perspective enough to view things differently. Even though I couldn’t see him or necessarily feel him in that way I did when he was near, I felt like I carried him—or some part of him—with me all the time, as if he was with me at every turn, for every step.
When I got to school, I expected the majority of the talk to be about the recent disappearances and the even more recent attacks, as they had been every day for weeks. But today, the buzz was a bit different.
I heard snippets of conversations about the death of an elderly woman in neighboring Sumter. I was puzzled as to why that would be noteworthy at our high school, but I thought little of it. I knew that if there was even a scintilla of a juicy story there, it would be discussed at our lunch table ad nauseum.
I didn’t have to wait that long to find out, though. Mrs. Dingle was already on it.
Perched atop her desk, the petite middle-aged woman pushed her frameless glasses up her not unattractive nose and flicked the paper open in front of her. When she began to read, I knew that she, too, had found the story something of an interest.
Sixty-one year old Maggie Jenner was found dead in her second floor apartment early yesterday morning. Jenner, reportedly attacked in her own bed, was brutally mauled and dismembered. Police originally suspected that Jenner was the victim of an animal attack, but after further investigation, authorities discovered that Jenner’s apartment door was locked from the inside and her windows were inaccessible from the ground, suggesting that she was the victim of foul play.
Though an animal attack has been officially ruled out, police have yet to name any suspects in connection with Jenner’s untimely death. Lead Homicide Detective Alan Forbes was interviewed on site. He made a brief statement, only to say that police are following several possible avenues in relation to the case.
As Mrs. Dingle was reading, I kept thinking that the victim’s name sounded familiar somehow, but I just couldn’t place it. She quickly moved on to another story and then the bell rang, so it was easy to put the question out of my mind for the time being.
I coasted through the day, distracted and, strangely, a little happy. Lunch dampened my spirits a bit, though. I sat in Drew’s seat again, only today I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to him. It made me queasy to think about Drew being miserable enough to want to die and Bo possibly giving in to the urge to kill him, whether Drew wanted and deserved it or not. As much as Drew and I had butted heads since our breakup, I still didn’t want to see anything bad happen to him, anything worse than vampirism, that is.
Bo did pretty well with his condition, so I didn’t think it was the worst possible fate. But apparently Drew disagreed. It made me wonder if there was more to it than what I’d originally thought.
Thinking about that was like unwrapping a gag gift. I was much more comfortable when vampirism was glamorized. I didn’t want to think of it as being such a torturous existence that someone would want to die because of it.
My angst and growing disillusionment over vampires was only reinforced when Aisha didn’t show up at our table. I hadn’t seen her all day, which wasn’t entirely unusual, but no one else had either, and that was out of the ordinary. She had an unmistakable way of being recognized, seen and heard wherever she went.
She was very much like Trinity in that way.
I managed to shake off most of my funk by the time lunch was over, and my spirits were bolstered when I saw Aisha making her way across the field for practice.
I ran out to meet her.
She looked a little worse than she had the day before, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with her. Lately, my suspicions ran toward vicious supernatural causes for nearly everything. Nothing was just an accident or bad luck anymore. I suspected vampires were at the root of everything from black eyes to pale skin to bad moods.
“Hey. Missed you at lunch today,” I said lightly, falling into step beside her.
“Uh, I overslept so I just waited until after lunch to check in.”
Aisha seemed to be going out of her way to avoid eye contact. I bent my head and engaged her on purpose.
“Is everything alright? Did you remember something else?”
“I’m fine,” she said, meeting my eyes quickly then looking away.
I stopped. “Aisha, if something’s wrong, you need to tell me. Maybe I can help you.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” She tried to sound sincere, but I wasn’t convinced.
“I can tell something’s up, and you can talk to me. You can tell me anything and it will stay between us.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Ridley. Seriously.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me, Aisha.”
“I’m not pretending,” she said, laughing nervously.
“Seriously, I might know—”
“Ridley!” she snapped. “Drop it. There’s nothing you can do to help me.
Now just let it go.”
She stormed off and I stood rooted to my spot in the grass, watching her go.
Now I knew something was up, but I had no way of finding out what it was if she didn’t trust me enough to tell me, if she wouldn’t talk to me.
Aisha walked right up to the group and started chatting, but I knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t herself. She was less animated, less energetic and she just didn’t look good. But obviously, she wasn’t ready to tell me anything.
I made up my mind right then that I would just have to convince her that she could trust me, that I could and would help her.
I jogged back and started practice.
As we worked through a new cheer, I traded hats between captain and standin base cheerleader. Since Trinity and Summer were both gone, we had to make some adjustments, which put me into the mix in a totally different way.
The last part of our new cheer included some simple shoulder stands. Even though I wasn’t really the size that bases usually were, I moved one of the smaller girls over to pair with me so that we could make it work. As a couple, we were next to Aisha and her partner.