Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance (14 page)

Jack’s voice wakes me from a deep sleep, and he’s standing above me with his hands at his side. It’s like the view of Bao Wang after he’s dropped me to the ground, on my back and totally vulnerable.

“Well? How is she?” I ask.

“I topped off her fluids and she’s sleeping. Why are you napping? You were supposed to stretch.”

I stand up and notice Kira asleep on a couch, in front of the TV at the other end of the dojo. He’s not lecturing
her
. “I can’t stretch for an hour, Jack. Yeah, I dozed off.”

“When is the fight?” Jack asks.

“Halloween night.”

“That’s around the corner. Will you be ready in two weeks?”

“Hell if I know! I’m hoping the Blood Orange Soda will make me stronger and faster by then.”

“A month from now you’d be a formidable competitor to him,” Jack says. “In two weeks, he could still shred you to pieces.”

“Great, thanks for the pep talk, Coach. What am I supposed to do?”

“Double your dose of Soda.”

“I thought you said one bottle a day—”

“Make it two bottles a day. One at breakfast and one at dinner,” Jack says.

“You said not to drink it before school because I’d go to class with a buzz.”

“Wake up earlier for school. Get up at five, drink a bottle, and go for a run. You’ll run drunk for the first mile, but it will burn off.”

“Wake up at five every morning before school?” Is he insane?

“You need to transform faster, and you need that Soda settled in your system before school starts,” Jack says. “Now, let’s work on your moves.”

He steps back three paces and rolls his neck to loosen up. “Come at me.”

“How?”

“However you want. Come at me as if I’m a threat.”

Raising my fists, I move toward Jack off to my left, rather than closing the gap directly in front of him. He adjusts to my first move and lunges toward me, forcing my arms down and grabbing me by the throat with one arm. I use my arms to reach out and grab his throat but he’s got more reach on me, and my arms swing wildly at his arm as I try to break his hold. He’s choking me and I can barely make anything more than guttural sounds.

“You must move quickly toward your enemy, Darius, with purpose. He’s bigger than you, and if he catches you like this, you’ll never reach him,” Jack says.

Gasping for breath, I nod as if I understand, but all I’m really thinking about is oxygen, or my lack of it. My knees wobble. I’m seeing splotches of light. I’m about to pass out.

Opening my eyes, I stare at Jack standing above me, with his hands on his hips. I fainted, and I’m sure he’s disappointed in his fledgling martial arts student.

“Good move.”

Sitting up, still dizzy. “What move? I passed out.”

“Well, yeah, but if you had faked that thirty seconds earlier, your enemy would have let you fall. And you could catch your breath while planning your next move. Stand up.”

Up on my feet, I notice Kira is now awake and watching from the couch. She’s my audience of one, and I’m now more leery of Jack’s moves. The guy is so fast and powerful.

“Let’s work on your hand moves,” he says. “Stand right in front of me and throw punches.”

“At your body or head?”

“Wherever you want.”

He blocks my jab to his stomach, so I throw another jab toward his jaw. He grabs my fist with his hand and pulls me forward, throwing me off balance. I spin toward him with my right arm and he pulls me back in that direction. He’s never throwing his own punches, but instead he’s grabbing all of mine and tossing them away. Within two minutes I’m exhausted and drenched in sweat, and he’s smiling as if he’s only warming up.

“Way to go, Jack!” Kira calls out.

That’s a good enough distraction for me to stop. “Whose side are you on?”

“Kira, what is your brother doing wrong?” Jack asks.

“He’s punching too much?”

“Correct! Darius, you’re working too hard. You’re fighting like a Normal, with all your brute strength, when you should fight like a Vampire, with speed and grace. Use Bao’s energy, feed off his energy.”

“Of course I fight like a Normal. I’m not even a Vampire yet,” I say in my defense.

“You’re more Vampire today than you were yesterday, you just don’t realize it yet,” Jack says. “I want you to memorize this line: ‘Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.’”

That line is familiar to me. “That’s a lyric from my dad’s favorite John Lennon song.” I sing it to him. “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better…”

Jack shrugs. “It might be a lyric in Lennon’s song. It was also a popular self-help mantra back in the ‘70s. The French psychologist Professor Coue was one of my mentors. He taught me that mantra. This time I’m going to run at you, down low, and I want you to jump over me.”

Jumping up and down a couple of times, I test the springs in my legs, reciting the mantra in my head.
Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.
“Okay.”

Jack sprints at me across the mat and lunges for my legs and I leap up in the air. To my surprise, I fly up five or six feet and forward just as far, and I land like Jack landed the other night when he dropped from his pull-up bar, like a gymnast.

“Wow, awesome!” Kira cheers.

“Holy crap! Did I really jump like that?”

Jack stands with an approving smile. “The Blood Orange Soda is working. You’re transforming.”

“How high can I go?” I ask, bouncing on the mat, feeling lighter with my newly sprung Vampire legs.

“The bottom of that beam up there is ten feet,” Jack says. “Hit it.”

Running to the beam, I leap off the mat, rising so fast that I have to duck my head to the side to prevent myself from hitting the beam. Tapping the side of the wood is easy, and I drop back to a quiet landing. Like a cat!

“Good job, Darius!” Kira shouts.

“You can dunk, my friend.” Jack gives me a thumbs-up. “Not many white boys from St. Cloud can dunk!”

“Cool. This is so freaking cool! I should try out for the basketball team.”

“Ah, let’s not tell anybody yet about your growing powers and speed,” Jack advises. “You still have much to learn. I want you on two doses of Soda, and running for at least thirty minutes every morning. I’ll let you know when it’s time for your next practice session.”

He throws a water bottle to me. He says to Kira, “Honey, can you run downstairs and check on your mom?”

“Yeah, sure.” She runs across the mat and down the spiral staircase. “Great workout, Darius!”

She descends the metal steps, and it’s the second time that I’ve noticed her respect and admiration for me. I haven’t been the most nurturing older brother to her because I’ve been so preoccupied with my own life to notice hers.

“She really looks up to you,” Jack says.

“I know—”

“You’ll need people like Kira for the fight, people to watch your back. You’ll need a crew.”

“A crew?”

“Yeah, a crew, or posse, to protect you before, during, and after the fight,” Jack says. “Who are your friends?”

At first my mind is a blank slate, but then I suggest, “Angel, Weezer, and Shelby.”

“You need a show of force,” Jack says. “Who else is on your side? Who else desperately wants to see you win against this bully?”

There are dozens of kids who would like nothing more than to see me whip Bao’s ass, but they’re only recent Facebook friends or RenRen connections. I’m not a member of a gang, but then I remember that there’s one group that might be my posse.

“Shelby belongs to the Vampire Club at school,” I say. “Those Goths and Emos might join me in the cause.”

“Surround yourself with people like that,” Jack says. “The more Goths and Emos on your side, the better. Remember what I told you earlier, that the Blood Orange Soda is only for you. Don’t give it to Shelby or any students, because that would be a disaster.”

He doesn’t want a group of kids buzzing on Soda, running and leaping down the hallways. “I understand.”

“Now that Kira is downstairs, I want to talk to you about your mother. What I gave her tonight isn’t enough to make much of a difference. She’ll feel better for a few weeks, but then she’ll likely deteriorate more quickly after that time.”

“I started looking for Jonathan online. I know you said it’s not a good idea, but I have to try everything for Mom.”

“Were you able to find him?”

“No, I can’t find anybody with that name on Mom’s Facebook account. I could search each of her friends’ accounts, but that could take weeks, and—”

“Your mom isn’t linked to Jonathan on Facebook anymore. But I am.”

“You are?! Why didn’t you mention it?” I ask.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“How come you’re linked to him?”

“I met Jonathan a few times when he and your mom dated. He was a nice guy, and your mom later told me that he was her First Bitten. So when she received her diagnosis years ago, and after your dad died, I started looking for Jonathan for the same reason you’re looking for him now. Once I studied his Facebook profile and followed his updates, I realized there was no way I could ask him to help, and I knew your mom would never approve of me contacting him,” Jack says.

“You and I could contact him now and at least let him know about Mom, and Jonathan could decide for himself if he wants to help,” I say. “If he turns us down, Mom doesn’t need to know.”

“It would certainly take some of the pressure off him. But we’d still be asking a lot of him.”

I hear Kira climbing the staircase and I lower my voice. “I don’t mind asking. Can you forward me his profile and I’ll contact him tomorrow?”

My phone vibrates across the coffee table and I hit the snooze button. Drowsy, I remember we’ve all spent the night at Jack’s. I’m on the couch. It’s five in the morning, and Jack wants me to start my new workout routine today. Rolling off the leather couch, I stand on the cold wood floor. There’s no morning sunrise to greet me. It’s too early even for the sun, and I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge, the harsh white light from inside blinding me. Jack has left me a bottle of Soda. I set it on the center island and stare at it. Am I really going to guzzle this Vampire juice and go for a run in the dark, by myself?

Yes, and I twist off the top and chug it down, gulp after gulp, burping as I walk back to the couch and tie on Jack’s running shoes. He’s left me a sweatshirt on the coffee table, too, which I pull over my head, and shuffle to the door, with a buzz.

Outside, the air is cold enough for me to see my breath, and I’m floating as I step off the curb. The warehouse district is deserted except for a few random zombie-joggers like me staggering toward the running paths along the Mississippi River. Shuffling along the sidewalk, shivering in the October breeze, I curse Jack with each step. How come I’m so out of shape? Or maybe I was never in shape to begin with because I’ve been more of a musician than an athlete. I’ve never had a role model or parent who pushed me into sports, so I’ve gravitated to what I like best, lying around the house, writing music.

My lungs burn and I slow to a walk-jog or a jog-walk until I reach the path along the river, jogging again so I don’t look like a total lazy ass to my fellow runners. Damn, this fitness thing is taxing. This fight training could kill me before Bao gets a chance to!

Despite the fact that my mom looked as if she was at death’s door last night, with blood flowing in and out of her veins, today she’s healthy enough to drag Kira and me to Mass on the way home from Jack’s. No rest for the weary.

We sit through an hour and ten minutes of rituals and a boring homily. The priest never mentions Jesus curing lepers or how the Messiah healed the blind. I’m sitting there waiting for some of the same inspiration that my mom gets from the scriptures, but nothing lands where I can grasp it spiritually. There’s a scripture verse from Romans about how we’re all saved by hope, and with hope we need endurance. Really? Because I’m hoping you’ll wrap it up!

I’ve arranged a night out with Shelby, Weezer, and Angel after dinner. When Shelby arrives at my house, I open the door and greet an exquisite Goth girl. Of course she’s dressed in black, and also has bright purple highlights in her hair, matching her purple eye shadow. Her jacket is open, and her top hangs low enough to show her cleavage beneath a silver cross.