Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance (6 page)

The kitchen is immaculate, so I know my mom must feel better today. She switches over to daylight hours on the weekends to spend more time with Kira and me. Mom’s on the phone talking about money, and the lack of funds in her bank account.

The economy’s collapse back in 2008 has been pretty hard on us, and we live from paycheck to paycheck. Mom’s too sick to hold a second job, and nobody these days wants to hire a teen who doesn’t have his driver’s license. Adults have snatched up many of the part-time jobs in St. Cloud, even the crappy mall-rat jobs.

Mom slams her phone down hard, as if the customer service person can feel it. “Banks! They have such high fees for insufficient funds.”

“Banks have been burned too many times,” I remind her. “Money in before money out,” I say to her, reciting a slogan plastered on banner ads all across Facebook and RenRen. The government launched its fiscal education campaign to everyone under the age of thirty. My mom’s Generation X is a lost cause. I guess it’s up to us Millennials to figure it out.

“Your eye is so swollen. You want some ice?” She stands up to go to the refrigerator.

“Let’s start with coffee,” I suggest, glancing at her iPad. She manages all our finances on it, and I scan her account balance as she fetches my coffee. Between the government subsidy for me taking the Reds and her part-time job, we should have enough money to get by; but sometimes she spoils Kira and me by taking us out to eat. My stitches last night set us back a chunk of change, too. Mom agreed to every test the doctor offered.

She sits with my coffee and blasts me up with too many questions so early in my day.

“How’s your head? Any concussion symptoms?”

“Brain is fine. My eye hurts.”

“Why did he pick on you?” Mom asks for the hundredth time since we left urgent care last night.

“No idea. Maybe I’m his favorite.”

“Did Kira see the fight?”

“Again, no idea. I was too busy surviving to stop and count my fans.”

“She’ll see it soon enough,” Mom says. She lifts her iPad and hands it to me. It’s Mom’s Facebook page, with a video of my battle. Of course, half the kids who witnessed the fight recorded it on their phones. This has been online for at least sixteen hours. I click on the video and watch my fight from the third-person point of view. If cameras really add ten pounds, then I’m one sickly-scrawny Goth boy.

The fight seems longer on video than I remember it, and Bao connected a few blows to my head that I must’ve erased from my rattled memory. His fall to the ground, when his head hit the goalpost, shocks everyone. There’s commentary on this video where the girl filming questions if Bao is dead.

Then my
Gladiator
rant and my spitting to the ground had everyone pointing their phones at me and cheering. They’re missing the whole point of my rant: Bullies and fighting are wrong, not something we celebrate. When I said the line, I was mocking all of them for not protecting me, but instead my rant seems to have bonded them to me.

“The video’s gone viral,” my mom says, with a bit of pride mixed with concern in her voice.

Clicking over to YouTube, I search for my name and any phrase relating to the word
Gladiator
. There are at least twenty recently uploaded videos from my fight, and each one from a different vantage point. The videos have 30,000 views in total. One has more than 10,000 views alone! It’s a compilation of several videos of me tackling Bao with music from The White Stripes’ song “Seven Nation Army” playing in the background, an excellent song choice! My fight has its own sound track. Rock on—YEAH!

Logging out of her Facebook account and into mine, my news feed is filled with other kids reposting the video. My inbox contains thirty direct messages waiting for my reply, plus another fifty Friend requests—some of them are kids from China who I don’t know, but Bao probably does. The only thing I’m thinking is, what’s Bao’s opinion of all of this?

“Well, let’s hope this is the end of it,” Mom says.

“My guess?” I say, glancing at her. “It’s about to get a whole lot worse.”

Uncle Jack’s apartment is a cool Minneapolis loft in the downtown warehouse district. Steering my mom’s Prius while she rides alongside me, she clutches my learner’s permit in case a cop pulls me over, which shows how confident she is about me being behind the wheel. I’m totally cool driving, even though she’s slamming her foot into the floor as if she’s riding the brake. When we arrive at Jack’s building I pull over to the curb.

“I’ll talk with Jack and you’ll wait here?” I ask, implying that this is a guy’s discussion, no moms allowed.

“There’s a Starbucks around the corner. Park there and you can walk,” she instructs me. “Text me when you’re done.”

After I drop her off I park far enough away that I don’t have to parallel park. Walking along the broken city sidewalk I arrive at Jack’s building, hit the rusty call button for his loft and he buzzes me in. The ancient freight elevator takes me to the fifth floor of this artists’ community. The entire building is a “live and work” space. Artists use the lofts to host private gallery showings of their work. Jack is rich, single, and hasn’t worked in many years. He’s too wealthy to work, but apparently he likes living among those who do.

I knock and pull on the sliding rail door, entering a loft with twelve-foot ceilings, mostly windows, red brick and hardwood plank floors. There are wood-beam rafters overhead and Jack is hanging upside down from one of them, the back of his knees wrapped around a steel pipe. He’s doing sit-ups at least ten feet off the ground. How did he get himself up there, and how will he get himself down?

He pauses his workout, hanging comfortably like a bat. “Close the door before the cats get in. You’re late.”

“Better late than never, and better late than early, right?” I say.

“Yeah, never arrive early. You have no idea what kind of weird stuff you’ll walk in on.”

Jack says odd things like that all the time, and I never know if it’s sarcasm or bragging. This time a petite woman in workout tights walks across the loft toward the kitchen.

“Darius, this is Kim,” Jack says, as he adds a few more air sit-ups.

“Hello,” she says. Her tan skin contrasts with her bright smile. Kim is super-fit, in a one-piece bodysuit.

“She’s my yoga instructor,” Jack says.

He has a personal instructor or trainer for everything—tai chi, marathon running, meditation, you name it.

“Kim, Darius is my
favorite
nephew,” Jack says.

“I’m his
only
nephew,” I say to Kim.

“You’d still be my favorite,” he says before he spins around the bar like a gymnast, hangs by both hands, and drops to the floor on his feet, shouting, “Dismount!”

“Nice move. Perfect ten for that one.” I clap.

Kim hands him a small towel and a bottle of water. “Same time tomorrow?” she asks, as she walks to the door.

Jack’s eyes follow her, and I’m sure he’s staring at her butt as she leaves. What kind of yoga positions were they practicing before I arrived?

“Have a seat, buddy,” he says.

He tosses me an Evian from the coffee table and I sit in one of his big leather chairs.

“Nice shiner.”

My eye hurts just at the mention of it. “Yeah, I had another run-in with Bao after Mom called you the other day.”

“I hope you gave him
two
black eyes. Want some aloe for that cut?” He inspects my stitches.

“No, I’m cool.”

Ignoring my reply, he walks over to his kitchen and opens a large stainless steel refrigerator. It’s bright and clean inside, mostly fruits, vegetables, and lots of bottled waters and organic juices. He finds a small tube of aloe, walks over to me and squeezes it into his hand, patting it around my eye.

“Ouch, that stings,” I complain.

“Not for long.”

My eye starts to feel numb and I relax a bit. “What is it?”

“Real aloe, not that rubbish you get at the vegan grocery stores.”

He closes the aloe tube. Despite just having done an amazing ab workout, Jack barely sweats. He’s tall, with lean muscles and olive skin, which is unusual for a Vampire. It’s not unheard of, but he’s like a black swan in a flock of pale white ones. Despite Jack’s chronological age of 142 years, he looks timeless.

My mom is nine years younger. I’m told she was born in 1880 in Germany, near the Bohemian Forest that borders the Czech Republic. Not sure why they emigrated from Germany to America. Neither of them talks much about the old country, or why they changed their name from Hundertmark to Hunter. What I do know is that Vampires don’t live forever like they once did; but they age gracefully.

“So, tell me about this fight,” Jack says.

“See for yourself.” I hand him my phone with the video already cued up.

He holds it up and I relive the event by watching his facial expressions. He’s a mix of surprise, winced pain and smiles as I taunt the crowd. “Oooh, good line at the end, ha!”

“Not bad for a Goth, right?” I say with pride.

He gives me a high five. “I’m glad you stood your ground, Darius. We have to work on your martial arts moves, but I like your style. Bravado is half of it, and you’ve got that part down.”

“I’m worried he’ll come after me again next week at school.”

“Ah, revenge is a dish best served cold,” my uncle says.

“Huh?” Another one of Jack’s sayings that makes no sense to me.

“This bully will wait. He’ll let things cool off for a while, and then seek his revenge when you least expect it.”

“That makes me even more nervous. I’d rather bring an end to his bullying now.”

“Have patience. I’ll work with you,” Jack says calmly. “I’ve got your back.”

How exactly will he have my back when I’m at school? Even though my eye is now numb from his real aloe, my anxiety climbs higher.

“Who’s the girl?” Jack asks, as he replays the video.

“Angel, you’ve met her before.”

“No, not Angel, the Goth girl next to her,” Jack says.

“Oh, that’s Shelby.”

“She’s likes you. I can see it in her expression. You dating her?”

“No, she transferred to my school. Yesterday was the first time we ever spoke.”

“She’s got her eye on you, Darius. What’s her blood type?”

“A.”

Jack nods, watching the video. “And you have O blood, so if you two mated, your offspring could be an O. If Shelby is from a traditional Vampire family, they’d consider you a good catch for their daughter.”

“Maybe, I suppose...she’s transforming.”

“No more Reds for her? Then you need to be very careful if you date her,” Jack says, setting my phone on the coffee table. “When Goth girls transform, their hormones are in hyper mode.”

I’ve heard guys talk about how girls who are transforming are easy targets for sex. I was never sure if the guys were exaggerating, though.

“What happens when they’re in hyper mode?” I ask.

“Goth boys who step off the Reds get all lusty, not much different than Normal teenage boys, actually. But Goth girls who step off the Reds are eager to find a mate, so they’re more tempted to bite boys. Don’t let her bite you. You’re both too young.”

This is all consistent with what I’ve heard from guys. “If I date her, we won’t bite, I promise.”

“Even if you’re on the Reds, don’t bite and don’t get bitten,” Jack warns me again.

“I know, if I’m bitten I could transform into a Vampire.”

“No, you would only transform if you were in love with her. The bitten has to love the biter. If it’s just lustful attraction and not love, then a bite is just a bite, like a hickey. Your mom hasn’t explained this to you?”

“No! How do you know if you’re in love?” I ask.

“Ah, the age-old question, how do you know it’s love? You don’t know! You never know for sure,” Jack says. “But by dating and spending time together, you’ll have a pretty good idea if you’re in love.”

“You’ve dated women,” I say. “Haven’t you been in love with any of them?”

“Dude, leave me out of this,” Jack says with a guilty smile. “I’m your uncle, your mentor, but not your role model. Remember, the Reds prevent you from transforming into a Vampire, but the Reds aren’t birth control. And if you’re bitten, you could transform. And Reds don’t prevent you from contracting or spreading diseases like HIV or V2.”

In my seventh-grade health class our teacher cautioned us about all of this. It was as bad as watching those driver’s ed videos. You’re so scared you never want to do it.

“She mentioned she sees more vivid colors and her taste is stronger, too,” I say.

“Stage One, those are classic symptoms of the change,” Jack says.

“She also has this other ability. She was checking me out from the back of the classroom as if she were standing right behind me. I could feel her presence.”

“Ah, she’s attracted to you, bro. She’s calling you like a Siren from Greek mythology. Use caution.”

“It felt like she was right behind me. How do you explain that?”

“Bi-location,” Jack says. “She’s developing the ability to be in two places at once.”

“Vampires can really do that?”

“I’ve only met two Vampires in my lifetime that could bi-locate, and they were both women,” Jack says. “Vampire bloodlines that have the ability to bi-locate are very powerful.”