Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance (7 page)

“She has power over me,” I admit.

“That’s because you’re on the Reds. You’re like a Normal. You feel the world like a Normal, for the most part. But inside you there’s a Vampire waiting to take flight. You have to get off those Reds, Darius.”

Mom said to ignore Jack’s advice, to not let Jack talk me into stopping. He rants about this all the time. “Now that I know she’s signaling me, what should I do?”

“Address her head-on, and ask her out on a date if you want to,” Jack says. “But take it slow, my friend. When are you planning to transform?”

“Mom and I agreed that on my sixteenth birthday I would step down from the Reds.”

“If you can wait that long,” Jack says. “Your dad was able to hold off. He married your mom as a Normal, and he wasn’t bitten until after you and Kira were born.”

This was always a frustrating mystery to me. Why had my dad waited so long for my mom to bite him? Anytime I’ve asked her about this, she’s avoided the topic entirely.

“How come my dad waited?”

Jack stands and walks to the center of the loft and begins stretching, as if maybe his muscles are finally cramping from his workout. “That’s a long story, bro.”

“So? I’ve got time. Tell me what happened to my parents.”

“They broke up,” Jack says. “Half the marriages end in divorce for Normals, and it’s no different for today’s Vampires. There was a time we mated for life, but the gene pool was diluted a long time ago. Too many Vampires mating with Normals.”

“Give me details. When my mom bit my dad, he became a Vampire. He loved my mom and once bitten, he transformed, right?”

“Correct.”

“Vampire life too hard on him?” I ask. “Did he leave the marriage because he regretted transforming?”

“No, he left your mom because he enjoyed Vampire life too much,” Jack says. “He had bloodlust. He couldn’t control his urges, because Normals who transform always have a hard time adapting to their new senses.”

“He left her for another woman?”

“You have to ask your mother about that.”

“She’s too embarrassed to talk about it,” I explain. “Tell me, Jack.”

“Not one woman—many women,” Jack says, almost in a whisper. “But only after he learned that your mom had bitten another man before she married your dad. There’s another man out there with her mark. She hasn’t explained this to you?”

“Dad wasn’t her first bite of passion?” I ask.

A knock echoes and the doors slide open and there’s my mom, holding her Starbucks cup. For a moment Jack and I sit there, speechless, wondering if she has been listening to our conversation. Her face has a casual smile, so she probably only just walked in on our conversation.

“Hi, am I interrupting something?” Mom stands in the doorway with her latte and she looks younger to me, maybe because she’s in the presence of her older brother.

“Hey, Virginia! No, just two guys shooting the breeze,” Jack says. “Join us.”

Mom enters, looking at both of us, trying to read our moods and detect what she walked in on. “I hope you’re giving Darius advice on how to handle that bully.”

“I can show him more self-defense moves,” Jack says. “That bully, what’s his name?”

“Bao,” I say.

“Yeah, that Bao is a big kid, and at least three inches taller,” Jack says. “The best way for Darius to stand up against Normals like that is to get off the Reds and let nature take its course.”

Mom looks to me. “We agreed to wait until you were at least sixteen.”

“I know; he’s only suggesting it as one option.”

“Well, I’m not ready for you to transform.”

“If it’s about the government subsidy, I have money,” Jack says.

It’s interesting to watch their sibling dynamics. My mom is meek around her older brother. She seems to consider his advice. Then she pushes back.

“It’s not about money. Your money isn’t the solution to everything,” Mom says. “Darius can wait one more year. Can’t you teach him how to fight off this bully?”

“It’s not only the bully I’m worried about,” Jack says. “It’s the girl.”

Mom turns and looks right at me. “What girl, Angel?”

“No, there’s a new girl at school. Her name is Shelby,” I explain.

“She’s a Goth who’s transforming into a Vampire. She’s attracted to your son,” Jack says. “You know what that’s like, Virginia.”

Mom bites her lower lip and seems to reflect on her own transformation. For a moment she’s lost in thought, then she finally sighs and says, “Yes, I was a teen Goth at one time—”

“And you know it takes months after stepping off the Reds for a Goth to transform into a Vampire,” Jack says. “If you’re willing to speed up the transformation, I can order some Blood Orange Soda for Darius.”

“What’s Blood Orange Soda?” I ask.

“It’s a potion that would speed up your transformation,” Jack says. “Why wait months to transform when I can make you a Vampire in weeks?”

There are supposed to be elixirs that dilute the effects of the Reds. They have exotic names like Blood Shot, Venom and Cherry Dust. I always thought that people juicing on these drinks were really taking mild steroids, that the hype was much more of an urban legend.

Mom remains silent as I fidget with the bottle of water and glance at each of them before she says, “Darius, it’s time to go. Why don’t you leave Uncle Jack and me alone for a few minutes, and I’ll meet you at the car?”

“We have to work on your self-defense moves,” Jack says. “Now that Bao knows your fighting style, you have to switch it up. Come back next week and we’ll work on it.”

“See you later, Jack,” I say, zipping my coat.

Walking out of Jack’s loft alone, I hear them arguing through the door. Whenever Jack and Mom have a private conversation, they revert to their native language, which is German. I recognize a few words like
lieben
, which is love and
geschlechtsverkehr
, which is sex.

My mom wants to protect me, and Jack has concerns for me, too, but they obviously have different opinions on how to raise a Goth kid of the New Millennium.

On the drive home, I’m riding shotgun instead of driving. Mom grips the steering wheel tightly and I know she’s thinking about what Jack suggested to her, that I get off the Reds and speed up my transformation. Mom is usually the one peppering me with questions. This time we’re alone in the car, and I feel like I can ask her almost anything.

“Jack told me more about the ‘birds, bees and biting’,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow. “Really? What version did he give you?”

“He explained how biting only transforms people into Vampires if the Bitten feels love for the Biter.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. “So you have questions for me?”

“Yeah, several,” I say. “My questions have to do with Dad.”

“You’re old enough now, go ahead and ask,” she says, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

“You were born a Vampire and you married Dad, who was a Normal. How come you didn’t bite him as soon as you two were married? Then Kira and I would’ve been born pure Vampires.”

“Biting a Normal and asking him or her to become a Vampire is a big step,” she says. “I learned the hard way to not pressure somebody into a biting.”

“You’ve bitten others?” I ask.

“For feedings, yes,” she says.

“What about biting for love?” I ask.

“Only one other,” Mom confesses, as her eyes stare off into the distance while she drives. “I was in love with a man named Jonathan before I met your father. I was a freshman at the university and he was a sophomore, and we hit it off as soon as I arrived on campus that fall. By the second semester I was madly in love with him. He was funny and smart and he was a writer. He’d sometimes leave me poems and love letters under my dorm room door. By summer, I was sure he was the one, and one night and I asked him if I could bite him.”

She pauses for a long moment. I hate to pull her away from what seems to be such a happy memory, but I’m dying to know what happened.

“And he said yes?” I ask.

She blushes. “In the heat of passion, it’s hard to say no. He agreed, and turned his neck for me to bite. For a man to submit to a woman like that, it’s a big step in their relationship. A male Vampire biting a female Normal is more common—but a female Vampire biting a male Normal is so rare.”

“He didn’t become a Vampire from that bite?”

“No…” she says, with disappointment that hangs in the air.

“You bit him, but he wasn’t in love with you,” I say, thinking back on what Jack told me earlier, that a Bitten must love the Vampire who does the biting.

“That’s what I thought at first. For the next several weeks I expected our love to grow deeper, and for Jonathan to begin transforming. He didn’t. I asked if he loved me and he assured me he was in love. He said he wasn’t ready to transform into a Vampire, so he’d had his doctor write him a prescription for Reds.”

“He prevented the transformation?”

“Yes, and I was angry, foolishly so. I wanted him to be a Vampire like me. I was too young to see his side of it. He needed time to explain it to his parents and friends. The rest of the summer was hard for us,” my mom says.

“He broke up with you?” I ask.

“No, I broke up with him. As much as I loved him, I had to set him free. I thought we should both date other people before we chose marriage or before he transformed, if he were going to transform at all. I felt so terrible about it.”

“How did you break up with him?”

“I wrote him a note.”

“You sent him a break-up letter?” I ask in surprise.

“I didn’t mail it. I handed it to him on our last date. I sat with him while he read my written words. It was ironic that I gave a writer a goodbye letter. It was really a love letter. I wanted to remain friends, and I thought maybe down the road, after we both dated others, if we still felt passion for each other...” Her voice tapers off into a waning breath.

“How did he take it?” I can only imagine the guy was pissed off.

“He was hurt, but he took it much better than I had expected. My friends had prepared me for this, and cautioned me that some men don’t take break-ups well. Jonathan was unique. He understood it, but he said he couldn’t be my friend. He said he still loved me, and that it would be too hard to talk on the phone or hang out only as friends.”

“He let you go, which is what you wanted, right?”

“Yes and no. I needed time to meet new people. He needed to decide if he was ready to transform into a Vampire. The next year on campus was hard for us. We dated others, and it was always heartbreaking to see him with another woman. And I never expected that my First Bitten would vanish from my life.”

“When did Dad come into the picture?”

“You’ll recall your dad was a student teacher at the university? Well, he arrived on campus when I was a junior. We met in the cafeteria, and we hit it off right away. He was a graduate student, only three years older than me. We really clicked as soon as we met. He was also a Normal, and a great musician. For some reason I was more attracted to Normals.”

“And you like artists. Jonathan was a writer, and Dad was a musician,” I suggest.

“Exactly, both were creative, both Normals, with one notable difference. When I had asked Jonathan if I could bite him, to become one, he agreed with no hesitation—he led with his heart. When I asked your dad if I could bite him, he thought about it for a very long time. We were married five years before he agreed to it. Your dad led with his head—he weighed all the advantages and disadvantages of transforming. He wanted his children to be able to choose if they wanted to become Vampires.”

“If Dad had chosen to remain a Normal, you would’ve still loved him, right?” I ask.

“Of course. I was prepared for that possibility. I knew if I too lived on the Reds, I could live a somewhat Normal life.”

“But it took him so long to commit to being bitten that it put stress on your marriage? Is that why you two broke up?” I ask.

“It wasn’t his indecision that broke us up; it was his transformation. Once your father became a Vampire, he was a very different person. When we were first married he was monogamous. Once he transformed into a Vampire, he couldn’t control his urges.”

“Jack said Dad had bloodlust,” I say.

“Yes, Normals have a much harder time transforming. The initial lust drives some of them to madness. And that’s what happened to your father. He chased after other women, to bite them, and if you bite enough people, you’re likely to contract a disease.”

Before she finishes the sentence, I’ve already figured out what happened to my parents’ marriage. “You contracted HIV2 from Dad?”

Mom continues driving, never looking at me. “I hold no anger toward him. He was a Normal who was faithful, but as a Vampire, he was a different person. Neither he nor I could’ve predicted what would happen.”

“And V2 eventually killed Dad?”

She nods again, but she can’t hold back a tear that slides down her cheek onto her lap.

All of this is heavy news for me. This is the family history that I have craved for so long. Now I’m realizing why my mom has guarded it from Kira and me. It’s too heavy a burden for us to carry and fully understand. I admire my mom for keeping it a secret all these years.