The Poison in Your Blood

I feel tears in my eyes and I can’t tell if they are happy tears or overwhelmed tears. I blink them away and I look at him for a few seconds. He’s holding my engagement ring in his hand and he’s apologizing for all the fighting and blaming and I want to throw myself around him and kiss him and everything. But I can’t help but hold myself back. I can tell he’s not been taking care of himself again and I don’t know if I should put myself that close to him.

“Lana, please,” he says. “I’m dying without you.”

I take a couple steps towards him and he opens his mouth to apologize again but I press my lips against his to stop him. I don’t want to hear him anymore, feeling bad. I want him to know that I’m okay and I’m ready to go home. I love him and I’ve been waiting on him for three days, really to listen to another apology would only prolong the whole deal.

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” I say when I pull away from him. “I’ve been missing you so much, it’s a miracle I didn’t lose my mind,” I add. I look into his eyes and see that they are black and I instinctively take a step back. “You haven’t been feeding,” I say.

“I’ve been…preoccupied,” he says.

“Austin,” I say and sigh. “You need to take care of yourself.”

“For the record, I can smell your hangover,” he says in a teasing voice.

I cross my arms over my chest and roll my eyes. “So I had a couple drinks,” I say. I decide to leave out the part where I went and got shitfaced in front of my ex boyfriend and kissed him in a sloppy drunken state.

“I haven’t been able to go out,” he says. “I haven’t been able to sleep. For three days I was thinking about the things you said and how much of an asshole I was.”

“I just hope you can learn how to get it under control now,” I say. “But the first thing you need to do is get something to eat.”

“Come home with me, Lana,” he says. He pulls my arms away from my chest and laces his fingers with mine after sliding my engagement ring back on my finger. It feels so perfect to have it back where it belongs.

“That didn’t sound like a question,” I say.

“It wasn’t.”

“Good, because you never had to ask,” I say. “I just have to get my things and tell Madison.”

“Alright,” he says. “Where is the stuff? I can get it, if you want a minute with Madison.”

I tell him which room is mine and pull my hands out of his. He’s down the hall before I have a chance to say anything else and I shrug and go to the kitchen. Madison is drinking a cup of coffee and looking over some paperwork for her company.

“Hey babe,” I say.

“Did you get it worked out with your vampire?” she asks.

“Yea,” I say. “I’m going home with him. I’ll text Anna and let her know. Thank you so much for letting me stay here.”

“I’m always here when you need me,” she says and stands up and gives me a hug. I take in her shampoo smell and I can’t express my gratitude for her. She puts up with so much from me. She pulls out of my grasp and I give her a smile.

“I love you,” I say.

“Love you, too,” she says.

“I owe you a bottle of vodka,” I say.

“I’ll accept it any time,” she laughs. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I’ve got this one,” I say.

A few minutes later Austin is back at the front door with all my stuff packed and Piggy shoved into his carrier. I say one more goodbye to Madison and slip my feet into my flip flops and grab my purse. Madison watches us carry my stuff to the car and I frown as I realize my car is going to be stuck here.

On the drive back to our house I text Anna, who just got her California drivers license, to have Josh take her to Madison’s house and pick up my car and bring it home. I get an instant reply of a smiley face and OK.

As we pull into the driveway I start to feel antsy. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to feel antsy but I can’t help it. The bruises on my neck and arms have dulled and the ones on my hips and thighs are virtually gone. He parks the car and I give him a look. He laughs a little bit.

I manage to get Piggy in the house and out of his carrier before I’m lifted up into a threshold. This is overwhelmingly exciting and I very willingly accept the kiss he forces on me, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth.

“Hold on tight,” he says when he pulls away. I grip his shirt in both hands and close my eyes as the air moves around us and in an instant we are up the stairs and in our room. He drops me on the bed and it takes me about a second to get myself orientated. Usually when he pulls me along on his super speed it’s only a few feet. The first time he took me all the way up the stairs like that I nearly puked.

By the time I’m all back together he’s crawling over me with a look in his eyes that says it’s been a few days too long. He takes hold of my wife beater and tears it open down the front and where this would normally annoy me, I find it kind of arousing. I arch my back up towards him and I let a little moan out of my chest when he takes one of my breasts in his hand and gives it a little squeeze.

When we are finished I lay with my head on his chest and listen to him breathing. I’ve learned to love the sound of him breathing since he has no heart beat. He runs his fingers through my hair absently and looks up at the ceiling. There is a slight tension in here and I’m not sure I like it.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“I want to ask you something,” he says suddenly. “I want you to be honest with me, and I promise I won’t freak out.”

“What is this about?” I ask.

“Did you sleep with your ex?” he asks. “You can tell me the truth.”

How the hell did he even know about Jon? “No,” I say. “I didn’t sleep with him.” It occurs to me then that I need to call Jon and apologize for my horrible behavior yesterday, but I decide I’d be better to do that tomorrow. “Why do you ask?”

“I could smell him in Madison’s house…and I just wanted to know,” he says.

Well I guess I’ll never be able to cheat on him if I want to. Not that I’d ever do that. “I was drunk yesterday and I called Jonathan and I went out and made a fool of myself and drank for martinis in about a forty-five minute time slot and he took me home and put me to bed.”

“Oh,” he says and rolls onto his side to face me. “We should get married soon.”

“I thought we agreed on a long engagement?”

“I’ve decided I can’t wait that long,” he says. “The last three days have shown me that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“You’d have to change me to spend the rest of your life with me,” I say.

“Well, at the very least the rest of your life.”

“You won’t think that when I look like I could be your grandma,” I say.

He laughs and pushes some of my black hair out of my face. He passes his thumb over my cheek gently and runs his hand down my throat and my shoulder. It sends a shiver down my spine but I kind of like it.

“You’ll always be beautiful, Lana,” he says.

“You’re so full of shit,” I say and stick my tongue out.

He gives me a full on vampire smile and my heart beats a little faster.

“Do the fangs feel weird?” I ask.

“Always with your questions,” he laughs. “They don’t anymore. They were pretty unusual at first.”

“Did you notice them? Like right at first?”

“Yea,” he says and shrugs. “I could feel them against my lips; it was basically how I figured out what was going on. I knew that the girl had bitten into my neck and what not, but I couldn’t for the first I’d say 24 hours figure out what the hell was going on. My body hurt and everything was a foggy mess and I just knew I wasn’t right but I couldn’t tell why. I was smoking a cigarette when I noticed the teeth the first time. I was outside the tour bus thinking what the fuck is wrong with my teeth?” He laughs then. “I could feel them pressing against my bottom lip in an unnatural way. When I passed my tongue over them I really freaked out and ended up looking in the bus’s side view mirrors.”

“Sounds like a pleasant surprise,” I say.

“No, not really,” he says with a laugh. “I can remember looking at them in the side view mirror and just thinking what the fuck is going on, this can’t be happening.”

“So turning hurts?” I ask.

“You wouldn’t believe the pain,” he says. “It’s like that dull aching kind of pain except it’s anything but dull. It starts wherever the bite is, a kind of stinging pain that radiates throughout your entire body. By the end of the first full day all of the muscles and skin on your body hurt, and by the second day it’s your bones and most of your internal organs have kicked in.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Well, the internal organs are shutting down. I told you, Lana, you’ll literally die with your eyes open and your lungs breathing.”

“But what about the muscles and bones?”

“Everything changes when you turn,” he says. “Muscles get stronger, faster, and bones have to support the new muscles. If you tried to move as fast as I do, you’d just as soon break your hip before making a fraction of the time.”

“But the teeth didn’t hurt growing in?”

“Baby, by the time I noticed my teeth my whole fucking body hurt. I didn’t notice one pain over the other,” he says. “I think it was about the third day I understood that I was basically dying. I think I have to honestly say during those three days I hoped I’d actually die. I wanted to die rather than go on with this curse and I wasn’t too sure the pain was ever going to stop.”

“When did it stop?”

“I told you about when my heart stopped beating, right?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, as fucking painful and scary as it is to have a heart attack while you are in the middle of a show, once it passed, it was a little relieving. Nothing hurt anymore and I felt refreshed, if that makes sense. The hardest part then was keeping at a human pace on the stage.”

“The speed is kind of cool,” I say.

“It comes in handy,” he says. “But it’s a real pain in the ass to learn to control.”

I have to think about that for a few seconds. My top speed is only slightly above a cat with a missing leg. If I really have to I can run pretty fast but my lungs end up feeling like they are bleeding. So the idea of having to keep myself at a human pace is totally beyond my comprehension.

“Most of the times you’ve seen it, that’s normal walking speed,” he says. “I don’t do a lot of running.”

“That is walking?” I ask.

“Yea,” he says. “So, when I’m out in public I feel like I’m standing still walking with people. I’ve got it down pretty good now, but at first it was horrible.” He thinks about it for a few seconds and then he laughs. “You should have seen my ex-wife the first time she noticed it. This of course was after her near death experience. I was packing some of my shit to go somewhere, it wasn’t a tour so fuck if I remember where I was going. But anyways, she was standing in the doorway and her eyes were wide and her mouth was dropped open. I stopped at the suitcase and asked her what happened and she said something like ‘Why are you running?” but she knew I wasn’t really running.”

“The first time I noticed it I wondered what the hell,” I say and laugh. “I couldn’t figure out how all of the sudden you’d be across the room.”

“It’s fast and sudden, and it feels like the world around you is crawling.”

“Does it annoy you walking with me?”

“No,” he says. “I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve learned how to keep up the human pace in public, and really, if I want to get you somewhere faster than you can get yourself there I just pull you along.”

I frown.

“Enough about vampires,” he says. He presses his face against my neck, nuzzling me and getting me all hot and bothered again. “Let’s do something else.”

“We already had sex,” I say.

“So let’s have sex again.”

I don’t protest. There really is no point in protesting. I want to have sex too.

Its a few hours later when Annalise comes home with my car and Josh following her in his car. I’m in the kitchen in a new tank top and a pair of shorts. I didn’t bother getting dressed, each time I’ve thought about it I end up naked again so why bother. I finally managed to get him off me long enough to get to the kitchen to make lunch. I’m starving and Anna and Josh always come home hungry.

“What do I smell!?” Anna asks in a dramatic voice as she comes into the kitchen. Josh comes in a few minutes later and I notice he’s got a bruise on his temple. I don’t think I like it. Anna lifts herself up onto the stool at the breakfast bar and pulls her math book out of her back pack. “I’ve got a shit ton of homework.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You smell pasta sauce,” I add. “Josh, are you hungry?”

“Always,” he says and gives me a grin.

I smile back and give them each a plate of some bowtie pasta in spicy cream sauce. I put forks down and give them each a coca-cola and watch as Anna turns her pages. I examine Josh and frown. He looks tired and I can see that the damage on his face extends past the black eye.

“What happened?” I ask him.

He looks up at me for a second and then he looks back at his plate of food. “Just a fight,” he says.

I’m not sure I believe it.

Anna gives me a pleading look and I decide maybe I shouldn’t press it. But the very slight maternal instinct I have tells me to ignore the look of a 16 year old and find out what’s going on.

“Does your mom know?” I ask.

“Yea,” he says and takes a drink from his coke can.

“Who did you fight with?”

“Lana, let it go,” Anna says and now my inner mother is screaming at me to find out.

“It’s okay, Anna,” Josh says.

I’m starting to feel like it isn’t really okay.

Austin walks into the kitchen and gives both of them a once over before putting his arms around my waist from behind. It feels really good to have him back with me.

“Are you going to say hello?” I ask him.

“Hi kids,” he says.

They both give him a mumbled hi in unison. Josh has gone back to his plate of pasta and Annalise is completely focused on her homework.

“What happened?” Austin asks Josh.

Josh lets off a sigh. “I shouldn’t tell you,” he says. “My mom will freak if I tell you.”

“Shit that never leads to a good story,” Austin says and lets go of me. He gets a soda out of the fridge and leans against the counter behind me.

“Of course, she’ll probably never even notice. I could fucking run away from home before that bitch noticed if I was out of bed.”

Anna looks up from her homework and takes a hold of Josh’s arm. He gives her a look and she frowns. I have a feeling I might understand why he’s so accepting of her and her baggage. I look back at Austin and I try and tell him through expressions to find out what’s up. Maybe a man to man thing can help this kid let it out.

“Mom isn’t great?” Austin asks.

“Please,” Josh says. “Bad enough she doesn’t know where I am half the time, but then she married this asshole…” he stops then and goes back to his food.

“Josh, you don’t have to tell them,” Anna says.

“But if you want to you can,” Austin adds and gives her a look. She gives him one back.

“I don’t know,” Josh says. “I should have went to live with my dad. He’s got money, and a nice wife, my half sister is nice, she’s cute. My step-mom always loves to have me over, she’s got shit tons of food and everything. But when my parents split my mom made this big issue out of keeping me. I think it was out of spite.”

“That’s awful,” I say.

“It was whatever. She never took great care of me, you know. She was always more interested in whoever she was seeing at the time, and whoever she could sleep with for some cash.” He looks away with an expression of disgust. “She isn’t right in the head. A couple years ago she married Scott. He’s a shit head alcoholic. But my mom…my mom is sick. She should be on meds for her mental health shit. So Scott has her where he wants and sometimes things get out of hand,” Josh says.

“Why don’t you go live with your dad?” I ask.

“Because, as shitty of a mother as she is, I can’t leave her alone with Scott. Somebody has to take care of her,” he says and looks down.

“Why don’t you call the police?” Austin asks in a tight voice.

“Kind of hard to call the cops when you’re pinned against a wall,” Josh snaps.

“Fair enough,” Austin says.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Josh says. “It was a bad night. Scott was drunk and my mom was having an episode and I spent the night in the park.”

“Jesus Christ,” I say.

“Hey, don’t stay in the park,” Austin says. “You’re always welcome to hang out here if you need to.”

“I couldn’t come here last night, Anna wasn’t here,” Josh says.

“From now on you can always come here if you need to,” Austin says. “Even if Anna or Lana aren’t here. You’re likely to get yourself killed in the parks around here.”

“Parks are better than Scott,” Josh mumbles.

Anna gives me a look. “Can I talk to you guys?” she asks Austin and I.

“Sure babe,” Austin says and pushes up off the counter.

I give Josh a quick smile and we walk out of the room with Anna. We get to the front room and Anna crosses her arms over her chest for a second and clearly she looks uncomfortable.

“I love Josh,” she says. “And it breaks my heart when he has this problem with his step-dad. Really breaks my heart. He’s such a great guy, and then he ends up with bruises on his face and shit and it makes me sad. But he doesn’t like to talk about it. So don’t press it, please.”

“We only asked because we might be able to help,” Austin says.

Her mouth opens and she points at him. “You keep your fucking fangs put away,” she says then with her eyes narrowed. “Josh is amazing and I’m not taking a chance at him freaking out and dumping me when he finds out my surrogate father is a fucking vampire!”

“Calm down, Anna,” Austin says. “I won’t go out and kill his step-dad unless it becomes necessary.”

“You won’t do it at all!”

“I could do it and he’d never know what happened,” Austin says and shrugs. “But I won’t unless it ever becomes a problem that needs to really be solved,” he gives me a look and I know he’s lying.

“Now, I have to do my homework, and I want the subject to be dropped!” she says.

“Fine fine,” Austin says. “Lana and I are going out anyways.”

“Wait, what?” I ask.

“We are going to dinner,” Austin says. “So they can be together and what the fuck ever. Go get dressed.”

“Okay…” I say and look at Anna.

“Have fun,” she says and walks back to the kitchen.

“We just had lunch,” I say to Austin.

“Then we’ll go to a movie first,” he says.

“Okay, cool, but how about you join me in the shower first,” I say and give him a wink before sauntering up the stairs. I laugh when I hear him run up behind me.