Tainted Blood (13 page)

“Ooh, a haunted house!” Kiera squealed. She tugged on Carter’s arm, and he trudged along behind his Tinker Bell in his little green hat and brown tights, and it was hard not to laugh. That was, until Zoey gave me an uneasy look just before she entered the haunted house. My laughter died, and I pulled myself tight against Oliver’s side.

The first thing I heard as we entered, other than Carter’s girly screams, was a cackling witch laugh, and I was ready to get the hell out of there. Oliver chuckled and pulled me tighter against him. We walked through a strobe-lit narrow path and spooky ghost sounds filled my ears and goosebumps covered my skin. We rounded a corner and somebody in what looked like a plain white sheet with eye holes cut out jumped at us, and I screamed. Super loud. Oliver laughed again and pulled me in front of him. I couldn’t see what he was finding so humorous about the whole thing. I did think that walking directly behind me, so that he could wrap both arms around me, was actually to keep the creep in the sheet safe from me, though.

Flashing lights and a big, scary-ass, laughing clown head were revealed to be the source of Carter’s earlier screams. The spinning spiral at the end of a hall with an unsteady floor about brought up my dinner, and when I saw a wall full of glow-in-the-dark spiders, all of which were rather large and somehow moving, I was surprised I didn’t find a terrified Peter Pan huddled in a nearby corner.

I kept reminding myself that it wasn’t real, that all of the sounds, creatures, and bugs were not real. That they wouldn’t have made the haunted house too scary because little kids would’ve been going through it, but when something dropped from the ceiling and a bunch of hands came out of the wall grabbing for me, I was out of there. I think I might have even pushed past Zoey to get out as quickly as I could.

Oliver was chuckling and trying to hide it, as we made our way back out into the crowd, past all of the carnival rides that I was thankful we weren’t riding. They looked like they’d collapse if a single bolt came loose; the duct tape that I noticed holding things into place was definitely not a reassurance. Pulling my attention away from the rickety rides, I found Oliver still laughing quietly at my moment in the haunted house. I wasn’t finding any of it funny, at all, and I pouted.

“Ah, come on, Laney.” He wrapped his arms around me from the side and kissed my neck. “I’m pretty sure you gave that guy in the sheet a bigger scare than he gave you.”

“I don’t see how.” I continued to pout.

“You took a swing at him.” He chuckled again.

“I did not!” I protested.

“Did she really?” Carter asked as the others fell in step beside us.

“She did!” Oliver said through a couple more snickers.

They joked about how funny it would’ve been had I taken the poor innocent sheet-wearing guy out, and when put that way, it was kind of funny.

We continued to walk, making our way to a club that opened only for special occasions, like Halloween and Valentine’s day, for the under twenty-one crowd.
Oliver walked beside me and left an arm draped around my shoulders. I slipped my fingers between his and enjoyed listening to Oliver and Carter actually getting along for the first time in who knows how long. We even got a good laugh at Carter trying to hide behind Kiera as we passed by a couple of girls in very revealing clown costumes.

We were just about to get in line at the club when Avery and her sleazy friends sauntered across our path.

That’s when the night went to shit.

Chapter
5
-
The Vampire
Slayer Wannabe

Avery, in her
way
too high stilettos, stopped in her tracks when she saw us. Avery was also dressed as a blue fairy, but her costume left very little to the imagination. Her two-toned hair was pulled up into some sort of messy ponytail and had strands of blue weaved through her trashy hair.

Glitter covered her exposed skin—there was a lot of skin showing—and she had crystals glued to her eyelids and cheekbones. Her wings were bigger than her costume, and I noticed that she had several sparkling, stud earrings up both of her ears, no doubt all real diamonds.

Oliver’s arm slipped from my shoulders as Avery eyed him up and down. “I like it! You made a nice choice,” she said to him with a big smile, the nose her daddy paid for crinkled like a bunny’s.

My eyes shot back and forth between the two of them, and I felt a surge of heat pulse through me as he told her thanks. His eyes lingered on her a little too long as she and her trampy friends, also in costumes that left very little to the imagination, sauntered off.

“What was she talking about?” I’m sure my voice was higher than I intended it to be, and I was positive I sounded jealous because I was sure the hell feeling jealous.

He blinked a couple of times then focused on me. “Oh, uh, nothing,” he stammered.

He stammered!

I felt a huge wave of anger pulse through me. Felt my nails biting into my palm as my eyes narrowed on him.

“I ran into her at the Halloween store when I was picking up this costume.” He tugged at his cap but all I could focus on—other than the anger and jealousy raging through me—was that his pupils were too large. I felt myself relax a miniscule amount when I realized that something was off, but before I could figure out what was going on with him, I heard a voice that made my skin crawl and was instantly back to a tensed ball of nerves.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Ashton called out as he and his posse crossed the street to where we were standing. He had on some sort of getup that I didn’t understand: a long brown leather coat, like a trench coat, and a leather cowboy-looking hat. His attire reminded me a little of those vampire slayers we’d encountered at Gladys’ house. That thought triggered something. It took me a moment to realize who Ashton was supposed to be, and a moment later panic filled me as the realization soaked in.

Oliver went to pull me close but I stepped in front of him as the Van Helsing wannabe got closer. Ashton stopped only a few feet away.

“Well, look at you, Laney. Aren’t you a sight?”

His eyes took in every inch of me, and I glared at him and felt my stomach turn as his eyes lingered. I also heard a rumble come from Oliver who was standing right behind me.

Ashton’s eyes slipped past me for a moment, and he scoffed. “A fairy and a vampire?” He and his friends took a step closer. His eyes met mine when he said, “You want me to slay your vampire for you?”

I glared even harder at him. From behind me, Oliver tensed even more, and that rumble deep in his chest got louder just before he said, “I’d like to see you try.”

“Oh, would you?” Ashton taunted. He reached into his jacket and pulled out an actual wooden stake!

I stepped back at the same time Oliver pushed forward. I whirled around and put one hand on his chest and the other on his cheek, guiding his gaze to mine. I held his eyes with my own and said, very softly, “Calm down. He’s just trying to set you off.” Ashton scoffed, and Oliver growled. “Please, Oliver, don’t let him win,” I pleaded. I watched him ease, just a little. “Let’s just go home,” I said, and he nodded in response.

Ashton was still standing there, and it was clearly pissing him off that Oliver wasn’t responding the way he wanted so he pushed again. This time, way too far. I had taken Oliver’s hand, and all five of us had stepped out of line. We’d taken only a couple of steps when Ashton called after us. “Hey! You popped her cherry yet?”

Oh, shit…
I closed my eyes and feared what would happen next.

Ashton continued. “I’ll do it for you if you’re not man enough to handle it.” He and his buddies laughed, and even the three current sluts of the posse found some amusement in this comment.

In a split-second I thought about all of the faces that had turned to watch us, about what a piece of shit Ashton was, and I even wondered how the hell he knew I was still a virgin. I thought about how I wanted to pound his face in with my own little fist, and when Oliver takes us away from here, maybe we just wouldn’t come back. I thought of all of this while in that same moment I turned and put both hands on Oliver’s chest and begged for him not to kill Ashton right then and there in front of all of those witnesses. Because that is what they would be, witnesses to a terrible, yet possibly justified, act. Okay, maybe there would be a few casualties, but I figured I could live with that because a very large percentage of me desperately wanted that moment to happen—to be free of that jerk, Ashton, to know we were all safe from whatever it was he knew, to be free of his constant torment.

Suddenly there was only a small space that separated Oliver and Ashton, and I was in it. All three of my friends were repeatedly telling Oliver to just walk away, and Carter was throwing in some nice putdowns to Ashton. Even though Ashton’s muscles looked intimidating, I knew Oliver could overpower him in a second. He’d done it before.

As badly as I wanted freedom from Ashton, I still pleaded for Oliver to back down. “Please, Oliver. Let’s just go home.” But this time it was like he didn’t even hear me.

They stood eye-to-eye with me squished between them, and I feared what might happen. I feared that what I wanted might actually occur and was terrified that once it did, it might not be something I’d wanted after all.

I pleaded with Oliver once again but still nothing, just a tensed vampire under my touch and an idiot-wannabe-slayer at my back. Oliver had been so on edge lately that I was afraid he might not be able to control himself if he was pushed any further. And after Ashton’s next jab, I knew I truly didn’t give a crap what happened to him, I just didn’t want Oliver to do something to get himself removed from the area and from me.

“Please,” I begged again and guided Oliver’s face so that his eyes would meet mine. He blinked several times and seemed to come back to me. His body eased some under my touch, and he took a step back, taking me with him.

This is when Ashton took that one last jab, “I will find your weakness and burn you with it.”

Oliver’s eyes shifted back to Ashton, and his body tensed right back to where it had been. Ashton knew way too much, and right then we all knew it. I exchanged a quick look with Carter and Zoey, and it was clear we’d all come to the same conclusion.

I was mentally exhausted and more than ready to go home. Ashton and Oliver were still at a standoff when something in the distance caught my eye. My hands slipped from Oliver’s chest, and I stepped away without any notice from him. I watched someone, or something, that looked all too familiar float out of my sight. I started after it without a thought of what might happen if the barrier that was me walked away leaving nothing but air separating Oliver and Ashton. I don’t know if anyone noticed that I was gone at first, I just know that I wish they had.

I followed what I thought was the ghost of my aunt for what seemed longer than it actually was, and I didn’t remember how I’d gotten as far as I had when my flip-flop snapped. I ended up sitting on a deserted strip of curb holding the flip-flop in my hand and shivering in the cold with a massive headache. It hadn’t been her—my aunt. There was just no way but I kept replaying the Samhain thing in my head—the thing about the veil—and I wanted to believe that it was her. That it was her ghostly face that smiled at me and then disappeared just as my shoe broke. My head was really hurting, and I wanted to curl up on the sidewalk and go to sleep.

I don’t know how long I sat there before they found me. It was Zoey’s voice that I heard first. I heard her yell, “She’s over here!”

Carter tried to pull me up off of the curb but I felt too weak to stand. “Are you okay?” he asked as he crouched down in front of me.

“She’s fine,” Oliver snapped. He crouched down to examine me and said, “I’ve got her.”

“Do you?” Carter challenged. Oliver growled in response. They began arguing and eventually were standing toe-to-toe, eyes glaring at each other.

I finally choked out, “Stop it.”

Carter backed down first.

Oliver scooped me up into his arms, and I shivered against him. We paused on a street corner and stared out at the sea of people that filled every space as far as we could see. It was going to take us forever to make it home through that crowd.

“I have an idea,” Oliver said. “Follow me.” With me cradled against his chest and the others following along behind him, Oliver began walking away from the crowd and toward a dark and deserted area of downtown.

We stopped in the middle of an empty street. Oliver gently set me down and asked if I was okay before letting me go to stand on my own. I nodded. I had the oddest ache in my head.
It wasn’t quite a headache
,
but it wasn’t quite
not
a headache, either.
It didn’t make sense. To top it off, I began feeling a little queasy. I shivered and rubbed my arms to try to warm myself while Oliver made a phone call. I seemed to be the only one who was feeling the sudden chill in the air.

Zoey busied herself checking messages on her phone and Kiera and Carter, or rather Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, were wrapped in each other’s arms. They were talking quietly, and she was giggling and smiling up at him. Kiera was lucky. She had the love of her life and the excitement of their upcoming life together. She had her parents and a happy home. She had friends and the promise of a bright future. I was happy for her, I truly was, but I was beginning to feel a little bitter toward the fact that anything I did anymore turned into some big dramatic or tragic ordeal.