The Blood of Fire - Blood of Eden (chapter 6) by Cinthia Maxey

Blood of Eden

Chapter Six

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I suddenly am thrown back to my natural state of mentality and my surroundings, the noises, the vibrating floor and jolting bounces, all of it returns vengefully. The other fades quickly receding to the blank nothingness from which it came.

I jump as air again screams into my lungs. I realize I had been asleep and not exactly breathing again. Well, at least it was a dream and nothing more…But still, it seemed similar to my earlier vision…

“Hey. Marie,” a guy’s unfamiliar voice says. “You ok?”

I had been rubbing the scar on my neck till he said that. As I turn my head, memory immediately kicks in. Chase. Right. And his sister Danique.

The bus begins to slow down and I straighten and look out the window a moment and then return my gaze to him, “Fine. Just dreamin’.”

Danique nods toward my lively barbie-sister and tells me, “She never shuts up and she’s loud. All she’s done since you guys got on is rag on ya’. You let ‘er?”

“Basically,” I reply with a shrug as I stretch. “Till I snap.”

“What’s the bandage wrapped around her hand for?” Chase asks me as he begins to stand and I reach to pull my book bag out from under the seat.

“I told you I found out that I bit this summer,” I reply flatly without looking back up at him.

Danique begins to laugh, “Why’d you bite her?”

“She ticked me off and it was a reflex. It drew blood and I started puking.”

“Ew,” Chase replies.

“Yep,” I say as I step into the isle, slinging my book bag over my right shoulder.

I hear a faint whisper of my name as both Danique and Chase step behind me as the line goes forth, people exiting the bus. “Marian…”

It was a faint whisper, but I recognize the voice and Romanian accent.

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Stop it, stop it! Why can’t he just stop? I avoid the feeling and try to mentally and emotionally squirm away from him. He’s still present but begins to fade after a moment. Yet it doesn’t completely fade. I can still feel hints of his lies of emotions and thoughts. He feels my head-wound and the pain in his own head.

Lies! I want him to leave me alone.

There is still the yearning to speak to me, as if nothing’s happened. I’m not going to fall for it, though. He’ll never trick me again, and he’s not going to try to convince, me it wasn’t or that I dreamed it, because I know better! I know the truth!

They remain silent until we step off he bus and onto the filthy gravel-ridden sidewalk leading to the main doors. I don’t stop to wait even a half a moment for them. But the two-foot track of distance between us quickly disappears and they reach me and walk on either side of me.

I have the feeling that people are watching me and talking about me and look around as Chase speaks. I am correct.

“So what type of accent is that?”

“Instant. It’s not mine.”

“No, really,” he smiles.

His sister is also smiling.

“Really. I didn’t have it until this summer. It’s Romanian.” I quicken my pace. When will I be rid of both of them?

They keep up with me.

I wish so badly that it was Ashley and Janice that were here instead of these two strangers.

Danique then looks at me with her tauntingly orange eyes and asks thoughtfully, “What d’ya’ mean?”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” I whisper bitterly. They’re probing near forbidden waters, things I don’t want to dwell upon in conversing or in thought or memory.

“Oh, come on,” she pleads. “Did’ya go to Romania for a while or something?”

“No. My closet for a month because I thought he—“ I seem to choke and change my words, “some bastard died. I really believed him until I found out.”

“Found out what?”

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I had just begun to reach for the metal door-handle when she asked that. I suddenly stop, my hand inches from the door. I take a step back to look her in the eye and open my mouth to speak.

Just as quickly though, I shut my mouth, shake my head, and quickly open the door and enter the hallway already streaming half-full of people.

People begin to walk closer to the stone walls opposite where I just entered, each and every person looking over at me and then at the two behind me with wide eyes or disbelief or hatred and despise; conspiracy is wrought into their eyes.

Yep. Welcome to Weston, everyone but me. Now for the easy part…Maybe I should just embrace the fact that I scare people and make them so uneasy. There’s just something about me, I suppose.

I begin to walk, turning to my right in the now nearly cleared hallway, and I can hear them whispering to each other; they’re gesturing at me and these two weirdoes.

Maybe I should just acknowledge it…Hmm. My inside coil and cringe sneeringly and I slowly lift a dangerously threatening gaze around me, looking directly into the eyes of all before me.

I can almost feel the tactless, hopeless recoil as they wish to wrench away form my momentarily burning gaze.

Marie…

Again he calls to me. Echoes. Mocking chuckles.

Stop!

Now it’s gone; my eyes are lowered to the floor again, that lumpy, wax-polished wooden floor, stained dark brown and glistening as it reflects the bright, florescent overhead hall lights. The reflections are deeply disturbed, not clearly revealing the pale cream-coloured sheet rock walls. Reminds me of carnival mirrors.

The lights flicker a moment as I continue.

When are they going to fix this place up? It’s so cheaply built.

I turn right, as does Chase and Danique, when I reach the far end of the building. Before me stretches rows upon rows of lockers, all along the left side of the hall. Chipped red paint over the metal locker doors, squeaky hinges as people open or close their lockers. Right. High School.

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“Locker number’s sixty-three,” I say, heading down the hall as I look to my left, scanning the small, oval aluminum tags with bold, black numbers. I’m obviously not going to get rid of these two.

“Weird,” Danique says. “Mine’s sixty-one and his is sixty-five.”

Great. Just what I need.

I begin to think of my friends, Ashley and Janice. We use to try to guess which locker number we’d end up with the next school year. Somehow I’d guessed right, and since I’d guessed sixty-three last year, they guessed the lockers next to mine. Ashley chose sixty-one and Janice chose sixty-five. Why? Any locker I’d get, the people around me would shift and trade until they were as far from me as possible.

As I said, I’m not welcome here. No one’s ever liked me except the twins. They always took an empty locker beside mine.

This new adjustment is rather unsettling and it unnerves me painfully.

I rather have said nothing at all in response, but for some reason I speak, despite that fact. “Cool.” It’s not enthusiastic. Actually, it’s filled with exaggerated boredom, clearly pointing out my not-so-warm emotion, which I bear hopelessly. I never look at them as we stop at the lockers.

Odds are tops. It’s opposite in the Junior High section. Obviously some screw up they were too lazy to fix.

I set my bag down, heavy with all the books, and reach for the metallic latch, an edgy silver with a hole to hang the lock through. No combinations?

I realize that the other lockers have combos, but not mine. Mine’s the different one, just like last year. Everyone else has theirs.

“No combo-lock,” Danique says aloud, noticing it as well. She’s stopped in the middle of doing her combination.

Chase continues and opens his as he glances over and says, “That spells trouble, ‘specially the way they all seem to not like you.”

“Here, I’ve got two. Take one. It’ll keep ‘em out of your locker. Got two keys for each, too…Why’d they give you one without a combo?”

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“Same reason as why my sister and everyone else doesn’t like me. Thanks.”

She hands me a black lock with a shiny, cold key. The tip of the key is black and has Master inscribed into it, and the lock is rather weighty.

Nice. It’s actually a good one.

“Thanks,” I say again, remembering how last year, they’d done the same to me. I should’ve expected it and I didn’t have a lock, so someone broke into my locker and stole some of my stuff, probably throwing it away so I’d have to pay for it.

“No prob,” she replies, shrugging and continuing with her combination.

“So what’ya got first hour?”

“World History,” I say, having opened my locker already. I reaching for the bag.

“Same here,” Chase says.

I look at him as he glances at me with a hint of a smile.

“Me, too,” she says, also smiling.

I shake my head and unzip my bag quickly. Wonderful. That’s just perfect.

“I kind of already knew that,” I say, realizing I’d had a deep, dreaded hunch that I’d been ignoring completely. But when they’d spoken, I guess it just revived.

“Right,” Chase playfully mocks. He jams his last book into his locker and then begins the process of trying to cram his black and red book bag into it as well, though it’s rather easy since it’s practically empty.

Danique is one motion behind him and I’ve just begun.

“Sure you did,” Danique says, shutting her locker, an echo to Chase’s. Her tone is the same as his.

“Wanna’ bet?” I ask, a sly smile slithering into view, coiling my lips into a thin line, narrow eyes and mocking smile upon my face. My right eyebrow seems to riser ever so slightly.

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I’ve stopped with the books and have stood back to look at both of them, who are kind of frowning in curiosity.

They’re considering.

They shrug after several moments, looking at each other and then at me. Danique crosses her arms and leans on her locker door and Chase lazily places his right hand on the top of my locker door, placing his other hand absent-mindedly on his right wrist. His back leans a little on his locker as he sort of cocks his head to the right.

Again, I am reminded that I’m sort. He’s an average height, and he’s just as tall as my younger sister, who’s about four inches taller than me. Danique is only slightly taller than me. She might be an inch or two taller.

“Sure,” he says to me. His voice sounds sure but his orange eyes spell curiosity and wonder. He’s wondering now how serious I am. “What’s the bet?”

“You set it,” I dare him slyly. Goosebumps rise on my skin and my scalp tingles. A shiver is suppressed, kept from crawling down my spine.

The hunch grows stronger…sounds grow fainter…whispers. I can’t understand them because it’s so faint. They subside a moment.

“Loser has to eat dirt,” he says with a cocky voice.

“Eww,” Danique says. “Lots of germs.”

“Yep,” he says, glancing at her.

“Ooh, so seriously sure, are you?” I say, dark humor echoing through my words. “I’m sorry you’ll both have to lose.”

Maybe they’ll stop trying to be my friends.

“Better suggestion,” Danique says. She seems to have a sliver of worry, that maybe I could win somehow. Or maybe she just doesn’t want anyone to eat dirt.

“What?” Chase and I both ask simultaneously. Weird.

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She hesitates a moment, searching our curiosity with the blood red of her eyes. Then she replies slowly, “Loser or losers have to spend two weeks at the winner’s house, and they have to meet the other’s parents.”

I suddenly stiffen. No…I don’t like it. I don’t want them coming to my house, not my house. Perhaps I should lose on purpose…But then I’d have to go to their house. Then again, it could get me away from home if my parents agree.

“You know what?” I decide at last. “I know I’m gonna win, so you two could come and visit for a day, meet my parents, give ‘em an impression, torture my sister.”

There’s no other way to back out. I started it. I continue, “But you’re sure I’ll not guess all the classes I share with the both of you and get them right first try. Besides that, I wanna be away from home for a while and away from all the crap, especially my sister and my room. So if you come over tomorrow and perhaps once or twice more, I’ll go to your house for a couple weeks and whatever. Sound good enough?”

Their raised eyebrows and slightly propped jaws are hinting. Something…probably a lot of people don’t like to go to their house, and since they’re sure they’ll win, they probably make up for that by going to other people’s houses. Oh, well, it’s worth a try.

I actually kind of like the sound of this bet, the way I fixed it.

“We’re not good at impressions, and what if you lose?” Chase says.

There’s little hope in their expressions.

I shrug. “Same. Besides, you wouldn’t have to put up with my sister, and I could get away from her.”

“So we’re practically just seeing if you can guess. Right?” Danique states.

“Practically,” I reply.

“Agreed,” she smiles.

I nod my head and continue with my locker.

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Chase steps back, removing his hands.

So I tell them, “I’m gonna have one of you in every hour. First hour’s both; we already know that…”

I shut my locker and try to remember what the hunch had been. It takes a couple moments and then the suppressed feeling returns. It’s a little harder to see into it this time. It’s beginning to make me dizzy and now I feel kind of sick.

“Hey, you ok, Marie?” Danique asks. Her voice is a little bit faint. “You just go, like, really pale.”

“Whoa,” Chase says right after her. “Didn’t think anyone could get any whiter. Obviously wrong.”

“I don’t know,” I gulp. I swallow thickly and tell them before this lasts any longer, “I got third and fifth with you.”

Then I look at Danique as it begins to fade finally, “And the rest with you.”

“Ok, we’ll see l—“

Suddenly Chase quiets, his attention diverting down the hall. Immediately our gazes follow his, and there, we see a small group of five guys and two girls. Their expressions are wrought with disgust, a severe disgust so entangled in them that their intentions are immediately recognizably ill-directed.

They’re walking toward us.

I know they’ve heard of me. They’ll probably welcome us with severe hazing and unacceptance. The vibes people catch of me are always bad, even if it’s just being near me. I don’t know why Danique and Chase haven’t picked up on it, though.

I can sense trouble, but I always expect it. Danique and Chase step forward both defensively and threateningly. They obviously recognize the hostility of this approaching group as well. Chase is standing straight, his arms crossed, his jaw clenched tight and his eyes boring into them. He stands at my left. His sister, though smaller, seems equally threatening somehow. Her arms rest at her sides and her face is stern, and it has a deep, unsettled look, yet is calm, mocking almost.

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This group of seven is sort of expected. What’s unexpected is my sister turning the corner right behind them, and with her is her eleventh grade, geeky boyfriend, Daman. I’ve heard he’s one hell of a scrapper despite the geek factor he has in looks. About a month before my sister started going out with him, he got into a fight and broke a kid’s arm.

The first guy of the group is kind of tall. He’s not scrawny, though. He has a medium build, rough face, brown eyes and very, very short, light brown hair. He’s wearing black jeans and a red T-shirt.

The guy immediately to his left has a smoother face and sandy blond hair. His eyes are set deeper in his face, giving only a slight shadow to his threatening poise. He’s got on dark red pants with two one-centimeter wide white stripes set about a centimeter apart, running down the length of the outer side of the left pant leg. His shirt’s a cool one, black with the AC/DC band logo across the front.

To the first guy’s right is a girl, probably a junior or a senior. She’s got regular-length dirty blond hair tied back in a ponytail, a naturally stern face, gray eyes, and slightly chubby build. She’s wearing a yellow shirt and blue-jean shorts.

The other girl behind them looks like a Hispanic girl, dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, dark complexion, and normal build. Her hair is shoulder-length and is loose, and she’s got the big hoop earrings very bright and shiny ones.

One of the other guys has sandy brown hair and brown eyes. He’s a big guy. If I were to be afraid of anyone, it would be him and the guy next to him, who has reddish-brown hair and a dark tan, though not nearly as dark as the Hispanic girl’s, and he has hazel eyes.

The last guy has black hair and he’s the smallest one out of the group, save for the girls.

My feeling of sickness still hasn’t lifted as they walk closer. Actually, it almost gets worse.

Danique sneers, “Jason and Randall. Great. That’s just what we need, as if there’s not enough space in the world for us to move somewhere and not meet those jerks.”

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She must have been speaking of the first guy and the one to his left.

Before I can say anything, the taller guy speaks as they draw near us and slow to a stop, the others spreading around absentmindedly, which kind of encircles the three of us. It confirms my thoughts of him being one of the names.

“Hello Chase. Danique.” His tone is full of venom being spat warily yet daringly at the two siblings on either side of me. “Shame we meet again.”

“Yeah—we sort of missed you,” the other one says, confirming my other hunch as correct. “We haven’t got anyone here to beat the hell out of. No fun, really.”

The taller guy speaks again, this time taking a glance at me. “We were actually looking forward to this year because the new freak…We wanted to, uh…give her a welcome…But we didn’t expect you’d be dumb enough to move here. Sort of a reunion, don’t ya’ think?”

“Piss off, asshole,” Chase spits acidicly. His eye is slightly atwitch, almost completely unnoticeably, though. Yet I see beyond that anger and protective mask he huddles beneath, and there, in his eyes is pain, embarrassment, humiliation, all things forced upon him, memories of some time when he’d known these two before.

“Or what?” he replies.

The other echoes dryly, “Plenty of good memories of you two. But we already know how to get to the both of you…”

He’s stepped closer to us, so close that he’s practically with us, only perhaps a foot away from Chase as he speaks to Chase and Danique. But as he continues to speak, he turns toward me and eyes me warily. “But you, we’re curious as to a lot of things. So far, we hear you’ve got the label of the biggest freak to ever have walked. I’m wondering, what makes you so different from every other piece of shit? Hmm? If you ask me, you’re all the same—“

“Not Marie,” Jamie says. “Way different. Psycho. She even bit me…She’s got this obsession about vampires and such.”

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This guy turns to her, and our eyes shift to Jamie for a second.

“What’s so different about that?”

“The extreme she goes to. It’s worse than the biting.” She eyes me disgustedly and continues. “She lost it a couple weeks ago. Said it was Dracula possessing her. Pretty good job, though, I’ll admit. But it’s getting old for her to get all the attention. Her boyfriend’s a freak, too. Filed teeth—“

“Jamie, you shut your mouth,” I hiss through trembling gasps. My accent is strong as ever and all eyes are now upon me.

They’d found it interesting to listen to her speak of me. They looked at her as if she was one of them, which she’s been trying to be. It gave her ammunition to keep speaking until I just now cut her off abruptly, doing so without thinking about it.

I’m still sick, but now pain is added by her words, which brought memories of Octavius flooding back. My voice seems strong, unnerved, and even unwavering, but I feel every part of my being trembling. My pain and grief are eating at the pit of my stomach. Still, my voice is strong, “You know nothing of what you speak about.”

My words are quieter as my focus never diverts and my eyes never leave her. “Nothing.”

“Isn’t she your sister?” the guy in front of me asks Jamie.

Jamie replies, “Only because she’s adopted.”

The tall guy asks for him, “What sort of accent does she have?”

“Don’t ask me. She got it this summer from out of nowhere after she thought the guy in her head died.”

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There was a couple of laughs.

The guy in front of me looks at me, but he speaks to the others.

Danique and Chase seem ready to pounce him but know better since there’s so many of them.

“This one’s actually a pretty little freak. So why’s your head bleeding—“

Suddenly the sickness drops, leaving me completely, and my eyes blink and I take a breath from the relief. His words were cut off immediately and I suppose it must be because my aura of deep, dark disturbance has returned strongly.

They all feel it. This time even Danique and Chase seem to be forced to grow uneasy.

The left side of my face twitches, as does my left hand, and I look up directly into his brown eyes. The light above us flickers once.

There is some sort of a pulse so deep in me that it even scares me. I want to blink but I can’t.

Everyone had beheld a mask of superiority. But now, those mental and emotional defenses seem to waver and everyone seems to feel that scary, deathly pulse and shift on their feet uneasily. Only Jamie doesn’t waver. Her hatred shows clearer through her eyes and she tells them firmly, “That’s nothing. It’s only one thing that makes her such a freak. One of the reasons she’s the biggest freak there is. A freaking witch is what she is!”

“Jamie,” I whisper unexpectedly. Something hard is down against my bottom lip, but it’s on the inside of my mouth.

Only she hears it.

Still, my mouth is slightly agape, and still it touches my bottom lip on both sides of my mouth.

When she looks at me, as does Chase and Danique out of coincidence, she goes frighteningly pale. It’s fear, anger, sadness.

But as she goes pale, I smile a hallow smile, taunting her.

I must feel the teeth because of Octavius. But it isn’t a forced, painful change. It’s a relaxed, intended one.

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The instant I feel fear begin to live and grow in Danique and Chase, I somehow am able to pull from it.

I instantly don’t feel the teeth anymore, but just as quickly, I am suddenly so drained of energy, and I waver a moment and then pass out, falling to the floor as my legs give away beneath me.

Pain wells up in my so strongly because of that, because of all my memories and new knowledge, a tear wells in my eye and then slowly falls, my eyes shut and noises becoming a blur.

When I had begun to fall, I’m pretty sure I hit Chase or brushed him as he moved reflexively.

I feel Jamie shake her head and turn to go, pulling Daman with her, the others quickly looking around and following just a moment after.

However, I feel a presence lingering over me. It’s either Danique or Chase. Why’d they stay? Why didn’t they just leave?

A warm hand takes hold of my right wrist gently and another gently touches my left shoulder and slightly shakes me.

“Marie,” a guy’s voice says with worry.

My unconscious mind shifts violently to Octavius and suddenly, I try to pull away. I can’t move for a moment at first because of the numbness throughout my body. But it recedes and then I come back to consciousness, pulling and screaming.

“No! Get away from me!”

In the fury of my rage and fear, before I even realize who it is or where I am, I have shoved the both of them back and scratched Chase’s cheek really hard.

Then I gasp as I realize, and stop immediately, staring blankly at them with both shock and horror at what I’ve done. Tears begin to flood my eyes in shame and I bury my face as they watch me helplessly in shock.

Anger floods though me a moment later, and I stand up quickly and pass them to grab my bag and slam my locker shut, not even bothering with the lock I’d set inside as I wipe my eyes, still crying, and I rush away from them. I don’t even look back at them.

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But when they call after me, I look back and tell the two dumbfounded idiots, “Just leave me alone. I don’t need anyone to be my friend. My friends are dead because of the lying bastard I trusted!”

The rest of the day went better, but it didn’t take away my shame. I hid my face. As if none of the students liking me was bad enough, the teachers immediately began to hate me as well.

Jamie began spreading rumors about me, which made it all over high school and beyond. She told what she knew, and she told what she made up. She’s already getting popular, which is something she’s always wanted. Everyone just loves her so much.

All of my guesses had been right, which kind of shocked Danique and Chase. I had a hard time avoiding them. They kept wanting to talk to me, to try to get me to speak to them. But every time they tried, my tears would return silently and I’d look away from them.

I skipped lunch to avoid them. I went to the library and pretended to be reading. I didn’t even look at what the title was to the book I picked u, but when I did actually look, I felt slightly embarrassed. It was a children’s book about some Barbie adventure. Ew.

No wonder people had looked at me funny when they saw me with the book.

I made it to seventh hour and when the final bell rang at three o’clock, I remained in class with the people who didn’t ride the bus. Danique tried to flick a piece of paper to hit me as she called me again and again to get my attention, but I ignored her. She gave up and left.

I didn’t ride the school bus home. I called for Diana and asked her to come and get me. She recognized the tone in my voice and asked me what I was upset about. I told her that I’d tell her everything when she picked me up. So she mentioned going for ice cream. I agreed, so she said she was on her way, but she’d call my parents first.

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It was thirty minutes later when she arrived, and I was waiting in the parking lot with my stuff. She had a white car.

So I told her about the summer and of everything up till she came to pick me up. I told her everything because there was no sense in lying about anything to her, not after she’s known me for so long and knows most of my deepest secrets.

It was a couple of hours before we went to my house. She got out of the car with me as Mom and Dad came out, and we went inside.

Blood of Eden Chapters

~~~~~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ~~~~~

~~~~~ 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 ~~~~~