Blood To Blood (29 page)

I opened the door to my room
and sat on the bed. He pored through my CD collection. “May I?” he asked while
holding up my iPod. I tried my best to sound casual, and told him yes, but
inside my stomach was in knots. To me, playlists are kind of like the window
into one’s soul. What if he didn’t like my playlists? Or thought my podcasts
were boring and my songs juvenile? I bit my lip and pretended I wasn’t watching
him like a hawk while he read my playlists. He nodded and smiled with pleasure.
“I thought I was the only one who listened to this band.” He held up the iPod
to show me the track. It was a Boston underground rock band with a rabid, local
following. Our eyes met, and my stomach relaxed.

I couldn't believe he was
standing in my room, and was glad I'd taken the time the day before to pick up
the laundry and books previously strewn all over floor. Sawyer softly hummed a
tune as he ran his fingers over the bindings of the titles on my bookshelf. I
listened to the blood surge through his veins…the hypnotic beat of his heart...
I took a deep whiff...mmmm...

“Angel,” he was saying. I
shook myself out of the daze and focused on his words. “How does it feel? To do
what you do?” He came to the bed and sat on the edge, as far away from me as he
could. My boyfriend was smart.

“It's still all so new,” I
answered. “I didn't mature until after I met you.”

“Mature?”

I explained the process to
him, how a mortal child turns into an immortal adult.

“So the day before you
changed was the day Heist died?”

“Yes,” I answered with my
head bowed in shame.

“It wasn't you. You didn't
kill him.”

I looked at him, completely
puzzled. “How do you know?”

Sawyer’s eyes were slightly
glazed, and focused on a spot somewhere over my left shoulder. The hair on my
arms stood up. “He just told me,” he replied. “He's telling me to let you know
he just had a bad asthma attack. You weren't the trigger and your voice didn't
make it worse. He's been wanting to tell you since that night.”

I'd seen some weird stuff in
the past weeks, but this took the cake. Even more than angels, ghosts were a
complete mystery to me, and I didn’t know anyone else who communicated with
them. But here I was with Sawyer, talking to Heist’s ghost. And his death
wasn’t my fault. My voice hadn’t killed him after all! I imagined Heist’s smile
and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

“We miss you and love you
Heist,” I said to the air.

Sawyer smiled. “He knows
that.” He responded to whatever ghostly words he heard and his face grew
serious. “Thanks for the heads-up, man.” I watched Sawyer's face as his eyes,
shining like emeralds witnessed what I couldn't see. I moved to his side and
carefully took his hand. Soon I could tell from his facial expression that
Heist was gone. I searched his eyes as they slowly refocused on the room. And
then on me. Every other sound, every other heartbeat ceased to exist. I heard
nothing, and no one, except him.

“I have something to tell
you,” he whispered. “It’s hard for me to feel this way. I have to concentrate
even harder. To make sure nothing weird happens. To you. The object of my.
Affection.”

“I have something to tell
you, too,” I whispered back as if I was in a confessional. “I got shot because
of my own stupidity.”

He seemed to turn this fact
over in his mind. “I lost control,” he said. “That time in the dressing room
right before your Garden gig.” The memory of the one time I heard his heartbeat
speed up confirmed my suspicions.  Sawyer’s continual concentration was
focused on regulating his own heartbeat. I was amazed by the strength of his
will.

“When you said everything
changed, all I wanted to do was show you how right you were.” His fingers
caressed mine. “That’s why I had to get out of there. As I watched you onstage,
how incredible you are, my love took over. I’m sorry for what happened—”

“Sawyer, the audience fights
at the Garden. None of that was your fault. It was all me. I know that for a
fact.”

Relief and joy mixed on his
face before it grew serious again. “That may be, Ms. Brown. But it just means
I’ve got to keep doing what I’m doing. Keeping a tight reign on my feelings so
that nothing does happen.”

The intensity of his feelings
and how they might affect me didn’t concern me, but I almost wished he would
heed this warning of my reckless behavior for his own safety and shun me
completely. Yet, a part of me knew it wouldn't matter; something, whether it
was one of us or the music, would bring us back together. Still, my baser
instincts continued to clash within me. Eat him or love him? The pleasure I
would derive from biting him would be overshadowed by the damage done. As Mom
said, it would be an unfair advantage. I knew then and there that although I
may feel compelled to bite Sawyer, I could not, would not allow it to happen.

“Well, I may be an idiot,” he
continued, “but I can't imagine not having you around always.” He reached out
for a lock of my hair. He slowly rubbed it between his fingers before bringing
it to his nose. “It’s almost unbelievable how nice you smell, Angel.” He closed
his eyes and deeply inhaled. My heart thumped against my ribs. He rubbed the
lock on his face where it mingled with and got slightly caught in his five
o'clock shadow. His eyes gleamed with something I’d never seen before, an
emotion I couldn’t identify but felt down to my very bones, as he slowly
caressed the line of my jaw. Through it all, I kept my hands to myself in a
supreme effort to keep Sawyer safe.

“I know this is difficult for
you, Angel. Heist just told me about your appetite. And your...relationship
with Justin. So forgive me, but it's time for you to eat.”

“Sawyer, no!” I shrank away
from him in horror.

For a second, he was confused
by my outburst. Then the light of understanding came on in his eyes. “Silly
girl. I'm not offering myself to you. Wait right here, please.” He rose and
left the room and I marveled over how at home he seemed, as if he belonged in
my space. I listened to him as he made his way to the kitchen and started
rummaging around the fridge. He hummed the same tune from earlier. The notes
were soothing and the colors felt good to my eyes. By the time he came back
with a couple pitchers of blood, I was starting to get a little peckish.

“Which one would you like to
start with?” His long fingers gestured toward the selections. I pointed at one
blindly, ignorant of who it was, only able to keep my eyes locked on him. He
poured a glass full, and placed it on the side table at my elbow before
returning to his previous seat on the far edge of my bed.

I grabbed the glass and
downed it. He shook his head slightly as if to wrap his mind around the flash
of movement and the suddenly-empty glass. “Thanks,” I said.

 “More?”

“Yes, please.”

He poured. I drank and we
kept our eyes on each other the whole time. A light bulb seemed to go off above
his head. “The thermoses you were always drinking from. Blood?”

I nodded while continuing to
drink. “It was the only way to not eat all of you.” I drank way more than
necessary, but it was better to overdo it. I desperately needed to be certain
that Sawyer was safe.

“The tune you keep humming,
what is it?” I asked.

“I was humming a tune?”

“Yes. Twice. Once in the
kitchen, and when you first came into my room.”

“I wasn't aware of it,” he
said with a bemused expression.

Again, we were completely on
the same page. He ran out the door and down the stairs. I gave him the head
start before sliding through the floor to take a seat at the grand. He ran into
the family room and saw me already sitting there. “Cheater,” he mumbled before
sitting down next to me. His closeness instantly ignited the space between us
with electricity.

“I remember every musical
arrangement I hear,” I revealed to him.

He placed his hands gently on
the keys and turned his handsome face to mine. “Then sing it for me, Angel.
Sing the tune you've brought out of me.” I did. “Again, please Angel,” he sang.
His voice made my name sound like a caress and thrilled me down to my toes. I
sang it again, and this time he accompanied me while his fingers found the
right chords. I watched the notes dance before my eyes as he fleshed it out
into a sweet ballad.

“That's beautiful,” I said in
awe. I started to sing a soft counter-melody, no words, just the open-mouthed
hum that comes right before you get the lyrics to a new song. When his body
began rocking back and forth with the flow of the music, our shoulders touched.
The shock of the contact took my breath away. We both stopped. “I can almost
see the notes when I'm with you,” he said, sounding as awed as I felt.

His hand wandered away from
the keys to stroke my ear. I closed my eyes, reveled in his touch, and sensed
him lean toward me as his breath grazed my face. I felt like I could die. He
leaned in even closer and rested his cheek against the side of my neck before
slowly, maddeningly running the tip of his nose from the base of my throat to
my ear. I rubbed my cheek against his like a cat rubs against its favorite
couch. “You're so warm,” he whispered in my ear. “You feel like a Georgian
summer.”

His voice was husky and
rumbly. My heart was beating so fast that for a second I wondered if I was
okay. I placed his hand on my heart, and his eyes rounded in amazement at the
rapidity of my heartbeat. Removing the rubber band that held his hair back, I
slowly ran my fingers through his silky locks. It was his turn to stop
breathing for a while as he closed his eyes. I tugged gently, and his eyes
flashed open, greener than I'd ever seen them. He frowned with the effort of
concentrating so that nothing witchy happened as I took a deep breath; tortured
by the delicious smell of him, but sated enough so that my shimshana didn’t
take over. He drew a little closer and I made up the rest of the short distance
until our lips met.

And I heard it clearly…like
there was a live orchestra playing in the living room. Music. It was a fragment
of a beautiful song in my head. His lips were cool and delicious and moved
slowly on mine. There it was…another segment of the song. He kissed the corners
of my mouth before nibbling on my lips. The mysterious song fragment continued
to play. There was no way anything, anywhere, ever, could compare to this. All
I wanted was to be with Sawyer and hear our music until the end of time.

“Angel,” Dad bellowed from
his workshop. “It's getting later.”

Sawyer reluctantly pulled
away, but still cupped my face in his large hand.

“Did you hear that too?” he
said.

We both smiled then, knowing
he wasn't talking about Dad.

#
# #

A couple months later, we
were all at a swanky Copley Plaza hotel ballroom celebrating Kat Trio’s new,
real, record deal with Quake.

“ ‘No. 8, featuring Little
Wolf’ ” is on track to go number one in download sales this week,” Nina
announced into a microphone as we all raised glasses and applause broke out
around the room. Due to an online press juggernaut, the track became a hit on Internet
radio and went viral before we had time to title it; so “No. 8” stuck.

Mom, Dad, and Mr. C. gave me
big hugs. “Told you you were a star,” Cici said, looking stunning in a black
cocktail dress and dramatic eye makeup. Earlier, she’d applied her skills to my
eyes to make them look sultry and mysterious, too, but now she shook her head
at the designer jeans I’d chosen to put on.
At least you’re wearing makeup
and heels.
She gave us all hugs before she walked off with Satchel. I
turned to the girls.

“Why’s Raj staring at you
like that?” LaLa asked Julietta. We all looked at him while pretending not to,
and sure enough, he was watching Jules with sad puppy-dog eyes. We turned back
to each other and laughed hysterically.

“Another heart broken by
Julietta Hernandez,” I said in a radio announcer tone.

LaLa waved to Fearmonger, who
was across the room talking to Markus and the crew. Both rappers raised their
chins and flashed peace signs. “He acts so hard in public,” LaLa confided,
still looking at Fearmonger, “but when we’re alone, he’s a big teddy bear.”

Jules and I exchanged happy,
amazed smiles. Who’d a thunk?

They looked at me
expectantly, waiting for the dish. “Sawyer's new crib is coming along,” I
offered. “Still not a lot of furniture, but his studio’s almost done.”

“Wow,” Jules said, “So cool
he ended up buying the house you were shot in.”

“He told me it was in that
house, kneeling by my side, post-gunshot, that he fell in love with me.”

“Awwww…” they crooned
simultaneously.

“I know!” It was exciting to
be sharing with my girls again. “It’s more homey than his apartment was, and he
combined the living room and formal dining room. Now there’s two grand pianos
in there. One for him and one for me.”

“Wow, he’s teaching you how
to play.” LaLa’s head bobbed up and down in simple approval.