Bound By Blood Chapter Eight and Nine

Chapter Eight

 

 

“O-o-o summer band, I am so excited!” Lauren jumped up and down clapping her hands together.

“Yeah whatever, summer here sucks, there’s no sun…ever!” Roxanne challenged her feet propped up on her desk, her eyes scanning her book.

Amy laughed throwing a pillow at Roxanne, which she caught still not looking up and threw at Lauren, who did not expect it and fell over.

“HEY!” Lauren sat up, her hair askew and her face flushing with embarrassment.

Roxanne put a hand to her mouth.

“Oops,” she grinned evilly.

“Oh you are going down!” Lauren threw the pillow back at Roxanne who caught it again, sticking her tongue out at Lauren. Amy caught the opportunity to throw another pillow at Roxanne that she did not expect. Roxanne fell over with a plop; she sat up her eyes filled with vengeance.

“Oh you did not.”

“Oh yes I did,” Amy teased right in her face. Lauren threw two pillows at once taking them both out.

“HIGH SCORE!” Lauren cheered doing a little dance. Roxanne and Amy grinned at each other simultaneously.

Roxanne leapt across the bed, grabbed Lauren, and pinned her down while Amy mercilessly beat her with a pillow.

“Do you surrender?” Roxanne demanded Amy stopped the pillow hovered over Lauren’s face.

“Never!” Lauren cried throwing Roxanne off her and blocking Amy’s attack, pushing her over on top of Roxanne. She grinned evilly before pouncing.

“DOG PILE!”

 

Roxanne rubbed her butt tenderly as they limped out towards the parking lot she glared at Lauren.

“Dog pile eh? Thanks a lot! I won’t be able to walk right for days!” Lauren snickered, nursing a black eye from Roxanne’s flying fists. Amy whimpered rubbing her head.

“I think you both gave me a concussion.”

They all looked at each other and just laughed.

It was their twelfth grade year; a summer had passed since Amy’s turning. Their friendship was as strong as ever. Lauren and Roxanne had both taught Amy everything, while Roxanne still learned from Lauren all the tricks and tips about being a vampire.

 

Chapter Nine

 

Lauren sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, eyes closed, trying not to fall asleep. Roxanne walked down the hallway, smiling at the image of her friend.

“Hiya, Lauren!”

“Mmm.”

Roxanne gave Lauren a puzzled look and plopped down next to her. Lauren shot a quizzical brow at Roxanne and tried hard not to crack a smile. Roxanne mocked Lauren and arched a brow as well. A smirk formed on her lips and she continued to look at Lauren.

“Boo Bear.”

Lauren’s resolve broke and she let out a throaty laugh.

“That’s not fair,” Lauren shot Roxanne a sinister smile and in a soft whisper added, “Roxula.” A look of mock horror crossed Roxanne’s face and she playfully punched Lauren in the arm. Lauren’s face screwed up in agony and she clutched her arm.

“Aah, you fiend, you wound me! Thou art a villain!” Lauren slumped over and could not help but snicker and Roxanne gasped.

“How dare you call me a villain,” Roxanne dramatically cried. Lauren laughed at Roxanne and patted her thigh. Roxanne looked towards Lauren and Lauren returned her stare, and with a mischievous smile, waggled her eyebrows at Roxanne. Roxanne snorted and bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing out. She warily got to her feet, collected her books, and waited patiently for Lauren to do the same. They walked abreast down the vast hall and made their way down to the band hall. Lauren walked briskly into the woodwind room, gathered her flute, and assembled it. Roxanne glided into the brass room, removed her baritone from the case, and walked out into the band hall, twisting her mouthpiece in. She pulled up a chair and started to warm up her instrument.

“Mark time hut! One, two, three, four!” The large room erupted into a soft groan of the first note of the scale. The band played their warm up and was released to move outside to work on their marching for contest. Roxanne and Lauren trudged through the vacant parking lot, talking in low tones. It was a cloudy, dreary day and they did not find it necessary to adorn their eyewear. Nevertheless, just in case, their trademark sunglasses were perched upon the tops of their heads. They spoke in almost undetectable whispers and only flashed a grin when the need arise, and they did so carefully.

The drum majors stood from their podiums, arms pumping up and down, keeping in time with the set rhythm. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, freeze, close’, the clogs and wheels were turning fast in Lauren's mind, trying to remember step offs, halts, notes, and their fingerings, not to mention her flute angle.

“Above parallel,” she mumbled to herself, shooting an icy glare at the director. The glare did not go unnoticed and Roxanne raised an eyebrow at Lauren.

“What?” she mouthed. Roxanne’s other brow arched and she shook her head, shaking with pent up laughter. The director let them out early, and in doing so, gave Lauren and Roxanne time to discuss their nightly activities.

“Ok, what time do we meet?” Lauren asked quietly. Roxanne bit her bottom lip in concentration.

“How about…umm, maybe ten-ish?”

“Cool! Sounds like a date.”

“Yeah, with death,” Lauren let out laugh and tilted her head back and sighed. She snapped her head back just as quickly as she tilted it. Roxanne was so sure it was going to shoot of her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” No sooner did the words leave her lips did Roxanne feel the familiar pulsating through her body.

“S**t,” Lauren hissed. She slid her glasses down her face and concealed her eyes, and Roxanne followed suit.

“The sun’s coming out!”

“No s**t, Sherlock!” Roxanne and Lauren took off running for the nearest entrance to the school, receiving odd looks from the other band members. A couple were so bold as to call them freaks when they shot past, making Lauren growl and rotate her head around to look back. On such occasions, Roxanne would seize hold of Lauren’s shirt and whip her around. She would mumble a little bit and Roxanne would snort. Down the sidewalk, to the left, and through two large doors, Roxanne and Lauren skidded to a halt. Roxanne skidded quite gracefully to her halt, but Lauren wasn’t so fortunate. She kept going and ran, gut first, into the water fountains. Roxanne winced and ran over to her and held her hand out to her, and nearly died on the spot.

Resounding steps echoed through the hollow passageway, and Roxanne dragged Lauren to her feet, pushing her into a janitor’s closet. She finally burst out with fits of laughter, leaning against the wall for support, and looked at Lauren through teary eyes. Lauren stood to her feet, removed the bucket from her head, and began to brush the cobwebs off her clothes. She cocked an eyebrow at Roxanne and she just laughed even harder.

“Pray tell, Mademoiselle, what is so funny that has you bent over with laughter?” Lauren snapped. Roxanne raised a finger to hold on and slowly but surely caught her breath.

“Woo. Umm, well, Boogley Bear, it seems that you have a large gaping hole in your pants.”

“WHAT?” Lauren spun around, grabbing her butt as she did so. Roxanne fell over, screaming with laughter, and too preoccupied to notice, she fell into a dirty mop bucket filled halfway with a brown, murky liquid. Roxanne wiggled around and squirmed a bit, but she didn’t budge. Lauren cracked a wide smile and held a hand out and Roxanne took a firm grip and pulled on Lauren and Lauren pulled on her. With a resounding pop, Roxanne’s butt was free from its dirty throne.

“Roxanne you loser,” Roxanne shot Lauren a dirty look and removed her glasses to reveal two silver orbs.

“Wicked, wow, we barely made it this time.”

“Yeah, close call. How about you? Did you change too?”

“Don’t know. Let’s find out shall we?” Lauren removed her glasses and two silver pools looked at Roxanne. “Well?”

“That’s awesome,” Roxanne smiled, looking at her comrade. Lauren grinned like a maniac and ran the tip of her tongue along her teeth, feeling for two pointy tips. She could feel the sharp daggers and smiled even more. Roxanne smiled at Lauren and could feel her fangs growing.

“You hungry?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“Let’s go.”

“Right-o!”

They stuck their heads out of the door, looked left and right, making sure the coast was clear, and sprinted towards the band hall. They kept their heads bowed and lips tightly sealed. Lauren kept one hand on her butt and ran into the woodwind room. She kneeled down and reached for her backpack when a much larger hand grabbed it first. Crap she mentally slapped herself for not putting her bag with Roxanne’s. She lifted her eyes as far as she would allow them. The hand held her backpack out to her and she took it.

“Hi, Van,” she spoke softly. Van Hopkins shifted his weight from his right foot to his left and Lauren rose to her full height of five feet and five inches. She looked directly at her feet and mumbled some incoherent jumble. Van placed his hands around her waist and pulled her closer, looking at the top of her head.

“Hey, babe, you ok?” She nodded her head.

“Why won’t you look at me?” She shrugged her shoulders and leaned back on her heals and rocked forward.

“No reason, my eyes are kind of red and it might be early signs of pink eye and I don’t want to give it to you,” she mumbled into her chest.

“I’ll take my chances,” Van replied. Roxanne walked into the woodwind room, spotting Lauren with her head bowed talking to Van.

“Lauren! Hey can you come here for a sec?” Roxanne called to her. Without thinking, Lauren lifted her head and looked deep into Van’s eyes.

“Bye,” she spun around quickly and swung her backpack on her shoulders. She saw Roxanne leaning against the doorframe, with her shades pulled down over her eyes, and mouthed a ‘Thank you’ to her. Roxanne nodded her head and placed her arm around Lauren’s shoulder and they walked off briskly towards the janitor’s closet.

“Dang girl! That was close! You’re lucky I came looking for you.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t think about putting my shades back on.”

“If you would’ve gotten caught, Darius would’ve killed you!”

“Don’t ever mention him around me.”

Roxanne and Lauren made their way down the crowded hallways, occasionally bumping into people, trying to be conspicuous with their conversations. They passed by the senior lockers and noticed Christina Parker kneeling in front of her locker, unloading and loading her backpack full of books and binders.

“Hey, Chris!” Lauren called out. Christina lifted her head up and smiled at the two sophomores. She stood up and slipped her pack on and waved at them.

“Hello my love! Well, loves. How’s it going?” She asked with sincerity in her bubbly voice. Roxanne shrugged her shoulders, Lauren shifted her weight around on her feet, and Christina waited patiently.

“Well, not much really. Except for band and contest and homework.”

“Aah bummer man. Yeah I’m really excited and really sad all at the same time about contest.”

“Why’s that?” Lauren asked, perplexed.

“Well, it’s my last year as a senior to march and I really hope we go to State this year.”

“Oh-h-h-h, yeah that would make sense. Well then, the lower classmen will have to work harder to get you to state then, Chris,” Lauren gave Christina a wink.

“Ah score!” Christina was a senior who had a unique vocabulary; she used words from the seventies and eighties, making her the coolest senior Lauren and Roxanne befriended.

“Well, we must be going dear. We got to get to Biology.”

“No worries, goodbye my little sisters!”         

“Bye, Chris!”

“Bye, Chris!” Roxanne and Lauren headed back down towards the hallway, steering straight for the Biology Lab. They walked in and set their stuff by the wall adjacent to the door. Lauren grabbed two aprons off the pegs and handed one to Roxanne while she slipped hers over her head. The professor walked into the lab, droning on about how lab safety procedures must be taken to heart and that dissecting organisms was not a game. Lauren made a face at Roxanne, sticking her tongue out, crossing her eyes, and puffing her cheeks out. Roxanne bit her bottom lip trying not to laugh and the professor noticed her attempts of suppressed laughter. He strolled behind Lauren, smacked her in the back of the head with latex gloves, and continued on with his procedure speech.

With his back turned, Lauren pulled out a mini slingshot from her back pocket, placed a small piece of eraser into the sing, and pulled it back, aiming at the jar on the professor’s desk. A classmate sneezed, scaring Lauren, making her lose her grip on the sling and jerking her arm, shooting the eraser right at the professor’s head. It landed with a small thud on his head and he tensed, his body going rigid. Lauren shoved the slingshot into her back pocket but missed and wound up shoving it down her pants. Her eyes bugged out and she tried to hide her expressions showing on her face. The professor spun around on his heel, his eyes squinting at each student’s face, reading their expressions. Lauren squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, trying to mask her emotions. His eyes came to rest on her and she shifted a bit when he leaned in real close to her.

“Something bothering you, Miss Goodrich?”

“Umm kind of Sir. Yeah, my mom puts prunes in our breakfast cer─,” the professor shot his hand in her face, silently begging her to stop.

“Please! Do not finish that sentence.”

“Wasn’t going to. May I go…?”

“Yes, go! Wash your hands!” Lauren bolted from her seat and out of the room, her footsteps echoing off the hollow passageways. The class started to giggle, looked at Roxanne who turned a crimson red, and erupted into loud roars of laughter. Lauren strolled back into the room a while later and walked up to the professor patting him on the back, telling him thanks. He squirmed under her touch and turned around, writing notes on the white board when the class howled with laughter again. He paused in mid sentence and turned back around, staring at the class with an aggravated look on his face.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, Sir,” they answered simultaneously. He turned back around and smothered giggles could be heard seeping through clenched teeth, pursed lips, covered hands, and even jackets. Lauren leaned back in her chair, a smile of triumph plastered on her face. She had done it again. When she patted his back, she placed a piece of toilet paper with tape on his back. The rest of the class went by without any more interruptions from Lauren and the bell echoed through the school, triggering an automatic mechanism in the students. They stood up, grabbed they’re books and took off running from the classroom, talking about the T.P incident. Roxanne and Lauren gathered they’re books and started to walk out of the classroom when the professor blocked the door.

“Umm, excuse us, Sir,” Lauren said with respect in her tone.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, Goodrich, but I will find out,” he glared at her and she just smiled sweetly at him. Roxanne grabbed Lauren under the elbow and steered her out of the room. They walked down the hallway, a growl grumbling in Lauren’s stomach.

“Are you serious?” Roxanne cried. Lauren smiled and put a hand behind her head.

“What? I’m hungry,” Lauren replied. Roxanne sighed and played with the golden ring on her finger, setting off a chain reaction. Her ring began to glow and hum with life; soon Lauren simulated hers. They headed towards the janitor’s closet at the end of the school, Lauren smiling and Roxanne trying to act serious.

 

Amy walked out into the hallway, attempting to fix her hair from the damage it sustained during marching band. She looked all over for Roxanne and Lauren, but she could find neither hair nor hide of them. She hoisted her backpack on and walked down the deserted hallway to her next class.

She sat in her seat right as the tardy bell sounded and Mr. Chambers gave her a stern look and Amy just smiled sweetly at him.

“Let me remind you, Miss Lewis, that tardiness will not be accepted in my classroom,” he droned in a low baritone voice. Amy smiled a bigger smile and replied in a sweet angelic voice.

“But Mr. Chambers, if I may be so bold as to say, I wasn’t tardy. In fact, I was in my seat before the third bell sounded,” she batted her eyes at the teacher, smiling on the inside.

Mr. Chambers continued with his class, occasionally resorting to throwing chalk-dust-filled erasers at sleeping students to get them to pay attention. He asked day dreaming students to recite what he had just droned in his dull voice, all failed and all received the eraser to the head at unexpected times.

The golden ring, which was a gift from a witch in Greece that could inform companions in a moment’s notice, which rested on Amy’s left ring finger, began to vibrate and glow. She shot her hand under the desk and got up quickly, stuffing her hand in her jacket pocket, and jogged to the door.

“Miss Lewis, where are you going?” Amy looked up and replied with a mumbled ‘time of the month’ and slipped through the door. She ran past her locker and grabbed a large black cloak and took off at a sprint for the janitor’s closet. Why didn’t I look there? She thought to herself as she passed by the countless rows of lockers and doors. Her ring began to hum with life and she could feel her teeth growing. She rounded a corner and nearly slipped but kept her balance and kept going. She reached the janitor’s closet and only had enough energy to open the door before she collapsed on Lauren.

“Ouch!” they both cried.

“Amy, I love you, but not that much. Please, remove your butt from my face!”

“Oh, sorry babe,” Amy rolled off of Lauren and rested on the ground for a second, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Lauren got up and for the second time, brushed cobwebs off her clothes.

“This closet is disgusting. Why can’t we meet me in classroom or a bathroom?” Lauren whined. Roxanne looked at Lauren and just shook her head, while adjusting her own ring. Lauren reached a foot out and poked Amy.

“Are you alive? Sleeping beauty? Get up-p-p-p,” she sang in a singsong voice. Amy just groaned and got up slowly, allowing Roxanne and Lauren to brush the cobwebs off. It was Roxanne who spoke first.

“Well since we are all here, and I know for a fact Lauren is hungry─ “

“Lauren’s always hungry!” Amy grumbled, throwing a paint brush at Lauren. Lauren smiled, twirled her ring around her finger, and rubbed her stomach.

“I’m a growing girl, plus, I haven’t eaten a decent meal in a week.” Roxanne cleared her throat and continued.

“As I was saying, we need to pick a spot for our hunt and we need to keep out of sight. Oh and don’t let Darius catch us! As far as we’re concerned, we could be slaughtered and he wouldn’t care. We are just toys, puppets if you want to be specific. He’s always looking for fights─,“

“If he wants to fight so badly, he can stick his head up my butt and fight for air,” Lauren mumbled. Amy began to laugh hysterically and Roxanne couldn’t help but smile. Lauren just smiled and took a great sweeping bow. She snorted and smacked Lauren on the back of the head and began to change into her black clothes. Amy whistled and Roxanne turned a deep red and quickly pulled her pants up. Lauren and Amy began to undress and dress as well. Lauren's heart began to thud in her chest, pumping venom through her body instead of the blood that defined humans. In a matter of minutes, they were all snapping their cloaks together. They each pulled they’re dark hair back and they’re eyes shown brightly. They all smiled at each other, fangs protruding from their lips. With a sweep of their cloaks, they Vanished into thin air, leaving behind a faint stench of death.