Bloodlines: Everything That Glitters Read online

  “Breakfast!” my mom called from downstairs. I rolled over and looked at the clock on the nightstand; it was 6:45 in the morning. By now I should be used to rising with the sun since mom never wanted us to be late. She was our human alarm clock and she never missed a beat.

  I threw the blankets from over my legs and stepped out of the bed and into my furry pink bunny slippers. Wonder if Corey is a hard sleeper? I thought to myself.

  She’s already up and downstairs. Ash replied eagerly. His voice rang in my head and everything from the day before came pouring in. Things I’d thought I had merely dreamed about.

  I heard Ash’s heavy footsteps walk past my door. “Yesterday was show and today is going to be tell. I want to be completely convinced I’m not losing my mind,” I said as I stepped out into the hallway.

  “Have you noticed how everything smells differently? So much stronger. Everything is stronger- sounds, smells, and sights. I kid you not, I’m looking around this wall and outside the front door.”

  “Sure, Superman,” I said sarcastically. Believing he was pulling my leg.

  “I’m serious, Aliza.”

  I brushed past him lightly and jotted down the stairs then walked through the living room and into the kitchen. Corey sat at the table quietly, cautiously looking from my mom to my dad. I lightly brushed past her touching her shoulder. “They’re not as scary as they look, Coco.”

  “Coco?” she asked puzzled.

  “Yeah it’s my new nickname for you.”

  She looked back into her plate and smiled. “No one’s ever given me a nickname before.”

  I grinned and patted her on the shoulder “Well now someone has. Do you like it?”

  “I love it,” she smiled.

  My mom looked up from the last batch of pancakes and stared at Corey. “So how long are you going to be staying with us?”

  Corey looked up from her plate and shifted in her seat to face my mom, “I’m not exactly sure,” she replied confused, “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

  My dad looked up from his morning paper and looked at Ash and then me. Picking up hitchhikers is against the law, and dangerous. Maybe she’s not ready for the responsibility of a car just yet. My dad thought, giving Corey and me a suspicious eye.

  I couldn’t make out any more of my parents thoughts as I sat quietly at the table filling my plate with some of the food. Hazy visions played through my mind of what I’m guessing were memories from a long time ago; there was Ash and I as children then Jasmine. My heart grew sad as my dad remembered the daughter he’d lost in the house fire from when Ash and I were barely ten. I put the fork down and looked at my mom then at my dad, this was still an emotionally hard time. We never talked about it anymore but every once and a while mom and dad would leave for a therapy session. I didn’t bother entertaining my dad’s earlier thought and just let him keep thinking what he wanted, I knew there was no chance of him taking the car from me; that’d mean he’d have to drive me around himself and his life was just too busy for that.

  “She’s an old high school friend from Hot Springs, her parents were recently killed and their house foreclosed. Like I told mom yesterday, I found her under an overpass sleeping and I couldn’t just leave here there.” I said reassuringly as a small headache began to build. Those around me were suppressing my own thoughts and I couldn’t see myself attending school this morning.

  “Well Corey, you can stay with us as long as you like and if you need anything don’t be afraid to ask either myself or David.”

  My dad was usually only home for the beginning of breakfast and the end of dinner, so if there was anything she needed from him, she would have to wait until then to ask.

  “Speaking of David, didn’t you have something you wanted to tell Alizarin and Ash?”

  My father glared up from his newspaper and looked at me. “Yes,” he put the paper down and took a sip from his coffee mug. “Since we’re in a new place, there are going to be a few new changes. The both of you, and maybe even Corey if she’s here for long, are going to have to start looking for jobs. You're entering adulthood and we feel it’s time for you to start having adult responsibilities.”

  “But I’ve never worked before,” I objected.

  “Find something you like to do and go for it, there’s a lot of places hiring around here, pick one.”

  I started to debate further on the subject but Ash cut me off. “Your right dad, we’ll start looking right away.”

  I turned and looked at my brother then back at my dad. “Anything for you father.”

  “I don’t mean to interrupt but may I be excused to go to the bathroom?” Corey spoke up.

  “You don’t have to ask permission to use the restroom, Coco, just go,” I said.

  “Well it’s nice that she has manners, Aliza,” my mom countered.

  I disregarded her statement and got up from the table. I pushed the chair back under the table and headed off upstairs to change. “Hey CoCo, before you use the restroom could you follow me upstairs? I have something I need to talk to you about.”

  When we got up to the room I motioned for her to sit down on the bed. “I have school in about twenty or thirty minutes. That ought to be enough time for you to whip up some magic and get the voices to go away. Whatever you need me to do just say so.”

  “I think what’s sad is that you still believe this is a figment of your imagination. Were you actually to believe what you’ve seen and what you have heard, instinct would have told you what to do.” She ignored the bed and walked around the room looking through some of my things.

  “This is the part where you begin the elaborate on what you’re talking about. You think I don’t believe? It’s been very real, I haven’t even been able to do any real thinking myself. Truth be told, I’ve never realized how uncontrollably sad my family is.” I looked around in the drawers for something to wear to school.

  She shook her head then ran her fingers across the top of the TV, removing some the dust that’d been there for some time now. “I don’t see what it is you want me to do.”

  “Just get out of my room,” I replied. After we’d gotten her away from a bad situation she was denying me help in return. When she turned to leave out I softened a little bit. “Wait,” I turned and walked over to the bed and sat down. “Can you just tell me a little bit more about what exactly is happening to me?”

  “All in due time Aliza.” She opened the door and walked out of the room.

  I got up from the bed and after undressing threw on a pink sleeveless shirt and a snug fit pair of jeans then tossed on my trusty old hoodie. I kicked my slippers off to the side and slid on a pair of black sandals I had lying by the closet door. I glanced over at my clothes in the mirror and gave myself a warm smile of approval before opening the door and walking out. Ash had done the smart thing and dressed before coming downstairs. I ran down the stairs and back into the kitchen.

  “Breakfast was good mom,” I kissed her on the forehead and walked toward the door.

  “What is Corey going to do here all day?” my mom called after me.

  “Watch movies or something?” Ash replied.

  “If she’s going to be here, she’ll need to get into school. You and Aliza go ahead and get out of here before you’re late.”

  “Alright, I‘ll see you after school.”

  “Have a great day,” my dad called after us.

  Once we were out of the house I went and stood on the driver side of my car. “Are you riding with me or you taking your own car? I might leave early today, depending on the intensity,” I asked.

  Ash had a new Pontiac GTO convertible with less than 500 miles on it, after the accident my parents got the car fixed but he refused to drive it anymore. That accident was only the second most tragic thing to hit this family. He’d been driving his girlfriend at the time, Deanna, home from a party when he’d blacked-out at the wheel and completely flipped the car, instantly killing her. He walked away with only a fe
w cuts and scrapes but inside of his mind he was never the same. It took nearly a month and a half for him to even begin talking to anyone again and even longer than that for him to date again.

  “I’m going to drive,” he called back.

  “That’s a first! Do you even know where your keys are?” I said excitedly.

  He chuckled then reached into his pockets and pulled out the keys. “I always know where my keys are, little sister.”

  “Cool, I’ll meet you there,” I said smiling as I opened the door of my own car.

  “You want to know the good thing about living in something like a desert?” he paused then opened his door. “There are hardly any cops around, and I hear that it’s pretty much a straight stretch of road from here to the school…” He let his words linger for a bit and I looked over at him.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I replied.

  “Race you there!”

  Chapter Eight

  Entering the student parking section was the moment when I’d realized that my coming here was a horrible mistake. Close to a hundred students were scattered all around and unintentionally causing my body to involuntarily shut down. I tried to pull myself together as I looked around briefly at everyone; I caught the eyes of a girl in a blue top and white pants looking in my direction.

  Oh great, more people to not notice I exist. This day keeps getting better and better. The girl thought before rolling her eyes at me and looking away.

  We drove around for a few minutes before finding two open parking spaces near the front of the building and parked. I turned the car off and tried to block out all of the rambling psychotic voices in my head. My own thoughts were once again forced aside and each thought demanded my attention, making it entirely too hard to concentrate. Ash tapped on the window and I jumped. “You okay?” he said, talking through the glass.

  “Yeah I’m fine, you scared me.”

  “You’re hearing them all at once aren’t you?”

  “What do you think?” I opened the car door and stepped out.

  “This is different. There was hardly anyone just standing around outside at our old school.” Ash said trying to take my attention off of the scrambled madness going on in my brain.

  It didn’t help, there was way too much confusion for me to think about anything. My vision blurred randomly, I staggered to a nearby pole and put my back against it, allowing myself to slide to the ground. “This is it, someone just kill me now,” I whispered.

  Ash kneeled beside me and put a hand on my knee. “You’re fine Aliza, we’ll figure this thing out together. Just toughen up and pull yourself together. Now get up from the ground before people start thinking we’re weird.”

  “A small migraine never killed anyone, right? People don’t die of aneurism’s every year.” I said sarcastically. “You have no idea what I’m going through, I don’t care about what these people think because I can actually hear them,” I stressed, “Trust me, none of them are even worried about us.”

  I got up from the ground and dusted my clothes off; my vision remained hazy as I glanced around, I couldn’t leave but I couldn’t stay. “I think I just need to be alone. My vision is impaired so I won’t be driving home anytime soon. If you need me later, I’ve probably stuffed myself in a janitor’s closet somewhere.”

  “Wait Aliza, how can you say I have no idea what you’re going through? Did you not see what’d happened to me as I stood outside of that horrible gas station?” His voice was slightly raised yet it came out as a dull whisper. “Which wasn’t the only thing that’d happened if you haven’t pieced it all together by now. I can’t believe how selfish you are being right now.” He turned his back to me then walked off and disappeared into the crowd of students, already eager to get in where he fit in.

  I rubbed my eyes continuously as I tried to see clearly; when nothing helped, I gave up and walked around almost blindly. Remembering the girl that I’d saw when I’d first come into the parking lot, I looked around for her. Luckily she was still standing in the same place, against the pole. As I got closer to the lonely girl she started tensing up like I was coming over to hurt her.

  Is she coming over here to tease me too? She thought as she clenched tighter to the pink binder she held in her hands.

  “Forgive me, I know this is random but I’m Alizarin, people just call me Aliza.” I heard her thoughts ramble around displaying her insecurities and the lack of knowing of whether or not to trust me. “I’m new here,” I continued, “So I don’t have many friends.”

  “Hey I’m Bethany,” she said with a hint of enthusiasm in her voice.

  “It’s nice to meet you Bethany, my family and I just moved here from Hot Springs.” I stretched out my hand to shake but she flinched and I reflectively snatched it back.

  “Sorry,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

  “It’s alright. I’m just not used to people around here being so nice to me.”

  “Well I’m different from everyone else around here,” I responded. If she only knew the exact truthfulness of my words, I thought.

  “Being different gets you teased,” she choked up.

  “I don’t think anyone’s tough enough to make a move,” I said jokingly. Although I couldn’t see her clearly I did notice that she was a lot taller than me and very thin, making her awkward to look at. After too long of a pause, her thoughts ate away at me. “It was nice meeting you Bethany, hopefully we have a class together.”

  “It was nice meeting you too, Aliza,” she replied with a small smile on her face.

  I scanned the parking lot looking at all the people, all thinking meaningless things; I searched the crowd of people for my brother. Where are you?

  Over here, he waved his arms in the air to get my attention, somehow realizing that I wasn’t able to see him all too clearly. He was several feet away standing with a group of girls.

  Mr. Popular already?

  What can I say? They love me.

  I shook my head at his vanity and moved through the crowd to go inside of the building where hopefully it would at least make me feel a little better.

  ***

  Classes dragged on throughout the day, I could hardly pay attention to any part of the lecture because the people around me were mentally not paying attention. Like the girl that sat in front of me, she was fixated on the teacher, her every thought reflected how much she adored him and it wasn’t because his method of teaching was superior to any other.

  I sat back in my seat and tried to force my mind to block out all of the thoughts being processed, but no matter what I did I wasn’t able to shake the silent madness I was going through. I looked over at the round clock that hung on the eggshell colored walls; it was only 11:15. The bell for first lunch wouldn’t ring until another thirty minutes.

  I don’t think I can do this anymore. I placed both of my hands on my face and accepted the mental defeat. I have to get out of here.

  Are you sure you don’t want to stick around for lunch? I heard Ash's voice in the distant parts of the thoughts that now took up residence in my mind. He would have been easily missed if I had not been expecting his reply.

  Although I could still barely see anything, I’d managed to get this far, I figured that maybe I was a lot tougher than I was allowing myself to believe. I had three more classes to get through today and I’d decided that I should just brave through them and embrace the opinions and judgments of an entire class of hormone raged teenagers and secretive teachers.

  “For homework, you’ll have to create a chart showing the evidence of evolution.” Mr. Yang passed out the accompanying worksheets and walked back to the front of the class, “Tetra, since this is your first day, feel free to collect the notes from one of your other classmates.”

  My stomach dropped and I shook my head silently, why’d they list my middle name on the attendance sheet?

  “Isn’t Tetra the name of a fish?” Someone joked from the back of the classroom.

&
nbsp; “It is, but my name isn’t Tetra, its Alizarin. Isn’t your name one letter short of spelling Herpes?” I replied, turning around in my seat to look at the stranger. As if Tetra is the name of an ugly fish, I thought.

  “Watch yourself new girl.” She fumed as both embarrassment and anger consumed her.

  “No I think it is you who should watch yourself,” I smiled, then turned around and faced the teacher, who’d conveniently stepped outside to take a call when she’d decided to make her comment.

  I stared again at the class clock; the last few minutes of class had flown by. I threw the papers into my purple folder and tossed it into my backpack. As I walked out into the hallway I was temporarily disoriented by the commotion and bumped into a girl standing on the side of her locker.

  “Watch where you’re going!” The girl yelled.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, picking up the books that had fell to the floor.

  “You should be sorry.”

  I slowly rose with the fallen books in my hands and looked up to see the person I had bumped into. The massive girl towered over me; her pale blonde hair was tied into a bun revealing her protruding forehead. We wore the same small tank shirt; only she had gotten hers in dark blue. I reached out to hand her the books I was still clutching onto and she snatched them away.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.” I extended the apology again hoping she would hear the sincerity in my voice. The crowd around us had slowly begun to stop and stare at the two of us.

  “I don’t need your apologies, new girl.” Her thoughts were furious, but not at me.

  Among the other thoughts I’d been entertaining; I also had to watch as images flashed inside of my head of something that I couldn’t make out. Something had happened to her within the last couple of days and she had been waiting for someone to cross her the wrong way. I inched backward, lightly bumping into an instigator then gently tried to pry my way through the few people that stood between the open hallway and me. Everyone in the by-standing group were wondering if she was going to just let me get away, they wanted to see a girl fight, it’d be the fourth one this week supposedly.