Melissa Darnell - Consume

Carrie stepped back, and I smiled at Michelle, expecting her to step up for a hug, as well.

But she seemed rooted to the linoleum floor, her already large eyes even bigger as she stared openmouthed at something over my left shoulder.

Oh. Of course, Tristan.

“Hey,” he said by way of a greeting.

Time to ease Tristan into the group. “Everyone, you know Tristan Coleman, right?” Who didn’t at our school? “He’ll, um, be sitting with us from now on.”

“I thought you were going to skip this?” Ron leaned over and muttered.

I shrugged and made a face. “I tried to, but somebody’s a spoiled brat and insisted on it.”

Tristan waited to see which chair I reached for so he could be sure none of us had switched the routine seating arrangement. Then he gently nudged my hands free of the plastic chair so he could pull it out and hold it for me. I rolled my eyes. He was taking this show way too far.

Carrie poked Michelle in the ribs, making her jump then remember to return to her seat on the opposite side of the table.

As everyone sat back down, Tristan took his sweet time helping me hang my Charmers bag’s strap over my chair. Finally he flopped down in the chair beside me, turning sideways away from me to stretch out his long legs. Sighing loudly with satisfaction, he propped his hands behind his head then grinned at my friends.

Gradually the noise level around our table returned to normal as everyone lost interest. But then the hairs along the back of my neck stood up. I snuck a peek over my shoulder. Yep. We still had a small audience over at the Clann table, and they did not look happy. My hands yearned to rub away the mild prickly sensation caused by their staring, but I resisted the urge, knowing the movement would give them a tiny victory they didn’t deserve.

Tristan caught that thought and made a big show of throwing an arm around my shoulders across the back of my chair. In the process, he tossed them a quick grin over his shoulder. I shook my head, glad at least he was able to enjoy this ordeal despite the noise of the cafeteria that had to be giving the inside of his head a beating by now.

Then he settled into his chair and turned to face my friends.

Our table was quiet. Too quiet, like they didn’t know what to say to him. Not the reaction I’d hoped for. I had figured they would jabber on among themselves like they always did, and Tristan could either sit back in silence while getting used to everyone, or he could choose to jump into the group conversation when he was ready. Instead, everyone sat there staring at us with raised eyebrows as if they expected us to do all the talking. But what could we say about our long absence? Anne and Ron were the only ones at our table who even knew about the existence of vampires and magic.

As a Coleman and the former Clann golden boy, Tristan was known by everyone on our campus. But since my friends weren’t descendants, none of them had spent much time hanging out with him. So what could they really talk about with him?

I looked at my friends, quickly considering each one’s history with Tristan. Sitting at my right side, my best friend, Anne, was first on the list. She knew the truth, and she’d even helped out during the battle between the vamp and the Clann in the Circle last November. So she’d been there and actually seen me turn Tristan with her own eyes. She’d also teamed up with Tristan once or twice to secretly help fend off my first gaze-daze victims last year.

Not that we could talk about any of that as a group.

Next up was Ron, who sat at Anne’s other side. As a shapeshifting Keeper and an ally of the Clann, he also knew all about vamps and the Clann and had seen me turn Tristan. He and Tristan had played for the JHS Fighting Indians football team, before Tristan’s Clann abilities forced his parents to pull him from the team last year. Now Tristan’s new vamp abilities would still keep him off the team.

That crossed football off the list of subjects to talk about.

Michelle sat on Ron’s right. But she had a weird hero worship thing going on with Tristan, thanks to his helping her off the track at an eighth-grade track meet when she could hardly walk from shin splints. Even if she could actually find her voice before the end of our lunch break, they didn’t have much in common to talk about. Neither of them had run track since junior high.

That left Carrie. But out of all of my friends, hers would be the toughest approval for Tristan to earn. Like Michelle, she knew only general rumors about the Clann and nothing about their true abilities or that vampires existed. And Tristan had never had an opportunity to help her or work with her on anything. A quick peek into her mind showed all she knew about him was his reputation as our school’s biggest, richest player. She hated players. But worse than that was the money issue. She wanted to become a doctor, but her parents didn’t earn a lot and were struggling to figure out how to finance her college dreams. Even my switch to expensive clothing, at my father’s demand last summer when I’d moved in with him, had temporarily caused some tension between us. And we’d been friends for years.

Could she look past Tristan’s last name and reputation?

Thankfully Michelle found her voice again and broke the silence to launch into her usual nonstop JHS gossip report, which brought the tension level down a few notches.

But while everyone else basically ignored Tristan, Carrie kept throwing quick little glances his way in between taking bites of her salad. I took another quick peek at Carrie’s thoughts. She was trying to figure out what the attraction was between Tristan and me. Or more specifically, why I was attracted to Tristan beyond his good looks. She figured she understood why he was drawn to me...she thought of me as smart, nice, loyal to my friends almost to a fault, though occasionally a little weird and moody. But Tristan seemed the total opposite...a societal apex predator who went after anything in a skirt, cared more about money and image than what might lie underneath, and was about as deep as a dried-up creek.

Her words, not mine.

This wasn’t going well.

Desperate to foster some sort of friendship between them, I reached for the first idea that came to my mind.

“Hey, Tristan, did you know Carrie’s going to be a doctor someday?” I said, making my voice loud enough to carry across the table.

Carrie’s eyebrows shot up then dipped into a frown as she wondered what I was up to.

“Oh, yeah?” Tristan turned to her with real interest. “That’s cool. You know, I just learned some interesting stuff from Mrs. Horne today. She was talking about how there are companies out there now making synthetic blood using a process called blood pharming. Have you heard anything about it?”

Mrs. Horne the biology teacher? I silently asked him. When did you talk to her? We all took biology last year.

I ran into her in the hall on the way to your chem class and we got to talking, Tristan silently answered. Then he looked at Carrie again, waiting for her reply.

Carrie blinked several times in shock as she tried to assimilate her previous ideas of Tristan with this conversation starter.

Oh, of course, she thought. He’s just trying to sound smart to impress me. Well, let’s see how long it takes to reveal his real lack of IQ.

Out loud, she said, “Yes, I’ve read a few articles online about that. They’re mainly creating the synthetic blood for use in the military in war zones.”

Tristan nodded. “Because the regular donor blood doesn’t last long enough on the shelf for use in areas far away from hospitals. By the time it reaches the soldiers, it’s already too old and only lasts about a week. Plus there’s that whole problem of getting enough of the more generally accepted O type blood donated.”