Free Bleeding Out by Jes Battis Page B

they air it late at night.”
    “I used to have a crush on the mannequin guy.”
    “Didn’t we all?”
    I lie down with my head in his lap. He dabs at the sweat on my forehead with his sleeve. His fingers are cool. His Canucks pajamas are worn and smell like a dryer sheet. We’re silent for a while. Puppets dance on the television, while outside, darkness presses the world into familiar shapes.
    “What were you doing on that beach?”
    His voice stirs me. I’ve been expecting that questionall night, but only now, in this anchorite silence, is he able to ask me.
    “I was at the clinic,” I say. “I had to talk to Evelyn.”
    “About what?”
    “Derrick—” I stare at the classic skate logo on his pajamas. “I don’t think my mother was raped. I think she was already pregnant when Kevin found her. Those injuries were caused by something else entirely.”
    He touches my hair lightly. “How do you know that?”
    “Evelyn said that she asked for Rhophylac. That drug is used in cases where a Rhesus incompatibility factor might develop in the mother’s blood. She would have only asked for the injection if she knew”—I swallow—“that our blood was at odds. Which makes sense, given what my father is.”
    “Why would she lie to you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So—what?—your stepdad found her that night, and she just pretended that she’d been assaulted by someone?”
    “She was hurt. She must have been fighting something. If she’d been thinking clearly, maybe she never would have let Kevin come with her to the clinic. Maybe we never would have met him. Isn’t it weird how random life can be? If he hadn’t walked past that parking lot, he never would have entered our lives.”
    “Are you going to talk to her?”
    “I don’t know what to say.
Hey, Mom, any particular reason why you fuzzied up the details of my conception?
She’ll just say that she was protecting me. That’s her answer for everything.”
    “It’s kind of her job. Wouldn’t you do the same for Mia?”
    “I wouldn’t lie to her about something so important.”
    “What if the truth were a hundred times worse?”
    I sigh. “It almost always is.”
    “Do you want some more toast?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Are you tired?”
    I yawn. “Maybe.”
    “Try to sleep.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Keep watching. I want to know how this episode ends.”
    “Jeff turns back into a mannequin.”
    “I know that. But Muffy the Mouse is up to something. I feel like it’s all about to get pretty wild.”
    I feel weightless. Everything flutters down, and the last thing I hear is Derrick asking me why I think TXL Series 4 is such an uptight computer. Then I sink back into the water. She’s let go, but I can float on my own, enchanted by the bones and black pearls that surround us.
    Most of my morning is taken up by a bizarre interview with Selena and Patrick. As Magnate, he has to be present while I’m debriefed about the incident on the beach with the psychotic vampire. I tell them both everything that happened, beginning with the first time I noticed himat the convenience store, and ending with how his body disappeared into the water. “Like sugar dissolving into tea,” I almost say, but hold back. Neither of them is particularly into similes. Patrick writes nothing down. He’s angry about the attack, but that’s the extent of his interest. It would have been more helpful to have Modred here—at least he might have something to offer—but the last thing I want to do is offend Patrick. He can be surprisingly touchy.
    After the debriefing is over, he gives me a hug and promises to buy groceries. I don’t believe him, but the hug is nice. I say nothing about the vampire house party, which I still plan to attend. If he knew about it, he’d insist on coming as my man-at-arms, but his presence would only arouse suspicion. Modred is slicker. Derrick isn’t happy that I want to, in his words, “dive into a vampire orgy”