Bloodthirsty

Chapter 11
Something drew me again and again to the conflict between Chris Perez and Chris Cho. I shouldn’t have cared. Not only was apathy part of my vampire agenda, but I had never spoken to Perez or Cho in my life. Yet I kept finding excuses to leave physics between the class period and the lab period. I even volunteered to be shot during the paintball lab so I could escape to my locker for a change of clothes. When I reached my locker, I would watch from twenty-five feet down the hall while Chris Perez robbed Chris Cho.
The first few times I watched, Perez roughed Cho around a little bit. He pulled at the lapels of his jacket to bring him close, then pushed him back into a locker or a bathroom door. He cuffed him on the jaw a little too hard. Then Perez would pat down Cho’s chest and his jacket pockets. He’d undo the Velcro of Cho’s pocket, dig inside, and pull something out. He treated everything as if it were his, violating Cho’s Velcro, his jacket, his wallet.
Perez started by taking cash. Whatever Cho had on him. Cho wised up and started carrying less cash on him—down from two twenties, to a few singles, finally to no cash at all. But then Perez stole his leather wallet. After his wallet was gone, Cho would purposefully bring in objects, offerings for the ancient god that was Chris Perez. A CD or DVD, then this gold key ring that looked like it should have belonged to a mafioso, not a pubescent Asian American. Once I saw Cho try to give Perez a book. Perez rejected that, turned Cho’s backpack upside down, flipped his pockets inside out, and took his iPod Touch instead.
A few weeks into school, Jenny had told me that Perez was a bullshitter and no one in his family was an immigrant. He was actually really rich. His father owned the biggest spring-break resort in Puerto Vallarta, and his mom was blond with fake boobs. She’d almost been chosen to be one of the housewives in The Real Housewives of New York City. The only true part of his sad tale was that his mother may or may not have been a stripper, but either way they’d never gone hungry.
So was I obsessing about Perez and Cho because Perez was a spoiled liar and a jerk to steal someone else’s stuff when he was rich? Actually, that wasn’t why. It wasn’t even Perez’s behavior that bothered me most. It wasn’t how possessive he was, how he put his hands all over Cho in an odd, almost seductive manner. It wasn’t the voice he used when he dug in his pockets, this wheedling, creepy voice, like the one Harry Potter used when he talked to snakes. It wasn’t the praise he heaped upon Cho when he’d given him what he wanted.
It was Cho’s behavior that bothered me. You couldn’t even call what Perez was doing “stealing” anymore. Cho was just handing all his crap over! That drove me crazy—how Cho shuffled down the hallway so dutifully, like Dilbert heading back to his cubicle. How he slumped his shoulders in that oversize jacket. How he didn’t even walk down the other side of the hallway. How he didn’t run. How he didn’t raise his hands to shield his face. How he didn’t push Perez away from his pockets. How he didn’t protect himself. How he didn’t even try some second-grade karate or order pepper spray off the Internet. How he didn’t defend himself.
How much he was like me.
I watched the robbery go down at least once a week throughout September. But I kept a safe distance at first. Sure, Cho was acting like I had at St. Luke’s—but he wasn’t me, and I wasn’t at St. Luke’s anymore. I told myself I was not only far from Chris Cho, but far from the passive, bullied guy I myself had been, that guy who couldn’t come up with an answer for Johnny Frackas. Now I was powerful. I had friends. I not only spoke up, I said “cock-tease” in English class. I told myself I should stop obsessing. But I kept obsessing. So, in October, when Perez took Cho’s cell phone, I did something.
Cho had almost made it to his math class when Perez slammed open the door of the bathroom. He crossed the hall in three strong strides. Having left class, supposedly to retrieve my lab report, I was watching from my locker, three classroom doors down the hall.
“Chris Cho,” Perez called loudly. “Buddy. BFF. What do you have for me today?”
Briefly, Cho raised his shoulders, then let them fall.
“You don’t know?” Perez said. He bent down and got right in Cho’s face, breathing on Cho’s nose and mouth. “You want me to find out? You get off on this, Cho?”
Cho turned his head away from Perez’s breath and said something I didn’t hear.
“What was that?”
Perez hadn’t heard either.
“I don’t have anything today,” Cho said.
“Cho, don’t sell yourself short,” Perez cajoled. He took an odd sort of encouraging tone with his victim. He was giving Cho a pump-up speech.
“You’re loaded,” Perez encouraged Cho. “You’re a very lucky kid, ya know that?”
“I don’t have anything today,” Cho mumbled again.
But Perez knew Cho was lying. Perez had this built-in radar for valuables. He was like one of those scanners old people use to find coins at the beach. Sensing there was nothing worth robbing in Cho’s backpack, Perez ripped it out of Cho’s hand and sent it spinning across the hallway. It landed two feet in front of my locker, but neither of them looked back or noticed me. Then Perez pulled up Cho’s jacket. Nothing worthwhile in there, either. Perez wrapped his hands around Cho’s hips and basically grabbed his ass. With one hand, he slowly pulled away his prize of the day.
Cho’s cell phone was flat and sleek, silver with a touch screen and a full keyboard. It was a really nice phone. $350, easy. What did Perez do with these things? Sell them? Or use them himself, flaunting Cho’s stuff in his face? And what did Cho do once they were taken? What would he do without his cell phone? What would he tell his parents had happened to it?
“Hey,” I called down the hallway.
Cho looked more scared than Perez did. Neither of them had known I was there.
Perez looked back only briefly. The only effect I had on him was speeding up the process. He dangled Cho’s phone in front of his eyes, let it slip from between his thumb and forefinger, and then dropped it in his own shirt pocket.
“Taxed!” Perez said merrily, and spun off to jog down the hallway.
Slowly and deliberately, I picked up Cho’s backpack from the floor, walked over, and handed it to him. The whole time I was breathing heavily, preparing. Then with a manic change of speed, I took off after Perez.
When I sped up, he sped up. And even in enormous jeans with chains dragging them down and unlaced shoes, Chris Perez was fast. His pants slipped down his thighs as he ran. I got such a nice shot of his ass that I could’ve picked it out of a lineup. His sneaker soles squeaked in the empty hallway. But none of this slowed Perez down.
The incredible thing, though, was this: I was faster. This hallway, West Corridor, was long and clear and I pushed off the waxed tile floor, blood flooding my pumping arms and my long legs. Taking powerful strides, I cut across five floor tiles at a time. Everything was sharp and focused and working together: my hands and elbows in line, my heels kicking back behind me, my body propelling me forward faster than I could think or breathe. I know that I’m not a superhero. I know that I don’t have special powers. But in that moment, I felt like I did.
Chris Perez was running on one side, along the lockers, and I was running on the other side, along the classroom doors. But I ran at an angle. I cut across. When I caught up, I caught up at Chris’s left shoulder. I dug the palm of my right hand into his shoulder and turned him so he was facing me. Then, with both palms, I slammed him into the lockers.
As a child, when I caught up with Luke when he got lost, I’d always pull him back. I would grab him and pull him back toward me, toward home, toward safety.
But with Chris Perez, I pushed. I pushed him away from me and into the wall. The back of his skull cracked against the wooden beam above the lockers. The chains of his jeans clanged against one of the combination locks.
Perez was surprised I’d caught up so fast, but he was still quick and feisty. He shoved me off him, but I plunged immediately back, forcing my fists into his neck. To hold the rest of his body back, I raised my knee to pin his left hip into the lockers. With the fist not holding the cell phone, he swung at me, but my arms were longer than his and kept me at a safe enough distance. I was taller than Perez, too, by at least four inches, and I emphasized this by looking down on him.
“Drop Cho’s phone,” I ordered.
“F*ck you, Frame,” he choked out hoarsely.
I was briefly flattered that he knew who I was. It actually gave me confidence.
“Feel dizzy?” I asked him. “I’ve got your jugular. And since you’re a dumbass, I’ll tell you what your jugular is. It’s the thing that takes blood from your brain.”
Thank you, Mr. Muncher. Our ninth-grade biology teacher at St. Luke’s had taught us the location of the jugular vein, and also how to use the veins and arteries of the neck in a fight. My life was hell for three weeks after, as I was daily slammed against lockers while some jerk like Johnny Frackas dug his hands into my throat. I remembered the sensation, pinned up and back, trying to jerk forward but feeling first light-headed, then powerless as numbness tingled its way down my arms….
Perez’s fingers ungripped. I felt them go loose next to my knee. Cho’s phone dropped next to Perez’s wide-legged jeans.
Then Perez struggled suddenly, forcing his body forward. He was really strong, and he was kind of banging me around. No longer holding the phone, he had both hands free to grab at my arms, my hands. I made sure my body was far enough back that he couldn’t get at my stomach. But I focused on keeping my hands on his neck.
“Give back his other shit, too,” I said.
“Who gives a shit,” Perez wheezed.
His instinct was to be a smartass. His reflex was to refuse. But then he shut up, and his face changed. His jaw slacked. His eyelids got heavy. He was feeling dizzy, I could tell. And scared—he was scared.
I had Chris Perez exactly where I wanted him. I felt adrenaline throbbing through me, heating my skin. I was focused and fearless. I was dangerous. I was powerful. I was bloodthirsty. This is the moment when my fangs would have come out. They didn’t, but I was still full of conviction.
I was a vampire.