The Biotechnology Board of Canada and Other Bloodsuckers (1.10)

It’s nice outside and we’re eating lunch in the hallway, but I don’t even care that we’re missing the last few hours of sunlight this year. It’s happening. We’re gonna get him.

Okay, I don’t know the Vampire’s a guy, but it just feels like such a guy thing to do. I feel like if I were a vampire, I’d just ask someone really nicely if I could drink their blood and then live in fear they’d betray me for the rest of my life. All the sneaking around and knocking people out? Every guy I know is convinced that if it came down to it, they could take on the world in a fistfight and come out the other side looking good. Don’t know which one’s the dumber kind of stupid.

Maybe Shay has it figured out. Maybe none of the above’s smartest. Doubt it, though. If they were so damn smart they wouldn’t have volunteered to be vamp food. I’m thankful, though. It had to be them or me; they’re twiggy, I’m a girl with shitty upper body strength, neither of us are really prime ambush squad material. Jimin, while… pretty pathetic-looking, can’t be the bait because he’s carrying the sticky stuff. Man, I hope that stuff works the way he thinks it does. I feel like I’m gonna explode from the pressure of it. Here we are, sitting in the hallway trying to act casual, and right down the hall Shay could be minutes away from getting murdered. Surrounded by weeds in dollar-store plant pots. What a way to go.

“Maybe the vampire didn’t take the bait.” Jimin says.

“What, because they’re playing 5D chess or because they’re not that desperate for blood after all? Who would expect a conspiracy of random teenagers to set a trap for them barely two weeks out from the attack? They’re worried about O’Hagan, not us. It’ll work.” Jet says.

Jimin spits into his water bottle. Antoine conspicuously looks away. Yeah; freaks me out too, man.

I glance down the hallway and my blood freezes. There’s Cell from the track team, making a suspicious beeline for Mrs. Yeats’s room.

No. There’s no way. Cell wasn’t freaked out at all after the first attack happened; our vampire would worry about getting caught. He’s popular, and cool, and he goes to enough track meets at different cities that he could just feed there and not get caug—

Oh, fuck, it’s him. That’s why the rate of attacks slowed down since the summer camp incidents. He’s back in extracurriculars, and he’s traveling.

“Jet, your friend is the vampire.” I growl as quietly as possible.

He looks me in the eyes, leaning behind Antoine so he doesn’t get recognized.

“He is not.”

“We are not arguing about this! We have to save Shay!”

“Cell has been alone with me on school trips three or four times. Why didn’t he—”

“Because it would have been obvious!” I hiss. “He’s not an idiot, just a vampire, Jet, come on!”

Jet takes a deep breath. I get it, I really do, you don’t want to have to beat up your buddy, but guess what, Jet? You’re the only one here who’s tough enough to do it! It’s not enough for me to be locked in on this, you have to be too! Get your shit together, now!

Antoine gets up.

“Jimin, make sure nobody else comes in while we’re in there.” he says.

“But, the juice—” Jimin protests, gesturing at the vials taped to the inside of his hoodie.

“Is gonna out you in front of the whole school if you use it. It’ll take forever to scrape off the walls. Nobody can find out, I’d never forgive myself. Make sure nobody else comes in.”

Oh, shit, it’s happening. Thanks, Antoine, but at the same time—shit! This is real. We’re actually going. Jet’s getting up too, as ready as he’s ever gonna be, and that’s… my cue.

I swallow and follow them like a nerdy little duckling, ready to sock a vampire in the dick if that’s what it’ll take to prove I’m smarter than everyone. That being a shut-in wallflower loser can save lives and fix the world if you’re clever enough, if you can make all that time in your own head mean something.

We burst through the door like the Three Blind Mice pretending to be cops, and Cell whips around, expecting us. He flushes red like he’s been caught jerking off in the locker room. Somehow, this is worse. A pale, shaking Shay stands behind him, struggling to hold the world’s best fake smile together. They drop it and point urgently at the back of Cell’s head, mouthing ‘vampire!’

“W-we know!” Jet says.

‘We know what happened.’ ‘We know what you are.’ Maybe even ‘we know you’re evil.’ It doesn’t matter how Cell takes it; all that matters is he rushes straight for the door. Jet gets in the way like he’s on a basketball court, trying to block him—we do what we’re used to—and Cell picks him up out of his ridiculous spread-eagle stance and hurls him a few feet through the air right into a desk. There’s a crash as he tumbles to the ground.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit! What am I supposed to do, huh!? He’s a foot taller than me and apparently he’s the fucking Terminator, so what am I supposed to do? Think, Sylv, think! You’ve gotta—

Antoine comes flying past me out of nowhere and spears him to the ground in one fluid, perfect stroke of physical excellence that almost immediately dissolves into wild grunting and flailing.

“His arms!” Antoine snaps at us like we’re idiots.

Shay reacts a little faster than I do, but between the two of us we have Cell totally pinned down in the space of about fifteen seconds. I look up at him from my place lying on top of his arm and clutching it to my chest, panting, wondering. He gnashes both sets of teeth—the normal one and the serrated one hidden a centimeter behind them—for a moment, and then lays still and tenses up.

He sniffles and holds back tears.

“P-please don’t turn me in. Please. P-please. You can’t, they’ll—”

“We know, dumbass! Stop talking so loud! We were trying to save you before O’Hagan found out what you were doing. Tell us how your powers work.” Shay says.

He relaxes, his fists unclenching, staring at Shay in shock. How do they always know what to say?

“But…” he starts.

“But shut the fuck up!” Shay says. “Yeah, your weird rampage is messed up, whatever, you want to apologize, help us not get caught. Some of us are Class As too. Quiet, dude.”

Deep breaths all around.

“Jet? You okay?” Antoine says, getting up off Cell’s chest but never taking his eyes off him.

Jet staggers to his feet, blood spilling down the side of his head and down onto his shirt, grimacing in pain.

“Oh my god, Jet, I’m s-so sorry, please don’t turn me in, I just—I was so scared you’d—”

“Shut up, Cell.” Jet murmurs, echoing everyone else.

“Dude, oh my god.” Shay says. “You should go to the nurse.”

“And say what?” Jet says, spreading his arms out.

There’s a loud, sharp knock at the door. We all look. Thank god there’s a piece of paper taped over the window, or whoever it is would be able to see everything. Stupid lockdown measures finally accomplishing something useful.

“Hey! Open up! What’s going on in there?” Mrs. Yeats’s high, accusatory voice yells through the door.

I think I can hear Jimin trying to explain, but he’s stuttering a lot and she’s probably not even listening. Teachers get fired over crap like this. Too bad, lady, you should’ve actually supervised the club like you were supposed to, butchered konichiwas or no butchered konichiwas.

“Shit, what do we do?” Shay says.

“Uh…” Antoine adds, helpfully.

Do I have to do everything myself!?

“Hey, Jet!” I say, fishing a metal compass out of my bag. “We got in an argument and I stabbed you. It was my fault, I called the club stupid and you and Shay are buddies so you got pissed and I stabbed you in the head like a fucking lunatic. Let ‘em suspend me, fuck it. Come on, look angry!”

They all stare at me. Amazed, I hope. I throw up my hands. What? Detective vision! Everyone in your places, I’m being useful for once, don’t screw this up!

“Crazy bitch!” Shay snipes at me a few seconds later, opening the door for Mrs. Yeats. “You could’ve killed him!”

“Yeah, well, he deserved it!” I shout, letting out my pent-up frustration with this whole dumbass situation where no one listens to me.

Jet’s about to play along too, but that’s all it takes. Mrs. Yeats tears into us, says the club was a bad idea in the first place, that she’s done supervising it, Jet and I are both suspended, this is going on our permanent record, the works. It’s glorious. It takes everything I have to keep it together—I’ve never been in this much trouble before, and it hurts worse than I thought it would.

Jet takes it like a champ. Afterwards, sitting in the principal’s office waiting for a second verbal ass-reaming, I side-eye his suddenly much smaller head wound—wow, he really is a mutant—and give him a surreptitious fist-bump.

“Outliers for life.” he says, smirking.

I smirk back, but deep down, I’m just hoping the rest of these goofballs have some idea what to do with the vampire.