Blood-borne

The New Student

The wind blew hard against the trees, knocking branches against the large school window. The subtle clack of the branch tapping soothed Jaxton. It reminded him of a simpler time, when he was a child. He glanced out the window to the tree. It was a poplar tree, which gave the high school its name. Poplar High. Sort of a stupid name for a high school, but at least it wasn't named after a random guy that 'did something good for the town'. 

The clouds were a dark gray, signalling an upcoming storm. Hushed whispers surrounded him as his fellow students worried about the wind. It was tornado season and this was an 'action day'. All it meant was there was a chance there could be bad weather. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't die, but he was never scared of the storms. 

"Class," his teacher, Mr. Rogers, called out. "Just because the wind is blowing, doesn't mean its going to be a tornado. Let's get back to work." He turned around to the whiteboard to start writing random math problems on the board from his book. His dark rimmed glasses falling to the edge of his large nose as he bent over a certain problem in his book. 

Jaxton leaned back and took out his pencil to doodle on his notebook. When you've been alive as long as he has, you learn how to keep yourself occupied. When the door to the room opened and a scent hit his nose, he froze in place. He looked to where the scent was coming from. A new student. It was strange. He's been alive for nearly 130 years, meaning he's had plenty of time to immunize himself to the mortals scent. 

Every mortal had their own, intoxicating, scent that drew in him and his fellow immortals. Some were able to reject the scent and survive off animal blood, which Jaxton wasn't a fan of. Other's used blood from the blood bank, which Jaxton preferred, and then there was the normal way. Draining the blood from an unsuspecting mortal and either killing them, or turning them. 

Gripping his pencil tightly, he watched as the new girl walked down his aisle to sit behind him. The scent got stronger and it was nearly painful to him not to react. The scent she had could only be described as vanilla rose. Running his tongue over his teeth, he felt them sharpen in eagerness to sink into her neck. 

He forced himself to ignore her and started to write down the problems on the board. He didn't even glance at the clock, knowing there was exactly twenty minutes left, and he could feel every painful minute tick by. He decided to stop breathing, so he wouldn't smell the scent of her.

 A tap on his shoulder broke him of his concentration and her vanilla rose flooded his nostrils. He held a groan back and turned to her with a forced grin. "Do you have a pencil? I must have dropped mine," she whispered urgently, going through her bag again. 

Slowly, he held out his own pencil for her to take. She smiled largely, her green eyes bright and friendly. He turned back around quickly and found a backup pencil. For the next twenty minutes, he sat on the edge of his seat, not breathing, waiting for the bell to ring. When it did, he jumped up to leave, but was stopped by Mr. Roger's voice over the bustling students rushing to get out the door. 

"Mr. James, Miss Tyler, stay behind!"

Biting back a groan, he walked stiffly up to the desk where Mr. Rogers had sat down. He was writing down several assignments on a piece of paper. The girl stood beside him, equally confused. He finally finished writing and held out the paper for the girl to take. She looked at it and grimaced. "This is a lot," she muttered more to herself. 

Mr. Rogers laughed slightly. "It seems like a lot, but it's not. However, to help you, I'm going to ask Jaxton here to help you catch up with your previous assignments there." He pointed to each person in turn as he spoke. The way he spoke about Jaxton himself, however, made it seem like he was a genius. 

He wasn't, he just repeated the same grade over and over for over a century. No big deal. Jaxton was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't realize that both Mr. Rogers and the new girl was staring at him, expecting an answer. "Oh, uh, sure," he shrugged. 

Clapping his hands together with a grin, Mr. Rogers stood up and quickly wrote a couple notes for their next teachers. "Thank you very much, Jaxton." He held out the note to each of them and lead them to the door. "Now, best get to your next class." 

Shaking his head, he stuffed the note in the pocket of his dark blue jeans and headed to biology. He was happy to get out of her scent area, but then it came back. He looked to find her walking beside him. "I'm Rosanna Tyler," she introduced herself, holding out a hand. Shifting his books around, he took her hand. 

"Jaxton James."

He was not interested in making friends. That only leads to heartbreak. He'd become friends with someone, then time would take hold and he'd be forced to move before they found out he didn't age. He outlived so many of his friends that at this point, he was determined to stay a loner. After he let go of her hand, he picked up his pace in attempt to lose her. She picked up her own pace to match his. 

"Biology with Miss Scrimtor?" She held out her schedule. Hardly believing it, he halted and looked it over. He had three different classes with her. This was just great. He wouldn't be breathing for several hours, which wasn't a problem. He could survive the rest of his existence without breathing. The problem was the mortals around him. They might or might not start to notice him not breathing in class.

He didn't say anything, just handed the schedule back to her and started walking again. "Also we have history," he decided to say. She looked excited at him, her red hair bobbing along with her bubbly strides. He couldn't help but wonder if she was a true redhead or not. An old vampire friend that loved warmers, what immortals call fresh blood, always said that redheads had the best smell, meaning they had the best taste as well. 

Jaxton never knew if it was true or not. The only warmer he tried was a blonde drunk at a party in the 80's. She was a nice lavender, but the taste lingered in a bad way for a while. Packers, which was blood packs from the bank, didn't linger, harm, or have a bad taste. 

"Mr. James, who is this?" Miss Scrimtor asked as they entered the biology class. Her gray hair was high in a bun so tight, her skin looked as if she ironed her wrinkles out. The red red lipstick she had on clashed badly with her green dress, but Jaxton kept his mouth shut. 

"Rosanna Tyler," Jaxton replied softly, just wanting to get away from Rose. Rose, however, took a step closer to him as Miss Scrimtor stepped forward. He knew what she was thinking. The old lady looked like a cross between a skeleton and a raisin. An angry raisin skeleton at that. The first time he saw her he wanted to step back as well. 

Her smell was musky and ashy, as well, which gave him another incentive to not breath. Pointing to an empty lab table, she grinned half toothlessly at them. He really didn't want to be her partner. However, glancing around, he saw all the other tables were full. Another full hour with her smell punching him. 

Not breathing was helping to keep his instincts in check, but didn't really help keep her smell from wafting towards him. Every time he opened his mouth to speak to her about part of their assignment, which was to dissect a frog, he could taste her smell. Even over the frog guts all over the table between them. 

This was going to be a big problem. Three hours a day, five days a week for an entire school year. Okay, like three quarters of the school year. He needed to contact Adam. Adam was the only other person he kept in contact with after it happened. He was like a father to him. The only thing, Adam didn't like Jaxton living with mortals. He thought Jaxton should live in Redton, the only city in the world for vampires alone. 

Most likely Adam would say Jaxton needed to move to Redton with him. Problem solved. However, he actually liked living in this town. It didn't have too much crime, people kept to themselves mostly, and the blood bank was right down the road from his house. Redton didn't have a blood bank. Only warmers in a prison. 

Thankfully, biology and history went by quickly for him. Rose did sit beside him in history, but he was actually too interest in the lesson. World War I. He loved to fact check the book with what he remembered to happen. Sometimes they got it wrong and he had to hold back from laughing. 

"Hey," Rose called from behind him. He turned to her. "Wanna come over to my house after school to work on the assignments for Rogers?"

No, not really. "Sure," he answered with a slight shrug.