Where The Wildflowers Grow

4- Dandy

"I'm trained, promise I'll be nice," I offer holding a pinky out to him.

"She's very mature for her age," father adds. The man looks between us before taking a seat. Father taught me how to do this in the start of our time here. He thought it would a valuable which in this case it is.

  I open an alcohol pad cleaning off a spot on his arm. I almost grimace at the sudden clean spot. This man is filthy. I grab the band before tightly wrapping it around his arm. I then trace my finger over the protruding vein not able to stop my next words. "You have good veins."

  I glance up seeing him glaring down at me. "Father says it best to ask. Are you afraid of needles?"

   At that someone else in the group chuckles as the man just stares. Without warning I slide the needle in taking some of his blood before doing a quick clean up when I'm done. The next man is cleaner, with a slender pale face and soft eyes. However the partial uniform and the sheriffs hat has me looking to my father. He wouldn't hit me with a cop around would he? "You were a cop?"

"I was. I'm Rick, that's my wife Lori and our son Carl," he says introducing the next two people in her line. I steal a glance at his family.

  Lori is tall, skinny and beautiful. Dark brown hair frames her face and she has pretty dark eyes. Carl looks to be about my age, his hair color lighter than his mom's. The resemblance between him and his father striking. Yet there are some similarities between him and his mother.

My interests mostly lay with nature but genetics are also fascinating. Genetics with flowers are different but yet similar to humans. With the dominant and recessive genes and all.

Once I realize my quick glance has turned into a hard stare I decide to introduce myself. Mom says that is always the best place to start. "I'm Dandy."

"What kinda of name is that?" Carl asks but Lori nudges him.

"It's a nickname for Dandelion, because my mama loved wildflowers," I retorts with a harder tone.

Carls face turns red as he avoids her eyes. "That's still a weird name," he grumbles crossing his arms. "Isn't a Dandelion a weed?" He adds as Lori takes Rick's spot.

"Isn't Carl an old persons name?" I snap back. An older blonde teen laughs at that. "A dandelion is a wildflower."

  Once Lori is done Carl takes her spot. I can't help but feel some sort of satisfaction at the discomfort over his face. "You aren't afraid of needles are you?" I ask more teasingly than I asked the first guy.

"What's the point? If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever," a woman asks from her father's line.

"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here. Let me just at least be thorough."

I tie the rubber band around Carls arm, flicking at his vein and getting ready to take his blood but he tenses up. "Tensing is just going to make it worse you know," I mutter.

  The look in his eye, the fear and the humiliation has me biting on the inside of my cheek. Mom would scold me for being rude to someone about something they are scared off despite how stupid it is. Father said if they tense it makes it worse, so I just need to distract Carl.  "Did you know that the bluet wildflower has several digestive uses?" I ask before going on rambling about bluets.

"Okay, I'm done," I say suddenly.

  Carl quickly gets up before he's replaced by the older girl. "I'm Clover," she forces a smile. Her blue eyes lighting up her face.

Clover is breathtakingly beautiful despite a nasty bruise on her face. She's the type of girl who I would see at school dating football players and in beauty pageants. She definitely would have won every single one she was in. I don't always think about how I look, normally that doesn't matter to me. Clover however makes me feel as if I'm not as pretty as my mother would tell me.