ALL NOVEL Chapter 12 – New Potential (Part 2)
The ride to the shop was quiet. I was staring out the window watching people living their lives. None of them were trapped by a curse. One second in fear of a person, the next in adoration. The whole thing sucked. I rubbed my right temple trying to force the blood bond to disappear. Turning to my left, I saw Chelsea smiling contently to herself. She was watching the people with a chilling smugness. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking about, leaving me thoroughly annoyed that the blood bond only worked one way it seemed.
Sighing, I turned back to my view. My arms were crossed, expressing my annoyance at this whole existence, when I felt a light touch on the back of my shoulder. My head darted to look for the source only to find Chelsea’s kind eyes looking at me. Her aura seemed to shift to a stranglehold on tranquility. Like she, herself, was calm, but, if anything around her wasn’t, she’d destroy it.
“Hey, ella-Belle,” she whispered. “You did such a good job today. I just want you to know I’m proud of you.” I couldn’t discern if she was genuine. I felt happiness wash over me, but I stuffed it down.
No. If she wants to be all motherly, she’s gonna have to do a lot more than just say nice things and basically abuse my blood bond more.
I eyed her trying to find the cracks in her façade. Finding none, I nodded slightly and inched myself into the corner of the car door and seat. I didn’t fully see her reaction, but from my peripheral vision, it looked like she’d frowned. My guts wrenched at the thought.
Blood bond. Blood bond. Blood bond! Frank! I wish I could just know which thoughts and feelings are mine!
The rest of the ride was in silence, thankfully. People went to work, walked their dogs, and ran. Normal day things. While I, a fishing vampire, went to get ice cream. In reality, the activity was normal, but my outlook made the whole concept sour. The driver stopped in front of the shop and let Chelsea out, then came around to my side to do the same.
Stumbling a little after getting my foot stuck on the car’s floor matting, I righted myself and looked at the ice cream place. It looked upscale and nice. The windows were open to the street radiating a soft yellow glow from the internal lights. Funky colors were at the forefront of the design. Each of the window shades varied in color, all pastels. Overall, it just looked like a nice ice cream shop. No blood anywhere.
Our driver got back in the car and took it somewhere, likely to park, but how would I know? Chelsea led us into the shop, opening the door.
The smell of freshly made waffle cones struck my nose, instantly taking me back to memories as a kid. Back when my dad and mom got along, taking us out after church. I didn’t care much for the religion at the time, but those times at the ice cream shops were amazing. Just excitedly running around with Hazel and other friends, licking the sugary goodness melting on my hands. I smiled softly to myself.
I looked around at the shop, seeing little tables filling out the small dining room. The colorful theme expanded to the menu. There were cute little graphic ice cream figures dancing along the edges of it. The two workers at the front were both women. One standing at the register, with a customer service smile, and the other changing out one of the tubs with one from the freezer. The first girl looked about 16 with a pastel yellow collared shirt, visor hat, and her hair in a ponytail. She clearly loved Pokémon from the little Gengar and Pikachu pins stuck to the front of her hat. Her name tag read ‘Rachel’ and just underneath that was a pronoun pin saying ‘She/Her.’
The other worker was turned away fiddling with a large tub of ice cream. She had the same uniform and hat. Her hair was a light brown shag, slightly different from Rachel’s dyed blond. Plus she was pretty tall, about four or five inches more than me.
“Hi! Welcome to Vanston’s Ice Cream! Can we interest you in our Triple Dipped Chocolate Chip Special?” Her voice oozed with that tired customer service sound to it. Just done with the day and wishing customers would stop coming in. No one else was in the shop, so it was clearly directed at us. Chelsea led the way to the register and I stayed close behind, looking around excitedly for the upcoming tastes.
“Actually, I think we’d both be more interested in the Big Fun Special,” Chelsea said coolly.
“Oh! Sure! Ashley, can you take care of these ladies while I go get the Special’s topping?”
“Yeah,” the other worker, apparently named Ashley, grumbled while turning around. Rachel walked through the side doors to the kitchen leaving us along with the other.
My eyes practically bulged out of my head when I saw the woman when she finally turned around. It was Hazel! Her round glasses were slightly falling down her nose and she pushed them back up, looking at both of us. I glanced frighteningly towards Chelsea, who seemingly didn’t know I was freaking out. Hazel, with the name tag ‘Ashley,’ walked cautiously towards the ice cream on display.
“Hi. Large, small, or waffle cones?” Hazel asked with no emotion or hint of recognition.
“I’ll have a small, what about you Belle?” Chelsea replied, then turned it towards me.
“Um, I’ll have a waffle cone, I guess.” I shrugged, not having a clue how to go about this social interaction anymore.
“Which flavor for you both?”
“I’ll just have a scoop of vanilla,” Chelsea said while looking at the options. It was clear she’d been here before and wasn’t surprised by the options. There were so many, I was having difficulty already; seeing Hazel only added to that. Both eyes turned towards me. Chelsea’s simply waiting for a response, Hazel’s practically begging me to hurry up.
“I’ll have the cookie dough,” I looked at Chelsea for approval. She smiled happily.
“Alright, we’ll have those ready in just a sec, when Rachel, the other worker, gets back. You can both take a seat if you’d like,” Hazel said nonchalantly, while starting to scoop the desired flavors into their prospective cup and cone.
Chelsea started to guide us to the corner to sit and wait, then a voice spoke up.
“Actually miss?” We both turned around. “You,” Hazel said, pointing at me. “It looks like we might be out of cookie dough, can you come select another flavor?”
I looked at Chelsea who jerked her head towards the front, insinuating for me to go. I looked back at Hazel and nodded, slowly making my way up to her.
Once I got up to the display case, Hazel leaned over and spoke quietly. “Go to the bathroom, the code is 08328, stand on the toilet, and speak into the vent. I’ll respond, but we don’t have long. You're getting chocolate chip now. Say it. That’s what you want,” she spoke hastily but in hushed tones.
“Oh, right,” I whispered. “I’ll just have the chocolate chip instead,” I spoke normally
“Yeah, we have that one. I’ll get that ready for you,” she replied at the same volume. I watched her discreetly as I went to sit back down. She picked up the cone, filled it, placed it on a holder, then walked into the back.
I figured that meant she wanted me to go to the bathroom now. “I’m gonna be right back Chels. I’ve gotta go to the bathroom and I asked the lady for the code earlier.”
“Alright, hun, but don’t leave me holding your cone for too long. I might have to try a bit and you don’t want to miss out on the topping.” She smiled with teeth, slightly laughing.
“I won’t be, don’t worry.” I got up and rounded the corner into the short hallway. The bathroom had an electric pad lock on it and I entered the said code quickly. I recognized this wasn’t a crazy sound proof room, but I figured Hazel knew more about this place then me if she seemed to work here.
I stood up on the toilet like she said and spoke into the vent. I didn’t quite reach all the way to it, but I was close enough and my enhanced hearing helped.
“Hey, why are you fully turned? You weren’t like a day ago. There’s no way you fed that fast,” Hazel’s voice was scattered and echoing throughout the vent. It was faint but it was pretty clear what she was saying.
“The queen bee out there caught me coming back from our meeting and forced me to turn. It practically implanted her in my mind. Plus, the phone you gave me is broken” I grumbled.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry Isabelle. That’s awful. I have another in my bag in the back, I’ll slip it to you before you leave. I’ll talk to you more then. See you soon, Isabelle.”
I nodded to myself before I realized she couldn’t see it. “Ok, Hazel. I’ve missed you.” I said quietly, almost not intending for her to be able to hear it.
“I’ve missed you too, sweetheart. Soon.” That was all she said. I wondered what exactly she meant by ‘soon,’ but I quickly forgot about it. I stepped off the toilet then washed my hands to keep up with the idea that I actually went to the bathroom. I walked back to Chelsea, seeing that she had two ice creams being handed to her by Rachel. Both were topped with what looked like strawberry jelly, but I figured it was a little more than that.
“Ooh, just in time Belle. Ready to have your taste buds explode?” She asked giddily.
I giggled slightly, genuinely excited for the prospect of ice cream, and nodded happily. Talking to Hazel, even if it was short, was nice. I wasn’t exactly sure how she was gonna give me the new burner phone, but I was ecstatic at the idea of having a connection to her.
Chelsea handed me my cone wrapped in napkins. I carefully took it, trying to avoid getting ice cream all over my hands. It may have been fun as a kid, but that was a sensory issue now. I shivered at the thought.
I slowly took a tentative lick off the top. My mouth genuinely exploded. It was blood and it was good. The normal high-like euphoria I got from blood was intensified by the sugar and it being caramelized. It was warm like they’d just heated it up. It was like what hot fudge tastes like, but better. My eyes rolled back in my head and I had to keep myself from moaning.
“Oh sugar, this is good!” I said excitedly, trying to control myself. The feeling of the blood was constant, warming my insides. Each lick only intensified it.
Chelsea and I ate our ice cream quietly, enjoying every second. It didn’t take too long, and the whole event was over in a matter of minutes, but it felt longer. A small family of tourists, came in wearing the stereotypical “ I <3 NYC” shirts. Both Chelsea and I had a quiet laugh about it. The moment was good. No blood bond messing with me. Just content to live in the moment.
We were wrapping up our outing and it looked like Chelsea was ready to head home. She pulled out her phone and contacted, who I assumed to be, the driver. Suddenly, Hazel took that as a cue to start sweeping the floor of the shop. I wasn’t sure how this played into getting me the phone, but I could predict this was when it was about to happen.
I wiped my face with a napkin and Chelsea stood up, taking in a deep breath.
“Ready hun?” She asked, holding the empty small cup with her spoon, clearly ready to leave now.
“Mhm.” I stood up with her, patting my sides making sure my phone was in my loose cropped hoodie’s pocket. Feeling it, I grabbed my crumpled napkin and headed over to the trash can that Hazel was sweeping next to. Thankfully, she was next to the closest one to the exit so it didn’t seem weird. As I reached out, she seemed to trip and stumble into me.
“Oh, my bad. Sorry, I’m a klutz,” she said distraught. I had to hold her up, but I felt her quick hands add weight to my hoodie pocket. Feeling the phone in place, she finally stopped her short showing and righted herself with what appeared like my help.
“No worries! It happens,” Chelsea said casually reaching past me to drop her trash in the same place. I gave a solemn nod towards Hazel, planning to get to the bottom of why she works in a secret vampire ice cream shop in SoHo. I followed Chelsea out the door and into the waiting vehicle. We traveled quietly back to the house and I, for once, knew that my happy feelings weren’t directly caused by the blood bond.
