Blood Land, J.R. Lawson [electric book reader .txt] 📗

he answered, “Um…I don’t think so. I got it.”

“Oh come on,” Nora found herself urging, “It looks like you could use it and it’d get you out of here faster.”

Rogan sighed again and ran his fingers through his messy black hair as he thought for a minute. He then finally nodded a bit and complied, “Yeah, sure I guess.”

Nora fought the urge to smile as she then stepped off of the last step of stairs she was standing on and walked over to the open fridge of blood on the other side of the basement.

“Let me just get this broken glass up,” Rogan stated, “You got a broom or a dust pan?”

“Over there in the corner behind those boxes,” Nora said, pointing afar off. She then turned around and began collecting several jars of blood in her hands as Rogan then turned to where she had pointed and proceeded to get the broom and dust pan. He noticed the boxes that were around it. Lots of dust covered them. A curious look covered his face as he looked at them. He quickly looked back at Nora who was too busy putting blood in boxes to notice what he was doing. He then turned back to the boxes and rubbed some of the layer of dust off of the top with his fingers to find some writing in sharpie that read, “Amy’s stuff”. The whole thing intrigued him but he instantly backed away from it when he heard Nora speak from behind him.

“You find it?” she asked.

“Oh…uh, yeah,” Rogan answered, now walking towards her, pretending that he hadn’t seen anything. He quickly and quietly collected all of the glass on the floor with the broom and swept it into the pan. After disposing of it, he proceeded to join Nora in boxing up blood jars. After several silent minutes of busy work, they were almost done. Only a few jars remained in the fridge. However, when Rogan looked around him, no more empty boxes remained.

“Hey,” he then spoke up as Nora entered the basement from the cellar doors that led outside as she had just finished loading a box into his truck.

“Yeah?” she answered, looking up at him. She was panting slightly and she brushed some of her stray wisps of hair out of her face, trying to put them back in place with the other hairs gathered in her pony tail.

“Do you have another box? Looks like we only need one more.”

“Oh, yeah,” Nora wiped her brow with the sleeve of her shirt, slightly brushing away the bangs from her face, only for them to fall back down again, “Let me get it. It’ll be upstairs,” Nora then exited through the door that entered the house.

As Rogan waited for her, he went to the fridge and pulled the remaining jars to the front of the shelf for easy access. It was then that he froze in place as he spotted something in the back. He reached forward slowly, grasping whatever it was in his hands and then bringing it forward to look at. It was a bag of blood; the type that you would get at a hospital for I.V.’s. Before he could ponder too hard about what it was, Nora reemerged from the house holding an empty box as she walked into the basement.

“Here we go,” she said as she entered. However, she suddenly stopped in her tracks as she noticed Rogan standing there with the bag of blood in his hands.

He looked up at her with a look of utmost seriousness and even a slight bit of anger on his face, “What the hell is this?” he asked sternly.

“Um…” was all Nora could get out as she dropped the empty cardboard box that she had in her hands at her feet.

“Exactly when were you going to tell me that you had human blood in here?!” he almost shouted, holding the bag up in the air.

“Well, never actually,” Nora then said, “Because it’s really not any of your business.”

Rogan then scoffed at this in disbelief, “Are you serious?! I’m taking this blood from you so it is indeed my business!”

“No it isn’t!” Nora exclaimed, “That stuff is personal.”

“Personal or not, why the hell do you have this?! This right here is even more dangerous than the pig’s blood! Did you even think about that?!” He then angrily tossed it onto the couch next to them, “I mean, seriously, what the fuck?!”

“Stop yelling at me!”

“I’ll yell if I want to yell! And I’ll keep yelling until you tell me why you still have this?! Why didn’t you try to get rid of this yesterday? You wouldn’t have had any problems, I assure you!”

Nora wanted so bad to yell back at Rogan, however she knew from previous experience that that wouldn’t solve anything. So she quickly composed herself and, nervously rubbing the back of her neck with her hand, finally answered, “Look, I didn’t get rid of it yesterday because….honestly….besides the fact that it has sentimental value, I really don’t know how much of it is actually human,” Nora looked down as she said this, however, once she was done, she slowly looked up, waiting on Rogan’s response.

Rogan just sighed and looked away from her for a second. He rubbed his mouth and chin with his hand nervously as he thought and then finally turned back to look at her and spoke, “So…some of its vampire?”

All Nora could do was nod.

“Well, regardless you need to get rid of it. A lot of it smells human and this can get you in trouble. It could attract more hellions than you’d like to have.”

“I can’t get rid of it,” Nora almost pleaded.

“Oh why not? Because of the sentimentality?!! Stop letting your emotions run every decision you make and make a logical one for once! Stop being so fucking stupid!”

“I am not stupid!” Nora shouted back, “And I don’t let my emotions run all of my decisions!”

Rogan then laughed quiet condescendingly and approached her, “Oh please! Every decision I’ve seen you make has been based on emotions! You saved me because why? Oh, because you felt it was the right thing?!”

“Shut up!” Nora yelled, but Rogan ignored her demand and continued.

“And the only reason I got you to get that blood for me afterwards was because you were scared; another emotion. The same emotion, may I add, that almost got you killed in the woods! It was also that fear that caused you to want to get rid of this blood here in your basement, however, you didn’t even do that right because you almost got killed doing it!”

“Just shut up! You don’t know me at all!” Nora now screamed. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes and she tried her hardest to fight them back.

“Oh yes I do! I know your type!” Rogan continued to shout, now almost right in her face, “The do-goody, loving vampire types who refuse to see the real danger because you feel too much to see the logical decisions right in front of you! I bet that I’m right in assuming that all this blood you kept was from someone you knew closely; someone who changed into a vampire, right?”

Nora didn’t respond to his question. She just stared right into his eyes, trying to project as much hatred into him as she possibly could, while still trying to fight back her tears.

Rogan realized she wasn’t going to answer, and before he continued, he noticed the picture of the woman that was sitting on the table near the couch, “You’re mom,” he then said as he looked back at her now with a arrogant look on his face, “The blood is from your mom and you can’t get rid of it because of your feelings! She changed into a vampire and you can’t let go of it!”

“You don’t know anything! Just shut the hell up!!” Nora screamed as loud as she could. She no longer fought her tears as they now fell down her face in anger.

“I know enough to know that you are weak! Too naive to realize what the world is and you’re going to get yourself killed one day very soon!”

“I am not weak!”

“Oh please, you couldn’t hurt a fly!”

“I would love to hurt you right about now!”

Rogan then laughed, “You couldn’t hurt me even if you actually tried!”

It was then that there was silence between them. The air felt so heavy that it was almost as if hatred was physically occupying the space between them. Rogan finally had decided that he had had enough and he stepped back from Nora.

“This was a huge mistake. Me coming here,” He then turned around and began to walk toward the door to the outside.

“Stop!!” Nora then shouted at him, but Rogan did not. He just ignored her and continued his pace to the door.

“STOP!!!” Nora then screamed at the top of her lungs and, grabbing one of the cracked jars on the nearby table, threw it to the ground and broke it. This caused Rogan a bit of alarm and he stopped as she had commanded and turned around to look at her.

“I am not weak! You are wrong about me! You know nothing!!” Nora continued to shout angrily. She now held a large glass shard in her hand and pointed it at him as she panted heavily.

Rogan just looked at her and laughed, “Are you serious?!” he jeered. When Nora did not answer, but kept her defensive stance, he continued, “Well, fine then, come on honey. Come get me. I dare ya!”

Nora stood for several seconds in physical and mental preparation. She wasn’t really sure what she was preparing to do. On one hand, she really did wish pain onto Rogan for what he said about her. However, could she really harbor that much hate towards someone to want to hurt them? Perhaps he was right. Maybe she was weak and couldn’t hurt anyone. But then suddenly the memory of the first night she had come in contact with Rogan flashed through her mind. How she had acted quickly and used the gun up in the attic to defend herself. She had hurt him at one point. Even though she had felt bad about it shortly after, she had been strong in that situation and there was no denying it. Did she really need to prove that fact to Rogan right now? Did it really matter what he thought of her? She knew who she was and she knew she was strong and isn’t that really what mattered?

Nora slowly lowered her hand that was holding the glass as she and Rogan continued to stare at one another. Rogan watched her and laughed again, “I knew you couldn’t do it. I ask you to prove you aren’t weak and you can’t! Even though I made you so mad that you even picked up a weapon and wanted to hurt me. But you couldn’t actually do it. You are pathetic. And I’m leaving,” he then turned around started his walk to the door again.

All of the sudden a rage reemerged inside Nora and she unexpectedly let out a loud scream and ran towards Rogan, piece of glass still in hand. As soon as he heard this, Rogan quickly turned around, but his reaction was slow because he wasn’t at all expecting what happened next. Nora, with the force of her entire body, thrust the piece of glass into his chest, causing the two of them to fall to the ground. She realized she was still screaming as she now lay on top of his chest and quickly looked down at her own hand which was still clutching the shard of glass. It was covered in her own blood, obviously cut by the sharp edges; however her adrenaline must have been blocking the pain because she didn’t feel a thing. The second she noticed that the glass was also stuck into Rogan’s chest, his black blood spilling out