Bright Blood

Chapter One

"No," I groaned. "I don't want to go clubbing tonight. Please don't make me go, Ri," I begged my best friend, Riley Hendricks.

"But you love clubbing," she protested with a troubled frown marring the perfection of her dark skin, her chocolate eyes begging me to change my mind.

"Yeah, but if we go clubbing, we'll need to go shopping first so we can get new dresses and if we're going to do that, we're going to have to leave now so we can spend an hour each in the bathroom making ourselves presentable," I said quickly, then gasped for air dramatically.

Ri laughed. "So? Let's go then!"

I glared at her, pretended to faint with exhaustion, then jumped up off my bed and grabbed her wrist on the way out the door, her laughter continuing the entire way down the hall, the stairs, and out the front door. We did pause to grab our purses, but just barely.

"I knew you wanted to go," she accused as I started the engine of my royal blue mini cooper.

"Put on your seatbelt and maybe I'll believe you," I returned, shooting her a quick grin as she complied before I backed out of the drive and sped towards the mall.

"What store do you want to go to?" she asked along the way.

"Um, excuse me? Store, singular?"

"Okay, what stores, then?" she asked, putting extra emphasis on the s for me.

I shrugged. "We'll just keep going until we find the dress."

A slow smile crept across Riley's face. "Sounds good to me."

"Right?" I laughed and peeled around the corner, barely slowing down enough to keep all four tires on the road.

"Damn, girl, are you trying to get us killed?"

"Not today," I teased her.

Riley shook her head. "If they aren't too busy, let's get our nails done while we're here."

I was busy scanning through the lot for a parking space, so I just agreed absentmindedly.

"There's one," Riley pointed out.

I smirked to myself as I pulled into it. I'd been planning on parking there all along. I may or may not have extra amazing eye sight. Actually, I have extra amazing all sorts of things thanks to my particular affliction.
But we'll get to that.

"Are you ready, Ri?" I asked as I parked the car, turning to her and taking her hands in mine as I looked deep into her eyes. "Are you ready to go in there and find the sexiest dress in the entire mall, the one that will hug your curves in all the right places, showing off all your attributes to their greatest potential, and make the boys drool while the girls all turn green with envy?"

She looked at me, mimicking my seriousness. "Only if you are."

"Oh, honey, am I ever!" I jumped out of the car, slung my purse over my shoulder and waited until Riley was clear before locking the car. I met her by the trunk and hooked her arm through mine.

Inside the mall, I took a deep breath through my nose. "Do you smell that, Ri?"

She frowned and sniffed the air delicately. "Smell what?"

"I'm hunting down my dress. I can smell it."

She giggled and rolled her eyes at me. "You're ridiculous. Come on, let's start here."

I happily went with her to the first store we saw. I took a quick look around and shook my head. "Nope. It's not here."

She dropped her head back in exasperation and stared up at the ceiling for a moment before looking at me. "We've been here all of two seconds. Give it a chance."