Page 6 of Blood Lust

“Yes,” I say, grinning at the stereotypical image the attorney draws. “She was that and more.”

“Were you intimate with her?”

As soon as he finishes asking the question, a woman in the courtroom begins sobbing. A familiar sobbing. I don’t have to look up to know who it is. Annie’s mother. A big woman, she’s sobbed throughout the entire court proceedings.

So much for my private life...

“Yes, we were intimate.”

“Did you love her, Aaron?”

“With all my heart. Like I said, she accepted me for who I was. She loved my teeth. Hell, when we kissed, sometimes she would even lick them.”

The attorney waits for the mother, who has burst into tears again, to settle down, and when she finally does, he asks, “Did you love Annie Hox, Aaron?”

I think back to the pretty goth girl who accepted me for exactly who I was, the pretty goth girl with whom I opened up to and shared so much with, the pretty goth girl who listened to me attentively and treated me as if I mattered.

“Yes. I did. Annie was my savior.”

“Then why did you kill her, Aaron?”

I feel myself shrinking in upon myself, as if I’m slowly imploding. I’m indeed trying to shrink away; in particular, from the horrific image of Annie dying in my arms. Now, from the depths of the witness chair, I run my fingers through my greasy black hair and look out across the courtroom to Annie’s mother. The woman is crying softly into her hands and rocking back and forth.

“It was an accident. I never meant to kill her.”

Chapter Six

“Tell us what happened on the night she died, Aaron.”

“We’d gone to a party. One of her friend’s goth parties.”

“What did her friends think of you, Aaron?”

“They loved me. Sure, I was still a freak, but I was a superfreak.” I chuckle at my own play on words. “It was the first time that I could be me and not have to hide my teeth. It was the first time that I had friends.”

“You were seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“And it was the first time you had friends?”

“Yes.”

The attorney nods sadly. “Go on, Aaron. What happened after the party?”

After a night of partying and drinking and smoking pot, Annie and I left together. We stopped at a Taco Bell, then headed over to a park to eat.

“You both were drinking and smoking marijuana that night?”

“Yes, everyone was.”

“What time did you arrive at the park?”

“Three, three-thirty in the morning.”

“Thank you, go on.”

“But we didn’t get much eating done. As soon as I stopped the car, Annie was all over me.”

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