“You don’t know who I am.” He knew how I felt about him, and that I had no control over it even if I’d wanted to, and yet he was still trying to convince me that he was a bad choice. It had already been made, and whether he was good for me or not was of little consequence. “I’m not like them. I’m not good.”
“How are you different?”
I hated that he was so far away from me, and it had finally gotten to be too much. I got up and walked over to him, kneeling directly in front of him. He smiled at me, a rather sweet, sincere one, then reached out and touched my cheek gently, brushing back my hair. His touch sent shivers of pleasure through me, but I fought to keep my eyes open, to keep them locked on his.
“You should be so afraid of me, but you’re not,” he murmured, bemused.
He studied my face, his hand resting wonderfully on cheek. “If you weren’t…”
He licked his lip and sighed. “If I didn’t feel this way about you, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. Do you fully understand?” I’m not sure if I would’ve told him that I did or not, but I had started trembling too much to speak. He leaned in closer to me, and his hand moved back, so he was burying his finger in the thickness of my hair. “I am a real vampire. I’ve killed people.”
“You… you have?” I whispered. My heart, which still pounded desperately for him, felt twisted with fear and revulsion.
“Mmm.” He sighed again, this time more resignedly. “They didn’t tell you.
I’m surprised Jack didn’t, but Ezra always tries to protect me. After…” Pain so raw it hurt flashed over his eyes. “Elise died, I went on a rampage of sorts.
Eventually, I got myself under control, but there’s still that thirst. Not just for blood, but for death.”
“But that was a very long time ago,” I protested softly.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” All of his resistance shattered, and his vulnerability made him look impossibly young.
“You won’t,” I pleaded with him.
He stared at me for a minute, and then unexpectedly, he forcefully kissed me. His mouth pressed so tightly it almost hurt and his hand knotted painfully in my hair. Just the same, my body exploded with pleasure. I loved the insistent way he held me to him. Then, just as abruptly as he started kissing me, he stopped and pushed me back. Peter moaned and jumped away from me. Then he turned and left the room Every part of me wanted to follow after him, but I just laid back on the hard wood floor and stared up at the ceiling. My body completely ached for him, and even as my head was reeling with the ecstasy of his kiss, I realized that I didn’t want to feel this way about him. Peter was just going to keep hurting me and pushing me away until there was nothing left. Something in me had been chosen for him, but I was starting to wonder if it had been a mistake.
Mae came in a few minutes later to tell me supper was ready, looking distressed but not surprised that I was alone. She had made some kind of pasta that I recognized as Milo’s recipe, but hers didn’t really do it justice. Considering she hadn’t tasted any of it, I really didn’t think it was that bad, though, and I ate it all with a smile on my face.
After I had finished, Mae cleaned up the kitchen, and I helped her as much as she would let me. Every now and again, I’d hear Peter upstairs, and I’d feel a sharp pain in my side. The fact that he was so close but refused to be with me was completely devastating. I hid it as best as I could, but I’m sure Mae easily saw through my façade.
In the living room, Mae put on the Beatles, claiming that they could heal any mood, and sat on the couch. I sat on the floor in front of her and allowed her to play with my hair. Theoretically, I think it was meant to comfort me, but like the meal she had just made, it was done more as a way for her to get her mothering out. All the while, there was a constant stream of soothing words coming from her mouth, telling me how everything would work out.
When Ezra appeared in the living room sometime later, I felt an unrelenting sense of relief. He kissed Mae warmly, and I found my chance to escape. I slipped out from her and made my way over to Jack. He had crouched down on the floor to rub Matilda’s belly, and I stood in front of him, wrapping my arms around me.
“Did you have a nice drive?” I asked Jack.
He looked up at me, then glanced over at Mae and Ezra, who were busy in their world, murmuring things to one another. At that moment, I hated them for being so easily in love. There was so much drama going on around them, but they could just curl up on the couch together and pretend none of it was there.
“Yeah. Did you have a nice time with Peter?” He raised an eyebrow at me, trying to seem playful, but I saw the hurt behind it. More than that, I felt it, like a burning regret in the back of my throat.
“I’ve had better.” His smile came more naturally after that, and I felt some of the tension ease up between us. Giving Matilda one last pat, he stood up and looked down at me. “Do you want to give me a ride home?”
“I do…” Jack trailed off, and looked up at the ceiling, towards Peter’s room, and then he shook his head. “I don’t think I should. At least not right now.”
“Are you like banned from ever picking me up again?” I had never thought that I would really miss his speedy trips around the city, especially after he almost killed me last time, but it saddened me to think that it might never happen again.
“No,” Jack scoffed, as if anybody could ever ban him from anything. “I just think it’d be better if I didn’t for awhile. He needs to figure out what he’s doing, and so do you.”
“I didn’t think I really had a choice in the matter,” I admitted honestly. My understanding of things was that I was completely at the whim of Peter and Jack. I would be whatever they would let me be as long as it was in their lives.
“Everyone has free will.” He leaned in a little closer to me, looking at me earnestly. “Even you.”
“You really think so?”
“I have to.” His hopeful smile faltered, and he turned to Ezra. “Alice is ready to go home.”
“Sure.” Ezra jumped up from the couch, smiling at me. “Sometimes I forget that you don’t live here.”
Putting his hand on the small of my back, Ezra gently ushered me away from Jack. Looking back over my shoulder at Jack, I wished that things could just go back to the way they were. I wished I didn’t know about vampires or Peter or that my blood had ever been meant for anybody.
Chapter 12
It was on the bus on the way to school that I decided to broach the subject.
There would be a finite amount of time, and then a full day of school after that to keep his thoughts from settling too long. Milo had his textbook open on his lap, doing some last minute cramming for a test he would undoubtedly pass.
Since I was trying to make everything seem perfectly normal, I had in my ear buds and the iPod played the Tears For Fears, but it was quiet enough where I could talk.
“Hey, Milo?” I tried to keep my voice as casual as possible, but I didn’t exactly know how I could keep it light and easy. How exactly did I go about inserting the supernatural into everyday conversation?
“Huh?” Milo grunted, his attention unwavering from the textbook.
“What do you think of… vampires?” I hesitated before the word, as if by saying it aloud to someone other than the family, it would make it real.
Thankfully, he didn’t notice.
“I don’t,” Milo answered flatly. He hadn’t even expressed the vaguest interest in this conversation, but I pressed on anyway. I hated not telling him things, and it was nearly impossible for me to carry around a secret this life changing.
“You don’t think maybe they’re real?” I pulled at the straps of my backpack and bit my lip, waiting for his response.
“No.” He looked at me like I was a total idiot, which is what I had kind of expected. “Do you think werewolves are real?”
“There’s no such thing as werewolves,” I replied promptly.
“Yeah, and there’s no such thing as
vampires.” Milo shook his head and went back to studying.
“But you don’t think that, like, there’s even the possibility that they might exist?” I asked hopefully. He lifted his head, looking confused about why I would be talking about utter nonsense.
“Creatures that live on only blood and never age?” He shook his head again. “That’s not even biologically possible. And then they sleep in coffins?
That just seems unnecessary.”
“Well, maybe they don’t sleep in coffins,” I suggested, picking at a chipped piece of nail polish on my finger.
“That doesn’t make it any more plausible.” Then he looked over at me with narrowed eyes. “Okay. What’s this about? Did you stay up late watching The Lost Boys again?”
“No.” I ran a hand nervously through my hair, trying to think of how I could explain this away. “I just had a bad dream last night. That’s all.”
“You know, maybe if you didn’t stay out all hours of the night running around with Jack, you would be able to sleep like a normal person without any ridiculous dreams.” Milo had taken on parental heirs again, and I rolled my eyes when he went back to looking at his book.
“Right.” I decided that maybe hinting would be my best bet. “All hours of the night.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Milo grumbled, sounding irritated.
“Yep. I had vampire dreams cause I was out all night with a really attractive guy!” I was trying emphasize everything so he would get the point, and when he lifted his head again, I thought I’d finally gotten through to him.
“Wait. I thought you said you didn’t think Jack was attractive?” Milo asked curiously, and I sighed.
“Just forget it.” I laid my forehead against the cold glass window. He started to ask me about Mae’s cooking last night, but I just shook my head and turned up my iPod. As it turned out, I didn’t really feel like talking about vampires.
Jane made a point of telling me that I looked like hell and I hadn’t been acting like myself over lunch. She brought up Jack for the first time in days, but I didn’t feel like talking about him, so I said that I wasn’t feeling well and went to the bathroom. When I looked at my reflection in the mirror, it didn’t really seem to look like me. I was tired, pale, and I was losing weight. Since I spent most nights over to Jack’s and they never ate, it never really occurred to me to eat.
Maybe it would if I didn’t spend so much of the time with my stomach twisted in knots.
This was getting to be impossible. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on living this way. My normal human life felt like a total sham, and the vampire parts that had once felt fun and exciting were starting to just be painful. Everyone had been so nice to me and they all claimed that they cared about me, but then why were they hurting me so much? Again, I was reminded of the story of the ugly girl in the beautiful people village. Only this time, I related much more to how dried up and used she must’ve felt by the time they were done loving her.
After school, Milo proceeded to launch into a lecture about how I’m never home anymore and how Mom’s even starting to notice. At least he seemed to have forgotten entirely about the vampire conversation on the bus, which made me feel a little better. I didn’t think that anybody would really care if I told Milo. I just figured that he’d probably have me locked away in a psych ward and I’d never be able to see them again.
But then really, would that be so bad? My heart screamed painfully at the thought, and I realized that it most definitely would. Soon, very soon, this would all get straightened out. I wasn’t sure how exactly, but there were over six hundred years of experience amongst them. They had to be able to come up with something.
Good news. Peter and Ezra are on a business trip. Jack text messaged me, and Milo rolled his eyes.
“You know I really like him, but have you considered what this is doing to your school work?” Milo demanded. He was sitting at the kitchen table, working on some piece of homework, but I laid sprawled out on the couch half-asleep.
My lack of nightly sleep was starting to result in afternoon naps.
“Nope!” I retorted cheerily. Schoolwork didn’t really seem to matter anymore. It was starting to look like I’d probably marry into money, or maybe I’d just die. Either way, education didn’t seem that important.
Why is that good news? I messaged him back. Knowing that I wouldn’t see Peter hurt, but it was also a relief. There were only so many of his rebuffs that I could tolerate.
We can hang out and I can take the Lamborghini. Are you game?
Definitely! I’ll meet you outside! Hurry! I responded and jumped up from the couch.
Milo started in with a lecture about school and sleep, but I didn’t even pretend to listen. After the stress of the past weekend, I could really just go for a night of silly Jack fun. He always knew how to make me feel better.
I burst through the doors of the building just as the red car pulled up in front, and I had never timed it so perfectly before. We seemed to really be in sync, and I tried to ignore the fact that that thrilled me in some strange way.
Throwing open the car door, I leapt inside and smiled broadly at him. Jack laughed at my exuberance, and my heart swelled at the sound of it.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Jack grinned. We didn’t drive right away, and he just sat there for a minute looking at me. “What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t care! Just as long as we get there fast!” I declared, and his eyes glimmered.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” He threw the car into gear and we sped off so quickly, I was pressed back tightly against the seat. Even though we’d just been in a car wreck, I still felt safe with him. After all, he had saved me from the crash, even if he had also been the cause of it.
“This weekend felt so long,” I muttered drearily.
“Tell me about it.” Jack was just as tired and frustrated as I was, and that was easy to forget. Generally, I considered him to be a culprit in all of this, but he was just as much a pawn as I was. We were trapped in an unyielding battle with biology.
“I just want everything to go back to normal.” I had expected him to agree with me, but he just laughed.
“I’m assuming you mean normal in that you were running around with your new vampire best friend,” he smiled. “Yeah. Cause that’s the baseline for normal.”
“Well, it feels more normal than all this business about my blood being meant for Peter,” I grumbled. “How is any part of me meant for anything? Who decided that?”
“I wish I knew.” His expression slacked for a second, but then he shook his head. “Look, let’s just not think about any of that. You look exhausted. Why don’t we just do something nice and relaxing this evening?”
“Like what?” I was exhausted, and truthfully, anything I would be up for doing had to require very little movement. The thought of spending the evening just curled up somewhere with Jack sounded positively wonderful, and thankfully, he was on the same wave-length.
“How about we just go back to my house and watch a movie? I have like a million. I’m sure there’s a couple in there you’d be up to watching.”
“That sounds fantastic,” I admitted. I had turned to face him and leaned my head against the seat. “How long are Ezra and Peter gone for?”
“I don’t know,” Jack shrugged. “Probably a week, I guess. Why?”
“What do they do? For business, I mean. How did they make all your money?” I had spent so much time talking about the preternatural that I never really had a chance to ask about the very practical things, like how they supported themselves.
“Ezra’s been working for, you know, hundreds of years doing various things, so he managed to build up quite the nest egg before I was even born.
Right now, they’re doing a lot of stocks and trading and stuff I don’t understand.
They own a couple companies over seas. Everything they do gets shifted and moved around every couple years, though, and I ju
st never bothered to follow it.
They can’t stay with the same people for too long, or people’ll catch on that they haven’t changed.” He didn’t know very much about what they did, but it sounded very deliberate. He didn’t care very much for business, and he was very lucky that he was in a family that allowed plenty of leisure of time.
“Why don’t you have a job?” I wondered.
“Cause I don’t really need to work. Whenever I find something that interests me, I do it, but in the end, we have plenty of money. Ezra and Peter don’t even have to work. We live well below our means, and you’ve seen how we live. But Ezra thinks that since we’re going to live forever, we might as well be prepared for it,” he shrugged, then looked over at me. “Why? Does it bother you that I don’t work?”
“No, I’m just curious about all the machinations of your life.” We had reached his house, and he drove up into the driveway. Turning off the car, he grinned wickedly.
“Well, you know pretty much everything about my life.” He got out of the car, preparing to escape with that total fabrication of an answer.
“I know hardly anything about your life!” I scoffed, hurrying out after him.
“I’m a vampire and I drive too fast and I’m awesome on the Xbox.” He spread his arms expansively, as if that explained it all. “That’s all you really need to know about me.”
“I hardly think that’s true.” I raised an eyebrow at him, causing him to laugh, but he just shook his head and went into the house. Matilda was already waiting at the door for him. He just gave her a quick scratch and kept on walking, so she followed at his heels.
“Mae, I’m back!” Jack announced, going into the kitchen.
“I’m just doing some laundry!” Mae shouted from somewhere at the other end of the house.
“I hate it when you guys are mundane.” I wrinkled my nose. “Vampires are supposed to be big and powerful and sexy and dangerous.”
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