Flutter mba-3

by Аманда Хокинг

  Milo had started setting Jane down on the bed, preparing to help me fight of Jonathan, but he finally seemed to be incapacitated. I rushed over to help Milo pick Jane up, even though he wouldn’t need any help.

  She was little more than skin and bones, and I was pretty sure that even Bobby could’ve cared her without any trouble. Her throat was torn open, and Jonathan had really gone to town on it when he had bit her. It was like a dog bite or something like that, and not the usual small incision vampires made.

  I swallowed back vomit and lifted her up in my arms. I couldn’t feel a pulse, and her head and limbs just dangled. Milo stared down at with a look of dull horror. If she was still alive, she wouldn’t be for much longer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement, and Bobby did a sharp intake of breath. I looked up instantly, but it was already too late.

  Jonathan had Bobby in his clutches.

  Chapter 20

  Milo lunged off after them, into the hall where I couldn’t see anything. I wanted to throw Jane on the bed, but if she was dying, I didn’t want that to be the move that killed her. All I could hear was the sound of growling and flesh hitting flesh and Bobby screaming. Finally I decided that saving Jane’s life wasn’t worth my brother or Bobby dying, so I started to set her on the bed.

  “Sorry, Jane.” I pushed her short hair off her forehead, and she felt completely cold under my touch.

  I got to the hall the same time as Ezra. I’m not sure how well the fight between Milo and Jonathan had been going, but Ezra flew in and grabbed Jonathan by the throat and pinned him back against the concrete wall. Milo’s costume was in tatters and he was out of breath, and he just stood across from Jonathan, glaring at him. Jonathan started fighting against Ezra, but then Olivia appeared behind Ezra, and he completely stopped.

  “Enough,” Ezra boomed, and let go of his throat. Jonathan licked the blood from his lips and straightened out his clothing. My mouth had blood on it from when I’d bit him, and I wiped at with the back of my hand. I could almost taste it, but I refused to. It was Jane’s blood, and I didn’t want any of it.

  “I don’t want to see you around here anymore,” Olivia said, and her voice sounded much more commanding than I knew it could be. “Is that clear?”

  Jonathan didn’t say anything. He just looked at the ground and started hobbling down the hall.

  Apparently, his tendon hadn’t healed yet. I couldn’t quite figure out why he’d listened to Olivia, but I didn’t have time to think about.

  “Are you okay?” Milo knelt on the ground next to Bobby. He was half-sitting, half-laying against the wall, and he was bleeding, but I’m not sure from where. He nodded, and I could tell he was fighting back tears, but otherwise he was alright.

  In reality, I would’ve like to stay and make sure they were both okay, but I knew I had to get Jane. I ran back in the room and scooped her up in my arms. There was in improvement or change in her, but I tried not to let that scare the hell out of me. She hung in my arms like a rag doll, and her sheer, tiny little dress revealed all her ribs, and I could feel her spine under my arms. The wound on her neck had started clotting, which meant there had to be some life, but that was the only sign of life I had.

  “That’s your friend?” Ezra looked in the room at her, and his expression was grim.

  “Yeah. Can you help her?” I held her out towards him, like I was a small child and she were a broken toy I expected him to fix. Tears swam in my eyes, but he gave no real answer.

  “We’ll take her back to the house,” Ezra said simply. Gingerly, he took her from my arms, and I felt better just knowing that he had her. In my mind, he was positively magic.

  “Take the back way out,” Olivia suggested when she saw Jane. “You remember how to get there?”

  “Yes. Thank you for all your help,” Ezra said.

  “Anytime,” Olivia smiled at me. “You take care of yourself, though. And how about next time I see, you try and stay out of trouble?”

  “I’ll try,” I nodded, but I was already walking down the hall, following Ezra. Milo and Bobby came more slowly behind us. Milo tried carrying Bobby, but he kept insisting that it wasn’t necessary, even though it kind of was.

  When we left the club, the alley around us was thankfully deserted, and Ezra had clearly planned a head because he had parked right next to it. He commanded Milo and Bobby to go straight home, and we’d meet them there. Carefully, he laid Jane in the backseat of the Lexus, and I climbed in back with her, resting her head on my lap. Very slowly, her neck wound was healing, and I could feel her breath coming out faintly.

  Somewhere in there, she was still alive.

  “Why’d he bite her neck like that?” I asked, more to myself than Ezra. I brushed her hair back, trying to get the blood out from it, and held back tears. “Was he trying to kill her?”

  “Not exactly,” Ezra said quietly and looked at me in the rearview mirror. “He was trying to get more blood, and she was running out.” I sniffled and looked back down at her. Her lips were dry and chapped, and she had always put lip-gloss on religiously. “Are you okay? Did that vampire hurt you?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I glanced back at my shoulder, and it was almost entirely healed. My shirt was ripped badly, and I had blood all staining it, but I had blood on my arms and the front of my shirt from Jane anyway.

  This outfit was a total loss. “What about you? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I am.” Ezra didn’t appear to have a mark on him, but he had come in for just the last minute of the fight. Although, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would’ve gone on longer if he hadn’t had Olivia with him.

  “Why did that vampire seem so afraid of Olivia? She doesn’t seem that scary to me,” I said.

  Most of the time, Olivia seemed to drunk and hazy to be anything but harmless. But this had been the second time she’d saved my life, so perhaps I was underestimating her.

  “Well, for one thing, that’s her club, and for another, she used to be a vampire hunter,” Ezra said.

  “Although, she tries to keep it quiet on both accounts.”

  “Wait. What?” I looked incredulously at him. “She owns the club, and she’s a vampire hunter?

  But she is a vampire! That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “People can’t possibly take down a vampire, not with a wooden stake or an uzi,” Ezra explained.

  “You could barely hold your own against one, and you are a vampire. So the only ones that can possibly police are others vampires. We don’t have a real system of laws in place, but every now and then, vampires get too renegade, and someone needs to be called in. That someone used to be Olivia, but she retired years ago, and bought the club.”

  “Why do I feel like you’re making this up?” I asked skeptically.

  “Because Olivia is easily underestimated, but that’s part of her strength,” Ezra said. “She’s one of the strongest and oldest vampires I’ve ever met. I think she must be… nearly six hundred years old.” He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “And she’s taken quite the liking to you.”

  I might have found that more amusing, but Jane made a sound in my lap. Ezra sped up, probably deciding that there might actually be hope for her, and we raced back home. He carried her into the house, shouting for Mae as soon as we got in the door. For the second time in a matter of days, Ezra’s expertise with blood was called into action.

  Much to Peter’s chagrin, Ezra kicked him out of his room, and Mae and Ezra went about making Jane comfortable in there. I tried to help, but I was too upset to be useful, so they sent me downstairs. Milo was in the main bathroom, tending to Bobby’s lacerations, and I went in under the guise of helping, but really, I wanted a distraction. He had a few minor scratched across his chest and shoulders, and a bite wound on the back of his neck. The bite was already healing, thanks to vampire saliva which apparently had healing properties, but it didn’t look like it had been that bad in the first place. Still, that was the wound that concerned Milo the most. He ha
d washed off all the rest of them, but he started cleaning off Bobby’s neck with peroxide. I sat on the edge of the bathroom tub, and watched them battle it out.

  “Ow!” Bobby winced. He sat on the bathroom counter with his head tilted over the sink as Milo scrubbed mercilessly at the swollen bite mark on the back of his neck. The peroxide fizzled white, and Milo rubbed at with a damp rag. “That really stings!”

  “It needs to be clean,” Milo said through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t really think it’s that dirty,” Bobby grimaced. “You bit me all the time, and you never scrubbed at them like this.” Milo didn’t say anything, and Bobby had finally tired of it, so he pulled away from Milo.

  “It’s clean enough.”

  “No, I don’t think it is!” Milo protested and tried to reach up for Bobby’s neck again, but Bobby grabbed his wrist and stopped him. Milo could easily overpower him, and he looked like he was seriously considering it, but he didn’t. His eyes were pained and he frowned darkly at him. “Please.

  Just let me clean it a little bit more.”

  “Milo! No! It hurts, and it didn’t hurt until you started messing with it!” Bobby still held onto Milo’s wrist because if he let go, Milo would immediately start cleaning his neck again. He was completely determined.

  “That’s because I’m getting all his saliva out!” Milo pushed Bobby’s hand back so he could reach for it, but Bobby jerked back in the corner and pressed his back against the mirror so Milo couldn’t reach it.

  “Bobby! Just let me clean it!” He was whining again, and I just stared at them with wide eyes.

  If he got any more aggressive about this, I’d probably have to intervene on behalf of Bobby, and that seemed pretty wacky.

  “You still smell like him, and I have to get it out!”

  “No!” Bobby shouted fiercely. “You’ll just have to deal with it! I just got attacked by a vampire, and I’m feeling bad enough without you clawing out the back of my neck!”

  “Fine.” Milo sighed and threw the bloody rag in the sink, then he seemed to have a change of heart.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. You had a really bad night, and I’m just glad you’re alive and that you still want to put up with me.” Ashamed of his behavior, Milo stared down at the sink.

  “I’ll always want to be with you,” Bobby smiled at him and gently touched his face. Milo lifted his hid and they kissed, just long enough for me to feel embarrassed that I was in the same room with them. I cleared my throat loudly, and Milo blushed a little when they stopped.

  “Sorry about that.” Milo dried the cuts on Bobby’s chest and shoulder so he could apply some giant sized Band-Aids. Mae had bought up them last summer after Matilda had jumped on me and gave me a nasty cut across my thigh, and fortunately, there were still plenty left over.

  “So all those scratches, those are from Jonathan’s fingernails?” I nodded at Bobby’s chest.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Bobby said, watching as Milo bandaged a particularly nasty one that ran down his collarbone. Hopefully, none of them would leave scars, or they would damage his tattoos.

  “That’s weird. Clawing at you seems like such a girlie thing to do,” I wrinkled my nose. Sure, that is how I had fought against Jonathan, but I was a girl, and I was openly a terribly fighter.

  “Maybe, but our fingernails are more like claws,” Milo said absently. “It’s a weapon we have, so why not use it?”

  It wasn’t until he said something that I looked down at my own nails. Before I had turned, I had bit them all the time, but I lost the urge. They were longer than I had ever had them before, but I hadn’t really thought about them being stronger. I tested one out on my arm and winced. They were strong like tiger claws or something, but thankfully, they didn’t look like them.

  Milo and Bobby continued talking, getting more flirty and lovey, so I tuned them out. Milo had gotten awfully freaked and possessive because Jonathan had bit Bobby, and he hadn’t even drank his blood or anything. It surprised me a little because Milo had never been the possessive type, but I suppose that had nothing to do with he was as a person. It was all part of being a vampire, but I had never gone through it because nobody else had ever bitten Jack since we’d been together. Or at least that I know of. I had no idea what he was doing now. For all I know, someone could be biting him. Lots of someones could, or he could be biting lots of people. He could be doing anything, and I had no idea when or if he would ever be back.

  After Milo finished getting Bobby cleaned up, they went back up to his room so they could change out of their costumes, and Milo needed to wash off all his make up still. Ezra and Mae were still up in Peter’s room with Jane, so I sat on the steps and waited for someone to tell me what was going on.

  The night seemed to drag on forever, but finally, Ezra descended the stairs towards me.

  “How is she?” I got to my quickly but held onto the wall, bracing myself for bad news.

  “I don’t know,” Ezra shook his head, and sometimes, I wished he was the kind of guy that didn’t always have to give it me straight. Sometimes, it would be nice to get things sugar coated.

  “She’s been doing this for too long. Part of the reason her bite looked so terrible was because she had scar tissue building up. He had to gnaw through it to get to her veins.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I gasped, feeling disgusted.

  “But the good news is that she hadn’t actually lost as much blood as I’d originally thought,” Ezra gave me a weak smile. “I didn’t give her any blood, although we did give her IV fluids.”

  “You have IV fluids just laying about?” I wrinkled my nose at him.

  “In a houseful of vampires and the occasional human, someone is going to lose too much blood eventually, and its best to be prepared,” Ezra explained. “Your friend is resting now, but only time will tell how well she will do. Mae is giving her vitamins and plenty of water, and that’s the best we can do.”

  “Why didn’t you give her a transfusion? Wouldn’t that have fixed her right up?” I asked.

  “No. Like I said, she’s been doing this too long,” Ezra said gravely. “Her blood wouldn’t mix or coagulate right with fresh blood. She has too much vampire saliva in her, messing with how her body, and that’s thanks in part to how much the vampire had to tear into her. Fortunately, that might actually be to her benefit. Our saliva can be very helpful in the healing process, and I have a feeling that the only thing that has been keeping her alive the past few days is how much she has in her system.”

  “So the fact that she’s getting bit too often is killing her and saving her life?” I looked at him dubiously.

  “So it would seem,” Ezra sighed. “You can go up and see her if you like, but she’s unconscious.”

  “Unconscious like sleeping or unconscious like coma?”

  “Only time will tell,” Ezra answered sadly.

  “Really?” I had been asking more as a lark, but if there was a possibility that she could really be comatose, it didn’t seem right that we were just keeping her in an upstairs bedroom.

  “Shouldn’t we get her to the hospital or something? They have equipment and machines and all kinds of things!”

  “If I thought there was anything they could do for her that we couldn’t, I would’ve already taken her there. She just needs to rest and rebuild her blood.” Every time Ezra said anything, he sounded like he was an expert on the subject. His voice was deep and firm, and his accent made him endearing. But right now, I had to question his judgment.

  “No offense, but you’re not a doctor! How can you possibly know? They have so much stuff there, and if she’s dying, they can put her on life support!” I shouted.

  “She’s not dying, not yet, but if you think she would be better suited at a hospital, or she would be happier living out the rest of her existence on life support, I will take her there,” Ezra said, not unkindly. “But I have spent most of the past 300 years trying to keep the human victims of vampires alive. I doubt
highly that anybody at the hospital can make that same claim, but yes, they do have more advanced medical equipment than I do.”

  “I understand,” I looked down at the steps, feeling somewhat embarrassed about questioning him.

  He wasn’t upset about it, and I was perfectly justified, so I swallowed it down. “As long as she’s stable now, I say we leave her here. But I reserve the right to take to her the hospital if her condition worsens.”

  “You’ve always had that right, whether it worsened or not.” Ezra gently touched my shoulder, trying to comfort me and alleviate my inappropriate shame. “Why don’t you go see her?”

  Truthfully, I was probably arguing with him just to avoid seeing her. Ezra would always do what was best for everyone, and I knew that. If he couldn’t take care of Jane her, he wouldn’t have brought her back.

  But I didn’t want to see her, knowing how sick and frail she looked. Jane had often been superficial and a bitch, but she was always powerful. She carried herself with grace and purpose, and the last thing she’d ever want anyone to see is her being weak and small.

  Slowly, I pushed open the door to Peter’s room, and I felt guilty for even going in there, but that was leftovers from kissing him. In his huge bed, Jane looked even smaller. Mae sat next to her, monitoring her pulse and blood pressure, all by ear and touch. Jane was just a thin little line down the center of the bed. Her arms were over the covers, and they were literally nothing but skin and bone. Her normally manicured nails were broken and chipped horribly. A bandage was over the bite mark on her neck, so at least I didn’t have to see that again. Her hair was still short, but her roots were showing and she had split ends.

  Jane wasn’t even making time for hair appointments anymore. Mae had changed her out of her designer dress to put her in more comfortable pajamas, and left her dress discarded at the end of the bed. It looked dirty and faded. The only thing in life that had ever really mattered to Jane was her appearance, and she had completely let it go.