My Blood Approves

Chapter 9

Dreamlessly, I’d managed to sleep for thirteen hours on the couch. My body ached because I don’t think that I’d even changed positions at all. Whatever happened with Peter, it had been tantamount to overdosing on sleeping pills. I stretched slowly, trying to work out the kinks and cricks in my back and neck.

Milo was sitting at the computer and he just smirked at my struggle to wake up.

“Morning, sunshine,” Milo chirped. For some reason, he still seemed energized from the night before.

“Shut up,” I grumbled. Already, the tired fog of my brain was filled with thoughts of Peter. Like some kind of hang over, my skin hurt and my head throbbed dully. When I breathed in deeply, I could still remember the way he smelled, like apples and something familiar that I couldn’t quite place.

“What are you doing?” Milo jolted me out of my daydream. He was looking at me like I had totally lost it, so I stood up and decided that I had to get myself in gear.

“Nothing,” I told him absently.

Walking to the bathroom, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was almost four in the afternoon, so maybe Jack would be awake by now. I shut the bathroom door, but before I could even actually go the bathroom (and I did have to go very, very badly), I had to text Jack first. He had a lot of explaining to do, but more than that, I had to see Peter again.

I need to see you today. I text messaged him, and then started the agonizing wait for him to respond.

After I showered, and he still hadn’t responded, I started getting a nervous pit in my stomach. Maybe I had done something wrong, and I wasn’t going to be allowed over there anymore. Or maybe Jack had just grown bored with me. It was probably pretty irritating to him they I was fawning over his brother, and I would hate me if I were him. When he’d been talking to Ezra, they had said that I couldn’t be alone with Peter. Maybe that meant that I couldn’t be around him at all anymore. Somehow, I had ruined everything.

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to call Jack, and find out what was going on. When I got his voicemail instead of him, I was near tears. “Jack, it’s just me. Alice. Um… I just wanted to apologize for last night. I know that I… overreacted to everything, and I’m really sorry. I just… I really want see you today. We need to talk. Okay. So… just call me back, I guess. Bye.”

Going through all the routine of getting ready, I managed to dress myself and apply makeup, but none of it felt real. It felt like some shell of myself going through the motions. My mind was completely locked onto the way Peter smelled and the way he looked through me and how my body felt pulled towards him. When I had finished getting ready, I just sat on the couch, staring off into nothing, and tried to figure out what I would do if I never talked to Peter or Jack again.

“What’s going on with you?” Milo still sat at the computer, but he couldn’t ignore my zombie like stare anymore. I just shook my head and swallowed hard, so he got up from what he was doing and came over to sit next to me on the couch. “What happened last night over there?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“Alice, come on.” He gave me a hard look, the one that said I-know-you-betterthan-anyone-so-there’s-no-point-in-lying. I sighed, and tried to decide how much I could tell him about Peter. “Did Jack’s brother do something to you?”

“No.” I bit my lip and wondered if he had done something to me. Why couldn’t I get him out of my head? It was like he had crawled underneath my skin, but not in a bad way. Just a very permanent way. “I just really like him.

Like more than I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s completely… visceral.”

“Did he blow you off or something?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wasn’t sure if him sending me out of his room was rejecting me or done to protect me… or maybe both. My phone felt very heavy in my hand, and I looked down at it, willing Jack to call me and fix everything. “Jack hasn’t texted me back. I think maybe he’s mad at me or something. I think I did something wrong.”

“You did not do anything.” Milo was so completely incredulous that I looked over at him. “They love you over there, like crazy love. Mae talked nonstop about you, and Jack looks at you like you walk on water. It’s a little sickening actually.”

“Really?” That made me feel a little better, but Jack still hadn’t called, so I wasn’t over-the-top better.

“Yeah.” He nodded, then looked down at my hands and wrinkled his nose.

“Your nails are chipped really bad. Why don’t I repaint them while you wait for Jack to wake up?”

“You think he’s still sleeping?” I asked hopefully, and let my brother take my hands. I had left my make up bag splayed out on the coffee table, and Milo leaned over and grabbed the nail polish remover, cotton balls, and dark blue nail polish.

“We left at like two-thirty in the morning, and everybody in that house was wide awake. Plus, he’s some rich, young playboy that doesn’t have a job.

What does he really have to get up for?” He did have a point, and I finally started to relax. It was just too easy to get worked up into a frenzy when I thought about being away from Peter or Jack for any length of time.

“Considering this isn’t the first time you’ve painted my nails, I probably should’ve figure out sooner that you were gay,” I teased him. Milo had been painting my nails for as long as he could paint anything. When I really looked back at life with him, there were a lot of really obvious hints that I should’ve picked up on.

“Probably,” he agreed. He was pressing hard on my nails with the cotton balls to get off the remainders of my chipped nail polish. “You really need to stop biting your nails. It’s a horrible habit.”

After he finished painting my nails, he sat with me on the couch. He talked a little bit about how much he liked Mae and everybody, and that he hoped that I wouldn’t mind if he went back over there again. Honestly, I didn’t mind at all. It was nice being able to be around him and Jack at the same time. Then he pointed out that he’d never met Peter, and we both thought that was strange.

He hadn’t come down from his room all night, and Mae hadn’t given Milo a tour of the upstairs. Like they were purposely trying to keep them apart. Then my heart pounded painfully when I realized that Peter might actually be dangerous, and maybe it wasn’t the safest place for Milo to be hanging out. I considered saying something to that effect when my phone rang.

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t call you sooner,” Jack said when I arrived. Just hearing his voice made me elated, but then I realized there was a tightness to it.

Something was bothering him. “I ended up having a really late night last night, so I just woke up.”

“Sorry. I hope none of its my fault.” But I knew it was my fault. I had done something wrong last night.

“No, it’s not,” Jack reassured me warmly. “It was just … a little family crisis, I guess.”

“What happened?” Anxiety gripped me, and Milo shot me a confused, concerned look, but I just shook my head at him. I couldn’t explain it now, and maybe not ever.

“Um… I’ll tell you when I pick you up, okay? Will you be ready soon?” He was definitely keeping something from me.

“I’m ready now.” I was really glad that I had gotten up and gotten ready before he called. If I had heard this when I first woke up, I would’ve rushed to his house in last night’s clothes with greasy hair.

“Good. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up, probably to prevent me from asking more questions, so I flipped my phone shut.

“What happened?” Milo’s worried expression mirrored my own, but I was too frazzled to really answer him. Hurriedly, I slipped on shoes and grabbed my dark blue cardigan to throw on. “Alice?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.” Why did I have to feel like crying? I swear, I didn’t really cry this much. Most of the time, I was a really sane, normal person. But something about Jack and Peter made me want to burst into tears all the time. My emotions just seemed to be on overdrive. It was like I had lived my whole life using just the bare minimum, and now this family had switched them into max and I couldn’t get a handle on them.

“Is everyone okay?” Milo leaned over the back of the couch, watching me rush about. I probably had everything I needed, but I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, then running back to make sure I had it.

“I don’t know, Milo!” I snapped. “He didn’t tell me anything!”

“Sorry.” He sounded hurt, and I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t have time. Jack would be here “soon,” which could mean anywhere from five seconds to fifteen minutes in his time. “Do you want me to come with?”

“Not today.” I finally managed an apologetic smile, and he slumped down in the couch. “Another time, I promise. Just… not today, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just go.”

“Sorry. I’ll talk to you later.” And with that, I was out the door. I know I should’ve said more, but I couldn’t even wait for the elevator today. I pushed the call button, and when the doors didn’t immediately open, I ran down the stairs. It didn’t feel right to sit still anyway. My mind was reeling about the possibilities of what a family crisis could mean for them.

Even in the rush I had been in, Jack had still managed to beat me outside.

He’d driven the Jeep, and I practically dove into it. Then I looked at him expectantly, and he just smiled grimly at me.

“What happened?” I demanded as we pulled away from my apartment building.

“And a ‘how do you do’ to you too,” Jack replied dryly.

“Jack!”

“Sorry.” He stared out straight ahead but kept taking sidelong glances at me. “So… last night, after you left… Peter left.”

“What do you mean ‘left?’” My heart had already started pounding and my stomach twisted in knots, and Jack just groaned. “Jack? Where’d he go?

Why’d he leave? Because of me?”

“You have to calm down,” Jack sighed. “This is why I didn’t do it over the phone, but maybe I should’ve.” Then he looked at me somberly, his eyes pleading with me. “Please calm down.”

“I will if you just tell me what’s going on!” Just the same, I tried to slow my breathing and the frantic beating of my heart.

“We don’t really know where he went.” He had waited for me to calm down a bit, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road, like he was trying really hard not to be distracted by me. His knuckles had gone white from the way he gripped the steering wheel. “Ezra has some ideas because…” He trailed off and rubbed his temple. “He left because of… You can’t take this wrong way. I know that you will, though. You always take everything the wrong way. If I said, ‘hey you look nice today,’ you’d say, ‘and what I don’t look nice everyday?’”

“Jack, please focus.” I wanted to yell at him and make him just hurry up and tell me what was going on, but I thought that would just drag out the process even more.

“Yeah.” He quickly glanced at me, but I didn’t understand what he meant so I just stared at him. “Yes. Peter left because of you. Because of what happened, well, almost happened yesterday. But its not because you did anything wrong, or there’s anything wrong with you. Peter’s just going through his own thing and I don’t know. I think he’s just being an ass, but Ezra says…”

He trailed off, probably realizing that he hadn’t really said anything but he’d almost said too much.

My eyes had welled with tears. No matter what Jack said, Peter left because of me, because of something that I had or hadn’t done, and it was devastating. Everything about me craved him, and the fact that anything about me drove him away was completely unforgivable.

“What did almost happen yesterday?” I asked quietly.

“Well…” Jack laughed hollowly, and his hand gripped the wheel even tighter. “What do you think happened yesterday?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, it’s hard to remember. When I try to think about it, I just remember being in his room and feeling this incredible pull towards him and this… yearning.”

I tried hard to focus on what had sent me in a tailspin, but it felt so foggy.

I could remember Peter’s eyes and the way he smelled and wanting him so much it hurt. My heart was racing, throbbing painfully, and I had gotten short of breath. Just thinking about Peter caused a psychosomatic reaction.

“Stop, Alice,” Jack whimpered, and he was in total agony. His blue eyes had gone almost translucent, and they had that hungry look that was very reminiscent of the one that Peter had given me last night.

“Stop what?” I asked breathlessly. He groaned and looked away from me, and I was about press him further, but then the Jeep started skidding horribly across the road.

“Ah, hell.” Jack gripped the wheel and tried to correct it, but I felt it start to tilt to the side, and he gave me a frantic look.

Before I could really understand what was happening, he lunged at me, wrapping his arms tightly around me and pressing me against him. I closed my eyes and buried my face in his chest, and I felt his body curl protectively around me. There was the sensation of moving and I felt cold wind whip through my hair. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass and this sickening thud filled my ears, but I could barely hear anything over the pounding of my heart.

Then I finally felt Jack’s arm relax around me, and I lifted my head, looking at him in the face. He was worried and scared for me, but there was still that underlying hunger.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, pushing the hair from eyes to inspect for wounds.

“I think so,” I nodded. I felt dazed and scared, but nothing really hurt.

“Good. Then I need you to get away from me for a minute,” Jack said, not unkindly.

I hurried to do as he asked, pushing myself off of him and standing up. He jumped up quickly and took several steps back from me. For the first time, I looked around. We were on the shoulder of the highway, and there were bits of broken glass and metal all over the road. Another car had been crushed against the cement divider in the middle, and there was an SUV farther down that looked like it had some minor damage. Headlights of stopped cars blinded me.

At first, I couldn’t figure out where the Jeep was, and then I saw it. About thirty feet back from us, the crushed remnants of Jeep, setting on its top, were engulfed in flames. I gasped, realizing that if Jack hadn’t grabbed me, I either would’ve stayed in that car to get smashed and burned up, or I would’ve been thrown from the Jeep going well over a hundred miles an hour and landed on the pavement.

“Are you okay?” I looked back at him.

Jack had taken the brunt force of everything, and if he hadn’t, I surely would’ve been killed. My body was much more fragile than his, but he had to have sustained some wounds.

“Yeah, I’m just great.” He was trying to compose himself and looking at the carnage around us.

There appeared to be some cuts on his arm, and when he turned away, I saw the back of his shirt was completely shredded and covered in blood. When he’d hit the road, he must’ve landed on his back and then skidded for awhile.

“You’re covered in blood!” I exclaimed and took a step closer to him, trying to inspect his wounds, but he just waved me off. I remembered the dog bite, and how the major wounds had looked so minor. I wasn’t really worried about this, but he had just been thrown from the car.

“I’m fine.” He held his arm out for me to see. There was a thick line of blood from where a gash should be, but there wasn’t one. In fact, there wasn’t even a raised red mark.

“What about your back?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“It tingles. It’ll be fine in a minute.” All the skin and the muscles should’ve been ripped from his back, but it would be fine in a minute. My mind still couldn’t wrap itself around him, or what he could do.

“You saved my life. Again.” I wrapped my arms tightly around myself. The adrenaline and confusion and Peter’s sedative all mixed through me, on top of Jack’s apprehension and fading hunger. I knew I was on the verge of hysterics.

“Well, this time, I almost killed you too. So… it kinda evens out.” Jack meant he’d almost killed me by driving too fast and crashing the Jeep, but I could still feel how hungry he was and remembered that ominous conversation he’d had with Ezra about how this all wouldn’t last much longer.

“Why do you keep saving my life?” My voice trembled and I could feel hot tears sliding down my cheeks. Jack looked at me like he didn’t understand what I meant, but I went on talking, and the more I talked, the harder I cried. “I just don’t get it! Why do you keep saving me if you’re just going to kill me? Why don’t you just hurry up and get it over with already? Is this some kind of sick game for you? Do you always have to play with your food before you eat it?” His jaw dropped and his eyes widened with shock and hurt.

“Do you know…” Jack trailed off, trying to get a handle on what I meant.

“We’re not going to kill you.”

“Then what’s going on?” I was almost shrieking by then, and Jack was debating on whether or not he should move closer to me or move away from me. “What the hell are you and what do you want with me?!” He gave me a long look, but then decided that I probably couldn’t hold it together much longer, so he answered me.

“Alice, we’re vampires.” Jack gave me an even look, and I almost burst out laughing, but then I realized that he was completely serious. I lapsed into a stunned silence, which was just as well, because suddenly there was the wailing sirens and flashing lights of the police and ambulance.

The paramedics felt that I was definitely in shock, and if I had been able to speak, I probably would’ve agreed. They couldn’t explain how either of us were alive, or where the blood all over Jack’s body had come from. They wanted to put us in an ambulance and send us downtown, but since Jack wouldn’t pass any kind of medical test, he fought them until they finally relented. He allowed them to check me over, but when they said I was fine, except for the shock, he demanded a ride home in a police car.

He sat next to me in the backseat, and while he whispered my name several times, I never responded. I just stared out the window and tried to make sense of his confession. Some things fit. Like his superhuman strength, his miraculous ability to heal, the way they never ate or drank anything, and I’d only ever seen any of them at night. But they were all tan (except for Mae, but she was British), and I’d actually heard Jack’s heartbeat last night. He didn’t have fangs, and he hadn’t eaten me. That did kind of explain what had happened with Peter, except why did they want him to eat me? What was so damn important about that? Couldn’t anybody just eat anybody?

Mae must’ve seen the police car, because she was at the front door waiting for us when the police dropped us off. Jack had thanked the officers when we got out of the car, and he took the time to wave at them when we walked in the house. Matilda jumped all over him, but he wasn’t in the mood, so he pushed her off.

“Jack, what happened?” Mae was talking to him, but she was looking me over. I didn’t even have a scratch on me, but when I’d caught my reflection in the rearview mirror of the squad car, I was completely white and my eyes were frantic and red-rimmed from sobbing.

“I totaled the Jeep,” Jack answered vaguely. We were still standing in the entryway, but he pulled off his shirt, revealing his muscled chest, and started wiping off the blood with his ruined shirt.

“Again?” Mae sounded exasperated and looked over at him. “Jack, you’ve really-”

“She knows,” Jack cut her off. He looked at me, then quickly looked away.

Even though there were still patches of blood on his back, he’d given up on that and balled his up his tee shirt, then walked into the kitchen.

“What?” Mae turned back to me, her face unsure.

“He told me that you’re vampires.” It was the first time I’d spoken since he told me, and my voice sounded hoarse and foreign to me. Mae let out a long shaky breath and looked down.

“Oh.” That was all she said. She didn’t tell me that Jack was insane, as I had hoped and half-expected, or expound on it

“So its true?” I asked. The words came out even, but I knew there were hysterics hiding behind them.

“Your throat sounds dry.” Mae forced a smile and gently put her arm around me, but she did it like she was expecting me to push her away. I didn’t, but I knew that I probably should’ve. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen and get you some water and we’ll talk in there?”

“I’m already on it,” Jack informed us as she led me into the kitchen. “The paramedics said she’s probably gone into shock, so she’ll be really thirsty. They also said that she shouldn’t drink anything, in case she needs surgery, but she’s fine, and she’s not going to the hospital tonight.”

He had filled a giant glass with cold water and ice cubes from the Pür filter in the fridge. He handed it to me, but I stopped and opened the fridge first. Just as Milo had predicted, it was completely empty. I stared into it for a minute, then Jack prompted me to drink the water.

“Jack, I really wish you’ve waited for when Ezra was home, or Peter even.”

Mae told him quietly. I shut the fridge and greedily downed the water. The thirst had kicked in, like Jack had said, and I turned to look at them. Jack was shirtless, leaning against the island, and Mae was wringing her hands, but both of them were watching me.

“It couldn’t wait anymore,” Jack explained dully.

“I know, but Ezra and Peter know so much more.” Mae exchanged a nervous look with Jack, and then smiled at me again and pulled out a stool.

“Here, love, why don’t you sit down?”

“Where’s Ezra?” I got on the stool and decided to start with the simplest questions first, the ones that seemed sane and rational. Not like, so, do you guys wanna suck my blood? That was the kind of thing I definitely didn’t want to think about.

“He’s out looking for Peter,” Jack answered, and Mae looked over at him.

She was fidgeting with a wavy strand of her hair, and I knew that she desperately wanted to touch mine. I had still been holding my water glass, which was almost empty, and I set it on the island and sighed.

“So… you’re vampires?” I asked, feeling incredibly foolish. It sounded so stupid coming out of my mouth. This was a family of normal, healthy people, and there were no such things as vampires.

“Yes, love.” Mae smiled at me, and it had to be the saddest, most terrified smile I’d ever seen. They were waiting on edge, and I didn’t understand why.

They were the big powerful vampires, and I was just one small human girl. If anyone should be scared, it should be me.

“All of you?” I looked from Mae to Jack, who just nodded solemnly. “Then why did you say that it would be better if Ezra or Peter were here? Don’t you know just as much?”

“They’re older, much older,” Mae explained, and her strained expression started to relax a bit. “Jack is barely more than a fledgling.”

“Nobody calls them fledglings,” Jack grumbled, offended at her use of the term.

“How old are you?” I remembered the first time I had asked him that, when we were waiting in the booth at the diner, and the way he had laughed at the question. This time, he just answered me, carefully meeting my gaze.

“Well, um, I was twenty-four when I turned, and that was sixteen years ago. So I guess that makes me forty.”

“You don’t seem forty,” I pointed out and he laughed at that, which went a long way to alleviate the tension in the room.

“Vampires age differently, obviously.” Jack gestured to his bare chest, which did not look a day over twenty-four.

“Physically, we don’t age much at all,” Mae elaborated. “Emotionally we mature in a much different rate. When you first turn, you’ll almost regress emotionally. Everything changes so much. Ezra knows more about the exact reasoning of everything, but from my own experience, it’s very much like being a teenager all over again. Jack’s personality is closer to that of someone in their teens than of one in their twenties.”

“Thanks,” Jack smirked.

“Part of that has to do with Jack’s personality,” Mae smiled at him. “But part of it is his age. And since our minds always stay sharp, we don’t ever really get old. We learn from our experiences and we mature, but not the same way people do. Jack will never really act like a man in his forties, no matter how old he gets.”

“I probably have a Peter Pan complex anyway,” Jack shrugged.

In retrospect, a lot of what he did made sense when I thought of him as being more about Milo’s age. Well, my age actually, which is why it never seemed creepy that he was hanging out with me, even though he was older. He never acted older. He was, after all, at my maturity level.

“How old are you?” I turned to Mae.

“I was twenty-eight when I turned, and that was… wow, that was fifty-two years ago.” She looked a little surprised herself, as if she hadn’t thought about in awhile, and then smiled at me. “So, I’m eighty. Wow. Well, that’s not as bad as Peter or Ezra.”

“How old are they?’ I couldn’t help but lean in close, scrutinizing Mae’s perfect porcelain skin. It was hard to believe that she’d even been twenty-eight.

“Oh, gosh.” Mae looked over at Jack for help, but he just shook his head.

“I only know the age they were when they turned, cause that’s how old I tell people the are.” Jack had been leaning forward onto the island, but now he stood up and leaned back on the kitchen counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Peter’s nineteen and Ezra’s twenty-six. You’re the oldest.”

“Thanks,” Mae gave him a wry look, then turned back to me. “Well, Peter’s not quite two-hundred. Like maybe one-ninety or something like that.

And Ezra is… Gosh, it’s so horrible that I don’t know how old my own husband is.

Oh! Yeah, Jack, you remember! We had that big party a few years back when he turned three-hundred? When was that?”

“I don’t know,” Jack shrugged. “Like… five years ago? I don’t know. Time’s really hard to keep track of anymore.”

“I know. That happens.” She scrunched her face, trying to think, but then just gave up. “Ezra’s just over three hundred. Maybe three-oh-four? I can’t say with certainty.”

“You’re telling me that Ezra is over 300 years old?” Ezra, who had to be one of the most perfectly attractive people I’ve ever seen and drove a Lamborghini. He’d been around for over three centuries. I had never felt so small or insignificant in my entire life.

“Yep. I’m the baby. By a lot.” Jack grinned broadly, and part of that made sense. Ezra and Peter’s eyes looked so much older, and everyone seemed to kind of indulge Jack the same way you would indulge the baby of the family.

“But you call them your brothers, and they can’t be.” I remembered when I asked Jack about it being a fraternity, and slowly, it dawned on me what I had said first that had made him laugh. They’re blood relatives.

“Not in the human sense, no,” Mae explained. “But as vampires… brothers still isn’t exactly the right word.” She looked back over at Jack. “You understand this better than I do. I’ve never…” She trailed off, and there was something sad in that.

“It’s hard to explain until it happens to you, or if you don’t know the person that turned you,” Jack took a step towards the island and nodded at Mae.

“I never really knew who turned me.” Her eyes were infinitely sad, and she lowered her gaze.

“See, Ezra turned Peter, and Peter turned me.” He laid his hands flat on the countertop and watched me, gauging my response to everything they were telling me.

“You mean Peter turned you into a vampire?”

Whenever I said the word vampire, I felt like a complete tool. Like I was in a bad horror movie or I was being Punk’d or something. It just wasn’t a possibility. I was having this conversation because it was like when I had a dream and everyone was made of cotton candy or something. I just kind of went along with it. Once I suspended my belief, I just had to go with the flow and pretend like everything made sense.

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“So what does that mean? He bit you?” Just the thought of Peter biting anyone made my heart rate speed up. That’s what he’d been trying to do when I was in his room, and even now, knowing exactly what he meant to do, it somehow made me want him more.

“No, biting doesn’t do anything,” Jack shook his head, but he raised an eyebrow and gave me an odd look. Then it dawned on me.

“You can hear my heartbeat.” When we had been in the car, right before the accident, my heart had been racing like mad because I was thinking about Peter, and it had been distracting Jack.

“We can hear your blood,” Mae corrected me.

“And when you…” Jack’s expression changed, and he looked away from me, but I could already feel his desire.

“You’re thinking of Peter,” Mae caught Jack’s response. My cheeks reddened, because it was so embarrassing that the vampires find out that I have a crush on one of them. That was my big concern right now. “You release a kind of pheromone when you’re… ready. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Basically, it entices us to bite you,” Jack said bluntly.

My heart had slowed, but he still looked strained. Meanwhile, Mae didn’t look effected by it at all.

“So… is it just when I think about Peter? Or when I think about… anything like that?”

“Ezra is will have to explain all that,” Mae said suddenly.

Jack had looked as if he was about to say something, but she cut him off. I thought about continuing that line of questioning more, but there was still so much about them that I wanted to know.

“So how do you turn into a vampire then?” I returned back to the topic we’d been on before I’d distracted them with my beating heart and pheromones.

“I drank Peter’s blood. So it’s Peter’s blood, and Ezra’s blood, mixed with my blood coursing through my veins.” Jack gestured to his arms, as if I could see through his skin to his veins. “It’s not like a father-son thing, because it’s not part of who they are. It is who they are. My blood is their blood.”

“Does that actually have any bearing on who you are?” I leaned on the island, looking intently at him. I was starting to give myself to their fantasy completely, and I was interested in them as if I actually believed.

“They don’t define my personality. We’re three distinct individuals, as you can tell by spending time with us.” Then Jack looked over at Mae, who nodded at him. “But we… Remember when you first came over to meet them and I said that I knew Peter and Ezra would like you? It was because I liked you.”

“So they’ll like whoever you like?” I was skeptical, because Peter still didn’t like me.

“No, no, that’s not it either.” Jack sighed, and he debated how much he was going to tell me. I didn’t understand what he could still possibly be hiding from since he’d confessed vampirism. “Because I don’t just like you. My blood likes you.”

“Okay, what the hell does that mean?” I actually leaned away from him a little bit, and I’m sure I looked afraid.

“Jack, maybe Ezra would be better suited to talk about that,” Mae gave him an even glare, and he lowered his eyes. Then she turned back to me, smiling warmly. “Ezra really is a bit of an expert on everything. Jack and I still have so much left to learn.”

“You guys aren’t really vampires, are you?” I asked apprehensively, and Mae laughed.

“Oh, love, I’m sorry, but we are.” She tucked a strand of hair back behind my ear, and since I didn’t push her away or flinch, she smiled.

“But you guys don’t sleep in coffins or have fangs and you’re not pale.” I said, then quickly corrected myself. “Well, except for Mae, but even she’s not that pale.”

“We kind of have fangs.” Jack opened his mouth wide and ran his tongue along his teeth, emphasizing the pointed incisors. They weren’t longer or bigger than any other teeth I had seen, but they did look awfully sharp.

“And coffins are just a ridiculous legend. Beds are much more comfortable.” Mae scoffed at the notion.

“But you’re tan. You can’t go in the sun! Wait, can you go in the sun?”

“We can, in fact, but we don’t usually,” Jack continued. “The sun kind of makes us tired. But we won’t burst into flames or die or anything like that.”

“That doesn’t explain the tan,” I pointed out.

“We don’t change from when we were turned, and I didn’t live only indoors before. In fact, I skateboarded a lot so I was out in the sun. When I turned, my skin was full of melanin, and now it always will be.” Jack thought about it for a moment, then corrected himself. “We do change a bit. We improve. I wasn’t quite this handsome, and I had more of a farmer’s tan. But somehow, it evens things and smoothes everything, like gleaning off any fat I had. It’s impossible for a vampire to be fat. We no longer require the storage of anything, so it all dissolves pretty quickly after the turn, except for what we need to look human, like Mae’s breasts.”

“Thanks,” Mae rolled her eyes at him. “And actually, vampires tend to be less pale than most people because our blood isn’t blue.”

“What do you mean?” I furrowed my brow, trying to understand if she was making some kind of aristocratic reference.

“Blood is blue until oxygen hits it.” Mae took my wrist and turned it up, so I could the blue veins coursing underneath my skin. Then she held up hers next to it, and sure enough, the same veins in her arm looked almost deep purple through her pale skin. “We drink our blood, so it’s already been oxygenated.”

“You drink blood.” Until then, I had been trying hard not to really think of it. When I thought of Peter biting me, it had more been about the feeling of everything, and not about the actual act of him drinking my blood. It was almost impossible to imagine Mae or Jack drinking anyone’s blood. Mae was still holding my wrist, running her fingers affectionately on my skin.

“It is a necessity,” Mae whispered sadly.

“But like animal blood, right?” I asked hopefully, but Mae kept her eyes on my wrist, so I looked up over at Jack, who just shook his head.

“We can’t live on animal blood.” Jack kept his pale blue eyes on me, so I had to focus not to look even mildly revolted. “It’s the same reason a person can’t live on a blood transfusion from a dog or rat. What we essentially do is require a weekly blood transfusion to survive. We just have to ingest it.”

“You… you kill people?” I know my voice was trembling, but then Mae’s eyes shot up and both her and Jack looked appalled.

“No! No of course not!” Mae vehemently denied it. “People can lose huge amounts of blood before they die.”

“We just drink blood from people,” Jack elaborated. “It’s essentially a painless process. Our saliva works as like an anesthetic and it makes the wound heal crazy fast.”

“And Ezra’s so good at it that most people don’t even know they’ve been bitten,” Mae explained, somewhat proudly. “Me and Jack aren’t that good. But we live mostly on blood from the blood bank anyway. It’s not quite as good, but its much less complicated.”

“You get blood from the Red Cross?” I pictured Mae and Jack going down to a Red Cross and asking for a pint of blood for the ride home.

“No, not exactly.” Mae let go of my wrist, gently touching my knee as she did, and then smiled at me. “There’s a vampire blood bank. People think they’re donating to some place like the Red Cross, but it’s for us. So we have a fridge in the basement full of blood.”

“Not that Peter or Ezra ever really get into it,” Jack muttered, and Mae shot a look at him.

“They lived too long in the times before blood banks,” Mae said, looking rather apologetic. “They’re purists.”

“So… they… what? How does that work? They just find some random person and bite them?” The thought of Peter biting anyone else made me feel vaguely nauseous.

“No, they have clubs where people willingly donate, and a lot of times, they can pick up girls, who think they’re going on a date and getting a long kiss on the neck, but really they’re just getting a snack,” Mae clarified.

“You’re okay with that?” I asked Mae. Ezra was her husband. It would have to be painful knowing he was biting other people. “Ezra’s out and about dating and drinking other women?”

“It’s not pleasant,” Mae admitted, with a pained expression. “But it’s the nature of who we are. And I’d rather have him seducing a woman than just attacking someone and killing them. It’s the price of eternity, love. I can be with the man I love forever, but he has to kiss other women.” She smiled sadly at me, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to come to terms with it like she had.

“I drink almost entirely bag blood,” Jack interjected brightly, and I turned my attention back to him.

“The night you picked me up, were you going to bite me?” Then, remembering how suddenly drowsy I was and that I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten home, my eyes widened. “Did you bite me?”

“No!” Jack put his hands up defensively under the scrutinizing glares from Mae and me. “No! I didn’t! Honest!” Then he looked sheepish. “I’d actually just come from the club, and I’d … fed, right before I saw you.”

“You mean the clubs I was trying to get into?” I wondered if Jane had ever been picked up by a vampire without knowing it. She probably had, and that served her right.

“No, it’s a vampire one. Well, I guess I don’t know where you guys were trying to go, so you might’ve. Most people don’t know it’s a vampire club. In fact, that’s how I turned.”

“Peter picked you up at a club?” I raised my eyebrow skeptically.

“Nope,” Jack grinned. “I followed these two hot chicks in, and they turned out to be psychotic vampires. Peter was there, looking for something to eat, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me cause I’m a guy, and it’s harder to feed off somebody that isn’t attracted to you. But the girls went crazy and left me for dead. People can lose a lot of blood, but not all of it. Peter found me in the alley behind the club, and for some reason, he took pity on me. He took me back here, and I’ve been here ever since.”

“Do you have to be dead to turn?” I asked.

“No, you can’t be dead,” Jack clarified. “Once you’re dead, you’re dead.

That’s it. Vampires aren’t undead. We’re just a different form of people. Ezra explained it to me that vampirism is a virus, sorta like AIDS, except whereas AIDS makes you sick, this makes you better.”

“It’s a virus?” I looked skeptical.

“I guess.” Jack shrugged. “That’s what Ezra told me. It’s like an evolutionary mutation. As far as Ezra can tell, the oldest known case of vampires only dates back about 1000 years ago, the first time the population reached 300 million. Naturally, as the population grew, so did the amount of vampires. But his theory is that people have no predators. The only thing that really takes people down is weather and disease. The plagues actually helped keep the population in check. When cities were overflowing, a plague would come and knock the numbers down. A vampire is just another kind of plague.”

“Yeah, that’s great and everything, but a virus?” I shook my head in disbelief. “How can a virus do this to you?”

“Again, Ezra is more of an expert than I am,” Jack began. “But it just makes you more efficient. We get exactly what we need all the time. We don’t have to process anything. We live on pure, fresh nutrients. I think it actually kills a lot of the organs in our body, because so much of the human body is spent digesting and utilizing food. We don’t do that. It’s just there already. And it stops decay. When we die, we’re like Styrofoam. We’re here forever. When we get injured, we heal at an alarming rate, because we’re all blood. Blood, skin, muscle, and bones that are stronger than metal.”

“You guys are really vampires?” They had been explaining stuff to me for a long time, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. Jack laughed and leaned on the counter.

“That was my reaction at first, too,” he grinned.

“I think that was everyone’s,” Mae agreed.

“But … this is a normal house. I mean, it’s really nice, but it’s normal. And you guys are just like a family. And you-” I pointed at Jack. “-you sit around playing video games all day. In a house the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota?

Come on. Vampires are cooler than that.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jack laughed loudly.

“Well, you know what I mean. You guys have eternity, and you spend it like this?”

“Exactly. We have forever. How would you spend it?” Jack countered, cocking his head at me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I had never really thought of it before. Trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my measly little human life had always seemed like enough. “But something more glamorous than this.”

“Peter and Ezra have seen everything, at least a hundred times, and Mae doesn’t really wanna go anywhere,” Jack shrugged. “I mean, I’ve traveled a little bit, but I’m not in any rush. I’ll be able to see it all one day. I went to the pyramids with Peter a couple years ago.” He rolled his eyes. “He’s been there like thirty times. He’s like ‘oh big triangles in the sand, whoopee.’ So that was kind of the end of my traveling, for now, at least.”

“So you just sit here and play video games?” I asked incredulously.

“What do you expect us to do?” Jack laughed. “We just have more time than you. What do you do with your life? We still live day-to-day, just like you do. The only real difference is the amount of money we have, but that has nothing to do with being a vampire.”

“I don’t know.” I lowered my eyes and thought about it. “This all just seems weird to me.”

“Of course it does, love.” Mae gently stroked my hair. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“You guys aren’t gonna eat me, are you?” I didn’t sound afraid, because I wasn’t. I was merely curious, and Mae laughed.

“No, of course not,” she smiled reassuringly at me.

“But Peter wanted to last night,” I explained lamely. “And Jack really wanted to tonight, before the car crash.”

“Jack!” Mae gasped, glaring over at him. Funny, she didn’t look even remotely appalled when I told her Peter wanted to.

“I did not!” Jack insisted, but he was a bad liar.

“Jack, you know you can’t do that,” Mae growled, and I wondered what the big deal was. They said that when they bit people it didn’t hurt and it didn’t kill them. So what did it really matter if Jack bit me?

“It wasn’t my fault!” Jack said defensively. “She was getting all crazy thinking about Peter. And you know what? I didn’t bite her. So. You can just wipe that look off your face.”

“Why does thinking about Peter make me more delectable?” I asked, and they both lowered their eyes. “Come on! I know you’re vampires! What’s left?”

“Delectable,” Jack mused. “That’s a very good way to describe it.”

“Why are you even telling me this?” I narrowed my eyes at them. “Why did you tell me you were vampires? Isn’t it like some big secret or something?”

“Hardly,” Jack snorted. “I hate it that in movies when they’re all like, you can’t tell anyone that we’re vampires or the high council of snooty vampires will kill us all! There’s no high council. There’s not a big vampire society. We’re like people. There isn’t one council governing every human on earth. And you know what? People don’t believe in vampires. Do you think that we have to hide anything about us? Did I ever really try to hide anything with you?”

“No, but you wouldn’t tell me things,” I told him pointedly.

“Yeah, cause I liked you. The first day we met, if I had told you that I was a vampire, you would’ve thought I was insane and wrote me off.”

“Why did it take so long for you to tell me?”

“I wanted to make sure you trusted me, so you wouldn’t just think I was insane and never want to talk me again.” Then he got a pained expression on his face and sighed. “I was gonna tell you that night in the park. Then that stuff happened with that damn dog. And you got so upset when I killed it, and I thought if you react like that to me hurting a dog, how are you gonna feel when you find out that I bite people?”

“Oh.” I thought back to that night, and I remembered the way he had threatened to end our friendship because I was crying. It had seemed rather harsh at the time, but in retrospect, that must’ve killed him. “Well, I know now.

And I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“Good.” Jack was genuinely relieved. Then, he suddenly noticed that he wasn’t wearing a shirt and rubbed his arms on his bare skin. “I’m gonna go put on a shirt.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Mae smiled at him.

“I’ll be right back.” Jack darted out of the kitchen and I heard his feet pounding up the stairs.

“You doing okay with all of this?” Mae looked at me earnestly, and I nodded. She touched my cheek gently, cupping my face, and then kissed my forehead. “Good. Did you need more water?”

“Yeah, sure,” I nodded, and she picked up my glass and took it over to the fridge to refill it. “There’s just one thing that’s bothering me.” That was a lie.

There were about fifty things bothering me, but there was only one that I wouldn’t let go for tonight.

“And what’s that, love?” She brought the glass of water back of to me, looking curious.

“Why did Peter leave?” I asked, and her expression faltered and she lowered her eyes. “Jack told me it was because of me.”

“Jack doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Mae replied tersely.

“Mae.” I stared at her until she’d look at me and then she sighed.

“This really is a conversation for another day.” She forced a smile at me.

“I’ve had a very long day, and I’d really just like to take a hot bath. I’m sure that you and Jack can think of something to amuse yourselves with.”

“Always!” Jack beamed, suddenly bursting into the kitchen wearing a fresh tee shirt and shorts.

“And behave,” Mae warned him as she walked past him. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. When she had her back to him, he stuck out his tongue at her. Then he waltzed over to me, grinning like a fool. “I am so glad you know. Do you have any idea how hard it is keeping anything from you?”

“Not really, no.” I still didn’t know everything, but it didn’t bother me anymore. Jack was in an incredibly good mood now, and it was taking me over as well. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to have things kept from you?”

“Yes!” Jack insisted, still smiling. “Ezra and Peter keep stuff from me all the time. They think I’m too young for anything. If they had it their way, I probably still wouldn’t know that I was a vampire.”

“You’re forty?” I wrinkled my nose, trying to think of him as a forty-year old instead of the kid he so clearly was.

“Does that freak you out?” He held his chin up high, checking for my response.

“No. It doesn’t. I know that this all should completely freak me out, but I’m not. I feel stupidly safe with you.”

“Yeah?” His lips curled mischievously, and I knew that I had accidentally dared him to scare me. He twirled the stool around so my back was to the island, and then he stood in front of me, placing his arms on either side of me, essentially trapping me between him and the island. His face was right in front of me, and his eyes were dancing. “What about now? Are you scared?”

“Nope. Am I supposed to be?” I smiled back at him.

“You probably should be.” His voice had gone low and husky, and his eyes were almost translucent as he studied mine.

Then I saw his eyes lower, looking at my neck, and my heart, beating of its own accord, sped up. His expression changed, growing more somber, and his face inched closer to mine. I breathed in deeply, and he smelled so clean, like Ivory soap and mint toothpaste.

“You can hear my blood,” I said softly. He didn’t answer, but slowly pulled his eyes away from my throat so they met mine again. His hunger rolled off him, filling me with a strange desire. “What does it sound like?”

“It sounds like…” He let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a moan. “…music.”

“What does it feel like?” I whispered. “When you’re bitten? What would I feel?” Then his eyes got that wistful look, almost like the one Ezra had when he thought about Mae, and my heart fluttered. A look of pleasure passed over Jack’s face, and for a moment, I felt flush with the warmth of his hunger and adoration.

“You…” He exhaled deeply, then smiled sourly. “… really need to get going.” Abruptly, he pushed back from me and turned around, walking away from me. The sudden shift, along with the lingering desire, startled me.

“What? Why?” I jumped off the stool and scampered after him. “It’s not that late.”

“No, it’s not,” Jack agreed, continuing out into the garage. I caught the door before it swung shut and ran into the garage after him. “But I only have so much will power left.”

“You can bite me if you want,” I offered helpfully. I knew he really wanted to, and it didn’t really seem like that big of a deal if he did. “I want you to.” He had stopped in front of the Jetta, and I stood a few away from him, watching him. He laughed darkly and turned to face me, scratching the back of his head and smiling incredulously.

“You’re killing me here!” Jack shook his head, then pointed his keys at me as he walked towards the car door. “You are far more dangerous than I am!”

“What?” I demanded. He had stopped at driver’s side door, and I looked over the top of the car at him. “Why won’t you do it?” His desperate want made me want him too, and I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just bite me.

“I just can’t, Alice.” His expression was grave, and he dropped his eyes from mine, looking rather ashamed. “And if you’re not going to stop, then I’ll have Mae give you a ride home.” He shook his head. “I won’t be able to say no.”

“Fine, I’ll drop it.”

Grudgingly, I opened the car door and got inside. A few seconds later, Jack got in and started the car. I could feel how much he wanted me, the deep hunger brewing painfully inside of him, and the shame at feeling that way. I sat in silence, feeling embarrassed tears sting my eyes.

“Are you crying?” His breath caught in his throat. “Why are you crying?”

“Is there something wrong with me?” I wiped at my eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked.

“There has to be something wrong with me. Peter can’t even be around me, and you can’t do it either. Is my blood like poison or something?”

“Oh my god, Alice.” He rubbed his temple, laughing emptily. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.” He looked over at me again and shook his head.

“I can’t even take you home. I can’t even-” Then he just turned and jumped out of the car.

“What?” I scrambled out after him, wondering what I had done to drive him away. He stood just outside the car, trying to shake it off. “What did I do?”

“You’re not poison! You’re the opposite of poison! And you smell so good!” Jack exhaled, but it was more like he was gasping for air. “I can’t be in that car with you. You did this thing to me and I need to get back down, but you’re so…” He shook his head, unwilling to say it aloud.

“I don’t understand. If you want me so much, then why can’t you just have me?” I knew how much he wanted me. I felt what he felt, so I wanted what he wanted. It was raw and pure and so intense it was suffocating.

“Alice…” He had his hands on his hips and he let out a shaky breath.

“Peter would kill me. He would literally tear me to shreds. He wouldn’t want to, but he would.”

“What? What does Peter have to do with this?” Then I thought of Peter, feeling strangely excited by the fact that he would express jealousy over me, and my heart sped up. Jack’s face contorted miserably, and he shook his head.

“You’re thinking of him. You’re fucking thinking of him.” He clenched his fists. “You have no idea what you’re doing!”

“I’m sorry!” I cried, trying to slow my heart down. Jack looked as if I was actually killing him, and his agony ripped through me. “Can’t you just bite me and make this stop?”

“Alice!” Jack lamented. “He is my brother! And you are his! You belong to Peter, not me!”

“What are you talking about?” While there was something very thrilling about his words, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. “You picked me out for Peter?”

“No, no, I had no choice in the matter. None of us did.” He looked away from me, but I could see his face breaking. “It’s the blood. Your blood, his blood.

They react to each other. I know you felt it. It’s why you get all crazy when you think about him. And it drives me crazy because it’s in my blood too.”

Everything that happened with Peter had felt so physical because it was.

There was a chemical reaction between us that I couldn’t explain. But then I had started thinking about it, and it was more than Jack could take, so he rushed past me and into the house.

“Mae!” Jack shouted when he got inside. Stupidly, I kept following him.

Part of him wanted me to, because so much of him still wanted me, and so much of me still wanted him. “Mae!”

“What?” Mae rushed into entryway, wrapping a bathrobe tightly around herself. Then she saw our pained expression, and her face went pale. “Jack, you didn’t.”

“Just get her away from me!” Jack snarled, and I saw there were tears in his eyes.

“Just go upstairs,” Mae nodded. “I’ll take care of her.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled through my own tears, but Jack was already gone.

“Did he bite you?” Mae rushed over to me, inspecting my neck much the same way Jack had the day before.

“No,” I shook my head fiercely. There was a loud banging upstairs, and Mae looked apprehensively at the ceiling.

“Come on. We need to get you out of here.” She put her arm around me and started ushering me out to the garage.

“You’re wearing a bathrobe,” I pointed out.

“He can’t take much more, love,” Mae whispered. The Jetta was still running, so we got inside of it and pulled out of the garage.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“Oh, love, its really not your fault,” Mae smiled reassuringly at me. “Jack should know better, but he’s still so young.” She reached over and stroked my hair. “Its really not so bad. Honest.”

“I feel what he feels,” I said quietly. “I know how hard that was for him. I felt how much he wanted me, so … I wanted him to and I was making it harder.”

“You what?” Mae looked at me with a startled expression on her face.

“You feel what he feels?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Is that okay?”

“It doesn’t matter if it is or not if that’s the way it is,” Mae replied matter-offactly and looked straight ahead.

“He told me that I’m meant for Peter.”

“I thought he might,” Mae sighed. Then she smiled at me again. “You would’ve found out eventually. We just didn’t want to surprise you with too much new information, especially with Peter being the way he is.”

“If I’m supposed to be for Peter, then how come Jack is the one that wants me around?” I asked. “And why didn’t Peter just bite me? Why did he run away?”

“Peter is a very complicated man, but he’s a good man.” She swallowed hard, and I could tell there was something she was still keeping from me. “And Jack is very young. And they may not seem like it lately, but they were very close to each other.”

“Would Peter really kill him if he found out Jack bit me?”

“Yes.” She licked her lips and refused to look at me. “And he would know.

It’s not something you can hide. He could smell Jack on you.” Then she turned to look at me. “So if something happened, I need to know, so I can try to protect you both.”

“What do you mean? Us both? Peter would kill us both?” For the first time since meeting Jack, I felt really scared for my safety and his. “I don’t understand. If I am meant for Peter…. None of this makes sense, Mae!”

“As soon as I drop you off, I’m going to call Ezra and make him come home to sort this all out.” Her eyes filled with tears and she gripped the steering wheel. “I should’ve never left you alone with Jack. He’s just been alone with you so much, but I knew things were changing.”

“He didn’t bite me. Honest,” I tried to reassure her.

“Everything’s still getting out of control. I told Ezra not to go. That everything is different this time.”

“This time?” I asked.

“Not right now, Alice.” The car suddenly jerked to a stop, and I realized we were in front of my building. I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed it. “You need to go home, and Ezra or Jack or somebody will be in contact with you tomorrow.”

“How did you know where I lived?” I looked over at Mae, but she just started straight ahead.

“I have to get home and take care of Jack before he hurts himself.”

“He might hurt himself?” I gasped.

“I have to go!” Mae pleaded. “We’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, go!” I jumped out of the car and watched her speed off, praying Jack wouldn’t do something stupid. Everything about me felt so confused and jumbled, and I collapsed onto the cold sidewalk and sobbed. Somehow, I was destroying a family of vampires.