“Oh, my god, Jack!” I gasped, and his eyes fluttered open. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not dead.” He smiled crookedly. “Just… you took a lot out of me.”
“I’m sorry.” My cheeks flushed with shame, or at least flushed more than they already were.
“Don’t be. I loved it.” He let out a contented sigh. “You’re so beautiful. You’re glowing.”
“That’s the blood loss talking,” I shook my head. “Do you want me to get you something to drink?”
“No. Not yet. I want to feel this. I can still feel you in my veins, and I don’t want to lose that yet.” He reached up, resting his palm against my cheek, and I leaned into it. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I kissed his palm and lay down with him, resting my head on his chest and wrapping my arm around him.
“Not that I’m complaining, but what made you decide to do that?” He ran his fingers through my hair, slow and weary.
“I don’t know. I just… I needed to. I needed you.” I snuggled up closer to him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Me neither.” He kissed the top of my head. “And let’s hope we never have to find out.”
“We better not.” I pressed myself tighter to him, suppressing the chill that ran down my spine.
“Don’t worry, Alice,” he murmured into my hair as he drifted off to sleep. “We’ll be together forever.” I fell asleep in his arms and almost convinced myself that I believed him.
When he awoke later in the evening, I found him crabbier than I’d ever seen him before. With Jack, that didn’t mean the same as it would if it were me, but he snapped at me without just cause and yelled at Matilda. I’ve never heard him raise his voice in anger to the dog, but being drained of blood did not sit well with him.
He went down to the kitchen, wearing only the pair of boxers he’d slept in. I admired the view but couldn’t act on it. He devoured two bags of blood within three minutes, and Matilda and I waited on the other side of the room until we were certain he’d gotten his temper back under wraps.
“Sorry,” Jack said, crumpling up an empty blood bag and tossing it in the garbage. “I didn’t mean to be so… you know.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to drink so much of your blood,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he shrugged. “It felt really good, and it’s not like I haven’t taken my share of your blood.” He opened the fridge and pulled out another bag. “I can’t believe how thirsty I am.”
“Sorry,” I said and hopped on the counter. He shook his head because he was too busy gulping down the blood to answer me.
Ezra must’ve heard us in the kitchen and came in to talk us. He eyed up Jack’s underwear only attire with a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“How did everything go?” Ezra asked Jack.
“Good. The transfer went off without a hitch.” Jack squeezed the bag, making sure he got the last few drops from it. When he was satisfied, he threw it away and rolled his shoulders. “I wish I didn’t have go there every few weeks to do it in person. It’s the future. Technology ought to have caught up to us by now.”
“It’s good for you to work and get out of the house,” Ezra said. “I’ve been spending too much time here, and I’ll be joining you again next time.”
“You sure you don’t wanna just go in my place? I feel like I’ve spent more time away than I have at home in the past few months,” Jack said.
“If that’s what you want,” Ezra shrugged.
“I barely remember what my girl looks like anymore,” Jack grinned and walked over to me. He leaned on the counter next to me, looping one arm around my back. “You sure are pretty.”
Ezra’s phone rang in his pocket, and it was always surprised me that it was the Bee Gees. He’d apparently gone through some horrible disco phase in the seventies, and Peter had said he’d been terrified that Ezra would never come out of it.
“Aren’t you gonna get that?” I asked.
“No.”
“Is there any reason why not?” Jack asked, giving him the same odd look I was.
Ezra sighed heavily before answering. “It’s Mae. I doubt I have anything to say to her.”
“How do you know it’s Mae? Are you like phone psychic?” I asked, getting excited. I hated seeing Mae and Ezra apart, and if she was calling him, maybe it was a step closer to them getting back together.
“She’s been calling all day, and I’ve been avoiding it all day.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “We’ve got nothing to talk about. I have no reason to answer her calls.”
“Ezra! You love her. I think that’s plenty of reason,” I said.
“She made her choice.” Ezra’s voice resonated through everything when he got firm. He made it so hard to contradict him.
“I don’t think she had a choice,” Jack said, surprising me by coming to Mae’s aide. He’d been pretty angry with her since he found she’s the reason why he became a vampire. “At least she knows that you’re alive and you’ll be fine without her. But if she had picked you, the kid’d be dead.”
“Maybe so.” Ezra lowered his eyes, growing contemplative. “But I’m not ready to make amends.”
“Have you even listened to the messages?” Jack asked.
“No.” He breathed deeply. “I don’t want to hear her voice.” He shook his head and looked up at us. “And quite frankly, I don’t want to have this conversation either. I’ve made my decision.”
“I don’t know why all your decisions get to be final.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m older and wiser.” The edge of his mouth curled into a hint of smile. “On the subject of which, how are your studies coming?”
“Great,” I lied. I’d gotten through the three chapters in history with Milo, but I’d barely cracked open the anatomy book.
“I expect you’ll be ready to go over them later,” Ezra said. “Also, I left a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in the living room for you to read.”
“What? Why?” I wrinkled my nose. “I read that in like tenth grade.”
“Read it again.”
The subject was apparently closed because Ezra turned and walked over the kitchen, back to his den to do whatever he did to pass the time without Mae. I sighed loudly and leaned back, resting my shoulder against Jack’s.
“Your studies?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
“Ezra thinks that since I’m not going to school or working, I should be doing something so I don’t end up a total dimwit.” I picked at a few stray Matilda hairs that stuck to my jeans. “He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”
“So what are you studying for?” Jack asked, his interest piqued.
“I don’t know. Right now, just history and anatomy and To Kill a Mockingbird, apparently.” I gestured toward the living room and grimaced. “You think a book with a character named Boo Radley would be more fun.”
“It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s about the ability of good and evil to coexist in mankind, and the effect the knowledge of that has on innocence,” he said. I gave him an odd look, and he smiled. “You forget that I’m an English major.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “So, how come you’re working for Ezra and not teaching or whatever it is you planned on doing with your degree.”
“There’s no money in teaching.” He laughed and kissed my temple, then went back over to the fridge. “Sorry. I’m still really thirsty.”
“Sorry,” I apologized again. My own belly felt full almost to the point of being distended, so I knew I’d drunken way too much. I’m not even sure how Jack was walking around.
“I don’t actually have a degree, for one thing.” Jack opened the fridge and pulled out another bag. He shut the door and turned back to me, leaning on the stainless steel. “And I don’t think I really wanted to be a teacher. I don’t know what I wanted. I just liked English.”
“What did you wanna
be when you were a kid?” I scooted back on the counter, crossing my legs underneath me.
“Batman.” He laughed and opened the bag. “Or Luke Skywalker.”
“Very realistic goals.”
“No. I think I wanted to be a writer. Or a musician. You know something stereotypical like that.” He shrugged and stared down at the bag, as if deciding if he wanted to drink or not. “I wanted to be a librarian for a while. I loved reading when I was in high school. I used to lock myself in my room and read and make all these bad mix tapes for this really, really hot cheerleader that didn’t know I was alive. I was all very Duckie from Pretty in Pink.”
“Really?” I laughed. “I always pictured you more as Andrew McCarthy.”
“Well, you pictured very wrong,” he smiled. “I had this bad Robert Smith hair, like a horrible black mess, and when I was ‘dressing up,’ I’d add black eye liner.
“I read constantly, mostly comic books and stuff,” Jack went on. “Alan Moore came out with some really amazing stuff when I was in like ninth and tenth grade. I remember when I got my hands on the first issue of The Watchmen, and I thought, ‘I want to do this.’ I wanted to be a part of that.”
He paused, taking a sip from the bag. He leaned more against the fridge and crossed his left foot over his ankle.
“I could never draw that well,” he said. “But I worked with this buddy who could draw. We made all these really dark comics and did a whole series based on Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. One night, I broke into the principal’s office and Xeroxed a bunch, and we sold them for a buck piece. Yeah, I thought I was pretty hot shit then.”
“What happened to all that?” I asked.
“I got detention for breaking into the office,” Jack smirked. “And my buddy got fired, and my girlfriend started taking up more of my time.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Life happened, I guess. And I realized that I’d probably never make it writing comic books.”
“So you just gave up on your dream?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I would say that.” He rested his head back on the door and smiled, but it looked sad around the edges. “I don’t think it was every really my dream.”
“What is your dream then?” I pressed.
“I don’t know.” He looked more seriously at me. “What’s with all the questions?”
“I don’t know. I’m having an existential crisis.”
“I see.” He downed the rest of the bag in one quick drink. It hit him harder than the rest had, and he shook his head to clear it of the haze. “What about you?”
“What?”
“What did you wanna be when you grew up?” He set the bag on the counter and walked over to me, but his steps were slow and deliberate.
“I don’t know.” I furrowed my brow, thinking. “In high school, we did all these aptitude tests, and by the time my senior year started, the teachers had all drilled it into my head that I needed to pick a college, pick a major, and decide right now what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
“What did you decide?” Jack stood in front of me, putting one arm on either side of me, but that was mostly to support himself.
“I didn’t decide anything. The pressure overwhelmed me, and I just froze.” I shrugged. “When I was younger, what I wanted to be when I grew up changed weekly. I wanted to be a vet, a director, a puppeteer, a ninja, a fireman, a pianist.” I shook my head. “I never really felt at home with any one idea.”
“Luckily for you, you have forever.” He grinned, but it was lopsided. “Now you can try every one of them. You can do and be anything you want.”
“It’d be easier if I could only do or be one thing,” I sighed.
“Yeah, but what good is easy?” He kissed my forehead, and with half-closed eyes, he smiled down at me. “As a great man once said, ‘We learn so little from peace.’”
“Who said that? Dylan Thomas?” I asked.
“No. The guy who wrote Fight Club.”
“Now you’re an advocate for hardship? I thought you were the guy that took the easiest way out of everything,” I teased.
“Maybe.” He met my eyes, looking at me in a way that felt like he was looking straight through me. “But you’re the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and you’re also the best. So… I think that’s the moral of the story here. Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
“Thank you. I think.” I leaned up and kissed him softly, but he stumbled back before it got too deep.
“I’m so sorry.” He shook his head and opened his eyes too wide, like he looked really startled. “But I think I’m gonna have to lie down.”
“No, if you have to rest, go rest.” I put my hand on his chest. “I’m sorry for draining you so completely.”
I heard a screech in the garage, followed almost immediately by the sound of a car door slamming shut. Milo burst into the house a moment later, throwing open the door and stomping into the kitchen.
“Where the hell is Ezra?” Milo demanded.
“Dude, did you hit my car?” Jack asked, sounding as angry as a bleary, drunk person could sound.
“Why would I hit your car?” Milo asked, incredulous.
“You like… screeched into the garage. You drive like a maniac!” Jack pointed at him, but I’m not sure why. “You better not have hit my car.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Milo asked me.
“He drank too much blood,” I shrugged. “Never mind him. Why are you looking for Ezra?”
“My car’s a frickin Delorean. It’s a time machine!” Jack lost his footing and started falling to the floor, and I had to grab his arms to catch him. I pulled him back up, and he leaned over on the counter, resting his head on the granite countertop. “I don’t think I’ve ever drank that much blood before.”
“I’ve been getting calls from Mae all day, but I was in class so I had my phone off.” Milo pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up to show me, as if to prove Mae called. “She left me six messages, and all she’d say is that it’s very, very important she talk to me and that she’d been unable to get a hold of Ezra.”
“So just call her back,” I said.
“I’ve been trying! But you know how hard to is for them to get service in Australia!” Milo glowered down at the phone then jammed it back in his pocket. “And something’s wrong and I don’t know what it is!”
“I’m sure everything’ll be fine.” I said that, but I didn’t believe it.
Mae wouldn’t reach out to Ezra unless she had to. I should’ve realized that when he said she’d been calling him. Especially after the way Daisy attacked Bobby, and how Peter said she’d been acting.
“Ezra!” Milo shouted and walked into the dining room.
“Jack, stay put.” I patted Jack on the back and hopped off the counter. He mumbled something, but I think he was mostly passed out anyway. I chased after Milo, following him to where he met Ezra in the living room.
“Why haven’t you been answering the phone?” Milo yelled at Ezra.
“My phone calls are none of your concern,” Ezra said, unfazed by Milo’s apparent rage.
“Mae has been calling you, and she’s in trouble,” Milo glared up at him.
“Maybe you should try calling her back,” I suggested. “Or at least check her messages.”
From the other room, we heard a bang. I glanced back, and although I couldn’t see him, I guessed that Jack had fallen off the counter onto the floor. The excess blood had hit him bad.
“Shouldn’t you go check on your boyfriend?” Ezra asked, his tone barely revealing the ice underneath.
“I’m okay!” Jack yelled from the kitchen.
“He’s okay.” I pointed back in his direction, and Ezra rolled his eyes.
“Ezra, don’t change the subject,” Milo said. I had to admit it, I admired my little brother for talking to Ezra like that. Standing up to him took courage. “I know you’re mad at Mae-”
“I’m not mad at her,” Ezra
cut him off. “I merely have nothing to say to her.”
“Whatever,” Milo sighed. “You loved her. You still love her, and even if you don’t, you cared about her for so long that you can’t shut it off. She is in serious trouble. How could you not at least hear her out? Don’t you owe her that?”
“Of course I would help her if I could.” Ezra swallowed hard, and for one of the few times since I’d met him, the pain in his voice was audible. It made his deep baritone tighten. “I just don’t believe I can.”
“If you’d answer the damn phone, you’d know for sure!” Milo shot back.
“Milo, yelling at him doesn’t make this better,” I said.
“I’m not yelling!” Milo yelled, then took a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m frustrated. I don’t like knowing that something could be wrong, and I could help but… I can’t.”
My phone began to ring, and we all froze. For a second, we stared at each other, and then I scrambled to pull it out of my pocket. Before I answered, I checked the caller ID.
“Is it Mae?” Milo asked breathlessly.
“No. It’s not Mae.” I swallowed hard. “It’s Peter.”
11
“Hello?” I answered the phone after my initial shock.
“Alice?” Peter breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank god you answered.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is something wrong? Where’s Mae?”
“She’s off dealing with the little problem,” he said. “We’re… Ah, hell, Alice, we’re in a major shit storm, and we’ve gotta get out of here. Now.”
“Why? What happened? Are you guys okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re alright. Mae and that… child are fine, or as fine as can be after…” He cursed under his breath. “Mae got it in her head that Daisy was ready for a trip to the city. There was some carnival thing going on, and she thought it was a lovely way to spend the evening.”
Wisdom (My Blood Approves series) Page 11