Fate mba-2

by Аманда Хокинг

  “What is he talking about?” Jane flashed her big blue eyes at me, and then met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?” He locked on her eyes, and I saw her breathing change, getting deeper and more sensual.

  “No, no, Milo, let’s go back to the house!” I suggested. Anxiously, I gripped the headrest of the passenger seat so tightly, my fingers hurt, but I barely even noticed. I saw what he was planning to do and I had a very short amount of time to stop it.

  Ignoring me, Milo put the car in drive, but that only made me panic more. Instead of turning out onto the road, he drove behind the gas station, where everything was hidden in darkness. He was going somewhere to do it in private, which made sense, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up when he put the car in park.

  “Milo, come on. There’s other things,” I pleaded with him, but his mind had been made up. His hunger was too strong to ignore any longer, and there was nothing I could do to persuade him.

  “Alice, shut up,” Milo told me quietly. His eyes rested briefly on me, and there was nothing of my brother in them. They were all primal thirst, and nothing else. “Close your eyes. Or get out if you need to. This will only take a minute.” Then he fixed his eyes on Jane, who was staring at him with stupid adoration. “Jane, do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” she nodded, sounding like a brainwashed zombie, and I suppose she kind of was.

  Gently, he placed a hand on her neck, rubbing her veins with his thumb for a second, and then very abruptly, he yanked her towards him. He was half leaning in between the seats, and with extraordinary swiftness, he sunk his teeth into her neck. She inhaled sharply, and there was the subtle sound of tearing flesh.

  Closing my eyes tightly, I pressed my back up against the door as far as it would go. Jane moaned softly, and I wanted to throw up or cry or scream or laugh.

  It started feeling like forever, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been that long. I had stayed in the car because I wanted to be sure that he didn’t go too far. Almost unwilling, I opened my eyes, and somehow, in my reflexive urge to escape, I had ended up standing on the backseat. I was all crouched down, with my knees bent and my back against the window with my head pressing against the ceiling, but my bare feet were on the seat, as if it would help me somehow make a run for it if I really needed to.

  Jane’s eyes had rolled in the back of her head, but I could hear breathy moans, so I knew she was still alive. It was pleasure that had caused her eyes to roll back, not death or unconsciousness. Milo’s fingers were knotted in her hair, pushing her neck hard against his mouth. Thankfully, he was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I saw the way his mouth was on her, the way the blood leaked around it. All I could think of was the time I saw a starving dog eating a dead raccoon on the side of the road. The way the dog held the leg in his mouth was the exact same way Milo held her neck.

  “Okay, Milo, that’s enough.” My words came out small and tiny, sounding nothing like myself.

  I had been bitten before, but it was an entirely different thing to watch a vampire bite someone else. It was terrifying and nauseating. When he ate, it became really obvious to me for the first time that vampires weren’t exactly human. They may have possessed the appearance and some semblance of humanity, but that - my brother - feeding on Jane, that was pure animal.

  “Milo! Stop!” I repeated. Jane’s eyelids started to flutter, and her breath was getting shallower.

  She was starting to pass out, and death wouldn’t be that much farther behind it. “Milo! You’re killing her! Stop!”

  When he still didn’t stop, I knew I had to take action, but it scared the hell out of me. Tentatively, and really almost gently, I slapped him on the shoulder. I felt like I was tapping in a wolf in the middle of eating, and I figured that like a wolf, Milo would most likely turn to snap at me and take my entire hand off. He didn’t seem to notice though, so I slapped him again, harder this time. And again and again, until finally, he dropped Jane and collapsed back into the front seat.

  Jane fell heavily onto the seat, hitting her head against the door, and she moaned softly, so at least I knew she was still alive. Milo had his eyes closed and he looked like somebody that was incredibly, wonderfully high. Absently, he wiped at the blood on his chin with back of his hand, and he mumbled something incoherent. All his features had softened, and he looked younger than he had in years. Resting his head on the driver’s seat, he faced my direction, but he was barely conscious himself.

  “Jane?” I leaned over her and lightly slapped her cheek, trying to wake her up. The bite on her neck was already pink and raised, beginning the first steps in healing. Tears were threatening my eyes, and I felt like sobbing. I slapped her face again, but she just turned her head away from me but didn’t wake up. “Jane? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Jane?” Weakly, she slapped at my hand, trying to push it away.

  I collapsed back on the seat, pressing my pack against the cold window, and that’s when I finally started to cry. A pair of vampires had very nearly killed me tonight, and both Jane and I had the scratch marks on our backs and our legs to prove how close Violet had come to hauling us off into the night. I survived all that to have my brother consider killing both of us, but he just ended up feeding on her. Then they both promptly passed out, leaving me the only one awake in a locked car sitting in the dark behind a gas station in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, we had no idea what happened to the vampires chasing us.

  “Alice, Alice,” Milo mumbled without opening his eyes. “Don’t cry. We’re…” He trailed off and reached out for me, but before his hand get anywhere near me, he let it drop.

  “Oh, hell.” I ran a hand through my tangles of hair, trying to figure out what I should do. Was I just supposed to sit here until one of them woke up? Should I kick Milo out of the driver’s seat and try to drive us home, even though I couldn’t drive?

  When my phone started vibrating in my bra, I was sobbing. Both Milo and Jane were too out to even notice. The car was still running, blasting me with freezing cold air, and the bottom half of my dress was really in tatters. I had lost some blood, and I was terribly thirsty, so I had a feeling that I was going into shock. I barely even noticed the phone vibration over my own shaking, but when I did, I answered it quickly.

  “Hello?” I answered, doing my best not to sound like I had been crying or that I was probably borderline hysterical.

  “Alice?” Jack said, sounding rather frantic himself. There was a lot of background noise behind, people talking and what sounded like a radio announcer talking. “Are you okay? What’s going on?

  What happened?”

  “I’m okay,” I sniffled and wiped at the tears on my cheeks. “Are you coming home?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m at the airport now.” That explained all the sounds around him, and I heard Ezra asking him something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. “What happened? Is everyone okay?

  Ezra tried Mae, and she said Milo was at your house. Is he okay? Did he do something?”

  “No, he’s okay.” I swallowed hard to keep from crying again. Jack sounded nervous enough without me adding to it by sobbing unnecessarily on the phone. “Milo came over, and he said I had to get out of the house, and then Jane texted me-”

  “Jane?” Jack scoffed incredulously. “I should’ve known she’d have something to do with this.”

  “She saved my life tonight, Jack!” I insisted defensively. In all honesty, I had never felt closer to her than I did right now. Looking at her passed out on the seat with faded red marks on her neck, I knew that she actually cared about me. She risked her life for me, and I had never thought she’d be the kind of person that did that.

  “She did what?” His voice dropped to a panicked growl. “What the hell happened tonight, Alice?”

  “We went to a club, just a regular gay club,” I explained quickly, hoping to ease his disapproval as soon as possible. “And we were dancing and it was fine, but then the vampires from the other club
- Violet and Lucian - they were there, and Lucian was…” I didn’t know what exactly he was trying to do, but I knew it wasn’t good. “They started chasing us, and Milo fought them in the parking lot, and then we all got in the car and we’d been driving around all night.”

  “Wait, wait. They chased you?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know when they stopped, though. Maybe after Milo fought with them.” I looked around, suddenly afraid that they were lurking around in the darkness, but the sky was definitely starting to lighten now, and I couldn’t see anything. “Milo got hurt, though. And lost some blood.”

  “He didn’t bite you, did he?” Jack sound sick and afraid, and I heard Ezra booming in the background, “What is going on there?” But Jack didn’t answer him. He was too worried to stop talking to me, even for a second.

  “No, no. He didn’t.” Fresh tears sprung in my eyes, and I tried to erase the image of my brother gnawing on Jane like a wild dog. “He bit Jane, though.”

  “Oh.” He exhaled hesitantly. “Is she… okay?”

  “Yeah. They’re both fine. They’re just passed out in the car.” Roughly, I wiped at my tears with the palms of my hand and wished this didn’t bother me so much. I had spent all this time with vampires and I wanted to be one, so it shouldn’t bother me. Not like this.

  “You’re still in the car?” Jack asked dubiously. “It’s almost…. It is after five there. You need to wake Milo up and get him home before the sun comes up. He’ll be too tired to do anything then.”

  “They won’t wake up!” I cried. Jane stirred a little bit, but she was still out.

  “Wake them up! Hit Milo if you have to! You guys need to get home!” Jack sighed. “If there’s people out there after you, you can’t just sit in a car waiting for them to find you. Get Milo up and get home!”

  “Okay, okay.” Looking at Milo’s sleeping face, his puffy cheeks, and the trailed of red-tinted drool coming out of his mouth, I figured that was probably easier said then done.

  “The plane is about to start boarding. I’ll be home as soon as I can. You just get home, and stay put. Mae can take care of everything until I get there,” Jack said firmly. “And take Jane home.”

  “What about all this stuff?” I stammered. “The vampires and… and her being bit.”

  “She’ll be tired when she wakes up, but fine. And they’re not after her, okay? She’s safer not with you. So just take her home, and you can call her tomorrow and tell her whatever the hell you want to tell her. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I sniffled. I felt like a scared, confused child, and it felt really good having someone tell me what I should do and that everything would be okay. “I’m gonna try and wake up Milo now.”

  “Alright. Call me or Mae if you need anything. Or even 911. They’re better than nothing.” He sounded reluctant to get off the phone. “Alice? Just… take care of yourself, okay? Just run.

  Okay? Always run.”

  “Okay,” I nodded.

  Sadly, I hung up the phone and went about trying to wake Milo up. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so deeply asleep before, not even when he was little. Carefully, I reached over and started shaking him, but he swatted at me, like Jane did, but with more force because he was stronger.

  “Milo?” I said loudly, and Jane moaned next to me. “Milo?”

  “Wha…” Milo moved his head but didn’t open his eyes.

  “Milo, you’ve got to get up!” I shouted, and with lightening speed, I reached over and slapped his face.

  “What?” Milo snapped his head up, glaring at me with startled, bloodshot eyes.

  “You have to wake up and take us home! The sun’s gonna start coming up!” The tears on my cheeks were drying, but the more alert he got, the more he was able to register how distressed I was.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me gently.

  “Yes. We just have to go. And we have to take Jane home first,” I commanded.

  He looked back at her, watching her breathe for a minute, then turned back to me. His was fully awake now, his eyes bright with their usual Milo-ness, and they weren’t even bloodshot anymore.

  He was looking me over, studying me to see how I was responding to him.

  “I freaked you out,” Milo said evenly, without letting on how that fact made him feel.

  “Can we talk about it later? I just want to go home,” I asked plaintively, and he nodded.

  He sped out of the parking lot, and he raced across town to Jane’s apartment. She had left her car downtown, but we thought it would be better to take her home instead of leaving her in a car to bake in the sun all day. When we got to her place, she was still almost completely passed out, but this wasn’t an unusual way for her to come home. Milo got up and helped her to the lobby, skillfully pretending like it was harder carrying around her deadweight than it actually was, and the doorman took her the rest of the way up. Again, this wasn’t the first time he’d done it, so Milo felt secure leaving him with her.

  Neither of us said anything the entire car ride home. I just rested my head against the cold glass, noticing how cloud-covered the sky was as the sun started to rise. I thought about telling Milo about my phone call to Jack, but I didn’t want to talk about anything that happened. I wanted to put everything that happened behind me as quickly as possible.

  It wasn’t until we walked inside Jack’s house that I realized what it was that I was desperate for.

  The instant Mae saw me, her eyes filled with worried tears, and she rushed towards me, throwing her arms tightly me around. I had never wanted a hug so badly as I did then, and it felt wonderful having her safe, strong arms wrapped around me.

  “Oh, love, it’s okay.” Mae stroked my hair as my sobbed into her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’re safe, love.” She turned away from me just enough to address Milo, who had followed me sheepishly into the house. “Are you alright?”

  “I’ve been better,” Milo replied quietly.

  “You’ll be okay, too, love,” Mae promised him and reached out to touch him gently.

  “I need to go take a shower.” He pulled away from her touch and walked off.

  “Let me have a look at you.” Once he had left the room, Mae held me out at arms length so she could look me over. She slowly turned me around, taking inventory of all my wounds. “We better get you cleaned up before Jack sees this, or he’s going to kill your brother.”

  “It wasn’t Milo’s fault!” I insisted through my tears.

  “No, I know that, love,” Mae looked at me warmly and wiped the tears from my face. “You’ll probably feel better when you get cleaned up anyway.”

  I nodded in agreement, since I was crying too hard to talk. She filled her Jacuzzi tub with lilac bubble bath, and I soaked inside for so long I almost fell asleep. She stayed in with me for awhile, and explained that Ezra had called her and told her everything. He and Jack should be back in a couple hours, but until then, I was perfectly safe and I should take the time recuperate.

  When I got out of the tub, I took moment to admire the scratches I had sustained. There were several nasty claw marks on my back and my ankles. On my arm, I had a large purplish bruise forming from when Milo had grabbed my arm, but I couldn’t fault him for that. He had done it to save my life, after all. My whole body ached, though. I had been thrown around a bit, and the adrenaline residue had left me incredibly sore.

  I pulled on clean panties and the soft plush robe that Mae had left out for me. I dried my hair until it was damp, and reluctantly, I left the warmth of the bathroom for the cold of the rest of the house. Mae was in the kitchen making me hot soup and tea, which she claimed could cure anything. She eventually confided in me that Milo had made the soup, but he retreated upstairs when he heard me coming out of the bathroom because he was still too embarrassed to see me.

  Dutifully, I sat at the kitchen island, slowly eating the soup and drinking the tea. Mae watched me with almost a disturbing level of fascination, but I tried to ignore it. Even tho
ugh I wasn’t really hungry, I had to admit that the heat of the food warmed me up and relaxed me a bit. The night felt agonizingly long and I was looking forward to just curling up and falling asleep.

  Yawning, I stood up to do just that, when Jack burst in through the door. His hair was messy and not in the purposeful way it normal was. He was wearing brown drawstring sweats, a tan tee shirt, and a pin-striped blazer, an outfit that I didn’t entirely understand. But I barely had to time to register the confusion over what he was wearing. Just seeing him, the fear and relief in his soft blue eyes and the wonderful warmth that came off of him, stopped everything else around me. He reached me within seconds, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me off the ground.

  “Thank god you’re okay,” he murmured into my damp hair, and I knew that I was only feeling an edge of the panic he had felt. It was mostly relief washing over me anyway, and I had never felt safer.

  Almost reluctantly, he set me back on the ground. Holding my face in his hands, he searched my eyes, looking for any signs of trauma, and then looked me over as best as the robe would allow.

  He saw the cuts on my legs and the scrape on my knee, and his eyes hardened briefly at that, but then they looked softly back at me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, gently pushing a wet strand of hair from my forehead.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah. I am. I’m just really glad you’re home.”

  “That damn plane couldn’t fly fast enough,” Jack smiled tiredly and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I thought he was going to overtake the pilot and fly himself,” Ezra added, trying to lighten the mood.

  When I looked over at him, he smiled at me and I could see the relief in his eyes too. “I’m glad to see you’re alright, Alice.”

  “Thank you,” I replied meekly.

  “I should go check on Milo, though. Where is he?” Ezra looked to Mae for help, and she nodded upstairs.

  “He’s been in his room since they got home.” She exchanged a look with Ezra, letting him know that Milo hadn’t taken the night so well either.