when I stopped him.
“Well, we can’t talk like that. We can talk about anything but blood or biting or sex.”
“Sure, take out all the fun things,” Jack grumbled.
“It’s for your safety as well as mine.” I shot him a warning look, and he stiffened a little
“Okay. You’re right. Sorry.”
“Do you think maybe we should stop hanging out?” I didn’t want to, not even slightly, but it would be the safest way to avoid anything.
If being around each other would lead to our probable death, then let’s just not be around each other. I had spent over seventeen years without him, and he had spent almost half a century. We could just as easily go back to our lives the way they were before we met, which I would probably end up doing anyway since Peter refused to have anything to do with me.
“No,” Jack answered too quickly. He let out a deep breath, then looked nervously at me. “Why? Do you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I still want to hang out with you but…” I admitted softly.
My answer hurt him, and at times like that, I hated that I could feel anything he felt. When we had been making out upstairs, it had been amazing, but these situations were murder. His emotions were always so raw and intense.
He had very little self-control when it came to the way he felt.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I could stop even if I wanted to,” Jack said finally. The sky glowed oddly blue-gray as the sun neared the horizon, and the color seemed to match perfectly with Jack’s eyes as he looked over at me.
“Yeah, me neither,” I agreed and forced a smile at him.
For good or bad, there would be no way I could ever back to my life before. If it meant that I had to die trying to live this one, then so be it. But who can really go back to studying for history exams and flirting with drunk guys at a party when there are vampires and the ecstasy that goes along with bloodlust?
Could anyone really shut the door on immortality?
When he dropped me in front of my house, he smiled grimly, and promised that he’d talk to me later on. As I rode up the elevator to my apartment, I had to believe that everything would work out, one way or another.
Ezra was insanely smart, and he’d been around forever. There had to be something that he could figure out that didn’t involve anyone dying. Well, at least not Peter, Jack, or me. They were vampires, after all. No matter how much they tried to convince me otherwise, I knew that there had to be a rather high mortality rate for the humans in their lives.
It wasn’t until I opened the door to the apartment that it really occurred to me what time it was. Milo was dressed and ready for school, but he looked relieved to see me. His happiness was short-lived when my mother cleared her throat loudly, and he grimaced. Sitting in the darkened corner of the living room, she reminded me of some kind of James Bond villain. The dim light from the window hit the cloud of smoke above her head, and a light from the kitchen touched only her slippered feet, leaving the rest of her to hide in the shadows. If she had been stroking a large white cat and spoke in a German accent, she’d be perfect.
“Well, well, nice of you to drop by,” Mom greeted me acidly.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered unsurely, despite the look Milo was giving me that was all but screaming at me not mess with her.
“Where were you all night?” Her tone had gotten even harder, dropping any pretenses of her being even mildly happy to see me.
Milo had to be pretty upset that I wasn’t around, especially since he’d had to deal with Mom first thing in the morning, but even he’d been relieved to see that I was still alive. (And there was becoming a very real threat that I wouldn’t be for much longer.)
“Why didn’t you answer any of my texts?” Milo blurted out, giving me a meaningful look. I’m sure he’d been texting me since he woke up this morning, and then warning me of Mom’s impending tirade as soon as she got home.
“Sorry. My phone was on silent.” I was with Jack, Peter was away on business, and Milo was at home in bed. As far as I was concerned, there was no one else worth keeping my phone on for.
“That doesn’t tell me where you were!” Mom snapped.
The sun had finally managed to peak over the building next door, and light glinted in through the window, revealing the furious expression on her face. She took a long drag from the cigarette, waiting for an answer good enough to explain where I had been until after seven in the morning on a school night.
“I was at Jack’s.” I crossed my fingers, hoping that she still had an infatuation with him that could buy me at least one more Get Out of Jail Free card. Unfortunately, her scowl only deepened, so I knew I was completely out of luck.
“So you’re out all night having sex with a boy that’s way, way too old for you, and I’m just supposed to turn a blind eye to that and let you skip school so you can stay out all night having sex with him again tonight?” As she spoke, her words kept getting louder and louder until she was shouting by the end of the sentence.
“Yeah,” I replied blankly.
There would be no way I could soothe her anger, so I didn’t even bother trying. Milo looked at me questioningly, although I’m not sure if he was questioning my suicidal tendencies or if I’d actually had sex with Jack. Knowing him, it was probably both.
“Alice!” Mom suddenly got to her feet, pointing her finger accusingly at me. “Go get changed and get ready for school!”
“No!” I protested. “I’m tired! I’m going to bed!”
“Alice, I really think you should listen to her,” Milo whispered plaintively.
“I’m tired, too, but I had to wait up for you! And if you think that you can go gallivanting around just because you finally found a boyfriend, then you are sorely mistaken! When you’re under my roof, you abide by my rules!” Her eyes were so angry they were bulging from her skull, but after what I’d seen in the past few days, she no longer seemed all that scary.
“Fine. Then I just won’t live under your roof,” I shrugged.
It was only a matter of time until I moved in with Jack’s family or died, so I didn’t really need to keep this address anyway. I was hardly ever home anymore. It would make more sense for me to live away from here. I hadn’t actually consulted Jack or Mae about this, so I wasn’t really sure how the idea would go over, but I plowed ahead with it anyway.
“Alice!” Milo hissed.
“You are still under eighteen, missy!” Mom didn’t even miss a beat. “You are not going anywhere, and if you even think about, I’ll have your little boyfriend turned in for statutory rape.”
“It won’t stick.” We hadn’t had sex, and I knew Jack could woo anyone into dropping charges. But if she was going to threaten him, then I definitely had no intention of staying. “Why do you even want me here? I’m gone all the time, and I just cost you money. I mean, you only saw me for like five minutes all of last week. What exactly do you want me around for?”
“You’ve got it all figured out then, do you?” Mom shrugged at me. “You got a boyfriend with a little bit of money? He’s gonna take care of you now? Is that what you think? Yeah, well maybe you’ve forgotten, but I had a boyfriend like that once. You know what I got? Two ungrateful kids and not a damn cent from him! So don’t try and tell me things you know nothing about!”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything! I’m just saying that I’m a burden to you! You don’t want me here, I don’t wanna be here, so why am I here?” I asked her emphatically.
She looked a little hurt at that, but nothing I had said wasn’t true. We barely saw each other, and she didn’t know anything about me. The only one that would be hurt was Milo, but she never saw him anyway, and I’d still see him.
“Go. Go ahead,” Mom said evenly. I started walking towards my room, and she held up her hand. “Don’t even think about! That room is full of my stuff. You never paid for a damn thing in your life. So when you leave, you take what you got on your back, and that’s all.”
“Fine, whatever.” I tried to act like it didn’t bother me that I’d be leaving all my personal belongings behind. Like CD’s, diaries, underwear, and everything I had ever owned. But I had made up my mind, and that was it. “I’ll
