29 he looked made me freeze, but Jack kept going, brushing past him with my luggage. “Did something happen?” I asked Ezra. “He’s fine,” Ezra reassured me and descended the stairs. “But I don’t think you should see him right now.” “Why not?” I straightened up for a fight. Nobody could keep me from my brother, not even an all-powerful vampire. He placed his hand on my arm, and some of my anger relented. “Let’s talk.” Moving his hand to the small of my back, he ushered me to the living room. “Are you sure nothing happened?” I repeated. “He woke up,” Ezra allowed carefully, and my heart sped up. “He did? Is he okay? What did he say?” My excitement was overwhelming, but he gestured to couch. “Please, sit. We need to talk.” “What?” I collapsed back on the couch, feeling nauseous. “He is turning, and rather rapidly at that.” Ezra sat next to me. “He’s young and strong, and the change should be completely over within a few days. He’s going to be alright.” “Oh, that’s wonderful,” I breathed deeply. A weight lifted off my shoulders, and a surge of relief went through me. Then I noticed the grim expression on Ezra’s face. “So why do you still look like you have bad news?” “I don’t. Not really,” he qualified, forcing a smile. “You just can’t see him for awhile.” “What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “At least until the change is complete, and he can get a grip on his hunger,” he elaborated, and I remembered what Jack said in the car. “You can’t go near him until things are under control.” “He’s going to try and bite me?” I shook my head, disbelieving. “He hasn’t fully turned yet. He just woke up.” “He’s already eating, Alice.”
30 My chest tightened, and my head swam. I thought I still had time. I don’t know what I planned on doing with that time, but I thought he’d be human for just a little longer. But he was drinking blood less than twenty-four hours after biting Jack. He was Milo the vampire, and he would kill me if I got too close to him. “It will get better. I promise.” Ezra placed his hand on mine, trying to comfort me. “You can be around all of us without any problems, and it will be the same with Milo. It takes time to get a handle on things. At the rate he’s going, it shouldn’t be that long.” “So…” My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard. “Do I need to go home?” “No, of course not. We wouldn’t expect you to go home while all this is going on, and Milo is still fairly incapacitated. He shouldn’t leave the room for a day or two. By the time he does, he should be in control enough.” He smiled, as if that was reassuring in some way. “Awesome,” I said wryly. “I know the situation isn’t ideal, but he’s going to live, Alice. And he’s going to be better than he was before. You’re not going to have to worry about him anymore.” “I know, I know.” I closed my eyes, letting it all to sink in. I knew I should be grateful to them. They saved Milo’s life and gave him an amazing gift, but it didn’t really feel like it then. When it came to my little brother drinking blood and turning into something that would rip my head off, it felt a lot more like a curse. “Did he say anything?” I asked. “Nothing that’s coherent,” Ezra shook his head. “He’s not exactly conscious.” “But you just said that he woke up and he’s eating.” I felt bewildered. “Yes, but he’s more…” He paused, trying to think of how he wanted to phrase it. “Delirious? He’s not completely there yet. It’s more instinct and confusion than anything else.”
31 “Has he asked for me?” “He hasn’t asked for anything. He only mumbles complaints of pain and hunger,” Ezra reiterated. “Mae is doing her best to see that he feels as little pain and hunger as possible.” “So… what happens next?” I asked. “He turns, and then what?” “Let’s just get through this, and take things from there,” Ezra hedged the question. “Why? What does that mean?” “There’s no blanket answer for this. We’ll have to see exactly how Milo reacts to everything before we can say with any certainty what’s going to happen. So far, he’s turning differently than anybody else I’ve encountered,” Ezra explained carefully. “You’re supposed to know everything,” I said, growing frustrated. “I understand your impatience, but there’s really nothing more I can tell you.” Ezra smiled sadly at me. Jack lumbered down the stairs, and I wondered if he was responding to the quickened beat of my heart. He was so sensitive to it, and it alerted him whenever I was upset about anything. He read my emotions almost better than me since he had a direct link to my heart. “How is everything going down here?” Jack was full of forced cheer, and his overly broad smile masked the anxiety underneath it. “How do you think they’re going?” I cast a look at him. “Well, I just checked in on your brother.” He ignored my glare and tried to give me information he hoped would comfort me. “He’s asleep again, but he’s looking really good. I think you’re gonna be really happy when you see him.” “He’s not a house that you’re remodeling,” I grimaced at his poor choice of words. He made Milo sound like some kind of fixer upper that they were working on, and while that wasn’t very far from the truth, I didn’t want to think of it that way.
32 “Sorry.” Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Mae sent me down here to feed you.” “I’m not hungry.” Stress destroyed my appetite, but I hadn’t eaten in a long time, and my stomach already reminded me of it. “Why don’t you let Jack make you some food and I’ll go make sure everything is going well with Milo?” Ezra posed it like a question, but there was no mistaking it for anything but an order. “I’m perfectly capable of making food for myself,” I said as I stood up. For some reason, I had resorted to refuting their generosity with pouting. “Fine, I’ll watch you make food then,” Jack rolled his eyes. In the kitchen, I made a show of slamming things down and banging drawers. Jack sighed and watched me make the angriest peanut butter sandwich in the world. But for all the stomping around and tantrum throwing I did, I wasn’t angry with Jack or Ezra or anyone. I was just scared.
33 - 5 - Even standing in the hallway, I could smell Peter and hated what it did to me. The ache I tried to ignore burned unbearably inside me, and my heart sped up so quickly, it made me weak. Thankfully, Jack was downstairs, doing his penance by washing my laundry. Under normal circumstances, Mae would be happy to do it, but she’d been preoccupied with Milo, who required 24-hour care. I’d been here for almost three days, and I had seen almost nothing of her. I hadn’t seen Milo since Ezra warned me not to. That left me with a lot of time to wander around the house feeling lost and confused. Jack tried to console me while simultaneously keeping his distance, and it did little to make me feel better. He’d been sleeping on the couch downstairs, leaving me with his room. I snooped through his drawers in hopes of finding something incriminating, but everything was innocent. He had a trunk of graphic novels in his closet that I leafed through, but it was hard to focus on anything. I should find comfort in this, because it meant that I would never have to give Milo up. Maybe if I had already turned I would feel that way, if I could completely understand what was in store for him. Instead, I had Jack’s vague assurance that being a vampire was awesome, and that was about it. What if it did something horrible to Milo? And he got sick or died or turned into something completely vile? What if he stopped being Milo, the timid over protective geek I loved, and turned into some overzealous blood sucker? Or what if he turned out fine, but he hated me for letting him turn? And for lying to him about vampires? What if I had to spend the rest of eternity with him hating me? When I tired of searching through Jack’s room and driving myself mad