Jack groaned, and I tried to understand what he was feeling, but it was too many things all once.
Relief, shame, guilt, agony, ecstasy.
Suddenly, Milo started coughing, and Jack pulled his arm back. Milo didn’t really seem to be awake, and it looked like he was choking on Jack’s blood.
“He’s choking!” I yelled, and Mae’s arms stopped me from performing CPR on Milo.
“No, he’s fine,” Ezra assured me.
“He’s okay?” Jack winced, wrapping a towel around his wrist until the blood stopped.
“It’s too soon to tell,” Ezra said.
“What do you mean it’s too soon?” I struggled against Mae, but she held me firm. “If he’s breathing, doesn’t that mean it worked?”
“It’s a process that takes a couple days,.” Ezra explained, then looked past me at Mae.
“I’ll go ready a room for him,” Mae announced quietly, and then finally let me go.
For the first time since this all began, I was free to rush over to my brother. He was still coughing a little and his body seemed to shudder involuntarily. I pushed back the hair from his forehead, damp from the lake and his own blood, and his eyelids trembled but didn’t open. His lips were covered with Jack’s blood, and I wanted to wipe it away, but I was afraid too. For now, I was okay with just stroking his hair and crying as I watched him struggle to breathe.
“Alice,” Ezra said softly and gently placed his hand on my arm.
When I finally pulled my gaze away from Milo, I was surprised to see it was only the two of us in the kitchen, along with my brother. I had been so fixated on watching Milo brother that I hadn’t noticed Jack leave the room. Time had obviously passed, but I couldn’t be certain of how much.
Everything felt out of whack.
“What?” I tried to focus on Ezra, but my eyes were sore and blurry from crying.
“Why don’t you go get cleaned up? Then I’ll take Milo and clean him up and make sure he’s comfortable upstairs.” Ezra’s warm brown eyes tried to comfort me, but I laid an arm over Milo possessively.
“I can clean him up,” I insisted, but Ezra shook his head softly.
“You can’t carry him, Alice,” Ezra explained carefully. “This whole thing has you exhausted and frayed.
You need to clear your head a bit, and then you can check on Milo once he’s settled in. There’s nothing more you can do for him right now.”
“But-” I tried to think of a convincing argument to stay with him, but there was none. Except that letting Milo out of my sight seemed impossible. I knew that Ezra was right, but it didn’t change the way I felt.
Out of nowhere, Mae appeared at my side, and I knew the battle was lost.
“Come on, love,” Mae cooed soothingly and gently place her arm around my waist, so she could start trying to pry me away from Milo. “He needs to be moved upstairs where he can be more comfortable, and you need a chance to breathe.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Ezra was already scooping Milo into his arms so he could take him upstairs. If Mae hadn’t mentioned that he would be more comfortable elsewhere, I might’ve fought more to stay with him. But as long as it was better for him, I’d let it happen.
When I went into the bathroom to change for the second time that night, Mae managed to convince me to take a shower. It actually took very little pushing from her when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized I was covered in Milo’s blood. That wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to leave on me, and a nice, long hot shower would go a long way to ridding some of what I was feeling. I cried in the shower, but that seemed the perfect place to do it.
After I pulled on Mae’s comfortable pajamas, I left the bathroom. The panic and fear were dying down, leaving an overwhelming sense of guilt and sadness and a strange creeping numbness. It was hard to wrap my mind around what had happened. One minute, Milo was laughing in the lake. The next he was dying or turning into a vampire. It was a hard thing to cope with.
Jack was sitting on the steps leading upstairs, looking completely morose and freshly showered.
As soon as he saw me, his eyes filled with an infinite sadness. There was no doubt that he felt entirely responsible for Milo, and I realized that I didn’t even know what had happened to him. In all the worry of trying to figure out how to save him I had managed to overlook how he had gotten that way in the first place.
“Alice, I am so sorry,” Jack said, his voice rushed and terrified.
“What happened, Jack?” My words came out flat and dull, unable to muster the concern and confusion I felt. I walked stiffly over to him and sat down on the step below him.
“We were goofing off.” He shook his head and his soft blue eyes filled with tears again. “He was running on the dock, but it was wet. He slipped and cracked his head…” His breath came out shaky, and he was torturing himself because he had let something happen to Milo. The last thing he wanted was to do something that would hurt either of us. “I am so sorry, Alice. I didn’t even think-”
“How is he doing?” I interrupted him.
While I didn’t hold Jack as responsible as he did, I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to ease his guilt. The fact remained that if he and Milo didn’t have a habit of letting things get a little too wild, Milo wouldn’t have been hurt. But then again, if I wasn’t constantly trying to let things get out of hand with me and Jack, I would’ve still been outside, reigning them in. Or if I hadn’t invited Milo over tonight. Or if I had never even come over here. There was no way that Milo would have been here if it wasn’t for me.
“He’s still unconscious,” Jack replied quietly. “Ezra said that if he’s lucky, he should be unconscious through most of this.”
“If he’s lucky?” I shot a worried look up at him, but he just dropped his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Turning isn’t exactly pleasant.” He rubbed his hands together and looked rather sheepish.
“So Milo’s gonna be in pain? Like how much pain?” My eyes widened at the thought, and I hoped that I hadn’t made the wrong choice. I just wanted him to be okay and in as little pain as possible.
“He’s completely out right now. You don’t even have to worry about it at all.” Jack was trying to brush me off, and that made me all the more paranoid.
“He’s my brother, Jack! Of course I’m going to worry! This whole stupid thing is my fault!”
“None of this is your fault,” Jack corrected me sternly, and his eyes got strangely wounded. “Alice, you can’t blame yourself for this. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t feel!”
I started to stand up, but the weight of the night barreled down on me. My body was tired and weak, and I started to lose my balance. Instinctively, Jack reached out for me. He pulled me into his arms, and at first, I tried to fight him, just because I felt like fighting something. But then I realized how wonderful and safe his arms felt around me, and I gave into it. I buried my face in his chest and sobbed.
“It’s going to be alright, Alice,” Jack whispered, pressing me tightly to him. “He’s going to be okay.
You just need to get some rest.”
“There’s no way I can rest as long as Milo’s…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to finish the sentence, and I could barely fight off the fatigue from the night as it was. Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t how much longer I could stay awake.
“Mae’s sitting in with him, and you know she’ll make sure he’s as comfortable as he can be.” Jack looked down at me and brushed away a tear with his thumb. I know it was horrible, and even as much as I was worried about Milo, I still couldn’t help but hope that Jack would kiss me.
Instead, he reached down and picked me up in his arms. I would’ve protested if I wasn’t so tired and I didn’t love the way he felt so much. He finally pulled his eyes off of mine and carried me upstairs, up into his room. When he laid me down gently in his bed, he stood next to it, looking unsure. I realized that he was debating whether or not he should stay with me.
“You aren’t gonna leave me, are you?” I asked nervously. It was going to be hard enough sleeping and having Jack with me would make everything so much easier. And probably a little bit more difficult too, but that would be good for a distraction.
“Mae wanted me to sleep on the couch downstairs,” Jack explained, looking guilty.
“But I don’t want you to.”