“Do you need any help?” Jack asked, watching me drop the armload of fruits onto the island.
“Nope!” I searched the kitchen drawers until I found a large butcher knife. I couldn’t tell the last time anybody had used it, so I rinsed it off under the sink. Then I realized that I hadn’t washed off any of the fruit, either, so I grabbed it all and dropped it in the sink to clean.
“Are you mad at me?” Jack asked hesitantly. He leaned against the island with Matilda rubbing up against him so he could scratch her head.
“No,” I said, but then I decided that wasn’t exactly true. “You and Milo totally could’ve taken that Jonathan idiot. And I’m sure that Jane would’ve followed you or Milo out of there. We could’ve taken her if we really tried.”
“Maybe,” Jack relented. I started picking up the fruit out of the sink, but they were wet and slippery, and the grapes and strawberries were trying to make their escape onto the floor. Jack came over and caught what was falling away and helped me carry it back over to the island, so I could chop it.
“Thank you,” I muttered, not ready to give up on my anger just yet.
“But if we had to kidnap Jane out of there, what good would it have really done?” Jack looked at me sincerely. “I mean, you watch all those shows about junkies. What is they always say? You can make a person change, and they can’t quit for anybody else. Jane has to want to stop.”
“Then why did we even go down there?” I shouted. My hands felt shaky when I started chopping a pear, but I ignored it. I just couldn’t shake the image of how sickly and weak she looked, and how oddly content she was with the idea of it all.
“I was thinking maybe you’d be able to talk some sense into her,” Jack shrugged sheepishly.
“But now she knows that you still care, and hopefully, if she has a change of heart, she’ll talk to you.”
“Jane’s never listened to me about anything, and you know it,” I grumbled.
“Maybe so, but this is her choice, and you have to let her make it.” He was on the other side of the island from me, leaning across it and looking at me gently with his soft blue eyes. His crooked smile was sympathetic, but I ignored it, which was a considerable feat. My body is naturally always pulling towards him, and I was trying to pretend like pears and apricots were more interesting than he was.
Unfortunately, I had never been a very coordinated person, and I didn’t seem to be fairer much better with coordination as a vampire. Plus, I was distracted by Jack and by thoughts of Jane, so it was only a matter of time before the knife sliced in my finger.
I yelped and pulled my hand back, sustaining my first real injury as a vampire. The pain was much sharper and more intense than any I had felt as a human, but it almost instantly died away.
The cut was nasty, hitting the bone in my index finger. If my bones hadn’t been so strong, I probably would’ve sliced the end right off. I stared down at it, watching the blood seeping from my wound with some amazement. This was my blood, and I could smell it, warm and strangely exotic. It was a rarity that one got to smell their own blood, I suppose, and I was surprised that it still smelled delicious, even to me.
“You do smell really good,” Jack assured me in a rather hushed tone. The pink edges of the cut were already starting to heal, right in front of my eyes, and I glanced up at him. His eyes looked gone translucent, and I could his heart beat speed up. Nothing in the world was more enticing to him than the scent of my blood, and that had not changed even when I became immortal.
“Want a taste?” I offered my hand to him, knowing how wonderful it felt when he just tasted me and how crazy it would drive him. I was already imagining him pushing all the fruit off the island with one swoop of his hand and pushing me back down on it, kissing me ferociously until his mouth found my neck…
“In the kitchen?” Jack raised an eyebrow, but his breath was getting shallow.
With great effort, he managed to pull his eyes from me to look around the room, pointing how completely exposed we would be. At any minute, Milo and Bobby would come home, and Mae and Ezra had to be somewhere around here. I would probably die of shame if they were to walk in on us in a compromising situation, but still, the temptation was nearly too great.
“Suit yourself.” I shrugged, pretending like it meant nothing to me, even though I knew he could hear my own ragged heart beat. The cut had already healed completely, and the blood was drying on my skin.
Never being one to let things go to waste, I put my finger in my mouth, licking off the blood and cleaning it.
“You’re horrible,” Jack smirked hungrily and ran a hand through his sandy hair. He shook his head and took a step back from the island, trying to clear his head of me.
His predictions were entirely accurate. Within seconds, Milo and Bobby came in from the garage.
They both eyed up the fruit spread on the island with confusion, but Milo’s face was contorted into something different. He sniffed, giving me an evil look that was somehow hungry as well.
“Why does it smell like your blood in here?” Milo demanded, then shot a glare at Jack.
“I just cut my finger!” I sighed and held up the butcher knife that still had my blood on it.
There were a few droplets on the island as well, and I wiped at them with a rag.
“Oh really, Alice,” Milo rolled his eyes dramatically and walked over to me. “Do you want me to do this for you? What are you doing anyway?”
“I thought you didn’t eat,” Bobby said. His arms were crossed over his chest, but he appeared to be hugging himself more than anything else. A strand of his black hair fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back, walking over to the island to inspect what we were doing.
“I thought you might be hungry,” I mumbled, playing absently with the rag I had used to clean up my blood. Milo had taken over chopping up the fruit, and he glanced back at me with a look of surprise.
“Thanks,” Bobby said sheepishly and blushed lightly. Everyone clearly assumed that I hated Bobby, and they weren’t that far off base, but I did like distractions. I thought about pointing that out, but it would probably just hurt his feelings, so I let it go.
“Milo always used to cook for me when I got home,” I explained lamely.
Tucking a hair behind my ears, I caught Jack looking approvingly at me. He had realized that the whole snack thing was about busy work, not Bobby, and he was glad that I was throwing Bobby a little bone.
So Jack liked Bobby, which for some reason, made me angry with Jack again, so I sighed and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
“Milo is a very good cook,” Bobby smiled broadly at me before looking adoringly at my brother.
“He was gonna be a chef,” I said, twirling the rag around my nonexistent wound.
“I still can be,” Milo cast me a look. “I’m not dead.” Jack couldn’t help but laugh at that sentiment, and Milo rolled his eyes again. “I have lots of time to become whatever I want.”
He had finished cutting up the fruit, and he went over to the cupboard to get out a large serving platter. Once he brought it back to the island, he started arranging the fruit perfectly all over it. Bobby smiled appreciatively at him and started delicately picking grapes, afraid of disturbing the masterpiece that Milo had created.
Suddenly, the bedroom door to Mae and Ezra’s room slammed loudly. I could hear quick footsteps, and Mae repeatedly saying the word no. When she appeared in the kitchen, she looked more haggard than I had ever seen her before. Her cheeks and eyes were red from crying, and her honey curls were pulled back in a very messy bun. Tissue was wadded up tightly in her hand, and she was all but glaring at us. Ezra followed close behind her, looking much better than he had the last few days. He didn’t appear nearly as upset as Mae, but his expression was grim. He watched her more than he looked at us, and when he reached out for her, she pulled away from him.
“Where have you been?” Mae demanded, her warm voice more shrill than I had ever heard it before.
Bobby had been in the middle of chewing, but he gulped the rest of it down whole and moved closer to Milo, so he could protect him from Mae. That would’ve sounded ridiculous to me, too, if I hadn’t seen how frantic she looked.
“Why? D-did something happen?” Jack asked carefully.
“Just answer the damn question!” Mae shouted, making us all jump. Her hands were balled up at her sides, and stray curls were sticking to hear tear stained cheeks. “You think you all can just come and go as you please! This isn’t a hotel! We are a family and this is our home! You can at least have the common courtesy to tell me where you are! You know I worry about you all!”
“Sorry?” I apologized uncertainly. I looked to Ezra for help, but he was too busy watching her to give us any hint about what the hell was going on.
“Yeah, we’re really sorry,” Milo chimed in, more sincerely than I did.
“We didn’t mean to not tell you,” Jack elaborated. “We just left in kind of a hurry, I guess.”
“Where did you go that was so important you couldn’t let me know?” Mae had fixed her gaze on Jack because he had offered the most up, and he tried to shrink back from it, wrapping his arms over his chest. He shift uneasily and glanced at me, but I shook my head. I didn’t want any part of her hysteria.
“We just, uh, went to the club to look-” He’d barely gotten out the word “club” before her eyes widened and she cut him off.
“The club? Not the vampire club? None of you would be that stupid to do something as risky and dangerous as that without even letting me know?” Mae was completely aghast, and Jack looked at his feet, so she turned the rest of us, who mirrored his posture. “After everything that has happened to you there! Why would you even consider that? Alice can barely handle herself at home, let alone in a crowd, and Milo, you know what happens to humans you bring there! What are you thinking? Do you all have a death wish? Just because you can live forever doesn’t mean you will!”