“That’s not an excuse,” I grumbled, but a smile started to curl up at my lips.
“I just needed to know you were safe. That was the only thing that mattered to me,” Jack said earnestly and placed his hand on mine. Heat instantly spread through me, making my heart flutter, and I bit my lip to fight it back, just long enough so I could finish being mad at him.
“Well, your safety is really important to me, so that needs to matter to you too,” I countered.
“I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.” At that point, I’m pretty sure that he would’ve agreed to anything because he could feel the changes going on inside me, the lust that was starting build up inside of me.
With that, I lunged forward, kissing him intensely and pressing my body against his. He gave into it for a moment, but there was a hunger inside me that threatened to completely take control of my body. Just when I was about to let it, he pushed me back from him, and that’s when I got the big sex talk. It basically consisted of the fact that until I got things under control, we couldn’t really be physical in anyway because there was a good chance that I would bite him and I wouldn’t stop until he was dead. That didn’t sound that great to either of us, so I planned on going through a rigid boot camp, similar to the one that Jack had put Milo through.
After a few days of getting my bloodlust under control, Ezra thought it would be good if I went about cleaning up what was left of my human life. That meant doing fun things, like going with Jack to my mom’s house so we could have this incredibly intense fight when I said that I was moving in with Jack, again. She tried to convince me to stay, then cried a lot, called me names and told me she loved me. She managed to play the role of both good cop and bad cop.
When it was all said and done, she finally stormed off into the night. I packed up my things, and since I felt incredible guilt, I “borrowed” money from Jack to leave her. Then maybe she wouldn’t have work so hard, and at least that would be something. Milo called her after I left, as he had been infrequently doing since he moved out. He got to make up all sorts of fancy stories about a boarding school in New York, and that seemed to cheer her up a bit.
I got to formally drop out of high school, which I kind of enjoyed. Milo insisted that we both take our high school equivalency at a later time so we could go to college if we wanted, and I agreed to it, but I didn’t really have any intention of it. As far as I was concerned, I could spend the rest of my life as a trophy wife, and that was fine by me.
There was the issue with my “best friend” Jane, but I didn’t know how to resolve that. When I went to the high school, she saw me and instantly figured out what had happened. I still looked like me, but I was hotter than I had been before, maybe even hotter than her. Either way, all the boys thought I was anyway, because of my tricky vampire chemicals that made them think that way.
It was during the day, so I was incredibly tired. It was hard to get on read on whether she was annoyed at me being a vampire, or just annoyed because people wanted me instead of her. We exchanged a few heated words, and she ended the conversation with the flippant, “I hope you have a good death,” then stalked off, doing her stiletto catwalk. I tried calling and text messaging her a few times, but she didn’t respond to any of them.
Meanwhile, my life as a vampire was pretty damn awesome. There were missteps of getting the handle on walking, moving, breathing, eating… all the basic skills I had taken for granted before.
Learning was actually kind of fun, especially with Jack, Ezra, and Mae teaching me everything I needed to know. Overall, I felt better than I ever had before. Pain had been greatly diminished from the way I felt it before, but pleasure increased exponentially. On top of it all, I was completely and totally in love with Jack, and I had just started spending the rest of eternity with him. What could I possibly have to feel bad about?
When the plane started to take off, I thought I might throw up. My fingers were squeezing the arms of the seat so tightly that I was going to destroy them if I wasn’t careful, but I couldn’t help it. I had never been on a plane in before, and even though I had always wanted to go one, it scared the hell out me.
This amused Ezra endlessly. He chuckled warmly at my stricken expression as the engines came on, making all sorts of whirring and clicking noises that sounded exactly like death to me. I couldn’t help but look out the window at the dark night around us and imagine the plan crashing into the runway we were gliding on and bursting into flames.
“First time flier?” a woman across the aisle looked over at us.
“She’ll be fine,” Ezra cut her off shortly, but I was too busy being terrified to comment on his unusual rudeness. When he looked back over at me, he was smiling.
“You could say something comforting,” I suggested in a thin, anxious voice.
“Why? This is distracting you from thinking about other things going on around you,” Erza pointed out. “It’s less than a three hour flight to New York, and I’d like to wait for you to eat until the next flight.”
By “other things” he meant the other passengers, who were flooding the red-eye with the scent of their blood and the pounding of their hearts. While I had just eaten yesterday, which meant that I really wouldn’t need to eat for another five or six days, I wasn’t an expert on gauging my own hunger. I wasn’t even expert at walking across the room at this point, so managing a three-hour flight without eating anyone, that was kind of a feat.
“Mmm, sounds great,” I muttered tightly. Unfortunately, he had a point. My current level of fear made it almost impossible to notice my thirst.
“Really, you should be enjoying this,” Ezra continued with a wry smile. “There’s only a small window left where you’ll be able to feel fear like this.”
“Oh, yeah, this is totally awesome,” I agreed sarcastically.
“Let me give you a little tip.” He leaned in towards me, lowering his voice so it would be inaudible to anyone around us. “Even if the plane does crash, you’ll survive. You’re immortal now.”
So, it hadn’t dawned on me yet. I was a vampire, and I wasn’t going to die in a plane crash.
That is a very strange thought to have. To have absolute certainty that this wasn’t going to kill me.
Slowly, my fingers started to relax on the arm rest, and my heart wasn’t pounding in my chest anymore. Still, whenever we hit any patch of turbulence, I’d grip onto Ezra for dear life, but he’d just chuckle, and then I’d remember that this couldn’t hurt me.
I tried to enjoy the rest of the flight, but it was dark, and even with my improved vision, there wasn’t much to see out the window. Ezra had brought with some books on tracking and wildlife, and he was going over them, even though I’m sure he’d read them before. He had probably read every book on anything by now.
“Where are we going anyway?” I asked him quietly. Most of the other passengers were trying to get some sleep, and I didn’t want to wake them.
“New York City,” Ezra replied without looking up from his book. “And then to Finland.”
“Finland?” I raised my eyebrow, totally surprised by his answer. “Peter’s in Finland?”
“I believe so,” Ezra flipped a page. “Scandinavia and Russia have always been his favorite places to hide out, especially in winter. There’s hardly any daylight for months, and the temperatures are usually below freezing.”
“So we’re just going there because that’s where he usually goes?” I still couldn’t wrap my mind around Peter hanging out in Finland. That just didn’t sound… I don’t know. Exotic enough?
“No. Word has been spreading through some channels that Peter’s had a run-in in Finland. I don’t know exactly where he is, but I feel certain that he’s somewhere around there,” Ezra explained.
“A ‘run-in?’ What happened?” I pressed.
In all the hurry of leaving, I had neglected to find out where we were going, or even what we were going to save Peter from. Ezra had been very vague on the details, but he was positive that there was trouble.
That was enough for me, until we stuck on a flight for three hours with nothing to do.
Suddenly, that information all seemed more pertinent.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he said at length. “And I’d rather not speculate.”
“You’d rather not speculate?” I repeated, feeling a little perturbed. “I’m on a plane flying half-way across the world, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend, and not only do you not know where we’re going, but you’d rather not even speculate on why we’re going?”
“Finland is not half-way around the world,” Ezra corrected me, looking at me rather severely. “Jack will understand, and I can’t explain what I don’t know.”
“Fine.” I settled back down in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. “I can’t speak Finnish.”
“You don’t need to. I can.” He flipped another page in his book, and I sighed.
“You’re gonna be a hoot to travel with if you’re gonna be like this whole time,” I muttered, and Ezra laughed to himself.
Eventually, I borrowed a couple books from Ezra so I had something to do on the flight.
After hours of doing next to nothing, I vowed to get as many magazines and books as I could when we landed at JFK.
That was my plan until we actually started de-boarding the plane, and Ezra grasped my hand tightly in his.
“There’s a three hour layover here, assuming everything leaves on time,” Ezra told me quietly as walked. “You can’t eat until we got on the plane, because they won’t let you on it if you seem like you’re drunk or high, which you are when you eat. So I need you to stay by me and never let go of my hand, no matter what. Is that clear?”
“Yeah but….” I was about to ask him why, but then we were stepping beyond the plane, and the smell hit me for the first time.
There hadn’t been that many people in the Minneapolis airport. In fact, I would go so far as to say there weren’t even that many people in Minneapolis. JFK terminal is a city unto itself, full of hot, sweaty people pressed up against each other. Even with it being as late as it was, everything was congested. And suddenly, my thirst appeared with a vengeance.