My sleep was incredibly restless, though. I kept having dreams about the oil tanker crash in Canada.
An unseen monster was slaughtering them, tearing them apart with claws and teeth that came from some invisible figure. Everything was splattered with blood and viscera, but there was nothing appetizing about it. It was horrendous, I wanted to scream and throw up. The crew members were crying and pleading for the lives, but nobody listened. Nothing they did to save themselves could help. After all the crew was dead, there was a total silent blackness on the ship. For some reason, that turned into an image: huge brown eyes, my brother’s Milo’s eyes.
I woke up and I still wanted to scream, even though the last thing I had seen hadn’t really been scary.
It freaked me out, though, in the worst way. As I tried to catch my breath and remind myself that everything was okay, I thought about how weird it was that vampires had dreams. The Lost Boys had not prepared me for this. In fact, I was starting to think that whoever wrote it had never met a vampire in his life.
Since I couldn’t shake the dream myself, I got up to enlist some assistance. I considered Jane, but if she was sleeping, she really did need her rest. Besides that, Mae was probably in her room as well, and for some reason, I didn’t feel like talking to her. So I went next door, to Milo’s room, and I went in without knocking. Of course, I made sure to listen in first, and Bobby wasn’t there, so I knew it was okay to intrude.
“Hey, wake up,” I said, walking into his room. It was a little messier than I expected it to be, but I figured that was entirely Bobby. The clothes strewn about the floor appeared to mostly be his, and they were definitely his art supplies clogging up the floor. Milo was in bed, laying at weird angle, with his feet dangling off the side.
“Why?” Milo mumbled, his face buried in his pillow.
“Cause.” I jumped on the bed next to him harder than I needed to, making it bounce him up.
“Why are you even up? You’re never up before me,” Milo grumbled, rolling onto his back so he could face me. “What time is it?”
“It’s six. It’s not that early,” I shrugged. “Where’s Bobby?”
“School,” Milo yawned. “Where’s your better half?”
“He’s… out,” I answered vaguely. Milo didn’t even notice that I was trying to be secretive, but I decided that I couldn’t keep anything from him anyway. “Okay. If I tell you something, you promise not to tell anyone?”
“No.” Milo still wasn’t intrigued by the prospect of a secret, and I hated him for it. This happened all the time growing up. I wanted to tell him a secret, but he never cared, so he never had to agree to any provisions. His apathy was pretty tricky.
“No, you actually do wanna this, but you seriously can’t tell anyone. Not yet. I’m just not ready for people to know.” I wasn’t sure how Mae would react, and I didn’t want to see what Peter did. I hadn’t talked to him since Jack came back, and that was probably just as well.
“I’m still telling Bobby,” Milo said, stifling a yawn.
“Fine! Tell Bobby!” I sighed. “But come on! You have to pretend to be excited about this!”
“Why?” Milo raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine what you’d tell me that was exciting. My room is right next to yours, and I know that you slept alone last night, so… it can’t be that good.”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “Good. Now I’m glad that we’re moving out. I’m sick of your attitude.”
“You’re what?” That got him. He sat up, propping himself up with his arms, and looked at me hard.
“What did you say?”
“Jack wants us to move out,” I lowered my voice so Mae wouldn’t be able to overhear.
“He’s out looking at apartments right now.”
“When you say ‘us’ you mean….” Milo waited for me to fill in the blank.
“Me and him, and you and Bobby, if you want to.” Then I tilted my head. “Does Bobby actually live here? Or does he have a residence somewhere else?”
“He technically lives in a dorm, but he hasn’t spent the night there since we met,” Milo shrugged.
“Don’t you think you’re moving a bit fast?” I asked. “You’re incredibly young to be living with a boyfriend.”
“Did you really say that to me with a straight face?” Milo raised an eyebrow at me.
“You’re younger than I am.” I thought about trying to make some kind of point about his situation was different than mine, and then I just forgot about it. If we were normal kids living a normal life and going to high school and living with our mom, yeah, this would probably be weird and wrong. But we’re not.
“Never mind. That wasn’t the point.”
“So you’re really moving out?” Milo asked.
“I don’t know. Jack really wants to, and he has a lot of good points.” I knew that Jack was probably right about moving out, but it still felt weird to me. “This house is getting too small for all us, as crazy as that sounds, and neither of us should be living under the same roof as Peter.”
“Yeah but… you want us to move with you?” Milo sounded nervous.
“Yeah, only if you want to.” I probably sounded a little hopeful. I really wanted him to live with us.
“Jack’s looking for places in the area that would be big enough for all of us.”
“But… what about you?” He looked at me very seriously. “I know that you’re still having problems getting your bloodlust under control, and you obviously don’t trust yourself enough yet to even sleep with him. How is that gonna work living together? Without Ezra to fix everything if something goes wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I’ve thought of that too. But I don’t know what else we can really do.”
“Not move out,” Milo suggested.
“I just don’t see how staying here could really work.” I was starting to resign myself to moving out even though I wasn’t sure that’s what I really wanted. It just didn’t make sense to do anything else.
Milo lay back in bed and didn’t say anything for a bit. He was always better at coming up with logical solutions to things than I was. My actions were based more on my heart and temper, which is probably how he managed to more success as a vampire than I did. It was still pretty surprising to me that he had been the one that nearly killed his boyfriend, and not me. That was actually because he was so much more in control than I was, that everyone had given him too much credit. The fact that I had no impulse control had inadvertently helped save me from murdering Jack.
“No, I do not require your assistance,” Peter groaned wearily from out in the hallway, and I heard his bedroom close a second later. “Jane, I suggest you just back to the room and rest.” I glanced over at Milo, and from his expression, I could tell he was listening to them as well.
“I don’t need anymore rest. I’m bored,” Jane put on her baby talk voice that vacillated between slutty and whiny. Peter must’ve gone to his room to get something, and Jane had followed him out, much to his dismay.
“Try reading one of my books,” Peter said. “Or, if you cannot read, you can try one of Jack’s movies.
Or perhaps you can pester one of the six other people living in this how to entertain you.”
“Come on, I bet you know plenty of ways of entertain me.” Jane was outside of a shut bedroom door, so I couldn’t actually see her, but I had enough experience with her to know that was touching Peter in some way. Running her fingers down his arm or putting her hand on his chest. I’d love to see his reaction to that.
“I can assure that I am no good at entertain anyone,” Peter had started sounding uncomfortable, and Milo smirked.
“Well, maybe I can entertain you.” Her voice had gotten even lower and sultrier. She had it really bad for him, and I wished that I had some advice for her, but Peter was a hard thing to ignore.
“That’s why I got a book. I can entertain myself,” Peter said, his words clipped. His patience with her was very rapidly running out.
“Don’t you get sick of entertaining yourself?” Yep, Jane was still working the sexual innuendos.
“Jane, just go back to your room,” Peter sighed. That was it. He was done with her. If she was touching him, he had just taken her hand away.