“So, Alice, I just…” Jack said from the other side of the bathroom door. “I wanted to talk.”
I got dressed in a hurry because I wasn’t sure how long he would wait. He tended to get impatient, and maybe what he wanted to talk about was something good. Like he realized how unfair he was being last night. Sure, I had lied to him, but it wasn’t that big of a thing.
With my hair still damp, I stepped out of the bathroom. Jack stood by the end of his bed with his arms crossed over his chest, and he didn’t really look at me when I came out.
Being close to him normally filled me with a warm, fluttery feeling. Not like butterflies, either. It happened after I’d turned into a vampire, after we had a blood bond. I could feel him, like a tether attached my heart to his. Without any effort on my part, my body always naturally tilted to his. My blood had become magnetized to him.
But not now. I only felt an ache, a dark cloud growing inside me, overshadowing our bond. A vice gripped my heart, clenching it too tightly for me to feel the invisible tether that held us together.
“What do you wanna talk about?” I asked, biting my lip.
“Um…” Rubbing the back of his neck, he shifted his weight. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. After last night.”
“You mean because you broke up with me over something really, really stupid?” I asked.
“It’s not stupid, Alice.” He sighed and shook his head. “And no, I didn’t mean that. I meant, you know… about Leif and everything too.”
“Well…” I wrapped my arms around myself, and my mouth felt dry. My stomach dropped, and I didn’t even know how to answer his question. “Why?”
“Why what?” Jack looked up at me, but I wouldn’t meet his eyes. I could feel him appraising me, making sure I was alright, and that hurt all the more.
“You don’t get to do this, Jack.” I ran a hand through my tangles of damp hair, and I put my hand on my side, pressing hard, as if I could hold the sadness in that way. “You don’t get to break my heart and pick up the pieces.”
“Alice.” His entire face fell and his shoulders slumped as he stared helplessly at me.
“I didn’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re an even bigger liar than I am.” I rolled my eyes to keep back the tears.
I hated being the in same room with him, feeling the way he felt. His own confused pain permeated through the air, like a thick fog, and I couldn’t stand to feel it along with my own.
“How am I a liar?” Jack asked, his hurt expression growing defensive. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know that!” I yelled, and I didn’t mean to yell. I shook my head, and when I spoke again, I tried to lower my voice. “But you said you’d love me forever, and then I did something really dumb and relatively minor, and … I mean, let’s be honest, kissing Peter was way worse than this.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and furrowed his brow. “That was bad. But this… I asked you what you were doing. I told you I felt a distance between us. I was so honest with you, and you didn’t correct me. You didn’t… You couldn’t trust me with this part of you.”
“I just didn’t want you to worry,” I told him emphatically. “I didn’t want to fight about this because we’ve been fighting about so much other stuff lately. I wanted to have one less argument.”
“But that is the problem, Alice.” He looked at me seriously. “We’ve been arguing, and there’s been something going on with you. You’re restless and distracted, and this whole thing is just a symptom of that. Something is going on with you that I can’t fix.”
“Jack, you don’t need to fix me,” I shook my head. “And yes, I know I’m going through some stuff. But that doesn’t mean we should end this. We should work through it.”
He smiled, one of his pained smiles that broke my heart even more. He lowered his head and ran his hand through his hair, and for a while, he didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been trying so hard to be everything you wanted. To give you everything you could ever want. And you’re not happy.” He took a deep breath, and let his words hang in the air. “So now I’m going to be what you need.”
My phone rang in my pocket, but I ignored it.
“What does that even mean?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“Answer your phone.” He nodded at me and turned to walk away. I said his name, but he left the bedroom without looking back.
“Hello?” I answered my phone with a heavy sigh.
“Alice?” Olivia said.
“Olivia? Are you back? I’ve been looking for you.”
“I need to talk to you,” Olivia said, forgoing her usually rambled greetings. She sounded clear and clipped, and that made me nervous. “When can you get to my place?”
“When do you need me?”
“As soon as you can.” Without waiting for my answer, she hung up.
I checked my phone to be sure it wasn’t a dropped call, and it wasn’t. I thought about calling her back, but if Olivia said she wanted me over there now, it was probably important. I didn’t need to waste time making unnecessary phone calls.
“Hey, Alice, how are-” Milo was saying as he walked into my room, but then he saw me pulling on my shoes and stopped. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I said, then sighed and shook my head. After what happened with Jack, it would probably be better if I didn’t keep anyone in the dark anymore. “Olivia called. She wants me to come over.”
“What for?” Milo asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I don’t know, but it sounded important.”
“I’m going with,” he said, and he’d been starting to master Ezra’s tone when something wasn’t open for debate.
“Don’t you have school or something?” I didn’t want him to go with me, not if Olivia’d gotten herself in trouble, but I couldn’t very well tell him that. He’d only insist on coming with more.
“It’s ten o’clock at night, on a Friday.”
“Oh. Right.” I nodded. “Well, then. Come on.”
Since Milo came with, that meant Bobby had to tag along, not that I minded. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I felt better about bringing Bobby along on dangerous excursions, even though he was more fragile. I cared about Bobby almost as much as I did Milo, so that wasn’t it.
In a weird way, Bobby felt more like an equal to me. Milo would always be my kid brother who’d gotten shoved into lockers and needed me to look out for him. Bobby was more like… a sidekick.
Milo didn’t see it that way. They’d apparently had some major fight about Bobby sneaking out with me, but thankfully, I’d slept through it. On the car ride to Olivia’s, Milo made a point of telling me exactly how unhappy he was with me for putting Bobby in danger, even though they’d already forgiven each other and made up.
I hated how easily they always seemed to make up. I blamed Milo and his neverending patience for that, and Bobby’s unadulterated worship of Milo. Their relationship should’ve been almost as complicated as mine and Jack’s, but it wasn’t.
It was a Friday night, so the vampire club was even more packed than it had been the last few times. We went through V to get to the elevator up to Olivia’s penthouse because it was usually quicker, and on nights like tonight, it could be rather tedious.
La Roux’s song “Bulletproof” blasted over the dance floor, and even though I liked it, the decibel hurt. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep or eaten lately, and a migraine loomed behind my eyes. The music only it made it worse.
I plunged into the sweaty bodies filling the dance floor and pushed my way through. I used to be delicate and careful, but now I’d shove anybody that got in my way. The crowd kept trying to swallow up Bobby, so I grabbed his arm and yanked him forward. Milo trailed behind him, fighting off anyone that might go after Bobby.