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  “Bloody hell they don’t! They have everything to do with it! You wouldn’t even turn Alice because her brother had just turned, and I know you wanted her to turn!” Mae gave him a knowing look that I didn’t understand, and he shook his head. “Don’t be so damn condescending, Ezra! I know you turned her brother for her! So why won’t you do this for me?”

  “This is an entirely different situation, and I won’t do this. Absolutely not.” He was quiet, but his voice was so firm and finite.

  “Dammit, Ezra!” Mae wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You can’t deny me this! You have no right! No right!”

  “I cannot allow this, Mae, and I am sorry.” He pursed his lips tightly but didn’t budge.

  She looked ready to collapse, but he made no move towards her. I wanted to help, but I was afraid of how she might react to me. If Ezra wasn’t going to tend to her, then I didn’t think that I should either.

  “You are not sorry! You are cold and you are cruel, and I cannot spend my life with you!” She was sobbing so hard she had to grip onto the back of the chair to keep from falling over. “I will not let you make this decision for me! You can’t!”

  “You’re right. I cannot make this choice for you, but I will not tolerate it, either. You can do whatever you like, but you will not be allowed in my house with that abomination,” Ezra said coolly.

  “Abomination?” Her voice cracked. “We are the abomination! She is merely a child, and I want to save her!”

  “You cannot save her, Mae! You can only turn her into a monster!”

  “Like we’re monsters?” Mae brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes and looked down at the floor. “Maybe we are, and maybe she would be too, but she would have a life. And it wouldn’t be a bad life. She could have everything that we have to offer.”

  “We have nothing to offer her,” he said.

  “How can you say that?” Mae gaped at him, then she looked at me with hate for the first time, and I flinched. “Is it because of her? Because of Alice? She gets everything you have to offer? You let Jack turn her and gave him no repercussions, even though you had just turned her brother. For her.

  “She is not the only thing in this life that needs you, Ezra! In fact, I don’t think she even needs you! You aren’t that indispensable to her!” Her lips quivered, and she glared at him. “You aren’t that indispensable to me either!”

  “If I’m some kind of burden, I can leave. I don’t want to cause any problems between you two,” I said quietly. I hadn’t completely figured out what their fight was about yet, but I certainly didn’t want to be the source of it.

  “You’re not a burden,” Ezra said, looking apologetically at me. “Don’t worry yourself with this. You can go up to your room.”

  “What if she moves out?” Mae latched onto an idea, and her entire demeanor changed. She took a few quick steps closer to Ezra, deftly missing all of the broken glass on the floor. “She and Jack could move out. He can take care of her, and Milo is already self-sufficient. Peter is gone most of the time anyway. We have the room, and we have the time.”

  “Alice and Milo are not ready to be on their own like that,” Ezra said. “And it isn’t about them! You keep trying to solve something that isn’t the problem. Even if everyone moved out, and it was just the two of us, I would still say no. This cannot be done, Mae, no matter what anybody else does or doesn’t do.”

  “There has to be something!” She knelt on the ground at his feet. She was literally begging him, and when she took his hand, he didn’t pull away, but he wouldn’t look directly at her. “Ezra! Please! I have never asked you for anything like this before!”

  “You’ve asked me for plenty like this before, and I have indulged you too much,” he sighed. “But I cannot do this. I won’t.”

  Mae let go of his hand and sat back on her heels. Closing her eyes, she rubbed at her forehead, and I knew she was trying to think of something.

  “What if she wanted it?” Mae looked up at him, but she was talking about me. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the way she talked about me like I wasn’t standing right here.

  “I don’t know why you have this idea that I have some special relationship with Alice.” He sounded tired by the idea, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  “Because you turned her brother for her! I know you were against adding more vampires, but you did that for her anyway!”

  “Yes, and I did the same with Jack, for you.” Ezra looked severely at Mae. Her face darkened with shame, and she looked down at the floor.

  I had no idea what Ezra was talking about. From what I knew, Peter had turned Jack in order to save his life. The story that I heard from everyone never made any mention of Mae or Ezra at all. It had been an act of compassion, and for some reason, that made Mae squirm.

  “That was different,” Mae said quietly.

  “Yes, it was. Because Alice actually cared for her brother. He wasn’t just some random kid.” Ezra looked off at the wall behind her. “And Milo’s young, but he is not a child.”

  “She is innocent! She deserves a life!” Mae twisted a tissue in her hands and turned to look at me, pleading with me. “Alice, tell him! I don’t care what he says! He’ll listen to you! If you tell him that he needs to do this, he will!”

  “I-I don’t really know what you’re talking about.” I turned to Ezra for help, but he just looked grimly at me. “I can’t tell him anything if I don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “My great-granddaughter Daisy,” Mae said, silent tears sliding down her face. “She is only five years old, and she’s going to die. She hasn’t had a chance to live her life yet. But if we turn her, she can live forever. She can do anything!”

  “Except grow up,” Ezra reminded her. “She can never fall in love or get married. She’ll never be able to live on her own or drive a car or even go to a bar. She’ll depend on you for everything, forever, and that may delight you, but she’ll hate you for cursing her to this life.

  “Other vampires will never accept her, or you, for it,” he went on. “They’ll try to kill her because she’s an abomination against everything we are. And that says nothing to our more perverse underbelly, who thrive on making childlike vampires to live as their slaves or to trade with human pedophiles in exchange for blood. Is that really the kind of life you want for her? Do you think that’s what her hopes and dreams amount to?”

  “It won’t be like that,” Mae insisted. “We will protect her and love her, and she’ll have everything a child could ever want.”

  “But she won’t really be a child forever! She’ll be a woman trapped in a child’s body with a child’s temperament for all of eternity. That is a horrible thing to do to someone you claim to love so much,” he said.

  “You don’t understand!” Mae looked desperately at him, and he met her eyes. “I cannot let this happen! I swore I would never watch another one of my children die!” He exhaled deeply and matched her intense expression with a calm one of his own.

  “Then don’t watch,” Ezra said.

  “Ezra!” I shouted, unable to believe that he would say something that cold to Mae.

  “I know she is hurting, but I can’t do this!” His collected façade evaporated for a moment, and he was merely exasperated and worried. Mae had gone back to looking at the floor and crying, and for a brief second, he looked completely lost. “There is nothing I can do to rectify this situation.”

  “So then comfort her! Don’t yell at her!” I told him, still in shock over how icy he had been to her.

  “No, it’s alright, Alice,” Mae said wearily and shook her head. “I knew what I was going to get from him. Ezra is many things, but he is predictable above all else.” Sighing, she got to her feet. She wiped the tears from her face and tried to smooth out her hair. When she had composed herself a bit, she turned to look at him. “I will do what I have to do.”

  “I understand that, but you will not do it in my house,” he said.

  �
�I know.” She nodded once, and then turned and walked back to her room.

  For a moment after she left, I stood and tried to catch my breath. I had never seen the two of them fight about anything before, let alone something as intense as this.

  I knew that Ezra was right, that turning a child into a vampire was an impossible idea, but I knew how desperate Mae was to do anything to protect her family.

  Finally, Ezra started to move, picking up the pieces of broken glass of the floor, and I went over to join him.

  “You were too cold with her,” I said, picking up a large chunk of glass.

  My hair was still dripping cold water down my back, and I tucked it behind my ears. Part of me felt nervous at the thought of contradicting Ezra about something like this, but he had no reason to be that cruel.

  “She wouldn’t have listened to anything else. She’s been pleading me with since she found out about the child being ill, and I decided that being forthright was the best avenue to take.” Ezra was incredibly tired, and I wasn’t sure if he was over what the lycan had done to him yet.

  “Why is she pleading with you?” I asked. “I mean, if this is what she wants, then why doesn’t she just do it herself? Why does she need your permission?”

  “She’s never turned anyone before, and she’s afraid to, especially with a child so young. She thinks she’ll do it wrong somehow, even though there is no real wrong way.”

  He picked up most of the large pieces of glass, everything that we could get without a broom, so he stood up and tossed the broken bits into the fireplace. Since he had done it, I followed suit and threw what I had picked up into the fireplace.

  “So is she going to do it if you don’t?” I asked.

  “I honestly don’t know.” His normal booming voice sounded defeated. “She wasn’t really asking my permission, either. She knows my stand on it. If she turns the child, I will not be with her. I won’t go through that heartache. Neither of them would survive it, not for long. Child vampires never do.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  The youngest vampire I had met had been Violet, and she was fourteen. I couldn’t imagine what one would be like younger than that. Would they look older too, the way that Milo and Violet both looked about nineteen?

  “They go insane, or they’re killed,” Ezra said simply. “They learn but can’t mature. They get old but can’t grow. They get impulses they can’t control. They’re volatile and strong and never really understand the consequences of their actions. Other vampires don’t like having them around, and they don’t like being alive.

  “It never ends well.” He ran a hand through this blond hair and breathed in deeply. “And if Mae were to change her, to get even more attached to the child than she already was, she would either die trying to protect her, or kill herself after the child died. And I have no interest in being a part of that.”

  “And Mae doesn’t see that?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. She was too blinded by her love for her family to see any rational thought. Her only concern was keeping the girl around for another day, at any cost.

  “No.” He gave me a sad smile. “She mistakenly believes that I can do anything. But I can’t this time.” His expression was far away. “I cannot save the child. There is only one type of death versus another. The child will suffer and then die, either way. But Mae cannot accept that.”

  “Are you going to go talk to her? Maybe you can help her accept this. I mean, she’s just going through the seven stages of grief, and it sounds like she’s at bargaining,” I said.

  “Maybe, but unfortunately, she actually has something to bargain with. Most people have no other recourse, but Mae does. Would anyone really move past bargaining if God would actually talk to them and listen to their pleas?”

  “Did you just compare yourself to God?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Accidentally,” he admitted, looking disgusted at his own choice of words. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. But I don’t think I have anything to say that can help Mae through this.” He sighed heavily. “But… my clothes are in the room, and I should get dressed.”

  “Are you two going to split up?” I was surprised how nervous I sounded, but really, they were the only stable couple I had ever met. And if they split up, what hope did the rest of us have?

  “I will stay with her as long as she’ll have me, and as long as she doesn’t turn the child,” he said, but that was the kind of answer people gave when they weren’t ready to tell the kids they were breaking up.

  I started to think that maybe it was only a matter of time before things ended between them, and that was terrifying. I loved them both, and I couldn’t imagine a life where they weren’t both in it.

  Ezra went down to his room. For someone who was completely obsessed with the idea of family, I couldn’t believe how rigid he was being with Mae. He was right about not turning her granddaughter, I’m sure, but he was inflexible when talking to her. He had been willing to die to save Peter, but he wouldn’t allow the same irrational passion in her.

  Maybe it was because this was his way of protecting the family. If she did this, it would certainly devastate everything around her, himself included. I don’t know what would happen to our family unit. If we would split up between them, like children of divorce, or… I don’t know.

  It was strange, because even though I knew I was going to live a very long time, I somehow had expected that everything would stay the same forever. Ezra had once told me that everyone I know would die, and that I would outlast everything. But I had never believed that I would outlast this family.

  - 19 –

  When Milo and Jack finally came back from their blood run, I told them about the fight. Milo went to talk some sense into Mae, and we let him. Jack still invited Peter to watch a movie with us, but after all the drama, we decided to watch something lighter than an epic British mini-series. So we went with the opposite and put in Futurama.

  As the night wore on, I decided to go to bed, and I wanted to invite Jack to stay with me. The fight between Mae and Ezra had left me feeling shaken up, and I wanted to hang onto something that I knew would be around forever. But Peter was lingering around us, giving me a weird look, and I didn’t feel right about asking him.

  The next morning, he tried waking me bright and early to take Matilda to the dog park, but I wanted to sleep in. The joke was on me, though. After he left, I couldn’t fall back to sleep, but I blamed that on how hungry I was.

  It had been a dull ache growing in the pit of my stomach since yesterday. When we had been watching TV with Bobby, I found myself more fascinated by watching the pulse pounding in his jugular than in the images on the screen.

  Today was even worse. I had a dryness in my veins and my throat. My limbs felt crackly when I moved them. I had no energy, but I felt strangely frenetic. I knew I had to eat soon, but for now, I decided to just avoid Bobby.

  Milo and Bobby were going to have to go to the club again soon to check on Jane, but I didn’t feel up to being around humans. In fact, I could hardly stand being this close to Bobby. Heartbeats echoed in my ears, and the faint scent of Bobby permeated through my walls. I was going to have to distract myself before I went insane.

  I went about getting ready, but I couldn’t find the energy to shower. I just brushed my teeth, got dressed, and pulled my hair back in a messy bun. I tried to call Jane again, but she still wouldn’t answer.

  I probably should’ve considered eating, but I really, really had to control myself. Because I really, really wanted to be alone with Jack, and this was the only way I could trust myself. I knocked on Peter’s bedroom door and chewed my lip. I stood a better chance of not biting him than I did Bobby, and even if I did bite Peter, he stood a better chance of living.

  “What?” Peter opened his bedroom door, looking irritated. “Is the house on fire?”

  “No. Can I come in?” I tucked a stray stand of hair behind my ears. His green eyes were bewildered, but he relen
ted and took a step back from the door so I could go in.

  When I brushed past him, I inhaled deeply. He smelled so good, and I had almost forgotten that. His blood used to be my favorite scent in the world, before I really knew that’s what it was. When I had been human, the tangy scent he left behind always intoxicated me, and I hadn’t realized that it was his blood I was lusting after. Now I did, and the smell was even stronger and more delicious.

  “You look hungry.” Peter shut the bedroom door behind me when I came in, and that might have bothered me if I had a clearer head.

  “Yeah, well,” I tried to play it off like nothing. For him to notice meant it had to be getting bad. My skin was ashen, and my heart beat too fast.

  His room looked as messy as he would allow, which was much cleaner than mine and Jack’s room. His large four-post bed was unmade. The French doors that led onto the balcony off his room were slightly ajar, letting in a chill breeze that ruffled his curtains.

  Overflowing bookshelves lined his walls. Peter had apparently decided to spend the day reading, and a few books were discarded on his bed. On the white chair by the bookcases, he had a book splayed open, a red ribbon marking his page should it close.

  I paced his room, trying to ignore the painful gnawing inside of me, but I stopped when I saw the red stain on his white rug.

  “Perhaps you should eat,” Peter said, but there was an uncomfortable edge to his words. He had caught me staring at the stain. It was blood, my blood, from when he had nearly killed me.

  “Why don’t you throw away the rug?” I twisted at the hem of my shirt, feeling fidgety, and turned to face him.

  “As you can tell, I’m really not in the mood to hang out,” he completely ignored my question.

  He avoided my gaze and gestured to his room, as if the state of it would signify something to me. Underneath his smooth tan skin, I could see his veins pulsing delicately, and it quickened ever so slightly. I made him nervous, and I delighted in that, even though it did nothing to ease my hunger pains.