"I don"t know!" Even if I wasn"t still drunk, I didn"t know where we went. Jane knew the directions, not me, and I"d been too busy trying to keep us from crashing to notice any major landmarks.
"Look, I"m coming to get you!" Jack decided.
"How do you know where I"m at? I don"t know where I"m at!" I was trying to walk down the stairs and talk on the phone, and that just wasn"t working at all. I stumbled into the railing and dropped the phone. When I picked it up, Jack was yelling panicked h.e.l.lo"s. "Jack?"
"Alice! Go outside!" Jack commanded.
"Why?" I was still fighting my way through throngs of people, and I was pretty sure that someone had grabbed my a.s.s. I could hear Jack saying things on the phone, but I couldn"t understand them. It wasn"t until I"d finally made out at the front door and the sound was severely dampened that I could hear him again.
"-need you to look around," Jack was saying.
"You need me to do what?" I asked, looking around. I half-expected it to be some kind of magic trick, and Jack would already be waiting out front for me, but there was no such luck.
"You"re outside?" Jack asked.
70.
"Yep, I"m outside, and I"m not wearing any shoes." There were several broken bottles and crushed beer cans strewn about in front of the house, and I was careful not to step on any of them.
"Do you see any street signs? Any landmarks? Anything to tell me where you are?" Jack instructed me.
"Um..." I scoured the area around me. We were just on some residential street, but I could hear the traffic from the high way and I saw a billboard a block away. "I think I"m right off of 494 by a billboard for 93X. Is that good?"
"Yeah, I can work with that," Jack sounded relieved. "Just stay where you are. I"ll be there in a minute."
"Okay," I nodded, even though he couldn"t see me.
"Call me if you need to. But I"ll be there really quick," he a.s.sured me.
"Okay," I repeated, and then he hung up the phone.
I probably should"ve let him know that I actually wasn"t in any danger. Well, not in any immediate danger. After all, I was drunk, shoeless, and sitting on the curb outside of a house party. There were things that could happen, I"m sure, but not in the time it would take Jack to get there. He traveled at the speed of light and what not.
Jack had apparently decided it was an emergency because he pulled up a few minutes later in the Lamborghini, which was how he traveled when speed was a necessity. He stopped right in front of me and dove out of the car, leaving it on and the door open, when he rushed over to make sure I was fine.
"Are you okay?" Jack crouched down in front of me to inspect me for injuries, pushing my damp hair out of my eyes.
My eyes were puffy from crying, my fancy top was stained with beer, and my feet were very dirty from walking around the party, but over all, I was okay. I"m sure the next day I would wake up with plenty of bruises that I couldn"t remember getting, but nothing life threatening.
"I think so," I nodded meekly.
"You"re drunk," Jack realized, smirking.
"I think so," I admitted.
"Okay. Let"s get you home." He stood up and took my hands so he could help me to my feet.
Before we got in the car, he gave me one more once over to make sure I was fine when he noticed something. His eyes got hard and the hand that was holding mine got very cold. "You"re pants are undone."
"What?" Confused, I looked down at my jeans, and I couldn"t remember undoing them. Then I remembered being upstairs making out with Jordan, and it would be rather hard for him to start playing with my underwear if my pants weren"t undone. "Oh. Yeah. That. I didn"t do anything."
"You didn"t do anything?" Jack had let go of my hand and he was eyeing me up severely.
"No, I didn"t. I mean, like kissing, but you know, just that. It was nothing at all." I started zipping up my pants when something occurred to me. "I"m wearing a purple a thong."
71.
"You"re wearing a purple thong?" Jack raised an eyebrow, but since I was drunk, I couldn"t get a read on his emotions. I didn"t know if it was an intrigued, I"d-like-to-see-more eyebrow, or a disapproving, you"re-a-huge-s.l.u.t eyebrow.
"Yeah. Wanna see?" I offered helpfully.
"Just get in the car," Jack said, not unkindly, and walked around so he could get in the car himself.
"Sorry," I mumbled, and stupidly, I felt like crying again. When I got in the car, I felt a tear slide down my cheek, but I tried to wipe it away before he noticed.
"That"s what you were doing when I called?" He kept his voice even, but the car squealed angrily away from the house. His hands were gripping the steering wheel too tightly, and I sunk deeper into the seat.
"He just kept pouring me shots, and I don"t remember most of the night. I don"t even remember how I got in the room. But when I realized what was going on, I pushed him off of me, and then you just happened to call like a second later." I played nervously with my hair and shook my head. "I don"t know why I have to explain myself to you, anyway. You were too busy to even talk to me tonight. It"s not my fault that you decided to grace me with your presence the one time I"m actually out doing something."
"Oh, yeah. Because I"m just busy partying it up all the time. That"s why I can"t talk to you," Jack scoffed.
"I was just sick of sitting in that stupid house waiting for you!" I snapped. "So when Jane text messaged me-"
"I should"ve known she"d be the source of all this," Jack laughed darkly.
"You"re the one that suggested I hang out with you while you"re so "busy."" When I made the little air quotes for busy, he rolled his eyes at me.
"I didn"t mean it," he sighed. "I just felt guilty for leaving you alone all the time, but I took it back right away. That"s why I had Mae come get you."
"Oh, yeah, thank you for that, by the way. Great idea," I told him dryly.
"What? You love Mae!" Jack looked at me dubiously. "How was that not a great idea?"
"Because! I wanted to see you!" I shouted, then instantly regretted saying it. Tears were just waiting to spill over. There was this whole fountain that had been called to action tonight, and they were just waiting for the perfect time to start pouring down.
"Do you think I really enjoy this?" Jack countered. "Do you think that this is what I wanted? That I wanted you to hang out with Jane, getting drunk, and messing around with random date rapists?
Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted, Alice. You"ve got it all figured out. All this time, hanging out with you, it was just a big set up to get to your brother."
"It"s not my fault that that"s what it feels like," I grumbled crossing my arms over my chest.
"Well, good thing you got smashed tonight so you could figure it all out!" Jack was exasperated, and he ran a hand through his hair.
72.
"You couldn"t even return a text message today!" I yelled. "And when I called, you couldn"t wait to get off the phone! I"ve barely talked to you lately! And you just..." Biting my lip, I shook my head and didn"t even finish the thought.
"I couldn"t stay on the phone with you! I shouldn"t even have answered the phone, but I didn"t want you think I was p.i.s.sed at you. Things almost got really out of control because I didn"t want to hurt your feelings, and now you"re mad at me because that wasn"t good enough for you?" He shook his head and exhaled roughly.
"It was a five second phone call! What could"ve gotten so out of control?" I asked skeptically.
"Milo!"
"Milo?" I looked at him, waiting for him elaborate, but he didn"t. "What? Did he... I don"t know. I can"t even think of anything he could"ve been doing that would be out of control."
"I was teaching him to eat," Jack explained gruffly.
"What?" The air felt like it was going of my lungs, and there was a nauseous feeling creeping up inside of me. "I thought... I thought he was eating."
"Out of bags," Jack said quietly, and then swallowed hard. "But... he needs to learn how to do it with live... people."
"Why?" I demanded. "Why does he have to know?"
"Because there isn"t always bags, and because it happens, and because when he does it I want to make sure he doesn"t kill somebody!" Saying it made him uncomfortable, but he sounded more angry than he did embarra.s.sed. "As it was, he could"ve killed her tonight. He was going crazy while I was on the phone with you, and I had to stop and show him how so he didn"t break her neck."
"You had to show him how?" My mouth suddenly got dry and I gripped onto the car to keep my hands from shaking. "You... bit a girl tonight?"
"I am a vampire, Alice," Jack sounded weary but there was a guilty expression on his face, and he wouldn"t look me in the eye.
It wasn"t the act of biting someone that upset me. Slowly but surely, I was coming to terms with drinking blood and biting and all that. It was just that I remembered how amazing and intense it felt when Peter drank my blood, and how crazed and delirious Jack got just over the taste of it.
For vampires, drinking blood from a person was far more intimate than s.e.x. And tonight, Jack had been that intimate with someone else, and it made me feel sick to my stomach.
Admittedly, I had been kissing another guy tonight too, but I was drunk. And I wouldn"t have been there at all if Jack hadn"t ditched me to drink her blood. Suddenly, I regretted not going farther with Jordan. It would serve him right. Not that I even knew what that meant, but that"s what I thought anyway.
"Pull over!" I screamed. The combination of Jack"s confession and the vodka were not mixing well, and I felt like I was going to throw up at any second.
"Alice?" Jack asked concerned.
"Pull over now!" I insisted.
Jack did as he was told, pulling sharply onto the shoulder, onto the gra.s.s next to the highway. I opened the car door and swung my legs out. As soon as my bare feet hit the gra.s.s, I actually 73 started to feel better. Still, I put my head between my legs, and let the cool night breeze blow against me. I kept swallowing until I felt like I was okay, then sat back up. I kept the door open and my feet in the gra.s.s, though, just to be on the safe side.
"Are you okay?" Jack had completely softened from earlier, and he reached out to touch me, but I pulled away.
"I"ll be fine. I just need a minute."
Closing my eyes, I did my best not to think about Jack biting another girl. To feel that close with somebody, it was impossible to describe. When Peter was drinking my blood, his heartbeat was my heartbeat. Knowing that Jack was capable of feeling that with anyone else, when he hadn"t even felt that with me... My insides twisted painfully.
"I know why you"re upset and I don"t blame you." His voice was low and apologetic, and I knew he meant what he was saying. "But Milo has to learn. He"s still so ... volatile. In all honesty, I should"ve waited, and if I had, I probably wouldn"t have had to actually physically demonstrate.
He would"ve had a better concept of things. But I didn"t want to wait. I want to get through all of this as quickly as possible, so he can be completely independent and then you can turn. I did this so you could hurry up and come live with us."
"I"m not going to turn," I told Jack quietly, and my words came out harsher than I meant.
"What?" Jack asked.
"I talked to Ezra the other day." I finally opened my eyes and glanced over at him. Hot tears were sliding down my cheeks, and his blue eyes were swimming with confusion and pain. "He said that I still have to hold off for a couple more years. It"s not safe or healthy because of Milo. I don"t think you can rush through this, no matter how hard you try."
"But..." He was staring off at nothing, digesting it all and trying to think of a way to fix it.
"Maybe this is all a sign," I said thickly when he didn"t speak. "I don"t mean just tonight. Like everything, with Milo and Peter, and... It"s like everything in the universe is saying that this won"t work for me."
"Two years really isn"t that long," Jack interjected quickly.
"Jack! You know that"s not the only thing!" I leaned my head back on the seat, staring out at the night sky around us.
"Alice..." He breathed deeply. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "When I called, it was because something felt off. I knew something was going on with you. And by the time I got to the exit, I knew exactly where you were at. I could feel you, scared and alone. I can"t just turn that off. You can"t just throw this away."
"What am I supposed to do?" I lamented, looking at him with tears in my eyes.
He was right. I couldn"t just turn it off, and more than that, I didn"t want to. He was looking at me desperately, and there was a longing radiating from him. The alcohol was either wearing off or he was just overpowering it. There was a panicked need overtaking him because he thought he was coming close to really losing me, and there was nothing in the world that scared him more.
Without thinking, I leaned over and pressed my lips tightly against his. He was surprised, but he quickly gave into it. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me as close to him as he could get without hurting me, and his mouth worked ferociously against mine. He tasted amazing, and his 74 skin burned hot against me. I could feel how excited he was, and that only intensified the way I felt. We"d only been kissing for a few seconds when abruptly, he stopped, and pushed me back from him. Gently but firmly, he held me at arms length and struggled to catch his breath.
"Alice... that"s way too dangerous," Jack panted.
"You"re really not helping the case, you know?" I pulled away from his arms and slunk down in the seat.
"The only reason I have any restraint is because I just ate," Jack said, leaning back. "Otherwise, that could"ve been very bad."
"Thanks for reminding me about that," I scowled.
"You can"t really talk tonight," Jack grumbled. "At least what I did, I did because it"s how I survive and it was to help out your little brother. You just did that... for fun. And you can"t use being drunk as an excuse because you wore a purple thong. That was premeditated."
"It was not!" I insisted. "I wore the panties cause I wanted to feel fun and dangerous!"
"You"re dangerous alright," Jack muttered.
"Whatever." I slammed the car door shut. "Just take me home."