“Okay. So I get why they were so pissed about me because they thought I was working with the ‘movement’ to put them out of a job. But why did they care about Daisy?” I asked.
“Child vampires are unstable and volatile. Let one loose for a day, and the whole world would know about vampires,” Ezra said. “And Mae let her loose in Australia.”
“How did they even find about that?” I asked.
“Word travels,” he shrugged. “The Commissioner might’ve mentioned something about the missing child, and it’s common knowledge that Mae has moved out. Vampires have a lot of time on their hands to gossip.”
“The hunters think she did that to attract attention,” I said as it dawned on me. “And if everyone learned about vampires that way, with the serial killer and a crazy murderous child, humans would be terrified. They’ll want to hunt us down and kill us, and that would give the ‘movement’ of vampires all the ammo they would need to round up the humans and turn them into cattle.”
“Exactly,” Ezra said. “The hunters are trying to stop that from happening. In this case, they are helping.”
“But they’re assholes!” I yelled and gestured upstairs. “They broke into our house, beat us up, threatened our lives! That’s the good guys?”
“Alice, there are no good guys,” Ezra said, giving me a hard look. “We’re vampires, and no matter what we do or strive for, that fact doesn’t change. We aren’t the good guys.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to figure that out.” I bit my lip and leaned back on the couch.
“You’ve been busy figuring out a lot of things lately,” Jack said, and I lifted my head to look up at him. His voice stayed even, but he had to fight to keep it that way.
“Jack, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you any-”
“Really? You’re sorry?” Jack asked. “Were you sorry last week when I asked you what was going on when you said nothing? Were you sorry a few hours ago when I asked you directly what you were doing and you lied to my face? Were you sorry when I was beating myself about this distance between us because you’ve been sneaking around and lying to me? Is that when you were sorry?”
“Jack, I had to do this! I had to help her!” I leaned forward, pleading with him.
“She is dead, Alice! You can’t help her!” Jack shouted. “You lied to me! You lied to Milo and put yourself in danger! You put Bobby in danger! What the hell were you thinking? He’s human! He nearly died tonight! Because of you!”
“I know that.” Bitter tears stung my eyes and I looked toward the floor. “Believe me, I know that. But I don’t know what else I was supposed to do.”
“After you kissed Peter last year, I begged you, I fucking begged you not to do that again!”
“I didn’t kiss him again!” I shouted, looking up sharply.
“No, Alice.” He smiled sadly and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I asked you never to break my trust again.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice quavered, and a tear slid down my cheek. “I’m really sorry, Jack. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“That’s the thing with you. You never think you have a choice, but you always do.” He bit his lip and shook his head. “But you wish you didn’t.” He looked away from me. “Sometimes, I think you wish you’d never met me, there had never been a choice between me and Peter.”
“No, Jack, that’s not true!” I stood up. “That’s not true at all! I love you!”
“Oh, yeah, I know you do.” He nodded, and his mouth twitched in a way that I knew he was holding back tears. “You love me so much, and that just really sucks for you. Cause if you didn’t have that, you could just do whatever you wanted. You could be human or a little vampire Nancy Drew or hook up with any of my brothers. If only you didn’t have to worry about me.”
“Jack, no.” I shook my head. “This is one stupid thing. This is a mistake. I did something stupid, but it was just something stupid. I know that you’re mad because I lied, but I lied about something little. I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t hurt anybody.”
“You repeatedly lied to my face and snuck around behind my back, and I believed you. You’re missing the point, Alice. I can’t trust you anymore.”
“No,” I insisted. “I won’t lie to you ever again. When you asked me not to break your trust, you told me it didn’t matter. You told me you would forgive me of anything, and I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to forgive me of this one thing. This one last thing.”
“I did say that.” His voice was so quiet, I barely heard it, and his blue eyes swam with tears. “But you know what? I lied too.”
All the strength drained me from me, and I fell to the ground on my knees. Too much had happened, and hearing him say that felt like something had ripped open inside me. I couldn’t even cry, it hurt too much.
“Alice.” Ezra came to my side, putting his arm around me. “It’s alright.”