“Is he coming back?” Milo moved closer to me, as if I still needed protection.
Jack dropped his eyes to the floor, and he battled to keep his anger under control. He’d never forgive Peter for nearly killing me when I’d been mortal. Somehow, I had never really faulted Peter for that.
“No, he’s not coming back.” Ezra shook his head but kept his eyes on Jack, gauging his reaction to the news. “I don’t think he’ll ever come back.”
“He won’t if he knows what’s good for him,” Jack growled in a voice so low it barely sounded like his own.
“Jack, he’s still your brother,” Mae reminded him, her gentle accent trying to calm him.
“He was never my brother!” Jack rolled his eyes and leaned back in the chair.
Peter was 150 years older than Jack, so they weren’t related in the human sense of the word. Peter had been the one to turn Jack, so his blood had fused to Jack’s, creating a bond between them that was much stronger than any normal familial relation. Before that, Ezra had turned Peter, making a steadfast bond between the three of them. Until I came along.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about him,” Ezra told Jack, but there was an underlying hurt. “He’s in very real danger, and I’ve got to go help him.”
“What kind of danger?” I asked, and I felt Jack’s eyes flit over to me but I refused to look back at him.
“He’s…” Ezra furrowed his brow. “He’s killing vampires.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Peter,” Jack muttered.
“I thought he’d gone off the grid,” I said, and Jack scoffed at me.
Three weeks ago, Jack turned me into a vampire, and Peter took off. Peter did that frequently, but usually Ezra had a way of getting in touch with him. This time, Peter disappeared, and despite his best attempts, Ezra had been unable to reach him.
“He has. Word travelled down about Peter,” Ezra elaborated. “I just got a phone call that vampires are seeking revenge on him. So I’m going to try and find him and see if I can’t reason with him.”
“He can handle himself,” Jack sneered at everyone’s concern. “Peter has killed vampires before, and he’s fought in wars. If there’s one thing Peter knows, it’s how to fight.”
“This is different.” Ezra’s eyes grew sad. “There’s reason to believe he’s on a suicide mission.”
“Good,” Jack grunted under his breath.
“I’ll go with you.” I stood up abruptly and knocked over the chess board. My mind hadn’t caught up to what my body could do.
“You’ll what?” Jack raised an eyebrow but looked at me evenly. We hadn’t talked about Peter at all since I had turned, but he incorrectly assumed that my feelings for Peter mirrored his own.
“I’ll go with,” I repeated.
- 2 –
I bent down to pick up the chess pieces, but Milo swatted my hands away.
“I’ll do it,” Milo said, pulling glass pawns out of my hand. “You get busy letting them talk sense into you.”
“Alice.” Jack’s expression remained mostly quizzical, but his breathing got heavier.
Part of me did still care for Peter, and not because it was ingrained in me. Peter hadn’t done anything wrong in all of this, but he’d been ostracized by his family and gone through a terrible heartbreak because of it - because of me.
“Alice, you don’t need to go with,” Mae shook her head.
“I know I wouldn’t be any good in a fight, but maybe I could reason with him. Maybe I could convince him that it didn’t need to get to that point,” I said.
Mae turned to Ezra, waiting for him to shoot me down, and I think that’s the only reason that Jack hadn’t freaked out yet. They all expected Ezra to thank me for my sentiments but tell me that it was better if I stayed home.
“She has a point,” Ezra said carefully, and that’s when everybody decided to get upset.
Mae touched his arm and tried to plead with him that I was far too young to go anywhere, let alone on a crusade to save Peter from a suicide mission. Jack jumped to his feet, but he couldn’t seem to decide whether he was angrier with me or Ezra, or maybe Peter. Milo finished setting up the chess set and smacked me on the arm.
“Ow!” I scowled, rubbing my arm. “What’d you do that for?”
“Because you’re an idiot and I can!” He’d always been a rather over-protective younger brother, but he was the mature one, the sensible one.
I knew it was stupid, but as soon as Ezra had said that Peter was in danger, my heart flipped. If anything bad happened to him, it was my fault. If I left his family alone, the way he repeatedly begged me to, then he wouldn’t have run off into the mess that he’s in.
“Ezra, you can’t seriously be thinking of taking her with you,” Jack said.
His fists clenched at his sides, and his eyes were frightened. It killed him that I cared anything for Peter, and it would literally kill him if anything happened to me.
“I won’t let anything happen to her, but she might be the best chance I have for talking Peter down.” Ezra held his hands palm out towards Jack, trying to calm him. “I have to try anything.”