“Yeah.” He lowered his eyes and swallowed hard. “You regret it. I know you do, and… I did this to you.”
“Jack, no,” I shook my head. He had has arms on either of side of me, holding himself up, and I ran my hand over his arms, trying to comfort him.
“You rushed into something you didn’t understand because it was what I wanted, and you can’t take it back.”
“I don’t want to take it back,” I insisted, but I wasn’t sure of that anymore.
“Come on, Alice.” He shook his head. “That’s why we’ve been fighting so much. Everything we’ve been arguing about, it all boils down to the fact that you don’t want to change. You don’t want to be this thing that drinks blood. I made you into a monster.”
“No, Jack! You did not! I’m not-” I stumbled, trying to think of what I meant. “We’re not monsters. Okay? You just gave me forever with you. I want to be with you. I love you.”
“I know you do. That’s what makes this so much worse.” When he looked at me, he had tears swimming in his eyes, and I gaped at him.
“I’ll never regret being with you,” I told him honestly.
“And I’ll never stop regretting doing this to you.”
Lying there naked, as close as two people could be, I had never felt such distance between us. The problem was that Jack was right. While I loved him and I did want to be with him for as long as I was alive, I didn’t want to be a vampire. I didn’t want to be a monster that hunted and hurt people, that lived an endless life without purpose, wandering the earth without ever contributing anything.
But I didn’t blame him for that. I had made a choice, and even if I’d rushed into it, that had been my fault, not his.
I couldn’t say anything to ease his guilt, so I leaned into him and kissed him again, this time hungrier and more intense. I wanted to make his pain go away, I wanted him to feel how much I loved him, how desperately I needed him, and how I never, ever wanted to live without him.
He slid inside of me, and I buried my fingers in his back, pressing him close to me. His love surged through me, but it was tinged with something else. His own regret held it back, and even when he kissed me, the closeness I desired escaped us.
Afterwards, Jack held me in his arms, but he pretended to be asleep, even though I knew he wasn’t.
I couldn’t sleep, and I felt too restless to even pretend. I got up, took a shower, and got dressed. In the bedroom next door to mine, both Milo and Bobby were sound asleep, and I hated them for it. Milo’d been going to bed earlier because he had to get up for school, and Bobby had apparently beaten his insomnia for once.
Since I had nothing to do, I thought I would eat. Drinking blood didn’t knock me out the way it did before. In fact, other than when I drank fresh blood, like when I bit Jack, the blood had been energizing me lately. I’m not sure if that’s exactly what I wanted right now, but my veins felt a little dry and my stomach grumbled.
It wasn’t until I opened the fridge that I realized it had been over a week and a half since I ate last. And I was barely even hungry.
Feeling rather stunned by this realization, I thought about ignoring my phone when it rang in my pocket. But it could be important, so I shut the fridge door without getting a bag of blood and got the phone.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Alice?” Mae said. Or at least I think that’s what Mae said. Her end of the phone crackled with static. “Al-” The phone cut out for a second. “-glad I finally-” A loud blast of static cut her off.
“Mae? What’s going on? Where are you? I can barely understand you.”
“-damn tunnel! I’ve been trying but the call-” She cut out again, and I sighed.
“Mae! I can’t hear you! What do you need?” I asked.
“Towels! We need-” Static. “-bring them here?”
“Yeah, fine. Sure. I’ll bring you towels,” I said. Mae started to say something else, but the call dropped, which was just as well. I didn’t want to listen to the static anymore.
I had nothing better to do, so I went to the bathroom and gathered up a bunch of towels. I’m not sure how many they needed, so I just grabbed a lot. I thought about grabbing more stuff, like blankets and pillows, but Peter had already gotten a lot of stuff to make the place livable.
Since no one was around to stop me, I took the Lamborghini, but I parked it out of the way when I get to the bridge. A bright red sports car parked right by the underpass would stick out. Carrying a stack of towels down a slippery ravine proved more difficult than I had thought it would be, but I managed.
Peter had torn out more of the concrete, so the hole into the tunnel was much larger than it had been before. I could stand up and walk in, and there was still plenty of room around me.
Before I even got to the cavern where they were staying, I could hear Daisy’s voice echoing off the walls. She had a lovely singing voice, especially for a small child, but she was butchering the lyrics to “Hey Jude.”
I found her in the tunnel just outside of the entrance to the cavern. Her blond curls were tied back in a ribbon, and she crouched down on the concrete. A tub of fat sticks of colored chalk was spilled out next to her, and she scribbled furiously at a picture on the ground.
“Hey, Daisy,” I said, walking over to her. She appeared to be coloring a picture of a flying, purple hippo, but I could be wrong.
“Hi, Alice.” She glanced up at me, but her concentration was clearly on the picture.