Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

He cared about her very much and he did not want to see her in pain, but he was still pissed off that she had any contact with them. Nothing good could come from keeping humans in your life.

I thought of Jane at the club, and Bobby upstairs with my brother, and shook my head.

Eventually, everyone would die, except for us, and I could never tell if that was comforting or terrifying.

Jack was outside, wrestling in the fallen leaves and frost with Matilda. The moon was fat but thin clouds hazed over it. I stepped out the French doors, relishing the feel of the chill in the air.

Breathing in deeply, I tried to the freshness from the outdoors cleanse from everything else that had happened. All of Mae’s tears and fears, and all the horrible images of Jane in the darkened rooms of V.

“Hey,” Jack grinned at me when he saw me, and got from a pile of leaves he and the dog had been demolishing. Matilda had twigs and leaves imbedded in her fur, and she loped around the lawn carrying a big stick in her mouth. Jack ran a hand through his hair, freeing a few leaves himself and walked over to me.

“How are you holding up?”

“Great.” I was exaggerating, but I did feel a lot better being outside.

“You sure?” Jack looked at me seriously, and I picked at some of the foliage that clung to his tee shirt.

His bare arms were dirty and cold from the ground, but I doubt he even noticed.

“Yeah. Mae is the one having the rough night, not me,” I said.

“How is she?” Jack looked past me at the house, worrying about her.

“I really don’t know,” I admitted. “Ezra took her back to their room to get some rest, but…” I trailed off and shrugged. It was hard to say how she would hold up against this. Nothing in the world was more important to Mae than family.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help Jane more,” Jack said softly, returning his concerned look back to me.

“Me too, but you’re right. She has to want to help herself, and she’ll probably never want to,” I sighed and rubbed at my arms, even though they weren’t really cold.

“You’ve had a really long night. You should probably get some rest, too,” Jack nodded at the house.

“That is true.” It fairly early for me to go to bed, but I hadn’t really felt completely rested since before I went on the trip to rescue Peter. I yawned loudly and thought longingly about curling up in bed.

“Do you want any company?” Jack asked, wagging his eyebrows.

“You know I do,” I chewed my lip. I always wanted Jack in bed with me, especially after we had started earlier, but my heart wasn’t really in it just then. “But we probably shouldn’t, not with Mae so worried that we’re all gonna die. And this morning I did almost rip Bobby’s head off just because I could smell his blood. I’m probably not in control enough to handle what you would do to me.”

“That is true,” Jack smiled a little sadly. “You can go in and go ahead to bed. I might come up in a bit to grab some clothes, but I gotta get the dog cleaned up before I can take a shower and crash on the couch.”

“I feel so bad about kicking you out of your own bed,” I said for probably the millionth time since I had moved into his room.

“Hey, I’m nothing if not a gentlemen, and I couldn’t sleep knowing you weren’t absolutely comfortable,” Jack grinned. I was about to protest further, but he leaned down and kissed me gently. His lips were cool from the night, but the kiss was brief, stopping it before I could really get into it.

Still, my skin felt warm and flushed when he straightened up. “Go on and get to bet. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I nodded, and then almost reluctantly, I turned to walk back into the house. Matilda chased after me, planning into sneak into the house with me, but Jack stopped her. Her big white paws were covered in cold mud from running around by the lake, and her fur was of dirty debris from rolling around. I don’t know what Jack’s plan was for getting her clean before they went into the house, but I left him outside running around with the dog. I watched them for a minute before heading up to his room. Matilda leapt happily over piles of leaves, and Jack charged after her, laughing and egging her on. He was dirty and his clothes were getting ruined, but he didn’t notice at all because he was having too much fun with his dog. It was weird how things like that could make me love him so much. My heart swelled at the sight of him, and I turned to go upstairs before I changed my mind about inviting him to go with me.

In the middle of a horrible dream about crocodiles chasing kittens, Jack came in and gave me a kiss. I stirred a little in bed and invited him to join, but he declined for reasons that remain a mystery. I’m sure he told me, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, I was asleep again, but thankfully, I managed to save all the kittens from the crocodiles. When I did finally wake up for good, I realized dourly that one of the things that Jack had said to me had been goodbye. Not “good night,” not “see you in the morning,” but

“goodbye,” which had way too much finality in it for my taste.

I dashed out of bed, hoping that it had all been some mutation of my dream about Jack, but I had no such luck. I raced downstairs to find the den, a.k.a. Jack’s current sleeping quarters, deserted, with all his blankets folded up neatly, and Jack never folded up blankets or made his bed. I thought about checking in with Mae, but I didn’t want to disturb her, even though I was certain she would know. That left me hurrying back upstairs to check with Peter on the off-chance he knew something, and by then, I had Matilda trailing after me, another sure fire sign that Jack was gone. Unfortunately, Peter was gone, too, but I wasn’t even sure if he’d come home yesterday or where he might’ve run off to.

In truth, I’d known Jack was gone the second I opened my eyes, and I didn’t him telling me goodbye while I was asleep to know that. I could always feel when he wasn’t around me, like the thread between us got pulled painfully thin. I couldn’t tell exactly where he was at or anything; I just knew that it wasn’t close by, and it left me feeling irritated and crabby.

Before knocking on my brother’s bedroom door, I listened carefully. After hearing what they had been up to yesterday, I wasn’t eager to walk in on them in the middle of something. From the sound of it, they were both in there, and Milo was still asleep. It wasn’t even six o’clock at night, and in vampire time, that’s pretty damn early. Usually, I’m not up before eight pm, ever.

“Milo?” I knocked cautiously, but still didn’t dare open the door. This was weird considering Milo and I usually just burst into each other rooms. We had never any reason for propriety before this Bobby character had come into our lives.

I was about to knock again when Bobby opened the bedroom door. He was wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, revealing his heavily tattooed upper torso. Something in Latin was scrawled across his chest, and there was ivy winding about just above his pubic area, not to mention about a million others that I didn’t have a chance to study. He hadn’t had a chance to flat iron his dark hair, so it stood up in a crazy mess, but he looked to have been awake for awhile.

“He’s still asleep,” Bobby whispered, then slowly crept out of the room, closing the bedroom quietly behind him so we wouldn’t disturb Milo. Matilda shoved her nose into his pants, sniffing him loudly and wagging her tail. Her white fur was fluffy and completely spotless, so Jack had time to get her cleaned up before disappearing. “Is there something I can help you with?”