Аманда Хокинг - Flutter

“She’s never turned anyone before, and she’s afraid to, especially with a child so young. She thinks she’ll do it wrong somehow, even though there is no real wrong way.” He had picked up most of the large pieces of glass, everything that we could get without a broom, so he stood up and tossed the broken bits into the fireplace. It didn’t seem like the best place to me, but since I had done it, I followed suit and threw what I had picked up into the fireplace.

“So is she going to do it if you don’t?” I asked.

“I honestly don’t know.” Ezra put his hands in his pockets, staring down at the ground. His normal booming voice had never sounded quite so defeated before. “She wasn’t really asking my permission, either.

She just knows my stand on it. If she turns the child, I will not be her. I won’t go through that heart ache with her. Neither of them would survive it, not for long. Child vampires never do.”

“What do you mean?” I pressed. The youngest vampire I had met had been Violet, and she was fourteen. I couldn’t imagine what one would be like younger than that. Would they look older too, the way that Milo and Violet both looked about nineteen?

“They go insane, or they’re killed,” Ezra said simply. “They learn, but can’t mature. They get old, but can’t grow. They get impulses they can’t control. They’re volatile and strong and never really understand the consequences of their actions. Other vampires don’t like having them around, and they don’t like being alive.

It never ends well.” He ran a hand through this blond hair and breathed in deeply. “And if Mae were to change her, to get even more attached to the child than she already was, she would either die trying to protect her, or kill herself after the child died. And I have no interest in being a part of that.”

“And Mae doesn’t see that?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. She was too blinded by her love for her family to see any rational thought. Her only concern was keeping the girl around for another day, at any cost.

“No.” He gave me a sad smile. “She mistakenly believes that I can do anything. But I can’t this time.”

His expression was far away. “I cannot save the child. There is only one type of death versus another. The child will suffer, and then die, either way. But Mae cannot accept that.”

“Are you going to go talk to her? Maybe you can help her accept this. I mean, she’s just going through the seven stages of grief, and it sounds like she’s at bargaining,” I said hopefully.

“Maybe, but unfortunately, she actually has something to bargain with. Most people have no other recourse, but Mae does. Would anyone really move past bargaining if God would actually talk to them and listen to their pleas?”

“Did you just compare yourself to God?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Accidentally,” Ezra admitted, looking disgusted at his own choice of words. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.

But at any rate, I don’t think I have to say can help Mae through this.” He sighed heavily.

“But… my clothes are in the room, and I should probably get dressed.”

“Are you two going to split up?” I was surprised how nervous I sounded, but really, they were the only stable couple I had ever met. And if they split up, what hope did the rest of us have?

“I will stay with her as long as she’ll have me, and as long as she doesn’t turn the child,” Ezra said, but that was the kind of answer people gave when they weren’t ready to tell the kids they were breaking up. I was starting to think that maybe it was only a matter of time before things ended between them, and that was terrifying. I loved them both, and I couldn’t imagine a life where they weren’t both in it. I wasn’t ready for that at all.

Ezra went down to his room to try and calm Mae, and get ready for the day. For someone who was completely obsessed with the idea of family, I couldn’t believe how rigid he was being with Mae. He was right about not turning her granddaughter, I’m sure, but he was inflexible when talking to her. He had been willing to die to save Peter, but he wouldn’t allow the same irrational passion in her. Maybe it was because this was his way of protecting the family. If she did this, it would certainly devastate everything around her, himself included. I don’t know what would happen to our family unit. If we would split up between them, like children of divorce, or… I don’t know.

It was strange, because even though I knew I was going to live a very long time, I had somehow had expected that everything would stay the same forever. Mae had told me that they would move in a few years, but I couldn’t imagine living anywhere but this house, with all of them, even Peter. Ezra had once told me that everyone I know would die, and that I would outlast everything. But I had never believed that I would outlast this family.

When Milo and Jack finally came back from their blood run, I reluctantly told them about the fight. I felt like it wasn’t my place to let on what was going on, but at the same time, they knew something was up and I was horrible at keeping secrets. Milo went down to try to talk some sense into Mae, and we let him. Jack still invited Peter to watch a movie with us, but after all the drama of the morning, we decided to watch something lighter than an epic British mini-series. So we went with the opposite, and put in Futurama.

I curled up on the couch next to Jack, and Peter sat it in a chair on the other side of the room. Bobby came down to join us a little while later, which was good, because it helped alleviate some of the tension in the room. Jack and Peter were making an attempt to get along, but there was still animosity in the air.

Mae came out of her room, saying she couldn’t take it here anymore, and she stormed out to her car.

Milo chased after her and went with her, but I think that was mostly to prevent her from doing anything stupid, like going to see an ill relative perhaps. Ezra moped about the house of the rest of the night. He didn’t say much to any of us, and he wouldn’t join us in doing anything, even when we suggested playing Monopoly.

When I decided to turn in for the night, I really wanted to invite Jack to stay in his room with me. Not even in a naughty way or anything like that. The fight between Mae and Ezra had left me feeling shaken up, and I just wanted to hang onto something that I knew would be around forever. But Peter was lingering around us, giving me a weird look, and I didn’t feel right about asking him. I think Jack noticed Peter’s bizarre behavior because he insisted on walking me up to my room and stayed at the door until he was sure that Peter was safely in his own room. Then he kissed me, just bit long than would be polite in public, and returned down to his couch bed in the den. The one thing I could say for Jack was that he always left me wanting more, and my heart raced dizzily when I went to bed.

Jack tried waking me up bright and early the next morning, but I wanted to sleep in for a change. He decided to take Matilda to the dog park for awhile, which was just as well, because I didn’t feel comfortable going there anymore after Jack had fought a rabid dog there last spring. The joke was on me, though. After he left, I couldn’t fall back to sleep, but I blamed that entirely on how hungry I was.

It had been a dull ache growing in the pit of my stomach since yesterday. When we had been watching TV with Bobby, I kept finding myself more fascinated by the watching the pulse pounding in his jugular than in the images on the screen. Now it was even worse. There was a dryness in my veins and my throat. My limbs felt crackly when I moved them, and even though I felt kind of jittery and twitchy, I was slow moving. All my energy was fading away, but I felt strangely frenetic. I was avoiding eating as much as possible, to gain control and all that. I knew I was going to have to soon, but for now, I decided that my best bet would be to just avoid Bobby until I absolutely had to eat.