My blood approves

“Oh.” That was all she said. She didn’t tell me that Jack was insane, as I had hoped and half-expected, or expound on it

“So its true?” I asked. The words came out even, but I knew there were hysterics hiding behind them.

“Your throat sounds dry.” Mae forced a smile and gently put her arm around me, but she did it like she was expecting me to push her away. I didn’t, but I knew that I probably should’ve. “Why don’t we go in the kitchen and get you some water and we’ll talk in there?”

“I’m already on it,” Jack informed us as she led me into the kitchen. “The paramedics said she’s probably gone into shock, so she’ll be really thirsty. They also said that she shouldn’t drink anything, in case she needs surgery, but she’s fine, and she’s not going to the hospital tonight.”

He had filled a giant glass with cold water and ice cubes from the Pür filter in the fridge. He handed it to me, but I stopped and opened the fridge first. Just as Milo had predicted, it was completely empty. I stared into it for a minute, then Jack prompted me to drink the water.

“Jack, I really wish you’ve waited for when Ezra was home, or Peter even.”

Mae told him quietly. I shut the fridge and greedily downed the water. The thirst had kicked in, like Jack had said, and I turned to look at them. Jack was shirtless, leaning against the island, and Mae was wringing her hands, but both of them were watching me.

“It couldn’t wait anymore,” Jack explained dully.

“I know, but Ezra and Peter know so much more.” Mae exchanged a nervous look with Jack, and then smiled at me again and pulled out a stool.

“Here, love, why don’t you sit down?”

“Where’s Ezra?” I got on the stool and decided to start with the simplest questions first, the ones that seemed sane and rational. Not like, so, do you guys wanna suck my blood? That was the kind of thing I definitely didn’t want to think about.

“He’s out looking for Peter,” Jack answered, and Mae looked over at him.

She was fidgeting with a wavy strand of her hair, and I knew that she desperately wanted to touch mine. I had still been holding my water glass, which was almost empty, and I set it on the island and sighed.

“So… you’re vampires?” I asked, feeling incredibly foolish. It sounded so stupid coming out of my mouth. This was a family of normal, healthy people, and there were no such things as vampires.

“Yes, love.” Mae smiled at me, and it had to be the saddest, most terrified smile I’d ever seen. They were waiting on edge, and I didn’t understand why.

They were the big powerful vampires, and I was just one small human girl. If anyone should be scared, it should be me.

“All of you?” I looked from Mae to Jack, who just nodded solemnly. “Then why did you say that it would be better if Ezra or Peter were here? Don’t you know just as much?”

“They’re older, much older,” Mae explained, and her strained expression started to relax a bit. “Jack is barely more than a fledgling.”

“Nobody calls them fledglings,” Jack grumbled, offended at her use of the term.

“How old are you?” I remembered the first time I had asked him that, when we were waiting in the booth at the diner, and the way he had laughed at the question. This time, he just answered me, carefully meeting my gaze.

“Well, um, I was twenty-four when I turned, and that was sixteen years ago. So I guess that makes me forty.”

“You don’t seem forty,” I pointed out and he laughed at that, which went a long way to alleviate the tension in the room.

“Vampires age differently, obviously.” Jack gestured to his bare chest, which did not look a day over twenty-four.

“Physically, we don’t age much at all,” Mae elaborated. “Emotionally we mature in a much different rate. When you first turn, you’ll almost regress emotionally. Everything changes so much. Ezra knows more about the exact reasoning of everything, but from my own experience, it’s very much like being a teenager all over again. Jack’s personality is closer to that of someone in their teens than of one in their twenties.”

“Thanks,” Jack smirked.

“Part of that has to do with Jack’s personality,” Mae smiled at him. “But part of it is his age. And since our minds always stay sharp, we don’t ever really get old. We learn from our experiences and we mature, but not the same way people do. Jack will never really act like a man in his forties, no matter how old he gets.”

“I probably have a Peter Pan complex anyway,” Jack shrugged.

In retrospect, a lot of what he did made sense when I thought of him as being more about Milo’s age. Well, my age actually, which is why it never seemed creepy that he was hanging out with me, even though he was older. He never acted older. He was, after all, at my maturity level.

“How old are you?” I turned to Mae.

“I was twenty-eight when I turned, and that was… wow, that was fifty-two years ago.” She looked a little surprised herself, as if she hadn’t thought about in awhile, and then smiled at me. “So, I’m eighty. Wow. Well, that’s not as bad as Peter or Ezra.”