“Alice,” Jack said sharply. He stood on the other side of the car beside the driver’s side door, and he looked at me from over the top of it. “Get in the backseat.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” Jack said firmly

“But that’s stupid!” I protested. “Just because Milo’s a vampire, he gets shotgun? That’s not fair. It doesn’t even make sense.”

“Just get in the back!” Milo snapped. I looked at him, and violence brewed in his eyes.

“This is bogus,” I grumbled but got in the backseat.

“This would be so much easier if you didn’t fight everything,” Jack said as he started the car.

“You really didn’t realize what you were getting into with her, did you?” Milo said.

I bit my tongue, but it wasn’t an easy feat. Who the hell did Milo think he was? I wanted to shout at him, but I couldn’t, because he would literally bite my head off if I did.

That was so unfair, too. He got away with being a random dick because he could kill me. Milo never would’ve talked to me like that before.

On the positive side, I didn’t feel so bad that I wouldn’t get to be around them as much anymore. In fact, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t even miss Milo at all. He’d probably growl at me if I touched the television remote or something.

I sulked through the car ride home. Jack had Dinosaur Jr. in the CD player, and that filled up the silence. Milo said a couple things that I couldn’t hear from the backseat, making me hate them all the more.

When we pulled up in front of the apartment building, I leapt out of the car. Jack grabbed my bags from the trunk, and he and Milo followed me inside.

We rode up the elevator in silence, and Milo tensed up. His jaw set, and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. I looked over at Jack to see if he noticed, but he kept his expression blank.

“Are you okay?” I asked Milo quietly outside our apartment door.

“Yeah,” he nodded, but he definitely looked pale.

“Maybe we should do this another time,” I suggested. I really wanted to get this over with, but not that the expense of my mother or my brother, even if he really pissed me off.

“No. Let’s do this.” Milo pulled the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

A light was on over the kitchen sink, but the rest of the apartment was dark. Milo still looked like Milo, but his drastic changes would be less noticeable in dim lighting.

A scratched Led Zeppelin record played softly in the living room, with Robert Plant crooning about when the levees break.

“Mom?” I said cautiously, following Milo inside.

“Oh, good, you’re finally here.” Mom burst out from her bedroom, a cigarette glowing in her hand, and her hair looked less frizzy than it usually did. Too-red lipstick stained her lips. “I don’t have much longer to wait.”

“You’re going somewhere?” I asked.

Milo deliberately moved into the shadows of the apartment, but I lingered in the light of the kitchen. Jack set my bag on the floor and hovered next to me, hoping to catch my mother’s attention.

She flitted about the living room, searching for something, so she hadn’t noticed him. The last time they met, Mom had swooned over him.

“Yes, yes, in a bit,” Mom waved me away and found what she’d been looking for – a tumbler of brandy. Taking a long drink, she turned back to look at us. She finally saw Jack and inhaled deeply. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had guests.”

“It’s good to see you, Miss Bonham,” Jack gave her a little half wave, and she placed her hand over her chest.

“You were at a vacation house, weren’t you?” Mom asked and sat down in a chair in the living room. Apparently, he made her too weak in the knees to stand anymore.

“Um, yeah,” Jack nodded, going along with the lie I had told her earlier.

“Did you do a lot of swimming?” Mom was undoubtedly picturing him in swim trunks, and I wanted to gag.

Milo made a strange sound, and Jack suddenly stepped forward, closer to him.

“We did tons of swimming. It was fantastic,” I blurted out. “But Mom, Milo really needs to talk to you. He, uh, has something major to tell you.”

“Oh?” Mom struggled to pull her gaze from Jack to Milo, but her eyes didn’t have to travel far. Jack moved even closer to Milo, and things were not going as well as everyone had promised they would.

“Yeah, it’s really great news,” Jack added in an attempt to sway her.

“Here.” Milo thrust his hand forward, holding out a crumpled letter. His voice had taken on an icy tone, and if Jack hadn’t been here to distract Mom, she wouldn’t have bought any of this.

“What are you shoving at me?” Mom made no attempt to get up and retrieve the letter from him.

“It’s a letter,” Jack said and pried the paper from Milo’s fingers. When he handed it to her, their fingers briefly touched, and Milo made that sound again.

“A letter?” Mom peered down at the paper once she had recovered from touching Jack. She tried to smooth it out, but the dim light and her poor eyesight made it almost impossible for her to read. “Well, what’s this about?” She looked back up at Milo. “Just spit it out.”

“I’ve been accepted to a boarding school in New York,” Milo answered stiffly. “Thanks to my grades, I’ve received a full scholarship. The semester starts in a week, and they want me to get there early. So I’m going to leave tomorrow.”

“What?” Mom looked confused. Milo was the good one, and she wasn’t used to him not making any sense. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” Milo said.

“That’s why we want to the vacation house,” Jack smiled too broadly. “As one last hoorah before he goes.”

“What?” Mom repeated. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me about this.”

“I was afraid you’d be angry about me leaving.” Milo didn’t sound afraid or apologetic, though. He sounded like a robot.

“Why would I be angry? All I’ve ever done is stress how important a good education is for you kids, so you don’t end up like me.” Mom softened and looked down at the letter, trying to read it in the darkness. “So you’re leaving tomorrow?”