“Yeah.”

“How are you getting there?” Mom asked.

“Plane. Jack bought the ticket for me.” Milo gestured towards him, and Jack smiled at her.

“Oh.” Mom swallowed and looked at me for the first time. “You knew about this?”

“Um, yeah,” I shrugged.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Mom snapped.

“No. I didn’t. Neither did Milo. But thanks for getting angry with me,” I said.

“Oh, never mind.” She glanced at the clock and downed the rest of her brandy. “I don’t really have time for this.” She stood up, brushing hair back from her forehead. “But you’re leaving tomorrow, right? So I’ll have a chance to say a proper goodbye to you then?”

“Yeah,” Milo lied. He was leaving tonight, and she wouldn’t realize it until it was too late. He’d leave a note explaining that the plane left before she woke up.

“Alright then.” Mom nodded once and put out her cigarette in the ashtray. She grabbed her oversized purse from the table and headed over to the shadows where Milo hid by the door.

“Have a good time tonight,” Jack interjected, putting himself between her and Milo. It was still too soon for Milo to handle her going in for a hug.

“Oh, I will.” Mom touched her hair, taken back by Jack’s interruption, and unable to figure out how to rectify it. She smiled at him, and then turned to me with her usual scowl. “You. We’ll talk later.”

After she walked out of the apartment, I tried not to think about how tremendously sad that was. That was the last time Milo was ever going to see his mother, and he couldn’t even hug her goodbye.

She hadn’t always been the greatest mom and spent most of her time anywhere but home, but she was still our mother. She deserved a better goodbye than that.

“Oh, hell,” Jack exhaled shakily once she had left, and I saw his whole body relax. “You’ve gotta get that under control.”

“I’m trying!” Milo insisted. “But it wasn’t my fault! You saw the way she was fawning all over you-” His voice turned into a low snarl, and Jack held up a hand to stop him.

“Yeah, I was there, but seriously.” Jack shook his head. “You can’t be like that!”

“Be like what?” I asked, confused. Milo was having issues with bloodlust, but I didn’t understand why it was solely directed at our mother.

“Nothing,” Milo said sheepishly.

“Go pack up the rest of your stuff.” Jack gestured to his room. “Let’s get out of here before you do something really stupid.”

“Sorry.” Milo slunk off to his room.

Once he was gone, I whirled on Jack, and whispered fiercely, “What was that about? What’s going on?”

“Remember how things were complicated before?” Jack asked, shooting a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Milo was out of earshot. “Well, they just got a whole lot worse.”

“What are you talking about?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Milo is jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Well…” He scratched the back of his head and sighed. “Everyone who interacts with me.”

“What?”

“Okay see… the thing is, vampires bond with whoever turns them,” Jack elaborated. “I told you about how close I was to Peter and Ezra because we shared the same blood. Well… since Milo drank my blood, we’re really bonded. And it’s different than it was with Peter because apparently, Milo had a crush on me before he turned. And with the bonding, that’s intensified.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” My arms had been crossed over my chest, but they fell to my side. “Holy hell. First your brother, now my brother. It’s like this whole thing is completely impossible.”

“No, it’s not like with Peter,” Jack shook his head. “Milo’s like a brother to me, and that’s all. And this is just new. My blood is still fresh, and he doesn’t have a handle on any of his emotions. This’ll fade. With time.”

“How much time?” I demanded.

“The thing is… there’s so much uncharted territory with you,” he tried to explain, but I laughed hollowly and shook my head.

“You don’t know. You don’t even know if it will fade. This is all assumptions!”

“Shh!” Jack looked nervously back at Milo’s room, but when he didn’t come out, he turned back to me. “No, the bond does fade. Okay? When I first turned, it was like hero worship with me and Peter.”

“That was sixteen years ago,” I said incredulously. “Do you really plan on waiting sixteen years for this?”

“It’ll stop sooner. I just can’t say the time frame, but I really don’t think it was that long with Peter and me.”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “Milo will stop. Peter will stop. Everything will stop. And one day, it’ll be happily ever after. But instead of things getting better, more stuff just keeps piling up on top of it.”

“You know what the problem is? You’re looking at this all with mortal eyes,” Jack decided. “You see time finitely, and that’s not the case. This will take time, but we have time.”

“No. You have time. Because the last time I checked-” I stopped and held my fingers to my throat. “Yep. That’s a pulse. That’s mortal blood in these veins, Jack. I’m not a damn vampire.”

“Yeah, now. But this is just temporary.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But right now, you’re whispering and standing like three feet away from me. Because if you weren’t, my brother might kill me, or your brother might kill you. And until that stops, you can’t really get any closer than you are now.”

Jack sighed and looked sadly at me. Milo came out of his room, and Jack dropped his eyes and took a step away from me.

Yeah, this was all going to work out perfectly. Jack was now afraid of my little brother. Everything was right on track.

“I’m all packed.” Milo had two duffle bags and a garbage bag of stuff in his hands.

“We should probably get going,” Jack said, taking a step towards the door. “You’ve had enough excitement for today.”