“You’re right. I cannot make this choice for you, but I will not tolerate it, either. You can do whatever you like, but you will not be allowed in my house with that abomination,” Ezra said coolly.

“Abomination?” Her voice cracked. “We are the abomination! She is merely a child, and I want to save her!”

“You cannot save her, Mae! You can only turn her into a monster!”

“Like we’re monsters?” Mae brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes and looked down at the floor. “Maybe we are, and maybe she would be too, but she would have a life. And it wouldn’t be a bad life. She could have everything that we have to offer.”

“We have nothing to offer her,” he said.

“How can you say that?” Mae gaped at him, then she looked at me with hate for the first time, and I flinched. “Is it because of her? Because of Alice? She gets everything you have to offer? You let Jack turn her and gave him no repercussions, even though you had just turned her brother. For her.

“She is not the only thing in this life that needs you, Ezra! In fact, I don’t think she even needs you! You aren’t that indispensable to her!” Her lips quivered, and she glared at him. “You aren’t that indispensable to me either!”

“If I’m some kind of burden, I can leave. I don’t want to cause any problems between you two,” I said quietly. I hadn’t completely figured out what their fight was about yet, but I certainly didn’t want to be the source of it.

“You’re not a burden,” Ezra said, looking apologetically at me. “Don’t worry yourself with this. You can go up to your room.”

“What if she moves out?” Mae latched onto an idea, and her entire demeanor changed. She took a few quick steps closer to Ezra, deftly missing all of the broken glass on the floor. “She and Jack could move out. He can take care of her, and Milo is already self-sufficient. Peter is gone most of the time anyway. We have the room, and we have the time.”

“Alice and Milo are not ready to be on their own like that,” Ezra said. “And it isn’t about them! You keep trying to solve something that isn’t the problem. Even if everyone moved out, and it was just the two of us, I would still say no. This cannot be done, Mae, no matter what anybody else does or doesn’t do.”

“There has to be something!” She knelt on the ground at his feet. She was literally begging him, and when she took his hand, he didn’t pull away, but he wouldn’t look directly at her. “Ezra! Please! I have never asked you for anything like this before!”

“You’ve asked me for plenty like this before, and I have indulged you too much,” he sighed. “But I cannot do this. I won’t.”

Mae let go of his hand and sat back on her heels. Closing her eyes, she rubbed at her forehead, and I knew she was trying to think of something.

“What if she wanted it?” Mae looked up at him, but she was talking about me. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the way she talked about me like I wasn’t standing right here.

“I don’t know why you have this idea that I have some special relationship with Alice.” He sounded tired by the idea, but he wouldn’t look at me.

“Because you turned her brother for her! I know you were against adding more vampires, but you did that for her anyway!”

“Yes, and I did the same with Jack, for you.” Ezra looked severely at Mae. Her face darkened with shame, and she looked down at the floor.

I had no idea what Ezra was talking about. From what I knew, Peter had turned Jack in order to save his life. The story that I heard from everyone never made any mention of Mae or Ezra at all. It had been an act of compassion, and for some reason, that made Mae squirm.

“That was different,” Mae said quietly.

“Yes, it was. Because Alice actually cared for her brother. He wasn’t just some random kid.” Ezra looked off at the wall behind her. “And Milo’s young, but he is not a child.”

“She is innocent! She deserves a life!” Mae twisted a tissue in her hands and turned to look at me, pleading with me. “Alice, tell him! I don’t care what he says! He’ll listen to you! If you tell him that he needs to do this, he will!”

“I-I don’t really know what you’re talking about.” I turned to Ezra for help, but he just looked grimly at me. “I can’t tell him anything if I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“My great-granddaughter Daisy,” Mae said, silent tears sliding down her face. “She is only five years old, and she’s going to die. She hasn’t had a chance to live her life yet. But if we turn her, she can live forever. She can do anything!”

“Except grow up,” Ezra reminded her. “She can never fall in love or get married. She’ll never be able to live on her own or drive a car or even go to a bar. She’ll depend on you for everything, forever, and that may delight you, but she’ll hate you for cursing her to this life.

“Other vampires will never accept her, or you, for it,” he went on. “They’ll try to kill her because she’s an abomination against everything we are. And that says nothing to our more perverse underbelly, who thrive on making childlike vampires to live as their slaves or to trade with human pedophiles in exchange for blood. Is that really the kind of life you want for her? Do you think that’s what her hopes and dreams amount to?”

“It won’t be like that,” Mae insisted. “We will protect her and love her, and she’ll have everything a child could ever want.”

“But she won’t really be a child forever! She’ll be a woman trapped in a child’s body with a child’s temperament for all of eternity. That is a horrible thing to do to someone you claim to love so much,” he said.

“You don’t understand!” Mae looked desperately at him, and he met her eyes. “I cannot let this happen! I swore I would never watch another one of my children die!” He exhaled deeply and matched her intense expression with a calm one of his own.

“Then don’t watch,” Ezra said.

“Ezra!” I shouted, unable to believe that he would say something that cold to Mae.

“I know she is hurting, but I can’t do this!” His collected façade evaporated for a moment, and he was merely exasperated and worried. Mae had gone back to looking at the floor and crying, and for a brief second, he looked completely lost. “There is nothing I can do to rectify this situation.”