“I don’t know. Honestly, it’s hard to remember. When I try to think about it, I just remember being in his room and feeling this incredible pull towards him and this… yearning.”

I tried hard to focus on what had sent me in a tailspin, but it felt so foggy. I could remember Peter’s eyes and the way he smelled and wanting him so much it hurt. My heart raced, throbbing painfully, and I had gotten short of breath.

“Stop, Alice,” Jack whimpered, and he was in total agony. His blue eyes had gone almost translucent, and they had that hungry look that was very reminiscent of the one that Peter had given me last night.

“Stop what?” I asked breathlessly. He groaned and looked away from me, and I was about press him further, but then the Jeep started skidding horribly across the road.

“Ah, hell.” Jack gripped the wheel and tried to correct it, but I felt it start to tilt to the side, and he gave me a frantic look.

Before I could really understand what was happening, he lunged at me, wrapping his arms tightly around me and pressing me against him. I closed my eyes and buried my face in his chest, and I felt his body curl protectively around me.

There was the sensation of moving and I felt cold wind whip through my hair. The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass and this sickening thud filled my ears, but I could barely hear anything over the pounding of my heart.

I finally felt Jack’s arm relax around me, and I lifted my head, looking at him in the face. He was worried and scared, but there was still that underlying hunger.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, pushing the hair from eyes to inspect for wounds.

“I think so,” I nodded. I felt dazed and scared, but nothing really hurt.

“Good. Then I need you to get away from me for a minute,” Jack said, not unkindly.

I hurried to do as he asked, pushing myself off him and standing up. He jumped up and took several steps back from me.

For the first time, I looked around. We were on the shoulder of the highway, and there were bits of broken glass and metal all over the road. Another car had been crushed against the cement divider in the middle, and there was an SUV farther down that looked like it had some minor damage. Headlights of stopped cars blinded me.

At first, I couldn’t figure out where the Jeep was, and then I saw it. About thirty feet back from us, the crushed remnants of Jeep were engulfed in flames.

I gasped, realizing that if Jack hadn’t grabbed me, I either would’ve stayed in that car to get smashed and burned up, or I would’ve been thrown from the Jeep going well over a hundred miles an hour and landed on the pavement.

“Are you okay?” I looked back at him.

Jack had taken the brunt force of everything, and if he hadn’t, I would’ve been killed. My body was much more fragile than his, but he had to have sustained some wounds.

“Yeah, I’m great.” He tried to compose himself and looked at the carnage around us.

There appeared to be some cuts on his arm, and when he turned away, I saw the back of his shirt was shredded and covered in blood. When he’d hit the road, he must’ve landed on his back and skidded for awhile.

“You’re covered in blood!” I shouted and took a step closer to him, trying to inspect his wounds, but he just waved me off.

I remembered the dog bite, and how the major wounds had looked so minor. I wasn’t really worried about this, but he had just been thrown from the car.

“I’m fine.” He held his arm out for me to see. A thick line of blood ran from where a gash should be, but there wasn’t one. There wasn’t even a mark.

“What about your back?” I asked, but he shook his head.

“It tingles. It’ll be fine in a minute.” All the skin and the muscles should’ve been ripped from his back, but it would be fine in a minute.

“You saved my life. Again.” I wrapped my arms tightly around myself.

The adrenaline, confusion, and Peter’s sedative all mixed through me, on top of Jack’s apprehension and fading hunger. I was on the verge of hysterics.

“Well, this time, I almost killed you too. So… it kinda evens out.” Jack meant he’d almost killed me by crashing the Jeep, but I could still feel his hunger. I remembered that ominous conversation he’d had with Ezra about how this all wouldn’t last much longer.

“Why do you keep saving my life?” My voice trembled, and hot tears slid down my cheeks. Jack looked at me like he didn’t understand what I meant, but I went on talking, and the more I talked, the harder I cried. “I just don’t get it! Why do you keep saving me if you’re just going to kill me? Why don’t you just hurry up and get it over with already? Is this some kind of sick game for you? Do you always have to play with your food before you eat it?”

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened with shock and hurt.

“Do you know…” Jack trailed off, trying to get a handle on what I meant. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“Then what’s going on?” I was almost shrieking by then. “What the hell are you and what do you want with me?”

“Alice, we’re vampires.”

Jack gave me an even look, and I almost burst out laughing, but then I realized that he was completely serious. I lapsed into a stunned silence, which was just as well, because suddenly there was the wailing sirens and flashing lights of the police and ambulance.

- 13 -

The paramedics thought that I was in shock, and if I had been able to speak, I probably would’ve agreed. They couldn’t explain how either of us were alive, or where the blood all over Jack’s body had come from. They wanted to put us in an ambulance and send us downtown, but since Jack wouldn’t pass any kind of medical test, he fought them until they finally relented.

He allowed them to check me over, but when they said I was fine, except for the shock, he demanded a ride home in a police car.

He sat next to me in the backseat, and while he whispered my name several times, I never responded. I just stared out the window and tried to make sense of his confession.

Some things fit. Like his superhuman strength, his miraculous ability to heal, the way he never ate or drank anything, and I’d only ever seen him at night.

But they were all tan (except for Mae, but she was British), and I’d actually heard Jack’s heartbeat last night. He didn’t have fangs, and he hadn’t eaten me.