Flutter (12 page)

Jack noticed my discomfort and rubbed my
back, but I pulled away from him. The heat of the moment faded, and
I hated knowing how close I had come to hurting him just because it
felt good. He sighed and turned to my brother.

“
So, what exactly did you
want?”

“
We came home to tell you
something, but then I heard you guys,” Milo wrinkled his nose in
disgust, and Bobby made a nervous giggle. He chewed at his black
nail polish, and when he caught me glaring at him, he cowered more
behind Milo.

“
So what’s this big news?” I
asked, sounding bored.

“
Jane was at
V
, and she’s a blood
whore,” Milo said.

“
A blood whore?” I
asked.

“
It’s like a whore, but with
blood instead of sex, and usually there’s no monetary exchange,”
Milo explained.

“
Well, if there’s no money,
than what is she getting for it?” I asked. Milo lowered his eyes,
but I didn’t understand. It was actually incredibly obvious, but I
was still under the fog of my lust for Jack.

“
They get hooked on the
feeling they get from having vampires drink their blood,” Jack said
carefully. He’d never liked my former best friend Jane, but he
wasn’t eager for bad things to happen to her, and he knew that I
still cared about her.

Milo became shifty and uncomfortable. A few
months ago, he’d been wounded protecting Jane and me from vampires,
and he’d been forced to drink her blood to compensate for a blood
loss. Well, he hadn’t really been forced. He just hadn’t resisted,
and it was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. He had
been like a wild animal, and she moaned with pleasure. So if Jane
was addicted to being bitten, Milo had gotten her addicted.

“
Milo-” I was about to tell
him that it wasn’t his fault, but Bobby put his hand on Milo’s
back, comforting him. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Wait. Is that
what you are?”

“
No, of course not!” Bobby
protested quickly.

“
Alice!” Milo
yelled.

“
What?” I asked. “That’s not
an unfair judgment to come to, especially after whatever it was you
two were doing earlier.” Bobby’s olive skin burned red with shame,
but Milo just glared at me.

“
That’s a horrible thing to
say to him,” Milo said.

“
Imagine how you would feel
if someone had called you a bloodwhore,” Jack looked at me with
something veiled in his eyes. It made me think that somebody had
probably called me a bloodwhore, and I wondered if that somebody
had just been rescued from Finland.

“
Sorry,” I said without
looking at Bobby. “I’m just looking out for Milo’s best
interests.”

“
Whatever,” Milo said, but
he didn’t sound as angry as he had before. “Just get dressed. I’m
not a big fan of talking to you when you’re naked.”

Milo put his hand on Bobby’s back and ushered
him out of the room. He gave us a warning glare before closing the
door behind him. Jack and I just sat in silence for a minute,
letting the weight of what we had almost done and the news about
Jane settle in.

“
So what exactly does being
a bloodwhore entail?” I asked. I pulled my shirt back on, and I
watched sadly as Jack did the same. “I understand the basic
concept, but like… I don’t know. How does it work?” Running my
fingers through my hair to smooth out the tangles, I thought of
something that made my stomach twist. “I mean… you’ve had
bloodwhores before, haven’t you?”

“
Most vampires try it once
or twice at least,” he replied evasively. He got out of bed and
readjusted his clothing, purposely avoiding looking at me. “It’s
fairly common.”

The word “whore” made me the
most uncomfortable. And I knew how amazing it felt when Jack drank
my blood, how I could feel him, and how he could feel
everything
I felt. It was
the most intimate act on earth, and he casually did it with random
whores he picked up at a bar. I swallowed hard and refused to think
about it.

“
Alright.” I remembered that
I had to take it all in stride when dating a vampire. “So how do
you go about that? You just… what?”

“
Bloodwhores usually hang
around the club. They know what the scene is.” He began pacing the
room, pretending to do things like readjust a picture on the wall
or move something on the night stand. “You can just go there and
find a girl. Or a guy. Whatever you’re into. Then you, y’know, bite
them. When it’s done, you go on your way, and they sleep it
off.”

“
So how would Jane find out
about a place like
V
?” I asked.

“
If she hung around downtown
long enough, and she knows what to look for in a vampire, it’s only
a matter of time.” He fixed a piece of tape on his
Purple Rain
poster and
looked back at me. “It’s like it is with any other
drug.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I asked.

“
Bloodwhores are addicted,”
Jack said. “Letting a vampire bite you is pretty dangerous, but
it’s not the worst thing you can do. And they’ll crave it more and
more. There’s only so much blood loss the human body can
take.”

As soon as Milo had mentioned that Jane had
gotten involved with vampires, I hadn’t been thrilled by the idea.
But I had gotten so used to Jane being reckless and her name
associated with being a whore that I hadn’t thought much of it. If
Jack was showing even an ounce of concern for her, it meant things
were pretty bad off, and he was looking very gravely at me.

“
You’re saying that Jane
could actually die?” I sat up straighter in bed, and my mouth
suddenly felt very dry.

“
No. I’m saying that… unless
she gets out of that lifestyle, she
will
die,” he said
quietly.

Time seemed to stop. It wasn’t until somebody
threatened to take her away that I realized how much she meant to
me. Jane was vain, self-absorbed, and a bitch most of the time, but
underneath that, she had always been my friend. No matter who was
at a party or what they thought of me, Jane always brought me
along, and most of the time, she stood up for me. When vampires
attacked us a few months ago, she saved my life.

Jane just never believed that she was more
than a pretty face. And even through all the things she did, she
had been my best friend since I was seven years old, and she’d been
there for me as much as she was capable.

Now she was in serious trouble, and it was
all because of me.

“
We have to go get her,” I
said.

I jumped off the bed, scrambling to pull on
my jeans as I did. Panic started taking over, and I flew around the
room. Grabbing my shoes and my brush and a sweater and thinking
that I had to do something to my hair before we went to a club or
Jane wouldn’t even speak to me… and then Jack grabbed my wrist.

“
Alice. Slow down,” Jack
said. “She’s not dying right now.”

“
You don’t know
that!”

“
I’m pretty sure if she was
in immediate danger, Milo wouldn’t have left her there,” he pointed
out.

“
Maybe.” My heart slowed a
bit. “But we still have to go get her.”

“
I agree, but you need to
take a minute to calm down. We’re going to a vampire club, for the
first time since you turned, and it would be helpful if you were in
control of yourself.” Jack smiled wryly.

“
Okay,” I nodded and looked
down at myself. The casual jeans and top combo I was going for
would never work at a club, or at least Jane would say it didn’t.
If we were going there, I might as well fit in. “I’m gonna go get
ready. Why don’t you let Milo know, and we can get out of
here?”

“
Sounds good.” He kissed me
gently on the lips, sending tingles through me so much that I
almost forgot about Jane. “Everything will be okay.”

I smiled like I believed him, and I went into
the closet to look for something to wear. What exactly did one wear
when going to rescue their former best friend from an underground
vampire club?

- 13 –

Milo and Bobby took the Jetta down to the
club because Jack called dibs on the Lamborghini. Jack was a
notoriously speedy driver, but the trip downtown had never seemed
so long.

Since it was after two in
the morning, most of the clubs and bars had cleared out, and he
found a parking spot a block away from
V
. Milo pulled up behind us a minute
later, meaning he had sped as well. I considered launching into a
speech about the importance of driving safely, but then I saw a
vampire walking towards us.

After becoming a vampire, other vampires are
a lot easier to spot. A vampire’s heart beats much slower and much
quieter than a human could and still walk around.

The one walking towards us was tall and
slender and pale, reminding me of the way Tim Burton would design a
vampire. The human girl at his side looked even shorter and
chubbier in comparison to him. Her skin had a blotchy ashen quality
to it, a symptom I associated with recent blood loss, and her eyes
were glassy with overly dilated pupils.

Her Tim Burton companion led her along
carefully to keep her from stumbling or simply passing out right
there, and while he smiled, there was an offhand way that he
treated her. Like he was leading a cow to the slaughter.

I shivered involuntarily, and she smiled
dazedly at me, her pudgy cheeks dimpling. She couldn’t be more than
sixteen herself, if that, and I wanted to steal her away from him.
He wouldn’t be eager to part with her, though, and even if I could
get her away, she wouldn’t appreciate it.

Besides that, the horrible
truth of it was that this was the way of life.
My
way of life. Vampires are going to
drink from people, and at least this way they’re both willing
participants. This is probably the best I can hope for.

“
Come on,” Jack said,
putting his hand on my back. He saw me watching after them, and
while he empathized with her, he knew there was nothing we could
do. “We should get going.”

“
Yeah, come on. Before Jane
leaves,” Milo agreed. He held Bobby’s hand and walked ahead of
us.

Milo turned off Hennepin Ave onto a darkened
street. The nearest streetlamps had gone out, and I suspected that
was a constant occurrence. Vampires liked night as dark as it could
be, which was why the doorway of the club was hidden on the darkest
street in Minneapolis.

Bobby held onto Milo more tightly, probably
because he couldn’t see where he was going and didn’t want to trip
over anything. Jack and I followed directly behind them, and Milo
glanced back at us before opening a nondescript door.

The bouncers stood inside the door. They were
two massive vampires, and they barely looked at any of us, but they
sniffed at Bobby. We squeezed in between to them to the narrow hall
lit by a single red bulb.

At the end of the hall, a steep set of cement
stairs led down into black nothingness. The only light came from
the red one upstairs. It was more than enough for me to see the way
down, but Bobby went down slowly and carefully, and Milo kept his
hand on him to catch him if he fell.

As soon as we had opened the doors upstairs,
I had been able to hear the faint sound of the music, but I’m sure
that Bobby was just starting to hear it when we hit the landing.
The hall went on forever, but we stopped at a pair of massive
doors.

Milo pulled them open, bathing us with a blue
light that was almost blinding after the darkness of the hall. To
all the people dancing inside, it seemed dim and reasonable for a
club, but it was different for vampires.

A long, metallic bar ran along the far side
of the room, and bottles lined the back wall, full of alcoholic
drinks for the humans. Several very attractive vampires stood
behind it, bartending. The stools in front of it were full, and a
line of people were waiting to get drinks.

The ceilings of the room were amazingly high
for a basement. Electronica filled my ears, blotting out any sound
of heartbeats, which was a relief. Nothing could be done for the
smell. At least five-hundred people were smashed onto the floor,
dancing wildly. And they all smelled deliciously of blood and
sweat. Jack squeezed my hand tightly, drawing me back to him before
bloodlust hit me.

The dancers were a mixture of vampire perfection and
people, but the bouncers sifted through the humans to make sure
only the more attractive specimens made it down here. Every one of
them was beautiful and delectable. For Bobby’s part, he seemed just
as entranced by the vampires. I wanted to be angry with him for it,
but they were still captivating to me.

“She’s probably in the other room,” Milo leaned in
closer to us. He didn’t raise his voice at all, but I could hear
him above the echo of the club.

Wrapping his arm around Bobby’s waist, Milo waded
through the crowd. Jack looked down at me, checking to make sure I
could handle crossing the floor. It required me to push up against
lots of people, to physically be able to feel their rapid pulses
beating against me, but I had to learn willpower sometime.
Swallowing, I nodded and gripped his hand, and we followed
Milo.

Everyone was hot from dancing, and I could feel it
radiating from them. Jack pushed headily through, purposely being
rough to get them out of the way. He wasn’t a threatening person,
but he was strong, and they parted for us. It was still a fight to
keep back my thirst. I had no idea how Milo had been able to handle
himself so well after he first turned.