Flutter

Peter vanished after my conversation with him, but I was grateful for it. I couldn’t handle anymore run-ins with him, especially with Jack around. Milo, Jane, and I camped out in the living room watching bad chick flicks until Jack and Bobby made us stop.

When I had a moment alone with Jack, I asked him how the apartment hunting went, and he hadn’t found anything exciting yet, although he had some promising ones to look at tomorrow. He told me to cross my fingers about them, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

Jane never mentioned her fight with Peter, but she was acting weird. All fidgety and twitchy. She complained of being hot and cold more than usual, and she added complaints that didn’t even really make sense. Like the fabric on the couch was too rough for her skin, or that the air in our house was making her itchy.

Her mood swings were intense, too. One minute she’d be laughing, and then next she was threatening to smother Bobby with a pillow.

Bobby had put Sid & Nancy on the TV in the living room, because he claimed it was a love story that we could all relate too. I think Gary Oldman is a fox in it, so I didn’t protest. I curled up next to Jack on the couch to watch it.

Milo laid a blanket down on the floor, and Matilda tried to take it over, but Jack convinced her to lay by his feet instead. Since Milo wasn’t that interested in the film, he laid out long ways on the blanket, and Bobby rested his head on Milo’s stomach, facing the TV.

Jane sprawled on the chaise lounge, with her current lament being that bracelets were too confining. Mae didn’t want anything to do with the movie, so she opted for a bubble bath instead.

“Are all the doors locked?” Ezra appeared in the living room. He didn’t seem anxious, but something wasn’t quite right.

“Uh, I don’t know?” Jack shrugged looking at him. “Do we ever even lock the doors?”

“You have to lock the doors!” Jane yelled, sounding tremendously worried. “People will steal your stuff!” Our stuff must really have meant a lot to her.

“Maybe, but someone is always here, and we’re vampires, so…” Jack trailed off.

“I locked the French doors after I let Matilda out,” Milo said.

“Why? They’re glass. Anything that really wants to get in can get through them,” Bobby pointed out.

“Regardless, I want you all to start locking everything,” Ezra said.

“Alright. Don’t we have an alarm or something?” Jack asked. “You had one put in when you built the place, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” Ezra nodded and scratched his head. “I turned it off immediately after we moved in, and I can’t remember the codes. I’ll have to reset it and give everyone new numbers.”

“That seems like a lot of trouble to go through.” Jack had his arm around me, and it tensed. “Did something happen? What’s going on?”

“No, it’s probably nothing.” Ezra shook his head. “There’s just been a string of robberies in the neighborhood.” I don’t know how I knew, but he was lying.

“Oh my god,” Jane gasped and put her hands to her mouth.

“We’re still vampires,” Jack gestured to himself, me, and Milo. “I’m pretty sure that we could take whoever broke in here.”

Jane was over-the-top terrified, but Bobby didn’t look concerned at all. When you’re human, vampires seem extra invincible. But as a vampire, I knew that I wasn’t anywhere as strong or amazing as everyone else.

“It’s always better safe than sorry.” Ezra nodded, as if that settled that. “I’m going to go look for the alarm manual, and I’ll get back to you when I have codes.”

“Alright.” Jack gave me a weird look, and he was as skeptical about Ezra’s intentions as I was.

“I don’t how you guys can just sit here!” Jane got to her feet after Ezra left the room.

“Jane, relax. Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Milo tried to reassure her.

“No! I don’t mean that! It’s just so boring here!” She pulled at one of the bangle bracelets she had taken from me, and her eyes darted all around the room. “You just sit here all the time!”

“Jane, its four in the morning. What do you suggest we do?” Jack asked her honestly.

“And we don’t sit around here all the time,” Bobby said. “I went to school, Jack went out, Milo goes places too, I’m sure. But you’re not because you’re still not feeling well.”

“I’m feeling fine!” Jane stomped her foot and tried to take off the bracelets. “If it weren’t for these damn bracelets! They’re like handcuffs!”

“Jane! Just calm down and watch the movie,” I said. “We’ll go somewhere tomorrow night. Okay? But right now, it’s too late. So just relax.”

“Whatever.” She managed to get off the bracelets and chucked them to the other side of the room, startling Matilda into barking.

“Is everything alright in there?” Ezra shouted from his den at the end of the hall.

“Seriously. What’s going on?” I looked at Jack. “Is there like a carbon monoxide leak? Everybody is being a total freak today.”

“I am not being a freak!” Jane protested, then collapsed heavily back onto the chaise lounge. “I’m fine. Let’s just watch the movie. I wanna see what happens to this Sid guy.”

Before the credits started to roll, Jane fell asleep, but she twitched a lot in her sleep. It was actually super creepy. We all watched with mild fascination until Mae came out of the bathroom and yelled at us for just staring at her. She carried Jane up to Peter’s room, and Mae came down because Ezra enlisted her on his search for the missing alarm manual. It was the first time they’d really interacted in awhile, and she seemed to bare a grudge about the whole thing.