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bad.
    Going through security was very hard, but Ezra told me to just keep saying the alphabet backwards in
    my head. It didn’t necessarily soften the burning thirst inside of me, and even though I couldn’t help but keep
    my eyes locked on the throbbing pulse in the security guard’s neck, I didn’t bite him. So I counted that
    towards a success.
    Ezra gave me the window seat and buckled me in, which I think made both of us feel a little better. I
    closed my eyes tightly, and I tried not think of Jack. He was lurking painfully in my thoughts, and he only
    made my bloodlust increase. The whole situation felt very precarious, and I was starting to think that maybe I
    wasn’t ready for this trip.
    When the engines of the plane started revving up, Ezra leaned over and whispered, “This time, if the
    plane crashes, it’ll be in the water. The ocean’s full of sharks, and well, they can kill us. So you actually have
    something to be afraid of this time.”
    “Is that supposed to comfort me?” I asked through gritted teeth as a new fear started to take hold.
    “No, not at all. I wanted to scare the hell of out you so you’d stop thinking about… things.”
    Ezra
    squeezed my hand back, and that felt reassuring somehow. “But it’s still true. Sharks are brutal.”
    The instant we were free to move about, Ezra grabbed the duffle back full of blood from the overhead bin and led me back to the restrooms. We got a lot of weird looks from the other passengers and
    the flight crew, but nobody stopped us. I doubted that any humans ever stopped Ezra. He was too beautiful
    and confident and imposing.
    He didn’t even try to mask the fact that we were going into the bathroom together, and for some
    reason, I admired him for that. Ezra didn’t care at all what people thought about him as long as they didn’t
    think he was a vampire. There was hardly enough room in the bathroom for one person, let alone two, so he
    swiftly lifted me up and set me on the sink. Then he clunked the duffel bag on my lap and tore it open. When
    he pulled out a can, I imagined that I could smell it, and I actually started to shake with hunger, but he
    stopped to look at me.
    “You are so pale,” Ezra murmured more to himself than me. He pushed a strand of hair out off my
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    face and looked at me fully in the eyes, inspecting them for their level of hunger. “Hmmm.
    I’m going to give
    you two cans, okay?”
    “Yeah, whatever, fine,” I nodded quickly. I didn’t care at all what he said as long as I got the blood. It
    was so close and my body was going completely insane for it.
    “Put your hair back,” Ezra commanded.
    It didn’t make sense to me, but I did what he said. I had a hair tie around my wrist, and I pulled my
    hair up in a messy bun. He was eyeing me up still, trying to figure something out that I didn’t understand, and
    the cans of blood were in his hands. There was a bag full of cold sitting on my lap, and I bit my lip, hard.
    “This is gonna hit you hard, but I need you to walk back out to your seat, okay?” Ezra
    continued.
    “And you can pass out as soon as you sit down.”
    “Okay!” I snapped.
    He pursed his lips, but unscrewed the can. The small room was instantly full of the scent, and I
    practically ripped the can from his hands. A small drop splashed out onto my dark green sweater, but I
    doubted that anyone would notice. I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been so positively obsessed with it.
    Greedily, I guzzled it down. As soon as I felt the cold sliding down my throat, I felt an ease growing in
    my muscles. Even though it was very cold, it spread warm over my body. Before I had even finished the first
    can, Ezra had unscrewed the second one. He wanted me to get them down me as fast as
    possible, so we had a
    chance of me making it to the seat before I looked totally blitzed out.
    I drank them both, and Ezra shoved them back in the bag. I licked my lips clean, but he inspected me
    for any signs of his