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“I’m Laurent, these are Victoria and James.” He gestured to the vampires beside him.
“I’m Carlisle. This is my family, Emmett and Jasper, Rosalie, Esme and Alice, Edward and Bella.” He pointed us out in groups, deliberately not calling attention to individuals. I felt a shock when he said my name.
Three things seemed to happen simultaneously while Carlisle was speaking. My hair ruffled with the light breeze, Edward stiffened, and the second male, James, suddenly whipped his head around, scrutinizing me, his nostrils flaring.
A swift rigidity fell on all of them as James lurched one step forward into a crouch. Edward bared his teeth, crouching in defense, a feral snarl ripping from his throat. It was nothing like the playful sounds I’d heard from him this morning; it was the single most menacing thing I had ever heard, and chills ran from the crown of my head to the back of my heels.
“He’s a tracker, Alice, did you see that? He’s a tracker!” I felt Emmett stiffen next to me, and I wondered at his reaction to the word. It meant something more to the three of them than it did to me;
“Listen to me, Alice. I saw his mind. Tracking is his passion, his obsession—and he wants her, Alice—her, specifically. He begins the hunt tonight.”
“There’s another option,” Alice said quietly. Edward turned on her in fury, his voice a blistering snarl. “There—is—no—other—option!”
“I do like him—that’s the problem. I can’t do this anymore! I can’t put down any more roots here! I don’t want to end up trapped in this stupid, boring town like Mom! I’m not going to make the same dumb mistake she did. I hate it—I can’t stay here another minute!” His hand dropped from my arm like I’d electrocuted him. I turned away from his shocked, wounded face and headed for the door.
“Just let me go, Charlie.” I repeated my mother’s last words as she’d walked out this same door so many years ago. I said them as angrily as I could manage, and I threw the door open. “It didn’t work out, okay? I really, really hate Forks!”
“I didn’t realize you were still so bored with small-town life,” he said conversationally, and I knew he was trying to distract me. “It seemed like you were adjusting fairly well—especially recently. Maybe I was just flattering myself that I was making life more interesting for you.”
“I wasn’t being nice,” I confessed, ignoring his attempt at diversion, looking down at my knees. “That was the same thing my mom said when she left him. You could say I was hitting below the belt.”
You wouldn’t believe how euphoric he is now. It’s his favorite game, and we’ve just made it his most exciting game ever.”
“The only way to be sure is to tear him to shreds, and then burn the pieces.”
“You can’t bring him down. I’ve never seen anything like him in my three hundred years. He’s absolutely lethal. That’s why I joined his coven.”
“I’m intrigued by the life you’ve created here. But I won’t get in the middle of this. I bear none of you any enmity, but I won’t go up against James. I think I will head north—to that clan in Denali.”
“Don’t underestimate James. He’s got a brilliant mind and unparalleled senses. He’s every bit as comfortable in the human world as you seem to be, and he won’t come at you head on.… I’m sorry for what’s been unleashed here. Truly sorry.”
“I can feel what you’re feeling now—and you are worth it.”
“It’s been almost a century that Edward’s been alone. Now he’s found you. You can’t see the changes that we see, we who have been with him for so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?”
“Tell me then… how do you become a vampire?” My question caught her off guard. She was quiet. I rolled over to look at her, and her expression seemed ambivalent. “Edward doesn’t want me to tell you that,”
We’re also venomous,” she said, her teeth glistening. “The venom doesn’t kill—it’s merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us.
“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death.”
“I miss you,” I whispered. “I know, Bella. Believe me, I know. It’s like you’ve taken half my self away with you.” “Come and get it, then,” I challenged. “Soon, as soon as I possibly can. I will make you safe first.” His voice was hard. “I love you,” I reminded him. “Could you believe that, despite everything I’ve put you through, I love you, too?” “Yes, I can, actually.”
The answer was there all along, and I was so afraid Edward would see that and ruin my fun. It happened once, oh, ages ago. The one and only time my prey escaped me.
“You see, the vampire who was so stupidly fond of this little victim made the choice that your Edward was too weak to make. When the old one knew I was after his little friend, he stole her from the asylum where he worked—I never will understand the obsession some vampires seem to form with you humans—and as soon as he freed her he made her safe. She didn’t even seem to notice the pain, poor little creature. She’d been stuck in that black hole of a cell for so long. A hundred years earlier and she would have been burned at the stake for her visions. In the nineteen-twenties it was the asylum
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“Alice,” I breathed, astonished. “Yes, your little friend. I was surprised to see her in the clearing. So I guess her coven ought to be able to derive some comfort from this experience. I get you, but they get her...
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“Carlisle! Her hand!” “He bit her.” Carlisle’s voice was no longer calm, it was appalled.
“See if you can suck the venom back out. The wound is fairly clean.”
“It’s time to move her,” Carlisle said. “No, I want to sleep,” I complained. “You can sleep, sweetheart, I’ll carry you,”
“Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other hand…”
“You’re lucky Dr. Cullen was there. He’s such a nice man… very young, though. And he looks more like a model than a doctor.…”
“I want to live in Forks. I’m already settled in at school, and I have a couple of girlfriends”—
“I think that boy is in love with you,” she accused, keeping her voice low. “I think so, too,” I confided. “And how do you feel about him?”
“I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too, Bella. Try to be more careful when you walk, honey, I don’t want to lose you.”
“But you’d be stuck inside all day in Florida. You’d only be able to come out at night, just like a real vampire.”
“Why you did it. Why didn’t you just let the venom spread? By now I would be just like you.”
“I can’t always be Lois Lane,” I insisted. “I want to be Superman, too.”
“Bella, we’re not having this discussion anymore. I refuse to damn you to an eternity of night and that’s the end of it.” “If you think that’s the end, then you don’t know me very well,” I warned him. “You’re not the only vampire I know.”
“Alice already saw it, didn’t she?” I guessed. “That’s why the things she says upset you. She knows I’m going to be like you… someday.”
“You’re talking about forever, you know.” “Oh, you’ll get over it—it’s just a crush.”
Whenever I fidgeted or complained, she reminded me that she didn’t have any memories of being human, and asked me not to ruin her vicarious fun.
“I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of miscommunication, but Bella is unavailable tonight.”
“To be perfectly honest, she’ll be unavailable every night, as far as anyone besides myself is concerned. No offense. And I’m sorry about your evening.”
“You’re taking me to the prom!”
“When someone wants to kill you, you’re brave as a lion—and then when someone mentions dancing…”
“Twilight, again,” he murmured. “Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end.”
I want you to be human. I want your life to continue as it would have if I’d died in nineteen-eighteen like I should have.”
“for this to be the twilight of your life, though your life has barely started. You’re ready to give up everything.” “It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,”
“Is that what you dream about? Being a monster?” “Not exactly,” I said, frowning at his word choice. Monster, indeed. “Mostly I dream about being with you forever.”
“I will stay with you—isn’t that enough?” I smiled under his fingertips. “Enough for now.”
“Enough for forever.”
