AN: Hey. I've had this idea in mind for a long time, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's pure Bellice, and I mean pure. Bella and Alice will be the only two named characters in the entire story. No sub-pairings or anything like that. I have a theory about distilled romance I've always wanted to try out. Anyway, here's the first chapter. Bear in mind it's AU, so don't expect anyone to sparkle.
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A Vampire Named Alice
—
She came to me in a dream. Pale and pretty, her body young and nubile. Slight of waist, slender of shoulder, legs long and slim and white like pearl. Plump breasts shaped soft and succulent upon her tiny chest, topped with nipples that are pink and little like tulipbuds. The definition of her shoulderblades faintly visible in the milky expanse of her back, her spine gracefully curved, her hips round and small and her buttocks peachshaped and softly firm like ripened fruit. Smiling over her shoulder with lips wicked and red like roses. Eyes big and bright and brimming with blackness. An unearthly beauty. Beauty to stop your breath. To make your heart burst. I tried to call out to her but I wasn't there. She was alone in the darkness and then I woke up.
—
Chapter 1:
—
The rain was falling so hard she could barely see out the windshield. The wipers were slashing long sheaves of water from the rain-blurred glass and she had to lean a little over the steering wheel to see. There was a girl out there, alone in the rain, scantily dressed in denim shorts and a croptop. No slicker, no umbrella, skipping through the rain, splashing in the puddles like a child. She had a backpack slung over her shoulder but it was a little late to be walking home from school. It was already dark. Bella was coming up behind her and without really knowing why she swung the cruiser around and pulled up beside her.
The girl paused and approached the window as Bella let it down. "Hey there," she called loudly over the roar of the rain. "Where you headed?"
The girl bent to the window. A small crack of cleavage in her top. Her face was pale and wet with rain and she gave the police woman a mischievous smile. She was bent at the hip and leaning on the windowpane like a hooker working a client.
"Am I in trouble?" she asked cutely.
Bella chuckled once and shook her head. "Just wondering if you need a ride," she said. "Come on, hop in. It's pouring rain out there."
"Are you sure? I'm pretty wet."
"Worse things have been in this car than a bit of rainwater. Come on, get in."
The girl giggled a thank you and trotted around to the other side of the cruiser. Bella put the window back up and looked in the rearview, brushing a bit of hair away from her face as if to pretty herself up just a little.
The passenger door opened and the sound of rain was suddenly loud. The girl slipped off her backpack and climbed into the car daintily, stepping inside with big black boots and setting the backpack in her lap as she sat down. Her hair was black and short, a damp matt of spikes atop her pretty head, like a pixie or a water sprite. Rain was gusting into the car and she laughed and pulled closed the door.
"Gosh, I am absolutely soaked!"
Her top was drenched and the black material clung to her tiny chest. All her arms and part of her midriff were exposed and Bella couldn't understand how she wasn't frozen solid dressed as she was.
"You must be freezing," she said, reaching for the heater. "Here, hold on a second."
Hot air came billowing out and the girl held her hands to the vent. Her nails were short and painted black. She was smiling and she didn't look even a little bit cold.
"Thanks," she said.
Bella nodded, again glancing at her. Her legs were long and slim, droplets of water on them. She reached for the key but the car was already running. She cleared her throat, glancing at the girl once more, and then pulled out into the road and the rain.
"So," she said. "Where you headed?"
"California."
"California?"
"Mmhm."
"You aren't from Forks?"
"No."
"Oh," Bella said. She glanced at the girl and back at the windshield, turning a corner idly and driving on. "I thought you were just walking home or something."
"No," the girl said. "I'm not from around here."
"Well, uh…where should I drop you?"
"I'm not sure. I was happy just to walk."
"You plan to walk all the way to California? Because if you're thinking about hitchhiking, you might want to think again. It's dangerous. Not to mention illegal. How come you're not on a bus?"
"I don't like busses. It's too crowded and people always stare. I don't have a lot of money, anyway."
"How much do you have?"
"Not much."
Bella glanced at her, twice, wondering if she was joking. The girl was looking out the window with a certain curiosity, watching the rain and the slideshow of closed shopfronts they passed. She had a stud in her ear, some kind of cheap pink stone.
"Well, what do you plan to do when you get to California?" Bella asked. "Do have family there or something?"
The girl turned to her, smiling, and gave a little shake of her head. "No."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," she said. "Porn?"
She was joking, but Bella didn't laugh. She looked at her, unimpressed, and then she turned and pulled the car over by the curb.
The girl seemed surprised, but not unpleasantly. She looked at the woman, smiling, sitting there wet and cute and strangely untroubled, as if everything was just fine and the night could not have turned out nicer. Her eyes were stained with wet eyeliner and the rain had dragged paths of black tears on her cheeks despite her smile.
Bella cut off the engine. The rain rattled on the roof of the cruiser in the silence. She regarded the girl for a second and took a moment to collect her thoughts.
"So let me get this straight," she said. "You're out here in the streets with no money, no home, and no place to go. Is that what you're telling me?"
"Basically," she said.
Bella exhaled through her nose, and what exactly was she dealing with here? A runaway? A drifter? She couldn't even tell how old she was, although she didn't look over eighteen.
"You got any ID on you?"
She shook her head, almost guiltily, as if she hated to be a bother but couldn't help it. Bella tapped the steering wheel with a finger and looked her over again.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Nineteen."
"You don't look nineteen."
The girl smiled and shrugged a bare shoulder. "Well, looks can be deceiving," she said. Then she looked at the woman with a studied boldness and said, "I'm old enough to have sex, if that's what you're wondering about."
Bella didn't answer for a second. The girl was watching her with eyes that were big and dark and beautiful beyond anything she had ever seen. Long lashes. Batting them, once, twice. Bella swallowed a lump in her throat and kept her face stern.
"Look," she said. "It's not every day we get teenage runaway's passing through town and if at all possible I'd prefer not to simply set you out by the side of the road and let you freeze to death somewhere between here and wherever it is you think you're headed. So I'm going to give you two choices. Either I can take you down to the station and hold you there until we figure out who you are and what to do with you, or…I can take you home with me."
The girl seemed surprised. She raised her eyebrows and said, "With you?"
Bella nodded, a strange blush creeping into her face. "What do you say? You could get cleaned up, dry off, have something to eat. I'll have to call missing persons to see if there's anyone looking for you, but if everything checks out…well, I guess you can get a fresh start in the morning. I'll even give you money for a bus. What do you think?"
The girl watched her, a slight tilt to both her head and her lips. Her dark eyes traveled over the woman's tan colored uniform, her face, her long brown hair.
"Do you live alone?" she asked.
Bella snorted once and reached for the key. "Just me and a cat."
"Do you get lonely?"
"Sometimes," she said, pulling out into the road. "Do you?"
The girl nodded to herself, as if she did get lonely sometimes, but what she said was, "No. I always find someone."
It was a short drive back to her place, a small dark house in a street of small dark houses. A scent of rain in the car and wet clothes and a trace of cheap perfume. Bella kept glancing at the girl as she drove and her eyes fluttered more than once over her legs. She looked like a runaway model.
It had started to storm by the time she parked the cruiser in the driveway. The girl grabbed her backpack and followed the woman across the soggy lawn to the front door. Bella held her hand over her head as she jogged but she still got wet. The girl giggled and crowded on the porch as Bella unlocked the door.
Inside she directed the girl down the corridor to the downstairs bathroom while she went upstairs to find her some clothes. She tore open her dresser drawers and wondered if she was in over her head. The girl seemed like a trendy kind of chick and what if Bella's clothes were below her? She wasn't exactly known around town for her fashion sense. The only dress she had ever owned was a prom dress and most of the wardrobe consisted of pants and slacks in various drab and tasteless colors and her uniform—which is likewise drab and tasteless.
In the end she grabbed some socks and underwear and a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants—just casual housewear—and went back downstairs.
She found the girl lingering in the bathroom and she gave her an awkward smile as she dumped the clothes into the sink. The rain and wind was loud outside.
"You can wear these," she said. "Might be a little small, but it's dry."
"Thanks," the girl said, and then she pulled off her top.
It came away wet and clingy and underneath her small breasts were encased in a lacy black bra. Bella was reaching for the laundrybasket, trying not to stare.
"Just put your things in the hamper," she said. "I'll…"
The girl continued to undress. Kicking off her boots. Unzipping her shorts and letting them down her legs. She removed her bra, reaching behind her back for the catch and letting the loops fall from her slender shoulders, and then she pushed down her panties—matching black lace like her bra—and finally she took off her socks, lifting one foot then the other as she peeled them off, delicate like a crane.
Bella was holding the laundrybasket in both hands like a beggar with a coindish. The girl dropped in her things, smiling. Her nipples on her tiny chest were pink and large. Bella looked away, scooping up the backpack from the floor. Either the girl was waxed or very young.
"I'll put this stuff in the washer," she said. "There's nothing illegal in the backpack, is there?"
"Well, some of it's shoplifted," said the girl. Bella looked back from the doorway. The girl winked at her cutely, naked, smiling. "Just don't tell the police."
Bella was still in her police uniform and she was so flustered she didn't know what to say. She stepped out the bathroom, blushing, and pulled the door closed behind her.
And for a minute she stood there.
There in the corridor, laundrybasket against her hip, leaning back against the door. She could feel the pulse in her neck, throbbing. She blinked, she swallowed. She was staring at the carpet but all she could see was slim legs and perky tits, as if the girl's hotness had somehow burnt into her retinas. Behind the door she heard the shower turn on. Bella shook her head and went down the corridor on wonky legs.
The storm had picked up and the first thunder cracked as she began loading the girl's things into the washing machine. She paused for a second with the girl's underwear in her hand, admiring the lace work, the delicate black elastic, somewhat overwhelmed at the fact that she was holding in her hands a garment that until a few minutes ago had the privilege to adorn the body of the cutest girl she had ever seen. She put it in the washer and took up the backpack, a trendy black leather satchel. She unzipped it and rummaged inside. A top or two. A pair of jeans.
She put them into the washer, added a scoop of powder, and decided to snoop a little further in the pack. It was a slight invasion of privacy, but she felt she was permitted. She had let this girl into her home, after all, and it was probably best to know whether or not she was hiding anything suspicious. Like drugs or the severed heads of her parents.
She found an iPod and a phone that didn't work. A collection of makeup. A bottle of nailpolish. Tubes of lipstick. She dug a little further and in the bottom of the pack her hand closed around a long plastic shaft. She lifted it out and stood looking at it.
It was a vibrator.
Purple in colour, chrome, cold, heavier than she would've thought. She could see her reflection in its smooth surface. There was a switch in the base and she switched it on. It began humming in her hand. The vibrations travelled up her arm in a tremor of tingles and she turned it off again.
"Jesus," she whispered.
She put the toy back in the backpack and zipped it up.
The storm had worsened by the time she entered the kitchen. She could hear the wind lashing the trees against the side of the house and she was almost worried the phone might not work. But it did, and the first place she called was the pizza place down the road.
The second call she made was to the station. She gave a description and asked the guy at the desk to check with missing persons about any runaways fitting her description. She said she'd call back and update the description if she could get more info. She didn't even know her name.
While she was on the phone the cat was at her feet, meowing softly to be fed. Bella opened a fresh tin and set a small plate in the corner.
The pizza arrived as the girl was getting out the shower. She came into the kitchen, silent as a mouse in her socks, and Bella smiled at her. The sweatshirt fell almost to her knees like a floppy dress and not even her fingers poked from the sleeves. Her short black hair was dry and messy and it looked soft and downy on her head.
"Hey, I ordered pizza," she said. "You hungry?"
The girl looked at the pizza and hesitated slightly, as if maybe it was the wrong kind, but then she smiled. "Um, I guess," she said. "A little bit."
Then she noticed the cat. It was white and fluffy and it was perched atop the fridge like an ornament or a guardian, gazing down at the girl with yellow eyes and its tail whisking. The girl smiled and immediately reached to pet it.
"Wow, what a cute cat," she said. "Can I pet him?"
"Her," Bella said. "Her name's Snowflake. And sure, go ahead."
The girl was reaching up and scratching behind the cat's ear. The cat had sat up and she was tilting her head into the hand cautiously, watching the girl for any funny business. Bella chuckled.
"Usually she hates people," she said.
"Oh, nobody hates Alice," said the girl, speaking to the cat with a bright smile and a cooing voice. "Do they, Snowflake? No, no, no, everybody loves Alice."
Bella chuckled again and set some plates and napkins on the table by the pizzabox. "Come on, sit down," she said. "Is soda okay to drink?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Bella got a bottle of soda out the fridge and poured two glasses full. The cat jumped onto the counter and hopped onto the floor and trotted out. The girl was washing her hands at the sink. She dried her hands with papertowel and they sat down.
Bella flipped open the pizza box. "So, uh…is that your name?" she asked. "Alice?"
"Mmhm."
"Alice what?"
"Just Alice."
The girl had taken a small slice and she was holding it in a napkin. She took a bird sized bite and nodded as if it was good. Bella smiled.
"And where you from, Alice?"
"Hard to say."
"Why is it hard to say?"
"Well, I've been here, I've been there. I never settle for long."
"You look a little young to have been on the road very long."
The girl shrugged and took another bite. Or she seemed to, not much of the slice disappeared. Bella took a sip of soda and another large bite.
"You never mentioned where you were coming from," she said. "Coming from Seattle?"
"Good guess."
"And how come you left Seattle?"
"My girlfriend broke up with me."
Bella stopped chewing for a moment. Then she swallowed.
"Girlfriend?"
The girl was watching her, watching her reaction with her pretty eyes. She nodded, confirming it. The wind howled outside and the bulb in the ceiling flickered. Bella chuckled once, a soft snort of surprise.
"Wow," she said. "How come she broke up with you?"
The girl shrugged. A small gesture of sadness, slightly indifferent, as if such sorrows were familiar to her and didn't really hurt that much anymore. Bella nodded as if she understood.
"I guess you don't want to talk about it," she said.
"Not really."
"Must've been pretty serious."
"It was."
"So she broke up with you and suddenly you decided to just up and split town?"
"Something like that."
"Did you leave any family in Seattle?"
"No," said the girl. "Just her."
Bella nodded, resisting the urge to pry further. The girl was focusing on the slice of pizza in her hand but then she looked up with a smile.
"What about you?" she asked.
"What about me?"
"How come you live alone?"
Bella looked about the kitchen. As if she didn't really know. The old cabinets, the gas stove, the window over the sink, the rain falling in the dark yard outside. "This was my dad's house," she said. "Then he died."
"That's sad. You never got married?"
"No."
"How come?"
"Well, I'm still young. I'm not even thirty."
"Still."
Bella smiled and snorted once. She shrugged, she gestured with her pizza slice. "Well, I guess I never met someone," she said. "Still looking, though."
"I noticed."
"Noticed what?"
"That you were looking."
"At what?"
"Me," said the girl, smiling playfully.
Bella raised her eyebrows. "You?"
"Mmhm."
Bella was surprised for a second but then she chuckled and shook her head. She was blushing and it made her look prettier than usual, a becoming contrast to the khaki of her uniform. She took another slice out the box and chuckled again.
"You're cute, but not that cute," she said.
"I think I am."
"Well, maybe you are."
"Do you like girls?"
"Do I like girls?"
"Yes. Do you like girls."
Bella was at a loss. The girl smiled.
"You do, don't you?"
"Well, uh…"
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No. No girlfriend."
The girl nodded, as if that made sense. "I guess you don't have a whole lot of options in a small town like this."
Bella smiled and shook her head at how forward the girl was. "Not really," she said. "But it's home."
"It's not a home if you don't have someone to share it with."
"I'll find someone eventually."
"Hey, you know what you should do?"
"What?"
"You should come with me to California. Best gay clubs in the world are in California."
"Who said I'm gay?"
"I can tell."
Bella chuckled to herself, still blushing, her eyes bright and sidling shyly away from the pretty girl sitting across from her and back again. "Well, I'll think about it," she said. "How's the pizza?"
It was a deflection as well as a genuine question. The girl hadn't even finished a slice. She was holding it in her hand like a prop for a scene and now she took a big bite and pretended to enjoy it.
"Mmm," she said. "Delicious."
Bella nodded and sipped her soda. A silent flare of lightning lit the kitchen window and she glanced at it briefly. The girl had glanced at the flash in the window as well and they both turned back at the same time. Their eyes met. Thunder cracked. The girl giggled, as if the eye contact tickled her somehow, and Bella looked away, her heart fluttering.
"It's getting pretty bad out there," the girl said. "Good thing you pick me up."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Are you scared of storms?"
"No. Are you?"
"Maybe a little."
"You don't look scared."
"I know. I'm just trying to be cute."
Bella laughed to herself, almost a giggle. She hadn't smiled this much in a long time. The girl was smiling too and she was honestly the most adorable thing Bella had ever seen. Her eyes, so huge and dark. Her face, heart shaped and perfect in every feature. Button nose, tiny chin. Slim neck and slender shoulders, half lost in the outsized sweatshirt she wore. Bella wiped her mouth with a napkin and hesitated a moment before she spoke.
"Listen," she said. "You seem like a decent kid and I'd like to help you out. So…"
"So what?"
"So why don't you stick around town for a while? I could put in a good word somewhere, get you a job. You could save a little money, think things over, decide what you want to do. What do you think?"
The girl paused, the slice of pizza subsiding to the table. She seemed to think about it for a second and Bella waited, a fluttery feeling in her stomach.
"Well," said the girl. "Where would I stay?"
Bella shrugged, trying not to blush. "Well, you could stay here for a while," she said. "It's not much, but it's better than a shelter or a park bench."
The girl smiled at that. She tilted her head and assessed the woman across the table with a brief flicker of her dark eyes and then she shrugged.
"Well," she said. "I'll think about it."
—
After they finished eating they cleaned up together, the girl insisting. She had eaten only a single slice and hadn't even sipped her soda. She said she was on a special diet.
It had been a long day and soon it was bedtime. The storm had not abated and the occasional crack of lightning caused the girl to giggle each time. They fixed up the spare room together, changing the sheets and pillowcases, scenting them with a squirt of perfume. The girl sat on the edge of the bed and bounced once to test the springiness.
"Well, I'll let you get to sleep," Bella was saying, moving toward the door. "I'll probably be gone by the time you get up so just make yourself at home, okay?"
The girl giggled. "Hope your valuables are locked up."
Bella paused at the door and pulled it half closed. She smiled at the girl on the bed. "I'll take my chances," she said. "Just get some sleep, okay?"
"Okay," the girl said. "And thank you. For being so generous."
"Don't mention it."
"I mean it," said the girl. Bella paused and looked back into the room. The girl smiled, sitting there with a certain coquettishness, knees together, eyes big and bold. "Seriously," she said. "I'm very…grateful."
Bella felt her throat tighten. She lingered there in the doorway. Thunder cracked outside and the girl glanced at the window for a second. Then she turned back to the woman in the doorway. She looked at her for a moment and then she rose, smiling, and wandered forward slightly.
"Look," she said. "There's no need to be coy, right? I can tell you like me. And I really like you too. So…"
She had her hands laced behind her back, all swaddled up in her sweatshirt, and she gave a tiny shrug.
"It's up to you," she said. "What do you think?"
Bella released the breath she was holding. The temptation was so sharp and breathless it made her dizzy. But she fought it all back and swallowed away the lump in her throat.
"I think you should get some sleep," she said.
The girl's smile flickered. Then it faded away. Her hands became unlaced and her brows drew together slightly, a crack of thunder in the distance lending her affront a certain sinisterness. Bella smiled and reached for the wallswitch.
"Sweet dreams," she said.
The girl pouted. "You too."
Bella took one last look at the girl, smiling, and shut the door.
Then she wandered down the corridor, smiling, to her bedroom.
It was late and she left her uniform on the floor as she took it off. Her underwear was plain cotton, nothing fancy like her pretty houseguest. She got some shorts and a sleeptank from the dresser drawer and took them into the adjoining bathroom to shower and brush her teeth.
It was almost midnight by the time she flipped off the light and climbed into bed. The sheets were cold and she rubbed her legs together to warm them up. She was laying on her side, curled up, and as tired as she was, she found that she couldn't sleep. Her thoughts dwelled on the girl down the corridor and she smiled to herself in the dark. There was a strange floaty feeling in her chest and she realized she was quite swept off her feet.
She was drifting toward sleep when there was a soft knock on the door. Her eyes opened and she lay there listening for a second. She wasn't sure if it was the wind.
"Miss Bella?" whispered a voice from the doorway. "Miss Bella are you asleep?"
She sat up slightly in bed. It was pitch black in the room aside from a faint shape in the doorway. "Yes?" she said. "What is it?"
"Nothing," whispered the girl. "I couldn't sleep. May I come in?"
"Well, uh…"
"Please?"
"Okay."
The shape was gone from the doorway. Bella looked about in the darkness. She couldn't tell where the girl was in the room and then she felt the mattress tilt.
The girl was getting into the bed.
Bella's heart leapt. She drew backwards slightly, sitting up, speechless. The girl was climbing on top of her, giggling. Bella's hand touched something smooth and soft. She was staring into the darkness before her, her heart hammering, and—
Lightning cracked. A white light filled the window over the bed and in the revelation she saw the shape of the girl, pale, naked, straddling her lap and smiling for just a second before her pretty face was snatched back into darkness.
"Sorry," she said. "I guess I just hate taking no for an answer."
"What are you doing? Get off me."
"Shhhh," the girl whispered, touching a fingertip to the woman's lips with great accuracy, almost as if she could see in the dark. "Just go with it, okay?
Then the finger brushed away and a pair of lips swooped in from the blackness to take its place.
All sound stopped. The storm, her breath. The touch of those lips stole all sensation from her, like the life draining kiss of a succubus, and her mouth seemed to open by itself.
The girl's tongue entered and Bella's whole head glazed over. Two tiny hands wove into her hair and pulled her deeper into the kiss, moaning softly into her mouth. The girl was pulling off her top. Bella raised her arms and the kiss was broken for just a second before the girl's lips reappeared on hers. It was dark in the room but she could feel the exposure of her breasts. Her nipples hardened in the cold air. The girl leaned into her, wrapping her arms around her neck, and the touch of her naked chest was like her soul ascending.
The girl lowered her to the mattress and continued to kiss her. The contact of their bodies was tangling the sheets and after a while the sheets were gone. Bella's hands were all over the girl's back. Holding her. Stroking her. The girl's lips had descended to her neck, her collarbone. Delicate kisses along the couture of her clavicle. The lips travelled lower onto her chest. Both of the girl's hands were groping her breasts, squeezing them. Small hands. Tiny fingers. A tongue brushed her nipple. Bella quivered and wanted more. The tongue licked again and then her nipple was engulfed in a hot wet mouth. Bella groaned and squirmed as the lips suckled at her. She was holding the girl's head at her chest. Her hair was short and impossibly soft. The girl moved her mouth to the other breast and squeezed it and sucked on the nipple, moaning as if it tasted nice. Bella whimpered and started pushing at the girl's head. For her to go lower. The girl trailed kisses on her tummy, her belly button. Bella was wearing nothing but shorts. Her legs were open and she was throbbing between them. The girl was pulling off her shorts. Bella lifted her hips to help. The wind rattled the window over the bed and wind howled in the attic upstairs. Bella's legs fell open bonelessly. Lightning came again and in the brief flash she saw the girl between her legs like a ghost come to inhabit her. Her thighs were wet and slathered. The room winked out into darkness and a tongue flicked against her womanhood. Bella grasped and groaned. The girl was kissing her entrance. Softly. Gently. She kissed and licked. Tasting her. Teasing her. Bella whimpered. The licks came longer and slower. She could hear the girl moaning over the moan of the wind. She squeezed her eyes shut and tossed her head on the pillow. She could feel the hair stuck to her flushed face. She took fistfuls of bedsheet, moving her hips slowly against that slowly lapping tongue. Her legs were open as far as they would go. Thunder roared in the distance and then crackled close by. She gasped and groaned, the storm raging outside and a storm building inside her. The girl had inserted two fingers into her vagina and she pumped them and curled them and caressed her interior. Bella clenched and clenched and when she came she came once, twice, and came again, her body bursting and buckling under each orgasm until she came a final time with the girl's lips wrapped around her clit and two fingers buried deep within her core.
She thought she was going to die and for a while it felt like she had. She was drenched in sweat and trembling. Exhausted. Laying there and listening to the storm as the girl giggled and settled on top of her. Bella turned her head and opened her eyes. She could see nothing but she knew the girl was there. She could feel the warm weight spread across her, chest to chest, and she knew their lips were probably only inches apart.
"Get off me," she said.
But the girl only giggled. "No."
Bella blinked into the blackness. She had felt the girl breathe the word directly onto her lips and yet she didn't seem to understand it.
"Excuse me?"
The girl ignored this and settled a bit closer. Her hand touched the woman's damp hair and stroked it. "Hey," she whispered, as if to start a conversation. "Do you know what I keep thinking about? I keep thinking about you. And me. And what a coincidence it is that our paths happened to cross. Hm? Think about it. Both attracted to each other. Both lonely. Pretty steep odds, don't you think? Of all the homes in all the world, it was this one I was invited into. Almost enough to make you believe in destiny. Don't you think?"
Bella didn't answer. Her mouth was dry from panting and she closed it and swallowed.
"Think about it," the girl continued. "Think about how I ended up here. All the events required in order to maneuver me into this position. The rain, for instance. Do you think you would've picked me up if it hadn't been raining? Or do you think you would've simply drove on?"
"I don't know," Bella said.
The girl giggled softly. She was nuzzling Bella's cheek, placing little kisses there. "Neither do I," she said. "Yet somehow or other this is where the weathers of the world have led me. Right here. In your bed. On top of you." Her lips had lowered to Bella's neck. To the softly throbbing pulsepoint there. "Do you see what I mean?" she whispered. "It's a strange thought, isn't it? To think it was destiny that led me to you. You can call it coincidence if you want. Sure. But it's so much more romantic to call it destiny."
"Destiny?"
Something sharp grazed her throat. Thunder boomed nearby. Bella put her arms around the girl as if to protect her from the weather and the girl giggled softly into the crook of her neck.
"Yes," she said. "Destiny."
Bella gasped in pain.
The girl had bitten into her neck.
—