Prologue: Implausible
This was not going well…not well at all!
Facing me was a monster. Not the kind I've often said lurks below your bed when you're a kid, no, not a vampire. Not a furry beast, not Jacob, not a werewolf. No, this was much, much worse.
I didn't think that was possible.
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Chapter One: InterviewEdward had been telling me each night that he had to hunt, that my blood was somehow becoming more tempting. He would grin and kiss my neck. And every night he would linger there, growl hungrily, and then force himself away once he realized what he had done.
His throaty snarl always sounded genuine, but who knows? Perhaps he just had to leave…and I didn't think he went hunting, so what did he do?
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I couldn't sleep. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Edward had left through my window at ten o'clock, just like every night. For some reason I couldn't sleep when I was warm,
Sounds nuts, doesn't it? I know, but, seriously, I was so used to being comfortably chilly in bed, thanks to Edward's hand around my waist, pressing me against his algid body, not to mention having a soothing composition buzzing through my mind, courtesy of Edward's perfect lips and vocal chords, and a wide hand cupping the back of my head, as though I were a baby and couldn't support that weight, and a cold, long foot overlapping mine, with an icy, muscular calf resting lightly upon my warm calf, that I didn't seem able to sleep without it.
Usually I would try to stay up, just in case he came back, and usually exhaustion would creep up on me at about 10:30, a measly thirty minutes after he had taken his leave.
But tonight was different. Tonight I couldn't sleep at all. Something twisting in my gut was refusing to let me sleep. Like something bad that I could stop if I were awake was going to happen when I was asleep…
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"Bella?"
I raised my head from my knees and, seeing Edward, just a perfect black shape, silhouetted by the moonlight streaming through the window behind him, instinctively stretched my arms out towards him.
My elbows popped after being bent around my knees for so long. I was sitting, curled up in the rocking chair; my mind had just been in a frozen state, trying to imagine where Edward could be.
And then I saw him, and smelled his irresistible perfume, clear as day, even though he was at least six feet away, and my mind exploded with happiness.
But my suspicions would not be forgotten.
"Hey," I whispered.
He took one large stride forward, and somewhere midstep he must have turned my bedside light on, and I didn't see it, because when he was about three feet closer to me the little brown lampshade was dimly lit.
I could see him now; his skin was a faint purplish-green in the moonlight and artificial light combined. His eyes were black as flint, but he lacked the other telltale signs of thirst: purple circles under his eyes, an unnaturally still chest...
The only other explanation for black eyes on a "vegetarian" vampire, because carnivorous vampire's eyes just fade to a deeper red when they're hungry, was fury. But...what could've caused Edward to become so enraged?
" Edward...are you angry with me?" I asked, a tad nervous. I didn't like it when he was upset, especially with me, because he always frightened me a bit when he was mad, though I would never admit this to him.
He must've seen the anxiety in my expression, because his face smoothed into a calm, reassuring smile. He took another step. I had lowered my arms when he didn't accept my invitation after about ten seconds. Normally it took about two for him to come to me, sometimes less when I offered.
But he was here now, in reach, and obviously infuriated. I wasn't sure why yet, but I could at least comfort him in the hopes that he'd tell me. So I held my arms out again, and this time I wrapped them around his waist.
He smiled warmly and I returned the gesture. Maybe I was helping, but then...I already knew from experience what a good liar he was.
"Hello, Bella," he said, his voice ringing with happiness. But it was too late.
I had already seen his true emotions.
I frowned- why was he lying to me? I pulled my arms back from his waist and stretched out my legs. I tried to decipher his expression, but it was clear of all emotion now, although after my careful speculation I noticed a hint of betrayal…
Because I had pulled away? Why was he acting like this?
I slid off the rocking chair and sat down on my bed. He wasn't looking at me, but instead stared at the wall about a quarter of a foot above the rocking chair, where my head had been moments before.
"Edward," I called him softly, trying to pull him from his thoughts. "Edward, come tell me what's wrong."
His head flew to the left; his eyes were penetrating as he gazed at me. "Nothing's wrong," he declared, keeping that same calculating expression on his face.
Liar.
"I don't believe you."
His features turned to stone.
"And why is that?" He was trying to sound cold, I could tell, but instead he sounded…tired.
Wind whistled outside my window and it gave me a headache. My fears from earlier, of something fateful occurring on this night, came rushing back. Was he tired of me? Did he want to leave again? And this time, was it actually because he was finally bored with me?
It suddenly seemed like too much, like I had so many problems, stacked so high, and they were teetering left and right and soon I would fall off the edge.
And so, I began to cry.
Edward was at my side immediately. But this time, I wasn't expecting love from him. I hated that queasy feeling of uncertainty more than any other.
He patted my back, his expression guilty now. I just stared at him, tears trickling down my cheeks and biting my bottom lip so I didn't start sobbing aloud.
"Shh, shh, Bella," he kept saying, his right hand moving to cup my face while his left hand continued to stroke my back.
His hand was warm and I furrowed my brow. At first I simply hesitated, measuring the temperature of his hand and wondering why. He only became warm like this when he was touching a warm creature. So had he been hunting? Or…
But I didn't ask. The tears doubled as I thought of the other possibilities, and a single, quiet sob escaped my lips. I leaned into his hand then, needing, welcoming, and appreciating the comfort. Needing him.
He must have laid me down and tucked me in at one point, because when I woke up around 2 a.m. I was warm and cozy under my thick, old quilt. But something was missing.
Edward.
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When my alarm went off at six, I was greeted by a cheerful Alice.
She spent breakfast twirling around the kitchen like a ballerina. When she complained about needing to shop for a leotard and ballet slippers, I knew she was avoiding telling me something.
What had she seen?
She drove me to school in Edward's Volvo, informing me that he needed to talk to Jasper and Emmett alone so he took Rosalie's Mercedes. Rosalie was out hunting for the day, apparently.
I had every class with Edward, so he couldn't avoid explaining his actions forever.
Alice pulled into the last vacant spot in the school parking lot and I felt worry seeping through my veins and enter with my blood into my heart, where it would wait for the truth.
My first four classes were boring. Edward paid the teachers strict attention, which was unlike him. Except for before he left me last year…was he trying to scare me?
Lunch came, and I was determined to make him talk to me.
I walked into the cafeteria alone- Edward had insisted that he needed to talk to Alice after class. I saw them sitting together at the usual table at the back of the lunchroom, and even when I was sitting right across from them I couldn't understand them, they were talking so fast and low. They ignored me, unless the speed of their eyeballs was vampiric too.
"Hello? Guys…" I was feeling excluded. Neglected. This was so unlike them. Edward had his reasons, and as long as he wasn't leaving me or…
But Alice especially! She was my best friend and I needed girl-talk. She was usually offering, and rarely because she had "seen" me asking for it, but just because she enjoyed it. That was Alice.
This wasn't.
Edward turned and gave me a forced smile. I glared back, and the smile disappeared. Alice was still staring at Edward with this distant look in her eyes, and I knew she was having a vision. I ignored this.
"Edward, please, tell me what's bothering you. Your whole family! I want to know—I need to know," I said, not quite whining, but pretty close.
He just looked at me blankly. I groaned in frustration.
Alice chose that moment to lurch out of her vision with an angered, "Idiot!"
I started. Her voice, that lovely wind-chime that seemed to light up a room as well as her smile, was a quiet, rumbling shout. Not a growl, not exactly, but more of an exasperated, livid exclamation, tinged with…sadness?
In short, it was terrifying.
"Alice, what happened?" I demanded, the worry in my heart over-flowing as fear was added and stirred vigorously, like a dangerous potion in a witch's cauldron, fizzling until it cascades down the side of pot, burning a hole in the floor.
Chiseling a hole out of the side of my heart.
"I saw…" she trailed off, glancing at a curious Edward. "I'll tell you later, Bella."
Edward asked her what she was doing after school that day, and their rapid conversing started again.
I got up and left the cafeteria, my tray of food forgotten on the table.
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Emmett drove me home. The ride in the car was short and silent.
"Thanks, Emmett," I murmured when we pulled up to the curb.
"No problem, shorty!" He grinned, and I had no choice but to smile back. Even if it was a ruse, to make me believe nothing was going on, it was believable, and Emmett's smile was infectious.
I opened the car door and was halfway out of the car when I was hit with a sudden inspiration. Edward wasn't telling me a thing, so why not interview his family members? I sat back in the car and firmly shut the door. Emmett was gazing at me, his big brow furrowed in confusion.
"Emmett," I addressed him sternly. He had to know I was serious- any answer I could get about this was crucial.
"Yeah, Bella? What's up?" His voice was careful, and I immediately doubted my decision. Would I get any answers? I didn't care, I thought. If Emmett, or any of the other Cullens, could tell me something, it was worth asking.
"Do you know what's going on with Edward?" I began. It was better to be blunt. "What's he been thinking about lately?"
To my surprise, well, in such a situation, when I thought I was doing a very good job of being serious, Emmett laughed. As much as it irritated me at the moment, I loved Emmett's laugh and laughed with him, even though I didn't know what was so funny.
"What's so funny?" I asked when Emmett was only chuckling and I had my breath back.
Emmett looked at me in disbelief. "Bella, you asked what he's been thinking—he's the mind reader!"
I snickered at my silly mistake for a second, and then got back to business.
"But do you know?" I asked. "What did he just have to talk to you about this morning? Do you know where he's been going at night? Is he mad at me, or Carlisle or Rosalie? Because Edward forced Rosalie to lend him her Mercedes this morning, or at least Alice made it sound that way, and Carlisle-"
"Bella!"
"What?"
"Stop, and let me think!" He was laughing again, so hard I was surprised he could speak.
Why is he always laughing at me?!
"Do you always talk so much?" he asked after a minute.
"I don't know, ask Edward! And if you don't know any of the answers to my previous questions, ask him about those, too! God, he is driving me insane!"
Emmett wasn't laughing anymore. We sat in silence for at least five minutes before he muttered, "If I answer one, I will answer all of them, because one's no more important than the other. I understand your frustration- he can be pretty hard to read sometimes…wait, he hasn't been watching you sleep? He told us that's what he always does."
I shook my head.
"Huh." Emmett looked honestly clueless, so I decided to let it go. But he frowned and continued.
"Well, Bella, then I don't know where he goes at night, I'm sorry. And yes, I know what he said this morning, but I swore not to say. And like I said, if I tell you one thing, I'll feel guilty for not telling you another thing, because it's probably all of equal importance to you, and I'll end up telling you absolutely everything I know, and Edward will find out, and he'll hate me for a while, and that wouldn't be good...This is strange. I'll keep my mind blank around him for you. I can't ask him anything, because I'm sure you don't want him to know you're asking me. It's quite a sneaky thing you're doing, actually, Bella. And I-"
"Do you always talk so much?" I gasped, panting through my incessant peels of laughter. "And you…were laughing…at me!!"
Emmett looked slightly offended, but his mouth was twitching and his eyes were glinting with tolerant humor. In the end the two of us were cracking up together, me holding my aching ribs, and his booming bark of a laugh making me feel warm. He was the best "big brother" you could ask for.
"Thanks again, Emmett," I managed once I could laugh no longer. It was that funny! Emmett doesn't look like a big talker, but I guess sometimes…
"It was really helpful. We should talk more often."
I felt closer to him now than I ever had in all the time I'd known him.
I hopped out of the car, happy with myself. Sure I didn't get any answers, but I had fun with Emmett, and that alone pleased me immensely.
"No problem, Bella," he responded, chortling. "Glad I could help."
I ran to the porch and turned back. I waved like a maniac, and he grinned once more, winking cheerfully.
And that was that.
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So??
-marlise