EPOV
I could feel the structure of the steering wheel bowing under the strength of my grip as I pushed down on the accelerator. They shouldn't be alive, the predator in me snarled. They should be tortured for all they are worth before being killed slowly, every second of their death accompanied by screams and cries for wanted to hurt someone, just for the sake of inflicting pain. It seemed only fair that they were given the same treatment. My hand twitched slightly at the wheel, nearly turning around.
"You won't kill them," she stated clearly, not even a quiver of uncertainty in her voice.
"You sure?" The predator flexed his muscles, ready to prove her wrong. I pressed down more on the accelerator, the lights of Seattle blurring around us.
"Positive." I glanced at her. She looked right back at me, her eyes the lightest I have ever seen them-nearly golden. They held nothing but truth within them, and though I was still disgustingly enraged with the situation and would want nothing more than to tear them limb from limb, I felt myself calming. Her lips pulled up in a small smile. "Thank you, by the way. Your timing is impeccable."
"You would've been fine on your own," I muttered, forcing myself to look away. Yes, she would have been fine. She would have turned her own wrath against them and walked away unscathed. Yet, I could not have sat by and watched it happen. She hadn't been hard to find, jumping through the mind of people watchers and tracking her scent to just one side of the city. When I found her, she had been walking slowly, a peaceful far away look on her face.
I had been too engrossed in the beauty of her peacefulness to catch their sordid thoughts until they began to make their move.
"Yes, but it is certainly easier this way." Easier. Yes, everything was easier suddenly. The agitation and anxiety I had been feeling for the past three days was suddenly gone, left with (under the residual anger) a kind of contentment I had never felt before. It may have been a trick of the light, but it seemed that even Bella felt it, relaxing into the leather seat comfortably. The silence that fell was easy as well, that is until an animalistic rumble interrupted.
Bella's eyes went wide as her stomach growled again. "Oh."
Before I could stop it, a laugh fell from my lips. It was such a human thing, nothing at all that I would expect from her. Having never seen her eat before, how could I have known that she even did? Placing the sound of her hunger into the memory of her cruelty at the graveyard, it suddenly became a lot more funny.
"Where would you like to eat?" I asked her, struggling to sober up. She was quiet, making me look toward her. Her eyes were still wide but back to a more natural chocolate brown, a faint blush was on her cheeks and small half embarrassed smile on her lips. She reminded me of a porcelain doll: timeless, innocent, a secretive smile with a childish flush.
"Anything Italian." she declared, excitement in her eyes. "I haven't had Italian in years!" I mentally ran through the little knowledge I had about Seattle's food inventory, before deciding on a place somewhat close by.
"What are you doing in Seattle anyway?" I asked, as I maneuvered through traffic. She shrugged.
"Personal business. How did you find me?" I hesitated for a moment.
"You're lucky to have Angela as a friend." I risked a glance, hoping that the information wouldn't ruin her cordial demeanor. Instead, she smiled widely and nodded.
"Yes I am. It's not very often you'll find a human like her." She was being strangely open. Not completely, but far less cryptic than in previous interactions. I pulled into the parking lot of a quaint traditional Italian restaurant. She smiled in approval, her stomach accenting her approval. I quickly got out and opened her door for her.
"I don't remember the last time I was this hungry," she laughed as she got out. "I'm usually pretty good at keeping myself fed." We walked into the restaurant, so close I could feel her warmth radiating onto my arm. There was the electricity that I had felt during the car accident, charges jumping between us. Last time, she had jumped as far away from me as possible and even refused to look at me, yet here she walked alongside me, a pep in her step that I had never seen before, her arm brushing mine periodically.
It was like she was a completely different person and while, a side of me rejoiced at finally finding an easy side of Bella to deal with, another part was wary. Uncharacteristic changes were almost never a good thing.
I held the door open for her, watching carefully for any sign or reason for her overly optimistic and eccentric mood. Nothing was different about her, her clothes were still too tight to be considered modest attire, her hair long enough to shroud her in mystery, her smile perfectly conveying the million secrets she was hiding. The only difference were her eyes, light again, bouncing around the restaurant in joy.
She inhaled deeply as a hostess came over to us, her face relaxing into the peacefulness she had had while wandering the streets.
"Table for two?" The hostess asked, her Italian accent thick. Tale coppia perfetta . Il destino li ama immensamente, she thought with a smile on her face. Bella nodded, inhaling deeply again.
"Ma'am, do you use authentic recipes?" she asked as we were escorted through the dimly lit restaurant. It was not particularly crowded, but still housed multiple couples eating and chatting quietly, heads close together.
"Si, my husband cooks only his mama's recipes." The woman replied with a laugh. "He is such a mama's boy, but cooks like a true Italian." Nothing but love filled her thoughts of her husband as she set our menus on a private table in the corner. "My son will be by soon to take your order." With one last smile at us and a thought of how perfect we looked together, she turned and headed back into the kitchen.
Bella immediately opened her menu and began searching its contents diligently. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she thought and considered her choices. Take a picture, it'll last longer, her thoughts suddenly reached out to me, colored with humor.
"How do you do that?" I asked, desperate to know anything about why I cannot hear her as I could everyone else. She smiled, not looking up from her menu.
"It's all about control. Anyone can do it, if they have the discipline to figure out how." That surprised me, in all of my years I had never encountered someone who could shield and then reveal their thoughts to me at will. It was hard to agree that anyone could do it… yet if they could, that would be detrimental to our entire security plan. This was definitely something to discuss further with Carlisle.
Damn she is hot, our waiter thought as he moved toward our table. I glared at him, but he never looked my way, keeping his disgusting eyes and thoughts on Bella. "Hello beautiful, I'm Robert and I will gladly be serving you tonight." The things I'd do… "How would you like to start our evening together?" A low growl began to build in my chest. Bella smiled up at him, her eyes flashing dark again.
"Two cokes and two mushroom ravioli's, please." Succinct and precise, but it was the please that affected all males ears within hearing distance. As if formally conditioned to respond to that one word, Robert was jotting down her order and almost running back to the kitchen and I was running through every recipe of mushroom ravioli to make for her. With that one word, she could make anyone do her bidding. I forced myself to focus on the situation, struggling to fight the instinct to personally make her ravioli. Bella threw me an amused glance, her eyes chocolate again.
"You okay, ace?"
"Are you a Siren?" The words came out before I could even think, yet they made perfect sense. She command over everyone perfectly fit the myths of Sirens luring men away from calm waters and to their deaths. Bella raised her eyebrows, leaning back against her chair with her arms cross.
"Well color me surprised, that is a damn good guess." She laughed. "But no. Sirens and mermaids have been extinct since the Industrial Revolution. All that progress and pollution wasn't really the best thing to happen to them, unfortunately."
"You sound like you were there." She wasn't a SIren, but she was obviously older than she let on. She simply shrugged. "You don't seem to be someone who's sensitive about age?" At that moment, Robert came back and placed her two cokes directly in front of her-again completely ignoring my very existence. She purred a thank you to him, sending his thoughts directly into unrighteous fantasy.
My knuckles tightened, the predatorial side of me begging to silence him and protect what was mine. I stiffened. Mine? No, I never thought of Bella as mine, especially when she so obviously was not. There was nothing that would give me the reason to stake any kind of claim to her. She was just a novelty, an enigma, something to occupy my time. I didn't even really know her.
But I wanted to. I had not realized until just then that I genuinely wanted to get to know who Bella Swan. Not just the vixen that tantalizes and clouds everyone's minds, not just the cruel harpy who abused my family upon arrival, and not just someone who poses more questions than answers. I wanted to know her. The woman behind all of the mystery.
"What's your favorite color?" Bella cocked her head to the side, thinking.
"It doesn't have a name, actually. It's on a spectrum that humans can't see, but to put it simply: an almost silverish green. It's more than that of course, it has blues and whites in it too, but…" she shrugged. So she can see colors that humans can't, a whole new variety of colors for her to choose from. "You?"
And just like that, we began playing twenty-questions. We stayed with just generic "get-to-know-you" questions, never venturing into deeper waters, and with me never trying to figure out what she is. She was very open this way, her eyes staying milk chocolate, and a relaxed smile on her lips. And I learned a surprising amount about her. I found that she doesn't watch TV and hasn't seen a movie since Gone with the Wind premiered; she has been everywhere in the world except for Australia ("it's overrated and hot"); and she has never formally graduated from college.
"I would sit through most of the semester, but something would happen and I would always have to leave before I could actually achieve all of my credits." She explained as Robert returned to the table, carrying two steaming plates of mushroom ravioli. Bella's eyes widened in excitement, her stomach giving a low rumble. I had been so engrossed in our conversation that I had almost forgotten that she still hadn't eaten yet. I almost wanted to complain for the long wait, but then decided to consider it a blessing for having been able to converse with her, uninterrupted.
"For you, beautiful." He said lowly, carefully placing both plates in front of her. "Is there anything else I can get for you?" It happened so quickly, I know that Robert didn't notice. Bella's eyes went black before shifting light gold and back twice before settling on chocolate again. Bella gave a quiet "no thank you" before turning to her food, one hand rubbing her temple.
"What's wrong?" I asked as Robert skidded away in disappointment.
"Just a headache." she said. She stabbed a ravioli and swiftly took a bite, moaning in satisfaction. "It has been too long since I've had real Italian food."
"I don't think I ever had the luxury," I mused absentmindedly, struggling to ignore the siren-esque power of her moan. Suddenly, she opened up her thoughts, focusing solely on the mushroom ravioli on her fork. Through her, I could understand the appetizing aroma that wafted off it. What had just smelled like hot earth tainted with spices, now smelled like a symphony of aromas and tastes that so perfectly went to together, yet each spice managed to stand out individually. She took a bite, and for the first time in my long life, I tasted mushroom ravioli. I felt the warmth of the sauce on my tongue, the explosion of filling as she bit into the pastry, and then the satisfaction as she swallowed the warm bundle of flavor.
She closed her mind off again, eating heartily at the remainder of the plate, no longer taking as much time to savor the taste. I swallowed.
"Thank you."
She shrugged as she began on her second plate, much slower than the first. "I believe everyone should experience good Italian food at least once in their life." She was quiet then as she ate, subconsciously massaging her temple with one hand, staring off into space.
"How's your headache?" I had figured it was a safe enough question, but still she snapped her head up with a scowl on her mouth, her eyes black as night.
"Why do you care?" And then, before I could answer, her eyes went light again and she mumbled a "sorry". She set her fork down and held her head in her hands, her eyes squeezed tightly closed, muttering indecipherably low to herself.
It suddenly clicked, some sort of explanation for the roller coaster that was every single interaction with her.
"Do you have multiple personalities?" She didn't answer for a few moments, taking deep breaths, and holding the sides of her head so tightly as if she were afraid it would explode. I ran through all of my medical knowledge, trying to think of something that could help her, but I knew that she would just reject any assistance, even for something as simple as a headache cure.
"In a way… yes, you could say I have multiple personalities. Humans would diagnose me with Dissociative Identity Disorder." She slowly raised her head, her chocolate eyes pained. "It's not a perfect definition, but it's an easy one." She took another deep breath, deciding on whether or not she wanted to say more. A few seconds passed before she spoke again. "The only thing I'll say about it now is… I am not just one thing, one being. I am a combination, a hybrid. And it is very seriously like oil and water, never meant to be together, never meant to mix. So… in consequence, I don't...mesh together well." She struggled to explain, leaning back away from the table.
It didn't make any sense, I struggled to admit that to myself. Nothing she had said made sense. But she had given me a substantial clue: She was a hybrid of two beings that were never meant to be together. Suddenly Angela's words about Romeo and Juliet came back to me: I don't know why she hates it so much. Whenever I asked she just said that a forbidden love should stay forbidden. She's very good at being cryptic
"Are you ready to leave?" I asked, knowing that now was not the time to explore any new theories. She had already given away so much information, it would be criminal to press it further.
She nodded, holding two fingers up to beckon an eagerly awaiting Robert. He appeared immediately, sliding the black book onto the table with a wink. I slipped a few bills into it before Bella could reach it, surreptitiously disposing of the number he had left within it. We had been there for close to two hours, and only then did he notice me sitting there. Shit, has he been here the whole time? Well, they can't be together if he just sat there.
"Have a great evening," he choked out, snatching the book and frantically walking out of sight.
Bella cracked a smile as we exited the restaurant. "Was there a reason why he never noticed me? It was a little disconcerting." I opened the door for her, but instead of sliding in she looked at me for a moment, discomfort and indecision in her ever changing eyes.
"I didn't do anything, but… I kind of like having you to myself." And with that, she ducked inside of the car.
A/N: Yes! I needed you guys to see the different side of Bella and for some E/B time! Whoo! Hope you guys enjoy!