Evie

"Can't I ask just one more?" Bella pleaded with me, ever questioning. We were walking through the misty darkness along the boardwalk. The dark waves crashed against the pier, sending sea spray onto the platform.

"One," I allowed with a sigh. I was eager to hear what she had learned on the reservation, but I was also enjoying this window of communication between us, however brief it would be.

"How did you find me earlier, in the bookstore?"

I frowned. Her questions always forced me to reveal secrets about myself, things no human was ever supposed to learn, while at the same time giving me no hint as to the extent of her knowledge. She noticed my hesitation.

"I thought we were past the evasiveness?" She really was relentless. Well, if she was so determined to find out the truth I might as well tell her. And then watch her run away screaming.

"Fine, then. I followed your scent." I paused here to let that sink in. Let her realize that I am an animal, a predator. "When you weren't at home, I checked the homes of your friends. It was Mike who finally gave me the clue I needed. He was thinking about Jessica buying a dress for the dance. I went to the store in Forks, but you weren't there so I had to call Alice…" I bit back my words. In my haste to explain, I had once again revealed far too much. Of course, she immediately jumped on my slip-up.

"You called Alice? Why?" I shook my head, furious with myself.

"She knows fashion." I lied, sure that she would see right through me. She did. She crossed her arms and her lips drew together in a tight line. But she let it pass. Probably storing the information away for later. "Anyways," I continued quickly, hoping to distract her from thinking too much about Alice, "I drove up to Port Angeles and found the department store. Once again, you weren't there, so I had to get out of my car and track you. I should have known exactly where you'd be."

She smiled at me then, in spite of the fact that I had just described my afternoon spent tracking her down. "I'm still planning to go to Seattle for more bookstores." She told me. "The one here is not going to cut it." I had to agree with her there. "So you heard Mike thinking about Jessica." she continued. "How does that work exactly? Can you read anyone's mind anywhere? Can Alice and the rest of your family do it too?" Her questions came in rapid fire.

"Hey, you said just one more question!" I scolded her.

She looked a little sheepish. "I know, but you never really answered that one in the restaurant. Please?" She looked up at me then, her chocolatey brown eyes melting me, and I surprised myself by relenting.

"I can read anyone's mind, save for yours, as long as I am within a reasonable distance. The more familiar I am with someone's mind, the farther away I can hear them. I am the only one in my family, the only the one that I know of anywhere, who can do this."

"Wow," she sounded awestruck.

I waited quietly, expecting more questions. Instead she was quiet for a long while. We crossed the street, leaving the boardwalk to make our way downtown to my car. The streetlights became fewer as we left the main road. It was no problem for my vampire eyes, but Bella started tripping here and there in the darkness. Once I automatically reached out to steady her, but caught myself before I touched her. It would be a very bad idea for me to make physical contact with her right now. After three days apart, her scent burned in my nostrils with renewed vigor.

We turned down an alley to cut through toward downtown. I should have known better. I was so focused on the girl and her questions, I had neglected to scan ahead for danger. We passed by a hole-in-the-wall bar were a group of men were lounging outside, obviously intoxicated. They saw the two of us draw near and one of them whistled a high sharp note. His thoughts were jumbled by liquor, but I caught the gist of them. I had encountered low-lifes like him more times than I could count. I even used to hunt them, many lifetimes ago. My reaction was as shocking to me as it was instantaneous.

I jumped forward, placing myself between the man and Bella, dropping into a defensive crouch automatically.

"Oh, are you going to fight us girlie?" The man taunted me, and it was too much. I couldn't hold back any longer. The veins inside and around my eyes filled with blood, turning my vision red. My muscles tightened, readying me to spring. I felt my fangs slide down into place unbidden, and my mouth filled with venom. Through the haze, I watched as the man's expression changed from leering into terror. He stumbled backward, then turned and ran away from me. That was all the invitation I needed.

I sprang forward, my powerful legs propelling me across the distance between myself and my victim in one leap. The other men had scattered, and I let them escape. This one was mine. I knocked him down and pinned him, his face scraping on the asphalt. The scent from the droplets of blood that rose to the surface of his skin pushed me over the edge. I opened my mouth wide, baring my fangs, and was about to strike when a shrill voice cut through the night air.

"EVIE!"

I turned, momentarily distracted from my hunt. Then I saw her. Bella had backed away from the scene and stood against the wall, watching me. I knew how I must look to her now: monstrous. But her hand was outstretched as if she could grasp me from that distance and pull me back. She shook her head back and forth, eyes wide and mouth open. It worked. Somehow, her voice had broken through the bloodlust. I felt it receding now and I pushed it down further, appalled at what had almost happened. I hadn't been this close to hunting a human since...since the day I met Bella Swan.

I looked back down at the man I had tackled. He was passed out cold. I stretched my mind out further, tracing the minds of his companions. They ran haphazardly, remembering a crazy girl who ran at them with a knife. I was glad that they had fabricated that part of their memories. Luckily, none of them had stuck around long enough to view my true weapons. I would have to keep tabs on this one tomorrow. Who knew what he would remember when he awoke.

I stood slowly and turned back toward Bella. I inched toward her step by step, wondering when she would run. But to my amazement, she stayed put. I walked until I was a few paces away from her, a safe distance for both of us. I stood looking at her, waiting. For what, I didn't know.

"Are you alright?" She finally spoke. She was asking me if I was okay?

"I am fine now. Bella, I am so sorry." How could I even begin to apologize? She must be terrified out of her mind now, frozen in fear. I listened to her heart. It beat quickly, but was in fact beginning to slow. Her breathing was also returning to normal. How could this be?

"Will you take me home now please?" She requested, and now it was my turn to stare at her open-mouthed. She had just seen what I am, what I do to people, and she wanted to get into a car with me? She must have a death wish.

"Of course," I told her, knowing that we both needed to get out of here. "but are you sure?" I didn't want her to feel like I was her only way home.

"Of course." She echoed me, and closed the distance between us. She looked into my face, my eyes now back to normal. "I trust you." The words were simple and direct, and completely true. I was floored. "I feel safer with you than I ever have, even if you are a vampire."

The word hit me like a slap in the face, and I reeled back from it.

She knew the truth.

It was then that I realized my cell phone was buzzing in my pocket. "Alice." I answered.

"Are you alright?!" She was in a panic. "I've been calling you all night! Why do you have a phone if you never answer it? I saw you attack someone, Evie! And then it all went blank. Is Bella with you? Is she okay?"

"I'm fine Alice, everything is okay. It was...close. But no one died. Yes Bella is with me." Bella's eyebrows shot up at the mention of her name. "I'm on my way home. Will you let Carlisle know I want to talk to him when I get there? Thanks, Al." I snapped the phone shut and turned back to Bella. "Shall we?"

She nodded, and we left the alley. "Your sister knew we were in trouble, didn't she? And she knew I was with you."

"If I am the ears, Alice is the eyes." I told her. I could practically see the questions bubbling up inside her. "Ah ah," I told her before she could start, "It's still my turn to ask the questions." She pouted, and I once again marveled at the fact that she was still here talking to me after everything she had just witnessed.

We walked quickly to my car, not speaking. We were both eager to put Port Angeles behind us.

I clicked the keyless entry as we neared my car, and Bella started in surprise when it beeped, lights flashing. She hadn't realized I'd brought my real car today. I opened the passenger door of my jet black, fully loaded and suped-up, brand new Corvette. I couldn't help but grin at her expression.

"This is...different." She said as she gingerly lowered herself into the seat. I closed her door and practically flew around to my side of the car. I must be riding an adrenaline high after my close call. I couldn't remember ever feeling so weightless.

We sat in a charged silence while I wound my way through the side streets to get to the main highway.

"How are you feeling, Bella?" I finally dared to ask her, fearing the answer.

"I'm fine, really." She answered. "Honestly, I'm really good at blocking out unpleasant things." She must be, I decided. How else would she be able to sit in a vehicle with me, knowing what I am? Then I wondered how often she had encountered unpleasant things in her life, things she'd had to block out. So many questions. I needed to focus on the topic at hand.

"How long have you known what I am?" I started with a simple one.

"For sure? Only today. I thought Jacob was embellishing when he told me about the Cold Ones on Saturday. I thought I had gone insane for even considering it. But then none of you showed up for school today, the first real sunny day we've had since I moved here. Jessica happened to mention that you and your family are always absent when the weather is nice."

I should have known that our pattern would eventually be recognized. Even so, Bella was the first human in my two hundred years to ever put it all together. For a moment I was self-righteously furious. How dare that child break our treaty? If Jacob Black had never said anything, Bella might have stayed in the dark. If I wanted to, I could storm their village and slaughter the lot of them. Their precious treaty was null and void now that Jacob had spilled our secret.

Bella waited patiently while I seethed, her hands twisting around each other nervously. "He didn't really believe what he was saying," she tried to convince me, though she wasn't exactly sure of that herself. "He was just trying to be interesting."

"Don't worry, I won't do anything to harm your friend." I told her. "But if I ever happen across his father we will have words, you can be sure of that."

"There was something else that Jacob said, that I am curious about."

I laughed. When was she ever not curious? "Oh? And what was that?"

"Well, he said that the reason his ancestor devised the treaty with your family was because you were different than the other Cold Ones. You didn't hunt humans."

"The Quileutes have a long memory." I was impressed. I should have put more stock in the oral history of the tribe. If we had known, we probably would not have chosen to settle here so soon after our last visit, if at all. But then, a thought suddenly occurred to me. If we hadn't come back, I never would have met Bella Swan.

"So what do you...eat?" She had taken my answer as a confirmation of what Jacob had told her, and my silence as an opportunity to ask yet another question.

"We survive off of the blood of animals. But it's only that: survival. It's enough to keep us strong, but it never fully satiates the thirst."

"Sort of like vegetarians?" She asked, and I laughed loudly.

"Yes, exactly like that. We try, but sometimes we make mistakes."

"Like what happened in the alley."

"Yes." My voice turned grim. "And like me allowing myself to be alone with you."

"This is a mistake?" Did I imagine the tone of disappointment in her voice?

"Yes," I told her, "a very dangerous one."

"Then why risk it?" She got right to the heart of things.

"Why indeed?" I wondered, not for the first time. It had begun as an assignment, to make certain our identities wouldn't be revealed after I risked saving her life. But now it was something much more. Something I didn't even begin to understand. But I knew in this moment, more than wanting her to trust me, I wanted her to know me.

When it became apparent that that was my only answer, she moved on to her next one. I was definitely losing at our game of twenty questions.

"Wouldn't it be easier to not fight it? To just, let yourself be who you are?"

She clearly had no concept of what it meant for me to be who I am. It took every ounce of my considerable strength every single day to fight my most basic instinct: to hunt and kill. "Oh, it would be much much easier. At first. But as time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to live with who I am. I don't want to be a monster."

She accepted this answer and then went on to her next question. "Were you hunting this weekend with your family?"

"Yes." I marveled again at the casual way she was able to talk about my feeding habits. Could she really have just accepted this all in stride?

The answer was yes, she could. Her barrage of questions continued without pause.

"Do you have to sleep in a coffin?"

I laughed. "Not necessary. A bed indoors is quite sufficient, as long ss there are adequate window coverings. Although, in the past there were times…" I trailed off, not sure how much I should reveal.

"How old are you?" She jumped on the mention of my past, as I knew she would.

"Seventeen." My answer was immediate and reflexive.

"How long have you been seventeen?"

"A while."

She crossed her arms and sat back against her seat, obviously frustrated by my unwillingness to elaborate. Then something else must have occurred to her because she sat up again, her body angled toward me in the small interior of the car.

"How is it that you can go outside during the day? Doesn't the sun burn you?"

"Yes it does, very painfully." I shuddered at the memory of the burns I had sustained in my lifetime. "But Esme, my mother for all intents and purposes, is a brilliant chemist. She devised a way for us to tolerate minimal sunlight. Hence our move to the Pacific Northwest. I'll never forget the first time I walked outside during the daylight. The light hurt my eyes, but it was glorious. I could see everything that I had seen each night, but it was all imbued with color, more color than I think I'd ever seen in my life. Over the years, the darkness had become so monotonous. We live a quiet life here, but I would never trade it for all the world." I was putting my full trust in her now. This was my family's most closely guarded secret: if anyone in our world found out we would be hunted mercilessly. But Carlisle, being who he is, refuses to share it with vampires who hunt humans. He said it would give them even more advantages over their prey.

Bella seemed lost in thought when I pulled into the driveway of her house. It took her a moment to realize where we were, and then she sat up quickly and stared around her wildly. "How did we get here so fast?"

"I always drive fast," I answered, unsure what had upset her. She sighed, staring out the window. She seemed as reluctant to leave as I was to let her go.

"Will I see you tomorrow?" She asked me.

"Yes, the forecast looks cloudy." I grinned at her, and it felt good to do this. "I'll save you a seat a lunch." Her heart stuttered when I said this, and I wondered at that. She fumbled for the door handle and then heaved herself awkwardly out of the low riding car. Was she more frightened than she was letting on? She removed my jacket and handed it back to me. It was filled with her scent, sweet and heady. I set it gingerly on the passenger seat as far away from me as possible. As if that would help.

"Tomorrow then," She told me, and walked stiffly up to her front door and let herself in. I worried that she may be going into shock, a delayed reaction to the events of the evening. But there was nothing I could do for her if she was. I just had to hope that she would be okay.

I drove aimlessly for a while, unwilling to head home just yet. More like unwilling to face reality. The reality being that a human now knows what I am, what my family is. There are not many rules among vampire kind; we prefer to live by our own authority. But the number one rule that we all must follow- or face certain death- was to not ever leave a trace of our existence. I had broken this cardinal rule. Not purposefully, but it was broken nonetheless.

But before I went home to face the consequences, I wanted to revel in this feeling. Bella knows what I am, and she did not run away from me. For some inexplicable reason, she seems as curious about me as I am about her. I had never before felt accepted by anyone outside of my family, and the feeling was exquisite. I let the happiness wash through me and I savored it.

I felt the time slipping by me and knew I should get this over with. I drove slowly back to my home, took extra care parking my car in its garage, and tried to noiselessly open the door into the house. Too bad it's impossible to sneak into a house filled with vampires.

Alice was on the other side of the door. She threw her arms around me immediately.

"Oh Evie, I'm so glad you're okay!" she gushed.

"I'm fine Alice, for now." I looked at her. "How bad is it going to be?"

She drew away from me and tried to censor her thoughts. "You know Carlisle."

I nodded. It was now or never. Delaying the inevitable would only make it worse. I cast my thoughts outward, searching for Carlisle's mind. He was in his study, of course, and reading. He did this in anticipation of my arrival, as a way to block his thoughts from me. It was going to be bad.

I trudged up the stairs. His door was open. "Carlisle." I greeted him.

"Evalyn, please come in." He gestured to the chair opposite him. I sat on the edge of the seat and looked at him, waiting. "Would you like to tell me what happened this evening?" He asked, his voice calm and quiet.

"I just wanted to keep an eye on the girl, to make sure she hadn't said anything to anyone over the weekend. I had heard she had spent some time up at First Beach, on the Quileute reservation. I didn't really think there was any danger of her finding out about us." The words spilled from my lips, fast and passionate. "But Carlisle...she knows." I let the words sink in. He hadn't expected this turn of events. We had all become dependent on Alice to let us know when something was about to happen that would affect our family, but Bella was out of her sight. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen my father so shocked, if ever.

"How is this possible?"

"She spoke to one of the younger Quileutes."

"I don't believe it! The Quileutes were the ones who insisted on the treaty, why would they be the ones to break it?"

"I don't think the younger generation understands the full implications," I told him gently. "They don't realize that the legends are true. The boy spoke from ignorance, not malice."

"You're sure about this?"

"Completely. We should consider the treaty fully intact."

He nodded once. I waited.

Finally, unable to contain myself, I asked him, "Carlisle, what are we going to do?" I held my breath, awaiting his answer. What would I do if he decided we needed to kill her?

"I say we wait it out. She is an innocent. She hasn't said anything to anyone. I think the problem is contained, so far. But if she slips up, if she tells even one person..." He didn't need to finish. I knew exactly what would happen.

"I understand. Thank you, father. She won't make that mistake, I can guarantee it."

His eyes narrowed at me. "Do not make guarantees that you are not capable of ensuring."

"Yes, of course." How could I make him understand? After tonight, I had no doubts whatsoever about Bella keeping our secret.

"Now, about what happened in Port Angeles."

I froze. The interrogation wasn't over yet.

"You attacked a human." I did not bother to contradict him. "You did this in front of other humans." Again, I remained silent. "This is by far more troubling than one human teenager finding out about us." My eyes widened in surprise. "Eva," his voice softened when he used his old pet name for me, "what is going on with you?" I looked into his face, the face I knew better than any on the planet including my own, and saw nothing but compassion and concern.

"What do you mean?" I was confused.

"I have never seen you so...impassioned. I cannot tell you how long your mother and I have worried about you. You have become increasingly despondent, more removed from humanity with each passing decade. Until now. Now I see that you are preoccupied, even captivated. I must say it has been a welcome change. But if this Bella is somehow influencing you to start attacking people, well I'm afraid I will have to put a stop to it."

I stared at him, flummoxed. How could he possibly think that Bella was the reason why I lost control tonight?

"It wasn't her fault!" I cried. It was the first time I had ever raised my voice to my father. "I think I was trying to protect her. These men were drunk, and when I heard what he was thinking about her I jumped in between them. And then he taunted me!"

He raised his eyebrows. A simple gesture, but enough to calm me a little.

"You're right. No matter what affront this human gave me, I had no right to use my strength to overpower him. I was wrong, and I'm sorry." This admission hurt. "But father, he is still out there. He might have seen my face, I can't be sure. But more than that, I saw his mind. I heard what he intended for Bella, and I can't let someone else take Bella's place as his victim, it's not right!" I was still incensed.

His wide, unexpected smile stopped the rush of my words cold. I was wrong, he thought, this human is not a bad influence. Quite the opposite, it seems. Protective, compassionate. Perhaps this girl will serve a higher purpose…

I could not fathom what he meant by that, and the thought was gone as soon as he realized he had let his mind wander. "I'll take care of it." He told me assuredly. "Tell me where to find him."

I quickly sketched directions to the bar where we'd had the encounter. The man might still be there in the alley, unconscious. If not, Carlisle would be able to track him by the blood he left on the asphalt.

Carlisle and I rushed down the stairs. I found Alice and asked her to scan ahead for us. She saw that Carlisle would have no trouble. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Evie, what happened tonight after the attack?" she asked me.

"The almost attack." I clarified.

"Of course, almost." She rolled her eyes. "If you had bothered to answer my call the first time, it would not have been a close call at all."

"You're right, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry. I was...distracted." I was really apologizing a lot this evening.

"You're forgiven," she intoned in her wind-chime voice. "Can I talk to Bella now?" She had been pestering me with this question since the day of the car accident. "You can't keep her all to yourself forever, you know."

I bristled, suddenly feeling proprietary. "Watch me," I growled, and stalked off to bed.