Chapter 10

The next day was delightfully dark and foggy, so I decided to see how much I could startle and flummox her by just showing up suddenly in her driveway. She was satisfactorily so, particularly when I showed up at the door to her truck, from out of the blue. Or gray, if you want to get technical. "Do you want to ride with me today?" I asked, as soon as her heart got back to normal rhythms.

"Yes, thank you." Good doggie. Hee hee. I deliberately wore a shirt that showed off my upper body today, and just as I hoped, she began ogling it as soon as she got in the car. Hey, vampires are vain creatures, and I, for one, will take any excuse to feed my vanity. Oh yeah, look at these sexy muscles; lust after them, you hussy.

I noticed she was being unusually quiet this morning. "What, no twenty questions today?"

"Do my questions bother you?"

"Not as much as your reactions do."

"Do I react badly?"

"No, and that's the problem. You take everything so calmly—it's unnatural." I guess she didn't know what to say that, because she was silent a few moments until she changed the subject.

"Where's the rest of your family?"

"They took Rosalie's car." I gestured to a red convertible already parked in the lot. "Ostentatious, isn't it?"

She couldn't take her eyes off it. "Wow. If she has that, why does she ride with you?"

"Like I said, it's ostentatious. Usually we try to blend in."

"Well, you don't succeed." Her response was so sarcastic I couldn't help but laugh. "Hey, why do you have cars like that at all, if you're looking for privacy?"

I smiled. "We like to drive fast." She muttered something under her breath, and that made me chuckle, too, unflattering though it was.

Just then Jessica walked up to us, carrying Bella's jacket. She gave it back, she and Bella had some awkward conversation, and Jessica walked off again. I heard a thought from Bella: What on earth am I going to tell her?

"What on earth are you going to tell her?" I said, deliberately goading her.

"Hey, I thought you couldn't read my mind!"

"I can't—but I can read hers, and she's going to ambush you in class."

She groaned. Her irritation was obvious, and I was glad to have my stability back after last night.

"So what are you going to tell her?" I pestered her.

"Quick! What does she want to know?"

I wagged my finger in front of her face. "Ah-ah-ahh, Bella, that would be unfair."

"No, what's unfair is you not sharing what you know." I was enjoying this game.

I pretended that I was considering for a moment. "Ok. She wants to know if we're secretly dating. And she wants to know how you feel about me."

"Augh! What should I say?"

"Say whatever you want." I started walking backward down the hallway, away from her. "I don't know what you want her to hear. See you at lunch," I called as I left her fuming and sputtering outside her next class. She was embarrassed because of the attention I drew to her by calling out like that. Me? I was feeling very satisfied. Let her be the one unbalanced for a while.

I 'listened' in from across the school during Bella's Trig class as she and Jessica talked about our impromptu date in Port Angeles. I wasn't paying real close attention—most of it was about how far we'd gone, what we talked about—girl gossip stuff. Then Bella said something that really caught my attention. "I can't explain it right…but he's even more unbelievable behind the face." Well, that was confusing. Then I caught her next thoughts—and totally lost my composure. "The vampire who wanted to be good—who ran around saving people's lives so he wouldn't be a monster…"

I literally fell off my chair from laughing so hard. The teacher appeared before me as if summoned, and all I could do was stare up at her helplessly as chuckles still rippled through my chest.

"And what, Mr. Cullen, do you find so amusing about the death of Julius Caesar?" She frowned down at me, hands on her hips.

"Ah-hah, eh-heh, oh, it's just that the irony is so thick…" Thinking about it again sent me off into another paroxysm of laughter, and finally I was dismissed. I had to spend the rest of the period in the principal's office, where I eventually settled down. Unfortunately I missed the rest of their conversation, but at least I was feeling good.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was posed against the wall outside Bella's classroom. We walked to lunch, and I loaded a bunch of food on a tray.

"Are you getting all that for me?" she asked.

"Half is for me, of course." We sat down in the same place as last time. "Take whatever you want."

"I wonder…what would you do if someone dared you to eat food?" She picked up an apple and started playing with it.

I gave her a sardonic look and grabbed the slice of pizza off the tray, took a bite, chewed and swallowed. It was an effort to not gag. Except for blood, organic material tends to make us slightly ill. Still, at least there was less organic material than there could have been (it WAS school-lunch pizza, after all). She stared at me, a little startled by the vehemence of my action. I looked her square in the eye. "If someone dared you to eat dirt, you could, couldn't you?"

"I did once, on a dare," she said ruefully.

"I suppose I'm not surprised." I stared at her until it made her uncomfortable. I wanted her to be off-balance. "So the waitress was pretty, was she?"

"You didn't notice?"

"No." Of course I noticed, you dunce. Hard to miss with her throwing herself at me like she was. "I wasn't paying attention. I had a lot on my mind." Like whether or not she would call me later.

"Poor girl." She thought she was being magnanimous. I was thinking how much fun the waitress had been after I picked her up. She was a tigress in the bedroom! I almost just took her home after that. I was hungry after playing so rough, though…yeah, it would have been better to just bring her home; then I could have called her again. Too late now.

Bella started getting down on herself, saying how she was ordinary, and klutzy, and I was so, well, perfect (of course I am). Time to butter her up, I guess. "You don't see yourself very clearly, you know. I'll admit you're dead-on about your shortcomings, but you didn't hear what every human male in this school was thinking on your first day." The way I said it implied that it was flattering. Really what they were thinking something along the line of 'hey, there's a new girl. How interesting.'

She bought the flattering bit. "Wow, I don't believe it…" She was more embarrassed than pleased, showing not a lot of vanity about her appearance. We could work on that later.

"Got a question for you," I said, changing the subject. "Do you really need to go to Seattle this Saturday, or was that just an excuse to get out of saying no to your 'admirers'?

She made a face. "You know, I haven't forgiven you for Tyler yet. It's your fault that he's deluded himself into thinking I'm going to prom with him." No, actually it's yours for avoiding him like the plague when he's just trying to make up for ALMOST KILLING YOU. But you can't be bothered to take stock of the feelings of others, can you, my pet?

"Oh, he would have found a chance to ask you without my assistance—I just really wanted to watch your face." That was entirely true. It seemed the natural following question, so I asked it. "If I'd asked you, would you have turned me down?"

"Probably not, but I would have canceled later—faked an illness or a sprained ankle." I was incredulous. What a cold-hearted bitch she was! Awesome!

"Why would you do that?"

"Have you not seen how klutzy I tend to be?"

"Psh! That wouldn't be a problem. It's all in the leading." And you have no idea how true that is. "But you never told me—are you resolved on going to Seattle, or do you mind if we do something different?"

"Sure. But can I ask a favor?"

I narrowed my eyes. "What?"

"Can I drive?"

That threw me off for a moment. "Why?"

"Because I'm supposed to be going alone, according to what I told Charlie, and your driving frightens me." My driving? Maybe I needed to play up the 'vampire' bit a little more.

Oh, she's speaking again. "Why did you go to that Goat Rocks place…to hunt? Charlie said it wasn't a good place to hike, because of the bears." That's one way to look at it.

I gave her a toothy grin.

"Bears?" she said. I kept grinning. "They're not in season, you know."

I was all innocence as I explained. "If you actually read through the laws, they only cover hunting with manufactured weapons."

She was stunned, still taking it in. "Bears?"

"Grizzly is Emmett's personal favorite," I added, laying it on thick.

"Wait, I thought you went hunting with Carlisle."

"I never said we went hunting for bear; you assumed it."

She pouted at that, apparently miffed that I had "tricked" her. "So…what's your favorite?" she asked hesitantly.

I grinned wider. "Mountain lion." That much was true. Not as much brute force as grizzlies, but they're scrappy animals. Have you ever tried to handle an angry house cat? It's like that, only times ten. "Early spring is Emmett's favorite bear season," I said, warming up to the subject. "They're just coming out of hibernation, so they're more irritable."

She shook her head. "I'm trying to picture it, but I can't. How do you hunt a bear without weapons?"

"Who said we didn't have weapons?" I lifted my chin to further expose my teeth. "Just not the kind they consider when writing hunting laws. Have you ever seen a bear attack on TV? Emmett hunting is kinda like that."

She turned her head to look at Emmett, noticing his bulk, all banded muscle and whip-cord sinew. A saw a shiver of fear move down her spine, and that gave me warm fuzzies. About time she actually did something, y'know, human. She's supposed to be one, after all. She was silent for a minute of two, then turned suddenly back to me. "Is that something I might get to see?"

"Absolutely not!" I jolted back so hard I almost tipped backward out of my chair. That was the last thing I would have expected her to say, and certainly the last thing I wanted to hear at this point. That she could even ask that question revealed a morbid side to her that had been heretofore hidden.

"Too scary for me?" she asked when I had recovered most of my composure.

"If that were it, I would take you out tonight. You need a healthy dose of fear."

"Then why?"

"Later." I stood up, hopefully with an air of finality. "We're going to be late."

She glanced around at the nearly empty cafeteria, jumped out of her seat and grabbed her bag. "Later, then."

I watched her leave, my thoughts at a roiling boil. There was no way in hell I would let her watch the hunt, not if she was this eager. See, when a human gets turned, their core personality remains, but every tendency toward human vice—lust, greed, envy, pride, gluttony, wrath—becomes emphasized. That meant that if I turned Bella anytime soon, her lust for violence (remember Tyler?), the hunt, and slaughter would only be increased. She would be brutal, deadly, and dangerous. A fine specimen of a vampire, and willful enough that Carlisle may not even be able to bring her into our fold. If the thought of the hunt got her blood up now, it would excite her something fierce after she was turned. And if that happened while she was still in this mindset, it wouldn't be me snaring her in my web of deceit. I would be ensnared by her.

*This is at the same time easy and hard. I know Edward's personality, so his take on things is easy, but transitioning between book "I said, he said" into "she said, I said" can be difficult at times. Keep up with the reading and reviewing, though, it gives me strength, and a reason to press on!