HI EVERYONE! I wasn't planning on posting this, but I wanted to remind everyone that this story isn't dead in the water. It will be finished. Maybe after I finish Vices because Vices is a lot shorter than this one. ;) Anyway, I'll quit rambling and leave y'all to it!

36. Big Bad Wolf

Alice is coke-high. I know it because I was conceived by it, born and raised by it. I know it the moment I get in her car, and I've known for a while. I think Marcus gives it to her, along with the fancy clothes and the nicer car and the shiny cards she has in her wallet. I don't say anything about it, though. There's no point. There never is.

There's no point to anything, really.

"So." Alice pops out of the dressing room, a black dress painted onto her stick-slim body. "What do you think?"

I nod because I don't know what to say. This isn't my area of expertise.

Grandma took me thrift store shopping, where you had to scan the clothes for stains before you bought them. Sometimes, if you liked something enough, you put up with the stain.

Those places were all kinds of dingy. Everything felt used, even the carpet you walked on.

It's nothing like whatever high-end department store we're in now. Everything's shiny and new, excessive and blinding.

Much like Alice's dress.

"I like it," Alice announces and dances over to the three-way mirror, doing a spin. "But it kind of highlights the fact that I have no ass." She pops her nonexistent rear, sighing mournfully.

I just roll my eyes a little and slink lower in my chair.

"So what's with you and Edward?"

I glance over at her sharply, catching her eyes in the mirror. "Nothing," I say quietly.

"I don't know. He talks about you a lot. Gives you that hungry dog look."

"Hungry dog?" I laugh a little because it's too ridiculous and weird not to.

"You know the look!" Alice beams, pleased she's gotten a reaction out of me. She walks back into her dressing room. Since no one else is around, she doesn't bother closing the door. She just starts shimmying out of her dress. "You totally know the look."

I do know the look. It's the one that makes me feel funny. It's the one I don't like sometimes, but am unsure about other times.

"Edward's a good guy, Bella. I mean, he would be if he had a little direction." She nods to herself and walks around in her expensive-looking bra and panties. They look like the kind the girls have on in magazines—lacy and black.

I think of my own bra that's a bit too small and wash-dingy. My panties certainly never match it, either. They're a wide variety of bargain pack types.

I watch Alice drift around so confidently in that matching set of underwear, and I wonder if that's what Edward likes. But I don't really know where that thought comes from and it embarrasses me, so I push it back.

"You could give him direction," Alice adds to me.

Alice wants to stop by the garage on the way back to the motel. I can't really stop her, so I find myself creeping inside the unknown territory slowly.

It's a boy's world—greasy and dirty, with the smell of metal parts and the sound of fuzzy, classic rock. Cars are everywhere, some jacked high in the air and others dismembered, scattered in big, oily pieces.

"Hey, guys," Alice cries, teetering inside the garage in her platforms, standing out but fitting in, just the same.

"Hey," they cheer back.

I ease in behind her, blending in. It's different than fitting in.

"What's up?" Emmett asks, appearing with a backwards baseball cap and wife beater on. His pale arms are coated up and down with black smudges.

"Not much. Just doing a little shopping," Alice replies, batting her lashes. She walks over to Jasper, and when they kiss, everyone looks away and gets quiet.

Alice is Marcus' girl. Edward told me that one night. And the way he said it, the way everyone gets stiff and nervous when Alice and Jasper touch, something about this is dangerous.

I press myself along the wall, standing by a toolbox. My eyes find Edward. He's hunkered beneath the hood of an old truck, leaned over the dark inner parts of the vehicle, trying to loosen something with a ratchet. The muscles in his arm flex and it's distracting. He glances up, and I can't look away quite fast enough so he catches me staring.

He smiles.

I smile back just a little and look away. I find Jasper eyeing me over the top of Alice's head. He looks as disapproving of me as I do of him and the arm he has tossed around Marcus' girl.

Charlie drifts out of the garage's office, and his sorrowful expression is contagious—it contaminates everything around him, like a black cloud raining on anything near.

"How's it goin'?" he asks glumly, his voice pulling with a Southern drawl and tempered with a sad gentleness.

"Good," the guys all call back.

"Good." Charlie nods, then he sees me. I can't tell what he's feeling besides depressed. I don't know if he's suspicious of me or not. I just know he glances toward Edward and kind of nods to himself.

I frown, pressing further into the wall, wishing I could disappear.

But Edward comes over and grins at me, acting like he's going to take a swipe at my face with his dirty hands. I wrinkle my nose and push his arm away.

"What're you doing in my neck of the woods, B?" he asks, finding a dirty shop rag and trying in vain to pull the grease from his hands.

"Alice wanted to stop by. Say hey to Jasper."

Edward glances over at them the same time I do. Alice is whispering something up to him while he holds her face between his big palms.

Edward makes a small sound. "Fucking stupid," he mutters under his breath and looks away, ignoring it like everyone else in the garage—everyone but Seth, who still pouts about it from time to time.

"Hey, you wanna do something tonight?"

I glance up at Edward, a little surprised. "Like what?"

"I don't know." He shrugs, smiling. It's a good day today. I can tell by the ease in which he moves. "Anything. We could see a movie or something."

"There are movies on TV. We don't have to pay for those."

He rolls his eyes. "Cheap ass."

I just smirk.

Then a car pulls up outside. It's not right—too shiny and new. Charlie starts for it immediately, and the air changes. Jasper and Alice part, and suddenly, it's like they don't know each other.

I glance towards Edward, but he's not looking at me anymore. He's squinting at the car. "Hey, why don't you go hang out back for a second?" he asks lightly.

I don't ask. I just start walking, but I'm not fast enough.

Marcus is already here, nodding at whatever Charlie is saying. The old man is the same contradiction as before: old but sharp, worn but pampered. I don't like how close I can see him now.

"Marcus!" Alice cries, running over to him. She kisses his cheek and he puts his arm around her.

"Alice," he replies. His voice is calm—pleasant, even. But it makes my skin crawl. It's somehow worse for him to have such a nice voice. It should be garbled and cracked. "What are you doing here, sweetheart?"

"Oh, I just came by to say hello to everyone. I get bored, you know." Alice spins her lies like a song, effortless and perfect.

"I see." Marcus pats her side once before letting her go. His eyes are ice-blue—unnatural almost—and they fall on to Edward. "How are you, son?"

"I'm great." Edward's smile is perfect, but his eyes are all wrong.

"Feeling ready for tomorrow?"

"Of course."

Edward doesn't look over at me once, but it's like Marcus knows someone is here who doesn't belong. His eyes land on me next, and my blood runs cold.

"Who's this?" he asks, offering me a little smile.

I'm frozen stiff.

"A friend of yours, Edward?"

Edward shrugs and gives the kind of smile someone like Rose might expect from him—an uncaring, bored, playboy's smile. "Yeah, I guess."

Marcus clucks his tongue at Edward's attitude, but his eyes never waver from me. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

"Bella," I whisper.

"Bella! A fitting name." He drops a wrinkly wink and then turns back toward Charlie.

I immediately catch Edward's eyes and nod towards the back, asking him if he still wants me to hide.

He just shakes his head minutely.

"Well, Charlie. I just came to check on everyone. I want things to go smoothly," Marcus says, starting back towards his fancy car.

Charlie nods, following behind him. "Right. Everything's good. It always is."

"And that's why I keep you around." He chuckles to make it sound light, but it's not and no one mistakes it to be. He starts to get in his car, and maybe I'll start to breathe again.

But he stops and shines a too-white smile back towards me.

"It was nice to meet you, Bella."

I hope y'all enjoyed it! I'm sorry it's taking so long for updates. But I don't want to write when I'm not feeling inspired because it'll be crap. And I'd rather have y'all wait than read crap, you know? Anyway, thanks for being patient with me!

oxoxox,

Lila