AN: Don't worry! All the weirdness in the story will be explained! Have patience!
I silently congratulated myself and then the rest of my plan fell into place.
I turned towards the window with a huff so he knew that I didn't want to talk, not that he would, and stared at the seemingly endless line of pine trees.
After a few minutes I realized that I'd fallen into a daze. This wasn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped. I barely managed to stifle a yawn and stretched. I knew he had seen me yawn, I could almost hear the smile on his face. He thought I was giving up, what an idiot. I knew it wouldn't be hard to outsmart Keith.
So, after what seemed like an eternity, but what I counted to be around ten minutes, I pretended to fall asleep. I acted as best I could, though I knew it wouldn't be easy; let's face it, I'm not a convincing actress. I was guessing that he hadn't fallen for it. If he had he would have started to speed up again. Or, so I hoped. I focused so hard on trying to be still, and relax my muscles that I actually did fall asleep. Relaxing myself while I was still full of extra sleeping pills probably wasn't the best idea. However, I was lucky; I only fell into a light sleep. I woke up as he started to exit the freeway. I opened my eyes to slits as he slowed to a stop.
We were in a small little Gas-N-Go place. The store was medium sized, probably because it was the only thing out here for truckers and travelers to go to. It was brick and the pale yellow paint on it was chipped in places and fading. It was obviously some kind of "Mom and Pop" store, locally owned. I saw a few ads covering the windows of the shop. About twenty feet around the edge of the store, the forest had reclaimed its territory. The dumpster was five feet into the new growth of forest and it was gaining on the bathrooms, which were located across from the dumpster nestled against the building. I saw no other places around, only what seemed like forest for miles and miles. Whoever worked here didn't live here.
This meant I had two choices: First, I could run into the woods and towards the highway and hope to stop someone with a cell phone, this choice had a few downsides; with my luck I would get picked up by a pervert or serial killer of some kind. Or I wouldn't get picked up at all, and Keith would find me. Second, I could hide in the woods and when I was sure Keith had gone to look for me and wasn't near me, I could run to the store and use their phone to call Edward, then maybe 911. I would definitely go with the second choice. That way at least if Keith found me I could put up a big fight and hopefully the owners would notice and come to help me.
Neither choice was perfect, but they were good enough for now.
I listened as the car shut off and the door opened and closed, then, to my dismay, he locked the doors. This wasn't going to be as easy. I slowly turned my head and saw that he was walking quickly into the gas station's small shop. Maybe he was going to get more food to drug me with. I didn't care, I unlocked and opened the door quietly and crept out. I left the door barely ajar, afraid it would make too much noise and alert him. I didn't know if he was watching from the store, so as soon as I was out I ran, full sprint – or more like a quick wobble thanks to the pills – towards the back of the store. I stumbled once and nearly cracked my head open on the cement. My arm took the grunt of the fall, but it was only scraped up. Before I had time to process the pain in my arm I was up and running again.
I made it into the woods, only then did I chance a look behind me. I was out of breath from exhaustion and the tumble but I kept running as I looked. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Keith was still in the store. I had made it. I turned back around and smacked into something. Hard. But before I could hit the floor I was being held up, the thought Edward crossed my mind in relief. A second later most everything was painfully obvious. I felt stupid for not seeing it before.
Keith had caught me.
Keith's face looked both amused and annoyed at first. Then he stood me back up and glared furiously at me. Now he only looked angry.
"Don't you ever try that again." He whispered wrathfully. I couldn't speak; I was petrified and astounded at the same time.
"Do that again and after this is done I might just return to Phoenix to visit some relatives in the hospital. Maybe even Forks." His anger was fading, though he was obviously forcing himself to be calm.
I could only stare blankly at him. I understood it all, but now it all seemed so obvious. I was silent as he led me, roughly, back to the car. He sat me down and drove off; apparently the tank was full now.
When we got in the car I looked at him again, his tan was faded, but still there; his eyes were blue, just like on the first day I met him. But he was a vampire. Color contacts could explain the eyes, but what about the tan? Was that his ability? Or was that his ethnicity? Nothing made sense to me.
"How did you…? How are you…?" I couldn't make my confusion form sentences. I wanted to ask everything at once.
He took a deep breath.
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain everything this early, but I can if I need to. Besides, I'm guessing that this ride will be easier without your idiotic escape attempts. Well, first off, I'm guessing you want to know about my appearance. Obviously, my eyes are blue because I'm wearing color contacts. There was one time when I slipped up though. However, it didn't seem like you or your boyfriend noticed. The one time in the hospital, remember, in the elevator?" I thought back and remembered how his eyes had reminded me of the trees in Forks. I felt even stupider. "Anyways, the tan, well that was hard. It takes a constant application of spray on tans. Though, they tend to rub off my skin pretty easily, I managed to make it work. That was another thing, I could never bump into you in broad daylight, this stuff doesn't cover up my skin problem very well." That explained why I had met him in the mall, when I was with my mom. And in the hospital, and only in the open at night, my face burned red with shame. How could I have not seen it? "Now I know you're wondering why I'm taking you. But I can't give away all the surprises just yet. Another thing I thought would prove hard was obviously the fact that I have no heart beat. So when I first met him in the mall I made sure that he wouldn't be paying any attention to that fact. I threw some pretty good thoughts his way. I could tell he was getting angrier. And, the fact that he didn't want to fight me made it obvious that thought I was human. Any questions?"
"How did you throw off Edward? And how can you be so sure that he isn't near here?" I was secretly hoping that he hadn't been thrown off, that he was near, that me being out in the open had helped him find me.
He smiled, "Good question." Obviously he liked to brag about himself. "Well, it was hard to get you away from him in the first place. But that's another story; I bet you were amazed at how easily you escaped him." He laughed. "Anyways, when I got you in the car and knocked you out, I cut you hair." He smiled and waited for my response. I felt myself tense, I loved my hair; it was thick and brown and reached down to my back. Hesitantly I reached up and felt it, he was telling the truth, now it reached to just around my shoulders. Somehow among the earlier panic I hadn't noticed it. I just sat there, trying hard to keep myself calm. He continued, "Then I handed it to my friend, he taped it to the headrest of his car left the passenger side window cracked open and drove off north to flagstaff. Your boyfriend probably has realized that it's a fake by now. And he'll be on us soon, just not soon enough." He smiled.
"What do you mean, 'I was amazed at how easily I escaped him'?"
"Obviously you couldn't get away from him yourself. So I waited outside your home. Just as you called the taxi he noticed you were gone. Whatever you had rigged to the shower had fallen and he had heard the steady fall of the water for a while and knew you weren't in it. He ran to the bathroom and when he found the open window and you gone, he flipped out. He ran out of the house and I had to intervene." I interrupted him.
"How did you know what he was doing?"
"That's my ability, as a human I was able to sense people in a room. Now, I can sense where people – or vampires – are, like blips on a radar screen I guess. But only to a point" He was proud of himself and I felt disgusted, all earlier feeling of hunger vanished. He didn't even seem to mind being interrupted. "Anyways, I 'took a walk' around your block and made sure to run into him before he made it to you. It wasn't too hard to distract him. All I had to do was act surprised and cocky. Plus I had to think about you and some made up story about us meeting at the drive-in. Also, about how glad I was that I had convinced you to sneak out, and I how I thought I was going to pick you up but you must have left without me. All the while I was telling him that I was taking a walk, how was I to know that it was your block. He seemed angry and a bit suspicious, but who knows if that was just to let me know that he was on to my fake plan. Then I thought 'Well, I should get to my car, I want to be there when she gets there.' And I ran off giving Edward some lame excuse about jogging." As soon as I'd made it out of sight he was off, he took the car though. Why, I can't imagine. But it helped me. I ran back to the mall and met you. By the time I was gone and my friend was headed north he had just arrived at the drive-in and probably figured we'd left." We were interrupted by his phone vibrating.
"Didn't want it to wake you up at the gas station." He said and we both caught the irony in it.
"Hello." He said to the caller, then he said something so quickly and quietly all I saw was his lips blurring in motion for a second.
"Yes." He said in a normal voice, and then went back to talking quickly.
A second later he hung up.
"Edward left the decoy a while back. He should be getting to us soon enough." He smiled.
"What about Brandy?" I asked remembering her brief appearance with Keith at the drive-in.
"I didn't hurt her. I wasn't allowed to." He sounded annoyed by that, and it scared me. "Well, when I first came here I met her in the mall and she came up to me. It was strange, considering that most people seem to be afraid of me. But there are rare exceptions and Brandy was one of them. She started hitting on me. She gave me her number but I kind of brushed her off. She left and I sensed her go to your house. I called her that night. She helped me know things about you. Also, I made her kiss Edward. But she didn't mind, she genuinely began to like him. I had told her that I wanted to get back at him for stealing you from me and I needed to break them up. She offered almost. Then at the drive-in, she was stupid. She got herself arrested going after you guys."
"That was her that chased us?" I asked astounded.
"Do you think that I would chase you in a car and get caught when I could sense the cops? Or when I could run just as fast? Anyways, she called me to bail her out. She knew I was rich. I hung up the phone on her." He shook his head disgusted. "Like I would bail her out. She went after to try to make peace with Edward, and also to try to speed along the break-up. She wanted him. I knew she wouldn't get him, so I let it go on." He explained.
"How did you know that Edward could read thoughts?" I asked, still trying to piece things together. Nothing made sense.
"We have ways of knowing these things." He replied, and I could tell he enjoyed frustrating me.
"We?" I asked raising my eyebrows. All he did in response was smile.
"How long till we reach…where ever we're going?" I asked frustrated again.
"Not long at all. By the way you smell delicious." He smiled and glanced at me. A shiver ran down my spine and I felt fear. I knew he was referring to my scraped up arm, which had started to bleed a little. The phrase, "the beginning of the end" ran through my head. I began to fidget slightly in my seat.
He laughed, "I can hear your heart, you know? It's skipping beats."
I swallowed and looked out the window. I still had questions but I had to calm myself down first, I wouldn't allow him to outwardly see my panic.
"If that's what happens when you first get scared." He said, "I can't wait to see what happens when we arrive."
Panic tightened my throat. Edward, I prayed, find me.
AN: That was by far my favorite chapter to type up because EVERYTHING finally came out. Well, most everything.
Anyways, R&R!