Thank you all so much for your reviews and alerts and favorites of this—I'm having such a blast writing it and I savor every single one of your reactions.
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I wander the city on the first Saturday of March, trying not to look for the Vigilante-Edward-and I find myself in a nice part of town, a little residential street. The trees will probably bud soon if the weather stays mild and kids have taken over the street itself for a soccer game. They're laughing and trash-talking each other and it makes me smile.
"What are you doing?" A voice asks, hot breath on my neck.
"Taking a walk," I say casually, turning to face him. "Got distracted. Did you ever do this when you were a kid?"
He laughs and says, "what, play outside? Yes, often."
He's a different person than I've known him to be now. No fancy suit he wears to work as Edward Cullen and no mask to cover his identity as the Vigilante. He's in an olive green sweater and a pair of worn jeans, his hair in his eyes and he seems lighter than he usually does. As if he, for right now, has nothing weighing on his shoulders.
"I liked being outside," I tell him. "We didn't have a yard or anything when I was growing up but I liked to take walks. Didn't really play with any other kids, though."
"Why not?"
"I think they were all afraid of me."
His eyebrows raise as he considers this.
"I was an unstable kid," I explain. "I had a lot of outbursts."
"About what?"
I shrug and say, "hell if I remember. That's just what my mom and the doctors always said."
He nods, glancing again at the game going on ahead of us.
"How do we keep finding each other?" I ask when the silence overtakes us. "How did you know I'd be here?"
He smirks and says, "I didn't. I live on this block and was on my way back from a meeting."
My cheeks flame, hating the way my assumption sounds. As if he seeks me out the way I do with him. I feel his eyes on me, his stare tracing the slope of my nose and the curve of my lips.
I have so many things I want to say to him, to ask him, but more than anything, I want to touch him. I can't stop thinking about his hand covering mine as we stood together in that alley.
I can't think of anything but him.
And I'm growing to realize that I'm not just curious about him because he's a Real One and a hero and such an important man at my job—but something basic and instinctual in me craves his nearness. He feels familiar and mysterious all at once.
My mind keeps going back to the reading I've been doing, about Real Ones and soulmates and something in my cracks a little bit more every time I remember that I'll never be his.
The books say that no known accounts exist of Real Ones mating with humans. It is something that must go both ways—like calls to like. Humans do not have the same capacity for those kinds of instincts.
"Have you eaten?" he asks, running a hand through his hair. I can see the conflict in his eyes when he adds, "I was going to make some food, if you want to join me?"
"Do you want me to join you?" I counter.
"Of course I want you to," he replies, brow crinkling. "But I know I shouldn't."
"Because you're you? And I'm...this?" I look away, back to the soccer game.
"If by this you mean infinitely more breakable than I am and therefore every second we spend together potentially endangers your life, then yes."
"You wouldn't hurt me," I tell him softly and I feel his fingers under my chin, lifting my eyes to meet his.
"I could never hurt you," he says earnestly, eyes flaring, just a little. "Like I said before, there are people out there who would do terrible things to you because of what you mean to me."
My heart is pounding hard against my ribs, his face is so close to mine. If I angle my head up slightly and he bends a little nearer, our lips…
"What exactly do I mean to you?" My voice is barely a whisper.
His expression softens and he only says, "let's get some food."
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Edward's house is not at all like I'm expecting it to be (brooding mansion with terribly ornate light fixtures and security guards standing at every doorway), and instead it's cozy. The floors are covered in worn rugs and the walls are covered in simply framed art prints. All of his furniture looks well-used and the entire space is a lot smaller than I anticipated. I do watch him enter a code on a keypad by the front door, which confirms a security system of some sort, but it all seems so...normal.
"I don't invite a lot of people here," he admits. "I have an apartment downtown that I use for entertaining, but this is my home."
And I'm one of the lucky few to see it.
He leads me down a narrow hallway to an average kitchen with average appliances, gesturing for me to take a seat at the island in the center of the room.
"Tea? Or water? Or...well, anything really," he offers, leaning against the counter across from me.
"Water is fine," I say, watching him push himself up and reach for a glass in a cabinet above the sink. He gets the water from a dispenser built into the refrigerator door and slides it to me.
"Too good for the tap?" I tease and he only rolls his eyes, turning on the stove.
It's all very normal, as if we're just two regular people spending time together.
The thought almost makes me laugh.
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Edward makes us grilled cheese sandwiches and we eat them on opposite ends of his couch in the living room. As I finish, I start to wander, my eyes glued to the bookshelves that line the far wall. He's got books, so many books, on history and philosophy and short story collections, but what catches my eye more are the snow globes.
"You collect snow globes," I say in a surprised sigh.
Because what the fuck.
Edward Cullen-the Vigilante- collects fucking snow globes.
His cheeks flush as he says, "I wouldn't call this collection my idea. My mom used to travel all over the place when I was younger, doing humanitarian work and stuff like that, and she always brought me back one of those."
I pick up one from Vienna and shake it, watching the flakes of faux snow cover the intricate roof of a cathedral.
"Did you ever get to go with her?"
He's beside me when he answers, taking the snow globe from me and placing it back on the shelf. "Sometimes, on school breaks mostly. She wanted me to have a normal life. As normal as I could have considering...everything."
"Was she...was she a Real One, too?"
Edward nods. "They both were."
My brows knit together, a question rising in my throat that is surely inappropriate but I ask it anyway.
"If they were Real Ones, how did a car accident kill them?"
His gaze rises to meet mine and his eyes begin to brighten with grief and rage.
"A car accident wasn't what killed them," he says lowly. "They were murdered."
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