Truly, I was not thirsty, but I decided to hunt again that night. A small ounce of prevention, inadequate though I knew it to be.
Carine came with me. We hadn't been alone together since I'd returned from Denali. As we ran through the black forest, I heard her thinking about that hasty goodbye last week.
In her memory, I saw the way my features had been twisted in fierce despair. I felt again her surprise and sudden worry.
"Edythe?"
"I have to go, Carine. I have to go now."
"What's happened?"
"Nothing. Yet. But it will if I stay."
She'd reached for my arm. I'd seen how it had hurt her when I'd cringed away from her hand.
"I don't understand."
"Have you ever... has there ever been a time...?"
I watched myself take a deep breath, saw the wild light in my eyes through the filter of her deep concern.
"Has any one person ever smelled better to you than the rest of them? Much better?"
"Oh."
When I'd known that she understood, my face had fallen with shame. She'd reached out to touch me, ignoring it when I'd recoiled again, and left her hand on my shoulder.
"Do what you must to resist, dear. I will miss you. Here, take my car. The tank is full."
She was wondering now if she'd done the right thing then, sending me away. Wondering if she had hurt me with her lack of trust.
"No," I whispered as I ran. "That was what I needed. I might so easily have betrayed that trust if you'd told me to stay."
"I'm sorry you're suffering, Edythe. But you should do what you can to keep the Swan child alive. Even if it means that you must leave us again."
"I know, I know."
"Why did you come back? You know how happy I am to have you here, but if this is too difficult..."
"I didn't like feeling a coward," I admitted.
We'd slowed—we were barely jogging through the darkness now.
"Better that than to put him in danger. He'll be gone in a year or two."
"You're right, I know that." Contrarily, her words only made me more anxious to stay. The boy would be gone in a year or two...
Carine stopped running and I stopped with her. She turned to examine my expression.
But you're not going to run, are you?
I hung my head.
Is it pride, Edythe? There's no shame in—
"No, it isn't pride that keeps me here. Not now."
Nowhere to go?
I laughed shortly. "No. That wouldn't stop me if I could make myself leave."
"We'll come with you, of course, if that's what you need. You only have to ask. You've moved on without complaint for the rest of them. They won't begrudge you this."
I raised one eyebrow.
She laughed. "Yes, Royal might, but he owes you. Anyway, it's much better for us to leave now, no damage done, than for us to leave later, after a life has been ended." All humor was gone by the end.
I flinched at her words.
"Yes," I agreed. My voice sounded hoarse.
But you're not leaving?
I sighed. "I should."
"What holds you here, Edythe? I'm failing to see..."
"I don't know if I can explain." Even to myself, it made no sense.
She measured my expression for a long moment.
No, I do not see. But I will respect your privacy, if you prefer.
"Thank you. It's generous of you, seeing as how I give privacy to no one." With one exception. And I was doing what I could to deprive him of that, wasn't I?
We all have our quirks. She laughed again. Shall we?
She'd just caught the scent of a small herd of deer. It was hard to rally much enthusiasm for what was, even under the best of circumstances, a less than mouthwatering aroma. Right now, with the memory of the boy's blood fresh in my mind, the smell actually turned my stomach.
I sighed. "Let's," I agreed, though I knew that forcing more blood down my throat would help so little.
We both shifted into a hunting crouch and let the unappealing scent pull us silently forward.
It was colder when we returned home. The melted snow had refrozen; it was as if a thin sheet of glass covered everything—each pine needle, each fern frond, each blade of grass was iced over.
While Carine went to dress for her early shift at the hospital, I stayed by the river, waiting for the sun to rise. I felt almost... swollen from the amount of blood I'd consumed, but I knew the lack of actual thirst would mean little when I sat beside the boy again.
Cool and motionless as the stone I sat on, I stared at the dark water running beside the icy bank, stared right through it.
Carine was right. I should leave Forks. They could spread some story to explain my absence. Boarding school in Europe. Visiting distant relatives. Teenage runaway. The story didn't matter. No one would question too intensely.
It was just a year or two, and then the boy would disappear. He would go on with his life—he would have a life to go on with. He'd go to college somewhere, start a career, perhaps marry someone. I could picture that—I could see the boy dressed in a suit, his bride walking at a measured pace to meet him at the altar.
It was odd, the pain that image caused me. I couldn't understand it. Was I begrudging of his future because it was something I could never have? That made no sense. Every one of the humans around me had that same potential ahead of them—a life—and I rarely stopped to envy them.
I should leave him to his future. Stop risking his life. That was the right thing to do. Carine always chose the right way. I should listen to her now. I would.
The sun rose behind the clouds, and the faint light glistened off all the frozen glass.
One more day, I decided. I would see him one more time. I could handle that. Perhaps I would mention my pending disappearance, set the story up.
This was going to be difficult. I could feel that in the heavy reluctance that was already making me think of excuses to stay—to extend the deadline to two days, three, four... But I would do the right thing. I knew I could trust Carine's advice. And I also knew that I was too conflicted to make the right decision alone.
Much too conflicted. How much of this reluctance came from my obsessive curiosity, and how much came from my unsatisfied appetite?
I went inside to change into fresh clothes for school.
Archie was waiting for me, sitting on the top step at the edge of the third floor.
You're leaving again, he accused me.
I sighed and nodded.
I can't see where you're going this time.
"I don't know where I'm going yet," I whispered.
I want you to stay.
I shook my head.
Maybe Jess and I could come with you?
"They'll need you all the more if I'm not here to watch out for them. And think of Earnest. Would you take half his family away in one blow?"
You're going to make him so unhappy.
"I know. That's why you have to stay."
That's not the same as having you here, and you know it.
"Yes. But I have to do what's right."
There are many right ways, and many wrong ways, though, aren't there?
For a brief moment, he was swept away into one of his strange visions; I watched along with him as the indistinct images flickered and whirled. I saw myself mixed in with strange shadows that I couldn't make out—hazy, imprecise forms. And then, suddenly, my skin was glittering in the bright sunlight of a small open meadow. This was a place I knew. There was a figure in the meadow with me, but again, it was indistinct, not there enough to recognize. The images shivered and disappeared as a million tiny choices rearranged the future again.
"I didn't catch much of that," I told him when the vision went dark.
Me either. Your future is shifting around so much I can't keep up with any of it. I think, though...
He stopped, and he flipped through a vast collection of other recent visions for me. They were all the same—blurry and vague.
"I think something is changing," he said out loud. "Your life seems to be at a crossroads."
I laughed grimly. "You do realize that you sound like a carnival fortune-teller, right?"
He stuck out his tongue at me.
"Today is all right, though, isn't it?" I asked, my voice abruptly apprehensive.
"I don't see you killing anyone today," he assured me.
"Thanks, Archie."
"Go get dressed. I won't say anything—I'll let you tell the others when you're ready."
He stood and darted back down the stairs, his shoulders hunched slightly. Miss you. Really.
Yes, I would really miss him, too.
It was a quiet ride to school. Jessamine could feel that Archie was upset about something, but she knew that if he wanted to talk about it, he would have done so already. Eleanor and Royal were oblivious, having another of their moments, gazing into each other's eyes with wonder—it was rather disgusting to watch from the outside. We were all quite aware how desperately in love they were. Or maybe I was just being bitter because I was the only one alone. Some days it was harder than others to live with three sets of perfectly matched lovers. This was one of them.
Maybe they would all be happier without me hanging around, ill-tempered and belligerent as the old woman I should be by now.
Of course, the first thing I did when we reached the school was to look for the boy. Just preparing myself again.
Right.
It was embarrassing how my world suddenly seemed to be empty of everything but him.
It was easy enough to understand, though, really. After eighty years of the same thing every day and every night, any change became a point of absorption.
He had not yet arrived, but I could hear the thunderous chugging of his truck's engine in the distance. I leaned against the side of the car to wait. Archie stayed with me while the others went straight to class. They were already bored with my fixation—it was incomprehensible to them how any human could hold my interest for so long, no matter how appealing he smelled.
The boy drove slowly into view, his eyes intent on the road and his hands tight on the wheel. He seemed anxious about something. It took me a second to figure out what that something was, to realize that every human wore the same expression today. Ah, the road was slick with ice, and they were all trying to drive more carefully. I could see he was taking the added risk seriously.
That seemed in line with what little I had learned of his character. I added this to my small list: he was a serious person, a responsible person.
He parked not too far from me, but he hadn't noticed me standing here yet, staring at him. I wondered what he would do when he saw me? Blush and walk away? That was my first guess. But maybe he would stare back. Maybe he would come to talk to me.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs hopefully, just in case.
He got out of the truck with care, testing the slick ground before he put his weight on it. He didn't look up, and that frustrated me. Maybe I would go talk to him...
No, that would be wrong.
Instead of turning toward the school, he made his way to the rear of his truck, clinging to the side of the truck bed in a droll way, not trusting his footing. It made me smile, and I felt Archie's eyes on my face. I didn't listen to whatever this made him think—I was having too much fun watching the boy check his snow chains. He actually looked in some danger of falling, the way his feet were sliding around. No one else was having trouble—had he parked in the worst of the ice?
He paused there, staring down with a strange expression on his face. It was... tender. As if something about the tire was making him... emotional?
Again, the curiosity ached like a thirst. It was as if I had to know what he was thinking—as if nothing else mattered.
I would go talk to him. He looked like he could use a hand anyway, at least until he was off the slick pavement. Of course, I couldn't offer him that, could I? I hesitated, torn. As averse as he seemed to be to snow, he would hardly welcome the touch of my cold white hand. I should have worn gloves—
"NO!" Archie gasped aloud.
Instantly, I scanned his thoughts, guessing at first that I had made a poor choice and he saw me doing something inexcusable. But it had nothing to do with me at all.
Taylor Crowley had chosen to take the turn into the parking lot at an injudicious speed. This choice would send her skidding across a patch of ice.
The vision came just half a second before the reality. Taylor's van rounded the corner as I was still watching what had pulled the horrified gasp from Archie's lips.
No, this vision had nothing to do with me, and yet it had everything to do with me, because Taylor's van—the tires right now hitting the ice at the worst possible angle—was going to spin across the lot and crush the boy who had become the uninvited focal point of my world.
Even without Archie's foresight it would have been simple enough to read the trajectory of the vehicle, flying out of Taylor's control.
The boy, standing in the exactly wrong place at the back of his truck, looked up, confused by the sound of the screeching tires. He looked straight into my horror-struck eyes, and then turned to watch his approaching death.
Not him! The words shouted in my head as if they belonged to someone else.
Still locked into Archie's thoughts, I saw the vision suddenly shift, but I had no time to see what the outcome would be.
I launched myself across the lot, throwing myself between the skidding van and the frozen boy. I moved so fast that everything was a streaky blur except for the object of my focus. He didn't see me—no human eyes could have followed my flight—still staring at the hulking shape that was about to grind his body into the metal frame of his truck.
I caught him around the waist, moving with too much urgency to be as gentle as he would need me to be. In the hundredth of a second between yanking him out of the path of death and crashing to the ground with him in my arms, I was vividly aware of his fragile, breakable body.
When I heard his head thump against the ice, it felt as though I had turned to ice, too.
But I didn't even have a full second to ascertain his condition. I heard the van behind us, grating and squealing as it twisted around the sturdy iron body of the boy's truck. It was changing course, arcing, coming for his again—as though he were a magnet, pulling it toward us.
I had already done too much. As I'd nearly flown through the air to push him out of the way, I'd been fully aware of the mistake I was making. Knowing that it was a mistake did not stop me, but I was not oblivious to the risk I was taking—not just for myself, but for my entire family.
Exposure.
And this certainly wouldn't help, but there was no way I was going to allow the van to succeed in its second attempt to take his life.
I dropped him and threw my hands out, catching the van before it could touch the boy. The force of it hurled me back into the car parked beside his truck, and I could feel its frame buckle behind my shoulders. The van shuddered and shivered against the unyielding obstacle of my arms, and then swayed, balancing unstably on its two far tires.
If I moved my hands, the back tire of the van was going to fall onto his legs.
Oh, for the love of all that was holy, would the catastrophes never end? Was there anything else that could go wrong? I could hardly sit here, holding the van up, and wait for rescue. Nor could I throw the van away—there was the driver to consider, her thoughts incoherent with panic.
With an internal groan, I shoved the van so that it rocked away from us for an instant. As it fell back toward me, I caught it under the frame with my right hand while I wrapped my left arm around the boy's waist again and dragged him out from under the threatening tire, pulling him tight against my side. His body moved limply as I swung him around so that his legs would be in the clear—was he conscious? How much damage had I done to him in my impromptu rescue attempt?
I let the van drop, now that it could not hurt him. It crashed to the pavement, all the windows shattering in unison.
I knew that I was in the middle of a crisis. How much had he seen? Had any other witnesses watched me materialize at his side and then juggle the van while I tried to keep him out from under it? These questions should be my biggest concern.
But I was too anxious to really care about the threat of exposure as much as I should. Too panic-stricken that I might have injured him in my effort to save his life. Too frightened to have him this close to me, knowing what I would smell if I allowed myself to inhale. Too aware of the heat of his soft body, pressed against mine—even through the double obstacle of our jackets, I could feel that heat.
The first fear was the greatest fear. As the screaming of the witnesses erupted around us, I leaned down to examine his face, to see if he was conscious—hoping fiercely that he was not bleeding anywhere.
His eyes were open, staring in shock.
"Beau?" I asked urgently. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He said the words automatically in a dazed voice.
Relief, so exquisite it was nearly pain, washed through me at the sound of his voice. I sucked in a breath through my teeth and for once did not mind the agony of the accompanying burn in my throat. In a strange way, I almost welcomed it.
He struggled to sit up, but I was not ready to release him. It felt somehow... safer? Better, at least, having his tucked into my side.
"Be careful," I warned him. "I think you hit your head pretty hard."
There had been no smell of fresh blood—a great mercy, that—but this did not rule out internal damage. I was abruptly anxious to get his to Carine and a full complement of radiology equipment.
"Ow," he said, his tone comically shocked as he realized I was right about his head.
"That's what I thought." Relief made it funny to me, made me almost giddy.
"How in the...?" His voice trailed off, and his eyelids fluttered. "How did you get over here so fast?"
The relief turned sour, the humor vanished. He had noticed too much.
Now that it appeared the boy was in decent shape, the anxiety for my family became severe.
"I was standing right next to you, Beau." I knew from experience that if I was very confident as I lied, it made any questioner less sure of the truth.
He struggled to move again, and this time I allowed it. I needed to breathe so that I could play my role correctly. I needed space from his warm-blooded heat so that it would not combine with his scent to overwhelm me. I slid away from him, as far as was possible in the small space between the wrecked vehicles.
He stared up at me, and I stared back. To look away first was a mistake only an incompetent liar would make, and I was not an incompetent liar. My expression was smooth, benign. It seemed to confuse him. That was good.
The accident scene was surrounded now. Mostly students, children, peering and pushing through the cracks to see if any mangled bodies were visible. There was a babble of shouting and a gush of shocked thought. I scanned the thoughts once to make sure there were no suspicions yet, and then tuned them out and concentrated only on the boy.
He was distracted by the bedlam. He glanced around, his expression still stunned, and tried to get to his feet.
I put my hand lightly on his shoulder to hold his down.
"Just stay put for now." He seemed all right, but should he really be moving his neck? Again, I wished for Carine. My years of theoretical medical study were no match for her centuries of hands-on medical practice.
"But it's cold," he objected.
He had almost been crushed to death two distinct times, and it was the cold that worried him. A chuckle slid through my teeth before I could remember that the situation was not funny.
Beau blinked, and then his eyes focused on my face. "You were over there."
That sobered me again.
He glanced toward the south, though there was nothing to see now but the crumpled side of the van. "You were by your car."
"No, I wasn't."
"I saw you," he insisted. His voice was childlike in his stubbornness. His chin jutted out.
"Beau, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way."
I stared deeply into his eyes, trying to will him into accepting my version—the only rational version on the table.
His jaw set. "But that's not what happened."
I tried to stay calm, to not panic. If only I could keep him quiet for a few moments to give me a chance to destroy the evidence... and undermine his story by disclosing his head injury.
Shouldn't it be easy to keep this silent, secretive boy quiet? If only he would follow my lead, just for a few moments...
"Please, Beau," I said, and my voice was too intense, because I suddenly wanted his trust. Wanted it badly, and not just in regard to this accident. A stupid desire. What sense would it make for him to trust me?
"Why?" he asked, still defensive.
"Trust me," I pleaded.
"Will you promise to explain everything to me later?"
It made me angry to have to lie to him again, when I so wished that I could somehow deserve his confidence. When I answered him, it was a retort.
"Fine."
"Okay," he resolved in the same tone.
While the rescue attempt began around us—adults arriving, authorities called, sirens in the distance—I tried to ignore the boy and get my priorities in the right order. I searched through every mind in the lot, the witnesses and the latecomers both, but I could find nothing dangerous. Many were surprised to see me here beside Beau, but all assumed—as there was no other possible conclusion—that they had just not noticed me standing by the boy before the accident.
He was the only one who didn't accept the easy explanation, but he would be considered the least reliable witness. He had been frightened, traumatized, not to mention sustaining a blow to his head. Possibly in shock. It would be acceptable for his story to be confused, wouldn't it? No one would give it much credence above so many other spectators'.
I winced when I caught the thoughts of Royal, Jessamine, and Eleanor, just arriving on the scene. There would be hell to pay for this tonight.
I wanted to iron out the indentation my shoulders had made in the tan car, but the boy was too close. I'd have to wait until he was distracted.
It was frustrating to wait—so many eyes on me—as the humans struggled with the van, trying to pull it away from us. I might have helped them, just to speed the process, but I was already in enough trouble and the boy had sharp eyes. Finally, they were able to shift it far enough away for the EMTs to get to us with their stretchers.
A familiar grizzled face appraised me.
"Hey, Edythe," Brenna Warner said. She was also a registered nurse, and I knew her well from the hospital. It was a stroke of luck—the only luck today—that she was the first through to us. In her thoughts, she was noting that I looked alert and calm. "You okay, kid?"
"Perfect, Brenna. Nothing touched me. But I'm afraid Beau here might have a concussion. He really hit his head when I yanked him out of the way."
Brenna turned her attention to the boy, who shot me a fierce look of betrayal. Oh, that was right. He was the quiet martyr—he'd prefer to suffer in silence.
He did not contradict my story immediately, though, and this made me feel easier.
The next EMT tried to insist that I allow myself to be treated, but it wasn't too difficult to dissuade her. I promised I would have my mother examine me, and she let it go. With most humans, speaking with cool assurance was all that was needed. Most humans, just not the boy, of course. Did he fit into any of the normal patterns?
As they put a neck brace on him—and his face flushed scarlet with embarrassment—I used the moment of distraction to quietly rearrange the shape of the dent in the tan car with the back of my foot. Only my siblings noticed what I was doing, and I heard Eleanor's mental promise to catch anything I missed.
Grateful for her help—and more grateful that Eleanor, at least, had already forgiven my dangerous choice—I was more relaxed as I climbed into the front seat of the ambulance next to Brenna.
The chief of police arrived before they had gotten Beau into the back of the ambulance.
Though Beau's father's thoughts were past words, the panic and concern emanating from the man's mind drowned out just about every other thought in the vicinity. Wordless anxiety and guilt, a great swell of them, washed out of him as he saw his only son on the gurney.
When Archie had warned me that killing Charlie Swan's son would kill him, too, he had not been exaggerating.
My head bowed with that guilt as I listened to his panicked voice.
"Beau!" he shouted.
"I'm completely fine, Char—Dad." He sighed. "There's nothing wrong with me."
His assurance barely soothed his dread. He turned at once to the closest EMT and demanded more information.
It wasn't until I heard him speaking, forming perfectly coherent sentences despite his panic, that I realized that his anxiety and concern were not wordless. I just... could not hear the exact words.
Hmm. Charlie Swan was not as silent as his son, but I could see where he got it from. Interesting.
I'd never spent much time around the town's police chief. I'd always taken him for a man of slow thought—now I realized that I was the one who was slow. His thoughts were partially concealed, not absent. I could only make out the tenor, the tone of them.
I wanted to listen harder, to see if I could find in this new, lesser puzzle the key to the boy's secrets. But Beau had been loaded into the back by then, and the ambulance was on its way.
It was hard to tear myself away from this possible solution to the mystery that had come to obsess me. But I had to think now—to look at what had been done today from every angle. I had to listen, to make sure that I had not put us all in so much danger that we would have to leave immediately. I had to concentrate.
There was nothing in the thoughts of the EMTs to worry me. As far as they could tell, there wasn't anything seriously wrong with the boy. And Beau was sticking to the story I'd provided, for now.
The first priority, when we reached the hospital, was to see Carine. I hurried through the automatic doors, but I was unable to totally forgo watching after Beau. I figuratively kept one eye on him through the paramedics' thoughts.
It was easy to find my mother's familiar mind. She was in her small office, all alone—the second stroke of luck in this luckless day.
"Carine."
She'd heard my approach and was alarmed as soon as she saw my face. She jumped to her feet and leaned forward across the neatly organized walnut desk.
Edythe—you didn't—?
"No, no, it's not that."
She took a deep breath. Of course not. I'm sorry I entertained the thought. Your eyes, of course, I should have known. She noted my still-golden eyes with relief.
"He's hurt, though, Carine, probably not seriously, but—"
"What happened?"
"A ridiculous car accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I couldn't just stand there—let it crush him..."
Start over, I don't understand. How were you involved?
"A van skidded across the ice," I whispered. I stared at the wall behind her while I spoke. Instead of a throng of framed diplomas, she had one simple oil painting—a favorite of hers, an undiscovered Hassam. "He was in the way. Archie saw it coming, but there wasn't time to do anything but really run across the lot and shove him out of the way. No one noticed... except for him. I had to stop the van, too, but again, nobody saw that... besides him. I'm... I'm sorry, Carine. I didn't mean to put us in danger."
She circled the desk and embraced me for a short moment before stepping back.
You did the right thing. And it couldn't have been easy for you. I'm proud of you, Edythe.
I could look her in the eye then. "He knows there's something... wrong with me."
"That doesn't matter. If we have to leave, we leave. What has he said?"
I shook my head, a little frustrated. "Nothing yet."
Yet?
"He agreed to my version of events—but he's expecting an explanation."
She frowned, pondering this.
"He hit his head—well, I did that," I continued quickly. "I knocked him to the ground fairly hard. He seems fine, but... I don't think it will take much to discredit his account."
I felt like a cad just saying the words.
Carine heard the distaste in my voice. Perhaps that won't be necessary. Let's see what happens, shall we? It sounds like I have a patient to check on.
"Please," I said. "I'm so afraid that I hurt him."
Carine's expression brightened. She smoothed her fair hair—just a few shades lighter than her golden eyes—and laughed.
It's been an interesting day for you, hasn't it? In her mind, I could see the irony, and it was humorous, at least to her. Quite the reversal of roles. Somewhere during that short, thoughtless second when I'd sprinted across the icy lot, I had transformed from killer to protector.
I laughed with her, remembering how sure I'd been that Beau would never need protecting from anything more than from me. There was an edge to my laugh because, van notwithstanding, that was still entirely true.
I waited alone in Carine's office—one of the longest hours I had ever lived—listening to the hospital full of thoughts.
Taylor Crowley, the van's driver, looked to be hurt worse than Beau, and the attention shifted to her while he waited his turn to be x-rayed. Carine kept in the background, trusting the PA's diagnosis that the boy was only slightly injured. This made me anxious, but I knew she was right. One glance at her face and he would be immediately reminded of me, of the fact that there was something not right about my family, and that might set him talking.
He certainly had a willing enough partner to converse with. Taylor, consumed with guilt over the fact that she had almost killed him, couldn't seem to shut up about it. I could see his expression through her eyes, and it was clear that he wished she would stop. How did she not see that?
There was a tense moment for me when Taylor asked his how he'd gotten out of the way.
I waited, frozen, as he hesitated.
"Um...," she heard him say. Then he paused for so long that Taylor wondered if her question had confused him. Finally, he went on. "Edythe shoved me out of the way."
I exhaled. And then my breathing accelerated. I'd never heard him speak my name before. I liked the way it sounded—even just hearing it through Taylor's thoughts. I wanted to hear it for myself...
"Edythe Cullen," he said, when Taylor didn't realize whom he meant. I found myself at the door, my hand on the knob. The desire to see him was growing stronger. I had to remind myself of the need for caution.
"She was standing next to me."
"Edythe?" Huh. That's weird. "I didn't see her." I could have sworn... "Wow, it was all so fast, I guess. Is she okay?"
"I think so. She's here somewhere, but they didn't make her use a stretcher."
I saw the thoughtful look on his face, the suspicious tightening of his eyes, but these little changes in his expression were lost on Taylor.
He's cute, she was thinking, almost in surprise. Even all messed up. Not my usual type. Still... I should take him out. Make up for today.
I was out in the hall then, halfway to the emergency room, without thinking for one second about what I was doing. Luckily, the nurse entered the room before I could—it was Beau's turn for X-rays. I leaned against the wall in a dark nook just around the corner and tried to get a grip on myself while he was wheeled away.
It didn't matter that Taylor thought he was cute. Anyone would notice that. There was no reason for me to feel... how did I feel? Annoyed? Or was angry closer to the truth? That made no sense at all.
I stayed where I was for as long as I could, but impatience got the best of me and I took a roundabout way to the radiology room. He'd already been moved back to the ER, but I was able to peek at his X-rays while the nurse's attention was elsewhere.
I felt calmer when I had. His head was fine. I hadn't hurt him, not really.
Carine caught me there.
You look better, she commented.
I just looked straight ahead. We weren't alone, the halls full of orderlies and visitors.
Ah, yes. She stuck his X-rays to the lightboard, but I didn't need a second look. I see. He's absolutely fine. Well done, Edythe.
The sound of my mother's approval created a mixed reaction in me. I would have been pleased, except that I knew she would not approve of what I was going to do now. At least, she would not approve if she knew my real motivations.
"I think I'm going to go talk to him—before he sees you," I murmured under my breath. "Act natural, like nothing happened. Smooth it over." All acceptable reasons.
Carine nodded absently, still looking over the X-rays. "Good idea. Hmm."
I looked to see what had her interest.
Look at all the healed contusions! How many times did his mother drop him? Carine laughed to herself at her joke.
"I'm beginning to think the boy just has really bad luck. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Forks is certainly the wrong place for him, with you here.
I flinched.
Go ahead. Smooth things over. I'll join you momentarily.
I walked away quickly, feeling guilty. Perhaps I was too good a liar if I could fool Carine.
When I got to the ER, Taylor was mumbling under her breath, still apologizing. The boy was trying to escape her remorse by pretending to sleep. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was not even, and now and then his fingers would twitch impatiently.
I stared at his face for a long moment. This was the last time I would see him. The fact triggered an acute aching in my chest. Was it because I hated to leave any puzzle unsolved? That did not seem enough of an explanation.
Finally, I took a deep breath and moved into view.
When Taylor saw me, she started to speak, but I put one finger to my lips.
"Is he sleeping?" I murmured.
Beau's eyes snapped open and focused on my face. They widened momentarily, and then narrowed in anger or suspicion. I remembered that I had a role to play, so I smiled at him as if nothing unusual had happened this morning—besides a blow to his head and a bit of imagination run wild.
"Hey, Edythe," Taylor said. "I'm really sorry—"
I raised one hand to halt her apology. "No blood, no foul," I said wryly. Without thinking, I smiled too widely at my private joke.
Taylor shivered and looked away.
It was amazingly easy to ignore Taylor, lying no more than four feet from me, her deeper wounds still oozing blood. I'd never understood how Carine was able to do that—ignore the blood of her patients in order to treat them. Wouldn't the constant temptation be so distracting, so dangerous? But now... I could see how, if you were focusing on something else hard enough, the temptation would be nothing at all.
Even fresh and exposed, Taylor's blood had nothing on Beau's.
I kept my distance from him, seating myself on the foot of Taylor's mattress.
"So, what's the verdict?" I asked him.
His lower lip pushed out a little. "There's nothing wrong with me at all, but they won't let me go. How come you aren't strapped to a gurney like the rest of us?"
His impatience made me smile again.
I could hear Carine in the hall now.
"It's all about who you know," I said lightly. "But don't worry, I came to spring you."
I watched his reaction carefully as my mother entered the room. His eyes went round and his mouth actually fell open in surprise. I groaned internally. Yes, he'd certainly noticed the resemblance.
"So, Mr. Swan, how are you feeling?" Carine asked. She had a wonderfully soothing bedside manner that put most patients at ease within moments. I couldn't tell how it affected Beau.
"I'm fine," he said quietly.
Carine clipped his X-rays to the lightboard by the bed. "Your X-rays look good. Does your head hurt? Edythe said you hit it pretty hard."
He sighed and said "It's fine" again, but this time impatience leaked into his voice. He glowered once in my direction.
Carine stepped closer to him and ran her fingers gently over his scalp until she found the bump under his hair.
I was caught off guard by the wave of emotion that crashed upon me.
I had seen Carine work with humans a thousand times. Years ago, I had even assisted her informally—though only in situations where blood was not involved. So it wasn't a new thing to me, to watch her interact with the boy as if she were as human as he was. I'd envied her control many times, but that was not the same as this emotion. I envied her more than her control. I ached for the difference between Carine and me—that she could touch him so gently, without fear, knowing she would never harm him.
He winced, and I twitched in my seat. I had to concentrate for a moment to regain my relaxed posture.
"Tender?" Carine asked.
His chin jerked up a fraction. "Not really," he said.
Another small piece of his character fell into place: he was brave. He didn't like to show weakness.
Possibly the most vulnerable creature I'd ever seen, and he didn't want to seem weak. A chuckle slid through my lips.
He shot another glare at me.
"Well," Carine said, "your father is in the waiting room—you can go home with him now. But come back if you feel dizzy or have trouble with your eyesight at all."
His father was here? I swept through the thoughts in the crowded waiting room, but I couldn't pick his subtle mental voice out of the group before he was speaking again, his face anxious.
"Can't I go back to school?"
"Maybe you should take it easy today," Carine suggested.
His eyes flickered back to me. "Does she get to go to school?"
Act normal, smooth things over... ignore the way it feels when he looks me in the eye...
"Someone has to spread the good news that we survived," I said.
"Actually," Carine corrected, "most of the school seems to be in the waiting room."
I anticipated his reaction this time—his aversion to attention. He didn't disappoint.
"Oh no," he moaned, and put his hands over his face.
I liked that I'd finally guessed right. That I was beginning to understand him.
"Do you want to stay?" Carine asked.
"No, no!" he said quickly, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress and sliding down until his feet were on the floor. He stumbled forward, off-balance, into Carine's arms. She caught and steadied him.
Again, the envy flooded through me.
"I'm fine," he said before she could comment, faint pink in his cheeks.
Of course, that wouldn't bother Carine. She made sure he was balanced, and then dropped her hands.
"Take some Tylenol for the pain," she instructed.
"It doesn't hurt that bad."
Carine smiled as she signed his chart. "It sounds like you were extremely lucky."
He turned his face slightly, to stare at me with hard eyes. "Lucky Edythe happened to be standing next to me."
"Oh, well, yes," Carine agreed quickly, hearing the same thing in his voice that I heard. He hadn't written his suspicions off as imagination. Not yet.
All yours, Carine thought. Handle it as you think best.
"Thanks so much," I whispered, quick and quiet. Neither human heard me. Carine's lips turned up a tiny bit at my sarcasm as she turned to Taylor. "I'm afraid that you'll have to stay with us just a little bit longer," she said as she began examining the superficial lacerations left by the shattered windshield.
Well, I'd made the mess, so it was only fair that I had to deal with it.
Beau walked deliberately toward me, not stopping until he was uncomfortably close. I remembered how I had hoped, before all the chaos, that he would approach me. This was like a mockery of that wish.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he hissed at me.
His warm breath swept across my face and I had to stagger back a step. His appeal had not abated one bit. Every time he was near me, it triggered all my worst, most urgent instincts. Venom flowed in my mouth, and my body yearned to strike—to wrench him into my arms and crush his throat to my teeth.
My mind was stronger than my body, but only just.
"Your father is waiting for you," I reminded him, my jaw clenched tight.
He glanced toward Carine and Taylor. Taylor was paying us no attention at all, but Carine was monitoring my every breath.
Carefully, Edythe.
"I need to speak to you alone, if you don't mind," he insisted in a low voice.
I wanted to tell him that I did mind very much, but I knew I would have to do this eventually. I might as well get on with it.
I was full of so many conflicting emotions as I stalked out of the room, listening to his stumbling footsteps behind me, trying to keep up.
I had a show to put on now. I knew the role I would play—I had the character down: I would be the villain. I would lie and ridicule and be cruel.
It went against all my better impulses—the human impulses that I'd clung to through so many years. I'd never wanted to deserve trust more than in this moment, when I had to destroy all possibility of it.
It made it worse to know that this would be the last memory he would have of me. This was my farewell scene.
I turned on him.
"What do you want?" I asked coldly.
He cringed back slightly from my hostility. His eyes turned bewildered, his face shifting into the very expression that had haunted me.
"You owe me an explanation," he said in a small voice. What little color he had drained from his ivory skin.
It was very hard to keep my voice harsh. "I saved your life—I don't owe you anything."
He flinched—it stung like acid to watch my words hurt him.
"Why are you acting like this?" he whispered.
"Beau, you hit your head, you don't know what you're talking about."
His chin came up then. "There's nothing wrong with my head."
He was angry now, and that made it easier for me. I met his glare, arranging my face so it was colder, harder.
"What do you want from me, Beau?"
"I want to know the truth. I want to know why I'm lying for you."
What he wanted was only fair—it frustrated me to have to deny him.
"What do you think happened?" I nearly growled.
His words poured out in a torrent. "I know that you weren't standing next to me—Taylor didn't see you, either, so it's not concussion damage. That van was going to crush us both—but it didn't. It looked like your hands left dents in the side of it—and your shoulders left a dent in the other car, but you're not hurt at all. The van should have smashed my legs, but you were holding it up..."
I stared at him, my expression thoroughly derisive, though what I really felt was awe; he had seen everything.
"You think I lifted a van off you?" I asked, elevating the level of sarcasm in my tone.
He answered with one stiff nod.
My voice grew more mocking. "Nobody will believe that, you know."
He made an effort to control his emotions—his anger, it looked like. When he answered me, he spoke each word with slow deliberation. "I'm not going to tell anybody."
He meant it—I could see that in his eyes. Even furious and betrayed, he would keep my secret.
Why?
The shock of it ruined my carefully designed expression for half a second, and then I pulled myself together.
"Then why does it matter?" I asked, working to keep my voice severe.
"It matters to me," he said intensely. "I don't like to lie—so there'd better be a good reason why I'm doing it."
He was asking me to trust him. Just as I wanted him to trust me. But this was a line I could not cross.
My voice stayed callous. "Can't you just thank me and get over it?"
"Thank you," he said, and then he fumed in silence, waiting.
"You're not going to let it go, are you?"
"Nope."
"In that case..." I couldn't tell him the truth if I wanted to... and I didn't want to. I'd rather he made up his own story than know what I was, because nothing could be worse than the truth—I was an undead nightmare, straight from the pages of a horror novel. "I hope you enjoy disappointment."
We scowled at each other.
He flushed pink and ground his teeth again. "If you were going to be like this about it, why did you even bother?"
His question wasn't one that I was expecting or prepared to answer. I lost my hold on the role I was playing. I felt the mask slip from my face, and I told him—this one time—the truth.
"I don't know."
I memorized his face one last time—it was still set in lines of anger, the blood not yet faded from his cheeks—and then I turned and walked away from him.