The Killer in Me
Bella ended her phone conversation with Renesmee, then stomped onto the Belle Haven Country Club fairway. It was two in the morning - just eleven in the evening back home - so Bella had at least been able to tell her daughter goodnight before meeting with Owen. Why the man wanted to get together on a golf course in the middle of the night was beyond Bella, but his reasons didn't matter. What mattered was that she was finally going to get a chance to kill him.
Owen emerged from the tree line near the sixth hole, stationed himself on the green, and waited. Bella moved toward him gradually, scanning the sky for Lucy. Had Owen chosen to do this on his own? Did that mean Alice might have seen this future? If so, she had given Bella no such indication. But Bella was no longer certain she could trust her sister-in-law. Over the last year Alice had developed an unfortunate love-hate relationship with their despicable master. Bella's attitude had remained much simpler: just hate.
Bella felt partly to blame. She had pressured Alice for visions without regard for the consequences. She had refused to conceive of Alice apart from her clairvoyance. In hindsight Bella could see how attractive Alice would find a master like Owen, the true anti-Aro, so thoroughly unimpressed by the things Aro had most valued. Yes, Alice had a power. But that power did not define her. It was not the essence of her personal identity. Bella saw that now. If only she had figured it out sooner!
She got within a few yards of Owen and halted. "The problem at this point," she began, "is that even if I kill you, Alice won't come back to us."
"She has seen the future," Owen agreed. "Not through clairvoyance, but through the eye of reason. She has internalized my focus and my fear. So that's at least one goal accomplished: I've proven stone vampires can change."
"She's not the typical vampire," Bella retorted.
"What about Jane? If I can change her, I can change anybody."
Bella frowned. "The jury's still out on Jane. Either way, better to say you may be able to change some vampires across the whole spectrum of inclinations. That's not the same as being able to change every single one of us."
Much to Bella's surprise, Owen smiled. "You caught me in a logical fallacy," he said. "When did you learn that?"
"I read a logic book last month. Perfect memory, remember?"
"Oh, the amazing things to come at Alice's school! I do hope she'll let me be a professor."
"It's not going to work," Bella said, shaking her head. "Her university idea. It won't make everything better."
"I know."
"Then why are you encouraging her?"
"It shows she's owned the mission, made it hers. That's the important thing right now. I thought of having a vampire school years ago. That's why I know it won't work: because I was able to think of it. Your team's job is to be smarter than me, to come up with solutions I'll never think of. Besides, the final answer may be quite complex. Perhaps Alice's Vampire U will provide a small but important piece of the puzzle."
Owen unzipped his jacket and drew a revolver. He aimed at a random tree, then broke the weapon open and examined his ammunition. "First vampire I killed was with this gun," he said. "No need for phosphorous. Regular bullets worked just fine."
"Is that where we end up?" Bella asked. "Killing each other?"
"You've got motive," Owen granted.
"How could you let that family die?" Bella demanded. "To make a point? Teach me a lesson? Put me in my place? We could have saved them."
"Did it work?" Owen asked.
Bella folded her arms and shook her head. "I won't apologize for wanting this. I'm happier now than I ever was as a human. Or I would be, if it weren't for you."
Owen returned his sidearm to its holster. "Imagine a romance in Nazi Germany," he said. "A woman falls in love with an SS officer. She is so happy. But the key to her happiness is ignoring what's happening to the Jews. What kind of happiness is that, Bella? Is it something to be desired? Cherished? Protected? The American soldier who shot her lover through the head, ending her happiness – wasn't it a good thing he did?"
"What if it's a false analogy?" Bella shot back. "What if our species is just higher up the food chain? Vampires eating humans is no different than lions eating gazelles. It's just nature."
"Then why are you vegetarians? Even if you are a different species, that doesn't turn humans into animals – and you know it. At least, your family knows it."
"If you're going to hate vampires for killing humans," Bella pressed, undeterred, "then you should hate humans for killing humans, too. That's the real reason humans are our natural prey: because humans are humans' natural prey. What are we, Owen? We're everything that's human. There's nothing actually new or different about us. We are human nature, accentuated."
"All of human nature?" Owen asked. "Greater strength and hunger and lust, sure. But where is the greater love and faithfulness and sense of duty to balance out the negatives? I'm not seeing it, Bella, except in Carlisle."
"How many humans do you see it in? If Carlisle is one in a thousand, is that ratio really any different than in the regular human population?"
Owen fell silent. It occurred to Bella she had scored a point. Except what did that even mean? What, exactly, were they arguing about, and why? Why had Owen contrived this meeting in the first place?
"You're still trying to decide whether or not to spare my family," Bella concluded.
Owen nodded. "I've been looking for an excuse to let you live. But at the end of the day, killing every vampire I possibly can is still my default option, especially now that I have Alice. You must realize that. I'd like to give Carlisle a pass, but I can't very well wipe out the rest of you and leave him be. Alice will kill me after I do it, of course, but that doesn't matter. She's made the vision her own; that's not going to change no matter what I do. Having her kill me is the easiest way to pass the baton, anyway."
Bella felt desperate. Maybe she really should slay Owen, right here and now. But that was probably part of the test, of course. He was pushing her, trying to get her to lose control.
"What do I have to do," Bella demanded, "to get you to leave us alone?"
"Prove you're not shallow," Owen shot back.
"Alice wasn't really agreeing with you when she called me vapid. She was just trying to deescalate that situation."
Owen snorted and shoved a finger in Bella's face. "Saying you're not vapid is the worst possible way to try and convince me you're not vapid. That's not how deep people prove they're deep, Bella. They prove it through their actions."
"I am not shallow!" Bella insisted.
"When someone accuses you of being superficial, defensive whininess is hardly the best response. That's exactly what I'm talking about, Bella. For some reason you still think talk matters. What matters is deeds. Prove through what you do that there is some substance to you. Granted, you hated what happened in Romania. But have you applied that lesson in any way? Do you think or act differently than before you watched that family get eaten? Why has Alice owned the mission, but you haven't?"
Bella opened her mouth to say Alice could see the future, but of course that wasn't the case here. "You give Alice something she needs," Bella said.
"True. That's how I got her interested. But that's not what keeps her here. Vampires eating people: that's what keeps her here. It matters to her. She cares. And you better learn to care, too, or everyone in your household is going to die."
"It's romantic," Bella pleaded. "Don't you get it? The whole vampire world – all of it, everything. We're beautiful. We never age. We get to live with each other forever. It's a good thing, the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm living a fairy tale."
"Is that all romance is?" Owen asked. "Self-absorption devoid of care for the world? Yes, I'm sure you'll say I know nothing of romance. But that's where you're wrong. I used to be a romantic. Before the ashes. Now I know better. Emotion is one thing. Duty is another. A real human sacrifices his happiness so that others can be happy. Would you do that, Bella? If by dying you could have saved that Romanian family, would you have? How about giving up being a vampire? I know it doesn't make sense, but what if it did? If the moment before they died you could have saved them by forever returning to a human state, would you have done so?"
Bella wasn't listening. Instead she was thinking about the sentence she had never expected to hear come from Owen Wheeler's lips: I used to be a romantic. She inched toward him, using her enhanced vampiric senses to study his face. There was arrogance, of course. Anger, cunning, genius, insight. But also bitterness, and sadness, and pain. So much pain. How had she never seen it? "You were in love with a vampire," Bella concluded.
This statement hit Owen like a punch in the chest. He staggered backward, glancing quickly about as though uncertain where he was.
Bella pursued him, got back in his space, leaned forward till their foreheads nearly touched. Owen lifted a hand and stroked her cheek, but Bella could tell he wasn't really present. He stared through her into the echo of another woman. Bella glimpsed her in Owen's face and gasped: such vacant, despairing, undead eyes.
"That's why you goad us," Bella realized. "You want to die. But you won't admit it. You can't admit it. You want us to figure it out for ourselves."
Owen's mouth fell open. He let out a moan and broke contact.
"You say there's more to life than romance," Bella urged. "I agree with you, of course. But what is life without it? Animals eat, and mate, and survive. They don't know romance, though. It's part of what makes us human. I say romance is actually why you do everything you do, Owen Wheeler. And somehow you've got to own it: saving people isn't enough. People also have to be worth saving. They have to actually be human."
Owen took Bella's hand and lifted it to his face. "So cold," he whispered. "Always so cold." Then he lowered her hand, grasped it between his, and nodded. "I like interesting people, Mrs. Cullen. Now that I know you're one of them, let's see how interesting everyone can be together. I'm taking the Four Queens to Forks."