Disclaimer: Of course, I own nothing but my own words. The characters belong to Ms. Meyer and a very small number of the words do, too.

1949

Chapter 8

I glared at my companion as we stepped off the train onto the platform in Chicago. The passenger in front of us had been telling her husband about seeing a man climbing onto the train last night. She kept insisting that she had seen what she had seen.

"Now, honey, why would he be wearing a suit if he was jumping onto a train to rob it? Sounds like a job for work clothes to me."

Apparently the night porter had dismissed her concerns, too. Good thing no one would listen to her, though I felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman. I had been keeping my mouth shut about the supernatural for four years now. I took a deep breath and let my frustrations go. Maybe there was a reason that vampires don't travel by train.

The Major followed behind me with our two suitcases. He quickened to walk beside me and lifted his elbow, offering to let me loop my arm through his. There were ways he was good at blending. We looked like a young married couple. Happily married.

It was funny that I knew so well what that looked like. I felt I had always known what happily married looked like even though my own parents' marriage was such a debacle. How do you learn what happiness is? How do you learn to be part of a happy couple when you've never learned how from your own family? I had no way of knowing. My only relationship was a failure, though I was not willing to take much responsibility for the deceit of my professed partner.

I was startled from these musing by the Major letting go of my arm with a hiss. We had reached the end of the platform and were about to enter the station proper.

He leant down and whispered in my ear.

"I'll be behind you, watching. There is another vampire here. He should not see us together. Walk out of the station and go east. Go into the first diner or restaurant you find and stay there until I find you. If I'm not there by closing, be back at the station in two days. If I'm still not there, go to Peter and Charlotte. Tell them I sent you."

I kept walking and he was no longer beside me. I was terrified it was a terror that was, by now, familiar. I walked forward looking neither left nor right and weaved through the crowds toward the exit.

I did not see anyone who appeared to be a vampire on my way out. I panicked when I got outside, realizing that I had no idea which direction east was in a large city like this. Fortunately, we had chosen a train with an arrival time of late in the day in case it was sunny when we got to Chicago. It was after 4 in the afternoon and the sun was still visible in the sky sinking slowly to my left as I went out of the station. I turned right.

Was Jasper relying on the directions he had given me to find me, or was he going to follow my scent? Could he even do that in such a large and crowded city? How long would a human scent linger in the air? How I wished I had asked Edward more practical questions when I had had the chance. I would add it to the list of things to talk to Jasper about. If I knew how, I could do my best in the future to make following my scent easy. Or hard, if Victoria found me.

How I prayed that it was not Victoria or Laurent who Jasper had scented. I had relaxed into the safety of his company. It had become the Major's problem to keep me safe instead of my own. I knew that he might kill me in the end, but since it would not be until after we reached Peter and Charlotte's, I had assumed I was safe for the next few weeks. I had let my guard down, and now I was alone again. I could hope that it was temporary.

I spied a small diner with dirty windows. I would stand out a little in it, I was dressed in my best for the train, and this diner was not somewhere a lady would go, as my father (or Edward) would have expressed it. I took off my gloves, making sure the cuff of my coat still covered the bite from James, and stuffed them in the pocket of my coat. I undid one of the buttons on my coat and pulled it so that it did not appear to fit as well. I pulled at my hair a little so it was not so tidy. I now regretted fixing it again just before the train pulled in.

I hoped Jasper would come quickly. I thought it unlikely he could get hurt from a lone vampire in the middle of a train station, so I was only a little worried about him. It was my own anxiety that bothered me.

What if Jasper did not come? Should I take this opportunity to escape him? After all, he or his coven might decide to kill me still. But leaving Jasper left me in the same terrified place I had been before I met him. Jasper offered me something no one else could. He offered me an end to the terror. He might kill me, but he also might let me go or turn me into a vampire. I was fairly certain that no matter what he did with me, he would end Victoria and Laurent as soon as he could find them. The fact that the Cullens had allowed them to live without even making an effort to find them had been what he was most upset about when I told him my story. He was not outraged about the death of my father as I was. He seemed to think it unsurprising. Leaving me alive was bad enough, according to the Major, but leaving me alive when there were witnesses that I knew of vampires was insane.

I sat down in a booth at the back of the restaurant and ordered soup from the diffident waitress.

I had not brought a newspaper with me form the train, so I was left with only my thoughts. Perhaps I could start reading books again. Biographies. The papers were useful for looking for signs of vampire killings, but was I handing that job over the Jasper?

I was still here, in the diner. I hadn't taken the first opportunity to run.

The Major could have taken me and run, literally, from my room in Philadelphia. Instead, he tried hunting animals, let me take him shopping for suitable clothes so he could seem more human, and agreed to take a train across country instead of running or driving. He was not behaving like someone determined to kill me. He was learning from me, learning what I had to teach him. He might kill me at the end of all of that, but it seemed to increase my chances of survival that he viewed me as someone with useful knowledge. Even if he learned all he could from me, it surely would be harder to kill me at the end of it.

I thought back to our discussion about how to travel to Montana. I had argued strenuously against being carried while he ran all the way to Montana, having to explain the sorts of things a human had to do (and how often we have to do them.) I had not blushed so much since I had listened to Emmett's jokes. The Major had rather quickly agreed that running so far would not work well, but driving would have been problematic when I suggested that instead. The Major did not know how to drive. I could have taught him, but that would have added time on, and a car couldn't beat a train for speed anyway.

The Major had expressed a desire to learn to drive in the future, though.

Maybe, with the other vampire at the train station, we would drive the rest of the journey.

I realized I had decided not to run. I wanted everything settled and I didn't see that I was risking my life more with the Major than I was staying on the run from Victoria. And there were benefits. I was sure the Major would kill me quickly, not torture me beforehand like Victoria had threatened to do.

I had finished my soup but the waitress paid no attention to me. Good. I would sit here until she noticed me and that would take a very long time. The diner was just the right place for me to wait. No one would pay me any attention here.

I looked up as the bell on the door rang and saw Jasper walking in. The waitress perked up a little but slouched down again as Jasper nodded to me, a look of mild relief and irritation on his face.

He put a few dollars on the table and raised his eyebrow at me, probably asking if that was enough. I nodded and got up, putting on my gloves and buttoning my coat all the way since there was no longer a need to blend into the atmosphere of the diner.

"We'll find a hotel for the night," Jasper said.

It was clear that I should not ask questions now.

"All right, Major. Shall I lead the way?"