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Chapter 18

Life in Shadow

Curbside. Sometime later.

She felt Edward's hand on her shoulder, heard Rose sigh beside her, felt a cloth cleaning her hands. Bella made some sound, pressed herself against Edward, couldn't stop crying. He ran a hand through her hair, kissed the top of her head.

"Was it what you thought it would be?" he asked at last.

"No," she said into his chest, miserable. Edward waited. At last, Bella was able to stop crying. She leaned against Edward, sniffling, eyes closed. Rose was still holding her hand.

"What was it then?"

"It was horrible. It was beautiful." She didn't see Rose glance at Edward, to exchange with him a tiny smile. Bella loosened her grip around Edward, sitting up and looking at him.

"How can someone so awful contain all of that beauty?"

"The blood doesn't care about the vessel. Some vampires are like vigilantes. They take only from murderers, rapists and the like. Others take only from sixteen-year-old virgins. The truth? It doesn't matter. The blood is the same regardless." Rose nodded.

"It's why we make our choices the way we do. It's not worth worrying about. Someone catches my eye, and that's that. I guess Edward started you off with this guy because you were already looking for some kind of revenge?"

"Yeah." Bella was trying not to look at Peter's corpse. Revenge against anyone seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind.

"It doesn't matter though, Bella. You need to learn that. It's mortal sentiment."

"Sorry. Never done this before." Bella ran a hand across her eyes. The liquid was pink. She stared at it for a moment, laughed incredulously.

"There is nothing to be sorry for. It is understandable. But as you can see, Bella, you are not human anymore." Edward stood, glancing toward the body. He reached down and helped Bella to her feet. She followed his glance and grimaced.

"I don't even know why I did … that." She gestured toward the unbuttoned pants, the piece of meat hanging out of them.

"Part and parcel of the thirst, Bella. It's a desire. A lust. They're tied together, particularly for those of us lucky enough to retain our sexual capabilities."

"You're a natural, to be honest. Not many new vampires could have pulled off simultaneously grilling the guy about his wife and keeping him mesmerized at the same time. Edward and I were impressed." Rose leaned down and, with an air of complete indifference, put the offending item back where it belonged. She hefted the body up on one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"What do we do with that? With him?" The expression on Peter's face, a mixture of horror and pleasure, made Bella queasy. She looked away.

"Good question. After a while, maybe ten, fifteen years, there's not a 'that' to deal with. Eventually you won't need that much blood," Rose said.

"For the Ay'Araf and Burilgi vampire strains, that's almost immediate. Their fledglings stop needing to kill within a week or Bella. Ashayt vampires … within a few months. Eresh vampires go into a deeper trance and take much longer to learn how to break it. Years. Rose still kills sometimes."

"No. I don't. She does." Rose's voice was quiet.

"My apologies, Rose."

"S'okay. It's weird, Bella, but the stronger we get, the less we need. You'll learn how to control that mesmerism stuff. Then you can keep them from remembering. They wake up feeling kind of crappy, figure it's the flu … end of story."

"You can purposely do that?"

"Oh, sure. One time I was with these two guys and this other girl, and we were all getting pretty into it, you know? And I was all hot and I started biting without even really thinking about it, and then the girl started freaking out, because this guy was, like, dripping blood on her, but he had his eyes closed and thought she was, you know … just getting off. So he keeps right on banging away at her, and I—" Edward cleared his throat.

"Rose, do you have any stories that might illustrate your point without requiring a detailed description of your various acts of debauchery?" Rose tilted her head, thinking.

"No." Bella laughed.

"It's okay. Sounds sort of fun, before the screaming anyway. But that only tells me what to do with something alive. Peter has, uh … moved on." Bella tried to feel bad about this, but found herself unable to manufacture any guilt.

The truth was simple: this man was as much a killer as she was, and it was difficult to be remorseful about what she had done.

"Well, we could just leave him. The bite marks fade. Carlisle says it's something in our saliva." Rose shrugged, an odd gesture with a body slung over her shoulder.

"Don't know. I'm no biologist."

"There were others in the bar," Edward said. "No investigation will find us, but it's best to take reasonable precautions. We can take him into the woods and bury him."

"With what?" Bella asked. Edward and Rose exchanged another glance.

"You'll see," Rose said, and began moving up the road toward the edge of town.

The lack of shovels proved to be of little concern. Digging by hand is no, for a vampire, the difficult task that it is for a human being.

Fingernails do not break, flesh does not cut or wear, strength does not flag. Work proceeded rapidly.

Rose chattered away at them. Bella and Edward were mostly silent, half-listening, absorbed in the work.

"This is good for you to learn, anyway, Bella. If you ever get caught away from someplace safe, and the sun's coming up, you can actually dig down and go into the earth if you have to. It's not the most pleasant way to spend the day, but it works. I had to do it once when I pissed off Edward and he left me in the city.

"I was halfway through walking back when I realized that I wasn't going to make it in time." At this, Edward glanced up.

"I have never left you anywhere you did not wish to be left, Rose." A moment's pause, and she shrugged.

"Must be remembering it wrong. Anyway, it's sort of funny. It's not really the bugs or worms that bothered me, or even the difficulty breathing. It was the scent. I could smell everything rotting. It was pretty disgusting." Rose stopped working for a minute, a far-off, quizzical expression on her face.

"What the hell was I doing out there anyway? I could have sworn we had a fight, Edward. You don't remember anything like that?" Edward shook his head. "Guess I'll have to trust you. You remember everything."

"Largely, yes. It's of no real concern, Rose."

"I suppose." Edward stood, brushed off the knees of his pants.

The hole was done. Rose dumped Peter in with no more reverence than if she were a farmer dropping a sack of grain.

Bella felt as if she should say something, shook it off. Human sentiment. She was no longer human. It was a waste of time, and Edward and Rose were no doubt hungry.

She joined them, tossing the dirt back over the body with her hands. Finished. Less than an hour, and they'd managed to camouflage the hole quite well. Bella's watch said it was nearly two in the morning.

"Do you guys need to, uh … eat?" Edward grinned. Rose laughed, brushing her hands together, trying to rid them of dirt.

"Yes," Edward said, turning and walking away from the grave. "But that doesn't have to take long."

"Ooh, are we going to get to watch the master at work?" Rose's voice was merry as they tramped through the woods.

"If you'd like, though I've never claimed to have mastered this particular aspect of our lives. We can return to the town."

"We're pretty deep into the woods. Should we get the cars?" Bella asked. She didn't really mind one way or the other, but it seemed impractical.

"None of this is, or particularly needs to be, practical, Bella," Edward said. "It's for your edification mainly, and now is an opportunity for another lesson. Keep up!" Edward turned, grinning, and took off like a shot through the woods, moving faster than seemed possible.

Bella felt her jaw hanging open, and closed it with a snap. Rose laughed and ran after Edward, crying out for Bella to follow her.

Bella took a deep breath, and started to run.