A/N: Hello, lovely readers! This chapter was thanks to much inspiration from 'Magnets (feat. Lorde)' by Disclosure and 'This Love (Will Be Your Downfall) by Ellie Goulding. Hope you enjoy this next chapter! :)
…
In light of my revelations from earlier in the day—the boy did not deserve to suffer for something he could not control—I decided to go hunting again that night.
Carine darted alongside me in the forest, quiet and contemplative. We hadn't been alone since our conversation in short prelude to my stay in Denali, and she was bringing it to mind now.
I could see my face in her memory, wild with torment, riddled with indecision and anxiety.
"Edythe?" She'd at once been alarmed and panicked at my distraught appearance.
"I have to go, Carine, I have to go now."
"What's happened?"
"Nothing. Yet. But it will if I stay."
She'd reached out to touch my hand. I had known how it had pained her when I'd flinched away from her.
"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 grave fretfulness for her simultaneously oldest and youngest daughter.
"Has any one person ever smelled better to you than the rest of them? Much better?"
"Oh."
When I'd known that she comprehended, I had ducked my head in revolted self-loathing and shame. She'd reached out to touch me, ignoring it when I'd recoiled again, and took my hand in hers.
"Do what you must to resist, Edythe. I will miss you. Here, take my car. It's faster."
She was wondering now if she'd done the right thing then, sending me away. Wondering if she hadn't hurt me with her lack of trust.
"Of course not," I whispered in the darkness as we ran, "I needed to leave at the time. I worry to think what would have happened if you had told me you'd trusted me enough to stay; what I might have done." I suppressed a shudder of horror.
"It distresses me to see you suffer, Edythe," she spoke apologetically, as if my pain was hers, "You must do what you can to keep the Swan boy safe. If you must leave again, in order to resist the temptation…" She didn't understand why I had come back, if it was still so difficult for me to be here.
"I don't want to be a coward." I barely whispered the insufficient explanation.
She mulled this over and slowed. I slowed with her. "Better to be safe than to have regrets," she said now, "He'll be gone in a couple of years anyway. The blink of an eye in our world of time."
I couldn't explain the spark of panic that lit up inside me when she said that. Gone in two years… It made me unexplainably more anxious to stay.
"We'll come with you, of course. You only need ask. You've moved on without complaint for the rest of them. They won't begrudge you this."
"I know that," I murmured, unable to meet her gaze.
Her next words were gentle, but supremely grave: "Better to leave now, than to wait until a life has been accidentally taken."
I flinched. "Yes." The word was hardly a breath.
She could see I was not convinced, and she watched me with perplexed contemplation. She knew there was more to my situation than I was telling her, that I was hiding something. She reached out to touch my wrist.
"What is it, daughter?" she inquired, "What keeps you here, despite the danger?"
I sighed. "I'm not sure I can explain it to you correctly… I can't even explain it to myself…"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she acquiesced, though her curiosity was still great, "I will respect your privacy if you so wish."
I sighed and lifted my eyes to hers, my mother, the woman I respected more than words could say. I was exceedingly grateful for her, for her unrelenting forgiveness, for her unrepentant compassion. "Thank you." I flipped my arm over so that our palms met, and I squeezed her hand once.
…
The temperature dropped significantly in the early morning hours, and when we returned to the house, the melted snow from the day previous 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. The patterns were spectacularly beautiful, and though my feet found perfect purchase and precision on the frozen ground, I knew that most of the human populace would not be so lucky. They hardly held a candle to the flame of our sense of equilibrium.
Carine went ahead of me to shower and dress for work. I sat by the river, staring into the stream with no small amount of frustration. I felt absolutely stuffed to the brim, not an ounce of thirst remaining. My body felt swollen, as if the blood had given me some sort of vampiric edema. I knew, though I felt no urge to feed now, that this would all change when I sat beside Beau Swan in fifth period biology class in just a few hours.
Carine was right. I should leave. It was ludicrous to think I could succeed in this endeavor… What was I trying to prove? Beau Swan would go on with his life, happily oblivious to the dangerous fiend that had once desired his blood with murderous passion. He would graduate, go to college, get married, have children… Children with beautiful, clear blue eyes…
It was odd, the pain that thought caused me. I couldn't understand it. Was I jealous, because he had a future that 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.
Was it simply due to my strange interest in the human boy? Was it really only because I couldn't read his thoughts that he interested me so much? I thought back to our conversation yesterday, at how riveting his seemingly simple life had been to me, and a chord of sadness struck me when I pictured myself leaving.
But I would. I would need to leave him to his life.
I watched the sun rise behind the clouds, trying to convince myself of the fact.
…
You're leaving again. Archie's mental tone was accusatory and disappointed, in my doorway.
I glanced over my shoulder, having just pulled a thick cashmere sweater on over my head. I didn't need the heavy material to keep me warm—but I did need to pretend I needed it.
"Yes."
Where to? I can't see…
Images blurred in his mind, indistinct and scattered.
"I'm not sure yet." I adjusted the collar of the shirt I wore underneath the sweater, so that it sat smartly against the neckline. "At any rate, I have to do what's right."
Archie stepped into the room. "There are many different views of what's wrong and what's right, Edy."
For a brief moment he was lost in one of his strange visions; I watched along with him as the indistinct images swirled and danced. I saw myself mixed in with strange shadows that I couldn't make out—hazy, imprecise shapes. And then, suddenly, my skin was glittering in the bright sunlight of a small open meadow, perfectly round in shape. 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 fizzled out.
I didn't either. Your future is changing every second; it's driving me nuts. I can't keep up. But I'm pretty sure…
He stopped, and he flipped through a vast assemblage of other recent images for me. They were all the same—out-of-focus and elusive.
"I think something is changing, though," he said out loud. "Your life seems to be at a crossroads."
I laughed. "That's great. Now I really feel like I'm in a circus."
Archie rolled his eyes at me and then turned to go back downstairs. I'll leave it up to you to tell the others.
"Thanks."
He slipped through my doorway, disappearing into the hallway, and his receding thought was tender: I'll miss you, Edy. Truly.
I sighed. "Miss you too, Arch."
…
My brothers and sisters could not understand the strange appeal this human boy held for me, and they did not hang around once we got to school, all except for Archie. He cast a long glance at Jess's back before he planted his feet beside me.
I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to wait for Beau to arrive, so that… What? I could talk to him? Did I hope he would approach me?
The distinct rumble of his truck wasn't far off now, and a moment later he came into view, bending around the curve of the road. His was so serious, his hands so tight on the steering wheel, all the blood had drained away from his knuckles, leaving them bone white. For a minute, his expression was comical and yet confusing, until I realized that all the humans were wearing similar expressions today. It was icy out, and each one of them was taking extra care to drive with caution.
He turned slowly into the lot and parked in one of the first available stalls, across the lot from us. I kept my eyes fixed on his, but he did not look up at me. I watched him gather his bag, hiking it over a shoulder, and then he exited the cab carefully. His left hand did not leave the edge of the truck bed, and he was holding just as tightly to it as he had been the steering wheel.
Something had caught his eye, and he was moving toward it now with slow, measured steps. I noticed, suddenly, how uncoordinated he was. His boots were sliding all over the place, and I found myself giggling quietly. The boy was surprisingly clumsy.
I watched him lean over slightly to examine the snow chains on his tires, and then he frowned, brows crinkling, and the strangest expression crossed his face. I was still trying to figure it out when Archie gasped.
"No!"
His premonition flooded in just a half a second before the actual incident, and I watched with him as Taylor would take the turn too sharply into the parking lot, still going too fast. She wouldn't slow enough, and her van tires would lose traction in a quarter of a second, and the vehicle would go careening across the lot, to crash into the back corner of Beau's truck. I was sure the sturdy looking vehicle could take it. The human boy standing in between, however…
His face snapped up and his eyes locked on mine for a fraction of a second, wide and horror struck, and oh-so-blue.
Not him! was the only thing I could think.
I acted without thinking of the consequences. My family and I could deal with the suspicions later. Right now, there was only one thing that mattered: I needed to get to Beau, and I needed to get him out of the path of that van.
I launched myself across the space of the parking lot, throwing myself between the reeling, out of control van, and the boy who stood in its path, frozen in shock. 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.
My arms closed around him mid-stride, and we crashed to the ground together. I mostly caught his fall, but hadn't had enough time to pre-meditate my motions, hadn't thought to be as gentle as he would have needed me to be. His head cracked against the icy pavement loudly, and the van had rebounded off the corner of the truck and was coming back toward us, like Beau really did hold some gravitational pull inside him, and I hadn't been the only one in its orbit.
"Come on!" I hissed, exasperated. I released my grip from around the boy and threw my hands out in front of me, knowing I was risking exposure in this moment, not only for myself, but for my entire family. Of course, my pushing a van away from him wasn't going to help anything, but I couldn't just do nothing!
The van slammed into my palms, the weight of it vaulting my frame backward into the tan car we'd landed behind. I felt the shape of my shoulders sink into the side of it. The van shuddered and shivered against the unyielding obstacle of my arms, and then swayed, balancing unstably on the two far tires.
So it was stopped, but if I let it go, Beau's legs were lying right there, and the tires were going to crush them!
Oh, for the love of all that is holy…
I pushed the van away from me just enough so that it rocked back on its far tires, giving me enough time to re-orient my hands, and then it swayed back, and I caught underneath its body with my right hand, slipping my other arm underneath Beau's arms and dragging him out of the van's place of trajectory.
His body moved so limply I was abruptly terrified I'd done more damage than the van might have.
I let the vehicle drop now, all of its windows shattering at precisely the same moment, glass raining down on the asphalt around us. Beau did not move, and I leaned over him, my arm still around him, holding him tightly to my side—it felt safer this way.
Potent relief flooded me when I saw that his eyes were open—staring wide in shock, but they were open.
"Beau?" my voice sounded panicked, "Beau, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he responded automatically, but the words sounded strange and wobbly, more like a question.
He stayed very still for a moment, and then he struggled against my grasp.
"Be careful," I told him severely, "I think you hit your head pretty hard." I smelled no fresh blood, and that was a relief, but there was no telling what kind of internal damage I had done. His pupils seemed responsive, but still, I wouldn't feel okay until I had gotten him to the hospital and the whole nine yards of radiology equipment.
"Ow," he said hollowly.
The relief of the situation had me finding the comment hilarious, and I pressed my lips together to restrain my laughter.
"That's what I thought."
"How in the…" he trailed off, still sounding stunned, but gaining hold of himself now, "How did you get over here so fast?"
My amused mood cut off shortly. He had noticed too much, and nothing was funny about that.
"I was standing right next to you, Beau," I lied fluidly.
He scrambled, trying to sit up, and this time I helped him. Once he was steady, I slid as far from him in the tiny space as I could. Every breath seared down my throat like wildfire, but I was almost grateful for it in this moment.
He stared into my eyes for a long, silent moment, seeming confused by my serious expression—only a liar would break eye contact in this moment—and then the students found us. The cacophony of thought and physical voice was incomparable. I examined the thoughts once to make sure there were no suspicions yet, and then tuned it out to refocus on Beau.
He was distracted by the insanity. He looked around; his expression was still stunned, and he tried to get to his feet.
I put my hand lightly on his shoulder to hold him down. I didn't want him moving if he'd been hurt, and he might still be in shock, not having noticed the extent of his injuries yet.
"Just stay put for now," I urged him.
"But it's cold," he said, and his tone sounded so absurdly petulant that abruptly I was filled with humor again, chuckling softly. Sure, the cold bothered him. But did the senselessness of what had just happened bother him at all? No…
"You were over there," he said now, suddenly serious. His tone was harder than before, more sure, and the blue of his irises was… Firmer. "You were by your car."
This evaporated the humor once more. "No, I wasn't." I tried as hard as I could to sound completely sure of myself, knowing he would never believe the lie if I didn't sound totally confident.
"I saw you."
"Beau, I was standing with you, and I pulled you out of the way." I kept my eyes locked on his, willing him see how vital it was he let this go.
"But—that's not—what happened," he stuttered, seeming confused again.
"Please, Beau." I fought the growing panic inside of me. It would only be a few minutes that I would need to keep him quiet. Then I could destroy the evidence and blame his absurd rationalizations on the head injury.
"Why?" he asked.
"Trust me?" And the desire was very strong, suddenly. I found I truly would have liked him to trust me, and not only because of what had just happened. It was an absurd notion.
"Will you explain everything to me later?"
It made me angry to have to lie to him again, when I so much wished that I could somehow deserve his trust. So, when I answered him, it was a retort.
"Fine."
"Okay," he mumbled, clearly thrown by my sudden bad mood, sounding more confused than ever.
It took an obscene amount of time to clear the van enough so that the paramedics could get through to us. I restrained the urge to help them. I didn't want to get in anymore trouble than I already had; and so that meant I would have to wait to smooth out the indentation my shoulders had made in the tan car, too. While we waited together in the cramped space, I took a moment to examine the minds around me more carefully. So far, there were no suspicious musings; only mere surprise when they saw me there with Beau. But they'd all concluded—as Beau stubbornly hadn't—that they just hadn't seen me standing so close to him.
I insisted the paramedics take extra caution regarding Beau's head, telling them he'd hit it pretty hard. I could still hear the reverberation of it cracking off the ice, echoing through my skull. I wouldn't rest until he'd had a complete work-up. I was chillingly terrified that I'd hurt him, though he was still acting okay as they put the neck brace on him and strapped him to the gurney. I used their rapt attention on Beau to smooth out the dent in the car with the sole of my boot.
Just before I climbed into the front seat, I caught sight of my brothers and sisters, standing just beyond the Volvo. Their careful eyes were fixed on me. Royal's thoughts were a blur of rage-filled profanity, and I avoided his curses. Archie was watching me warily, where he stood clutching Jessamine's hand. All of them were concerned about the risk I'd taken, about the possible mistake of exposure. Eleanor, at least, had forgiven my dangerous choice already, and I was grateful.
I wished I could reassure them that no one had doubted anything, but then on the same token, I was filled with self-righteous astuteness. What else could I have done but save the boy? If his blood had been spilled…
I shook the thoughts off, slammed the ambulance's passenger door behind me, and turned my face away from my siblings.
Chief Swan arrived then, just as they were loading Beau into the back. His thoughts were an incomprehensible blur of anxiety and panic and guilt. My head bowed underneath the weight of it, and I was glad I'd had enough strength to resist that first day. Charlie loved his son more than was normal for distant parents, and the thought that I'd almost taken Beau from him permanently weighed heavily on me.
It wasn't until Charlie turned to the closest EMT, demanding more information despite Beau's exasperated words of reassurance, that I realized that despite his anxiety, he was speaking in perfectly normal tone and sentence. His anxiety and concerns were not wordless… I just couldn't decipher them all.
Hmm, how interesting. Charlie's thoughts were not as silent as his son's, but I could see where Beau had inherited the blockage.
I didn't have too much time to dwell on it, for the ambulance was pulling away then.
…
It wasn't difficult to find my mother's familiar inner voice when we reached the hospital. I worried about leaving Beau's side, but as I strode down the familiar halls toward Carine's office, I found reassurance in the fact I could watch him through the paramedics' thoughts.
Brandy Warner, the EMT who had reached us first, was also a registered nurse, and she shifted seamlessly through the roles. I was glad she was one of the people to stay near him. I trusted her judgment and advanced technique.
When I opened the door to Carine's office, she was immediately rising behind her rich, walnut desk, face pale, lips in a tight line.
"Carine."
Edythe—you didn't—
"No, no," I immediately assuaged her concern, "It's not that."
Of course not. She shook her head, regaining her composure, noting my still-golden eyes. Your eyes are unchanged, I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I apologize.
"It's fine—however, he is injured, though not seriously."
"What happened?"
I rolled my eyes. "A stupid car accident. Wrong place, wrong time." Quickly, my words got away from me, rolling into one big ice-ball of anxiety over what could have happened, "But I couldn't just stand back and let it happen. I had to do something—I couldn't just let the van crush him. I didn't know what—"
Slow down, Edythe, she interrupted me, Start at the beginning.
I sighed, composing myself. "A van, Taylor Crowley's, hydro-planed across the ice. She was going too fast, took the corner into the lot too sharply. Archie saw it coming, but there wasn't enough time to do anything else but literally run across the lot and push him out of the way. No one noticed I hadn't been standing right next to him, except for Beau. He saw me standing by my car, on the opposite end of the parking lot, just before it happened. I had to stop the van, too, but again, no one saw that but him… He's exceptionally observant," I complained underneath my breath as an aside, "I know the risk I've taken, and I'm sorry for putting us in jeopardy…"
Carine was contemplative for a moment, and then she came to stand by me, squeezing my hand. "I understand, Edythe. You took the correct action, and I know it couldn't have been easy for you."
I looked up into her tender honey eyes, which were filled with total compassion and acceptance. Shame flooded through me. I did not deserve a mother as angelic as she. I couldn't keep anything from her, and so I added, "He knows… That something isn't quite right with me."
"We'll leave at a moment's notice," she said, "Just say the word and we're gone. Has he said anything to you?"
I shook my head, frustrated. "No, nothing yet. But…"
But?
"He wants an explanation. He doesn't believe that things happened the way I said they did—which, they didn't, but… I don't think it will be difficult to discredit his account. When I knocked him to the ground, I slammed his head against the ice. He seems okay, but… With head injuries, memories can be misconstrued…" I felt horrible saying the words, horrible that I would use the truth against him this way.
"Maybe it won't come to that," Carine reassured me, walking to her coat tree to retrieve her doctor's jacket. "Let's see what happens, shall we? Sounds like I have a patient to check on."
"Please," I said with relief, "I'm so worried that I've hurt him."
Her affect brightened noticeably as she fixed her hair.
It's been a noteworthy day for you, hasn't it? In her mind, I could see the paradox, and it was humorous, at least to her. Quite the reversal of roles. Somewhere during that short heedless second when I'd torn across the frozen 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 myself. There was an edge to my laugh because, van notwithstanding, that was still entirely true.
…
I isolated myself in Carine's office for the hour it took them to get Beau's x-ray results.
Most of the ER staff's attentions had turned to the driver of the van, Taylor Crowley. Her injuries seemed to be worse than Beau's, though that remained to be proven… Anxious again for his health, I fought the urge to go and see him. I couldn't. If he were to see my face, he would only want an explanation again, and I wasn't ready to give that yet.
I doubted the boy was bored, at any rate. Taylor seemed a willing enough conversationalist… I paid extra attention when the discussion turned to me.
"How did you get out of the way so fast? You were there, and then you were gone…" She was totally stumped.
"Umm…" Beau said haltingly, unsure, "Edythe shoved me out of the way."
I exhaled in relief. He seemed to be following my version of what had happened so far. And then my breathing accelerated. I'd never heard him say my name before, and I liked the way it sounded. It sent a thrill through me, and I wanted to hear it for myself… I was at the door, my hand on the knob, before I could think twice, and I froze, surprised at my actions.
I forced myself to take a seat.
"Who?" Taylor inquired.
"Edythe Cullen—?" Another thrill. "She was standing next to me…" He didn't sound convincing to me, but Taylor didn't pick up on how bad a liar he was.
"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," Beau responded, and I could see the thoughtful look that came over his expression now, through Taylor's thoughts. His eyes tightened, just so, with the aura of suspicion. "She's here somewhere, but they didn't make her use a stretcher."
He's cute, Taylor was thinking now, getting a good look at him. The wide, clear lake of his eyes, the fullness of his lips—though the top was just slightly irregular with the bottom. This, however, was an observation I had made. Taylor Crowley's frail human eyesight was too poor to notice it. Maybe I could convince him to take me to dinner, in lieu of an apology… Her thoughts turned mischievous, thinking of other things she could take instead of a formal apology…
I was surprised at the feelings that rose up in me in response to her thoughts. Annoyed… Even angry. It didn't matter what Taylor thought about the boy, what anyone else thought about the boy. I wouldn't be around much longer to hear those thoughts. This would be the last time he would be able to see me. I couldn't risk anymore revelation than I already had.
The realization panged achingly in my chest, and for a sudden moment, I felt surprisingly… human.
I couldn't battle the impatience any longer. I strode down the lengthy hallway and took the long way around to radiology, but by the time I got there—forced to walk at a brisk human's pace—Beau had already been taken back to the ER. I was, however, able to catch a glimpse of his X-rays, and relief flooded through me with such potency, it gave a strange sensation of weakness in my knees… Or the ghost of it, at least. Though I couldn't ever remember feeling anything like this in my human life. So weak, and so filled with vitality, all in the same moment.
His x-rays were clear. There were no fresh contusions. I hadn't injured him, after all.
You look better.
I said nothing in response to Carine's thoughts. We were in a crowded space, orderlies and visitors on every side. I just looked straight ahead.
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 that 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'm going to go speak with him, before you see him. Act… Blasé. Like nothing happened. Smooth things over?"
Carine nodded easily at my request, though it wasn't simple. It was unkind to ask others to lie for my mistakes. Her attention was diverted, and I turned to see what kept her attention on Beau's x-ray images.
Look at all the healed contusions! How many times did his mother drop him? Carine chuckled to herself at her little joke.
"I'm beginning to think that boy is just a magnet for very bad luck," I murmured darkly. Forks was definitely the wrong place for him, with me here.
Go, Carine urged, Speak with the boy. I'll join you momentarily.
I strode away quickly.
When I walked through the doors to the emergency room, Taylor was doing a valiant job of keeping up her remorseful mumbling. It looked, however, as if Beau had feigned sleep in an attempt to tune her out. I knew he wasn't asleep. His breathing wasn't slow enough, and every once in awhile, his hand tightened over the bicep it was crossed over.
When Taylor saw me, she opened her mouth to speak, but I put a finger to my lips to silence her.
"Is he sleeping?" I inquired.
At the sound of my voice, his eyes flashed open, and he popped half-way up into a sitting position. They were wide for a moment, and then his expression slipped, once more, into a mask of indecision. The emotion turned his eyes a bright, unfathomable ocean color. I remembered I had a role to play, and I smiled at him like nothing out of the ordinary had happened this morning—besides a bonk to the head and a bit of a runaway with his imagination.
"Hey, um, Edythe, I'm really sorry—"
I lifted a hand to stop her. "No blood, no foul," I assured her, and then smiled too widely at my private joke.
It was appallingly easy to ignore Taylor, lying no more than four feet from me, covered in fresh 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 was 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, and watching him with careful, assessing eyes. Yes, he would require an explanation. I braced myself for the part I would have to play.
"So what's the verdict?" I inquired of him.
"There's nothing wrong with me," he mumbled, "but they won't let me go. How come you aren't strapped to a gurney like the rest of us?"
"It's all about who you know." I could hear Carine's approach now. "But don't worry, I came to spring you."
Right on cue, Carine stepped into view, and I watched Beau's mouth literally fall open for a second before he gathered his wits and mashed his lips together. I sighed internally. Yes, he'd noticed the lack of contrast between us.
"So, Mr. Swan," she said upon her arrival at his bedside, perfectly gentle and unassuming, "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," he said immediately, sounding a little exasperated.
Carine clipped Beau's x-ray images to the lightboard and examined them once more. There was no need. Her recall was perfect.
"Your x-rays look good," she reported, "Does your head hurt? Edythe said you hit it pretty hard." There was just a touch of concern in her tone, but she was mostly just being gracious. She was sure he was fine.
"It's fine," he repeated, and threw me a quick, quizzical glance. I averted his gaze.
Carine prodded his skull gently, feeling for the lump under his hair. I noticed when he flinched. It didn't go unnoticed to her, either.
I was surprised by the wave of emotion that crashed over me.
I had seen Carine work with humans a thousand times. A few years ago, when it was no longer unusual for a female doctor to be in practice and she was able to stop working under the guise of a nurse, 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, being completely confident in that fact...
"Tender?" she queried.
"Not really."
So he was brave. He didn't like to show weakness. The fact that he wanted to seem so strong and mighty suddenly struck me as hilarious. Possibly the most vulnerable creature I'd ever seen, and he didn't want to seem weak. What was it about men and strength?
I couldn't hold back my chuckle.
"Well, 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 hadn't noticed his mental voice, and I concentrated now, probing in the direction of the waiting room. I couldn't pick it up.
"Can't I go back to school?" Something in Beau's expression looked pained, as if he were imagining something unpleasant.
"Someone has to spread the good news that we survived," I piped up.
"Actually—most of the school seems to be in the waiting room," Carine informed him.
I anticipated his reaction this time; I didn't think he would like the attention.
Beau groaned, looking mortified.
I allowed myself a small smile, feeling proud of myself. I was getting to know him.
"Do you want to stay?" Carine asked him, lifting her eyebrows in surprise at his aversion.
"No, no!" Beau threw his legs over the side of the bed and hopped down quickly. He staggered, and I was immediately on my feet, stepping forward, but Carine already had him securely by the shoulders, steadying him. Again, I was surprised at the strength of the jealousy that coursed through me.
"I'm fine," he said in answer to her concerned gaze.
"Take some Tylenol for the pain."
"It doesn't hurt that bad."
"It sounds like you were extremely lucky," Carine told him with a smile as she signed his chart.
"Lucky Edythe just happened to be standing next to me," he corrected her, glancing over at me again.
"Oh, well, yes," Carine said, preoccupying herself with the papers in front of her. I'll leave this up to you, Edythe. Handle it as you see fit. She read the same thing as I had in his voice—his suspicions were not entirely off the table.
Then she moved on to tend to Taylor Crowley.
Beau approached me, standing too close.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he murmured under his breath, and his breath washed over my face, the fragrance of his blood assaulting me once more. My temptation for him had not abated one bit, and I clenched my jaw, retreating a step.
"Your father is waiting for you," I told him through my teeth, using what breath I had left in my lungs. I did not breathe now.
Beau looked toward Carine and Taylor, and then turned his attention back to me. "I need to speak with you alone," he insisted.
Though I couldn't smell him now, I could feel, where he was standing too close to me, the heat of his body pressing in on me, shimmering in the air around me.
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 scorn and be harsh. It went against all my better impulses—the human impulses that I'd clung to through all these 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 to stalk out of the long room, in search of a vacant place where I could stage my play. I strode quickly, listening to the sound of his uneven, stumbling footsteps behind me as he struggled to keep up, though his legs were longer than mine.
I swerved into an empty hallway and whirled on him. He pulled up short, taken aback by my sudden halt.
"What do you want?" The words came out as harshly as I had wanted them to.
He was intimidated, I could see that. He faltered a minute, those blue eyes wide.
"You owe me an explanation." His words sounded more confident than he looked.
It was very difficult, to carry on the cruel crusade. "I saved your life—I don't owe you anything."
He physically flinched. "Why are you acting like this?"
Because I could no longer put him in danger. Because I cared too much about him to risk his life so much.
"Beau, you hit your head, you don't know what you're talking about."
"There's nothing wrong with my head." This he was sure of, and I knew I'd have to step it up now.
"What do you want from me, Beau?" I demanded.
"I want to know the truth. I want to know why I'm lying for you."
"What do you think happened?"
"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…" Eventually he trailed off, the words gushing out of him at incredible speed, but I'd heard every syllable, and I could only stare. He had seen everything.
"You think I lifted a van off you?" The words came off as incredulous, questioning his sanity. The shock helped that.
He nodded.
I pulled my lips up into a hard, mocking smirk. "Nobody will believe that, you know."
"I'm not going to tell anybody," he insisted.
This surprised me. He would keep my secret, though he knew the truth? Why? "Then why does it matter?"
"It matters to me. I don't like to lie—so there'd better be a good reason why I'm doing it."
I added another quality to my list: honest. And on the same token, he was asking me to trust him with my truth, in a roundabout way. But I couldn't do that.
"Can't you just thank me and get over it?"
"Thank you," he said immediately, and then he crossed his arms over his chest, staring me down with as much conviction as he could muster. It would have been comical if I hadn't gotten so into my role.
"You're not going to let it go, are you?"
"Nope."
"In that case… I hope you enjoy disappointment."
I stared at him for a long moment, in awe of his bravery, his selflessness, his keen sense of awareness… I could not stay.
"If you were going to be like this," he finally said, "why did you even bother?"
This took me off guard, and I slipped, once, feeling my villain mask fall. This one time, I told him the truth: "I don't know."
I memorized his face one last time, the bewilderment in the blue of his eyes, the determined set of his jaw, the shape of his lips—it was selfish of me, I knew—and then I turned and walked away from him, forcing myself not to look back.
…
A/N: Poor, poor Edythe. She believes so much she'll be strong enough to leave him… As always, let me know what you thought of this chapter! ;) xo