AN: Hi. I'm so sorry for the long delay that it sounds ridiculously inadequate to even say that I'm sorry - but I am! AND . . . in the meantime ALL of the remaining chapters have been written and beta'd and will be coming to you over the next few weeks. Many thanks to beta happymelt, pre-reader faireyfan, and pre-reader emeritus midsouthmama. They've all been super gracious and patient. When we last left these guys, Bella and Edward were just hearing breaking news reports of a superflu outbreak that they know Aro is intentionally spreading. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 14: The Tyndall Effect

I step out of my bathroom and check for stray dog hairs in the full-length closet mirror. The creamy peony-pink dress is long and narrow, with gauzy layers that cling to me from neck to mid-calf in a way that makes Alice raise an eyebrow.

"I can't believe I'm wearing pink on purpose."

"Not too pink. It's like . . . skin color."

"I guess." I twist to check my reflection. Edward is picking me up in an hour. Prom night. We're going through with it, despite the plague, despite the long nights we spend searching for the cure, despite all we need to do to keep Aro in the dark. We're going through with the corsage and the pictures and an extra-late curfew we pretended to want. What I want, honestly, is sleep. But Edward insists it's important, so . . . we're going. Prom night. "You're definitely sure it's supposed to fit like this?"

"It looks even more perfect than the first five perfect times you tried it on. Have you been doing Pilates in your sleep or something? Because . . . " She tilts her head to the side and looks quizzically at the profile of my ass.

"What? No. I mean, Edward got me hooked on Wii Hula Hoop. It's really fun." That's sort of true. We've been spending the majority of our time in his basement, where he endlessly synthesizes compounds in an attempt to defeat the superflu, and I play noisy video games to give us a cover story. From time to time we trade places so I can do some calculations. The Wii isn't exactly a mixed martial arts workout, but every little bit helps with the stress. We keep hitting a wall with the solution—it seems right on paper, but when we introduce it to the disease culture, nothing happens. The clock is ticking, and people are dying.

Meanwhile, we're ready to move at the drop of a hat, the moment we verify the cure. We have a 20-step escape plan committed to memory, with go bags and tools stashed in various places along the route, and we've erased our tracks everywhere. We've even destroyed the old laptops that were our means of covert communication. It doesn't matter. Until we get this cure in the mail to the Centers for Disease Control and get out, nothing matters.

"Well, yeah. I wish I could see his face when he picks you up."

"Maybe you should." I turn away from the mirror and look at her directly. Sometimes when I see her slouching on my bed with one leg tucked under her, I have such a strong recollection of the kid she used to be at ten, at eight. All those nights when I was missing my mom and just wanted someone—anyone—with me. She's just always been there. My whole life, really. And I don't know how much longer I have before everything changes. "You're really not coming? Not at all?"

She shrugs and throws my grandmother's embroidered pillow at me. "Stop moping, mope-face. When we're seniors, yeah. For sure. Not that you shouldn't be excited for junior prom, because you totally should. It's just not for me right now."

I know her boyfriend is away on tour. I know she's saving her money, trying to scrape together enough cash to travel with Jasper and the Southern Wars after school lets out. She's picked up some shifts copyediting at the Seattle Beat, and the hours can be crazy when an issue is going to press. What I wouldn't give for her problems.

I shake my head. I'm supposed to be getting ready for a fun night, not giving my friend a hard time. "I know. I know."

"I'll be back by Edward's birthday thing."

"Yeah." I pretend to take an interest in a tiny freckle on my wrist. "I just . . . I'm being silly. All this superflu crap is freaking me out." It's been all over the news, going on a couple of weeks now. People believe it's a natural contagion—albeit a deadly one—that strikes elderly and frail people. It's been seen in cities all along the west coast, plus New York and Miami, and it's gradually moving into rural communities.

"Right? Jasper says half the crowd last night was wearing surgical masks."

"Well, I mean . . . it's not transmitted like that." I plop down on the end of the bed and start easing my feet into the new suede ankle boots Edward bought me.

"And nobody at a Southern Wars concert is in the at-risk age group. And neither are we." She stretches out a black-and-white striped leg and pokes me with her toe. "Hey, come on. You're not the hysterical-panic type, and you're not fooling me. I know what this is about."

If only. How I wish that were true. I turn my head and give her a weak smile. "Okay. What's this about?"

"You haven't had sex with Edward and you're afraid you're going to walk onto the set of some terrible teen movie where people still treat prom night as National Lose Your Virginity Night."

Huh. That's an interesting theory. I twist my lips to the side. "Well. I already know he's not a virgin."

She narrows her eyes. "Since when?"

"Since when have I known or since when has he not been?"

"Okay, both." She starts tugging my hair back into some sort of twist at the back of my head, layering bobby pins on top of bobby pins.

"I kind of made him tell me. That night we had that fight a few weeks ago, you know? I guess it happened last summer in Chicago. Just, like, a fleeting thing. She's long gone. And . . . and anyways we decided we're waiting."

"Well, I guess it's better if he's not all . . . pent up. Thinking with his dick, desperate to put it somewhere."

"Um."

"Except he should want to—legitimately—want to put it in you."

"Alice . . ."

"Because you're smoking hot, with brains."

I puff out some air between my lips.

"But if he wants to and you're not sure, no pressure! There's lots of stuff you can do. Slo-o-o-w burn style. A man's lips are underrated, honestly. And listening to him get himself off over the phone. Heh."

"What?" Jesus. I don't even think she realizes I'm in the room anymore. "When do you see Jasper next?"

"So, that's cool. You're talking it over, which is the main thing."

I can't exactly tell her the reasons we're holding out. That our every waking hour is spent puzzling over molecules, chirality, covalent bonds that just won't quite line up. That a nefarious government agent, or his twelve-year-old underling, could be listening in on every conversation, every stray groan and pant. And, somewhere deep down, my fear that the thing tying me to him on a bone-deep level is also the thing that dooms any possible future happiness. We need each other to get out of this mess, and we'll both do anything to make sure we succeed. Will I be able to look at him the same way afterward, assuming we make it? And vice versa?

"Bella? Earth to Bella? I'm finished." Alice waves a can of hairspray in front of my eyes.

"Yeah. Uh, it looks nice. Thank you!"

I swipe on some mascara and blink. And so I'm ready for prom. Almost.

Alice nods her approval and heads out, making me promise to take lots of pictures. I run through my usual final prep list: I stow GoDoze sachets in the hollow heels of my boots, grab a shawl freshly laundered with AntiDoze, stuff my GPS wristwatch into my clutch. A Sundial scout is always prepared. There's no room under this dress to strap on a knife, so I nestle a sharpened hairpin into my updo.

I'll have to warn Edward. In case he puts his hands in my hair. Will he? He probably won't.

We did talk about it. Sex. What I told Alice we decided—that part wasn't a lie.

Do you want to? You know . . . with me? I'd said this to him—out loud, half-delirious, shameless. We were in the sub-basement bunker, amid papers scattered on the floor, sweaty and feverish, desperate to distract ourselves. His answer was breath in my ear, a tickle, nothing carrying through the air for microphones to hear. At first it was all Shh and Oh, Bella. All throaty laughs tinged with regret. His weight on me was mostly exhaustion—the liberties you take when you're close, I guess—until his heavy-lidded eyes found mine through a curtain of hair, and I felt his hand wedged between us, between my legs, trembling. His eyes narrowed when I bit my lip to stifle every telltale noise. There, see? Not like this. I want to hear everything you have to say. Everything you feel. When we're free. I want you to choose me. His breath in my ear only made me grind against him. I wanted him so much.

But what if—what if we actually don't manage—

Shut up. Just shut the hell up about that, please. Bella, I swear.

And so we're waiting. Until we're "free," or so Edward can have this goalpost to motivate him, or some of both.

I mince my way down the stairs, suddenly feeling self-conscious in my tight dress, toward where I know Edward is waiting. Miss Violet has been yipping and fake-snarling since I heard Charlie answer the door, and Edward is growling back at her. I stop and listen because it's sort of adorable. Over her excited panting I hear my dad making small talk.

"Well. Big night. Prom."

"Yes, sir."

"She's all primped and prepped up there. What do you say, do you deserve her?"

Ugh, Charlie and his trick questions. I can hear it in his voice—he thinks he's being cute, putting some hapless guy in the hot seat. He has no idea. It takes a lot worse than this to make Edward break a sweat. He's silent for what feels like a long time.

"I don't do so well with the idea of deserving or not deserving. Sir."

I round the corner silently and fold my arms where Charlie can see me. He looks like a cat getting ready to pounce on a mouse, and he's not about to let me spoil his fun with my dirty looks. Edward's back is a flat plane of black gabardine wool. His head is bent down—he's had a haircut—but he lifts it and looks at Charlie straight-on.

I hear him continue, "You know my guardian, Carlisle? He administers anesthesia at the federal prison hospital. I asked him once if he thinks about what they might have done. The guys on his table. If it ever makes him hesitate. He told me the day he starts to judge who deserves what is the day he tears up his license to practice." I see Charlie studying him. He's not feeling so cute anymore. "His view is . . . his capability to help people heal is a thing he has control over. So he does his human best every day. That makes sense to me, more than a lot of things. So, rather than what I think I deserve, when it comes to your daughter, I guess I think—I hope—she has that sort of capacity in her heart. Deserved, undeserved. She is . . . full of love. Sir."

Charlie is stunned, rightly, and he looks sheepish and mutters, distracting Edward until I can duck out of the doorway and get rid of the tears in my eyes, which he thinks are happy tears.

Edward turns around and stands when he hears me reenter the room, his grin a twisted mess, eyes wide and then crinkling. "Holy . . . um. You look. Hmph." He gives up and shakes his head. He presses his fingers against his lips.

"So do you." I'm surprised to see he's wearing his one prized possession: his father's wristwatch. When we were younger, he used to slip it all the way up past his elbow, playing with the cool titanium weight of it. Today it looks like it was made for him.

Charlie scuttles away to get the camera. Edward's hands are on me immediately. His thumbs trail along my arms. He slips a dainty orchid corsage over my wrist.

"No carnations. As requested." He leans in, whispers in my ear. "You heard all that?"

I nod and relax into his arms. I can feel his warmth, his heart pounding under his new cotton shirt. I hear Charlie snapping away behind me. I hope Edward is smiling.

+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+x+

The gym is filled with colored light and paper streamers. Rose is here, seated at the same table as us. Ben and Angela, too. There's a slide show of old photos projected on the wall while we eat our dinners of colorless salads and foods stuffed inside other foods. I'm struck by how I actually seem to fit in with my classmates in a lot of these shots—gathered around a cafeteria table, kicking a ball on the soccer field, posing awkwardly with my equally awkward math team buddies. Even Edward appears in a shot from this year, along with his science team and their regional-level trophy in front of a poster of the periodic table.

I wonder if I might one day even tell myself a story of a high school experience that was typical. Could I seal all this other stuff up, lock it away in a bunker with my mom's vinyl and dusty posters, forget all about it?

Edward thinks we can. He's sure of it. I think he's fooling himself as a survival tactic. It's funny . . . ever since this biohazard scheme came to light, we've switched roles; he's become the more optimistic one, so certain we'll turn the tables on Aro, and I've grown more fearful.

He's watching me. He licks his dessert spoon and sets it down. "Dollar for your thoughts?"

"The going rate is a penny."

"Where did you learn to bargain? Because you got screwed."

"If I could truly speak my mind, I'd happily pay you."

He raises an eyebrow. He knows as well as I do I can't speak my mind. The best we can do is talk in code.

He scoots his chair back and motions for me to rest my feet in his lap, which I do—gingerly. There's about a four-inch gap between the hem of my dress and the tops of my ankle boots. He covers my visible skin easily with his hands. "So interesting. You sure know how to make a guy wonder."

"You've seen my legs."

"I have. And yet." He edges his fingertips just beneath the fabric's edge. It's just my shin he's stroking, but it's also a promise. His eyes blaze into me.

"What?"

"I can see your pulse racing."

"So?" It's flying, of course.

"So remember this feeling . . . stop second-guessing me." Every slow half-inch he moves his hand up my smooth shin is a punctuation mark. He leans his face close to mine, ever so slowly. "Trust. And believe that we're going to get . . . what . . . we . . . want."

"Two feet on the floor, girls and boys." I look up to see Coach Clapp towering over us.

"Sure thing, Coach." Edward dazzles her with a toothy smile. He stands and pulls me up with him, yanking me out onto the dance floor.

Everybody is taking pictures. Tyler Crowley and Mike Newton make asses of themselves on the dance floor until Jessica and Lauren drag them into dark corners. Edward dances with me. He dances with Rose, who is trying hard to have fun. And we do have fun. Normal fun.

Edward can't stop smiling, and that means neither can I. Even Rose cracks a few genuine-looking smiles, observing us, taking a break from dancing to text Emmett or whoever.

Edward glances over my shoulder at the deejay booth, laughing. We're hearing a weird mash-up of a couple of songs, an old guitar classic and a more recent dance hit. Something about money, money, money.

It's not about the money-money-money.

Electricity? Biology? Seems to me it's Chemistry.

It's not about the money-money-money.

Seems to me it's Chemistry. Seems to me it's Chemistry.

It's deafening.

"This guy is a nut," he shouts into my ear. "Who plays Rush at a high school prom?"

We start hearing ch-ching sound effects, with swirling gold-coin polka-dot lighting effects to match. Whose idea was this? Jessica's?

"Good grief. A little much, don't you think?"

The strangest expression crosses Edward's face. He stands stock still on the dance floor and gazes at me. He blinks and grins dreamily.

"What is it?"

"Bella . . . of course. Oh God, nothing could be simpler." He puts both hands on my face and kisses me on the mouth.

"I—what?"

"Bella, listen. I mean, come here." He drags me to the punch bowl table and grabs a paper napkin and a marker meant for chaperone nametags. He sketches out a diagram—it's a chain of molecules. The compound he's been synthesizing over and over every night in his basement lab. But this time he adds a squiggly line and a big circle he marks AUNP. I shake my head. All I can think of is American University of the North Pacific. There's no such place.

He dunks the napkin into the punch and tosses it, sopping, into the trash. The next thing I know, he's leading me dashing down the hallway as fast as my too-tight dress will allow, both of us ducking out of the view of hallway monitors. He steers us to the library, where we let ourselves in with the skeleton key he carries. He searches out the Renaissance Art section and yanks a handful of books from the shelves.

"What am I looking at?" It's a glossy full-size image of a stained glass window. His finger taps the caption. He's practically jumping up and down while I stoop to read. Glass produced in the medieval era derives its intense red color from particles of gold chloride suspended in molten glass. The properties of the element change dramatically when in colloidal form. In fact, nanotechnology critical to drug delivery in modern medicine has its roots in the alchemy of medieval artists.

I drop the book on the floor. The gold. It's not about the money, money, money. It's an element, and we need it for the cure. Chemistry.

"Oh my God."

The compound, the formula . . . it's correct, but it's not reaching the cells. We need a medium to deliver it—gold nanoparticles, or colloidal gold. Something like that. AUNP: Au, the elemental name for gold, and a chemist's shorthand for nanoparticle.

I look at Edward, and he's nodding his head, grinning from ear to ear. "I can do this."

A surprised sort of laugh bubbles out of my chest. "We're going to get what we want."

Edward pulls me down the hallway once again, his dress shoes slipping on the polished concrete floors, and his legs almost sliding out from under him.

"Shit. Oof."

I rush along beside him, the dull thump of my boots echoing in the empty hallways. My heart is pounding. I'm scared out of my mind, but I'm flying, too. We're really doing this. Edward grins. He feels it, too.

We stop at Edward's locker and he opens the lock. He heaves our gold bar into an old duffle bag. I raise my eyebrows at him. This is where he keeps a $700,000 gold bar? He shrugs, and we keep walking.

In the chem lab, I watch Edward assemble his materials. He could do this in his sleep. He unlocks the solutions cabinet and pulls down nitric and hydrochloric acids in addition to the usual bottles, and citric acid, which will help him break down and restructure our gold into nanoparticles with their antibody-delivering properties. I take notes, preparing a sort of recipe any other biochemist would be able to follow.

We work in silence. It takes ten minutes. Edward grabs Mr. Banner's laser pointer and shines it through the beaker to show me how the beam glows as it passes through the solution, refracted by the nanoparticles. The Tyndall effect. He grins and starts titrating the solution onto some slides.

"Where did you guys go? I'm bored." Our heads jolt up in surprise.

"Rose! Um. We were . . . "

"What the hell? It looks like an episode of Breaking Bad in here. Are you guys secretly dealing meth or something? How did you even get in here?"

Yikes. I scan the lab. At least our gold bar is out of sight.

I hear Aro's sigh in my SatCom. "Big and Phoenix, spot-check status report, please. I was led to understand you are at a school dance tonight."

Edward looks back and forth between Rose and me. He pinches his ear, pseudo-nonchalant, and answers her and Aro simultaneously. "It's not that easy to explain."

I cringe, and sure enough, Aro's voice is in my head again. "Protocol Orange, then. Field debrief. Fifteen minutes to rendezvous. Please."

Edward keeps calm. He murmurs his agreement. "Mmm-hmm."

Rose is looking at us like we have three heads apiece.

I pull our SatCom OverRyde out of Edward's duffle bag, holding it up in plain view. It looks like the remote control for an antiquated T.V. Rose's eyes bug out. I raise my eyebrows at Edward and look pointedly at the clock on the wall, because we have a short amount of time to make some big decisions.

He nods, and I flip the switch. For Rose's benefit, I pretend to be using it as a microphone. "Team Seattle reporting in. Stage five completed. Approaching next clue drop."

I turn to my friend and start ad-libbing. "Rose. I know this looks crazy. But have you ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons? Well, we joined a sort of club that's, like . . . just a more intense version of that. With, um, real-world quests."

She nods slowly. Her eyes narrow as she scans the room. "A role playing adventure game."

"Yes! It's . . . super fun. And—well—we don't want to lose points by blowing secrets, so I won't say much more, but I would appreciate it if you don't mention it to anyone."

"Huh. I wouldn't begin to know how."

In the meantime, Edward is racing around mixing and processing chemicals, preparing a series of solutions that he will check against live cultures within his BioSafe canister. He shouts to me, "Tick tock, Swan."

"Do you need Patient Zero to confirm, or just a live culture?"

"Not the patient. Too risky. We can confirm effectiveness when we get to . . . you know. A remote spot."

I dangle Edward's car keys from a finger. Our SatComs have been knocked out for two minutes now, and we need to get her out of earshot before we reactivate. "Hey. Rose. Can you pull Edward's car around back in nine—no, eight—minutes?"

She snags the keys. After a long beat, she nods, turns on her heel, and marches out.

Edward glances at me and pulls something out from behind a row of books on a shelf: his laptop. He turns it on and begins typing.

"I thought you smashed that up."

He winces. "Yeah. Sorry. I need it for one last thing."

He nods to me that he's ready. I take a deep breath and switch the SatComs back on. Aro is barking at us, his voice pitched high and shrill.

"What the devil am I dealing with? Kindly explain the signal malfunction we just experienced."

"We were near a microwave," Edward says.

"Bullshit."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you."

"The truth always works."

"The truth? You don't want to open that door, Aro."

"I beg your pardon?"

"We know more than you think we know. Things that you wouldn't want to get out, and—and we're not exactly motivated to keep it to ourselves."

"Hah! My dear ones, I can't imagine what you think you know. Or where you would go with it." He's laughing, but it's loud in my eardrum. We've rattled him.

"Please. Spare us."

"At any rate, now is hardly the time. I was waiting to tell you until after your little party, but we have new intelligence—these subversives have infiltrated the blood supply, and—"

Edward leaps to his feet.

"Oh, shut up! It's all a lie, Aro! There's no shadowy subversive group. There's no bioterrorist faction spreading this contagion. No one but you."

Shit. No going back now.

I jump in, suddenly scared for Edward so far out on a limb like this. "Don't try to deny it. We know you're keeping a body on life support for no other reason than to experiment with your superflu poison. We saw him, Aro. We . . . we took evidence. And we know where to send it."

"Is that what you saw? You have no idea what you saw. I'm warning you, this will not end in the way that you imagine."

Edward is still juggling solutions and his BioSafe canister. His hands are shaking. I take over arguing with Aro.

"All we imagine is putting an end to this—this genocide. You designed a biological weapon and you're using your security clearance to spread it. You're a traitor to your country—to humanity."

"And not a thought for your colleagues? What of them? This is Jacob's purpose in life. Leah's too. Sam, whom you so admire, is perfectly dependent on Sundial if he ever hopes to see Emily again. And Bree—she has no one. Are you so self-righteous you'd simply pull the plug on them for your quaint ideal?"

"Quaint? Every one of them would side with us if they found out what we know. You're killing everyone over the age of seventy-five! These people are defenseless and innocent!"

"These people are decrepit! They are nothing but a drain on society—nothing to give, nothing to contribute. Barely aware of a world beyond their crackling televisions. Why do you think your school funding keeps shrinking? It's all being sucked up by these . . . barely-alive zombies."

He's probably already mobilized his goons to come and seize us rather than rendezvous peacefully, but we'll part ways with him one way or another. Starting now. It's a weird sensation, knowing your life is changing in a permanent way. Edward is beside me now, one arm around me.

"Go to hell, Aro. This is ending now. This is over. You'll be more alone than you think."

"Alone? And that should worry me? Have you forgotten who I am? What I am capable of?"

"Is that a threat? You've already done your worst."

Aro sighs. "Shame if anything were to happen to that gymnasium full of children. Wiring gets frayed, you know. Fires start all the time in these old buildings."

Fuck. Threatening the school is Aro throwing a gauntlet, and he knows we know it.

Edward turns to me, his jaw tense. He pulls the OverRyde out of his bag and hands it to me, switching the scrambler on for the second time tonight. This time, I won't be turning it off. I shove it into my boot. He sighs.

"We have what we need. Now we just stick to the plan." He motions for me to give him my GPS wristwatch and civilian phone, which he'll destroy so we can't be tracked. I fish them out of my clutch and hand them over.

"This threat of a fire, Edward—" I say. "He might be serious."

"Make a cloud," he says. He presses the skeleton key into my hand. "Use the pool."

I nod. This will ruin prom, but we need to empty the building, and a simple fire alarm won't be enough.

"Do it," he says. He doesn't stop moving, dragging some files from his laptop to a thumb drive and then cracking open the machine with a screwdriver. "I'll fry this stuff under the fume hood, then get going on foot. Once I'm out of range, the OverRyde will stop working for me, but you should be good. I'll try to be careful about ambient noise. Meet me you-know-where in twenty. Go. I mean—wait. Come here."

He waves me back toward him. He drops to his knees in front of me and puts his hands on my thighs. "I'm so sorry to do this. You really do look amazing tonight. It's vintage, isn't it? One of a kind?"

I nod. I steady myself by gripping his shoulders. His hands brace my legs as he gathers the fabric and chops at it with scissors until I'm wearing a mini. "There. Now run."

I race downstairs to the swimmers' locker room below the gym. I find what I need in the janitor's closet, drag the gallon jugs of ammonia to edge of the pool, and stab holes in them with my hairpin before tossing them into the dark water. I hold my shawl up to my mouth as the noxious vapors rise. I pull the fire alarm and let myself out of the building as the sprinklers begin spraying grimy water. I sink to the ground and listen to the alarms wail while I watch my friends—possibly for the last time—pour out of the school's exit doors.