If I could write original content I'd be an author, but instead I write fanfic. This chapter has been slightly updated to clean up some writing mistakes and ensure continuity.
Three hours and thirteen minutes until I can go home and stop listening. Eleven thousand, five hundred and eighty seconds. Seventy-nine. Seventy-eight. Seventy-seven.
"What do you think of the new girl?" Emmett asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had blanketed our table. I sucked in air, trying to think about anything except the way she moved, the way she smelled, the way she was a fragile creature who would die soon anyway and why not—
"I like her," Alice said loudly. "I see nice things about her."
Jasper touched her hand lightly, his thoughts feathery with affection. "What do you see?"
"She loves her dad very much," the tiniest vampire present informed us. "She's a vegetarian. She likes books."
Rosalie snorted, visions of gushing blood in her head. "I wonder how horrified she would be."
"By our incessant consumption of books?" I kept my face as still and serious as only a vampire could. They didn't need to watch me struggle. "Very, I'm sure."
My blonde sister kicked me under the table, hard enough that I had to brace myself to keep the chair from flying backward. I made wide, innocent eyes at her, aware of Emmett's silent cackles – silent because Rosalie particularly disliked being laughed at.
"Will you… you know, be okay?" Jasper asked. As the usual weakest of the group, he could relate to my current position.
"Certainly." My smile was brittle, and I could hear him picking up on the threads of desire that made me anything but certain.
'You could ditch again?' he thought, for my ears only. 'Nothing wrong with avoiding temptation.'
No. I had promised myself, I had promised Carlisle, I knew I could be stronger than this. "I'll be fine," I said, knowing my reassurance was meant as much for myself as for anyone else at the table.
"Everyone is talking about the cougar attack." Jasper changed the subject, leaning forward and speaking quietly. "It's pretty clear that… you know." That was no cougar. It wasn't the sort of thing we could speak openly about at school.
"It wasn't any of us," Emmett said with a shrug. I had yet to see a situation that could faze him for more than a minute or two.
"No," Rosalie snapped, "which means someone else is hunting in our range." She was fiercely protective of the idea of innocent life. Those she deemed guilty, though, well—she didn't lose any sleep over them.
"What if Calgary happens again?" Alice's voice was anxious. "Isabella Swan just moved in with her dad, she'll be upset if he dies so soon."
"Calgary won't happen again," Jasper promised fiercely, though I could see him smoothing at Alice's worry, dissolving it to gentle concern. "For one thing, I would know if Maria were in the area."
"You didn't last time," Emmett pointed out.
"Last time I didn't have inside information," Jasper gritted. Being reminded of his last encounter with his ex-commander never left him in a pleasant mood. Now Alice was doing the soothing, her tiny fingers rubbing at the back of Jasper's neck.
"—vampires—"
We all stiffened, glancing surreptitiously around the cafeteria to see where the word had come from. The voice was unfamiliar, low and pleasant, with a hint of sarcastic incredulity.
'Of course vampires aren't real. I'm not stupid, okay! Bella thinks she's so much better than me just because she's new, huh? Bitch.'
I relaxed. "False alarm. The new girl is swapping urban legends." Jessica Stanley's mind was a reliable source of play-by-play, and I saw Bella through her eyes, animatedly recounting the legend of the chupacabra, one which might be based in reality—although how anyone could mistake one of the immortal undead for a kangaroo-lizard-dog was beyond me. I stifled a snort as I imagined one of my siblings hopping as they hunted.
Everyone became less tense. The odds of a random human knowing something accurate about vampires were extremely slim, but you could never be too careful. Our existence depended upon secrecy and knowing more about those around us than they knew about us.
On that note, I straightened my shoulders and reached toward Bella Swan's mind. It was better that my first view of her thoughts be here, in the constraints of a crowded cafeteria, than in potentially close quarters during Biology. What was the infuriatingly delicious human thinking? It would likely be irritating, perhaps enough to put me off her entirely. Alternately, it might be interesting, in which case I would know to guard myself carefully before sitting near her. Or perhaps I would be intrigued and pleased and loath to cause her any harm, which would give me strength.
I realized that in all my musings on what the contents of her mind might be, I had not actually heard anything from her. My eyebrows furrowed and I settled for a surreptitious glance toward her table. Yes, she was still there, smiling tentatively at Lauren, the girl whose thoughts had been so spiteful. I listened as hard as I could, but still heard nothing. Were her thoughts really so quiet? Perhaps it was a matter of range, or unfamiliarity. I occasionally had difficulty with one human or another, such as the chief of police in town… who was Bella's father. Perhaps some genetic quirk or unknown ability made their thoughts more difficult to decipher.
The mystery that this posed was enough that I began looking forward to Biology, instead of dreading close confinement with the enigmatic Bella Swan.