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He looked at me with disapproval. "Which one?"

"How does it work -- the mind-reading thing? Can you read anybody's mind, anywhere? How do you do it? Can the rest of your family…" I felt silly, asking for clarification on make-believe.

"And then you didn't answer one of my first questions…" I stalled.

"Fine, then. I followed your scent." He looked at the road, giving me time to compose my face. I couldn't think of an acceptable response to that, but I filed it carefully away for future study. I tried to refocus.

"One," he agreed. His lips pressed together into a cautious line.

He almost smiled.

I wasn't ready to let him be finished, now that he was finally explaining things.

"I thought we were past all the evasiveness," I grumbled.

He sighed.

"Well… you said you knew I hadn't gone into the bookstore, and that I had gone south. I was just wondering how you knew that."He looked away, deliberating.

"Can I ask just one more?" I pleaded as Edward accelerated much too quickly down the quiet street. He didn't seem to be paying any attention to the road.

"It's a little like being in a huge hall filled with people, everyone talking at once. It's just a hum -- a buzzing of voices in the background.

"No, it's just me. And I can't hear anyone, anywhere. I have to be fairly close. The more familiar someone's… 'voice' is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles." He paused thoughtfully.

"That's more than one," he pointed out. I simply intertwined my fingers and gazed at him, waiting.

Until I focus on one voice, and then what they're thinking is clear.

"Why do you think you can't hear me?" I asked curiously.

He looked at me, his eyes enigmatic.

"Most of the time I tune it all out -- it can be very distracting. And then it's easier to seem normal" -- he frowned as he said the word -- "when I'm not accidentally answering someone's thoughts rather than their words."

"I don't know," he murmured. "The only guess I have is that maybe your mind doesn't work the same way the rest of theirs do. Like your thoughts are on the AM frequency and I'm only getting FM." He grinned at me, suddenly amused.

I looked away from his face for the first time, trying to find words. I happened to notice the speedometer.

"Aren't we past all the evasions now?" he reminded me softly.

"I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak," he laughed. "Don't worry, it's just a theory…" His face tightened. "Which brings us back to you."I sighed. How to begin?

"My mind doesn't work right? I'm a freak?" The words bothered me more than they should -- probably because his speculation hit home. I'd always suspected as much, and it embarrassed me to have it confirmed.

"What's wrong?" He was startled. But the car didn't decelerate.

"Holy crow!" I shouted. "Slow down!"

"You're going a hundred miles an hour!" I was still shouting. I shot a panicky glance out the window, but it was too dark to see much. The road was only visible in the long patch of bluish brightness from the headlights. The forest along both sides of the road was like a black wall -- as hard as a wall of steel if we veered off the road at this speed.

I bit my lip. He looked down at me, his honey eyes unexpectedly gentle.

"Very funny." I fumed. "Charlie's a cop, remember? I was raised to abide by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn us into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away."

"Enough commentary on my driving," he snapped. "I'm still waiting for your latest theory."

"I always drive like this." He turned to smile crookedly at me.

"Keep your eyes on the road!"

"Are you trying to kill us?" I demanded.

"Almost."

"I hate driving slow," he muttered.

"Probably," he agreed with a short, hard laugh. "But you can't." He sighed, and I watched with relief as the needle gradually drifted toward eighty. "Happy?"

"Relax, Bella." He rolled his eyes, still not slowing.

"I've never been in an accident, Bella -- I've never even gotten a ticket." He grinned and tapped his forehead. "Built-in radar detector."

"This is slow?"

I tried to modulate my voice. "Why are you in such a hurry?"

"We're not going to crash."

"I won't laugh," he promised.

"His dad is one of the Quileute elders." I watched him carefully. His confused expression froze in place. "We went for a walk --" I edited all my scheming out of the story " -- and he was telling me some old legends -- trying to scare me, I think. He told me one…" I hesitated.

"Go ahead." His voice was calm.

"I'm more afraid that you'll be angry with me."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Is it that bad?"

"No."

"Why don't you start at the beginning… you said you didn't come up with this on your own."

"What got you started -- a book? A movie?" he probed.

"I don't know how to start," I admitted.

"No -- it was Saturday, at the beach." I risked a glance up at his face. He looked puzzled.

"I ran into an old family friend -- Jacob Black," I continued. "His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby."He still looked confused.

"Go on," he said.

He waited. I was looking down at my hands, so I couldn't see his expression.

"About vampires." I realized I was whispering. I couldn't look at his face now. But I saw his knuckles tighten convulsively on the wheel.

"No. He… mentioned your family."He was silent, staring at the road.

"And you immediately thought of me?" Still calm.

I was worried suddenly, worried about protecting Jacob.

"He just thought it was a silly superstition," I said quickly. "He didn't expect me to think anything of it." It didn't seem like enough; I had to confess. "It was my fault, I forced him to tell me."

He startled me by laughing. I glared up at him. He was laughing, but his eyes were fierce, staring ahead.

"I'd like to have seen that." He chuckled darkly. "And you accused me of dazzling people -- poor Jacob Black."I blushed and looked out my window into the night.

"Why?"

"Lauren said something about you -- she was trying to provoke me. And an older boy from the tribe said your family didn't come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jacob alone and I tricked it out of him," I admitted, hanging my head.

"Tricked him how?" he asked.

"I tried to flirt -- it worked better than I thought it would." Disbelief colored my tone as I remembered.

"What did you do then?" he asked after a minute.

"No," he said, but his tone was as hard as his face. "I'd rather know what you're thinking -- even if what you're thinking is insane."

"I did some research on the Internet."

"So I'm wrong again?" I challenged.

"What?"

"No," I said softly. "It doesn't matter to me what you are."A hard, mocking edge entered his voice. "You don't care if I'm a monster? If I'm not human!"

"You're angry," I sighed. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"That's not what I was referring to. 'It doesn't matter'!" he quoted, gritting his teeth together.

"I decided it didn't matter," I whispered.

"No. Nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then…" I stopped.

"No."He was silent, staring straight ahead again. His face was bleak and cold.

"And did that convince you?" His voice sounded barely interested. But his hands were clamped hard onto the steering wheel.

"It didn't matter?" His tone made me look up -- I had finally broken through his carefully composed mask. His face was incredulous, with just a hint of the anger I'd feared.

"How old are you?"

"Not really." I paused. "But I am curious." My voice, at least, was composed.

"Myth."

"Never," he said, his voice nearly inaudible. He turned to look at me with a wistful expression. The golden eyes held mine, and I lost my train of thought. I stared at him until he looked away.

It took me a minute to absorb that. "At all?"

"Don't laugh -- but how can you come out during the daytime?"

"Seventeen," he answered promptly.

"Sleeping in coffins?"

"Myth."

"I'm right?" I gasped.

"Does it matter?"I took a deep breath.

"And how long have you been seventeen?" His lips twitched as he stared at the road. "A while," he admitted at last.

"Burned by the sun?"

"I can't sleep."

He laughed anyway. "Myth."

He hesitated for a moment, and a peculiar tone entered his voice.

He was suddenly resigned. "What are you curious about?"

"Okay." I smiled, pleased that he was still being honest with me. He stared down at me with watchful eyes, much as he had before, when he was worried I would go into shock. I smiled wider in encouragement, and he frowned.

"He said you didn't… hunt people. He said your family wasn't supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals."

I took it as a confirmation.

"You aren't concerned about my diet?" he asked sarcastically.

"The Quileutes have a long memory," he whispered.

I flinched. "Well, Jacob said something about that."

"Not exactly. He said you weren't supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn't want you on their land, just in case."He looked forward, but I couldn't tell if he was watching the road or not.

I blinked, still dazed. "Which one is that?"

"What did Jacob say?" he asked flatly.

"He said we weren't dangerous?" His voice was deeply skeptical.

"Don't let that make you complacent, though," he warned me. "They're right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous."

"So was he right? About not hunting people?" I tried to keep my voice as even as possible.

"Oh," I murmured, "that."

"Yes, that." His voice was bleak. "Don't you want to know if I drink blood?"

"You haven't asked me the most important question yet." His voice was hard now, and when he looked at me again his eyes were cold.

"Tell me more," I asked desperately, not caring what he said, just so I could hear his voice again.

"This is a mistake?" I heard the sadness in my voice, but I didn't know if he could as well.

We were both silent then. I watched the headlights twist with the curves of the road. They moved too fast; it didn't look real, it looked like a video game. I was aware of the time slipping away so quickly, like the black road beneath us, and I was hideously afraid that I would never have another chance to be with him like this again -- openly, the walls between us gone for once. His words hinted at an end, and I recoiled from the idea. I couldn't waste one minute I had with him.

Sometimes we make mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone with you."

"I don't understand."

He looked at me quickly, startled by the change in my tone. "What more do you want to know?"

"We try," he explained slowly. "We're usually very good at what we do.

"A very dangerous one," he murmured.

"Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people," I suggested, my voice still tinged with desperation. I realized my eyes were wet, and I fought against the grief that was trying to overpower me.

He paused. "I can't be sure, of course, but I'd compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn't completely satiate the hunger -- or rather thirst. But it keens us strong enough to resist. Most of the time." His tone turned ominous.

He sighed. "Yes."

"Sometimes it's more difficult than others."

I didn't answer; I just listened to the sound of his laugh, committing it to memory.

"But animals aren't enough?"

"Why do you think that?"

"But you're not hungry now," I said confidently -- stating, not asking.

"Your eyes. I told you I had a theory. I've noticed that people -- men in particular -- are crabbier when they're hungry."

"Yes." He paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say something. "I didn't want to leave, but it was necessary. It's a bit easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty."

"Is it very difficult for you now?" I asked.

He chuckled. "You are observant, aren't you?"

"I don't want to be a monster." His voice was very low.

"Were you hunting this weekend, with Emmett?" I asked when it was quiet again.

"Why didn't you want to leave?"

"It makes me… anxious… to be away from you." His eyes were gentle but intense, and they seemed to be making my bones turn soft. "I wasn't joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And after what happened tonight, I'm surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed." He shook his head, and then seemed to remember something. "Well, not totally unscathed."

"Your hands," he reminded me. I looked down at my palms, at the almost-healed scrapes across the heels of my hands. His eyes missed nothing.

"I fell," I sighed.

"That's what I thought." His lips curved up at the corners. "I suppose, being you, it could have been much worse -- and that possibility tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Emmett's nerves." He smiled ruefully at me.

"What?"

"Three days? Didn't you just get back today?"

"Then why weren't any of you in school?" I was frustrated, almost angry as I thought of how much disappointment I had suffered because of his absence.

"No, we got back Sunday."

"I didn't like it. Not seeing you. It makes me anxious, too." I blushed to be saying this out loud.

I thought about it for a moment.

I couldn't understand his response.

"Ah," he groaned quietly. "This is wrong."

He was puzzled. "But I knew you were safe."

"But I didn't know where you were. I --" I hesitated, dropping my eyes.

"Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn't. But I can't go out in the sunlight -- at least, not where anyone can see."

"You might have called me," I decided.

"What?" His velvety voice was compelling.

"I'll show you sometime," he promised.

"Why?"

"What did I say?" "Don't you see, Bella? It's one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved." He turned his anguished eyes to the road, his words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. "I don't want to hear that you feel that way." His voice was low but urgent. His words cut me. "It's wrong. It's not safe. I'm dangerous, Bella -- please, grasp that."

He was quiet. I glanced up, apprehensive, and saw that his expression was pained.

"So am I. I told you, it doesn't matter what you are. It's too late."

"What are you thinking?" he asked, his voice still raw. I just shook my head, not sure if I could speak. I could feel his gaze on my face, but I kept my eyes forward.

His voice whipped out, low and harsh. "Never say that."

"I'm serious," he growled.

"Are you crying?" He sounded appalled. I hadn't realized the moisture in my eyes had brimmed over. I quickly rubbed my hand across my cheek, and sure enough, traitor tears were there, betraying me.

The darkness slipped by us in silence.

I saw him reach toward me hesitantly with his right hand, but then he stopped and placed it slowly back on the steering wheel.

I bit my lip and was glad he couldn't know how much that hurt. I stared out at the road. We must be close now. He was driving much too fast.

"No." I tried very hard not to look like a sulky child.

"I'm sorry." His voice burned with regret. I knew he wasn't just apologizing for the words that had upset me.

"No," I said, but my voice cracked.

"What were you thinking tonight, just before I came around the corner? I couldn't understand your expression -- you didn't look that scared, you looked like you were concentrating very hard on something."

"Will I see you tomorrow?" I demanded.

"Yes -- I have a paper due, too." He smiled. "I'll save you a seat at lunch."

"What about screaming for help?"

"I was getting to that part."

It was silly, after everything we'd been through tonight, how that little promise sent flutters through my stomach, and made me unable to speak.

"I fall down a lot when I run," I admitted.

I sighed. We were slowing, passing into the boundaries of Forks. It had taken less than twenty minutes.

He shook his head. "You were right -- I'm definitely fighting fate trying to keep you alive."

"Tell me something," he asked after another minute, and I could hear him struggle to use a lighter tone.

"Yes?"

"I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker -- you know, self-defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain." I thought of the dark-haired man with a surge of hate.

"You were going to fight them?" This upset him. "Didn't you think about running?"

"Do you promise to be there tomorrow?"

I stared at him in blank confusion. "Why?"

"Don't go into the woods alone."

"Bella?" he asked in a different tone -- serious, but hesitant.

"I'm not always the most dangerous thing out there. Let's leave it at that."

"Will you promise me something?"

I hesitated, my hand on the door handle, trying to prolong the moment.

"Yes?" I turned back to him too eagerly.

"I promise."

"Yes," I said, and instantly regretted my unconditional agreement. What if he asked me to stay away from him? I couldn't keep that promise.

We were in front of Charlie's house. The lights were on, my truck in its place, everything utterly normal. It was like waking from a dream. He stopped the car, but I didn't move.

"Oh, right." He grinned.

"You can keep it -- you don't have a jacket for tomorrow," he reminded me.

He frowned, and his eyes were tight as he stared past me out the window.

I handed it back to him. "I don't want to have to explain to Charlie."

I considered that for a moment, then nodded. I pulled his jacket off, taking one last whiff.

I shuddered slightly at the sudden bleakness in his voice, but I was relieved. This, at least, was an easy promise to honor. "Whatever you say."

I was unable to move until my brain had somewhat unscrambled itself. Then I stepped out of the car awkwardly, having to use the frame for support. I thought I heard him chuckle, but the sound was too quiet for me to be certain.

"Bella?" I turned and he was leaning toward me, his pale, glorious face just inches from mine. My heart stopped beating.

"Tomorrow, then." I opened the door unwillingly.

He waited till I had stumbled to the front door, and then I heard his engine quietly rev. I turned to watch the silver car disappear around the corner. I realized it was very cold.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he sighed, and I knew he wanted me to leave now.

I reached for the key mechanically, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

"Sleep well," he said. His breath blew in my face, stunning me. It was the same exquisite scent that clung to his jacket, but in a more concentrated form. I blinked, thoroughly dazed. He leaned away.

"Right," I agreed.

The phone rang suddenly, startling me. I yanked it off the hook.

"Yeah -- it was lots of fun." My head was spinning as I tried to remember all the way back to the girls" night out I had planned. "They both found dresses."

"You're home early."

"It's not even eight yet," he told me. "Did you girls have fun?"

"Are you all right?"

"Well, give her a chance to get home first."

"Yes -- but I left my jacket in her car. I want to make sure she brings it tomorrow."

"I'm just going to call Jessica first."

"Weren't you just with her?" he asked, surprised.

"Well, maybe you should go lie down." He sounded concerned. I wondered what my face looked like.

"Yeah, Dad, it's me." I walked in to see him. He was watching a baseball game.

I went to the kitchen and fell, exhausted, into a chair. I was really feeling dizzy now. I wondered if I was going to go into shock after all. Get a grip, I told myself.

"I'm just tired. I did a lot of walking."

Charlie called from the living room. "Bella?"

"Am I?" I was surprised.

I stumbled out, wrapping myself securely in a towel, trying to hold the heat from the water in so the aching shivers wouldn't return. I dressed for bed swiftly and climbed under my quilt, curling into a ball, hugging myself to keep warm. A few small shudders trembled through me.

"Hey, Jess, I was just going to call you."

"Okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow, then. Bye!" I could hear the impatience in her voice.

"Yes, that's right."

She caught on quickly. "Oh, is your dad there?"

"Hello?" I asked breathlessly.

"You made it home?" Her voice was relieved… and surprised.

"Sure. But tell me what happened!" she demanded.

"Yes. I left my jacket in your car -- could you bring it to me tomorrow?"

"Bella?"

"Bye, Jess."

I walked up the stairs slowly, a heavy stupor clouding my mind. I went through the motions of getting ready for bed without paying any attention to what I was doing. It wasn't until I was in the shower -- the water too hot, burning my skin -- that I realized I was freezing. I shuddered violently for several minutes before the steaming spray could finally relax my rigid muscles. Then I stood in the shower, too tired to move, until the hot water began to run out.

"Um, tomorrow -- in Trig, okay?"

My mind still swirled dizzily, full of images I couldn't understand, and some I fought to repress. Nothing seemed clear at first, but as I fell gradually closer to unconsciousness, a few certainties became evident.

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him -- and I didn't know how potent that part might be -- that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.