Midnight Sun(82)

"So am I," she insisted. "I told you, it doesn't matter what you are. It's too late."
Too late? The world was bleakly black and white for one endless second as I watched the shadows crawl
across the sunny lawn toward Bella's sleeping form in my memory. Inevitable, unstoppable. They stole
the color from her skin, and plunged her into darkness.
Too late? Alice's vision swirled in my head, Bella's blood red eyes staring back at me impassively.
Expressionless-but there was no way that she could not hate me for that future. Hate me for stealing
everything from her. Stealing her life and her soul.
It could not be too late. "Never say that," I hissed.
She stared out her window, and her teeth bit into her lip again. Her hands were balled into tight fists in
her lap. Her breathing hitched and broke.
"What are you thinking?" I had to know.
She shook her head without looking at me. I saw something glisten, like a crystal, on her cheek.
Agony. "Are you crying?" I'd made her cry. I'd hurt her that much.
She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand. "No," she lied, her voice breaking.
Some long buried instinct had me reaching out toward her-in that one second I felt more human than I
ever had. And then I remembered that I was...not. And I lowered my hand.
"I'm sorry," I said, my jaw locked. How could I ever tell her how sorry I was?
Sorry for all the stupid mistakes I'd made. Sorry for my never-ending selfishness. Sorry that she was so
unfortunate as to have inspired this first, tragic love of mine. Sorry also for the things beyond my
control-that I'd been the monster chosen by fate to end her life in the first place.
I took a deep breath-ignoring my wretched reaction to the flavor in the car-and tried to collect myself.
I wanted to change the subject, to think of something else. Lucky for me, my curiosity about the girl was
insatiable. I always had a question.
"Tell me something," I said.
"Yes?" she asked huskily, tears still in her voice.
"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." I remembered her face-forcing myself to forget whose eyes I was looking through-the look
of determination there.
"I was trying to remember how to incapacitate an attacker," she said, her voice more composed. "You
know, self defense. I was going to smash his nose into his brain."
Her composure did not last to the end of her explanation. Her tone twisted until it seethed with hate.
This was no hyperbole, and her kittenish fury was not humorous now.
I could see her frail figure-just silk over glass-overshadowed by the meaty, heavy-fisted human monsters
who would have hurt her. The fury boiled in the back of my head.
"You were going to fight them?" I wanted to groan. Her instincts were deadly- to herself. "Didn't you
think about running?"
"I fall down a lot when I run," she said sheepishly.
"What about screaming for help?"
"I was getting to that part."
I shook my head in disbelief. How had she managed to stay alive before she'd come to Forks?
"You were right," I told her, a sour edge to my voice. "I'm definitely fighting fate trying to keep you
alive."
She sighed, and glanced out the window. Then she looked back at me. "Will I see you tomorrow?" she
demanded abruptly.
As long as I was on my way to hell-I might as well enjoy the journey. "Yes-I have a paper due, too." I
smiled at her, and it felt good to do this. "I'll save you a seat at lunch."
Her heart fluttered; my dead heart suddenly felt warmer.
I stopped the car in front of her father's house. She made no move to leave me. "Do you promise to be
there tomorrow?" she insisted.
"I promise."
How could doing the wrong thing give me so much happiness? Surely there was something amiss in that.
She nodded to herself, satisfied, and started to remove my jacket.
"You can keep it," I assured her quickly. I rather wanted to leave her with something of myself. A token,
like the bottle cap that was in my pocket now... "You don't have a jacket for tomorrow."
She handed it back to me, smiling ruefully. "I don't want to have to explain to Charlie," she told me.
I would imagine not. I smiled at her. "Oh, right."
She put her hand on the door handle, and then stopped. Unwilling to leave, just as I was unwilling for
her to go.
To have her unprotected, even for a few moments...
Peter and Charlotte were well on their way by now, long past Seattle, no doubt. But there were always
others. This world was not a safe place for any human, and for her it seemed to be more dangerous than
it was for the rest.
"Bella?" I asked, surprised at the pleasure there was in simply speaking her name.