"It's fine, Alice." He grinned. "They can't all be 911 Turbos."
She sighed. "I may have to acquire one of those legally. It was fabulous."
"I'll get you one for Christmas," Edward promised.
Alice turned to beam at him, which worried me, as she was already speeding down the dark and curvy hillside at the same time.
"Yellow," she told him.
Edward kept me tight in his arms. Inside the gray cloak, I was warm and comfortable. More than comfortable.
"You can sleep now, Bella," he murmured. "It's over."
I knew he meant the danger, the nightmare in the ancient city, but I still had to swallow hard before I could answer.
"I don't want to sleep. I'm not tired." Just the second part was a lie. I wasn't about to close my eyes. The car was only dimly lit by the dashboard controls, but it was enough that I could see his face.
He pressed his lips to the hollow under my ear. "Try," he encouraged.
I shook my head.
He sighed. "You're still just as stubborn."
I was stubborn; I fought with my heavy lids, and I won. The dark road was the hardest part; the bright lights at the airport in Florence made it easier, as did the chance to brush my teeth and change into clean clothes; Alice bought Edward new clothes, too, and he left the dark cloak on a pile of trash in an alley. The plane trip to Rome was so short that there wasn't really a chance for the fatigue to drag me under. I knew the flight from Rome to Atlanta would be another matter entirely, so I asked the flight attendant if she could bring me a Coke.
"Bella," Edward said disapprovingly. He knew my low tolerance for caffeine.
Alice was behind us. I could hear her murmuring to Jasper on the phone.
"I don't want to sleep," I reminded him. I gave him an excuse that was believable because it was true. "If I close my eyes now, I'll see things I don't want to see. I'll have nightmares."
He didn't argue with me after that.
It would have been a very good time to talk, to get the answers I needed-needed but not really wanted; I was already despairing at the thought of what I might hear. We had an uninterrupted block of time ahead of us, and he couldn't escape me on an airplane-well, not easily, at least. No one would hear us except Alice; it was late, and most of the passengers were turning off lights and asking for pillows in muted voices. Talk would help me fight off the exhaustion.
But, perversely, I bit my tongue against the flood of questions. My reasoning was probably flawed by exhaustion, but I hoped that by postponing the discussion, I could buy a few more hours with him at some later time-spin this out for another night, Scheherazade-style.
So I kept drinking soda, and resisting even the urge to blink. Edward seemed perfectly content to hold me in his arms, his fingers tracing my face again and again. I touched his face, too. I couldn't stop myself, though I was afraid it would hurt me later, when I was alone again. He continued to kiss my hair, my forehead, my wrists . . . but never my lips, and that was good. After all, how many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating? I'd lived through a lot that should have finished me in the last few days, but it didn't make me feel strong. Instead, I felt horribly fragile, like one word could shatter me.
Edward didn't speak. Maybe he was hoping I would sleep. Maybe he had nothing to say.
I won the fight against my heavy lids. I was awake when we reached the airport in Atlanta, and I even watched the sun beginning to rise over Seattle's cloud cover before Edward slid the window shut. I was proud of myself. I hadn't missed one minute.
Neither Alice nor Edward was surprised by the reception that waited for us at Sea-Tac airport, but it caught me off guard. Jasper was the first one I saw-he didn't seem to see me at all. His eyes were only for Alice. She went quickly to his side; they didn't embrace like other couples meeting there. They only stared into each other's faces, yet, somehow, the moment was so private that I still felt the need to look away.
Carlisle and Esme waited in a quiet corner far from the line for the metal detectors, in the shadow of a wide pillar. Esme reached for me, hugging me fiercely, yet awkwardly, because Edward kept his arms around me, too.
"Thank you so much," she said in my ear.
Then she threw her arms around Edward, and she looked like she would be crying if that were possible.
"You will never put me through that again," she nearly growled.
Edward grinned, repentant. "Sorry, Mom."
"Thank you, Bella," Carlisle said. "We owe you."
"Hardly," I mumbled. The sleepless night was suddenly overpowering. My head felt disconnected from my body.
"She's dead on her feet," Esme scolded Edward. "Let's get her home."