More than fine. The voice in my head was back. It still rang in my ears-soft, velvety echoes.
My mind ran swiftly through the possibilities. There was no familiarity here-on a road I'd never seen, doing something I'd never done before-no déjà vu. So the hallucinations must be triggered by something else . . . I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins again, and I thought I had the answer. Some combination of adrenaline and danger, or maybe just stupidity.
Jacob was pulling me to my feet.
"Did you hit your head?" he asked.
"I don't think so." I shook it back and forth, checking. "I didn't hurt the bike, did I?" This thought worried me. I was anxious to try again, right away. Being reckless was paying off better than I'd thought. Forget cheating. Maybe I'd found a way to generate the hallucinations-that was much more important.
"No. You just stalled the engine," Jacob said, interrupting my quick speculations. "You let go of the clutch too fast."
I nodded. "Let's try again."
"Are you sure?" Jacob asked.
"Positive."
This time I tried to get the kick-start myself. It was complicated; I had to jump a little to slam down on the pedal with enough force, and every time I did that, the bike tried to knock me over. Jacob's hand hovered over the handlebars, ready to catch me if I needed him.
It took several good tries, and even more poor tries, before the engine caught and roared to life under me. Remembering to hold on to the grenade, I revved the throttle experimentally. It snarled at the slightest touch. My smile mirrored Jacob's now.
"Easy on the clutch," he reminded me.
"Do you want to kill yourself, then? Is that what this is about?" the other voice spoke again, his tone severe.
I smiled tightly-it was still working-and ignored the questions. Jacob wasn't going to let anything serious happen to me.
"Go home to Charlie," the voice ordered. The sheer beauty of it amazed me. I couldn't allow my memory to lose it, no matter the price.
"Ease off slowly," Jacob encouraged me.
"I will," I said. It bothered me a bit when I realized I was answering both of them.
The voice in my head growled against the roar of the motorcycle.
Trying to focus this time, to not let the voice startle me again, I relaxed my hand by tiny degrees. Suddenly, the gear caught and wrenched me forward.
And I was flying.
There was wind that wasn't there before, blowing my skin against my skull and flinging my hair back behind me with enough force that it felt like someone was tugging on it. I'd left my stomach back at the starting point; the adrenaline coursed through my body, tingling in my veins. The trees raced past me, blurring into a wall of green.
But this was only first gear. My foot itched toward the gearshift as I twisted for more gas.
"No, Bella!" the angry, honey-sweet voice ordered in my ear. "Watch what you're doing!"
It distracted me enough from the speed to realize that the road was starting a slow curve to the left, and I was still going straight. Jacob hadn't told me how to turn.
"Brakes, brakes," I muttered to myself, and I instinctively slammed down with my right foot, like I would in my truck.
The bike was suddenly unstable underneath me, shivering first to one side and then the other. It was dragging me toward the green wall, and I was going too fast. I tried to turn the handlebar the other direction, and the sudden shift of my weight pushed the bike toward the ground, still spinning toward the trees.
The motorcycle landed on top of me again, roaring loudly, pulling me across the wet sand until it hit something stationary. I couldn't see. My face was mashed into the moss. I tried to lift my head, but there was something in the way.
I was dizzy and confused. It sounded like there were three things snarling-the bike over me, the voice in my head, and something else . . .
"Bella!" Jacob yelled, and I heard the roar of the other bike cut off.
The motorcycle no longer pinned me to the ground, and I rolled over to breathe. All the growling went silent.
"Wow," I murmured. I was thrilled. This had to be it, the recipe for a hallucination-adrenaline plus danger plus stupidity. Something close to that, anyway.
"Bella!" Jacob was crouching over me anxiously. "Bella, are you alive?"
"I'm great!" I enthused. I flexed my arms and legs. Everything seemed to be working correctly. "Let's do it again."
"I don't think so." Jacob still sounded worried. "I think I'd better drive you to the hospital first."
"I'm fine."
"Um, Bella? You've got a huge cut on your forehead, and it's gushing blood," he informed me.
I clapped my hand over my head. Sure enough, it was wet and sticky. I could smell nothing but the damp moss on my face, and that held off the nausea.