HE WAS NOT PLEASED, THAT MUCH WAS EASY TO READ in his face. But, without further argument, he took me in his arms and sprang lithely from my window, landing without the slightest jolt, like a cat. It was a little bit farther down than I'd imagined.
"All right then," he said, his voice seething with disapproval. "Up you go."
He helped me onto his back, and took off running. Even after all this time, it felt routine. Easy. Evidently this was something you never forgot, like riding a bicycle.
It was so very quiet and dark as he ran through the forest, his breathing slow and even��dark enough that the trees flying past us were nearly invisible, and only the rush of air in my face truly gave away our speed. The air was damp; it didn't burn my eyes the way the wind in the big plaza had, and that was comforting. As was the night, too, after that terrifying brightness. Like the thick quilt I'd played under as a child, the dark felt familiar and protecting.
I remembered that running through the forest like this used to frighten me, that I used to have to close my
eyes. It seemed a silly reaction to me now. I kept my eyes wide, my chin resting on his shoulder, my cheek against his neck. The speed was exhilarating. A hundred times better than the motorcycle.
I turned my face toward him and pressed my lips into the cold stone skin of his neck.
"Thank you," he said, as the vague, black shapes of trees raced past us. "Does that mean you've decided you're awake?"
I laughed. The sound was easy, natural, effortless. It sounded right. "Not really. More that, either way, I'm not trying to wake up. Not tonight."
"I'll earn your trust back somehow," he murmured, mostly to himself. "If it's my final act."
"I trust you," I assured him. "It's me I don't trust."
"Explain that, please."
He'd slowed to a walk��I could only tell because the wind ceased��and I guessed that we weren't far from the house. In fact, I thought I could make out the sound of the river rushing somewhere close by in the darkness.
"Well��" I struggled to find the right way to phrase it. "I don't trust myself to be�� enough. To deserve you. There's nothing about me that could hold you."
He stopped and reached around to pull me from his back. His gentle hands did not release me; after he'd set me on my feet again, he wrapped his arms tightly around me, hugging me to his chest.
"Your hold is permanent and unbreakable," he whispered. "Never doubt that."
But how could I not?
"You never did tell me��" he murmured.
"What?"
"What your greatest problem is."
"I'll give you one guess." I sighed, and reached up to touch the tip of his nose with my index finger.
He nodded. "I'm worse than the Volturi," he said grimly. "I guess I've earned that."
I rolled my eyes. "The worst the Volturi can do is kill me."
He waited with tense eyes.
"You can leave me," I explained. "The Volturi, Victoria�� they're nothing compared to that."
Even in the darkness, I could see the anguish twist his face��it reminded me of his expression under Jane's torturing gaze; I felt sick, and regretted speaking the truth.
"Don't," I whispered, touching his face. "Don't be sad."
He pulled one corner of his mouth up halfheartedly, but the expression didn't touch his eyes. "If there was only some way to make you see that I can't leave you," he whispered. "Time, I suppose, will be the way to convince you."
I liked the idea of time. "Okay," I agreed.
His face was still tormented. I tried to distract him with inconsequentials.
"So��since you're staying. Can I have my stuff back?" I asked, making my tone as light as I could manage.
My attempt worked, to an extent: he laughed. But his eyes retained the misery. "Your things were never gone," he told me. "I knew it was wrong, since I promised you peace without reminders. It was stupid and childish, but I wanted to leave something of myself with you. The CD, the pictures, the tickets��they're all under your floorboards."
"Really?"
He nodded, seeming slightly cheered by my obvious pleasure in this trivial fact. It wasn't enough to heal the pain in his face completely.
"I think," I said slowly, "I'm not sure, but I wonder�� I think maybe I knew it the whole time."
"What did you know?"
I only wanted to take away the agony in his eyes, but as I spoke the words, they sounded truer than I expected they would.
"Some part of me, my subconscious maybe, never stopped believing that you still cared whether I lived or died. That's probably why I was hearing the voices."
There was a very deep silence for a moment. "Voices?" he asked flatly.
"Well, just one voice. Yours. It's a long story." The wary look on his face made me wish that I hadn't brought that up. Would he think I was crazy, like everyone else? Was everyone else right about that? But at least that expression��the one that made him look like something was burning him��faded.
"I've got time." His voice was unnaturally even.
"It's pretty pathetic."
He waited.
I wasn't sure how to explain. "Do you remember what Alice said about extreme sports?"
He spoke the words without inflection or emphasis. "You jumped off a cliff for fun."
"Er, right. And before that, with the motorcycle��"
"Motorcycle?" he asked. I knew his voice well enough to hear something brewing behind the calm.
"I guess I didn't tell Alice about that part."
"No."
"Well, about that�� See, I found that�� when I was doing something dangerous or stupid�� I could remember you more clearly," I confessed, feeling completely mental. "I could remember how your voice sounded when you were angry. I could hear it, like you were standing right there next to me. Mostly I tried not to think about you, but this didn't hurt so much��it was like you were protecting me again. Like
you didn't want me to be hurt.
"And, well, I wonder if the reason I could hear you so clearly was because, underneath it all. I always knew that you hadn't stopped loving me."
Again, as I spoke, the words brought with them a sense of conviction. Of rightness. Some deep place inside me recognized truth.
His words came out half-strangled. "You�� were�� risking your life�� to hear��"
"Shh," I interrupted him. "Hold on a second. I think I'm having an epiphany here."
I thought of that night in Port Angeles when I'd had my first delusion. I'd come up with two options. Insanity or wish fulfillment. I'd seen no third option.
But what if��
What if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn't even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?
Option three: Edward loved me. The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.
Was that what I'd been trying to tell myself?
"Oh!"
"Bella?"
"Oh. Okay. I see."
"Your epiphany?" he asked, his voice uneven and strained.
"You love me," I marveled. The sense of conviction and Tightness washed through me again.
Though his eyes were still anxious, the crooked smile I loved best flashed across his face. "Truly, I do."
My heart inflated like it was going to crack right through my ribs. It filled my chest and blocked my throat so that I could not speak.
He really did want me the way I wanted him��forever. It was only fear for my soul, for the human things he didn't want to take from me, that made him so desperate to leave me mortal. Compared to the fear that he didn't want me, this hurdle��my soul��seemed almost insignificant.
He took my face tightly between his cool hands and kissed me until I was so dizzy the forest was spinning. Then he leaned his forehead against mine, and I was not the only one breathing harder than usual.
"You were better at it than I was, you know," he told me.
"Better at what?"
"Surviving. You, at least, made an effort. You got up in the morning, tried to be normal for Charlie, followed the pattern of your life. When I wasn't actively tracking, I was�� totally useless. I couldn't be around my family��I couldn't be around anyone. I'm embarrassed to admit that I more or less curled up into a ball and let the misery have me." He grinned, sheepish. "It was much more pathetic than hearing voices. And, of course, you know I do that, too."
I was deeply relieved that he really seemed to understand��comforted that this all made sense to him. At any rate, he wasn't looking at me like I was crazy. He was looking at me like�� he loved me.
"I only heard one voice," I corrected him.
He laughed and then pulled me tight against his right side and started to lead me forward.
"I'm just humoring you with this." He motioned broadly with his hand toward the darkness in front of us as we walked. There was something pale and immense there��the house, I realized. "It doesn't matter in the slightest what they say."
"This affects them now, too."
He shrugged indifferently.
He led me through the open front door into the dark house and flipped the lights on. The room was just as I'd remembered it��the piano and the white couches and the pale, massive staircase. No dust, no white sheets.
Edward called out the names with no more volume than I'd use in regular conversation. "Carlisle? Esme? Rosalie? Emmett? Jasper? Alice?" They would hear.
Carlisle was suddenly standing beside me, as if he'd been there all along. "Welcome back, Bella." He smiled. "What can we do for you this morning? I imagine, due to the hour, that this is not a purely social visit?"
I nodded. "I'd like to talk to everyone at once, if that's okay. About something important."
I couldn't help glancing up at Edward's face as I spoke. His expression was critical, but resigned. When I looked back to Carlisle, he was looking at Edward, too.
"Of course," Carlisle said. "Why don't we talk in the other room?"
Carlisle led the way through the bright living room, around the corner to the dining room, turning on lights as he went. The walls were white, the ceilings high, like the living room. In the center of the room, under the low-hanging chandelier, was a large, polished oval table surrounded by eight chairs. Carlisle held out a chair for me at the head.
I'd never seen the Cullens use the dining room table before��it was just a prop. They didn't eat in the house.
As soon as I turned to sit in the chair, I saw that we were not alone. Esme had followed Edward, and behind her the rest of the family filed in.
Carlisle sat down on my right, and Edward on my left. Everyone else took their seats in silence. Alice was grinning at me, already in on the plot. Emmett and Jasper looked curious, and Rosalie smiled at me tentatively. My answering smile was just as timid. That was going to take some getting used to.
Carlisle nodded toward me. "The floor is yours."
I swallowed. Their gazing eyes made me nervous. Edward took my hand under the table. I peeked at him, but he was watching the others, his fate suddenly fierce.
"Well," I paused. "I'm hoping Alice has already told you everything that happened in Volterra?"
"Everything," Alice assured me.
I threw her a meaningful look. "And on the way?"
"That, too," she nodded.
"Good," I sighed with relief. "Then we're all on the same page."
They waited patiently while I tried to order my thoughts.
"So, I have a problem," I began. "Alice promised the Volturi that I would become one of you. They're going to send someone to check, and I'm sure that's a bad thing��something to avoid.
"And so, now, this involves you all. I'm sorry about that." I looked at each one of their beautiful faces, saving the most beautiful for last. Edward's mouth was turned down into a grimace. "But, if you don't want me, then I'm not going to force myself on you, whether Alice is willing or not."
Esme opened her mouth to speak, but I held up one finger to stop her.
"Please, let me finish. You all know what I want. And I'm sure you know what Edward thinks, too. I think the only fair way to decide is for everyone to have a vote. If you decide you don't want me, then�� I guess I'll go back to Italy alone. I can't have them coming here." My forehead creased as I considered that.
There was the faint rumble of a growl in Edward's chest. I ignored him.
"Taking into account, then, that I won't put any of you in danger either way, I want you to vote yes or no on the issue of me becoming a vampire."
I half-smiled on the last word, and gestured toward Carlisle to begin.
"Just a minute," Edward interrupted.
I glared at him through narrowed eyes. He raised his eyebrows at me, squeezing my hand.
"I have something to add before we vote."
I sighed.
"About the danger Bella's referring to," he continued. "I don't think we need to be overly anxious."
His expression became more animated. He put his free hand on the shining table and leaned forward.
"You see," he explained, looking around the table while he spoke, "there was more than one reason why I didn't want to shake Aro's hand there at the end. There's something they didn't think of, and I didn't want to cine them in." He grinned.
"Which was?" Alice prodded. I was sure my expression was just as skeptical as hers.
"The Volturi are overconfident, and with good reason. When they decide to find someone, it's not really a problem. Do you remember Demetri?" He glanced down at me.
I shuddered. He took that as a yes.
"He finds people��that's his talent, why they keep him.
"Now, the whole time we were with any of them, I was picking their brains for anything that might save us, getting as much information as possible. So I saw how Demetri's talent works. He's a tracker��a tracker a thousand times more gifted than Jarres was. His ability is loosely related to what I do, or what Aro does. He catches the�� flavor? I don't know how to describe it�� the tenor�� of someone's mind, and then he follows that. It works over immense distances.
"But after Aro's little experiments, well��" Edward shrugged.
"You think he won't be able to find me," I said flatly.
He was smug. "I'm sure of it. He relies totally on that other sense. When it doesn't work with you, they'll all be blind."
"And how does that solve anything?"
"Quite obviously, Alice will be able to tell when they're planning a visit, and I'll hide you. They'll be helpless," he said with fierce enjoyment. "It will be like looking for a piece of straw in a haystack!"
He and Emmett exchanged a glance and a smirk.
This made no sense. "But they can find you," I reminded him.
"And I can take care of myself."
Emmett laughed, and reached across the table toward his brother, extending a fist.
"Excellent plan, my brother," he said with enthusiasm.
Edward stretched out his arm to smack Emmett's fist with his own.
"No," Rosalie hissed.
"Absolutely not," I agreed.
"Nice." Jasper's voice was appreciative.
"Idiots," Alice muttered.
Esme just glared at Edward.
I straightened up in my chair, focusing. This was my meeting.
"All right, then. Edward has offered an alternative for you to consider," I said coolly. "Let's vote."
I looked toward Edward this time; it would be better to get his opinion out of the way. "Do you want me to join your family?"
His eyes were hard and black as flint. "Not that way. You're staying human."
I nodded once, keeping my face businesslike, and then moved on.
"Alice?"
"Yes."
"Jasper?"
"Yes," he said, voice grave. I was a little surprised��I hadn't been at all sure of his vote��but I suppressed my reaction and moved on.
"Rosalie?"
She hesitated, biting down on her full, perfect bottom lip. "No."
I kept my face blank and turned my head slightly to move on, but she held up both her hands, palms forward.
"Let me explain," she pleaded. "I don't mean that I have any aversion to you as a sister. It's just that�� this is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me."
I nodded slowly, and then turned to Emmett.
"Hell, yes!" He grinned. "We can find some other way to pick a fight with this Demetri."
I was still grimacing at that when I looked at Esme.
"Yes, of course, Bella. I already think of you as part of my family."
"Thank you, Esme," I murmured as I turned toward Carlisle.
I was suddenly nervous, wishing I had asked for his vote first. I was sure that this was the vote that mattered most, the vote that counted more than any majority.
Carlisle wasn't looking at me.
"Edward," he said.
"No," Edward growled. His jaw was strained tight, his lips curled back from his teeth.
"It's the only way that makes sense," Carlisle insisted. "You've chosen not to live without her, and that doesn't leave me a choice."
Edward dropped my hand, shoving away from the table. He stalked out of the room, snarling under his breath.
"I guess you know my vote." Carlisle sighed.
I was still staring after Edward. "Thanks," I mumbled.
An earsplitting crash echoed from the other room.
I flinched, and spoke quickly. "That's all I needed. Thank you. For wanting to keep me. I feel exactly the same way about all of you, too." My voice was jagged with emotion by the end.
Esme was at my side in a flash, her cold arms around me.