When I woke up I was confused. My thoughts were hazy, still twisted up
in dreams and nightmares; it took me longer than it should have to
realize where I was.
This room was too bland to belong anywhere but in a hotel. The bedside
lamps, bolted to the tables, were a dead giveaway, as were the long
drapes made from the same fabric as the bedspread, and the generic
watercolor prints on the walls.
I tried to remember how I got here, but nothing came at first.
I did remember the sleek black car, the glass in the windows darker
than that on a limousine. The engine was almost silent, though we'd
raced across the black freeways at more than twice the legal speed.
And I remembered Alice sitting with me on the dark leather backseat.
Somehow, during the long night, my head had ended up against her
granite neck. My closeness didn't seem to bother her at all, and her
cool, hard skin was oddly comforting to me. The front of her thin cotton
shirt was cold, damp with the tears that streamed from my eyes until,
red and sore, they ran dry.
Sleep had evaded me; my aching eyes strained open even though the
night finally ended and dawn broke over a low peak somewhere in
California. The gray light, streaking across the cloudless sky, stung my
eyes. But I couldn't close them; when I did, the images that flashed all
too vividly, like still slides behind my lids, were unbearable. Charlie's
broken expression — Edward's brutal snarl, teeth bared — Rosalie's
resentful glare — the keen-eyed scrutiny of the tracker — the dead look
in Edward's eyes after he kissed me the last time… I couldn't stand to
see them. So I fought against my weariness and the sun rose higher.
I was still awake when we came through a shallow mountain pass and
the sun, behind us now, reflected off the tiled rooftops of the Valley of
the Sun. I didn't have enough emotion left to be surprised that we'd
made a three-day journey in one. I stared blankly at the wide, flat
expanse laid out in front of me. Phoenix — the palm trees, the scrubby
creosote, the haphazard lines of the intersecting freeways, the green
swaths of golf courses and turquoise splotches of swimming pools, all
submerged in a thin smog and embraced by the short, rocky ridges that
weren't really big enough to be called mountains.
The shadows of the palm trees slanted across the freeway — defined,
sharper than I remembered, paler than they should be. Nothing could
hide in these shadows. The bright, open freeway seemed benign
enough. But I felt no relief, no sense of homecoming.
"Which way to the airport, Bella?" Jasper had asked, and I flinched,
though his voice was quite soft and un-alarming. It was the first sound,
besides the purr of the car, to break the long night's silence.
"Stay on the I-ten," I'd answered automatically. "We'll pass right by it."
My brain had worked slowly through the fog of sleep deprivation.
"Are we flying somewhere?" I'd asked Alice.
"No, but it's better to be close, just in case."
I remembered beginning the loop around Sky Harbor International… but
not ending it. I suppose that must have been when I'd fallen asleep.
Though, now that I'd chased the memories down, I did have a vague
impression of leaving the car — the sun was just falling behind the
horizon — my arm draped over Alice's shoulder and her arm firm around
my waist, dragging me along as I stumbled through the warm, dry
shadows.
I had no memory of this room.
I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. The red numbers claimed
it was three o'clock, but they gave no indication if it was night or day.
No edge of light escaped the thick curtains, but the room was bright
with the light from the lamps.
I rose stiffly and staggered to the window, pulling back the drapes.
It was dark outside. Three in the morning, then. My room looked out on
a deserted section of the freeway and the new long-term parking garage
for the airport. It was slightly comforting to be able to pinpoint time and
place.
I looked down at myself. I was still wearing Esme's clothes, and they
didn't fit very well at all. I looked around the room, glad when I
discovered my duffel bag on top of the low dresser.
I was on my way to find new clothes when a light tap on the door made
me jump.
"Can I come in?" Alice asked.
I took a deep breath. "Sure."
She walked in, and looked me over cautiously. "You look like you could
sleep longer," she said.
I just shook my head.
She drifted silently to the curtains and closed them securely before
turning back to me.
"We'll need to stay inside," she told me.
"Okay." My voice was hoarse; it cracked.
"Thirsty?" she asked.
I shrugged. "I'm okay. How about you?"
"Nothing unmanageable." She smiled. "I ordered some food for you, it's
in the front room. Edward reminded me that you have to eat a lot more
frequently than we do."
I was instantly more alert. "He called?"
"No," she said, and watched as my face fell. "It was before we left."
She took my hand carefully and led me through the door into the living
room of the hotel suite. I could hear a low buzz of voices coming from
the TV. Jasper sat motionlessly at the desk in the corner, his eyes
watching the news with no glimmer of interest.
I sat on the floor next to the coffee table, where a tray of food waited,
and began picking at it without noticing what I was eating.
Alice perched on the arm of the sofa and stared blankly at the TV like
Jasper.
I ate slowly, watching her, turning now and then to glance quickly at
Jasper. It began to dawn on me that they were too still. They never
looked away from the screen, though commercials were playing now. I
pushed the tray away, my stomach abruptly uneasy. Alice looked down
at me.
"What's wrong, Alice?" I asked.
"Nothing's wrong." Her eyes were wide, honest… and I didn't trust them.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait for Carlisle to call."
"And should he have called by now?" I could see that I was near the
mark. Alice's eyes flitted from mine to the phone on top of her leather
bag and back.
"What does that mean?" My voice quavered, and I fought to control it.
"That he hasn't called yet?"
"It just means that they don't have anything to tell us."
But her voice was too even, and the air was harder to breathe.
Jasper was suddenly beside Alice, closer to me than usual.
"Bella," he said in a suspiciously soothing voice. "You have nothing to
worry about. You are completely safe here."
"I know that."
"Then why are you frightened?" he asked, confused. He might feel the
tenor of my emotions, but he couldn't read the reasons behind them.
"You heard what Laurent said." My voice was just a whisper, but I was
sure they could hear me. "He said James was lethal. What if something
goes wrong, and they get separated? If something happens to any of
them, Carlisle, Emmett… Edward…" I gulped. "If that wild female hurts
Esme…" My voice had grown higher, a note of hysteria beginning to rise
in it. "How could I live with myself when it's my fault? None of you
should be risking yourselves for me —"
"Bella, Bella, stop," he interrupted me, his words pouring out so quickly
they were hard to understand. "You're worrying about all the wrong
things, Bella. Trust me on this — none of us are in jeopardy. You are
under too much strain as it is; don't add to it with wholly unnecessary
worries. Listen to me!" he ordered, for I had looked away. "Our family is
strong. Our only fear is losing you."
"But why should you —"
Alice interrupted this time, touching my cheek with her cold fingers. "It's
been almost a century that Edward's been alone. Now he's found you.
You can't see the changes that we see, we who have been with him for
so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next
hundred years if he loses you?"
My guilt slowly subsided as I looked into her dark eyes. But, even as the
calm spread over me, I knew I couldn't trust my feelings with Jasper
there.
It was a very long day.
We stayed in the room. Alice called down to the front desk and asked
them to ignore our maid service for now. The windows stayed shut, the
TV on, though no one watched it. At regular intervals, food was
delivered for me. The silver phone resting on Alice's bag seemed to
grow bigger as the hours passed.
My babysitters handled the suspense better than I did. As I fidgeted and
paced, they simply grew more still, two statues whose eyes followed me
imperceptibly as I moved. I occupied myself with memorizing the room;
the striped pattern of the couches, tan, peach, cream, dull gold, and tan
again. Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding
pictures in the shapes, like I'd found pictures in the clouds as a child. I
traced a blue hand, a woman combing her hair, a cat stretching. But
when the pale red circle became a staring eye, I looked away.
As the afternoon wore on, I went back to bed, simply for something to
do. I hoped that by myself in the dark, I could give in to the terrible
fears that hovered on the edge of my consciousness, unable to break
through under Jasper's careful supervision.
But Alice followed me casually, as if by some coincidence she had grown
tired of the front room at the same time. I was beginning to wonder
exactly what sort of instructions Edward had given her. I lay across the
bed, and she sat, legs folded, next to me. I ignored her at first,
suddenly tired enough to sleep. But after a few minutes, the panic that
had held off in Jasper's presence began to make itself known. I gave up
on the idea of sleep quickly then, curling up into a small ball, wrapping
my arms around my legs.
"Alice?" I asked.
"Yes?"
I kept my voice very calm. "What do you think they're doing?"
"Carlisle wanted to lead the tracker as far north as possible, wait for him
to get close, and then turn and ambush him. Esme and Rosalie were
supposed to head west as long as they could keep the female behind
them. If she turned around, they were to head back to Forks and keep
an eye on your dad. So I imagine things are going well if they can't call.
It means the tracker is close enough that they don't want him to
overhear."
"And Esme?"
"I think she must be back in Forks. She won't call if there's any chance
the female will overhear. I expect they're all just being very careful."
"Do you think they're safe, really?"
"Bella, how many times do we have to tell you that there's no danger to
us?"
"Would you tell me the truth, though?"
"Yes. I will always tell you the truth." Her voice was earnest.
I deliberated for a moment, and decided she meant it.
"Tell me then… how do you become a vampire?"
My question caught her off guard. She was quiet. I rolled over to look at
her, and her expression seemed ambivalent.
"Edward doesn't want me to tell you that," she said firmly, but I sensed
she didn't agree.
"That's not fair. I think I have a right to know."
"I know."
I looked at her, waiting.
She sighed. "He'll be extremely angry."
"It's none of his business. This is between you and me. Alice, as a
friend, I'm begging you." And we were friends now, somehow — as she
must have known we would be all along.
She looked at me with her splendid, wise eyes… choosing.
"I'll tell you the mechanics of it," she said finally, "but I don't remember
it myself, and I've never done it or seen it done, so keep in mind that I
can only tell you the theory."
I waited.
"As predators, we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal —
much, much more than really necessary. The strength, the speed, the
acute senses, not to mention those of us like Edward, Jasper, and I, who
have extra senses as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are
physically attractive to our prey."
I was very still, remembering how pointedly Edward had demonstrated
the same concept for me in the meadow.
She smiled a wide, ominous smile. "We have another fairly superfluous
weapon. We're also venomous," she said, her teeth glistening. "The
venom doesn't kill — it's merely incapacitating. It works slowly,
spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in
too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If
we're that close, the prey doesn't escape. Of course, there are always
exceptions. Carlisle, for example."
"So… if the venom is left to spread…" I murmured.
"It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending
on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters
to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads,
healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart
stops, and the conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of
it, a victim would be wishing for death."
I shivered.
"It's not pleasant, you see."
"Edward said that it was very hard to do… I don't quite understand," I
said.
"We're also like sharks in a way. Once we taste the blood, or even smell
it for that matter, it becomes very hard to keep from feeding.
Sometimes impossible. So you see, to actually bite someone, to taste
the blood, it would begin the frenzy. It's difficult on both sides — the
blood-lust on the one hand, the awful pain on the other."
"Why do you think you don't remember?"
"I don't know. For everyone else, the pain of transformation is the
sharpest memory they have of their human life. I remember nothing of
being human." Her voice was wistful.
We lay silently, wrapped in our individual meditations.
The seconds ticked by, and I had almost forgotten her presence, I was
so enveloped in my thoughts.
Then, without any warning, Alice leaped from the bed, landing lightly on
her feet. My head jerked up as I stared at her, startled.
"Something's changed." Her voice was urgent, and she wasn't talking to
me anymore.
She reached the door at the same time Jasper did. He had obviously
heard our conversation and her sudden exclamation. He put his hands
on her shoulders and guided her back to the bed, sitting her on the
edge.
"What do you see?" he asked intently, staring into her eyes. Her eyes
were focused on something very far away. I sat close to her, leaning in
to catch her low, quick voice.
"I see a room. It's long, and there are mirrors everywhere. The floor is
wooden. He's in the room, and he's waiting. There's gold… a gold stripe
across the mirrors."
"Where is the room?"
"I don't know. Something is missing — another decision hasn't been
made yet."
"How much time?"
"It's soon. He'll be in the mirror room today, or maybe tomorrow. It all
depends. He's waiting for something. And he's in the dark now."
Jasper's voice was calm, methodical, as he questioned her in a practiced
way. "What is he doing?"
"He's watching TV… no, he's running a VCR, in the dark, in another
place."
"Can you see where he is?"
"No, it's too dark."
"And the mirror room, what else is there?"
"Just the mirrors, and the gold. It's a band, around the room. And
there's a black table with a big stereo, and a TV. He's touching the VCR
there, but he doesn't watch the way he does in the dark room. This is
the room where he waits." Her eyes drifted, then focused on Jasper's
face.
"There's nothing else?"
She shook her head. They looked at each other, motionless.
"What does it mean?" I asked.
Neither of them answered for a moment, then Jasper looked at me.
"It means the tracker's plans have changed. He's made a decision that
will lead him to the mirror room, and the dark room."
"But we don't know where those rooms are?"
"No."
"But we do know that he won't be in the mountains north of
Washington, being hunted. He'll elude them." Alice's voice was bleak.
"Should we call?" I asked. They traded a serious look, undecided.
And the phone rang.
Alice was across the room before I could lift my head to look at it.
She pushed a button and held the phone to her ear, but she didn't
speak first.
"Carlisle," she breathed. She didn't seem surprised or relieved, the way
I felt.
"Yes," she said, glancing at me. She listened for a long moment.
"I just saw him." She described again the vision she'd seen. "Whatever
made him get on that plane… it was leading him to those rooms." She
paused. "Yes," Alice said into the phone, and then she spoke to me.
"Bella?"
She held the phone out toward me. I ran to it.
"Hello?" I breathed.
"Bella," Edward said.
"Oh, Edward! I was so worried."
"Bella," he sighed in frustration, "I told you not to worry about anything
but yourself." It was so unbelievably good to hear his voice. I felt the
hovering cloud of despair lighten and drift back as he spoke.
"Where are you?"
"We're outside of Vancouver. Bella, I'm sorry — we lost him. He seems
suspicious of us — he's careful to stay just far enough away that I can't
hear what he's thinking. But he's gone now — it looks like he got on a
plane. We think he's heading back to Forks to start over." I could hear
Alice filling in Jasper behind me, her quick words blurring together into a
humming noise.
"I know. Alice saw that he got away."
"You don't have to worry, though. He won't find anything to lead him to
you. You just have to stay there and wait till we find him again."
"I'll be fine. Is Esme with Charlie?"
"Yes — the female has been in town. She went to the house, but while
Charlie was at work. She hasn't gone near him, so don't be afraid. He's
safe with Esme and Rosalie watching."
"What is she doing?"
"Probably trying to pick up the trail. She's been all through the town
during the night. Rosalie traced her through the airport, all the roads
around town, the school… she's digging, Bella, but there's nothing to
find."
"And you're sure Charlie's safe?"
"Yes, Esme won't let him out of her sight. And we'll be there soon. If the
tracker gets anywhere near Forks, we'll have him."
"I miss you," I whispered.
"I know, Bella. Believe me, I know. It's like you've taken half my self
away with you."
"Come and get it, then," I challenged.
"Soon, as soon as I possibly can. I will make you safe first." His voice
was hard.
"I love you," I reminded him.
"Could you believe that, despite everything I've put you through, I love
you, too?"
"Yes, I can, actually."
"I'll come for you soon."
"I'll be waiting."
As soon as the phone went dead, the cloud of depression began to creep
over me again.
I turned to give the phone back to Alice and found her and Jasper bent
over the table, where Alice was sketching on a piece of hotel stationery.
I leaned on the back of the couch, looking over her shoulder.
She drew a room: long, rectangular, with a thinner, square section at
the back. The wooden planks that made up the floor stretched
lengthwise across the room. Down the walls were lines denoting the
breaks in the mirrors. And then, wrapping around the walls, waist high,
a long band. The band Alice said was gold.
"It's a ballet studio," I said, suddenly recognizing the familiar shapes.
They looked at me, surprised.
"Do you know this room?" Jasper's voice sounded calm, but there was
an undercurrent of something I couldn't identify. Alice bent her head to
her work, her hand flying across the page now, the shape of an
emergency exit taking shape against the back wall, the stereo and TV on
a low table by the front right corner.
"It looks like a place I used to go for dance lessons — when I was eight
or nine. It was shaped just the same." I touched the page where the
square section jutted out, narrowing the back part of the room. "That's
where the bathrooms were — the doors were through the other dance
floor. But the stereo was here" — I pointed to the left corner — "it was
older, and there wasn't a TV. There was a window in the waiting room —
you would see the room from this perspective if you looked through it."
Alice and Jasper were staring at me.
"Are you sure it's the same room?" Jasper asked, still calm.
"No, not at all — I suppose most dance studios would look the same —
the mirrors, the bar." I traced my finger along the ballet bar set against
the mirrors. "It's just the shape that looked familiar." I touched the
door, set in exactly the same place as the one I remembered.
"Would you have any reason to go there now?" Alice asked, breaking my
reverie.
"No, I haven't been there in almost ten years. I was a terrible dancer —
they always put me in the back for recitals," I admitted.
"So there's no way it could be connected with you?" Alice asked intently.
"No, I don't even think the same person owns it. I'm sure it's just
another dance studio, somewhere."
"Where was the studio you went to?" Jasper asked in a casual voice.
"It was just around the corner from my mom's house. I used to walk
there after school…" I said, my voice trailing off. I didn't miss the look
they exchanged.
"Here in Phoenix, then?" His voice was still casual.
"Yes," I whispered. "Fifty-eighth Street and Cactus."
We all sat in silence, staring at the drawing.
"Alice, is that phone safe?"
"Yes," she reassured me. "The number would just trace back to
Washington."
"Then I can use it to call my mom."
"I thought she was in Florida."
"She is — but she's coming home soon, and she can't come back to that
house while…" My voice trembled. I was thinking about something
Edward had said, about the red-haired female at Charlie's house, at the
school, where my records would be.
"How will you reach her?"
"They don't have a permanent number except at the house — she's
supposed to check her messages regularly."
"Jasper?" Alice asked.
He thought about it. "I don't think there's any way it could hurt — be
sure you don't say where you are, of course."
I reached eagerly for the phone and dialed the familiar number. It rang
four times, and then I heard my mom's breezy voice telling me to leave
a message.
"Mom," I said after the beep, "it's me. Listen, I need you to do
something. It's important. As soon as you get this message, call me at
this number." Alice was already at my side, writing the number for me
on the bottom of her picture. I read it carefully, twice. "Please don't go
anywhere until you talk to me. Don't worry, I'm okay, but I have to talk
to you right away, no matter how late you get this call, all right? I love
you, Mom. Bye." I closed my eyes and prayed with all my might that no
unforeseen change of plans would bring her home before she got my
message.
I settled into the sofa, nibbling on a plate of leftover fruit, anticipating a
long evening. I thought about calling Charlie, but I wasn't sure if I
should be home by now or not. I concentrated on the news, watching
out for stories about Florida, or about spring training — strikes or
hurricanes or terrorist attacks — anything that might send them home
early.
Immortality must grant endless patience. Neither Jasper nor Alice
seemed to feel the need to do anything at all. For a while, Alice
sketched the vague outline of the dark room from her vision, as much
as she could see in the light from the TV. But when she was done, she
simply sat, looking at the blank walls with her timeless eyes. Jasper,
too, seemed to have no urge to pace, or peek through the curtains, or
run screaming out the door, the way I did.
I must have fallen asleep on the couch, waiting for the phone to ring
again. The touch of Alice's cold hands woke me briefly as she carried me
to the bed, but I was unconscious again before my head hit the pillow.
Baby,top.
Dead & gone. || 11:37 PM