IT WAS TOO BRIGHT FOR ME TO DRIVE INTO TOWN WHEN I GOT TO PORT ANGELES. The sun was still high overhead, and though my windows were tinted dark enough to provide some protection, there was no reason to take unnecessary risks. More unnecessary risks, I should say.
How condescendingly I’d once judged Emmett for his thoughtless ways and Jasper for his lack of discipline—and now I was consciously flouting all the rules with a wild abandon that made their lapses look like nothing at all. I used to be the responsible one.I sighed.I was certain I would be able to find Jessica’s thoughts from a distance—hers were louder than Angela’s, but once I found the first, I’d be able to hear the second. Then, when the shadows lengthened, I could get closer. Just outside the town, I pulled off the road onto an overgrown driveway that appeared to be infrequently used.I knew the general direction to search in—there were not many places to shop for dresses in Port Angeles. It wasn’t long before I found Jessica, spinning in front of a three-way mirror, and I could see Bella in her peripheral vision, appraising the long black dress she wore.Bella still looks pissed. Ha ha. Angela was right—Tyler was full of it. I can’t believe she’s so upset about it, though. At least she knows she has a backup date for the prom. What if Mike doesn’t have fun at the dance and doesn’t ask me out again? What if he asks Bella to the prom? Does he think she’s prettier than me? Does she think she’s prettier than me?“I think I like the blue one better. It really brings out your eyes.”Jessica smiled at Bella with false warmth while eyeing her suspiciously.Does she really think that? Or does she want me to look like a cow on Saturday?I was already tired of listening to Jessica. I searched close by for Angela—ah, but Angela was in the process of changing dresses, and I skipped quickly out of her head to give her some privacy.Well, there wasn’t much trouble Bella could get into in a department store. I’d let them shop and then catch up with them when they were done. It wouldn’t be long until dark—the clouds were beginning to return, drifting in from the west. I could only catch glimpses of them through the thick trees, but I could see how they would hurry the sunset. I welcomed them, craved them more than I had ever yearned for their shadows before. Tomorrow I could sit beside Bella in school again, monopolize her attention at lunch. I could ask her all the questions I’d been saving up.So she was furious about Tyler’s presumption. I’d seen that in his head—that he’d meant it literally when he’d spoken of the prom, that he was staking a claim. I pictured her expression from that other afternoon—the outraged disbelief—and laughed. I wondered what she would say to him about this. Or perhaps she was more likely to pretend ignorance, to bluff and hope it would put him off? It would be interesting to see.The time went slowly while I waited for the shadows to lengthen. I checked in periodically with Jessica; her mental voice was the easiest to find, but I didn’t like to linger there long. I saw the place they were planning to eat. It would be dark by dinnertime… maybe I would coincidentally choose the same restaurant. I touched the phone in my pocket, thinking of inviting Alice out to join me. She would love that, but she would also want to talk to Bella. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to have Bella more involved with my world. Wasn’t one vampire trouble enough?I checked in routinely with Jessica again. She was thinking about her jewelry, asking Angela’s opinion.“Maybe I should take the necklace back. I’ve got one at home that would probably work, and I spent more than I was supposed to.” My mom is going to freak out. What was I thinking?“I don’t mind going back to the store. Do you think Bella will be looking for us, though?”What was this? Bella wasn’t with them? I stared through Jessica’s eyes first, then switched to Angela’s. They were on the sidewalk in front of a line of shops, just turning back the other way. Bella was nowhere in sight.Oh, who cares about Bella? Jess thought impatiently, before answering Angela’s question. “She’s fine. We’ll get to the restaurant in plenty of time, even if we go back. Anyway, I think she wanted to be alone.” I got a brief glimpse of the bookshop Jessica thought Bella had gone to.“Let’s hurry, then,” Angela said. I hope Bella doesn’t think we ditched her. She was so nice to me in the car before. But she’s seemed kind of blue all day. I wonder if it’s because of Edward Cullen? I’ll bet that was why she was asking about his family.I should have been paying better attention. What had I missed here? Bella was off wandering by herself, and she’d been asking about me? Angela was paying attention to Jessica now—Jessica was babbling about that imbecile Mike—and I could get nothing more from her.I judged the shadows. The sun would be behind the clouds soon enough. If I stayed on the west side of the road, where the buildings would shade the street from the fading light…I started to feel anxious as I drove through the sparse traffic into the center of town. This wasn’t something I had considered—Bella setting off on her own—and I had no idea how to find her. I should have considered it.I knew Port Angeles well. I drove straight to the bookstore in Jessica’s head, hoping my search would be short, but doubting it would be so easy. When did Bella ever make it easy?Sure enough, the little shop was empty except for the anachronistically dressed woman behind the counter. This didn’t look like the kind of place Bella would find interesting—too new age for a practical person. I wondered if she’d even bothered to go inside.There was a patch of shade I could park in. It made a dark pathway right up to the awning of the shop. I really shouldn’t. Wandering around in the sunlit hours was not safe. What if a passing car threw the sun’s reflection on me at just the wrong moment?But I didn’t know how else to look for Bella!I parked and got out, keeping to the side of deepest shadow. I strode quickly into the store, noting the faint trace of Bella’s scent in the air. She had been here, on the sidewalk, but there was no hint of her fragrance inside the shop.“Welcome! Can I help—?” the saleswoman began to say, but I was already out the door.I followed Bella’s scent as far as the shade would allow, stopping when I got to the edge of the sunlight.How powerless it made me feel—fenced in by the line between dark and light that stretched across the sidewalk in front of me.I could only guess that she’d continued across the street, heading south. There wasn’t really much in that direction. Was she lost? Well, that possibility didn’t sound entirely out of character.I got back in the car and drove slowly through the streets, looking for her. I stepped out into a few other patches of shadow, but only caught her scent once more, and the direction of it confused me. Where was she trying to go?I drove back and forth between the bookstore and the restaurant a few times, hoping to see her on her way. Jessica and Angela were already there, trying to decide whether to order or to wait for Bella. Jessica was pushing for ordering immediately.I began flitting through the minds of strangers, looking through their eyes. Surely, someone must have seen her somewhere.I got more and more anxious the longer she remained missing. I’d not considered before how difficult she might prove to find once, like now, she was out of my sight and off her normal paths.The clouds were massing on the horizon, and in a few more minutes, I would be free to track her on foot. It wouldn’t take me long then. It was only the sun that made me so helpless now. Just a few more minutes, and then the advantage would be mine again and it would be the human world that was powerless.Another mind, and another. So many trivial thoughts.… think the baby has another ear infection…Was it six-four-oh or six-oh-four…?Late again. I ought to tell him.…Aha! Here she comes!There, at last, was her face. Finally, someone had noticed her!The relief lasted for only a fraction of a second, and then I read more fully the thoughts of the man who was gloating over her face where she hesitated in the shadows.His mind was a stranger to me, and yet, not totally unfamiliar. I had once hunted exactly such minds.“NO!” I roared, and a volley of snarls erupted from my throat. My foot shoved the gas pedal to the floor, but where was I going?I knew the general direction his thoughts came from, but the location was not specific enough. Something, there had to be something—a street sign, a storefront, something in his sightline that would give him away. But Bella was deep in shadow, and his eyes were focused only on her frightened expression—enjoying the fear there.Her face was blurred in his mind by the memory of other faces. Bella was not his first victim.The sound of my growls shook the frame of the car but did not distract me.There were no windows in the wall behind her. Somewhere industrial, away from the more populated shopping district. My car squealed around a corner, swerving past another vehicle, heading in what I hoped was the right direction. By the time the other driver honked, the sound was far behind me.Look at her shaking! The man chuckled in anticipation. The fear was the draw for him—the part he enjoyed.“Stay away from me.” Her voice was low and steady, not a scream.“Don’t be like that, sugar.”He watched her flinch at a rowdy laugh that came from another direction. He was irritated with the noise—Shut up, Jeff! he thought—but he enjoyed the way she cringed. It excited him. He began to imagine her pleas, the way she would beg.…I hadn’t realized that there were others with him until I’d heard the loud laughter. I scanned out from him, desperate for something that I could use. He was taking the first step in her direction, flexing his hands.The minds around him were not the cesspool that his was. They were all slightly intoxicated, not one of them realizing how far the man they called Lanny planned to go with this. They were blindly following Lanny’s lead. He’d promised them a little fun.…One of them glanced down the street, nervous—he didn’t want to get caught harassing the girl—and gave me what I needed. I recognized the cross street he stared toward.I flew under a red light, sliding through a space just wide enough between two cars in the moving traffic. Horns blared behind me.My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it.Lanny moved slowly toward the girl, drawing out the suspense—the moment of terror that aroused him. He waited for her scream, preparing to savor it.But Bella locked her jaw and braced herself. He was surprised—he’d expected her to try to run. Surprised and slightly disappointed. He liked to chase his prey down, feel the adrenaline of the hunt.Brave, this one. Maybe better, I guess—more fight in her.I was a block away. The fiend could hear the roar of my engine now, but he paid it no attention, too intent on his victim.I would see how he enjoyed the hunt when he was the prey. I would see what he thought of my style of hunting.In another compartment of my head, I was already sorting through the horrors I’d borne witness to in my vigilante days, searching for the most painful of them. I had never tortured my prey, no matter how much they had deserved it, but this man was different. He would suffer for this. He would writhe in agony. The others would merely die for their part, but this creature named Lanny would beg for death long before I would give him that gift.He was in the road, crossing toward her.I spun sharply around the corner, my headlights washing across the scene and freezing the rest of them in place. I could have run down the leader, who leaped out of the way, but that was too easy a death for him.I let the car spin out, swinging all the way around so that I was facing back the way I’d come and the passenger door was closest to Bella. I threw that open, and she was already running toward the car.“Get in,” I snarled.What the hell?Knew this was a bad idea! She’s not alone.Should I run?Think I’m going to throw up.…Bella jumped through the open door without hesitating, pulling it shut behind her.And then she looked up at me with the most trusting expression I had ever seen on a human face, and all my violent plans crumbled.It took much, much less than a second for me to see that I could not leave her in the car in order to deal with the four men in the street. What would I tell her, not to watch? Ha! When did she ever do what I asked?Would I drag them away, out of her sight, and leave her alone here? It was a long shot that another psychopath would be prowling the streets of Port Angeles tonight, but it was a long shot that there was even a first! Here was proof positive that I was not insane—like a magnet, she drew all things dangerous toward herself. If I were not close enough to provide it, some other evil would take my place.It would feel like part of the same motion to her as I accelerated, taking her away from her pursuers so quickly that they gaped after my car with uncomprehending expressions. She would not recognize my instant of hesitation.I couldn’t even hit him with my car. That would frighten her.I wanted his death so savagely that the need for it rang in my ears, clouded my sight, and was a bitter flavor on my tongue, stronger than the burn of my thirst. My muscles were coiled with the urgency, the craving, the necessity of it. I had to kill him. I would peel him slowly apart, piece by piece, skin from muscle, muscle from bone.…Except that the girl—the only girl in the world—was clinging to her seat with both hands, staring at me, her eyes strangely calm and unquestioning. Vengeance would have to wait.“Put on your seat belt,” I ordered. My voice was rough with the hate and bloodlust. Not the usual bloodlust. I had long been committed to abstaining from human blood, and I would not let this creature change that. This would be retribution only.She locked the seat belt into place, jumping slightly at the sound it made. That little noise made her jump, yet she did not flinch as I tore through the town, ignoring all traffic guides. I could feel her eyes on me. She seemed oddly relaxed. It didn’t make sense—not with what had just happened to her.“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice rough with stress and fear.She wanted to know if I was okay?Was I okay?“No,” I realized, and my tone seethed with rage.I took her to the same unused drive where I’d spent the afternoon engaged in the poorest surveillance ever kept. It was black now under the trees.I was so furious that my body froze in place there, utterly motionless. My ice-locked hands ached to crush her attacker, to grind him into pieces so mangled that his body could never be identified.But that would entail leaving her here alone, unprotected in the dark night.My mind was replaying scenes from my hunting days, images I wished I could forget. Especially now, with the urge to kill so much stronger than any hunting compulsion I’d ever felt before.This man, this abomination, was not the worst of his kind, though it was difficult to sort the depths of evil into a merit-based order. Still, I remembered the very worst. There had never been any question that he deserved that title.Most of the men I’d hunted back in my days of acting as judge, jury, and executioner had felt some level of remorse, or at least fear of being caught. Many of them turned to alcohol or drugs to silence their worries. Others compartmentalized, created fractures in their personalities and lived as two men, one for the light and one for the dark.But for the worst, the vilest aberration I’d ever encountered, remorse was not an issue.I’d never found anyone who embraced his own evil so thoroughly—who enjoyed it. He was utterly delighted by the world he’d created, a world of helpless victims and their tortured screams. Pain was the object of all his pursuits, and he’d gotten very good at creating it, at prolonging it.I was committed to my rules, to my justification for all the blood I claimed. But in this instance, I wavered. To let this particular man die swiftly seemed far too easy an escape for him.It was the closest I ever came to crossing that line. Still, I killed him as quickly and efficiently as I killed all the rest.It might have gone differently if two of his victims had not been in that basement of horrors when I discovered him. Two young women, already badly injured. Though I carried them both to a hospital at the greatest speed I was capable of, only one survived.I hadn’t had time to drink his blood. That didn’t matter. There were so many others who deserved to die.Like this Lanny. He was an atrocity, too, but surely not worse than the one I’d remembered. Why did it feel right then, imperative, that he suffer so much more?But first—“Bella?” I asked through my teeth.“Yes?” she responded huskily. She cleared her throat.