“I’ll tell you about it in the car,” she said in a low voice. Ah, this would be bad. She wasn’t willing to speak her guesses around others. “If…,” she tacked on suddenly.

“There are conditions?” I was so tense I almost growled the words.

“I do have a few questions, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed, my voice hard.

Her questions would probably be enough to tell me where her thoughts were heading. But how would I answer them? With responsible lies? Or would I drive her away with truth? Or would I say nothing, unable to decide?

We sat in silence while the waitress replenished her supply of soda.

“Well, go ahead,” I said, jaw locked, when she was gone.

“Why are you in Port Angeles?”

That was too easy a question—for her. It gave away nothing, while my answer, if truthful, would give away much too much. Let her reveal something first.

“Next,” I said.

“But that’s the easiest one!’

“Next,” I said again.

She was frustrated by my refusal. She looked away from me, down at her food. Slowly, thinking hard, she took a bite and chewed with deliberation.

Suddenly, as she ate, a strange comparison entered my head. For just a second, I saw Persephone, pomegranate in hand. Dooming herself to the underworld.

Is that who I was? Hades himself, coveting springtime, stealing it, condemning it to endless night. I tried unsuccessfully to shake the impression.

She washed her bite down with more Coke, and then finally looked up at me. Her eyes were narrow with suspicion.

“Okay then,” she said. “Let’s say, hypothetically, of course, that… someone… could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know—with a few exceptions.”

It could be worse.

This explained that little half smile in the car. She was quick—no one else had ever guessed this about me. Except for Carlisle, and it had been rather obvious then, in the beginning, when I’d answered all his thoughts as if he’d spoken them to me. He’d understood before I had.

This question wasn’t so bad. While it was clear that she knew there was something wrong with me, it was not as serious as it could have been. Mind reading was, after all, not a facet of vampire canon. I went along with her hypothesis.

“Just one exception,” I corrected. “Hypothetically.”

She fought a smile—my vague honesty pleased her. “All right, with one exception, then. How does that work? What are the limitations? How would… that someone… find someone else at exactly the right time? How would he know that she was in trouble?”

“Hypothetically?”

“Sure.” Her lips twitched, and her liquid brown eyes were eager.

“Well…” I hesitated. “If… that someone—”

“Let’s call him ‘Joe,’” she suggested.

I had to smile at her enthusiasm. Did she really think the truth would be a good thing? If my secrets were pleasant, why would I keep them from her?

“Joe, then,” I agreed. “If Joe had been paying attention, the timing wouldn’t have needed to be quite so exact.” I shook my head and repressed a shudder at the thought of how close I had been to being too late today. “Only you could get into trouble in a town this small. You would have devastated their crime rate statistics for a decade, you know.”

Her lips turned down at the corners and pouted out. “We were speaking of a hypothetical case.”

I laughed at her irritation.

Her lips, her skin… they looked so soft. I wanted to see if they were as velvety as they appeared. Impossible. My touch would be repellent to her.

“Yes, we were,” I said, returning to the conversation before I could depress myself too thoroughly. “Shall we call you ‘Jane’?”

She leaned across the table toward me, all humor and irritation gone from her expression.

“How did you know?” she asked, her voice low and intense.

Should I tell her the truth? And if so, what portion?

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to deserve the trust I could still see on her face.

As if she could hear my thoughts, she whispered, “You can trust me, you know.” She reached one hand forward as if to touch my hands where they rested on top of the empty table before me.

I pulled them back—hating the thought of her reaction to my frigid stone skin—and she dropped her hand.

I knew that I could trust her with protecting my secrets. She was entirely honorable, good to the core. But I couldn’t trust her not to be horrified by them. She should be horrified. The truth was horror.

“I don’t know if I have a choice anymore,” I murmured. I remembered that I’d once teased her by calling her exceptionally unobservant. Offended her, if I’d been judging her expressions correctly. Well, I could right that one injustice, at least. “I was wrong—you’re much more observant than I gave you credit for.” And though she might not realize it, I’d given her plenty of credit already.

“I thought you were always right,” she said, smiling as she teased me.

“I used to be.” I used to know what I was doing. I used to be always sure of my course. And now everything was chaos and tumult. Yet I wouldn’t trade it. Not if the chaos meant that I could be near Bella.

“I was wrong about you on one other thing as well,” I went on, setting the record straight on a second point. “You’re not a magnet for accidents—that’s not a broad enough classification. You are a magnet for trouble. If there is anything dangerous within a ten-mile radius, it will invariably find you.” Why her? What had she done to deserve any of this?

Bella’s face turned serious again. “And you put yourself into that category?”

Honesty was more important in regard to this question than any other. “Unequivocally.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly—not suspicious now, but oddly concerned. Her lips curved into that one specific smile that I had only seen on her face when she was confronted with someone else’s pain. She reached her hand across the table again, slowly and deliberately. I pulled my hands an inch away from her, but she ignored that, determined to touch me. I held my breath—not because of her scent now, but because of the sudden, overwhelming tension. Fear. My skin would disgust her. She would run away.

She brushed her fingertips lightly across the back of my hand. The heat of her gentle, willing touch was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was almost pure pleasure. Would have been, except for my fear. I watched her face as she felt the cold stone of my skin, still unable to breathe.

Her smile of concern shifted into something wider, something warmer.

“Thank you,” she said, meeting my stare with an intense gaze of her own. “That’s twice now.”

Her soft fingers lingered against my skin as if they found it pleasant to be there.

I answered her as casually as I was able. “Let’s not try for three, agreed?”

She scowled a little at that, but nodded.

I pulled my hands out from under hers. As exquisite as her touch felt, I wasn’t going to wait for the magic of her tolerance to pass, to turn to revulsion. I hid my hands under the table.

I read her eyes; though her mind was silent, I could perceive both trust and wonder there. I realized in that moment that I wanted to answer her questions. Not because I owed it to her. Not because I wanted her to trust me.

I wanted her to know me.

“I followed you to Port Angeles,” I told her, the words spilling out too quickly for me to edit them. I knew the danger of the truth, the risk I was taking. At any moment, her unnatural calm could shatter into hysterics. Contrarily, knowing this only had me talking faster. “I’ve never tried to keep a specific person alive before and it’s much more troublesome than I would have believed. But that’s probably just because it’s you. Ordinary people seem to make it through the day without so many catastrophes.”

I watched her, waiting.

She smiled wider again. Her clear, dark eyes seemed deeper than ever.

I’d just admitted to stalking her, and she was smiling.

“Did you ever think that maybe my number was up that first time, with the van, and that you’ve been interfering with fate?” she asked.

“That wasn’t the first time,” I said, staring down at the dark maroon tablecloth, my shoulders bowed in shame. Barriers down, the truth still spilling free recklessly. “Your number was up the first time I met you.”

It was true, and it angered me. I had been positioned over her life like the blade of a guillotine—as though it was ordained by fate, just as she said. As if she had been marked for death by that cruel, unjust fate, and—since I’d proved an unwilling tool—it continued to try to execute her. I imagined the fate personified, a grisly, jealous hag, a vengeful harpy.

I wanted something, someone, to be responsible for this, so that I would have something concrete to fight against. Something, anything to destroy, so that Bella could be safe.

Bella was very quiet. Her breathing had accelerated.

I looked up at her, knowing I would finally see the fear I was waiting for. Had I not just admitted how close I’d been to killing her? Closer than the van that had come within slim inches of crushing the life from her body. And yet, her face was still calm, her eyes still tightened only with concern.

“You remember?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice level and grave. Her deep eyes were full of awareness.

She knew. She knew that I had wanted to murder her. Where were her screams?

“And yet here you sit,” I said, pointing out the inherent contradiction.

“Yes, here I sit… because of you.” Her expression altered, turned curious, as she unsubtly changed the subject. “Because somehow you knew how to find me today…?”

Hopelessly, I pushed one more time at the barrier that protected her thoughts, desperate to understand. It made no logical sense to me. How could she even care about the rest with that glaring truth on the table?

She waited, only curious. Her skin was pale, which was natural for her, but it still concerned me. Her dinner sat nearly untouched in front of her. If I continued to tell her too much, she was going to need a buffer when the shock set in at last.

I named my terms. “You eat, I’ll talk.”

She processed that for half a second, and then threw a bite into her mouth with a speed that belied her calm. She was more anxious for my answer than her eyes let on.

“It’s harder than it should be—keeping track of you,” I told her. “Usually I can find someone very easily, once I’ve heard their mind before.”

I watched her face carefully as I said this. Guessing right was one thing, having it confirmed was another.

She was motionless, her eyes blank. I felt my teeth clench together as I waited for her panic.

But she just blinked once, swallowed loudly, and then quickly scooped another bite into her mouth. Eager for me to continue.

“I was keeping tabs on Jessica,” I went on, watching each word as it sank in. “Not carefully—like I said, only you could find trouble in Port Angeles.” I couldn’t resist adding that. Was she aware that other human lives were not so plagued with near-death experiences, or did she think the things that happened to her were normal? “And at first I didn’t notice when you took off on your own. Then, when I realized that you weren’t with her anymore, I went looking for you at the bookstore I saw in her head. I could tell that you hadn’t gone in, and that you’d gone south… and I knew you would have to turn around soon. So I was just waiting for you, randomly searching through the thoughts of people on the street—to see if anyone had noticed you so I would know where you were. I had no reason to be worried… but I was strangely anxious.…” My breath came faster as I remembered that feeling of panic. Her scent blazed in my throat and I was glad. It was a pain that meant she was alive.

As long as I burned, she was safe.

“I started to drive in circles, still… listening.” I hoped the word made sense to her. This had to be confusing. “The sun was finally setting, and I was about to get out and follow you on foot. And then—”

As the memory took me—perfectly clear and as vivid as if I was in the moment again—I felt the same murderous fury wash through my body, locking it into ice.

I wanted him dead. He should be dead. My jaw clenched tight as I concentrated on holding myself here at the table. Bella still needed me. That was what mattered.

“Then what?” she whispered, her dark eyes huge.

“I heard what they were thinking,” I said through my teeth, unable to keep the words from coming out in a growl. “I saw your face in his mind.”

I still knew precisely where to find him. His black thoughts sucked at the night sky, pulling me toward them.

I covered my face, knowing my expression was that of a hunter, a killer. I fixed her image behind my closed eyes to control myself. The delicate framework of her bones, the thin sheath of her pale skin—like silk stretched over glass, incredibly soft and easy to shatter. She was too vulnerable for this world. She needed a protector. And through some twisted mismanagement of destiny, I was the closest thing available.

I tried to explain my violent reaction so that she would understand.

“It was very… hard—you can’t imagine how hard—for me to simply take you away, and leave them… alive,” I whispered. “I could have let you go with Jessica and Angela, but I was afraid if you left me alone, I would go looking for them.”

For the second time tonight, I confessed to an intended murder. At least this one was defensible.

She was quiet as I struggled to control myself. I listened to her heartbeat. The rhythm was irregular, but it slowed as the time passed until it was steady again. Her breathing, too, was low and even.

I was too close to the edge. I needed to get her home before…

Would I kill him, then? Would I become a murderer again when she trusted me? Was there any way to stop myself?

She’d promised to tell me her latest theory when we were alone. Did I want to hear it? I was anxious for it, but would the reward for my curiosity be worse than not knowing?

At any rate, she must have had enough truth for one night.

I looked at her again, and her face was paler than before, but composed.

“Are you ready to go home?” I asked.

“I’m ready to leave,” she said, choosing her words carefully, as if a simple yes did not fully express what she wanted to say.

Frustrating.

The waitress returned. She’d heard Bella’s last statement as she’d dithered on the other side of the partition, wondering what more she could offer me. I wanted to roll my eyes at some of the offerings she’d had in mind.

“How are we doing?” she asked me.

“We’re ready for the check, thank you,” I told her, my eyes on Bella.

The waitress’s breathing spiked and she was momentarily—to use Bella’s phrasing—dazzled by my voice.

In a sudden moment of perception, hearing the way my voice sounded in this inconsequential human’s head, I realized why I seemed to be attracting so much admiration tonight—unmarred by the usual fear.

It was because of Bella. Trying so hard to be safe for her, to be less frightening, to be human, I truly had lost my edge. The other humans saw only beauty now, with my innate horror so carefully under control.

I looked up at the waitress, waiting for her to recover herself. It was sort of humorous, now that I understood the reason.

“S-sure. Here you go.” She handed me the folder with the bill, thinking of the card she’d slid in behind the receipt. A card with her name and telephone number on it.

Yes, it was rather funny.

I had money ready again. I gave the folder back at once, so she wouldn’t waste any time waiting for a call that would never come.

“No change,” I told her, hoping the size of the tip would assuage her disappointment.

I stood, and Bella quickly followed suit. I wanted to offer her my hand, but I thought that might be pushing my luck a little too far for one night. I thanked the waitress, my eyes never leaving Bella’s face. Bella seemed to be finding something amusing, too.

I walked as close beside her as I dared. Close enough that the warmth coming off her was like a physical touch against the left side of my body. As I held the door for her, she sighed quietly, and I wondered what regret weighed on her. I stared into her eyes, about to ask, when she suddenly looked at the ground, seeming embarrassed. It made me more curious, even as it made me reluctant to ask. The silence between us continued while I opened her door for her and then got into the car.

I turned the heater on—the warmer weather had come to an abrupt end; the cold car would be uncomfortable for her. She huddled in my jacket, a small smile on her lips.

I waited, postponing the conversation until the lights of the boardwalk faded. It made me feel more alone with her.

Was that the right thing? The car seemed very small. Her scent swirled through it with the current of the heater, building and strengthening. It grew into its own force, like a third entity in the car. A presence that demanded recognition.

It had that; I burned. The burning was acceptable, though. It seemed strangely appropriate to me. I had been given so much tonight—more than I’d expected. And here she was, still willingly at my side. I owed something in return for that. A sacrifice. A burnt offering.

Now if I could just keep it to that—just burn, and nothing more. But the venom filled my mouth, and my muscles tensed in anticipation, as if I were hunting.

I had to keep such thoughts from my mind. And I knew what would distract me.

“Now,” I said to her, fear of her response taking the edge off the burn. “It’s your turn.”