24 change

I ENDED UP CHANGING MY MIND.

The fire in my arm wasn't really so bad—the worst thing I'd ever felt up to that point, yes. But not the same as my entire body on fire.

I begged him to make it stop. I told him that this was really all I wanted. For the burning to stop. Nothing else.

I heard Alice telling him that everyone had said the same thing—reminding him that he'd begged Carlisle to kill him, too. Telling him my first decision was the one that counted.

I remember at one point screaming at her to shut up.

I think she apologized.

But mostly it was hard to pay attention to what was happening outside the fire. I know they moved me. It seemed like I was on the bloody, vomit-covered wood floor for a long time, but it was hard to judge how the minutes passed. Sometimes Carlisle would say something and it would feel like a year had passed before Alice answered him, but it was probably just the fire that made the seconds into years.

And then someone carried me. I saw the sun for another year-long second—it looked pale and cool. Then everything was dark. It was dark for a long time.

I could still see Edward. He held me in his arms, my face near his, one of his hands on my cheek. Alice was nearby, too. I think she had my legs.

When I screamed, he apologized, over and over again. I tried not to scream. It didn't do any good. There was no relief, no release in it. The fire didn't care what I did. It just burned.

When my eyes were in focus, I could see dim lights moving across Edward's face, though all around his head it was just black. Aside from his voice and mine, the only sound was a deep, constant thrumming. Sometimes it got louder, and then it was quiet again.

I didn't realize I was back in the black car until it stopped. I didn't hear the door open, but the sudden flash of light was blinding. I must have recoiled from it, because Edward crooned in my ear.

"We're just stopping to refill the gas tank. We'll be home soon, Beau. You're doing so well. This will be over soon. I am so sorry."

I couldn't feel his hand against my face—it should have been cool, but nothing was cool anymore. I tried to reach for it, but I couldn't exactly tell what my limbs were doing. I think I was thrashing some, but Edward and Alice kept me contained. Edward guessed what I wanted. He grabbed my hand and held it to his lips. I wished I could feel it. I tried to grip his hand without knowing how to make the muscles move, or being able to feel them. Maybe I got it right. He didn't let go.

It got darker. Eventually, I couldn't see him anymore. It was black as ink inside the car—there was no difference between having my eyes open or closed. I started to panic. The fire made the night like a sensory deprivation chamber; I couldn't feel anything but pain—not the seat beneath me, not Alice restraining my legs, not Edward holding my head, my hand. I was all alone with the burning, and I was terrified.

I don't know what I must have gasped out—my voice was totally gone now, either raw from screaming or burned past usability, I couldn't guess which—but Edward's voice was in my ear again.

"I'm right here, Beau. You're not alone. I won't leave you. I will be here. Listen to my voice. I'm here with you.…"

His voice calmed me—made the panic go away, if not the pain. I listened, keeping my breathing shallow so I could hear him better. I didn't need to scream anymore. The burning only got more and never less, but I was adapting. It was all I could feel, but not all I could think about.

"I never wanted this for you, Beau," Edward continued. "I would give anything to take this away. I've made so many mistakes. I should have stayed away from you, from the first day. I should never have come back again. I've destroyed your life, I've taken everything from you.…" It sounded like he was sobbing again.

"No," I tried to say, but I'm not sure if I even shaped the word with my mouth.

"He's probably far enough along that he'll remember this," Alice said softly.

"I hope so," Edward said, his voice breaking.

"I'm just saying, you might use the time more productively. There is so much he doesn't know."

"You're right, you're right." He sighed. "Where do I begin?"

"You could explain about being thirsty," Alice suggested. "That was the hardest part, when I first woke up. And we'll be expecting a lot from him."

When Edward answered, it was like he was spitting the words through his teeth. "I won't hold him to that. He didn't choose this. He's free to become whatever he wants to be."

"Hah," Alice said. "You know him better than that, Edward. The other way won't be good enough for him. Do you see? He'll be fine."

It was quiet while he tuned in to whatever Alice was seeing inside her head. Though I understood the silence, it still left me alone in the fire. I started panicking again.

"I'm here, Beau, I'm here. Don't be afraid." He took a deep breath. "I'll keep talking. There are so many things to tell you. The first one is that when this passes, when you're… new, you won't be exactly the same as I am, not in the very beginning. Being a young vampire means certain things, and the hardest to ignore is the thirst. You'll be thirsty—all the time. You won't be able to think about much else for a while. Maybe a year, maybe two. It's different for everyone. As soon as this is over, I'll take you hunting. You wanted to see that, didn't you? We'll bring Emmett so you can see his bear impression—" He laughed once, a damaged little sound. "If you decide—if you want to live like us, it will be hard. Especially in the beginning. It might be too hard, and I understand that. We all do. If you want to try it my way, I'll go with you. I can tell you who the human monsters are. There are options. Whatever you want. If… if you don't want me with you, I'll understand that, too, Beau. I swear I won't follow you if you tell me not to—"

"No," I gasped. I heard myself that time, so I knew I'd done it right.

"You don't have to make any more decisions now. There's time for that. Just know that I will respect any decision you make." He took another deep breath. "I should probably warn you about your eyes. They won't be brown anymore." Another half-sob. "But don't let them frighten you. They won't stay so bright for long.

"I suppose that's a very small thing, though.… I should focus on the most important things. The hard things—the very worst thing. Oh, I'm so sorry, Beau. You can't see your father or mother again. It's not safe. You would hurt them—you wouldn't be able to help yourself. And… there are rules. Rules that, as your creator, I'm bound by. We'd both be held responsible if you ran out of control. Oh—" His breath caught. "There's so much he doesn't know, Alice."

"We've got time, Edward. Just relax. Take it slow."

I heard him inhale again.

"The rules," he said. "One rule with a thousand different permutations—the reality of vampires must be kept secret. That means newborn vampires must be controlled. I will teach you—I'll keep you safe, I promise." Another sigh. "And you can't tell anyone what you are. I broke that rule. I didn't think it could hurt you—that anyone would ever find out. I should have known that just being near you would eventually destroy you. I should have known I would ruin your life—that I was lying to myself about any other path being possible. I've done everything wrong—"

"You're letting self-castigation get in the way of information again, Edward."

"Right, right." A deep breath. "Beau. Do you remember the painting in Carlisle's study—the nighttime patrons of the arts I told you about? They're called the Volturi—they are… for the lack of a better word, the police of our world. I'll tell you more about them in a bit—you just need to know that they exist, so that I can explain why you can't tell Charlie or your mother where you are. You can't talk to them again, Beau." His voice was straining higher, like it was about to fracture. "It's best… we don't have much choice but to let them think you're dead. I'm so sorry. You didn't even get to say goodbye. It's not fair!"

There was a long pause while I could hear his breath hitching.

"Why don't you go back to the Volturi?" Alice suggested. "Keep emotion out of it."

"You're right," he repeated in a whisper. "Ready to learn a new world history, Beau? The Volturi are a family—a very old, very powerful family of our kind. They are the closest thing our world has to a royal family, I suppose. Carlisle lived with them briefly in his early years, in Italy, before he settled in America—do you remember the story?"

He talked all night without a break, until the sun came up and I could see his face again. He told me stories that sounded like dark fairy tales. I was beginning to grasp the edges of how big this world was, but I knew it would be a long time before I totally comprehended the size of it.

I listened as much as I could. It wasn't a distraction from the pain—there was no escape. But it was better to think about than the fire.

Edward said the Volturi were the ones who'd made up all the stories about crosses and holy water and mirrors. Over the centuries, they made all reports of vampires into myth. And now they continued to keep it that way. Vampires would stay in the shadows… or there would be consequences.

So I couldn't go to my dad's house and let him see the eyes that Edward said would be bright. I couldn't drive to Florida and hug my mom and let her know that I wasn't dead. I couldn't even call her and explain the confusing message I'd left on her answering machine. If there was anything in the news, if any rumor spread that something unnatural was involved, the Volturi soldiers might come to investigate.

I had to disappear quietly.

The fire hurt more than hearing these things. But I knew that wouldn't always be the way it was. Soon, this would hurt the most.

Edward moved on quickly—telling me about their friends in Canada who lived the same way. Three blond Russian sisters and two Spanish vampires who were the Cullens' closest family. He told me that two of them had extra powers—Kate could do something electrical, and Eleazar knew the talents of every vampire he met.

He told me about other friends, all over the world. In Ireland and Brazil and Egypt. So many names. Eventually Alice stepped in again and told him to prioritize.

Edward told me that I would never age. That I would always be seventeen, like he was. That the world would change around me, and I would remember all of it, never forgetting one second.

He told me how the Cullens lived—how they moved from cloudy place to cloudy place. Esme would restore a house for them. Alice would invest their assets with amazingly good returns. They would decide on a story to explain their relationships to each other, and Jasper would create new names and new documented pasts for each of them. Carlisle would take a job in a hospital with his new credentials, or he'd return to school to study a new field. If the location looked promising, the younger Cullens would pretend to be even younger than they were, so they could stay longer.

After my time as a new vampire was up, I would be able to go back to school. But my education wouldn't have to wait. I had a lot of time ahead of me, and I would remember everything I read or heard.

I would never sleep again.

Food would be disgusting to me. I would never be hungry again, only thirsty.

I would never get sick. I would never feel tired.

I would be able to run faster than a race car. I'd be stronger than any other living species on the planet.

I wouldn't need to breathe.

I would be able to see more clearly, hear even the smallest sound.

My heart would finish beating tomorrow or the next day, and it would never beat again.

I would be a vampire.

One good thing about the burning—it let me hear all this with some distance. It let me process what he was telling me without emotion. I knew the emotion would come later.

When it was starting to get dark again, our journey was over. Edward carried me into the house like I was a child, and sat with me in the big room. The background behind his face went from black to white. I could see him much more clearly now, and I didn't think it was just the light.

In his eyes, my face reflected back, and I was surprised to see that it looked like a face and not a charcoal briquette—though a face in anguish. Still, maybe I wasn't the pile of ash I felt like.

He told me stories to fill the time, and the others took turns helping him. Carlisle sat on the ground next to me and told me the most amazing story about Jacob's family—that his great-grandfather had actually been a werewolf. All the things Jake had scoffed about were straight history. Carlisle told me he'd promised them he would never bite another human. It was part of the treaty between them, the treaty that meant the Cullens could never go due west to the ocean.

Jasper told me his story after all. I guess he'd decided I was ready now. I was glad, when he did, that my emotions were mostly buried under the fire. He'd lost family, too, when the woman who created him stole him without warning when he was a young confederant soilder. He told me about the army he'd belonged to, a life of carnage and death, and then breaking free. He told me about the day Alice had let him find her.

Esme told me how her life had ended before she'd killed herself, about her unstable, alcoholic husband and the son she'd loved more than her own soul. She told me about the night when her baby died, and how she hadn't been able to do anything but try to follow after him. Then she told me how, after the pain, there had been the most handsome man in a doctor's uniform—a doctor he recognized from a happier time in another place when she was just a young woman. A doctor who hadn't aged at all.

Emmett told me about being attacked by a bear, and then seeing an angel who took him to Carlisle instead of to heaven. He told me how he'd thought at first he'd been sent to hell—justly, he admitted—and then how he got into heaven after all.

He was the one who told me that the redhead had gotten away. She'd never come near Charlie after the one time that she'd searched Charlie's house. When we'd all gotten back to Forks, he, Rosalie, and Jasper had followed the woman's trail as far as they could; it disappeared into the Salish Sea and they hadn't been able to find the place where she came back out. For all they knew, she'd swum straight out to the Pacific and on to another continent. She must have assumed that James had lost the fight and realized it was smarter to disappear.

Even Rosalie took a turn. She told me about a life consumed with vanity, with beauty, with frivolity. She told me about the only son of a powerful man, and how Rosalie had planned to marry him and have the baby she'd dreamed of. How one cold night he drunkenly attacked her with several of his friends—how they'd violated her and left her for dead. She told me about the revenge she'd gotten. Rosalie was the least careful with her words. She told me about losing her chance at having a family of her own, and how none of this was worth what she'd lost.

Edward had whispered Emmett's name; Rosalie had growled once and left.

I think it must have been while Rosalie or Emmett was talking that Alice watched James's video from the dance studio. When Rosalie was gone, Alice took her spot. At first I wasn't sure what they were talking about, because only Edward was speaking out loud, but eventually I caught up. Alice was searching right there on her laptop, trying to narrow down the options of where she'd been kept in her human life. I was glad she didn't seem to mention anything else about the tape—the focus was all on her past. I was trying to remember how to use my voice so that I could stop her if she tried to say anything about the rest of it. I hoped Alice was smart enough to have destroyed the tape before Edward could watch.

The stories helped me think of other things, prepare myself, while the fire burned, but I was only able to pay partial attention. My mind was cataloguing the fire, experiencing it in new ways. It was amazing how each inch of my skin, each millimeter, was so distinct. It was like I could feel all my cells burning individually. I could feel the difference between the pain in the walls of my lungs, and the way the fire felt in the soles of my feet, inside my eyeballs, and down my spine. All the different agonies clearly separated.

I could hear my heart thudding—it seemed so loud. Like it had been hooked to an amp. I could hear other things, too. Mostly Edward's voice, sometimes the others talking—though I couldn't see them. I heard music once, but I didn't know where it was coming from.

It seemed like I was on the couch, my head in Edward's lap, for several years. The lights stayed bright, so I didn't know if it was night or day. But Edward's eyes were always gold, so I guessed that the fire was lying about the time again.

I was so aware of every nerve ending in my body that I knew it immediately when something changed.

It started with my toes. I couldn't feel them. It seemed like the fire had finally won, that it had started burning off pieces of me. Edward had said I was changing, not dying, but in this moment of panic I thought he'd gotten it wrong. Maybe this vampire thing wouldn't work on me. Maybe all this burning had been just a slow way to die. The worst way.

Edward felt me freaking out again, and he started humming in my ear. I tried to look at the positives. If it was killing me, at least it would be over. And if it was going to end, at least I was in Edward's arms for the rest of my life.

And then I realized that my toes were still there, they just weren't burning anymore. In fact, the fire was pulling out of the soles of my feet, too. I was glad I'd made sense of what was happening, because my fingertips were next. No need for more panic, maybe a reason for hope. The fire was leaving.

Only it seemed to be doing more than leaving—it was… moving. All the fire that receded from my extremities seemed to be draining into the center of my body, stoking the blaze there so that it was hotter than before.

I couldn't believe there was such a thing as hotter.

My heart—already so loud—started beating faster. The core of the fire seemed to be centered there. It was sucking the flames in from my hands and my ankles, leaving them pain-free, but multiplying the heat and pain in my heart.

"Carlisle," Edward called.

Carlisle walked into the room, and the amazing part about that was that I heard him. Edward and his family never made any noise when they moved. But now, if I listened, I could hear the low sound of Carlisle's lips brushing together as he spoke.

"Ah. It's almost over."

I wanted to be relieved, but the growing agony in my chest made it impossible to feel anything else. I stared up at Edward's face. He was more handsome than he had ever been, because I could see him better than I ever had. But I couldn't really appreciate him. So much pain.

"Edward?" I gasped.

"You're all right, Beau. It's ending. I'm sorry, I know. I remember."

The fire ripped hotter through my heart, dragging the flames up from my elbows and knees. I thought about Edward going through this, suffering this way, and it put a different perspective on my pain. He didn't even know Carlisle then. He didn't know what was happening to him. He hadn't been held the whole time in the arms of someone he loved.

The pain was almost gone from everywhere but my chest. The only leftover was my throat, but it was a different kind of burn now… drier… irritating.…

I heard more footsteps, and I was pretty sure I could tell the difference between them. The decisive, confident step was Emmett, I was positive. Alice was the quicker, more rhythmic motion. Esme was a little slower, thoughtful. Jasper was the one who stopped by the door. I thought I heard Rosalie breathing behind him.

And then—

"Aaah!"

My heart took off, beating like helicopter blades, the sound almost a single sustained note. It felt like it would grind through my ribs. The fire flared up in the center of my chest, sucking all the flames from the rest of my body to fuel the most painful burn yet. It was enough to stun me. My body bowed like the fire was dragging me upward by my heart.

It felt like a war inside me—my racing heart blitzing against the raging fire. They were both losing.

The fire constricted tighter, concentrating into one fist-sized ball of pain with a final, unbearable surge. The surge was answered by a deep, hollow-sounding thud. My heart stuttered twice, then thudded quietly again one more time.

There was no sound. No breathing. Not even mine.

For a second, all I could process was the absence of pain. The dull, dry afterburn in my throat was easy to ignore, because every other part of me felt amazing. The release was an incredible high.

I stared up at Edward in wonder. I felt like I'd taken off a blindfold I'd been wearing all my life. What a view.

"Beau?" he asked. Now that I could really concentrate on it, the beauty of his voice was unreal.

"It's disorienting, I know. You get used to it."

Could you get used to hearing a voice like this? Seeing a face like that?

"Edward," I said, and the sound of my own voice jolted me. Was that me? It didn't sound like me. It didn't sound… human.

Unnerved, I reached out to touch his cheek. In the same instant that the desire to touch him entered my mind, my hand was cradling the side of his face. There was no in-between—no process of lifting my hand, watching it move to its destination. It was just there.

"Huh."

He leaned into my touch, put his hand over mine, and held it against his face. It was strange because it was familiar—I'd always loved it when he'd done that, to see that he so obviously liked it when I touched him that way, that it meant something to him. But it was also nothing the same. His face wasn't cold anymore. His hand felt right against mine. There was no difference between us now.

I stared into his eyes, then looked closer at the picture reflected in them.

"Ahh…" A little gasp escaped my throat by accident, and I felt my body lock down in surprise. It was weird—it felt like the natural thing to do, to be a statue because I was shocked.

"What is it, Beau?" He leaned closer, concerned, but that just brought the reflection closer.

"The eyes?" I breathed.

He sighed, and wrinkled his nose. "It goes away," he promised. "I terrified myself every time I looked in a mirror for six months."

"Six months," I murmured. "And then they'll be gold like yours?"

He looked away, over the back of the couch, to someone standing there behind us where I couldn't see. I wanted to sit up and look around, but I was a little afraid to move. My body felt so strange.

"That depends on your diet, Beau," Carlisle said calmly. "If you hunt like we do, your eyes will eventually turn this color. If not, your eyes will look like Laurent's did."

I decided to try sitting up.

And like before, thinking was doing. Without any movement, I was upright. Edward kept my hand in his as it left his face.

Behind the sofa, they were all there, watching. I'd been one hundred percent with my guesses—Carlisle closest, then Emmett, Alice, and Esme. Jasper in the doorway to another room with Rosalie watching over his shoulder.

I looked at their faces, shocked again. If my brain hadn't been so much… roomier than before, I would have forgotten what I was about to say. As it was, I recovered pretty fast.

"No, I want to do it your way," I said to Carlisle. "That's the right thing to do."

Carlisle smiled. It would have knocked the breath out of me if I'd had to breathe.

"If only it were so easy. But that's a noble choice. We'll help you all we can."

Edward touched my arm. "We should hunt now, Beau. It will make your throat hurt less."

When he mentioned my throat, the dry burn there was suddenly at the forefront of my mind. I swallowed. But…

"Hunt?" my new voice asked. "I, uh, well, I've never been hunting before. Not even like normal hunting with rifles, so I don't really think I could… I mean, I have no idea how.…"

Emmett chuckled under his breath.

Edward smiled. "I'll show you. It's very easy, very natural. Didn't you want to see me hunt?"

"Just us?" I checked.

He looked confused for a fraction of a second, and then his face was smooth. "Of course. Whatever you want. Come with me, Beau."

And he was on his feet, still holding my hand. Then I was on my feet, too, and it was so simple to move, I wondered why I'd been afraid to try. Anything I wanted this body to do, it did.

He darted to the back wall of the big room—the glass wall that was a mirror now because it was night outside. I saw the two pale figures flashing by and I stopped. The strange thing was that when I stopped, it was so sudden that Edward kept going, still holding my hand, and though he was still pulling, I didn't move. My grip on his hand pulled him back. Like it was nothing.

But I was only noticing that with part of my brain. Mostly I was looking at my reflection.

I'd seen my face warped around the convex shape of his eyes, just the center, lacking the edges. I'd only really seen my eyes—brilliant, almost glowing red—and that had been enough to pull my focus. Now I saw my whole face—my neck, my arms.

If someone had cut an outline of my human self, this version would still fit into that space. But though I took up the same volume, all the angles were different. Harder, more pronounced. Like someone had made an ice sculpture of me and left the edges sharp.

My eyes—it was hard to look around the color, but the shape of them, too, seemed different. So vaguely, like I was remembering something I'd seen only through muddy water—I remembered how my eyes used to look. Undecided. Like I was never sure who I was. Then, after Edward—still so hard to see in my memory, uncomfortable to try—they were suddenly more resolved.

These eyes had gone one step further than resolved—they were savage. If I walked into this self in a dark alley, I would be terrified of me.

Which was the point, I guess. People were supposed to be afraid of me now.

I still wore my bloodstained jeans, but I had an unfamiliar, pale blue shirt on. I didn't remember that happening, but I could understand; vampire or human, no one wanted to hang around with someone drenched in vomit.

"Whoa," I said. I locked eyes with Edward in the reflection.

This was strange, too. Because the Beau in the mirror looked… right next to Edward. Like he belonged. Not like before, when people could only imagine that Edward was taking pity on me.

"It's a lot," he said.

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay."

He pulled on my hand again, and I followed. Before a fourth of a second had passed, we were through the glass doors behind the stairs and on the back lawn.

There were no moon and no stars—the clouds were too thick. It should have been pitch-black outside the rectangle of light shining through the glass wall, but it wasn't. I could see everything.

"Whoa," I said again. "That is so cool."

Edward looked at me like he was surprised by my reaction. Had he forgotten what it was like the first time he saw the world through vampire eyes? I thought he'd said I wouldn't forget things anymore.

"We're going to have to go a ways out into the woods," he told me. "Just in case."

I remembered the gist of what he'd told me about hunting. "Right. So there aren't any people around. Got it."

Again—that same surprised look flashed across his face and then was gone.

"Follow me," he said.

He whipped down the lawn so fast that I knew he would have been invisible to my old eyes. Then, at the edge of the river, he launched herself into a high arc that spun him over the river and into the trees beyond.

"Really?" I called after him.

I heard him laugh. "I promise, it's easy."

Great.

I sighed, then started running.

Running had never been my forte. I was all right on a flat track, if I was paying enough attention and I kept my eyes on my feet. Okay, honestly, even then I was still able to tangle my feet up and go down.

This was so different. I was flying—flying down the lawn, faster than I'd ever moved, but it was only too simple to put my feet exactly where they were supposed to go. I could feel all of my muscles, almost see the connections as they worked together, will them to do exactly what I needed. When I got to the edge of the river I didn't even pause. I pushed off the same rock he'd used, and then I was really flying. The river slipped away behind me as I rocketed through the air. I passed where he'd landed and then fell down into the wood.

I felt an instant of panic when I realized I hadn't even considered the landing, but then my hand already seemed to know how to catch a thick branch and angle my body so that my feet hit the ground with barely a sound.

"Holy crow," I breathed in total disbelief.

I heard Edward running through the trees, and already his gait was as familiar to me as the sound of my own breathing. I was sure I could tell the difference between the sound of his footfalls and anyone else's.

"We have to do that again!" I said as soon as I saw him.

He paused a few feet away from me, and a frustrated expression that I knew well crossed his face.

I laughed. "What do you want to know? I'll tell you what I'm thinking."

He frowned. "I don't understand. You're… in a very good mood."

"Oh. Is that wrong?"

"Aren't you incredibly thirsty?"

I swallowed against the burn. It was bad, but not as bad as the rest of the fire I'd just left behind. The thirst-burn was always there, and it got worse when I focused on it, but there were so many other things to focus on. "Yes, when I think about it."

Edward squared his shoulders. "If you want to do this first, that's fine, too."

I looked at him. I was obviously missing something. "Do this? Do what?"

He stared at me for a second, his eyes doubtful. Suddenly he threw his hands up. "You know, I really thought that when your mind was more similar to mine, I'd be able to hear it. I guess that's never going to happen."

"Sorry."

He laughed, but there was an unhappy note in the sound. "Honestly, Beau."

"Can you please give me a clue as to what we're talking about?"

"You wanted us to be alone," he said, like this was an explanation.

"Uh, yeah."

"Because you had some things you wanted to say to me?" He braced his shoulders again, tensing like he was expecting something bad.

"Oh. Well, I guess there are things to say. I mean, there's one important thing, but I wasn't thinking about that." Seeing how frustrated he was by whatever misunderstanding was happening, I was totally honest. "I wanted to be alone with you because… well, I didn't want to be rude, but I also didn't want to do this hunting thing in front of Emmett," I confessed. "I figured there was a good chance I would screw something up, and I don't know Emmett all that well yet, but I have a feeling he would find that pretty funny."

His eyes got wide. "You were afraid Emmett would laugh at you? Really, that's all?"

"Really. Your turn, Edward. What did you think was happening?"

He hesitated. "I thought you were being a gentleman. I thought you preferred to yell at me alone rather than in front of my family."

I froze up again. I wondered if that was going to happen every time I was surprised. It took me a second to thaw out.

"Yell at you?" I repeated. "Edward—oh! You're talking about all that stuff you were saying in the car, right? Sorry about that, I—"

"Sorry? What on earth are you apologizing for now, Beau Swan?"

He looked angry. Angry and so handsome. I couldn't guess why he was worked up. I shrugged. "I wanted to tell you then, but I couldn't. I mean, I couldn't even really concentrate—"

"Of course you couldn't concentrate—"

"Edward!" I crossed the space between us in one invisibly fast stride and put my hands on his shoulders. "You'll never know what I'm thinking if you keep interrupting me."

The anger on his face faded as he deliberately calmed himself. Then he nodded.

"Okay," I said. "In the car—I wanted to tell you then that you didn't need to apologize, I felt horrible that you were so sad. This isn't your fault—"

He started to say something, so I put my finger over his lips.

"And it isn't all bad," I continued. "I'm… well, my head is still spinning and I know there are a million things to think about and I'm sad, of course, but I'm also good, Edward. I'm always good when I'm with you."

He stared at me for a long minute. Slowly, he raised his hand to pull my finger away from his mouth. I didn't stop him.

"You aren't angry at me for what I've done to you?" he asked quietly.

"Edward, you saved my life! Again. Why would I be angry? Because of the way you saved it? What else could you have done?"

He exhaled, almost like he was mad again. "How can you…? Beau, you have to see that this is all my fault. I haven't saved your life, I've taken it from you. Charlie—Renée—"

I put my finger over his mouth again, and then took a deep breath. "Yes. It's hard, and it's going to be hard for a long time. Maybe forever, right? But why would I put that on you? James is the one who… well, who killed me. You brought me back to life."

He pushed my hand down. "If I hadn't involved you in my world—"

I laughed, and he looked up at me like I'd lost my mind. "Edward—if you hadn't involved me in your world, Charlie and Renée would have lost me three months earlier."

He stared, frowning. It was obvious he wasn't accepting any of this.

"Do you remember what I said when you saved my life in Port Angeles? The second time, or third." I barely did. The words were easier to bring back than the images. I knew it went something like this. "That you were messing with fate because my number was up? Well… if I had to die, Edward… isn't this the most amazing way to do it?"

A long minute passed while he stared at me, and then he shook his head. "Beau, you are amazing."

"I guess I am now."

"You always have been."

I didn't say anything, and my face gave me away. Or he was just that good. He knew my face so well, he spent so much time trying so hard to understand me, that he knew immediately when there was something I wasn't saying.

"What is it, Beau?"

"Just… something James said." I winced. Though it was hard to see things in my old memory, the dance studio was the most recent, the most vivid.

Edward's jaw got hard. "He said a lot of things," he hissed.

"Oh." Suddenly I wanted to punch something. But I also didn't want to let go of Edward to do that. "You saw the tape."

His face was totally white. Furious and agonized at the same time. "Yes, I saw the tape."

"When? I didn't hear—"

"Headphones."

"I wish you hadn't—"

He shook his head. "I had to. But forget that now. Which lie were you thinking of?" He spit the words through his teeth.

It took me a minute. "You didn't want me to be a vampire."

"No, I absolutely did not."

"So that part wasn't a lie. And you've been so upset.… I know you feel bad about Charlie and my mom, but I guess I'm worried that part of it is because, well, you didn't expect to have me around very long, you weren't planning for that—" His mouth flew open so fast that I put my whole hand over it. "Because if that's what it is, don't worry. If you want me to go away after a while, I can. You can show me what to do so I won't get either of us in trouble. I don't expect you to put up with me forever. You didn't choose this any more than I did. I want you to know that I'm aware of that."

He waited for me to move my hand. I did it slowly. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what was next.

He growled softly and flashed his teeth at me—not in a smile.

"You're lucky I didn't bite you," he said. "The next time you put your hand on my mouth to say something so completely idiotic—and insulting—I will."

"Sorry."

He closed his eyes. One of his arms wrapped around my waist while the other pulled my head against his chest. My arms wound around him automatically. He tilted my face up so that he could look at me.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully, Beau. This—having you with me, getting to keep you here—it's like I've been granted every selfish wish I've ever had. But the price for everything I want was to take the exact same thing away from you. All of your life. I'm angry with myself, I'm disappointed in myself. And I wish so much that I could bring that tracker back to life so that I could kill him myself, over and over and over again.…

"The reason I didn't want you to be a vampire wasn't because you weren't special enough—it was because you are too special and you deserve more. I wanted you to have what we all miss—a human life. But you have to know, if it were only about me, if there were no price for you to pay, then tonight would be the best night of my life. I've been staring forever in the face for a century, and tonight is the very first time it's looked beautiful to me. Because of you.

"Don't you ever again think that I don't want you. I will always want you. I don't deserve you, but I will always love you. Are we clear?"

It was obvious that he was being totally sincere. Truth echoed in every word.

A huge grin spread across my new face. "So that's okay, then."

He smiled back. "I'd say so."

"That was the one important thing I wanted to say—just, I love you. I always will. I knew that from pretty early in. So, with that being how things are, I think we can work the rest out."

I held his face in my hands and bent down to kiss him. Like everything else, this was so easy now. Nothing to worry about, no hesitation.

It felt strange, though, that my heart wasn't beating out a crazy drum solo, that the blood wasn't stampeding through my veins. But something was zinging through me like electricity, every nerve in my body alive. More than alive—like all of my cells were rejoicing. I only wanted to hold him like this and I would need nothing else for the next hundred years.

But he broke away, and he was laughing. This time his laugh was full of joy. It sounded like singing.

"How are you doing this?" he laughed. "You're supposed to be a newborn vampire and here you are, discussing the future calmly with me, smiling at me, kissing me! You're supposed to be thirsty and nothing else."

"I'm a lot of else," I said. "But I am pretty thirsty, now that you mention it."

He leaned down and kissed me once, hard. "I love you. Let's go hunt."

We ran together into the darkness that wasn't dark, and I was unafraid. This would be easy, I knew, just like everything else.