Eclipse (Twilight #3)(87)

Was there a human experience that I was not willing to give up?

Chapter 16. EPOCH

"I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!" I MOANED TO MYSELF.

Every item of clothing I owned was strewn across my bed; my drawers and closets were bare. I stared into the empty recesses, willing something suitable to appear.

My khaki skirt lay over the back of the rocking chair, waiting for me to discover something that went with it just exactly right. Something that would make me look beautiful and grown up. Something that said special occasion. I was coming up empty.

It was almost time to go, and I was still wearing my favorite old sweats. Unless I could find something better here - and the odds weren't looking good at this point - I was going to graduate in them.

I scowled at the pile of clothes on my bed.

The kicker was that I knew exactly what I would have worn if it were still available - my kidnapped red blouse. I punched the wall with my good hand.

"Stupid, thieving, annoying vampire!" I growled.

"What did I do?" Alice demanded.

She was leaning casually beside the open window as if she'd been there the whole time.

"Knock, knock," she added with a grin.

"Is it really so hard to wait for me to get the door?"

She threw a flat, white box onto my bed. "I'm just passing through. I thought you might need something to wear."

I looked at the big package lying on top of my unsatisfying wardrobe and grimaced.

"Admit it," Alice said. "I'm a lifesaver."

"You're a lifesaver," I muttered. "Thanks."

"Well, it's nice to get something right for a change. You don't know how irritating it is - missing things the way I have been. I feel so useless. So . . . normal." She cringed in horror of the word.

"I can't imagine how awful that must feel. Being normal? Ugh."

She laughed. "Well, at least this makes up for missing your annoying thief - now I just have to figure out what I'm not seeing in Seattle."

When she said the words that way - putting the two situations together in one sentence - right then it clicked. The elusive something that had been bothering me for days, the important connection that I couldn't quite put together, suddenly became clear. I stared at her, my face frozen with whatever expression was already in place.

"Aren't you going to open it?" she asked. She sighed when I didn't move immediately, and tugged the top of the box off herself. She pulled something out and held it up, but I couldn't concentrate on what it was.

"Pretty, don't you think? I picked blue, because I know it's Edward's favorite on you."

I wasn't listening.

"It's the same," I whispered.

"What is?" she demanded. "You don't have anything like this. For crying out loud, you only own one skirt!"

"No, Alice! Forget the clothes, listen!"

"You don't like it?" Alice's face clouded with disappointment.

"Listen, Alice, don't you see? It's the same! The one who broke in and stole my things, and the new vampires in Seattle. They're together!"

The clothes slipped from her fingers and fell back into the box.

Alice focused now, her voice suddenly sharp. "Why do you think that?"

"Remember what Edward said? About someone using the holes in your vision to keep you from seeing the newborns? And then what you said before, about the timing being too perfect - how careful my thief was to make no contact, as if he knew you would see that. I think you were right, Alice, I think he did know. I think he was using those holes, too. And what are the odds that two different people not only know enough about you to do that, but also decided to do it at exactly the same time? No way. It's one person. The same one. The one who is making the army is the one who stole my scent."

Alice wasn't accustomed to being taking by surprise. She froze, and was still for so long that I started counting in my head as I waited. She didn't move for two minutes straight. Then her eyes refocused on me.

"You're right," she said in a hollow tone. "Of course you're right. And when you put it that way. . . ."

"Edward had it wrong," I whispered. "It was a test . . . to see if it would work. If he could get in and out safely as long as he didn't do anything you would be watching out for. Like trying to kill me. . . . And he didn't take my things to prove he'd found me. He stole my scent . . . so that others could find me."

Her eyes were wide with shock. I was right, and I could see that she knew it, too.

"Oh, no," she mouthed.

I was through expecting my emotions to make sense anymore. As I processed the fact that someone had created an army of vampires - the army that had gruesomely murdered dozens of people in Seattle - for the express purpose of destroying me, I felt a spasm of relief.

Part of it was finally solving that irritating feeling that I was missing something vital.

But the larger part was something else entirely.

"Well," I whispered, "everyone can relax. Nobody's trying to exterminate the Cullens after all."

"If you think that one thing has changed, you're absolutely wrong," Alice said through her teeth. "If someone wants one of us, they're going to have to go through the rest of us to get to her."