Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (Twilight #5)(115)

Everyone looked at Edythe.

“It’s too dangerous—I don’t want her within a hundred miles of Beau.”

“She’s not getting through us.” Eleanor was very confident.

Archie closed his eyes for a second. “I don’t see her attacking. She’s the kind that goes around, not through. She’ll wait for us to leave him unprotected.”

“It won’t take long for her to realize that’s not going to happen,” Edythe said.

“I have to go home, Edythe.”

She pressed her fingers to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Then she was glaring at me.

“Your plan takes too long. We’ve got no time for the packing charade.”

“If I don’t give him some kind of excuse, he’ll make trouble for your family. Maybe call the FBI or something if he thinks you’ve… I don’t know, kidnapped me.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes. It does. There’s a way to keep everyone safe, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The Jeep rumbled to life, and she spun us around, the tires squealing. The needle on the speedometer started to race up the dial.

“You’re leaving tonight,” Edythe said, and her voice sounded worn. “Whether the tracker sees or not. Tell Charlie whatever you want—as long as it’s quick. Pack the first things your hands touch, then get in your truck. I don’t care what Charlie says. You have fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes from the time you cross the doorstep or I carry you out.”

A few minutes passed in silence, other than the roar of the engine.

“Eleanor?” I asked, looking at my hands.

“Oh, sorry.” She let me loose.

“This is how it’s going to happen,” Edythe said. “When we get to the house, if the tracker is not there, I will walk Beau to the door. Then he has fifteen minutes.” She glared at me in the rearview mirror. “Eleanor, you take the outside of the house. Archie, you get the truck. I’ll be inside as long as he is. After he’s out, you two can take the Jeep home and tell Carine.”

“No way,” Eleanor broke in. “I’m with you.”

“Think it through, El. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Until we know how far this is going to go, I’m with you.”

Edythe sighed. “If the tracker is there,” she continued grimly, “we keep driving.”

“We’re going to make it there before him,” Archie said confidently.

Edythe seemed to accept that. Whatever her problem with Archie was, she didn’t doubt him now.

“What are we going to do with the Jeep?” he asked.

Edythe’s voice had a hard edge. “You’re driving it home.”

“No, I’m not,” he said calmly.

The unintelligible stream of profanities started again.

“We can’t all fit in my truck,” I mumbled.

Edythe didn’t seem to hear me.

“I think you should let me go alone,” I said even more quietly.

She heard that.

“Beau, don’t be stupid,” she said between clenched teeth.

“Listen, Charlie’s not an imbecile,” I argued. “If you’re not in town tomorrow, he’s going to get suspicious.”

“That’s irrelevant. We’ll make sure he’s safe, and that’s all that matters.”

“Then what about this tracker? She saw how you acted tonight. She’s going to think you’re with me, wherever you are.”

Eleanor looked at me, insultingly surprised again. “Edythe, listen to him,” she urged. “I think he’s right.”

“He is,” Archie agreed.

“I can’t do that.” Edythe’s voice was icy.

“Eleanor should stay, too,” I continued. “She definitely got an eyeful of Eleanor.”

“What?” Eleanor turned on me, looking betrayed.

“You’ll get a better crack at her if you stay,” Archie agreed.

Edythe stared at him incredulously. “You think I should let him go alone?”

“Of course not,” Archie said. “Jess and I will take him.”

“I can’t do that,” Edythe repeated, but this time she sounded defeated. The logic was working on her.

I tried to be persuasive. “Hang out here for a week”—I saw her expression in the mirror and amended—“a few days. Let Charlie see you, and lead this hunter on a wild-goose chase. Make sure she’s completely off the trail. Then come and meet me. Take a roundabout route, of course, and then Jessamine and Archie can go home.”

She was beginning to consider it.

“Meet you where?”

“Phoenix.”

“No,” she said impatiently. “She’ll hear that’s where you’re going.”

“And you’ll make it look like that’s a trick, obviously. She’ll know that you’ll know that she’s listening. She’ll never believe I’m actually going where I say I am going.”

“He’s diabolical,” Eleanor laughed.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“There are several million people in Phoenix,” I informed her.