Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (Twilight #5)(55)

She looked at me quickly, seeming startled by the change in my tone. “What more do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” I said. It was the first question I could think of. My voice sounded thick. I double-blinked the extra moisture from my eyes.

Her answer was very low. “I don’t want to be a monster.”

“But animals aren’t enough?”

She paused. “I can’t be sure, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger—or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” Her tone darkened. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yes.”

“But you’re not hungry now,” I said—stating, not asking.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes. I have a theory about that. Seems like the color is linked to your mood—and people are generally crabbier when they’re hungry, right?”

She laughed. “You’re more observant than I gave you credit for.”

I listened to the sound of her laugh, committing it to memory.

“So everything I thought I saw—that day with the van. That all happened for real. You caught the van.”

She shrugged. “Yes.”

“How strong are you?”

She glanced at me from the side of her eye. “Strong enough.”

“Like, could you lift five thousand pounds?”

She looked a little thrown by my enthusiasm. “If I needed to. But I’m not much into feats of strength. They just make Eleanor competitive, and I’ll never be that strong.”

“How strong?”

“Honestly, if she wanted to, I think she could lift a mountain over her head. But I would never say that around her, because then she would have to try.” She laughed, and it was a relaxed sound. Affectionate.

“Were you hunting this weekend, with, uh, Eleanor?” I asked when it was quiet again.

“Yes.” She paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say something. “I didn’t want to leave, but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you want to leave?”

“It makes me… anxious… to be away from you.” Her eyes were gentle, but intense, and they made it hard to breathe in and out like normal. “I wasn’t joking when I asked you to try not to fall in the ocean or get run over last Thursday. I was distracted all weekend, worrying about you. And after what happened tonight, I’m surprised that you did make it through a whole weekend unscathed.” She shook her head, and then seemed to remember something. “Well, not totally unscathed.”

“What?”

“Your hands,” she reminded me. I looked down at my palms, at the almost-healed scrapes across the heels of my hands. She didn’t miss anything.

“I fell.”

“That’s what I thought.” Her lips curved up at the corners. “I suppose, being you, it could have been much worse—and that was the possibility that tormented me the entire time I was away. It was a very long three days. I really got on Eleanor’s nerves.”

“Three days? Didn’t you just get back today?”

“No, we got back Sunday.”

“Then why weren’t you at school?” I was frustrated, almost angry as I thought of how much her absence had affected me.

“Well, you asked if the sun hurt me, and it doesn’t. But I can’t go out in the sunlight—at least, not where anyone can see.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you sometime,” she promised.

I thought about it for a moment. “You could have told me.”

She was puzzled. “But I knew you were fine.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know where you were. I—” I hesitated, dropping my eyes.

“What?” Her silky voice was as hypnotic as her eyes.

“It’s going to sound stupid… but, well, it kind of freaked me out. I thought you might not come back. That somehow you knew that I knew and… I was afraid you would disappear. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to see you again.” My cheeks started heating up.

She was quiet. I glanced up—she looked pained, like something was hurting her.

“Edythe, are you okay?”

“Ah,” she groaned quietly. “This is wrong.”

I couldn’t understand her response. “What did I say?”

“Don’t you see, Beau? It’s one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved.” She turned her anguished eyes to the road, her words flowing almost too fast for me to understand. “I don’t want to hear that you feel that way. It’s wrong. It’s not safe. I’ll hurt you, Beau. You’ll be lucky to get out alive.”

“I don’t care.”

“That’s a really stupid thing to say.”

“Maybe, but it’s true. I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you are. It’s too late.”