Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,232

so long that he understood better than anyone besides me how her talent worked.

“They heard us playing,” Alice told us; the strangers would reveal this information in the friendly version of events. “And it changed their path.”

Everyone stared at Bella.

“How soon?” Carlisle demanded, turning toward me.

It was not an easy distance for me to hear across. It helped that on a late, stormy night like this, the mountains around us were mostly empty of humans. It helped more that there were no other vampires in the area. Vampire minds were slightly more resonant; I could hear them from a greater distance, pinpoint them more easily. So I was able to locate them—aided by the landmarks I’d seen in Alice’s vision—but I could only catch the most dominant thoughts.

“Less than five minutes,” I told him. “They’re running—they want to play.”

His eyes flashed to Bella again. You have to get her away from here. “Can you make it?”

Alice focused on one strand of possibility for me. Trying to escape, Bella on my back.

Bella didn’t slow me down very much—it wasn’t the burden of her weight but the need to move carefully so as not to hurt her that impeded me—but I wouldn’t be quite fast enough. This strand tied into the other future I’d seen: us surrounded, outnumbered…

The strangers were not so enthusiastic about baseball as to be careless. Alice saw that they would come at the clearing from three different angles, surveilling, before regrouping to present a united front. If any of them heard me running, they would come to investigate.

I shook my head. “No, not carrying—”

Carlisle’s thoughts roiled in alarm.

“Besides,” I hissed, “the last thing we need is for them to catch the scent and start hunting.”

“How many?” Emmett demanded.

“Three,” Alice growled.

Emmett snorted. The sound was so at odds with the tension that I could only stare at him blankly.

“Three?” he scoffed. “Let them come.”

Carlisle was considering options, but I could already see there was only one. Emmett was right: There were enough of us that the strangers would have to be suicidal to start a fight.

“Let’s just continue the game,” Carlisle agreed, though I didn’t need to read minds to hear how unhappy he was with this decision. “Alice said they were simply curious.”

Alice started combing through all the possibilities for an encounter here in the clearing, the images more solid now that a decision had been made. It looked like the vast majority were peaceable, though they all began with tension. There were a few outliers on the spectrum of outcomes where something ignited a standoff, but those were less clear. Alice couldn’t see what would trigger the conflict—some decision yet to be made. She didn’t see any stable version that would result in physical combat here.

But there was so much she couldn’t interpret yet. I saw the blinding sunlight again, and neither of us could understand where she was seeing.

I knew Carlisle’s decision was the only decision, but I felt sick to my core. How could I have allowed this to happen?

“Edward,” Esme whispered. Are they thirsty? Are they hunting now?

Thirst wasn’t in their thoughts, and in Alice’s vision, every second more clear, their eyes were a satiated red.

I shook my head at her.

That’s something, at least. She was nearly as horrified as I was. Her thoughts were, like mine, snarled up in the idea of Bella’s being in danger. Though Esme was no fighter, I could hear how fierce this made her feel. She would defend Bella as if she were her own child.

“You catch, Esme,” I directed. “I’ll call it now.”

Esme took my place quickly, but her focus was locked on Bella’s position.

No one was eager to stray deep into the field. They hovered close, ears all trained toward the forest. Alice, like Esme, had no intention of moving away from Bella. Her protective thoughts were not exactly like Esme’s—not as maternal—but I could see that she, too, would shield Bella at any cost.

Despite the sick feeling consuming me, I could feel a rush of gratitude for their commitment.

“Take your hair down,” I murmured to Bella.

It wasn’t much of a disguise, but the most obviously human thing—besides her scent and her heartbeat—was her skin. The more of it we could hide…

She immediately pulled the band from her ponytail and shook her hair out, letting it fall around her face. It was clear she understood the need to hide.

“The others are coming now,” she stated. Her voice was quiet, but even.

“Yes,” I said. “Stay very still,