Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,245

could arrive.

“He’s not here,” I told Emmett. Alice already knew. “Let’s go.”

Alice and I slid silently from the Jeep, minds ranging through distance and time. Alice saw the tracker showing up while we were still inside. The sound of my teeth grinding seemed extra loud.

“Don’t worry, Bella,” Emmett was saying—in a voice I found much too upbeat—while he loosed her from the harness. “We’ll take care of things here quickly.”

“Alice,” I hissed.

She darted to the truck, then dropped to the ground and slid under the running boards. In a fraction of a second, she’d pulled herself against the undercarriage, totally invisible, even to a vampire.

“Emmett.”

He was already moving, scaling the tree in the front yard. His weight bent the pine noticeably, but he moved on quickly to the next tree over. He would keep moving while we were inside. This was a lot more obvious than Alice’s hidden spot, but he’d see anything coming and would be a solid deterrent, if nothing else.

Bella waited for me to open her door. She looked frozen in place with terror, the only movement the slow crawl of tears down her cheeks. She came to life when I reached for her, letting me help her gently from the car. I was surprised by how difficult it was to touch her now, knowing that I was going to leave her. The heat of her skin burned in a new, painful way. Ignoring this unfamiliar ache, I wrapped my arm around her, hoping my body would shield her, and hurried her to the house.

“Fifteen minutes,” I reminded her. It was too much time. I longed to be far away from this targeted place.

“I can do this,” she replied in a stronger voice than I expected. There was steel in the set of her jaw.

As we gained the porch, she pulled back against my forward progress. I stopped automatically, though my muscles screamed at the delay.

Her dark eyes were intense as she stared into mine. She reached up to press her palms against either side of my face.

“I love you,” she said, her voice a whisper that strained like a scream. “I will always love you, no matter what happens now.”

The pit in my stomach yawned open as if it would rip me in half. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella,” I snarled.

“Just follow the plan, okay?” she insisted. “Keep Charlie safe for me. He’s not going to like me very much after this, and I want to have the chance to apologize later.”

I didn’t know what she meant. My brain was too chaotic with panic to try to decipher her obscure thought processes now.

“Get inside, Bella,” I urged. “We have to hurry.”

“One more thing—don’t listen to another word I say tonight!”

Before I could make any progress in understanding either cryptic request, Bella pushed up onto her toes and crushed her lips against mine with what might be bruising force—for her. More force than I would have ever dared to use with her myself.

Red washed across her cheeks and forehead as she spun away from me. Her tears, which had slowed for our brief and incomprehensible conversation, were flowing freely. I couldn’t fathom why she was raising one leg until she kicked violently against the front door—it flew open.

“Go away, Edward!” she screeched at top volume. Even over the sound of the TV, there was no way Charlie would miss a word.

She slammed the door shut in my face.

“Bella?” Charlie called out, alarmed.

“Leave me alone!” she shrieked back. I heard her footsteps pound up the stairs, and another slamming door.

Obviously her frozen silence in the Jeep had not been terrified petrification, but rather preparation. She had a script. My role was to be invisible and silent, I guessed.

Charlie ran up the stairs after her, his footsteps lurching and unsteady. I imagined he was only halfway awake.

I scaled the side of the house, waiting beside her window to see if Charlie would follow her into the room. I couldn’t see Bella at first, which caused me a spasm of fresh panic, but then she was climbing to her feet beside her bed holding a duffel bag and some kind of small knitted sack.

Charlie’s fist hammered against her door. The doorknob rattled—she’d taken the time to lock it—and then the hammering started up again.

“Bella, are you okay? What’s going on?”

I slid the window open and ducked inside while Bella yelled, “I’m going home!” in response.

“Did he hurt you?” Charlie demanded through the door, and I winced while