Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,6

bring anyone running.

I took a deep breath, and the scent was a fire that raced through my dry veins, burning out from my chest to consume every better impulse that I was capable of.

She was just turning now. In a few seconds, she would sit down inches away from me.

The monster in my head exulted.

Someone slammed shut a folder on my left. I didn’t look up to see which of the doomed humans it was, but the motion sent a wave of ordinary, unscented air wafting across my face.

For one short second, I was able to think clearly. In that precious instant, I saw two faces in my head, side by side.

One was mine, or rather had been: the red-eyed monster that had killed so many people that I’d stopped counting. Rationalized, justified murders. I had been a killer of killers, a killer of other, less powerful monsters. It was a god complex, I acknowledged that—deciding who deserved a death sentence. It was a compromise with myself. I had fed on human blood, but only by the loosest definition. My victims were, in their various dark pastimes, barely more human than I was.

The other face was Carlisle’s.

There was no resemblance between the two faces. They were bright day and blackest night.

There was no reason for a resemblance to exist. Carlisle was not my father in the basic biological sense. We shared no common features. The similarity in our coloring was a product of what we were; every vampire was corpse-pale. The similarity in the color of our eyes was another matter—a reflection of a mutual choice.

And yet, though there was no basis for a resemblance, I’d imagined that my face had begun to reflect his, to an extent, in the last seventy-odd years that I had embraced his choice and followed in his steps. My features had not changed, but it seemed to me as though some of his wisdom had marked my expression, a little of his compassion could be traced in the set of my mouth, and hints of his patience were evident on my brow.

All those tiny improvements were lost in the monster’s face. In a few moments, there would be nothing left in me that would reflect the years I’d spent with my creator, my mentor, my father in all the ways that counted. My eyes would glow red as a devil’s; all likeness would be lost forever.

In my head, Carlisle’s kind eyes did not judge me. I knew that he would forgive me for this horrible act. Because he loved me. Because he thought I was better than I was.

Bella Swan sat down in the chair next to me, her movements stiff and awkward—no doubt with fear—and the scent of her blood bloomed in an inescapable cloud around me.

I would prove my father wrong about me. The misery of this fact hurt almost as much as the fire in my throat.

I leaned away from her in revulsion—disgusted by the monster aching to take her.

Why did she have to come here? Why did she have to exist? Why did she have to ruin the little peace I had in this nonlife of mine? Why had this aggravating human ever been born? She would ruin me.

I turned my face away from her as a sudden fierce, irrational hatred washed through me.

I didn’t want to be the monster! I didn’t want to kill this roomful of harmless children! I didn’t want to lose everything I’d gained in a lifetime of sacrifice and denial!

I wouldn’t.

She couldn’t make me.

The scent was the problem, the hideously appealing scent of her blood. If there was only some way to resist… if only another gust of fresh air could clear my head.

Bella Swan shook out her long, thick mahogany hair in my direction.

Was she insane?

No, there was no helpful breeze. But I didn’t have to breathe.

I stopped the flow of air through my lungs. The relief was instantaneous, but incomplete. I still had the memory of the scent in my head, the taste of it on the back of my tongue. I wouldn’t be able to resist even that for long.

Every life in this room was in danger while she and I were in it together. I should run. I wanted to run, to get away from the heat of her next to me, and the punishing pain of the burning, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that if I unlocked my muscles to move, even just to stand, I wouldn’t lash