Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,91

anxious to get it over with. Each passing second was beginning to feel more and more like borrowed time. “Which brings us back to you.”

She sighed, still chewing her lip—I worried that she would hurt herself. She stared into my eyes, her face troubled.

“Aren’t we past all the evasions now?” I asked quietly.

She looked down, struggling with some internal dilemma. Suddenly, she stiffened and her eyes flew wide open. Fear flashed across her face for the first time.

“Holy crow!” she gasped.

I panicked. What had she seen? How had I frightened her?

Then she shouted, “Slow down!”

“What’s wrong?” I didn’t understand where her terror was coming from.

“You’re going a hundred miles an hour!” she yelled at me. She flashed a look out the window, and recoiled from the dark trees racing past us.

This little thing, just a bit of speed, had her shouting in fear?

I rolled my eyes. “Relax, Bella.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” she demanded, her voice high and tight.

“We’re not going to crash,” I promised her.

She sucked in a sharp breath, and then spoke in a slightly more level tone. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I always drive like this.”

I met her gaze, amused by her shocked expression.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” she shouted.

“I’ve never been in an accident, Bella. I’ve never even gotten a ticket.” I grinned at her and touched my forehead. It made it even more comical—the absurdity of being able to joke with her about something so secret and strange. “Built-in radar detector.”

“Very funny,” she said sarcastically, her voice still more frightened than angry. “Charlie’s a cop, remember? I was raised to abide by traffic laws. Besides, if you turn us into a Volvo pretzel around a tree trunk, you can probably just walk away.”

“Probably,” I repeated, and then laughed without humor. Yes, we would fare quite differently in a car accident. She was right to be afraid, despite my driving abilities. “But you can’t.”

With a sigh, I let the car drift to a crawl. “Happy?”

She eyed the speedometer. “Almost.”

Was this still too fast for her? “I hate driving slow,” I muttered, but let the needle slide down another notch.

“This is slow?” she asked.

“Enough commentary on my driving,” I said impatiently. How many times had she dodged my question now? Three times? Four? Were her speculations that horrific? I had to know—immediately. “I’m still waiting for your latest theory.”

She bit her lip again, and her expression became upset, almost pained.

I reined in my impatience and softened my voice. I didn’t want her to be distressed.

“I won’t laugh,” I promised, wishing that it were only embarrassment that made her unwilling to talk.

“I’m more afraid that you’ll be angry with me,” she whispered.

I forced my voice to stay even. “Is it that bad?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

She looked down, refusing to meet my eyes. The seconds passed.

“Go ahead,” I encouraged.

Her voice was small. “I don’t know how to start.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” I remembered her words before dinner. “You said you didn’t come up with this on your own.”

“No,” she agreed, and then was silent again.

I thought about things that might have inspired her. “What got you started—a book? A movie?”

I should have looked through her collections when she was out of the house. I had no idea if Bram Stoker or Anne Rice was there in her stack of worn paperbacks.

“No,” she said again. “It was Saturday, at the beach.”

I hadn’t expected that. The local gossip about us had never strayed into anything too bizarre—or too precise. Was there a new rumor I’d missed? Bella peeked up from her hands and saw the surprise on my face.

“I ran into an old family friend—Jacob Black,” she went on. “His dad and Charlie have been friends since I was a baby.”

Jacob Black—the name was not familiar, and yet it reminded me of something… some time, long ago.… I stared out the windshield, flipping through memories to find the connection.

“His dad is one of the Quileute elders,” she said.

Jacob Black. Ephraim Black. A descendant, no doubt.

It was as bad as it could get.

She knew the truth.

My mind was flying through the ramifications as the car flew around the dark curves in the road, my body rigid with anguish—motionless except for the small, automatic actions it took to steer.

She knew the truth.

But… if she’d learned the truth Saturday… then she’d known it all evening long, and yet…

“We went for a walk,” she went on. “And he was telling me about some old legends—trying to scare me, I