Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,92

think. He told me one…”

She stopped short, but there was no need for her qualms now. I knew what she was going to say. The only mystery left was why she was here with me now.

“Go on,” I said.

“About vampires,” she breathed, the words less than a whisper.

Somehow, it was even worse than knowing that she knew, hearing her speak the word aloud. I flinched at the sound of it, and then controlled myself again.

“And you immediately thought of me?” I asked.

“No. He… mentioned your family.”

How ironic that it would be Ephraim’s own progeny that would violate the treaty he’d vowed to uphold. A grandson, or great-grandson perhaps. How many years had it been? Seventy?

I should have realized that it was not the old men who believed in the legends that would be the danger. Of course, the younger generation—those who had been warned but would think the ancient superstitions laughable—that was where the danger of exposure lay.

I supposed this meant I was now free to slaughter the small, defenseless tribe on the coastline, were I so inclined. Ephraim and his pack of protectors were long dead.

“He just thought it was a silly superstition,” Bella said suddenly, her voice edged with a new anxiety, almost as if she could read my thoughts. “He didn’t expect me to think anything of it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hands twist uneasily.

“It was my fault,” she said after a brief pause, and then she hung her head as if she was ashamed. “I forced him to tell me.”

“Why?” It wasn’t so hard to keep my voice level now. The worst was already done. As long as we spoke of the details of the revelation, we didn’t have to move on to the consequences of it.

“Lauren said something about you—she was trying to provoke me.” She made a little face at the memory. I was slightly distracted, wondering how Bella would be provoked by someone talking about me. “And an older boy from the tribe said your family didn’t come to the reservation, only it sounded like he meant something different. So I got Jacob alone and I tricked it out of him.”

Her head dropped even lower as she admitted this, and her expression looked… guilty.

I looked away from her and laughed out loud; it was a hard-edged sound. She felt guilty? What could she possibly have done to deserve censure of any kind?

“Tricked him how?” I asked.

“I tried to flirt—it worked better than I thought it would,” she explained, and her voice turned incredulous at the memory of that success.

I could just imagine—considering the attraction she seemed to hold for all things male, totally unconscious on her part—how overwhelming she would be when she tried to be attractive. I was suddenly full of pity for the unsuspecting boy she’d unleashed such a potent force on.

“I’d like to have seen that,” I said, and then I laughed again with dark humor. I wished I could have heard the boy’s reaction, witnessed the devastation for myself. “And you accused me of dazzling people—poor Jacob Black.”

I wasn’t as angry with the source of my exposure as I would have expected to feel. He didn’t know better. And how could I expect anyone to deny this girl what she wanted? No, I only felt sympathy for the damage she would have done to his peace of mind.

I felt her blush heat the air between us. I glanced at her, and she was staring out her window. She didn’t speak again.

“What did you do then?” I prompted. Time to get back to the horror story.

“I did some research on the internet.”

Ever practical. “And did that convince you?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing fit. Most of it was kind of silly. And then—”

She broke off again, and I heard her teeth lock together.

“What?” I demanded. What had she found? What had made sense of the nightmare for her?

There was a short pause, and then she whispered, “I decided it didn’t matter.”

Shock froze my thoughts for a half second, and then it all fit together. Why she’d sent her friends away tonight rather than escape with them. Why she had gotten into my car with me again instead of running, screaming for the police.

Her reactions were always wrong—always completely wrong. She pulled danger toward herself. She invited it.

“It didn’t matter?” I said through my teeth, anger filling me. How was I supposed to protect someone so… so… so determined to be unprotected?

“No,” she said in a low voice