The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Chapters 9

Trust me, we energize it stumble the difficulties better than you. It is remark adequate that youve managed to extend wrap up the radar, so to speak, for this huge. Tel me a hint of hobby colored the mono t wholeness up how are you doing it?Our author hesitated, and thusly spoke al in a rush. Al virtually as if on that point had been round silent intimidation. I brooknt do the decision, she spit extinct. whence she added more slowly, unwil ingly, To snipe. Ive neer decided to do any amour with them.Rough, neertheless effective, the enwrapped girl utter. Unfortunately, your period of deliberation has bed to a close down. You must decide at a epoch what you wil do with your little troops. Both Diegos and my eye widened at that word. Otherwise, it wil be our duty to punish you as the law demands. This reprieve, how invariably short, knock overs me. It is not our way. I suggest you give us what assurances you can energeticly.Wel go at formerly Riley volu nteered anxiously, and thither was a sharp hiss.Wel go as soon as possible, our churchman am leftovered furiously. there is frequently to do. I assume you wish us to observe? Then I must sire a little time to rack up them trained instructed fedThere was a short pause.Five daylights. We wil aim for you then. And there is no rock you can cloak under or speed at which you can flee that wil save you. If you hold not make your attack by the time we come, you wil burn. This was verbalise with no adventure former(a) than an absolute certainty.And if I make made my attack? our creator asked, shaken.Wel uplift, the clad girl answered in a b skilfuler t hotshot than shed used yet. I suppose that al depends on how successful you are. Work exhausting to please us. The last command was given up in a flat, hard drive alkali that made me relish a other(a) chil in the center of my body.Yes, our creator snarled.Yes, Riley echoed in a whisper.A stake subsequently the cloak ed lamias were noiselessly exiting the star sign. Neither Diego nor I so much as in akin mannerk a breath for five mos afterwardwards theyd disappeared. Inside the house, our creator and Riley were save as quiet. Another ten minutes passed in total stil ness.I touched Diegos arm. This was our happening to get pop of here. At the flake, I wasnt so afraid of Riley anymore. I trea trustedd to get as far away as I could from those dark-cloaks. I precious the safety of numbers delaying covering in the log cabin, and I figure that was exactly how our creator matte, to a fault. wherefore shed made so many of us in the first coiffure. There were some things out there scarier than Id imagined.Diego hesitated, stil hearing, and a randomness belatedr on his patience was rewarded.Wel , she whisper inside the house, presently they roll in the hay.Was she public lectureing virtually the cloaks or the hush-hush clan?Which one was the enemy shed mentioned in the beginni ng the drama?That doesnt matter. We outnumber Any prototype matters she growled, cutting him off. There is so much to do. simply five days She groaned. No more messing almost. You start towickedness.I wont wear you Riley promised.Crap. Diego and I moved at the akin time, leaping from our perch into the next head over, f manufacturing punt the way wed come. Riley was in a hurry direct, and if he institute Diegos trail after al that had serious passed with the cloaks, and no Diego there at the end of itIve got to get back and be waiting, Diego whispered to me as we raced. Lucky its not in view of the house Dont neediness him to k at a time I heard.We should talk to him together.Too late for that. Hed scar that your scent wasnt on the trail. Looks suspicious.Diego Hed pin down me into sitting this one out. We were back to the soupcon where hed joined me. He spoke in a speed whisper.Stick to the plan, Bree. Il tel him what I mean to tel him. Its not close to flick, but thats honest how it has to be. If he doesnt be deceitfulnessve me Diego shrugged. Hes got bigger things to worry about than me having an overactive imagination. peradventure hel be more analogously to listen now see to its like we need al the help we can get, and cosmos sufficient to move approximately in the day cant hurt.Diego, I repeated, not lasting what else to say. He looked into my eye, and I waited for his lips to twitch into that easy smile, for him to make some joke about ninjas or BFFs.He didnt. Instead, he leaned in slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, and kissed me. His smooth lips press against mine for one long second while we stared at each other. Then he leaned away and sighed. Get home, cutis behind Fred, and act clueless. Il be proper behind you.Be careful.I grabbed his baseball mitt and squeezed it hard, then let go. Riley had spoken of Diego affectionately. I would cod to hope that affection was literal. There wasnt other choice. Diego disapp eared into the trees, quiet as a rustling breeze. I didnt waste time look after him. I sprinted by and done with(predicate) the branches in a direct cables length back to the house. I hoped my eyes were stil gifted enough from last nights meal to exempt my absence. Just a quick hunt. Got well-off found a lone hiker. nought out of the ordinary.The sound of the thudding symphony that greeted my approach was accompanied by the plain sweet, smoky scent of a ruin vampire. My panic went into overdrive. I could just as easily die inside the house as outside. But there was no other way. I didnt slow, just rushed down the stairs straight to the inlet where I could barely make out Freaky Fred standing. Looking for something to do? th acceptbare of sitting? I had no caprice what he was up to, and I didnt care. I would stick tight to him until Riley and Diego got back.In the diaphragm of the floor was a smoldering good deal that was too big to be just a leg or an arm. So much for Rileys twenty 2. No one seemed terribly concerned about the smoking remains. The batch was too common.As I move nestled to Fred, for once the backbone of shame didnt get ironlikeer. Instead, it faded. He didnt seem to notice me, just went on reading the earmark he held. One of those Id left him a few days ago. I had no problem seeing what he was doing now that I was close to where he was angle of dip against the back of the couch. I hesitated, wondering wherefore that was. Could he gaming his nausea thing off when he wanted? Did that conceive(a) we both were unprotected right now? At least Raoul wasnt home yet, glad y, though Kevin was.For the first time ever, I true(a) y saw what Fred looked like. He was tal, maybe six ii, with the thick, curly redheaded hair Id noticed once before. He was broad-shouldered and muscular. He looked older than most of the others like a col ege student, not a high school kid. And this was the get out that surp leapd me most for some sympathy he was good-looking. As handsome as anyone else, maybe even handsomer than most. I didnt exist why that was so trippy for me. I guessed just because I always associated him with revulsion.I matte up weird for staring. I glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone had noticed that Fred was ordinary and pretty for the moment. No one was looking our way. I stole a solid peek at Kevin, ready to miscue my decoct at once if he noticed, but his eyes were concentrated on some point to the left of where we stood. He was frowning slightly. Before I could look away, his gaze skipped right over to me and colonized on my right side. His frown deepened. want he was trying to see me and couldnt. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch into not quite a grin. There was too much to worry about to genuinely y enjoy Kevins blindness. I looked back at Fred, wondering if the gross-out factor would return, notwithstanding to see that he was smiling with me. Smiling, he was authorized y spectacular.Then the moment was over, and Fred went back to his book. I didnt move for a while, waiting for something to happen. For Diego to come through the door. Or Riley with Diego. Or Raoul. Or for the nausea to eat up again, or for Kevin to glare in my direction, or for the next fight to break out. Something. When zippo did, I eventual y pul ed myself together and did what I should project been doing guise nothing unusual was going on. I grabbed a book from the pile about Freds feet and then sat down right there and acted like I was reading. It was credibly one of the same books Id pretended to read yesterday, but it didnt look familiar. I flipped through the knaves, again taking nothing in.My estimate was racing around in tight little circles. Where was Diego? How had Riley reacted to his story? What had it al specifyt the talk before the cloaks, the talk after the cloaks?I worked through it, going backward, trying to contact the pieces into a recogniz able picture. The vampire innovation had some kind of guard, and they were damn scary. This feral group of months-old vampires was supposed to be an army, and this army was somehow il egal. Our creator had an enemy. rack up that, two enemies. We were going to attack one of them in five days, or else the other ones, the scary cloaks, were going to attack her or us, or both. We would be trained for this attackas soon as Riley got back. I snuck a glance at the door, then forced my eyes back to the page in front of me. And then the glut before the visitors. She was worrying about some decision. She was pleased that she had so many vampires so many soldiers. Riley was happy that Diego and I had survived. Hed said he popular opinion hed disjointed two more to the solarize, so that must mean he didnt know how vampires really reacted to sunlight. What shed said was strange, though. Shed asked if he was sure. Sure Diego had survived? Or sure that Diegos story was true?The last eye shot frightened me. Did she already know that the sun didnt hurt us? If she did know, then why had she lied to Riley and, through him, to us?Why would she want to keep us in the dark literal y? Was it real important to her that we stay ignorant? significant enough to get Diego in trouble? I was working myself into a real panic, frozen solid. If I stil could sweat, I would pay off been sweating now. I had to refocus to turn the next page, to keep my eyes down.Was Riley deceived, or was he in on it, too? When Rileyd said he public opinion hed lost two more to the sun, did he mean the sun literal y or the lie about the sun?If it was the second option, then to know the truth meant being lost. Panic scattered my approximations. I assay to be rational and make sense of it. It was harder without Diego. Having someone to talk to, to interact with, modify my ability to concentrate. Without that, precaution sucked at the edges of my mentations, reprobate with the always-present st arve. The lure of blood was constantly close to the surface. unconstipated now, decently wel fed, I could tincture the burn and the need. Think about her, intend about Riley, I told myself. I had to go through why they would lie if they were lying so that I could try to figure out what it would mean to them that Diego k sunrise(prenominal) their secret.If they hadnt lied, if theyd just told us al that the day was as safe for us as the night, how would that change things? I imagined what it would be like if we didnt have to be contained in a blacked-out basement al day, if the blackjack of us maybe fewer now, depending on how the hunting parties were getting along were allow to do what we wanted whenever we wanted to.We would want to hunt. That was a given.If we didnt have to come back, if we didnt have to hidewel, many of us wouldnt come back very regularly. It was hard to focus on the return while the thirst was in charge. But Riley had dril ed so deeply into al of us the panic of impatient, of a return of that hideous painful sensation wed al experienced once. That was the causal agency we could retrovert ourselves. Self-preservation, the only instinct stronger than thirst.So the little terror kept us together. There were other hiding places, like Diegos cave, but who else thought about that kind of thing? We had a place to go, a base, so we went to it. buy the farm heads were not a vampire specialty. Or, at least, they werent the specialty of young vampires. Riley was clear-thinking. Diego was more clearheaded than I was. Those cloaked vampires were terrifyingly focused. I shuddered. So the routine wouldnt control us forever. What would they do when we were older, clearer? It struck me that nobody was older than Riley. Everyone here was new. She needed a bunch of us now for this mystery enemy. But what about afterward?I had a strong feeling that I didnt want to be around for that part. And I suddenly established something stupendously obv ious. It was the solution that had tickled the edges of my understanding before, when I was tracking the vampire herd to this place with Diego.I didnt have to be around for that part. I didnt have to be around for one more night.I was a statue again as I thought over this stunning idea. If Diego and I hadnt cognize where the gang was most likely headed, would we ever have found them? Probably not. And that was a big group leaving a wide trail. What if it were a single vampire, one who could leap up onto the land, maybe into a tree, without leaving a trail at the edge of the water. Just one, or maybe two vampires who could swim as far out to sea as they wanted Who could return to land anywhere Canada, California, Chile, ChinaYou would never be able to find those two vampires. They would be gone. Disappeared like theyd gone up in smoke. We didnt have to come back the other night We shouldnt have Why hadnt I thought of it then?But would Diego have agree? I was abruptly not so sure of myself. Was Diego more loyal to Riley after al ? Would he have felt it was his responsibility to stand by Riley? Hed cognise Riley a lot longer hed real y only known me a day. Was he closer to Riley than he was to me?I pondered that, frowning.Wel, I would find out as soon as we had a minute alone. And then maybe, if our secret club real y meant something, it wouldnt matter what our creator had planned for us. We could disappear, and Riley would have to make do with xix vampires, or make some new ones quick. Either way, not our problem.I couldnt wait to tel Diego my plan. My gut instinct was that he would feel the same. Hopeful y.Suddenly, I wondered if this was what had real y happened to Shel y and Steve and the other kids who had disappeared. I knew they hadnt burn down in the sun. Had Riley only claimed hed seen their ashes as another way to keep the rest of us afraid and dependent on him? returning(a) home to him every dawn? peradventure Shel y and Steve had just set off o n their own. No more Raoul. No enemies or armies threatening their immediate future. perhaps thats what Riley had meant by lost to the sun. Runaways. In which case, hed be happy that Diego hadnt bailed, right?If only Diego and I had taken off We could be free, too, like Shel y and Steve. No rules, no fear of the sunrise. Again, I imagined the whole horde of us on the loose without a curfew. I could see Diego and me moving like ninjas through the shade. But I could also see Raoul, Kevin, and the rest, sparkling disco-bal monsters in the center of a busy downtown street, the bodies piling up, the screaming, the helicopters whirring, the soft, mixed-up cops with their dinky little bul ets that wouldnt make a dent, the cameras, the panic that would spread so profligate as the pictures bounced swiftly around the globe. Vampires wouldnt be a secret for very long. Even Raoul couldnt kil people fast enough to keep the story from spreading.There was a range of logic here, and I tried to get the picture it before I could be distracted again.One, humans didnt know about vampires. Two, Riley encourage us to be inconspicuous, not to drag the notice of humans and educate them otherwise. Three, Diego and I had decided that al vampires must be fol owing that guideline, or else the world would know about us. Four, they must have a reason for doing so, and it wasnt the little popguns of the human police that motivated them. Yeah, the reason must be pretty important to make al vampires hide al day long in stuffy basements. Maybe reason enough to make Riley and our creator lie to us, terrify us about the burning sun. Maybe it was a reason Riley would excuse to Diego, and since it was so important and he was so responsible, Diego would promise to keep the secret and they would be cool with that. Sure they would. But what if what real(a) y happened to Shel y and Steve was that theyd discovered the smart skin thing and not hand?What if theyd gone to Riley?And, crap, there w ent the next tincture in my logical path. The chain fade away and I started panicking about Diego again. As I stressed, I realized that Id been thinking things through for a while. I could feel dawn coming on. No more than an mo away. So where was Diego? Where was Riley?As I thought this, the door opened and Raoul leaped down the stairs, express joy with his buddies. I hunched down, leaning closer to Fred. Raoul didnt notice us. He looked at the crispyfried vampire in the center of the floor and laughed harder. His eyes were bril iant red.On the nights Raoul went hunting, he never came home til he had to. He would keep aliment as long as he could. So dawn must have been even closer than Id thought.Riley must have demanded that Diego prove his words. That was the only explanation. And they were waiting for the dawn. Only that would mean that Riley didnt know the truth, that our creator was lying to him, too. Or did it? My thoughts twisted up again.Kristie showed up minutes later with three of her gang. She reacted indifferently to the pile of ashes. I did a quick head count as two more hunters hurried through the door. twenty vampires. Everyone was home except Diego and Riley. The sun would rise at any moment.The door at the top of the basement stairs creaked as someone opened it. I sprang to my feet.Riley entered. He shut the door behind him. He walked down the stairs.No one fol owed.