“It’s not my favorite word, either.” Her face had warmed up a little; she looked human again. “Not saying it doesn’t make it go away, though. Sometimes… I think not saying it makes it more powerful.”

I wondered if she was right.

“Vampire?” I whispered.

She flinched.

Nope. Saying it out loud didn’t make it any less powerful.

Funny how it didn’t sound stupid anymore, like it had in my room. It didn’t feel like we were talking about impossible things, about old legends or silly horror movies or paperback books. It felt real.

And very powerful.

We drove in silence for another minute, and the word vampire seemed to get bigger and bigger inside the car. It didn’t feel like it belonged to her, really, but more like it had the power to hurt her. I tried to think of something, anything to say to erase the sound of it.

Before I could come up with anything, she spoke.

“What did you do then?”

“Oh—um, I did some research on the Internet.”

“And that convinced you?” She was very matter-of-fact now.

“No. Nothing fit. Lots of it was really stupid. But I just—”

I stopped abruptly. She waited, then stared at me when I didn’t finish.

“You what?” she pushed.

“Well, I mean, it doesn’t matter, right? So I just let it go.”

Her eyes grew wider and wider, and then suddenly they were narrowed into little slits, glaring at me. I didn’t want to point out to her again that she should probably be watching where she was going, but her speed had crept up to past ninety-five now, and she seemed totally unaware of the twisting road ahead of us.

“Um, Edythe—”

“It doesn’t matter?” she half-shouted at me, her voice going shrill and almost… metallic. “It doesn’t matter?”

“No. Not to me, anyway.”

“You don’t care if I’m a monster? If I’m not human?”

“No.”

Finally she stared at the road again, her eyes still long slashes of anger across her face. I could feel the car accelerating under me.

“You’re upset. See, I shouldn’t have said anything,” I mumbled.

She shook her head, then answered through her teeth. “No, I’d rather know what you’re thinking, even if what you’re thinking is insane.”

“Sorry.”

She blew out an exasperated sigh, and then it was quiet again for a few minutes. I stroked my thumb slowly up and down her hand.

“What are you thinking about now?” she asked. Her voice was calmer.

“Um… nothing, really.”

“It drives me crazy, not knowing.”

“I don’t want to… I don’t know, offend you.”

“Spit it out, Beau.”

“I have lots of questions. But you don’t have to answer them. I’m just curious.”

“About what?”

“How old you are.”

“Seventeen.”

I stared at her for a minute, till half her mouth twitched up into a smile.

“How long have you been seventeen?” I asked.

“A while,” she admitted.

I smiled. “Okay.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

This was better, though. Easier, with her just being herself, not worrying about keeping me in the dark. I liked being on the inside. Her world was where I wanted to be.

“Don’t laugh—but how do you come outside in the daytime?”

She laughed anyway. “Myth.”

The sound of her laughter was warm. It made me feel like I had swallowed a bunch of sunlight. My smile got bigger.

“Burned by the sun?”

“Myth.”

“Sleeping in coffins?”

“Myth.” She hesitated for a moment, and then added softly, “I can’t sleep.”

It took me a minute to absorb that. “At all?”

“Never,” she murmured. She turned to look at me with a wistful expression. I held her gaze, my eyes getting trapped in her golden stare. After a few seconds, I’d completely lost my train of thought.

Suddenly she turned away, her eyes narrowing again. “You haven’t asked me the most important question yet.”

“The most important question?” I echoed. I couldn’t think of what she meant.

“Aren’t you curious about my diet?” she asked, her tone mocking.

“Oh. That one.”

“Yes. That one,” she said bleakly. “Don’t you want to know if I drink blood?”

I winced. “Well, Jules said something about that.”

“Did she now?”

“She said you didn’t… hunt people. Your family wasn’t supposed to be dangerous because you only hunted animals.”

“She said we weren’t dangerous?” Her voice was deeply skeptical.

“Not exactly. Jules said you weren’t supposed to be dangerous. But the Quileutes still didn’t want you on their land, just in case.”

She looked forward, but I couldn’t tell if she was watching the road or not.

“So, was she right? About not hunting people?” I tried to keep my voice as even as possible.

“The Quileutes have a long memory,” she whispered.

I took that as a confirmation.

“Don’t let that make you complacent, though,” she warned me. “They’re right to keep their distance from us. We are still dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We… try,” she explained. Her voice got heavier and slower. “We’re usually very good at what we do. Sometimes we make… mistakes. Me, for example, allowing myself to be alone with you.”

“This is a mistake?” I heard the hurt in my voice, but I didn’t know if she could, too.

“A very dangerous one,” she murmured.

We were both silent then. I watched the headlights twist with the curves of the road. They moved too fast; it didn’t look real, it looked like a video game. I was aware of the time slipping away so quickly, like the black road underneath us, and I was suddenly terrified that I would never have another chance to be with her like this again—openly, the walls between us gone for once. What she was saying kind of sounded like… goodbye. My hand tightened over hers. I couldn’t waste one minute I had with her.

“Tell me more.” I didn’t really care what she said, I just wanted to listen to her voice.

She looked at me quickly, seeming startled by the change in my tone. “What more do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you hunt animals instead of people,” I said. It was the first question I could think of. My voice sounded thick. I double-blinked the extra moisture from my eyes.

Her answer was very low. “I don’t want to be a monster.”

“But animals aren’t enough?”

She paused. “I can’t be sure, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger—or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” Her tone darkened. “Sometimes it’s more difficult than others.”

“Is it very difficult for you now?” I asked.

She sighed. “Yes.”

“But you’re not hungry now,” I said—stating, not asking.

“Why do you think that?”

“Your eyes. I have a theory about that. Seems like the color is linked to your mood—and people are generally crabbier when they’re hungry, right?”

She laughed. “You’re more observant than I gave you credit for.”

I listened to the sound of her laugh, committing it to memory.

“So everything I thought I saw—that day with the van. That all happened for real. You caught the van.”

She shrugged. “Yes.”

“How strong are you?”

She glanced at me from the side of her eye. “Strong enough.”

“Like, could you lift five thousand pounds?”

She looked a little thrown by my enthusiasm. “If I needed to. But I’m not much into feats of strength. They just make Eleanor competitive, and I’ll never be that strong.”

“How strong?”

“Honestly, if she wanted to, I think she could lift a mountain over her head. But I would never say that around her, because then she would have to try.” She laughed, and it was a relaxed sound. Affectionate.

“Were you hunting this weekend, with, uh, Eleanor?” I asked when it was quiet again.

“Yes.” She paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to say something. “I didn’t want to leave, but it was necessary. It’s a bit easier to be around you when I’m not thirsty.”