"True," he agreed, and frowned.
Edward drove around the house to the garage. Emmett and Rosalie were there, Rosalie's perfect legs, recognizable even sheathed in jeans, were sticking out from under the bottom of Emmett's huge Jeep. Emmett was sitting beside her, one hand reached under the Jeep toward her. It took me a moment to realize that he was acting as the jack.
Emmett watched curiously as Edward helped me carefully out of the car. His eyes zeroed in on the hand I cradled against my chest.
Emmett grinned. "Fall down again, Bella?"
I glared at him fiercely. "No, Emmett. I punched a werewolf in the face."
Emmett blinked, and then burst into a roar of laughter.
As Edward led me past them, Rosalie spoke from under the car.
"Jasper's going to win the bet," she said smugly.
Emmett's laughter stopped at once, and he studied me with appraising eyes.
"What bet?" I demanded, pausing.
"Let's get you to Carlisle," Edward urged. He was staring at Emmett. His head shook infinitesimally.
"What bet?" I insisted as I turned on him.
"Thanks, Rosalie," he muttered as he tightened his arm around my waist and pulled me toward the house.
"Edward . . . ," I grumbled.
"It's infantile," he shrugged. "Emmett and Jasper like to gamble."
"Emmett will tell me." I tried to turn, but his arm was like iron around me.
He sighed. "They're betting on how many times you . . . slip up in the first year."
"Oh." I grimaced, trying to hide my sudden horror as I realized what he meant. "They have a bet about how many people I'll kill?"
"Yes," he admitted unwillingly. "Rosalie thinks your temper will turn the odds in Jasper's favor."
I felt a little high. "Jasper's betting high."
"It will make him feel better if you have a hard time adjusting. He's tired of being the weakest link."
"Sure. Of course it will. I guess I could throw in a few extra homicides, if it makes Jasper happy. Why not?" I was babbling, my voice a blank monotone. In my head, I was seeing newspaper headlines, lists of names. . . .
He squeezed me. "You don't need to worry about it now. In fact, you don't have to worry about it ever, if you don't want to."
I groaned, and Edward, thinking it was the pain in my hand that bothered me, pulled me faster toward the house.
My hand was broken, but there wasn't any serious damage, just a tiny fissure in one knuckle. I didn't want a cast, and Carlisle said I'd be fine in a brace if I promised to keep it on. I promised.
Edward could tell I was out of it as Carlisle worked to fit a brace carefully to my hand. He worried aloud a few times that I was in pain, but I assured him that that wasn't it.
As if I needed - or even had room for - one more thing to worry about.
All of Jasper's stories about newly created vampires had been percolating in my head since he'd explained his past. Now those stories jumped into sharp focus with the news of his and Emmett's wager. I wondered randomly what they were betting. What was a motivating prize when you had everything?
I'd always known that I would be different. I hoped that I would be as strong as Edward said I would be. Strong and fast and, most of all, beautiful. Someone who could stand next to Edward and feel like she belonged there.
I'd been trying not to think too much about the other things that I would be. Wild. Bloodthirsty. Maybe I would not be able to stop myself from killing people. Strangers, people who had never harmed me. People like the growing number of victims in Seattle, who'd had families and friends and futures. People who'd had lives. And I could be the monster who took that away from them.
But, in truth, I could handle that part - because I trusted Edward, trusted him absolutely, to keep me from doing anything I would regret. I knew he'd take me to Antarctica and hunt penguins if I asked him to. And I would do whatever it took to be a good person. A good vampire. That thought would have made me giggle, if not for this new worry.
Because, if I really were somehow like that - like the nightmarish images of newborns that Jasper had painted in my head - could I possibly be me? And if all I wanted was to kill people, what would happen to the things I wanted now?
Edward was so obsessed with me not missing anything while I was human. Usually, it seemed kind of silly. There weren't many human experiences that I worried about missing. As long as I got to be with Edward, what else could I ask for?
I stared at his face while he watched Carlisle fix my hand. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than him. Would that, could that, change?
Was there a human experience that I was not willing to give up?
Chapter 16. EPOCH
"I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!" I MOANED TO MYSELF.
Every item of clothing I owned was strewn across my bed; my drawers and closets were bare. I stared into the empty recesses, willing something suitable to appear.
My khaki skirt lay over the back of the rocking chair, waiting for me to discover something that went with it just exactly right. Something that would make me look beautiful and grown up. Something that said special occasion. I was coming up empty.
It was almost time to go, and I was still wearing my favorite old sweats. Unless I could find something better here - and the odds weren't looking good at this point - I was going to graduate in them.
I scowled at the pile of clothes on my bed.
The kicker was that I knew exactly what I would have worn if it were still available - my kidnapped red blouse. I punched the wall with my good hand.
"Stupid, thieving, annoying vampire!" I growled.
"What did I do?" Alice demanded.