These eyes had gone one step further than resolved—they were savage. If I walked into this self in a dark alley, I would be terrified of me.
Which was the point, I guess. People were supposed to be afraid of me now.
I still wore my bloodstained jeans, but I had an unfamiliar, pale blue shirt on. I didn’t remember that happening, but I could understand; vampire or human, no one wanted to hang around with someone drenched in vomit.
“Whoa,” I said. I locked eyes with Edythe in the reflection.
This was strange, too. Because the Beau in the mirror looked… right next to Edythe. Like he belonged. Not like before, when people could only imagine that she was taking pity on me.
“It’s a lot,” she said.
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”
She pulled on my hand again, and I followed. Before a fourth of a second had passed, we were through the glass doors behind the stairs and on the back lawn.
There were no moon and no stars—the clouds were too thick. It should have been pitch-black outside the rectangle of light shining through the glass wall, but it wasn’t. I could see everything.
“Whoa,” I said again. “That is so cool.”
Edythe looked at me like she was surprised by my reaction. Had she forgotten what it was like the first time she saw the world through vampire eyes? I thought she’d said I wouldn’t forget things anymore.
“We’re going to have to go a ways out into the woods,” she told me. “Just in case.”
I remembered the gist of what she’d told me about hunting. “Right. So there aren’t any people around. Got it.”
Again—that same surprised look flashed across her face and then was gone.
“Follow me,” she said.
She whipped down the lawn so fast that I knew she would have been invisible to my old eyes. Then, at the edge of the river, she launched herself into a high arc that spun her over the river and into the trees beyond.
“Really?” I called after her.
I heard her laugh. “I promise, it’s easy.”
Great.
I sighed, then started running.
Running had never been my forte. I was all right on a flat track, if I was paying enough attention and I kept my eyes on my feet. Okay, honestly, even then I was still able to tangle my feet up and go down.
This was so different. I was flying—flying down the lawn, faster than I’d ever moved, but it was only too simple to put my feet exactly where they were supposed to go. I could feel all of my muscles, almost see the connections as they worked together, will them to do exactly what I needed. When I got to the edge of the river I didn’t even pause. I pushed off the same rock she’d used, and then I was really flying. The river slipped away behind me as I rocketed through the air. I passed where she’d landed and then fell down into the wood.
I felt an instant of panic when I realized I hadn’t even considered the landing, but then my hand already seemed to know how to catch a thick branch and angle my body so that my feet hit the ground with barely a sound.
“Holy crow,” I breathed in total disbelief.
I heard Edythe running through the trees, and already her gait was as familiar to me as the sound of my own breathing. I was sure I could tell the difference between the sound of her footfalls and anyone else’s.
“We have to do that again!” I said as soon as I saw her.
She paused a few feet away from me, and a frustrated expression that I knew well crossed her face.
I laughed. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. You’re… in a very good mood.”
“Oh. Is that wrong?”
“Aren’t you incredibly thirsty?”
I swallowed against the burn. It was bad, but not as bad as the rest of the fire I’d just left behind. The thirst-burn was always there, and it got worse when I focused on it, but there were so many other things to focus on. “Yes, when I think about it.”
Edythe squared her shoulders. “If you want to do this first, that’s fine, too.”
I looked at her. I was obviously missing something. “Do this? Do what?”
She stared at me for a second, her eyes doubtful. Suddenly she threw her hands up. “You know, I really thought that when your mind was more similar to mine, I’d be able to hear it. I guess that’s never going to happen.”
“Sorry.”
She laughed, but there was an unhappy note in the sound. “Honestly, Beau.”
“Can you please give me a clue as to what we’re talking about?”
“You wanted us to be alone,” she said, like this was an explanation.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Because you had some things you wanted to say to me?” She braced her shoulders again, tensing like she was expecting something bad.
“Oh. Well, I guess there are things to say. I mean, there’s one important thing, but I wasn’t thinking about that.” Seeing how frustrated she was by whatever misunderstanding was happening, I was totally honest. “I wanted to be alone with you because… well, I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want to do this hunting thing in front of Eleanor,” I confessed. “I figured there was a good chance I would screw something up, and I don’t know Eleanor all that well yet, but I have a feeling she would find that pretty funny.”
Her eyes got wide. “You were afraid Eleanor would laugh at you? Really, that’s all?”
“Really. Your turn, Edythe. What did you think was happening?”