And so I could not leave her.
Even if she wasn't at constant risk for some infuriating reason - some joke the universe was playing on me - even if I could be sure that she would be perfectly safe in my absence, I could not leave her alone in the dark.
She must be so frightened.
"Well, of course she is... she was nearly attacked and..." Jacob started hissing and trailed off at the end with a shudder.
Yet I was in no condition to comfort her - even if I knew exactly how that was to be accomplished, which I did not.
"You are comforting me," Bella said. "Just by being there."
"Wow, that was cheesy," Jacob teased her and Bella rolled her eyes.
Surely she could feel the brutality radiating out of me, surely that much was obvious. I would frighten her even more if I could not calm the lust for slaughter boiling inside me.
I needed to think about something else.
"Distract me, please," I pleaded.
"I'm sorry, what?"
I barely had enough control to try to explain what I needed.
"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down," I instructed, my jaw still locked.
"Just prattle about something... that's kind of rude to say," Jacob said.
"Jake, he..." Bella started, staring at him oddly.
"I'm trying to calm down here too," Jacob shrugged. "I usually do that by joking around..."
"Right, sorry," Bella said. "That just wasn't a very good joke."
"I'll try better next time," Jacob shrugged.
Only the fact that she needed me held me inside the car. I could hear the man's thoughts, his disappointment and anger... I knew where to find him... I closed my eyes, wishing that I couldn't see anyway...
"Um..." She hesitated - trying to make sense of my request, I imagined. "I'm going to run over Tyler Crowley tomorrow before school?"
Jacob started laughing at that, albeit it was a weak laugh, but still.
"Why would you do that?" Jacob said, but Bella didn't answer.
She said this like it was a question.
Yes - this was what I needed. Of course Bella would come up with something unexpected. Like it had been before, the threat of violence coming through her lips was hilarious - so comical it was jarring.
"I can cause violence," Bella mumbled.
"Sure you can," Jacob said laughing.
Bella glared at him, which only seemed to make Jacob laugh more.
If I had not been burning with the urge to kill, I would have laughed.
"Why?" I barked out, to force her to speak again.
"He's telling everyone that he's taking me to prom," she said,
"Jerk," Bella hissed at the book. "How can he tell people that... he didn't even ask me."
"Don't know," Jacob shrugged, still laughing.
her voice filled with her tiger-kitten outrage.
More laughter at that from Jacob and Bella glared at the book. However, she did note that this talk had definitely helped both her and Jacob relax a little after what had just happened. Her glare loosened as she thought of that and her tone was lighter when she started reading again.
"Either he's insane or he's still trying to make up for almost killing me last...well you remember it," she inserted dryly, "and he thinks prom is somehow the correct way to do this. So I figure if I endanger his life, then we're even, and he can't keep trying to make amends.
"That's not why he's asking you out," Jacob laughed.
I don't need enemies and maybe Lauren would back off if he left me alone.
Bella groaned at that, even madder at this Tyler guy.
I might have to total his Sentra, though," she went on, thoughtful now. "If he doesn't have a ride he can't take anyone to prom..."
It was encouraging to see that she sometimes got things wrong. Tyler's persistence had nothing to do with the accident. She didn't seem to understand the appeal she held for the human boys at the high school. Did she not see the appeal she had for me, either?
Bella blushed at the idea that she appealed to the other guys at school, but that wasn't anything to the blush she had at the mention of her appeal for Edward.
Ah, it was working. The baffling processes of her mind were always engrossing.
I was beginning to gain control of myself, to see something beyond vengeance and torture...
"I heard about that," I told her. She had stopped talking, and I needed her to continue.
"You did?" she asked incredulously. And then her voice was angrier than before.
"If he's paralyzed from the neck down, he can't go to the prom either."
"What's the matter, Bells, don't you like that Edward knows about this?" Jacob chuckled and she glared at him.
I wished there was some way I could ask her to continue with the threats of death and bodily harm without sounding insane. She couldn't have picked a better way to calm me. And her words - just sarcasm in her case, hyperbole - were a reminder I dearly needed in this moment.
I sighed, and opened my eyes.
"Better?" she asked timidly.
"Not really."
No, I was calmer, but not better. Because I'd just realized that I could not kill the monster named Lonnie,