The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Chapters 6

The room was fil ed with a sudden blaze, and I mat the warmth on my leg in the same instant that I realize thither wasnt enough room for me to pin Diego to the wal with turn out some fork of myself touching the sunlight.Bree he gasped.I twisted a modality from him automatical y, rol ing myself tight against the wal . It overlyk little than a second, and the unanimous time I was waiting for the pain to observe me. For the flames to hit and then spread bid the night Id met her, only faster. The gross flash of light was g wizard(a). It was just the pil ar of sun again. I looked at Diegos grimace his eye were wide, his mouth hanging open. He was total y stil, a sure sign of alarm. I deprivati iodind to look spile at my leg, but I was afraid to see what was left. This wasnt kindred Jen rending my arm off, though that had hurt more(prenominal). I wasnt going to be up to(p) to fix this.Stil no pain yet.Bree, did you see that?I shook my gallery once quickly. How bad is it? Bad?My leg, I said through and through my teeth. retributory tel me whats left.Your leg looks fine to me.I glanced down quickly, and sure enough, there was my hindquarters and my calf, just same(p) forwards. I wiggled my toes. Fine.Does it hurt? he asked.I pul ed myself off the ground, onto my knees. Not yet.Did you see what happened? The light?I shook my head. witness this, he said, kneeling in front of the beam of sunshine again. And dont coerce me out of the way this time. You already proved Im right. He draw his throw out. It was almost as hard to watch this time, tear down if my leg matte up normal. The second his fingers entered the beam, the cave was fil ed with a mil ion bril iant rainbow reflections. It was bright as noon in a glass room light bothwhere. I flinched and then shuddered. There was sunlight all everyplace me.Unreal, Diego whispered. He put the rest of his hand into the beam, and the cave somehow got even brighter. He rol ed his hand over to look at the back, then turned it palm up again. The reflections danced like he was spinning a prism. There was no smel of burning, and he clearly wasnt in pain. I looked snugly at his hand, and it seemed like there were a zil ion tiny mirrors in the surface, excessively smal to distinguish separately, al shining back the light with double the intensity of a incessant mirror.Come here, Bree you have to try this.I couldnt envisage of a spring to refuse, and I was curious, but I was also stil reluctant as I slid to his side.No burn?N genius. Light doesnt burn us, it just reflects off of us. I guess thats kind of an understatement.Slow as a sympathetic, I reluctantly stretched my fingers into the light. Immediately, reflections blazed away from my skin, making the room so bright that the day out-of-door would look dark in comparison. They werent ex executely reflections, though, because the light was bent and colored, more like crystal. I stuck my whole hand in, and the room got bright er.Do you think Riley fill outs? I whispered. perhaps. Maybe not.Why wouldnt he tel us if he did? What would be the point?So were walking disco bal s. I shrugged.Diego laughed. I nominate see where the stories come from. Imagine if you saw this when you were human. Wouldnt you think that the guy over there just burst into flames?If he didnt hang near to chat. Maybe.This is incredible, Diego said. With one finger he traced a line across my glowing palm. then(prenominal) he jumped to his feet right under the sunbeam, and the room went crazy with light.Cmon, lets get out of here. He reached up and pul ed himself toward the hole hed cut to the surface. Youd think I would have been over it, but I was stil nervous to fol ow. Not lacking to seem like a total chicken, I stayed close on his heels, but I was cringing inside the whole way. Riley had real y made his point virtually burning in the sun in my mind it was linked to that horrific time of burning as I became a vampire, and I cou ldnt escape the instinctive panic that fil ed me every time I thought of it.Then Diego was out of the hole, and I was abutting to him half a second later. We stood on a smal patch of frantic grass, only a few feet from the trees that covered the island. Behind us, it was just a couple of yards to a low bluff, and then the water. Everything around us blazed in the color and light shining off of us.Wow, I muttered.Diego grinned at me, his face beautiful with light, and suddenly, with a deep lurch in my stomach, I realized that the whole BFF thing was way off the mark. For me, anyways. It was just that fast.His grin change intensity a little bit into just the hint of a smile. His eyes were wide like mine. Al awe and lights. He touched my face, the way hed touched my hand, as if he was trying to understand the shine.So pretty, he said. He left his hand against my cheek. Im not sure how long we stood there, jolly like total idiots, blazing away like glass torches. The consumption w as empty of boats, which was probably good. No way even a mud-eyed human would have missed us. Not that they could have done anything to us, but I wasnt thirsty, and al the screaming would have ruined the mood. Eventual y a thick cloud drifted in front of the sun. Suddenly we were just us again, though stil slightly luminous. Not enough that anyone with eyes dul er than a vampires would notice. As soon as the shine was gone, my thoughts cleared up and I could think about what was coming next. that even though Diego looked like his normal self again not made of blazing light, anyway I knew he would never look the same to me. That tingly sensation in the pit of my stomach was stil there. I had the feeling it might be there permanently.Do we tel Riley? Do we think he doesnt know? I asked. Diego sighed and dropped his hand. I dont know. Lets think about this trance we track them.Were going to have to be careful, tracking them in the day. Were kind of noticeable in the sunlight, you know.He grinned. Lets be ninjas.I nodded. Super-secret ninja club sounds way cooler than the whole BFF thing.Definitely better.It didnt train us more than a few seconds to find the point from which the whole gang had left the island. That was the effortless part. Finding where theyd touched ground on the mainland was a whole other problem. We briefly discussed splitting up, then vetoed that nous unanimously. Our logic was real y sound after al, if one of us implant something, how would we tel the other? but mostly I just didnt motivation to leave him, and I could see he felt the same. Both of us had been without any kind of good companionship our whole lives, and it was just too sweet to waste a minute of it.There were so some(prenominal) options as to where they could have gone. To the mainland of the peninsula, or to another island, or back to the outskirts of Seattle, or north to Canada. Whenever we pul ed down or burned down one of our houses, Riley was always prepared he always seemed to know exactly where to go next. He must have planned ahead for that stuff, but he didnt let any of us in on the plan.They could have been anywhere. move in and out of the water to avoid boats and people real y slowed us down. We spent al day with no luck, but incomplete of us minded. We were having the most fun wed ever had. It was such a impertinent day. Instead of sitting miserably in the darkness trying to nervous strain out the mayhem and swal ow my disgust at my hiding place, I was contend ninja with my new best friend, or maybe something more. We laughed a lot while we moved through the patches of shade, throwing rocks at each other like they were Chinese stars.Then the sun set, and suddenly I was stressed. Would Riley look for us? Would he assume we were fried? Did he know better?We started moving faster. A lot faster. Wed already circled al the nearby islands, so now we pure on the mainland. About an hour after sundown, I caught a beaten(prenominal) scent, and within seconds we were on their trail. Once we found the path of the smel, it was as easy as fol owing a herd of elephants through fresh snow.We talked about what to do, more serious now as we ran.I dont think we should tel Riley, I said. Lets say we spent al day in your cave before we went looking for them. As I spoke, my paranoia started to grow. Better yet, lets tel them your cave was fil ed with water. We couldnt even talk.You think Rileys a bad dude, dont you? he asked quietly after a minute. As he spoke, he took my hand.I dont know. But Id rather act like he was, just in case. I hesitated, then said, You dont want to think hes bad.No, Diego admitted. Hes kind of my friend. I mean, not like youre my friend. He squeezed my fingers. But more than anyone else. I dont want to think Diego didnt finish his sentence.I squeezed his fingers back. Maybe hes total y decent. Our being careful doesnt change who he is.True. Okay, the subsurface cave story it is. At least at first I could talk to him about the sun later. Id rather do it during the day, anyway, when I mass prove what Im claiming right away. And just in case he already knows, but theres some good reason why he told us something else, I should tel him when were alone. Grab him at dawn, when hes coming back from wherever it is he goes.I noticed a ton of Is rather than wes going on in Diegos little speech, and it bothered me. But at the same time, I didnt want much to do with educating Riley. I didnt have the same cartel in him Diego did.Ninja attack at dawn I said to present him laugh. It worked. We started joking again as we tracked our herd of vampires, but I could tel he was thinking serious stuff under the teasing, just like I was.And I only got more anxious as we ran. Because we were rail fast, and there was no way we had the wrong trail, but it was taking too long. We were real y getting away from the coast, up and over the impending mussinesss, off into new territory. This wasnt the normal pattern.Every house wed borrowed, whether it was up a mountain or on an island or hidden on a big farm, had a few things in common. The dead owners, the remote locale, and one other thing. They al were sort of focused on Seattle. Oriented around the big city like settinging moons. Seattle was always the hub, always the target.We were out of orbit now, and it felt wrong. Maybe it meant nothing, maybe it was just that so many things were ever-changing today. Al the truths Id accepted had been turned upside down and I wasnt in the mood for any other upheavals. Why couldnt Riley have just picked someplace normal?Funny theyre this far out, Diego murmured, and I could hear the edge in his voice.Or scary, I muttered.He squeezed my hand. Its cool. The ninja club can handle anything.You got a secret handshake yet?Working on it, he promised.Something started to surround me. It was like I could feel this strange blind spot I knew there was something I wasnt seeing, but I couldnt put my finger on it. Something obviousAnd then, about sixty miles farther west than our usual perimeter, we found the house. It was impossible to mistake the noise. The boom boom boom of the bass, the video-game soundtrack, the snarling. Total y our crowd.I pul ed my hand free, and Diego looked at me.Hey, I dont even know you, I said in a joking tone. I havent had one conversation with you, what with al that water we sat in al day. You could be a ninja or a vampire for al I know.He grinned. Same goes for you, stranger. Then low and fast, Just do the same things you did yesterday. tomorrow night wel get out together. Maybe do some reconnaissance, judge out more of whats going on.Sounds like a plan. Mums the word.He ducked close and kissed me just a peck, but right on the lips. The shock of it zinged through my whole body. Then he said, Lets do this, and headed down the side of the mountain toward the source of the raucous noise without looking back. Already playing the part.A little s tunned, I fol owed from a few yards behind, remembering to put the length between us that I would put between myself and anyone else.