Night 59: F-A Block Hallway

[gald_digger]

[from here]

No, something was different. It wasn't until she reached the next hallway that Anise realized, but she could feel fonons - in the air, and in her body. It took a moment to process this, but as she thought about it, she quickly grew excited. Could this mean

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[vitale]

When Edward's voice hit her ears, Bella spun around, eyes wide at the sight of him suddenly appearing by her side. Wait a minute. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? I mean, you know, despite the creepy glowing ... glow and the intercom and the whole sounding like something following me thing. Are you okay?"

He was holding his shirt, and the teenager frowned, wishing both of her hands weren't currently holding something so she could reach out and touch Edward's arm. "Why are you holding your shirt? Are you okay?" She cast a quick glance over his form, not seeing anything, but ... well. What was going on?

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" she voiced her concerned, frowning as she once again began to look around through the darkness. "I mean, what with the sudden message and - how did you get to me so fast? I was alone seconds ago and suddenly ... wait. Do you ... feel like yourself again?"

The thought made Bella pause. If Edward had his speed back, then some serious shit really was going on. Uh oh. The teenager bit her lower lip, frowning. What were they going to do?

[sanguinario]

"I'm normal. Relatively," he answered immediately, pushing away his natural instinct to delve into the high of being so powerful again. Bones crushed under his grip like they were nothing; not like sticks or brittle, brittle things, but like they had no strength to themselves at all. While Edward had pressed forward to lift her - physically lift her - into a relieved, loving embrace, the thought of bones stopped him short. His arm was half-raised before it dropped down to his side again.

Pressing the bloodied shirt closer, he rolled it into a smaller ball. She couldn't see it. "I don't know why it's happening, but the patients' abilities are returning. I can hear all of them, or at least most of them. Just the joy. The potential for destruction." That's why he was here, despite being so afraid. With an innumerable amount of creatures on the loose, he could trust her to to no one but himself. Even if her smell, the sound of her beating heart, were both threatening to derail him.

He watched her steadily. "We can try to leave. If you want. Tell me what you want to do and we'll do it."

[vitale]

Normal. "Uh, okay?" Bella replied, quirking an eyebrow for a moment - before the realization hit her. He was himself again, and he was acting strange. Instantly, her mind flashed images of when they first met; how strange he acted because he was pained. She remembered Stefan's horrified face as she neared him.

Her eyes lowered to the floor, and she crossed the arm holding the flashlight under her breasts, holding herself in her own makeshift embrace ... though it was more like she was trying to shield herself from him. "... Oh. ... I'm sorry," she whispered in a soft voice. She had asked him before if she still hurt him because of things she couldn't control, and he responded with ... it was nothing she could stop. Great.

Tell him what she wanted. Bella sighed. She could never really tell him anything she wanted. Sometimes she almost wished he could read her mind, maybe then things wouldn't be so difficult. "I don't know. Maybe we should try to go outside and leave," a pause, and she began to move. "At least outside it'll be easier for you to be around me."

She tried not to let the bitter tone leak into her words, but. Well. She never was good at lying.

[sanguinario]

He understood immediately, and then his face did wrinkle with pain.

"That's not..." Edward went quiet, fingers nervously plucking the material of his shirt. Eventually he threw it over his shoulder, hard enough for it roll away into the darkness. He couldn't lie, not like he used to. He would not be able to say that was not happening at all. It wasn't the main point, though. It wasn't why he was so afraid.

"All the suffering in the world is worth it for you. I don't care about that." Stepping forward, he closed the distance between them nearly completely, running the backs of his fingers over her cheeks. "I'm here. I was almost too afraid to come, but I did. I love you. I don't think that anything could happen to permanently keep me from you."

[vitale]

Bella stopped when Edward did, feeling his chilled fingers against her cheek caused her to close her eyes and lean into his hand and sigh despite herself, despite the fact she knew he was probably on fire just because he was so close to her. She couldn't help herself; Isabella Swan was always a selfish creature, after all.

The teenager opened her eyes as the vampire continued to speak, and she looked up at him, afraid to touch him, afraid that if she did, he would retract like that time he had at the restaurant in Port Angeles. That was the last thing she needed. She didn't know if she could take one final blow to her ego. Not tonight.

"Then what are you afraid of?" She asked him, looking up at him so she could make eye contact. She wanted to know. Though she already had a feeling what he was afraid of; himself, because he was afraid he would hurt her ... because of why? Her. So, in reality, he was afraid of her. It all came back to her.

[sanguinario]

"Everything," he said with a resolute sigh, flashing forward to lift her into his arms. All around them were the beating breasts of monsters, growls and vibrations in throats coated in blood, saliva dripping to the tiles. He could hear all of it. They would love the challenge they could find in him, a fellow predator.

Edward had already exhausted his current level of bloodlust with Stefan. Even if he had not, taking chances with Bella was not something he did.

He brought her as close to his chest as he could, still gentle. Alarmingly gentle. He fell into touching her like it was a secondary instinct. Her smell was still strong, always beating against his head, but then again. So was her heart. The most significant, beautiful sound in his world.

He kissed her forehead.

"I'll not ruin us again, Bella. I swear." He closed his eyes, a slight nod to himself, as if he had just sealed his own promise. "Still want to go outside?"

[vitale]

Everything. Was was ... a lot to be afraid of. Bella frowned and opened her mouth to say something, to dry and dig more out of the vampire, but suddenly his arms were around her, and she forgot what she was going to say. It had been so long since they had actually ... embraced without one of them being emotionally distraught (well, it was more often her, but still.) and she missed it more than anything. So she simply kept her mouth shut, reveling in the feel of him. The kiss to her forehead only caused her to all the more grow warm, and a content sigh escaped her lips as her heart beat double time. What are you doing, she chided herself. Acting like he's never kissed or touched you before. It's not like you're ... oh, I don't know, engaged or anything.

"I believe you," she whispered absolutely, and she did. She did trust him. Because she knew if she didn't she'd break and there'd be nothing left to hold onto.

Did she still want to go outside? Bella didn't really know. "Er, I guess? I mean, I don't really even know what's going on other than the whole ... glowing and the announcement and whatnot. But if this means we can try to escape, then why the hell not? It's not like we have ... you know. Wedding plans or anything back in Forks," she joked, clicking off her flashlight so she could put it into her pocket and free up one of her hands. At least Edward could be her eyes in the darkness this way. Besides, it wasn't like she could put the knife anywhere (and she wasn't letting Edward have it because then she'd never get it back.) so the flashlight was the sacrifice. With her free hand, she reached up to touch his face -

And hesitated, suddenly afraid. "... Can I touch you?" she asked, not wanting to push the boundaries of where they currently were. The last thing she needed was him zipping off like that time in the meadow.

[sanguinario]

Wedding plans. Of course. How could he forget? Or did it not say everything that he had, for some time, forgotten completely what they were? Perhaps, like how he was now, if they escaped - when they escaped - he could slip right back into his normal life with Bella, where they were in love and she had agreed to marry him. They would walk down the aisle and be joined together, conceivably forever. He could pretend, just for a moment, that he wasn't a monster wearing a human suit. He was just Edward Masen, tying himself to the woman he had waited a century to love.

"Please," he said, closing his eyes once her desire to touch him was made clear. He did not question why she even asked him in the first place.

He heard the click of claws, growls rolling in furred throats, and he knew should any of them decide to interrupt, it would take less than a second for him to silence them completely. A fact that he gladly embraced. They could always move if danger came near them. And it was. Danger was approaching them on all sides, attracted to his venom and her blood, and they would not stop until one or the other had been spilled. But it could wait. Just for the second it would take for him to absorb the heat of her palm.

Right. Right. Danger and - and outside. They could wait. He would take her outside after, despite the one desire in his heart being to pick her up, fold her against his chest, and run back to his room. Or hers. Or anyone's. As long as they were alone.

[vitale]

At his allowance, Bella reached up and placed her hand against Edward's face, palm lasting against his cheek for a moment before her fingers began to trail down his jaw, fingertips dancing over his lips as she looked up at him, almost as if she was memorizing his face all over again. It felt like years since the two of them had been together. Years. How long had it been since either of them had been together, uninjured, with no worries lacing their thoughts?

Not in a very, very, very, long time, she thought to herself sadly, her hand once again returning to his cheek, leaning forward to press her forehead against his shoulder, eyes shutting tightly. Her hand dropped from his cheek to wrap tightly around his neck, clinging to him out of sheer desperation.

"I've missed you," she whispered, the words escaping her before she even realized it. She saw him practically every day, at least one way or another, but ..

But it wasn't the same, and she knew it. A wall had formed between the two of them, no matter how desperately she had tried to take the bricks down before they grew higher than she could reach. But it had been for nothing, and the wall grew until she was left simply staring through the cracks at him, at his back as he turned and walked away from her, taking his secrets with her.

Now there was a chance. Now there was a hope in her heart that he would allow the wall to fall and return to her again. Please, she pleaded to whatever deity was currently watching over them, if there was even one at all.

Right. They had somewhere to be, they had to get out and ... and what? Escape? They weren't going to be able to escape, and she knew it. Was this even the same planet?

That thought made her fingers on the back of his neck tighten, defeat rolling over her. She didn't want to go outside. She wanted to stay with him. "I think I forgot something in my room," she lied, horridly. But he would get the gist of what she was trying to say, hopefully. "We can just ... go get it really fast and ... go ... outside?"