Stephenie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

“Get back,” Diego warned, and I saw that he had the first car’s gas hatch open and the lid screwed off the tank. I jumped up the closest wall, perching a story above to watch. He took a few steps back and lit a match. With perfect aim, he tossed it into the small hole. In the same second, he leaped up beside me.

The boom of the explosion shook the whole street. Lights started going on around the corner.

“Well done,” I said.

“Thanks for your help. Back to Riley’s?”

I frowned. Riley’s house was the last place I wanted to spend the rest of my night. I didn’t want to see Raoul’s stupid face or listen to the constant shrieking and fighting. I didn’t want to have to grit my teeth and hide out behind Freaky Fred so that people would leave me alone. And I was out of books.

“We’ve got some time,” Diego said, reading my expression. “We don’t have to go right away.”

“I could use some reading material.”

“And I could use some new music.” He grinned. “Let’s go shopping.”

We moved quickly through town—over rooftops again and then darting through shadowy streets when the buildings got farther apart—to a friendlier neighborhood. It didn’t take long to find a strip mall with one of the big chain bookstores. I snapped the lock on the roof access hatch and let us in. The store was empty, the only alarms on the windows and doors. I went straight to the H ’s, while Diego headed to the music section in the back. I’d just finished with Hale. I took the next dozen books in line; that would keep me a couple of days.

I looked around for Diego and found him sitting at one of the café tables, studying the backs of his new CDs. I paused, then joined him.

This felt strange because it was familiar in a haunting, uncomfortable way. I had sat like this before—across a table from someone. I’d chatted casually with that person, thinking about things that were not life and death or thirst and blood. But that had been in a different, blurry lifetime.

The last time I’d sat at a table with someone, that someone had been Riley. It was hard to remember that night for a lot of reasons.

“So how come I never notice you around the house?” Diego asked abruptly. “Where do you hide?”

I laughed and grimaced at the same time. “I usually kick it behind wherever Freaky Fred is hanging out.”

His nose wrinkled. “Seriously? How do you stand that?”

“You get used to it. It’s not so bad behind him as it is in front. Anyway, it’s the best hiding place I’ve found. Nobody gets close to Fred.”

Diego nodded, still looking kind of grossed out. “That’s true. It’s a way to stay alive.”

I shrugged.

“Did you know that Fred is one of Riley’s favorites?” Diego asked.

“Really? How? ” No one could stand Freaky Fred. I was the only one who tried, and that was solely out of self-preservation.

Diego leaned toward me conspiratorially. I was already so used to his strange way that I didn’t even flinch.

“I heard him on the phone with her. ”

I shuddered.

“I know,” he said, sounding sympathetic again. Of course, it wasn’t weird that we could sympathize with each other when it came to her . “This was a few months back. Anyway, Riley was talking about Fred, all excited. From what they were saying, I guess that some vampires can do things. More than what normal vampires can do, I mean. And that’s good—something she ’s looking for. Vampires with skill zzz .”

He pulled the Z sound out, so I could hear how he was spelling it in his head.

“What kinds of skills?”

“All kinds of stuff, it sounds like. Mind reading and tracking and even seeing the future.”

“Get out.”

“I’m not kidding. I guess Fred can sort of repel people on purpose. It’s all in our heads, though. He makes us repulsed at the thought of being near him.”

I frowned. “How is that a good thing?”

“Keeps him alive, doesn’t it? Guess it keeps you alive, too.”

I nodded. “Guess so. Did he say anything about anyone else?” I tried to think of anything strange I’d seen or felt, but Fred was one of a kind. The clowns in the alley tonight pretending to be superheroes hadn’t been doing anything the rest of us couldn’t do.

“He talked about Raoul,” Diego said, the corner of his mouth twisting down.

“What skill does Raoul have? Super-stupidity?”

Diego snorted. “Definitely that. But Riley thinks he’s got some kind of magnetism—people are drawn to him, they follow him.”

“Only the mentally challenged.”

“Yeah, Riley mentioned that. Didn’t seem to be effective on the”—he broke out a decent impression of Riley’s voice—“‘ tamer kids.’”

“Tame?”

“I inferred that he meant people like us, who are able to think occasionally.”

I didn’t like being called tame. It didn’t sound like a good thing when you put it that way. Diego’s way sounded better.

“It was like there was a reason Riley needed Raoul to lead—something’s coming, I think.”

A weird tingle spasmed along my spine when he said that, and I sat up straighter. “Like what?”

“Do you ever think about why Riley is always after us to keep a low profile?”

I hesitated for half a second before answering. This wasn’t the line of inquiry I would have expected from Riley’s right-hand man. Almost like he was questioning what Riley had told us. Unless Diego was asking this for Riley, like a spy. Finding out what the “kids” thought of him. But it didn’t feel like that. Diego’s dark red eyes were open and confiding. And why would Riley care? Maybe the way the others talked about Diego wasn’t based on anything real. Just gossip.

I answered him truthfully. “Yeah, actually I was just thinking about that.”

“We aren’t the only vampires in the world,” Diego said solemnly.

“I know. Riley says stuff sometimes. But there can’t be too many. I mean, wouldn’t we have noticed, before?”

Diego nodded. “That’s what I think, too. Which is why it’s pretty weird that she keeps making more of us, don’t you think?”

I frowned. “Huh. Because it’s not like Riley actually likes us or anything….” I paused again, waiting to see if he would contradict me. He didn’t. He just waited, nodding slightly in agreement, so I continued. “And she hasn’t even introduced herself. You’re right. I hadn’t looked at it that way. Well, I hadn’t really thought about it at all. But then, what do they want us for ?”

Diego raised one eyebrow. “Wanna hear what I think?”

I nodded warily. But my anxiety had nothing to do with him now.

“Like I said, something is coming. I think she wants protection, and she put Riley in charge of creating the front line.”

I thought this through, my spine prickling again. “Why wouldn’t they tell us? Shouldn’t we be, like, on the lookout or something?”

“That would make sense,” he agreed.

We looked at each other in silence for a few long-seeming seconds. I had nothing more, and it didn’t look like he did, either.

Finally I grimaced and said, “I don’t know if I buy it—the part about Raoul being good for anything , that is.”

Diego laughed. “Hard to argue that one.” Then he glanced out the windows at the dark early morning. “Out of time. Better head back before we turn into crispies.”

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” I sang under my breath as I got to my feet and collected my pile.

Diego chuckled.

We made one more quick stop on our way—hit the empty Target next door for big ziplocks and two backpacks. I double-bagged all my books. Water-damaged pages annoyed me.