He led me toward a dark car, waiting in a pool of

shadow to the right of the gate with the engine running.

To my surprise, he slid into the backseat with me, instead

of insisting on driving.

Alice was apologetic. "I'm sorry." She gestured vaguely

toward the dashboard. "There wasn't much to choose from."

"It's fine, Alice." He grinned. "They can't all be 911

Turbos."

She sighed. "I may have to acquire one of those legally.

It was fabulous."

"I'll get you one for Christmas," Edward promised.

Alice turned to beam at him, which worried me, as she

was already speeding down the dark and curvy hillside at

the same time.

"Yellow," she told him.

Edward kept me tight in his arms. Inside the gray cloak,

I was warm and comfortable. More than comfortable.

"You can sleep now, Bella," he murmured. "It's over."

I knew he meant the danger, the nightmare in the ancient

city, but I still had to swallow hard before I could

answer.

"I don't want to sleep. I'm not tired." Just the second

part was a lie. I wasn't about to close my eyes. The car was

only dimly lit by the dashboard controls,but it was

enough that I could see his face.

He pressed his lips to the hollow under my ear. "Try,"

he encouraged.

I shook my head.

He sighed. "You're still just as stubborn."

I was stubborn; I fought with my heavy lids, and I won.

The dark road was the hardest pare; the bright lights at

the airport in Florence made it easier, as did the chance

to brush my teeth and change into clean clothes; Alice

bought Edward new clothes, too, and he left the dark

cloak on a pile of trash in an alley. The plane trip to Rome

was so short that there wasn't really a chance for the fatigue

to drag me under. I knew the flight from Rome to

Atlanta would be another matter entirely, so I asked the

flight attendant if she could bring me a Coke.

"Bella," Edward said disapprovingly. He knew my low

tolerance for caffeine.

Alice was behind us. I could hear her murmuring to

Jasper on the phone.

"I don't want to sleep," I reminded him. I gave him an

excuse that was believable because it was true. "If I close

my eyes now, I'll see things I don't want to see. I'll have

nightmares."

He didn't argue with me after that.

It would have been a very good time to talk, to get the

answers I needed—needed but not really wanted; I was already

despairing at the thought of what I might hear. We

had an uninterrupted block of tirre ahead of us, and he

couldn't escape me on an airplane—well, not easily, at

least. No one would hear us except Alice; it was late, and

most of the passengers were turning off lights and asking

for pillows in muted voices. Talk would help me fight off

the exhaustion.

But, perversely, I bit my tongue against the flood of

questions. My reasoning was probably flawed by exhaustion,

but I hoped that by postponing the discussion, I

could buy a few more hours with him at some later time—

spin this out for another night, Scheherazade-style.

So I kept drinking soda, and resisting even the urge to

blink. Edward seemed perfectly content to hold me in his

arms, his fingers tracing my face again and again. I

touched his face, too. I couldn't stop myself, though I was

afraid it would hurt me later, when I was alone again. He

continued to kiss my hair, my forehead, my wrists . . . but

never my lips, and that was good. After all, how many

ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to

keep beating? I'd lived through a lot that should have finished

me in the last few days, but it didn't make me feel

strong. Instead, I felt horribly fragile, like one word could

shatter me.

Edward didn't speak. Maybe he was hoping I would

sleep. Maybe he had nothing to say.

I won the fight against my heavy lids. I was awake when

we reached the airport in Atlanta, and I even watched the

sun beginning to rise over Seattle's cloud cover before

Edward slid the window shut. I was proud of myself.

I hadn't missed one minute.