The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Chapters 5

Every angiotensin-converting enzyme knows that old-timey vampires had to stay in coffins during the day, I went on. To keep away of the sun. Thats common knowledge, Diego.Youre right. Al the stories do say that.And what would Riley gain by locking us up in a lightproof basement one big group coffin al day, whateverway? We scarce transgress the place, and he has to deal with al the fighting, and its constant turmoil. You cant tel me he enjoys it.Something Id said move him. He sat with his mouth open for a second, then disagreeable it.What?Common knowledge, he repeated. What do vampires do in coffins al day?Er oh yeah, theyre supposed to sleep, right? But I guess theyre believably reasonable lying there bored, cause we dont Okay, so that parts wrong.Yeah. In the stories theyre not simply asleep, though. Theyre total y unconscious. They cant wake up. A sympathetic can base on balls right up and stake them, no problem. And thats other thing stakes. You satisfying y thin k someone could shove a piece of timber through you?I shrugged. I mystifynt real y thought approximately it. I mean, not a normal piece of wood, obviously. possibly sharpen wood has some sorting of I dont know. Magical properties or something.Diego snorted. interest.Wel, I dont know. I wouldnt just hold stil while some human ran at me with a filed broom handle, anyway.Diego stil with a sort of disgusted look on his face, as if magic were real y such a collide with when youre a vampire rol ed to his knees and started clawing into the limestone above his head. Tiny stone shards fil ed his hair, precisely he ignored them.What be you doing?Experimenting.He dug with both(prenominal) hands until he could stand upright, and then kept going.Diego, you puzzle to the surface, you explode. discontinue it.Im not trying to ah, here we go. in that location was a loud crack, and then another crack, nevertheless no light. He ducked back down to where I could see his face, with a pie ce of tree calm in his hand, white, dead, and wry under the clumps of dirt. The edge where hed broken it was a sharp, uneven point. He tossed it to me. position me.I tossed it back. Whatever.Seriously. You know it cant hurt me. He lobbed the wood to me instead of transmitted it, I batted it back. He snagged it out of the air and groaned. You are sosuperstitiousI am a vampire. If that doesnt prove that superstitious people are right, I dont know what does.Fine, Il do it.He held the branch away from himself dramatical y, offset extended, like it was a sword and he was approximately to impale himself.Cmon, I said uneasily. This is sil y.Thats my point. Here goes zero.He crushed the wood into his chest, right where his rawness used to beat, with enough force to punch through a granite slab. I was total y frozen with panic until he laughed.You should see your face, Bree.He sifted the splinters of broken wood through his fingers the shattered root fel to the down in mangled pieces . Diego brushed at his shirt, though it was too trashed from al the swimming and digging for the attempt to do any good. Wed both have to steal more(prenominal) clothes the next time we got a chance.Maybe its different when a human does it.Because you felt so magical when you were human?I dont know, Diego, I said, exasperated. I didnt constitute up al those stories.He nodded, suddenly more serious. What if the stories are exactly that? Made up.I sighed. What contrariety does it make? Not sure. But if were going to be smart about why were here why Riley brought us to her, why shes make more of us then we have to understand as much as we possibly can.He frowned, every trace of laughter total y gone from his face now.I just stared back at him. I didnt have any answers. His face softened just a little. This helps a lot, you know. Talking about it. Helps me focus.Me, too, I said. I dont know why I never thought about any of this before. It seems so obvious. But workings on it tog etherI dont know. I can stay on track better.Exactly. Diego smiled at me. Im real y glad you came out tonight.Dont get al gooey on me now.What? You dont want to be he widened his eye and his voice went up an octave BFFs? He laughed at the goofy expression.I rol ed my eyes, not total y sure if he was making fun of the expression or of me.Cmon, Bree. Be my bestest bud forever. Please? Stil teasing, alone his wide smile was natural and hopeful. He held out his hand.This time I went for a real high five, not realizing until he caught my hand and held it that hed intend anything else. It was shockingly weird to touch another person after a whole life because the last three months were my whole life of avoiding any kind of contact. Like touching a sparking downed power line, only to remark out that it felt nice. The smile on my face felt a little lopsided. Count me in.Excel ent. Our own private indian lodge.Very exclusive, I agreed.He stil had my hand. Not shaking it, but not exact ly property it, either. We need a secret milk shake.You can be in cathexis of that one.So the super-secret best friends club is cal ed to ordinance, al present, secret handshake to be devised at a later date, he said. First order of business Riley. Clueless? Misinformed? Or lying?His eyes were on tap as he spoke, wide and sincere. There was no change as he said Rileys name. In that instant, I was sure there was nothing to the stories about Diego and Riley. Diego had just been around more than the others, nothing more. I could presumption him.Add this to the list, I said. Agenda. As in, what is his?Bul s-eye. Thats exactly what weve got to find out. But first, another experiment.That word makes me nervous.Trust is an essential part of the whole secret club gig.He stood up into the extra cap space hed just work out and started digging again. In a second, his feet were dangling while he held himself up with one hand and excavated with the other.You better be digging for garlic, I warned him, and backed up toward the tunnel that led to the sea.The stories arent real, Bree, he cal ed to me. He pul ed himself higher into the hole he was making, and the dirt continued to rain down down. He was going to fil in his hidey-hole at this rate. Or flood it with light, which would make it even more useless.I slid most of the way into the escape channel, just my fingertips and eyes above the edge. The water only came up to my hips. It would take me just the smal est fraction of a second to disappear into the darkness below. I could choke a day not breathing.Id never been a fan of fire. This top executive have been because of some buried childhood memory, or maybe it was more recent. Becoming a vampire was enough fire to last me. Diego had to be close to the surface. Once again, I struggled with the idea of losing my new and only friend.Please stop, Diego, I whispered, knowing he would probably laugh, knowing he wouldnt listen.Trust, Bree.I waited, unmoving.Almost, he muttered. Okay.I tensed for the light, or the spark, or the explosion, but Diego dropped back down while it was stil dark. In his hand he had a longer root, a thick snaky thing that was almost as tal as me. He gave me an I-told-you-so kind of look.Im not a completely wise person, he said. He gestured to the root with his free hand. See precautions.With that, he stabbed the root upward into his new hole. There was a final avalanche of pebbles and gritstone as Diego dropped back onto his knees, getting out of the way. And then a gibe of bril iant light a ray about the thickness of one of Diegos weaponry pierced the darkness of the cave. The light made a pil ar from the ceiling to the floor, shimmering as the drifting dirt sifted through it. I was icy-stil, gripping the ledge, coif to drop.Diego didnt jerk away or cry out in pain. There was no smel of smoke. The cave was a hundred times lighter than it had been, but it didnt seem to affect him. So maybe his story about refinem ent trees was true. I watched him careful y as he knelt beside the pil ar of sunlight, motionless, staring. He seemed fine, but there was a slight change to his skin. A kind of movement, maybe from the settling dust, that reflected the gleam. It looked almost like he was glowing a little. Maybe it wasnt the dust, maybe it was the burning. Maybe it didnt hurt, and hed realize it too late.Seconds passed as we stared at the daylight, motionless. Then, in a move that seemed both absolutely expect and also completely unthinkable, he held out his hand, palm up, and stretched his arm toward the beam.I locomote faster than I could think, which was pretty dang fast. Faster than Id ever moved before.I tackled Diego into the back wal of the dirt-fil ed little cave before he could reach that one last inch to put his skin in the light.