VIOLENT DELIGHTS | Rosalie Hale

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DON'T SPEAK

WHEN I WOKE UP I WAS confused. My thoughts were hazy, still twisted up in dreams and nightmares; it took me longer than it should have to realize where I was.

The room was decadent. The bedside tables were gilded with filigree legs, the silk sheets I lay on luxurious against my skin. The walls were covered in sand colored grasscloth, with generic black splotch paintings framed and bolted beneath display lighting.

I tried to remember how I got here, but nothing came at first. I did remember the truck stop and the stolen car, and getting dizzy at the racing landscape that blurred past us. I think I remember crying to sleep. Struggling, I pulled a vague impression of leaving the car — the sun was just rising behind the horizon — being carried bridal style over a sidewalk. I had no memory of this room.

I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand, easily the cheapest looking thing in sight. The green numbers claimed it was three o'clock, but they gave no indication if it was night or day. No edge of light escaped the thick curtains, but the room was bright with the light from the lamps.

I rose stiffly and staggered to the window, pulling back the drapes. It was light outside, or as light as light could be hidden behind a hazy sky of thick, grey clouds. Three in the afternoon, then. My room looked out over a bustling cityscape, skyscrapers meeting me eye-to-eye. How far up we were was dizzying, and with instant nausea, I back away. It was slightly comforting to be able to pinpoint time at least.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing different clothes — a pair of baby blue silk pajamas I had never seen before. I didn't like the idea of Rosalie having changed me, seen me bare, but they felt nice on my skin at least. I looked around the room, glad when I discovered several shopping bags overcrowding the seating area in front of a large flatscreen. I tried not to focus on the recognizable labels.

I was on my way to read the note by the bags when I heard the door open, and there was Rosalie, carrying in a tray of room service effortlessly in one delicate hand. She shot me a look, as if unhappy I was out of bed. "You sleep far too much."

"It's been a long week." I eye the tray warily, wondering what was under the aluminum cloche. She brings it over to the crowded seating area, moving aside two shoe boxes to set it down. "You went shopping?"

"No, I haven't let you out of my sight." She corrects quickly, without providing a real answer. "You're more sick than I expected."

Or maybe not sick at all. "How's Bella?"

"They'll reach Phoenix around sunset." Rosalie answers. "Carlisle called Charlie. Your father thinks you're following your sister to Phoenix with him and Edward. Edward found you at Jessica Stanley's and convinced you to go with him, because he was worried and he thought you were the only one who could talk sense into Bella. Charlie has called twice — you were in the bathroom the first time on a pitstop, and you were asleep in the backseat the second time. Carlisle is concerned because you keep upsetting your stomach."

"Okay." I absorb the official story, trying to memorize the details. "Should I call him?"

She nods. "Tell him Carlisle drove through the night. You've stopped to rest at a hotel in Portland. You still haven't heard from your sister, she must be driving."

"Okay. Yeah, okay." I nod repeatedly, making my way across the carpet floor to the phone on the bedside table.

Charlie picks up on the third ring. "Bella?"