(2) Katnis Swan: Moved On?

Chapter 6: Breaking Promises

Katnis stares out the windshield for a long moment, her thoughts moving sluggishly-she couldn't seem to make thoughts of Edward go anywhere. Bella had cut the engine, which was groaning in a pitiful way after idling for so long, and she stepped out into the drizzle.

"Katnis, get back in the truck," Bella says but Katnis ignores her.

The cold rain dripped through her hair and then trickled across her cheeks like freshwater tears. It helped to clear her head. She blinked the water from her eyes, staring blankly across the road.

After a minute of staring, she recognized where they were. They'd parked in the middle of the north lane of Russell Avenue. She was standing in front of the Cheneys' house-Bella's truck was blocking their driveway-and across the road lived the Markses. She knew Bella needed to move her truck, and that they ought to go home. It was wrong to wander the way they had, distracted and impaired, a menace on the roads of Forks.

Besides, someone would notice them soon enough, and report them to Charlie. As she took a deep breath in preparation to get back into the truck, a sign in the Markses' yard caught her eye-it was just a big piece of cardboard leaning against their mailbox post, with black letters scrawled in caps across it.

Sometimes, kismet happens.

Coincidence? Or was it meant to be? She didn't know, but it seemed kind of silly to think that it was somehow fated, that the dilapidated motorcycles rusting in the Markses' front yard beside the hand-printed FOR SALE, AS IS sign were serving some higher purpose by existing there, right where she needed them to be.

So maybe it wasn't kismet. Maybe there were just all kinds of ways to be get her mind off of Edward, and she only now had her eyes open to them.

Reckless and stupid. Those were Charlie's two very favorite words to apply to motorcycles.

Charlie's job didn't get a lot of action compared to cops in bigger towns, but he did get called in on traffic accidents. With the long, wet stretches of freeway twisting and turning through the forest, blind corner after blind corner, there was no shortage of that kind of action. But even with all the huge log-haulers barreling around the turns, mostly people walked away.

The exceptions to that rule were often on
motorcycles, and Charlie had seen one too many victims, almost always kids, smeared on the highway.

He'd made her and Isabella promise before she was ten that they would never accept a ride on a motorcycle. Even at that
age, she didn't have to think twice before promising. Who would want to ride a motorcycle here? It would be like taking a sixty-mile-per-hour bath.

So many promises she kept...

It clicked together for her then. She wanted wanted to break promises, have a little fun.

Why stop at one?

That's as far as she thought it through. She sloshed through the rain to the Markses' front door and rang the bell, ignoring the so d of Isabella calling her name. One of the Marks boys opened the door, the younger one, the freshman. She couldn't remember his name. His sandy hair only came up to his shoulder.

He had no trouble remembering her name. "Katnis Swan?" he asked in surprise.

"How much do you want for the bike?" She panted, jerking her thumb over her shoulder toward the sales display.

"Are you serious?" he demanded.

"Of course I am."

"They don't work."

She sighed impatiently-this was something she'd already inferred from the sign. "How much?"

"If you really want one, just take it. My mom made my dad move them down to the road so they'd get picked up with the garbage."