❝Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.❞
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Alissa Cameron was just an ordinary high scho...
| THE HUMAN CONDITION | Chapter XXII: Pants on Fire
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"If one is to be called a liar, one may as well make an effort to deserve the name." A.A. Milne
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IT CAME TO ME while eyeing a paralyzed Isabella Swan that this was very, very bad for me. Not bad in a certain-death way, but close if entering a wolf's den full of temperamental, fully grown puppies with incisors that could cut through bone had the undesired effect. Known to me and all other spectators as me being mauled. Verbally with a touch of physical mangling.
I put on my best poker face, but it was a fool's response to having her tower of lies crumble. Not that I had many lies under my belt. The only noticeable instance of me deceiving my clan was not telling them about Victoria. Recent noticeable instance of me deceiving my clan. The boys were busy with chasing her while I had other worries, and at Emily's and in the backseat of my Dad's car making out with Paul I had recipients of my charming chatter mention her. Not in passing; sometimes a full-ledged discussion would commence. And like an actual Benedict Arnold in the making, I didn't bat an eye and pretended like I was as clueless as Quil, who'd be shifting any day.
Yeah, okay, that was shitty of me. This had the potential to be extremely bad. This was worse than Jared finding out I hurt his girlfriend's feelings. Not telling them about Victoria wasn't something they could easily overlook, not when she had the killer instinct to murder people in her pursuit of Bella.
Still, I didn't want my tower to crumble all at once. Keeping a calm disposition, I walked the last few feet to Bella's crumbled form.
"You get used to it after a few times," I said, my try at soothing her. She didn't glance at me, keeping her gaze where the wolves last were. I couldn't blame her, being that she probably hadn't expected this when coming to chat with her boytoy. I did think it was more dramatic than a girl of her caliber deserved without some sort of ridicule. I mean, didn't she have a vampire boyfriend before he fled the fucking state? Wasn't she friends with a whole family of them? She had one after her, a redhead with a penchant for easy targets, for fuck's sake. This couldn't be that surprising, after all that she had been through.
Bella shook her head, blinking her eyes as though coming from a daze. Her expression was cloudy, but not stormy when she looked up at me. Confusion or bewilderment glimmered there. But surprisingly no fear. "It's not that, it's..."
"What?" I pressed.
I watched impatiently as her eyelids shut into a deep cinch. "I didn't imagine them so brutal," she said finally.
So she had known beforehand, or at least speculated. I also knew, seeing her expression change so rapidly so quickly, that she knew I was a liar.
