“Jacob, do you think this is going to take too much longer?” Liam demanded. Impatient. Grating.
My teeth clenched together.
Like anyone in the pack, Liam knew everything. He knew why I came here—to the very edge of the earth and sky and sea. To be alone. He knew this was all I wanted. Just to be alone.
But Liam was going to force his company on me, anyway.
Besides being crazy annoyed, I did feel smug for a brief second. Because I didn’t even have to think about controlling my temper. It was easy now, something I just did, natural. The red haze didn’t wash over my eyes. The heat didn’t shiver down my spine. My voice was calm when I answered.
“Jump off a cliff, Liam.” I pointed to the one at my feet.
“Really, kid.” He ignored me, throwing himself into a sprawl on the ground next to me. “You have no idea how hard this is for me.”
“For you?” It took me a minute to believe he was serious. “You have to be the most self-absorbed person alive, Liam. I’d hate to shatter the dream world you live in—the one where the sun is orbiting the place where you stand—so I won’t tell you how little I care what your problem is. Go. Away.”
“Just look at this from my perspective for a minute, okay?” he continued as if I hadn’t said anything.
If he was trying to break my mood, it worked. I started laughing. The sound hurt in strange ways.
“Stop snorting and pay attention.” He snapped.
“If I pretend to listen, will you leave?” I asked, glancing over at the permanent scowl on his face. I wasn’t sure if he had any other expression anymore.
I remembered back to when I used to think that Liam was handsome, maybe even beautiful. That was a long time ago. No one thought of him that way now. Except for Sam. He was never going to forgive himself. Like it was his fault that he’d turned Liam into this bitter shell of who he used to be.
His scowl heated up, as if he could guess what I was thinking. Probably could.
“This is making me sick, Jacob. Can you imagine what this feels like to me? I don’t even like Beau Swan. And you’ve got me grieving over this leech-lover like I’m in love with him, too. Can you see where that might make my life more difficult than it already is? I mean, I dreamed about kissing him last night! What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“Do I care?”
“I can’t stand being in your head anymore! Get over him already! He’s going to marry that thing. He’s going to become one of them someday! Time to move on, boy.”
“Shut up,” I growled.
It would be wrong to strike back. I knew that. I was biting my tongue. But he’d be sorry if he didn’t walk away. Now.
“He’ll probably just kill him anyway,” Liam said. Sneering. “All the stories say that happens more often than not. Maybe a funeral will be better closure than a wedding. Ha.”
This time I had to work. I closed my eyes and fought the hot taste in my mouth. I pushed and shoved against the slide of fire down my back, wrestling to keep my shape together while my body tried to shake apart.
When I was in control again, I glowered at him. He was watching my hands as the tremors slowed. Smiling.
Some joke.
“You’d think you’d be a little more sympathetic to someone who had their heart broken, Liam…,” I said. Slow, emphasizing each word. “Someone who got cast aside for someone else.” I shrugged. “And now getting on my case about how I feel about Beau, I mean, how do you think the rest of us like looking at Sam through your eyes? It’s bad enough that Emily has to deal with your fixation. She doesn’t need all us guys panting after him, too.”
Pissed as I was, I still felt guilty when I watched the spasm of pain shoot across his face.
He scrambled to his feet—pausing only to spit in my direction—and ran for the trees, vibrating like a tuning fork.
I laughed darkly. “You missed.”
Sam was going to give me hell for that, but it was worth it. Liam wouldn’t bug me anymore. I didn’t feel bad… Even if it was a disgustingly low blow.
But I didn’t feel bad because his words were still there, scratching themselves into my brain, the pain of it so strong that I could hardly breathe.
It didn’t matter so much that Beau’d chosen someone else over me. That agony was nothing at all. That agony I could live with for the rest of my stupid, too long, stretched-out life.
But it did matter that he was giving up everything—that he was letting his heart stop and his skin ice over and his mind twisted into some crystallized predator’s head. A monster. A stranger.
I would have thought there was nothing worse than that, nothing more painful in the whole world.
But, if he killed Beau…
Again, I had to fight the rage. Maybe, if not for Liam, it would be good to let the heat change me into a creature who could deal with it better. A creature with instincts so much stronger than human emotions. An animal who couldn’t feel pain in the same way. A different pain. Some variety, at least. But Liam was running now, and I didn’t want to share his thoughts. I cussed him under my breath for taking away that escape, too.
My hands were shaking in spite of me. What shook them? Anger? Agony? I wasn’t sure what I was fighting now.
I had to believe that Beau would survive. But that required trust—a trust I didn’t want to feel, a trust in that bloodsucker’s ability to keep him alive.
He would be different, and I wondered how that would affect me. Would it be the same as if he had died, to see him standing there like stone? Like ice? When his scent burned in my nostrils and triggered the instinct to rip, to tear… How could that be? Could I want to kill Beau? Could I not want to kill one of them?
I watched the swells roll toward the beach. They disappeared from sight under the edge of the cliff, but I heard them beat against the sand. I watched them until it was late, long after dark.
Going home was probably a bad idea. But I was hungry, and I couldn’t think of another plan.
I made a face as I pulled my arm through the stupid sling and grabbed my crutches. If only Charlie hadn’t seen me that day and spread the word of my “motorcycle accident.” Stupid props. I hated them.
Going hungry started to look better when I walked in the house and got a look at my dad’s face. He had something on his mind. It was easy to tell — he always overdid it. Acted all casual.
He also talked too much. He was rambling about his day before I could get to the table. He never jabbered like this unless there was something that he didn’t want to say. I ignored him as best I could, concentrating on the food. The faster I choked it down…
“…and Sue stopped by today.” My dad’s voice was loud. Hard to ignore. As always. “Amazing woman. She’s tougher than grizzlies, that one. I don’t know how she deals with that oldest boy of hers, though. Liam’s more like a wolverine than a wolf.” He chuckled at his own joke.
He waited briefly for my response, but didn’t seem to see my blank, bored-out-of-my-mind expression. Most days that bugged him. I wished he would shut up about Liam. I was trying not to think about him.
“Seth’s a lot easier. Younger kids usually are, I think. You were easier than your sisters, too, until… well, you have more to deal with than they did.”
I sighed, long and deep, and stared out the window.
Billy was quiet for a second too long. “We got a letter today.”
I could tell that this was the subject he’d been avoiding.
“A letter?”
“A… wedding invitation.”
Every muscle in my body locked into place. A feather of heat seemed to brush down my back. I held onto the table to keep my hands steady.
Billy went on like he hadn’t noticed. “There’s a note inside that’s addressed to you. I didn’t read it.”
He pulled a thick ivory envelope from where it was wedged between his leg and the side of his wheelchair. He laid it on the table between us.
“You probably don’t need to read it. Doesn’t really matter what it says.”
Stupid reverse psychology. I yanked the envelope off the table.
It was some heavy, stiff paper. Expensive. Too fancy for Forks. The card inside was the same, too done-up and formal. Beau’d had nothing to do with this. There was no sign of his personal taste in the layers of see-through, ivy-printed pages. I’d bet he didn’t like it at all. I didn’t read the words, not even to see the date. I didn’t care.
There was a piece of the thick ivory paper folded in half with my name handwritten in black ink on the back. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it was as fancy as the rest of it. For half a second, I wondered if the bloodsucker was into gloating.
I flipped it open.
Jacob,
I’m breaking the rules by sending you this. He was afraid of hurting you, and he didn’t want to make you feel obligated in any way. But I know that, if things had gone the other way, I would have wanted the choice.
I promise I will take care of him, Jacob. Thank you—for him—for everything.
Edward
“Jake, we only have the one table,” Billy said. He was staring at my left hand.
My fingers were clamped down on the wood hard enough that it really was in danger. I loosened them one by one, concentrating on that action alone, and then clenched my hands together so I couldn’t break anything.
“Yeah, doesn’t matter anyway,” Billy muttered.
I got up from the table, shrugging out of my t-shirt as I stood. Hopefully Liam had gone home by now.
“Not too late,” Billy mumbled as I punched the front door out of my way.
I was running before I hit the trees, my clothes strewn out behind me like a trail of crumbs—as if I wanted to find my way back. It was almost too easy now to phase. I didn’t have to think. My body already knew where I was going and, before I asked it to, it gave me what I wanted.
I had four legs now, and I was flying.
The trees blurred into a sea of black flowing around me. My muscles bunched and released in an effortless rhythm. I could run like this for days and I would not be tired. Maybe, this time, I wouldn’t stop.
But I wasn’t alone.
So sorry, Embry whispered in my head.
I could see through his eyes. He was far away, to the north, but he had wheeled around and was racing to join me. I growled and pushed myself faster.
Wait for us, Quil complained. He was closer, just starting out from the village.
Leave me alone, I snarled.
I could feel their worry in my head, trying hard as I might to drown it in the sound of the wind and the forest. This was what I hated most—seeing myself through their eyes, worse now that their eyes were full of pity. They saw the hate, but they kept running after me.
A new voice sounded in my head.
Let him go. Sam’s thought was soft, but still an order. Embry and Quil slowed to a walk.
If only I could stop hearing, stop seeing what they saw. My head was so crowded, but the only way to be alone again was to be human, and I couldn’t stand the pain.
Phase back, Sam directed them. I’ll pick you up, Embry.
First one, then another awareness faded into silence. Only Sam was left.
Thank you, I managed to think.
Come home when you can. The words were faint, trailing off into blank emptiness as he left, too. And I was alone.
So much better. Now I could hear the faint rustle of the matted leaves beneath my claws, the whisper of an owl’s wings above me, the ocean—far, far in the west—moaning against the beach. Hear this, and nothing more. Feel nothing but speed, nothing but the pull of muscle, sinew, and bone, working together in harmony as the miles disappeared behind me.
If the silence in my head lasted, I would never go back. I wouldn’t be the first one to choose this form over the other. Maybe, if I ran far enough away, I would never have to hear again…
I pushed my legs faster, letting Jacob Black disappear behind me.
The counter in Alice’s bathroom was covered with dozens of various hair products and colognes. Since no one in this house appeared to use either, I could only assume she’d bought most of these things with me in mind. I read the labels numbly, struck by the waste.
I was careful never to look in the long mirror.
Alice combed through my hair with a slow, rhythmic motion.
“That’s enough, Alice,” I said tonelessly. “I want to go back to La Push.”
How many hours had I waited for Charlie to leave Billy’s house so that I could see Jacob? Each minute, not knowing if Jacob was still breathing or not, had seemed like ten lifetimes. And then, when at last I’d been allowed to go, to see for myself that Jacob was alive, the time had gone quickly. I felt like I’d barely caught my breath before Alice was calling Edward, insisting that I keep up this ridiculous sleepover façade. It seemed so insignificant…
“Jacob’s still unconscious,” Alice answered. “Carlisle or Edward will call when he’s awake. Anyway, you need to go see Charlie. He was there at Billy’s house, he saw that Carlisle and Edward are back in from their trip, and he’s bound to be suspicious when you get home.”
I already had my story memorized and corroborated. “I don’t care. I want to be there when Jacob wakes up.”
“You need to think of Charlie now. You’ve had a long day—sorry, I know that doesn’t begin to cover it—but that doesn’t mean you can shirk your responsibilities.” Her voice was serious, almost chiding. “It’s more important now than ever that Charlie stayed safely in the dark. Play your role first, Beau, and then you can do what you want second. Part of being a Cullen is being meticulously responsible.”
Of course she was right. And if not for this same reason—a reason that was more powerful than all my fear and pain and guilt—Carlisle would never have been able to talk me into leaving Jacob’s side, unconscious or not.
“Go home,” Alice ordered. “Talk to Charlie. Flesh out your alibi. Keep him safe.”
I stood, and the blood flowed down to my feet, stinging like the pricks of a thousand needles. I’d been sitting still for a long time.
“That outfit looks adorable on you,” Alice cooed.
“Huh? Oh. Er—thanks again for the clothes,” I mumbled, distracted.
“You need the evidence,” Alice said, her eyes innocent and wide. “What’s a shopping trip without a new outfit? It’s very flattering, if I do say so myself.”
I blinked, unable to remember what she’d dressed me in. I couldn’t keep my thoughts from skittering away every few seconds, insects running from the light…
Jacob is fine, Beau,” Alice said, easily interpreting my preoccupation. “There’s no hurry. If you realized how much extra morphine Carlisle had to give him—what with his temperature burning it off so quickly—you would know that he’s going to be out for a while.”
At least he wasn’t in any pain. Not yet.
“Is there anything you want to talk about before you leave?” Alice asked sympathetically. “You must be more than a little traumatized.”
I thought I knew what she was really curious about. But I had other questions.
“Would I be like that?” I asked her, my voice subdued. “Like that girl Bree in the meadow?”
There were many things I needed to think of, but I couldn’t seem to get her out of my head, the newborn whose life was now—abruptly—over. Her face, twisted with desire for my blood, lingered behind my eyelids.
Alice stroked my arm. “Everyone is different. But something like that, yes.”
I was very still, trying to imagine.
“It passes,” she promised.
“How soon?”
She shrugged. “A few years, maybe less. It might be different for you. I’ve never seen anyone go through this who’s chosen it beforehand. It would be interesting to see how that affects you.”
“Interesting,” I repeated.
“We’d keep you out of trouble.”
“I know that. I trust you.” My voice was monotone, dead.
Alice’s forehead puckered. “If you’re worried about Carlisle and Edward, I’m sure they’ll be fine. I believe Sam is beginning to trust us… well, to trust Carlisle, at least. It’s a good thing, too. I imagine the atmosphere got a little tense when Carlisle had to re-break the fractures—“
“Please, Alice.”
“Sorry.”
I took a deep breath to steady myself. Jacob had begun healing too quickly, and some of his bones had set wrong. He’d been out cold for the process, but it was still hard to think about.
“Alice, can I ask you a question? About the future?”
She was suddenly wary. “You know I don’t see everything.”
“It’s not that, exactly. But you do see my future, sometimes. Why is that, do you think, when nothing else works on me? Not what Jane can do, or Edward, or Aro…” My sentence trailed off as my mind continued wondering.
Alice watched me for a moment, then answered. “Jasper, too, Beau—his talent works on your body just as well as it does on anyone else’s. That’s the difference, do you see it? Jasper’s abilities affect the body physically. He really does calm your system down, or excite it. It’s not an illusion. And I see visions of outcomes, not the reasons and thoughts behind the decisions that create them. It’s outside the mind, not an illusion, either; reality, or at least one version of it. But Jane and Edward and Aro and Demetri — they work inside the mind. Jane only creates an illusion of pain. She doesn’t really hurt your body, you only think you feel it. You see, Beau? You are safe inside your mind. No one can reach you there. It’s no wonder that Aro was so curious about your future abilities.”
She watched my face to see if I was following her logic. In truth, her words had all started to run together, the syllables and sounds losing their meaning. I couldn’t concentrate on them. Still, I nodded. Trying to look like I got it.
She wasn’t fooled. She stroked my cheek and murmured, “He’s going to be okay, Beau. I don’t need a vision to know that. Are you ready to go?”
“One more thing. Can I ask you another question about the future? I don’t want specifics, just an overview.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said, doubtful again.
“Can you still see my future?”
She didn’t answer right away. This was the question she’d been wary of, I could tell. The looks she had given me back in the clearing after the battle made sense to me now
“I see lots of futures for you, Beau.”
I nodded slowly.
She examined my face, her eyes unfathomable. “Don’t you know your own mind, Beau?”
“I don’t anymore.”
“I’m only as sure as you are, Beau. You know that. If you were to change your mind, what I see would change… or disappear, in your case.”
I felt my stomach drop as Alice hit the nail on the head. I felt my face get hot, and tears start forming in the corners of my eyes.
Alice rushed forward and put her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Beau. I can’t really empathize. My first memory is of seeing Jasper’s face in my future; I always knew that he would be where my life was headed. But I can sympathize. I’m sorry you have to choose between two good things.”
I sniffed back the tears, “Don’t feel sorry for me.” I didn’t want sympathy. I didn’t know what I wanted. Which was the real crux of the problem. I had to make a choice, and I had to break a good heart in the process.
“Beau,” Alice began gently, “I want you to know that no matter what, or who, you choose, I’ll always love you. I know your decision isn’t easy. I know how unhappy this is making you… I wish I could help you.” She hugged me tightly.
“Thank you, Alice.” I hugged her back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But right now, I have to go deal with Charlie.”
I drove my truck back home, where Charlie was waiting just as suspiciously as Alice had expected.
“Hey, Beau. How was your shopping trip?” he greeted me when I walked into the kitchen. He had his arms folded over his chest, his eyes on my face.
“Long,” I said dully. “We just got back.”
Charlie assessed my mood. “I guess you already heard about Jake, then?”
“Yes. The rest of the Cullens beat us home. Esme told us where Carlisle and Edward were.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m really worried about Jake. As soon as I make dinner, I’m going down to La Push.”
“I told you those motorcycles were dangerous. I hope this makes you realize that I wasn’t kidding around.”
I nodded as I started pulling things out of the fridge. Charlie settled himself in at the table. He seemed to be in a more talkative mood than usual.
“I don’t think you need to worry about Jake too much. Anyone who can cuss with that kind of energy is going to recover.”
“Jake was awake when you saw him?” I asked, spinning to look at him.
“Oh, yeah, he was awake. You should have heard him—actually, it’s better you didn’t. I don’t think there was anyone in La Push who couldn’t hear him. I don’t know where he picked up that vocabulary, but I hope he hasn’t been using that kind of language around you.”
“He had a pretty good excuse today. How did he look?”
“Messed up. His friends carried him in. Good thing they’re big boys, ‘cause that kid’s an armful. Carlisle said his right leg is broken, and his right arm. Pretty much the whole right side of his body got crushed when he wrecked that damn bike.” Charlie shook his head. “If I ever hear of you riding again, Beau—“
“No problem there, Dad. You won’t. Do you really think Jake’s okay?”
“Sure, Beau, don’t worry. He was himself enough to tease me.”
“Tease you?” I echoed in surprise.
“Yeah—in between the swearing, he said, ‘Bet you’re glad he loves Cullen instead of me today, huh, Charlie?’”
I turned back to the fridge so that he couldn’t see my face.
“And I couldn’t argue. Edward’s more mature than Jacob when it comes to your safety, I’ll give him that much.”
“Jacob’s plenty mature,” I muttered defensively. “I’m sure this wasn’t his fault.”
“Weird day today,” Charlie mused after a minute. “You know, I don’t put much stock in that superstitious crap, but it was odd… It was like Billy knew something bad was going to happen to Jake. He was nervous as a turkey on Thanksgiving all morning. I don’t think he heard anything I said to him.
“And then, weirder than that—remember back in February and March when we had all that trouble with the wolves?”
I bent down to get a frying pan out of the cupboard, and hid there an extra second or two.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“I hope we’re not going to have a problem with that again. This morning, we were out in the boat, and Billy wasn’t paying any attention to me or the fish, when all of a sudden, you could hear wolves yowling in the woods. More than one, and, boy, was it loud. Sounded like they were right there in the village. Weirdest part was, Billy turned the boat around and headed straight back to the harbor like they were calling to him personally. Didn’t even hear me ask what he was doing.
“The noise stopped before we got the boat docked. But all of a sudden Billy was in the biggest hurry not to miss the game, though we had hours still. He was mumbling some nonsense about an earlier showing… of a live game? I tell you, Beau, it was odd.
“Well, he found some game he said he wanted to watch, but then he just ignored it. He was on the phone the whole time, calling Sue, and Emily, and your friend Quil’s grandpa. Couldn’t quite make out what he was looking for—he just chatted real casual with them.
“Then the howling started again right outside the house. I’ve never heard anything like it—I had goose bumps on my arms. I asked Billy—had to shout over the noise—if he’d been setting traps in his yard. It sounded like the animal was in serious pain.”
I winced, but Charlie was so caught up in his story that he didn’t notice.
“’Course I forgot all about that till just this minute, ‘cause that’s when Jake made it home. One minute it was that wolf yowling, and then you couldn’t hear it anymore — Jake’s cussing drowned it right out. Got a set of lungs on him, that boy does.”
Charlie paused for a minute, his face thoughtful. “Funny that some good should come out of this mess. I didn’t think they were ever going to get over that fool prejudice they have against the Cullens down there. But somebody called Carlisle, and Billy was real grateful when he showed up. I thought we should get Jake up to the hospital, but Billy wanted to keep him home, and Carlisle agreed. I guess Carlisle knows what’s best. Generous of him to sign up for such a long stretch of house calls.”
“And…” he paused, as if unwilling to say something. He sighed, and then continued. “And Edward was really… nice. He seemed as worried about Jacob as you are—like that was his brother lying there. The look in his eyes…” Charlie shook his head. “He’s a decent guy, Beau. I’ll try to remember that. No promises, though.” He grinned at me.
“I won’t hold you to it,” I mumbled.
Charlie stretched his legs and groaned. “It’s nice to be home. You wouldn’t believe how crowded Billy’s little place gets. Seven of Jake’s friends all squished themselves into that little front room—I could hardly breathe. Have you ever noticed how big those Quileute kids all are?”
“Yeah, I have.”
Charlie stared at me, his eyes abruptly more focused. “Really, Beau, Carlisle said Jake will be up and around in no time. Said it looked a lot worse than it was. He’s going to be fine.”
I just nodded.
Jacob had looked so… strangely fragile when I’d hurried down to see him as soon as Charlie had left. He’d had braces everywhere—Carlisle said there was no point in plaster, as fast as he was healing. His face had been pale and drawn, deeply unconscious though he was at the time. Breakable. Huge as he was, he’d looked very breakable. Maybe that had just been my imagination, coupled with the knowledge that I could possibly break him further.
If only I could be struck by lightning and be split in two. If there were two of me, maybe I could make everyone happy. No one would be heartbroken. No one would lose anything.
I put Charlie’s dinner on the table next to his elbow and headed for the door.
“Er, Beau? Could you wait just a second?”
“Did I forget something?” I asked, eyeing his plate.
“No, no. I just… want to ask a favor.” Charlie frowned and looked at the floor. “Have a seat—this won’t take long.”
I sat across from him, a little confused. I tried to focus. “What do you need, Dad?”
“Here’s the gist of it, Beau.” Charlie flushed. “Maybe I’m just feeling… superstitious after hanging out with Billy while he was being so strange all day. But I have this… hunch. I feel like… I’m going to lose you soon.”
“Don’t be silly, Dad,” I mumbled guiltily. “You want me to go to school, don’t you?”
“Just promise me one thing.”
I was hesitant. “Okay…”
“Will you tell me before you do anything major? Before you run off with him or something?”
“Dad...”
“I’m serious. I won’t kick up a fuss. Just give me some advance notice. Give me a chance to hug you goodbye.”
I felt the knots in my stomach as I looked at my father. “I promise, Dad.”
“Thanks, Beau,” he said. “I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you, too, Dad.” I turned to leave but I stopped. I ran back to Charlie had hugged him. He seemed surprised for a moment, but then hugged me back tightly.
The whole way down to La Push my stomach was in knots. My mind grappling with itself and with my heart. I tried to lay out both decisions, both courses in front of me. Tried to quantify and list everything that either choice would mean; the short term, the long term. Somehow the minute my brain began to lean towards one over the other, my heart would pull me back the other way and I’d have to start all over again.
Carlisle’s black Mercedes was not in front of Billy’s house. This was good. I needed to talk to Jacob alone. Having Edward there—any of the Cullens—would only make my decision so much harder.
I tapped quietly on the door.
“Come in, Beau,” Billy said. The roar of my truck was easy to recognize.
I let myself in.
“Hey, Billy. Is he awake?” I asked.
“He woke up about a half hour ago, just before the doctor left. Go on in. I think he’s been waiting for you.”
I flinched, and then took a deep breath. “Thanks.”
I hesitated at the door to Jacob’s room, not sure whether to knock. I decided to peek first, hoping—coward that I was—that maybe he’d gone back to sleep. I felt like I could use just a few more minutes.
I opened the door a crack and leaned hesitantly in.
Jacob was waiting for me, his face calm and smooth. The haggard, gaunt look was gone, but only a careful blankness took its place. There was no animation in his dark eyes.
It was hard to look at his face, knowing that I loved him. It made more of a difference than I would have thought. I wondered if it had always been this hard for him, all this time.
Thankfully, someone had covered him with a quilt. It was relief not to have to see the extent of the damage.
I stepped in and shut the door quietly behind me.
“Hi, Jake,” I murmured.
He didn’t answer at first. He looked at my face for a long moment. Then, with some effort, he rearranged his expression into a slightly sarcastic smile.
“I was afraid it might be like that.” He sighed. “Today has definitely taken a turn for the worse. First I pick the wrong place, miss the best fight, and Seth gets all the glory. Then Liam has to be an idiot trying to prove he’s tough as the rest of us and I have to be the idiot who saves him. And now this.” He waved his left hand toward me where I hesitated by the door.
“How are you feeling?” I mumbled. What a stupid question.
“A little stoned. Dr. Fang isn’t sure how much pain medication I need, so he’s going with trial and error. Think he overdid it.”
“But you’re not in pain.”
“No. At least, I can’t feel my injuries,” he said with a sigh.
I bit my lip. I was never going to get through this.
The wry humor left his face, and his eyes warmed up. His forehead creased, like he was worried.
“How about you?” he asked, sounding really concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Me?” I stared at him. “You must be high. Why are you asking if I’m okay?”
“Well, I mean, I was sure he wouldn’t actually hurt you or anything, but I wasn’t sure how bad it was going to be. I’ve been going a little crazy worrying about you ever since I woke up. I didn’t know if you were going to be allowed to visit or anything. The suspense was terrible. How did it go? Was he mean to you? I’m sorry if it was bad. I didn’t mean for you to have to go through anything alone. I was thinking I’d be there…”
It took me a minute to even understand. He babbled on, looking more and more awkward, until I got what he was saying. Then I hurried to reassure him.
“No, no, Jake! I’m fine. Too fine, really. He wasn’t mean at all.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What?”
“He wasn’t even mad at me—he wasn’t even mad at you. Actually, he was impressed with you for bowing out like you did.”
Jacob stared at me for a minute, and then he frowned. “Well, damn.” He huffed.
“What’s wrong, Jake? Does it hurt?” My hands fluttered uselessly as I looked around for his medication.
“No,” he sighed. “He really is a little too decent. I was hoping he had been at least a little awful, just to make me feel better. He wasn’t angry at all?”
“Not even a little.”
“Well, I mean, I’m glad he wasn’t angry with you. I wouldn’t want you to suffer… I guess, I don’t know, I was hoping maybe he’d at least be angry with me. Give me some satisfaction after giving up.” Jacob chuckled, then winced.
I flinched at his pain. It was silent for a long moment.
“You’re not really giving up, though, are you?” I finally said.
He smiled. “Not really, I guess. I just won’t keep trying to make you choose me. I don’t want to hurt you anymore by doing that. It’s not fair. Besides, at least you see that you do love me. That’s worth something.”
“Is it? Is it really better than if I was still in denial?”
“Don’t you think you ought to know how you feel?”
I shook my head. “No—I didn’t mean better for me. I meant better for you. Does it make things better or worse for you, having me know that I’m in love with you? When I… when…” I stopped, feeling my emotions welling up. “Would it have been better, easier for you, if I never clued in?”
He took my question as seriously as I’d meant it, thinking carefully before he answered. “Yes, it’s better to have you know,” he finally decided. “If you hadn’t figured it out… I’d have always wondered if your decision would have been different if you had. Now I know. I did everything I could.” He dragged in an unsteady breath, and closed his eyes.
This time I did not—could not—resist the urge to comfort him. I crossed the small room and kneeled by his head, afraid to sit on the bed in case I jostled it and hurt him, and leaned in to touch my forehead to his cheek.
Jacob sighed, and he put his hand on my hair, holding me there.
“I’m so sorry, Jake.”
“I always knew this was a long shot. It’s not your fault, Beau.”
“Not you, too,” I moaned. “Please.”
He pulled away to look at me. “What?”
“It is my fault. And I’m so sick of being told it’s not.”
He grinned, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “You need to get over that. You can’t help that we both fell in love with you. You’re pretty great, you know.”
“Am I? Why do I feel like I’m the worst person in the world right now?”
“You’re the best.” He smiled. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with you then something would have been wrong with me. But he came first, I guess. That’s just how it goes.”
“Jake…”
“It our own faults, really. We made this way harder on you than we needed to. Mostly me, probably… Yeah, especially me.” He chuckled softly. “I was too stubborn.”
I started sniffling softly, my emotions bubbling over.
“Hey, you’re not crying are you?” He shifted slightly on the bed.
“Yeah,” I muttered, laughing weakly at myself through the tears that suddenly burst into sobs.
He shifted his weight, throwing his good leg off the bed as if he were going to try to stand.
“What are you doing?” I demanded through the tears. “Lie down, you idiot, you’ll hurt yourself!” I jumped to my feet and pushed his good shoulder down with two hands.
He surrendered, leaning back with a gasp of pain, but he grabbed me around my waist and pulled me down on the bed, against his good side. I curled up there, trying to stifle the sobs against his hot skin.
“Don’t cry, Beau.” His voice was low and soothing. “Not for me.”
“I think it’s more my fault than either of you want to admit.” I took a deep, ragged breath, trying to control myself.
“No, Beau, you never did anything to hurt us. Never intentionally.” His hand rubbed against my shoulders.
“How did we end up here?” I asked, more to myself than him.
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “But don’t worry, babe. It’s all going to work out.”
“I don’t see how,” I muttered.
He patted the top of my head. “I’m going to give in and be good. Really.”
“What do you mean by ‘be good’?”
“I mean I’ll stop making this hard for you, and I’ll still be your friend, Beau,” he said quietly. “I won’t ask for more than that.”
“I think it’s too late for that, Jake. How can we be friends, when we love each other like this?”
He looked at the ceiling, his stare intent, as if he were reading something that was written there. “Maybe… it will have to be a long-distance friendship.”
I clenched my teeth together, glad he wasn’t looking at my face, fighting against the sobs that threatened to overtake me again. I needed to be strong, and I had no idea how…
He looked back at my face. “I’m not going to split you in half anymore, Beau. I’m not going to keep pulling on your heart, because I think I’m just breaking it.”
I closed my eyes, willing myself to control the pain.
We were quiet for a moment. Neither of us seemed to know what to say.
“Could I tell you what the worst part is?” He asked hesitantly.
“Will it help?” I whispered.
“It might. It couldn’t hurt.”
“What’s the worst part, then?”
“The worst part is knowing what could have been.”
My breath caught and I felt more tears pushing their way to the surface.
“I’m exactly right for you, Beau.” He continued. “It would have been effortless for us—comfortable, as easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have taken…” He stared into space for a moment, and I waited. “If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic…”
I could see what he saw, and I knew that he was right. If the world was the sane place it was supposed to be, Jacob and I would have been together. And we would have been happy. He was my soul mate in that world—would have been my soul mate still if we didn’t live in the world we were in, if things hadn’t happened the way they did.
Two futures, two soul mates… too much for any one person. And so unfair that it wasn’t a choice between someone and someone better. A choice between the two most wonderful, perfect loves I could ever ask for.
“Beau, can I ask you something?” He asked quietly.
“Sure.”
“Could it have been me?”
I looked back on all my time with him, stretching all the way back to when I first came to Forks. To the first time I saw Jacob Black.
“Yeah, Jake,” I felt the tears welling up again. “If I hadn’t ever met him. If he had never been here. It would have been you.” I started crying. “Maybe in another world, a boy moved to Forks and met this wonderful, sunny boy on the beach in La Push… and they started a friendship, and they fell in love… and they’re happy together.” I took a deep breath. “And that’s the worst part for me.”
The tears were pouring out of my eyes now, and I could hear him sniffling as well.
“I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you did for me, Jake.” I cried. “I used to think of you as my personal sun. You balanced out all the clouds for me.”
He sighed. “The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight an eclipse.”
I touched his face, laying my hand against his cheek. He exhaled at my touch and closed his eyes. It was very quiet. For a minute, I could hear the beating of his heart, slow and even.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said softly. He kissed the top of my head, and then he sighed. “I’ll be good now.”
I looked up, and he was smiling.
“So you’re going to get married, huh?”
“We don’t have to talk about that.”
“I’d like to know some of the details. I don’t know when I’ll talk to you again.”
I had to wait for a minute before I could speak. When I was pretty sure my voice wouldn’t break, I answered his question.
“It wasn’t really my idea, but I suppose I’m warming up to it… a little.”
Jake nodded. “It’s not such a big thing—in comparison.”
His voice was very calm, very practical. I stared at him, curious about how he was managing, and that ruined it. He met my eyes for a second, and then twisted his head away. I waited to speak until his breathing was under control.
“Yes. In comparison,” I agreed.
“How long do you have left?”
“Oh, I don’t know, depends on how long it takes Alice to pull a wedding together, I suppose.” I said softly.
“No, I mean—“ he stopped short.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“I don’t know, Jake. I haven’t decided. It could be a while.” I whispered.
He nodded. This was a relief to him. I wondered how many sleepless nights the thought of my graduation had given him.
“Are you scared?” he whispered.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“But you’re not totally sure you want… that?” He asked softly.
“No, I’m not.”
We lay in silence for a long time. Finally, I stretched my neck up to whisper in his ear, laying my cheek against his warm skin. “You know I love you.”
“I know,” he breathed, his arm tightening automatically around my waist. “You know how much I wish it was enough.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll always be waiting in the wings, Beau,” he promised, lightening his tone and loosening his arm. I pulled away with a dull, dragging sense of loss, feeling the tearing separation as I left a part of me behind, there on the bed next to him. “You’ll always have that spare option if you want it.”
I made an effort to smile. “Until my heart stops beating.”
He grinned back. “Maybe even after.”
“Should I come back to see you? Or would you rather I didn’t?”
“I’ll think about it and get back to you,” he said. “I might need the company to keep from going crazy. The doctor says I can’t phase until he gives the okay—it might mess up the way the bones are set.” Jacob made a face.
“Be good and do what Carlisle tells you to do. You’ll get well faster.”
“Sure, sure.”
“I wonder when it will happen,” I said. “When the right guy is going to catch your eye.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Beau.” Jacob sighed. “Though I’m sure it would be a relief for you.”
“Maybe, maybe not. As long as you were happy, I’d be happy.” I tried to smile. “I probably won’t think anyone is ever good enough for you. I wonder how jealous I’ll be.”
“That part might be kind of fun,” he admitted.
“Let me know if you want me to come back, and I’ll be here,” I promised.
With a sigh, he turned his cheek toward me.
I leaned in, then hesitated. I took a deep breath and put my hand on his face, turning him to look at me. I leaned in and kissed him, one last time, on the lips.
“Love you, Jacob.”
“Love you more.”
He watched me walk out of his room with an unfathomable expression in his black eyes.
I forced my eyes—frozen wide open with shock—to move, so that I could not examine too closely the oval object wrapped in tendrils of shivering, fiery hair.
Edward was in motion again. Swift and coolly businesslike, he dismembered the headless corpse.
I could not go to him—I could not make my feet respond; they were bolted to the stone beneath them. But I scrutinized his every action minutely, looking for any evidence that he had been harmed. My heart slowed to a healthier rhythm when I found nothing. He was lithe and graceful as ever. I couldn’t even see a tear in his clothes.
He did not look at me—where I stood frozen to the cliff wall, horrified—while he piled the quivering twitching limbs and then covered them with dry pine needles. He still did not meet my shocked gaze as he darted into the forest after Seth.
I didn’t have time to recover before both he and Seth were back, Edward with his arms full of Riley. Seth was carrying a large chunk—the torso—in his mouth. They added their burden to the pile, and Edward pulled a silver rectangle from his pocket. He flipped open the butane lighter and held the flame to the dry tinder. It caught at once; long tongues of orange fire licked rapidly across the pyre.
“Get every piece,” Edward said in a low aside to Seth.
Together, the vampire and the werewolf scoured the campsite, occasionally tossing small lumps of white stone into the blaze. Seth handled the pieces with his teeth. My brain wasn’t working well enough for me to understand why he didn’t change back to a form with hands.
Edward kept his eyes on his work.
And then they were done, and the raging fire was sending a pillar of choking purple toward the sky. The thick smoke curled up slowly, looking more solid than it should; it smelled like burning incense, and the scent was uncomfortable. It was heavy, too strong.
Seth made that snickering sound again, deep in his chest.
A smile flickered across Edward’s tense face.
Edward stretched out his arm, his hand curled into a fist. Seth grinned, revealing the long row of dagger teeth, and bumped his nose against Edward’s hand.
“Nice teamwork,” Edward murmured.
Seth coughed a laugh.
Then Edward took a deep breath, and turned slowly to face me.
I did not understand his expression. His eyes were as wary as if I were another enemy—more than wary, they were afraid. Yet he’d shown no fear at all when he’d faced Victor and Riley… my mind was stuck, stunned and useless as my body. I stared at him, bewildered.
“Beau, love,” he said in his softest tone, walking toward me with exaggerated slowness, his hands held up, palms forward. Dazed as I was, it reminded me oddly of a suspect approaching a police officer, showing that they weren’t armed…
“Beau, can you drop the rock, please? Carefully. Please don’t hurt yourself further.”
I’d forgotten all about my crude weapon, though I realized now that I was grasping it so hard that my hand was probably cut up now, too. I glanced down—as briefly as I could—down at my arm; the blood was still trickling down my forearm, leaving a small pool of blood in the snow.
Edward hesitated a few feet from me, his hands still in the air, his eyes still fearful.
It took me a few long seconds to remember how to move my fingers. Then the rock fell with a dull crunch into the snow, while my hands stayed frozen in the same position.
Edward relaxed slightly when my hands were empty, but came no closer.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Beau,” Edward murmured. “You’re safe. I won’t hurt you.”
The mystifying promise only confused me further. I stared at him, trying to understand.
“It’s going to be all right, Beau. I know you’re frightened now, but it’s over. No one is going to hurt you. I won’t touch you. I won’t hurt you,” he said again.
My eyes blinked furiously, and I found my voice. “Why do you keep saying that?”
I took an unsteady step toward him, and he leaned away from my advance.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered. “What do you mean?”
“Are you…” His golden eyes were suddenly confused as I felt. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
“No?” I blinked a few times. “Why would I be afraid of you?”
I staggered forward another step, and then tripped over something. Edward caught me, and I buried my face in his chest and started to sob uncontrollably.
“Beau, Beau, I’m so sorry. It’s over, it’s over.”
“I’m fine,” I gasped. “I’m okay. I’m just. Freaking out. Give me. A minute.”
His arms tightened around me. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured again and again.
I clung to him until I couldn’t breathe, and then we were kissing. I don’t know who initiated the kisses, but it didn’t matter. We were holding each other tightly, fiercly. Kissing and kissing over and over again. My brain finally started working gain.
“Are you okay?” I demanded between kisses. “Did he hurt you at all?”
“I’m absolutely fine,” he promised, burying his face in my hair.
“Seth?”
Edward chuckled. “More than fine. Very pleased with himself, in fact.”
“The others? Alice, Esme? The pack?”
“All fine. It’s over there, too. It went just as smoothly as I promised. We got the worst of it here.”
I let myself absorb that for a moment, let it sink in and settle in my head.
Everyone was safe. Victor was never coming after me again. It was over.
We were all going to be fine.
But I couldn’t completely take in the good news while I was still so confused.
“Tell me why,” I insisted. “Why did you think I would be afraid of you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing yet again—for what? I had no idea. “So sorry. I didn’t want you to see that. See me like that. I know I must have terrified you.”
I had to think about that for another minute, about the hesitant way he’d approached me, his hands in the air. Like I was going to run if he moved too fast…
“Seriously?” I finally asked. “You… what? Thought you’d scared me off?” I snorted. Snorting was good; a voice couldn’t tremble or break during a snort. It sounded impressively offhand.
He put his hand under my chin and tilted my head back to read my face.
“Beau, I just”—he hesitated and then forced the words out—“I just beheaded and dismembered a sentient creature not twenty yards from you. That doesn’t bother you?”
He frowned at me.
I shrugged. Shrugging was good, too. Very blasé. “No, not really. I was only afraid that you and Seth were going to get hurt. I wanted to help, but there’s only so much I can do…”
His suddenly livid expression made my voice fade out.
“Yes,” he said, his tone clipped. “Your little stunt with the rock. You know that you nearly gave me a heart attack? Not the easiest thing to do, that.”
In a swift motion, he ripped off a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around my arm where I had cut myself.
“I wanted to help… Seth was hurt…”
“Seth was only feigning that he was hurt, Beau. He recovered much quicker than he let on.” He shook his head, “Your distraction did help, though. But believe me, Seth could have handled things on his own.”
We both looked at Seth, who was studiously ignoring us, watching the flames. Smugness radiated from every hair in his fur.
“Well, I didn’t know that,” I said, on the offense now. “And it’s not easy being the only helpless person around. I wasn’t going to just sit on the sidelines—and I won’t be sitting on the sidelines next time, either!”
A dozen emotions flitted across his face before he settled on being amused. “Next time? Did you anticipate another war soon?”
“With my luck? Who knows?”
He rolled his eyes, but I could see that he was flying—the relief was making us both lightheaded. It was over.
Or… Was it?
“Hold on. Didn’t you say something before—?” I flinched, remembering what exactly it had been before—my conversation with Jacob. My splintered heart throbbed out a painful, aching beat. It was hard to believe, almost impossible, but the hardest part of this day was not behind me—and then I soldiered on. “About a complication? And Alice, needing to nail down the schedule for Sam. You said it was going to be close. What was going to be close?”
Edward’s eyes flickered back to Seth, and they exchanged a loaded glance.
“Well?” I asked.
“It’s nothing, really,” Edward said quickly. “But we do need to be on our way…”
He started to pull me into place on his back, but I stiffened and drew away.
“Define nothing.”
Edward took my face between his palms. “We only have a minute, so don’t panic, all right? I told you that you had no reason to be afraid. Trust me on that, please?”
I nodded, trying to hide the sudden terror—how much more could I handle before I collapsed? “No reason to be afraid. Got it.”
He pursed his lips for a second, deciding what to say. And then he glanced abruptly at Seth, as if the wolf had called him.
“What’s he doing?” Edward asked.
Seth whined; it was an anxious, uneasy sound. It made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
Everything was dead silent for one endless second.
And then Edward gasped, “No!” and one of his hands flew out as if to grab something that I couldn’t see. “Don’t—!”
A spasm rocked through Seth’s body, and a howl, blistering with agony, ripped from his lungs.
Edward fell to his knees at the exact same moment, gripping the sides of his head with two hands, his face furrowed in pain.
I cried out in bewildered terror, and dropped to my knees beside him. Futilely, I tried to pull his hands from his face; my palms, clammy with sweat, slid off his marble skin.
“Edward! Edward!”
His eyes focused on me; with obvious effort, he pulled his clenched teeth apart.
“It’s okay. We’re going to be fine. It’s—“ He broke off, and winced again.
“What’s happening?” I cried out while Seth howled in anguish.
“We’re fine. We’re going to be okay,” Edward gasped. “Sam—help him—“
And I realized in that instant, when he said Sam’s name, that he was not speaking of himself and Seth. No unseen force was attacking them. This time, the crisis was not here.
He was using the pack plural.
I burned through all my adrenaline. My body had nothing left. I sagged, and Edward caught me before I could hit the rocks. He sprang to his feet, me in his arms.
“Seth!” Edward shouted.
Seth was crouched, still tensed in agony, looking as if he meant to launch himself into the forest.
“No!” Edward ordered. “You go straight home. Now. As fast as you can!”
Seth whimpered, shaking his great head from side to side.
“Seth. Trust me.”
The huge wolf stared into Edward’s agonized eyes for one long second, and then he straightened up and flew into the trees, disappearing like a ghost.
Edward cradled me tightly against his chest, and then we were also hurtling through the shadowy forest, taking a different path than the wolf.
“Edward.” I fought to force the words through my constricted throat. “What happened, Edward? What happened to Sam? Where are we going? What’s happening?”
“We have to go back to the clearing,” he told me in a low voice. “We knew there was a good probability of this happening. Earlier this morning, Alice saw it and passed it through Sam to Seth. The Volturi decided it was time to intercede.”
The Volturi.
To much. My mind refused to make sense of the words, pretended it couldn’t understand.
The trees jolted past us. He was running downhill so fast that it felt as if we were plummeting, falling out of control.
“Don’t panic. They aren’t coming for us. It’s just the normal contingent of the guard that usually cleans up this kind of mess. Nothing momentous, they’re merely doing their job. Of course, they seem to have timed their arrival very carefully. Which lead me to believe that no one in Italy would mourn if these newborns had reduced the size of the Cullen family.” The words came through his teeth, hard and bleak. “I’ll know for sure what they were thinking when they get to the clearing.”
“Is that why we’re going back?” I whispered. Could I handle this? Images of flowing back robes crept into my unwilling mind, and I flinched away from them. I was close to a breaking point.
“It’s part of the reason. Mostly, it will be safer for us to present a united front at this point. They have no reason to harass us, but… Jane’s with them. If she thought we were alone somewhere away from the others, it might tempt her. Like Victor, Jane will probably guess that I’m with you. Demetri, of course, is with her. He could find me, if Jane asked him to.”
I didn’t want to think that name. I didn’t want to see that blindingly exquisite, childlike face in my head. A strange sound came out of my throat. I felt my breath quicken in panic.
“Shh, Beau, shh. It’s all going to be fine. Alice can see that.”
Alice could see? But… then where were the wolves? Where was the pack?
“The pack?”
“They had to leave quickly. The Volturi do not honor truces with werewolves.”
I could hear my breathing get even faster, more frantic, btu I couldn’t control it. I started to gasp.
“I swear they will be fine,” Edward promised me. “The Volturi won’t recognize the scent—they won’t realize the wolves are here; this isn’t a species they are familiar with. The pack will be fine.”
I couldn’t process his explanation. My concentration was ripped to shreds by my fears and rising panic. We’re going to be fine, he had said before… and Seth, howling in agony… Edward had avoided my first question, distracted me with the Volturi.
I was very close to the edge—just clinging by my fingertips.
The trees were a racing blur that flowed around him like jade waters.
“What happened?” I whispered again. “Before. When Seth was howling? When you were hurt?”
Edward hesitated.
“Edward! Tell me!”
“It was all over,” he whispered. I could barely hear him over the wind his speed created. “The wolves didn’t count their half… they thought they had them all. Of course, Alice couldn’t see…”
“What happened!?”
“One of the newborns was hiding… Liam found him—he was being stupid, cocky, trying to prove something. He engaged the newborn alone…”
“Liam,” I repeated, and my panic started rising higher. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Liam wasn’t hurt,” Edward mumbled.
I stared at him for a long second.
Sam—help him—Edward had gasped. Him who?
“We’re almost there,” Edward said, and he stared at a fixed point in the sky.
Automatically, my eyes followed his. There was a dark purple cloud hanging low over the trees. A cloud. But it was so abnormally sunny… No, not a cloud—I recognized the thick column of smoke, just like the one at our campsite.
“Edward,” I said, my voice nearly inaudible. “Edward, someone got hurt.”
I’d heard Seth’s agony, seen the torture in Edward’s face.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Who?” I asked, though, of course, I already knew the answer.
Of course I did. Of course.
The trees were slowing around us as we came to our destination.
It took him a long moment to answer me.
“Jacob,” he said.
I was able to nod once.
“Jacob,” I repeated.
And then I slipped off the edge I was clinging to inside my head.
Everything went black.
I was first aware of the cool hands touching me. More than one pair of hands. Arms holding me, a palm curved to fit my cheek, fingers stroking my forehead, and more fingers pressed lightly into my wrist.
Then I was aware of the voices. They were just a humming at first, and then they grew in volume and clarity like someone was turning up a radio.
“Carlisle—it’s been five minutes.” Edward’s voice, anxious.
“He’ll come around when he’s ready, Edward.” Carlisle’s voice, always calm and sure. “He’s had too much to deal with today. Let his mind protect itself.”
But my mind was not protected. It was trapped in the knowledge that had not left me, even in unconsciousness—the pain that was part of the blackness.
I felt totally disconnected from my body. Like I was caged in some small corner of my head, no longer at the controls. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t think. The agony was too strong for that. There was no escape from it.
Jacob.
Jacob.
No, no, no, no, no…
“Alice, how long do we have?” Edward demanded, his voice still tense; Carlisle’s soothing words had not helped.
From farther away, Alice’s voice. She sounded distracted. “Another five moments. And Beau will open his eyes in thirty-seven seconds. I wouldn’t doubt that he can hear us now.”
“Beau, honey?” This was Esme’s soft, comforting voice. “Can you hear me? You’re safe now, dear.”
Yes, I was safe. But was Jacob?
Then cool lips were at my ear, and Edward was speaking the words that allowed me to escape from the torture that had me caged inside my own head.
“He’s going to live, Beau. Jacob Black is healing as I speak. He’ll be fine.”
As the pain and dread eased, I found my way back to my body. My eyelids fluttered.
“Oh, Beau,” Edward sighed in relief, and his lips touched mine.
“Edward,” I whispered.
“Yes, I’m here.”
I got my lids to open, and I stared into warm gold.
“Jacob is okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” he promised.
I watched his eyes carefully for some sign that he was placating me, but they were perfectly clear.
“I examined him myself,” Carlisle said then; I turned my head to find his face, only a few feet away. Carlisle’s expression was serious and reassuring at the same time. It was impossible to doubt him. “His life is not in any danger. He was healing at an incredible rate, though his injuries were extensive enough that it will still be a few days before he is back to normal, even if the rate of repair holds steady. As soon as we’re done here, I will do what I can to help him. Sam is trying to get him to phase back to his human form. That will make treating him easier.” Carlisle smiled slightly. “I’ve never been to veterinarian school.”
“What happened to him?” I whispered. “How bad are his injuries?”
Carlisle’s face was serious again. “Another wolf was in trouble —”
“Liam,” I breathed.
“Yes. Jacob knocked Liam out of the way, but he didn’t have time to defend himself. The newborn got his arms around him. Most of the bones on the right half of his body were shattered.”
I flinched.
“Sam and Paul got there in time. He was already improving when they took him back to La Push.” “He’ll be back to normal?” I asked.
“Yes, Beau. He won’t have any permanent damage.”
I took a deep breath.
“Three minutes,” Alice said quietly.
I struggled, trying to get vertical. Edward realized what I was doing and helped me to my feet.
I stared at the scene in front of me.
The Cullens stood in a loose semicircle around the bonfire. There were hardly any flames visible, just the thick, purple-black smoke, hovering like a disease against the bright grass. Jasper stood closest to the solid-seeming haze, in its shadow so that his skin did not glitter brilliantly in the sun the way the others did. He had his back to me, his shoulders tense, his arms slightly extended. There was something there, in his shadow. Something he crouched over with wary intensity…
I was too numb to feel more than a mild shock when I realized what it was.
There were eight vampires in the clearing.
The girl was curled into a small ball beside the flames, her arms wrapped around her legs. She was very young. Younger than me—she looked maybe fifteen, dark-haired and slight. Her eyes were focused on me, and the irises were a shocking brilliant red. Much brighter than Riley’s, almost glowing. They wheeled wildly, out of control.
Edward saw my bewildered expression.
“She surrendered,” he told me quietly. “That’s one I’ve never seen before. Only Carlisle would think of offering. Jasper doesn’t approve.”
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the scene besides the fire. Jasper was rubbing absently at his left forearm.
“Is Jasper all right?” I whispered.
“He’s fine. The venom stings.”
“He was bitten?” I asked, horrified.
“He was trying to be everywhere at once. Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do, actually.” Edward shook his head. “Alice doesn’t need anyone’s help.”
Alice grimaced toward her true love. “Overprotective fool.”
Then Alice’s eyes slowly drifted back to me. She looked at me with a concerned, but confused expression on her face.
The young female suddenly threw her head back like an animal and wailed shrilly.
Jasper growled at her and she cringed back, but her fingers dug into the ground like claws and her head whipped back and forth in anguish. Jasper took a step toward her, slipping deeper into his crouch. Edward moved with overdone casualness, turning our bodies so that he was between the girl and me. I peeked around his arm to watch around his arm to watch the thrashing girl and Jasper.
Carlisle was at Jasper’s side in an instant. He put a restraining hand on his most recent son’s arm.
“Have you changed your mind, young one?” Carlisle asked, calm as ever. “We don’t want to destroy you, but we will if you can’t control yourself.”
“How can you stand it?” The girl groaned in a high, clear voice. “I want him.” Her bright crimson irises focused on Edward, through him, beyond him to me, and her nails ripped through the hard soil again.
“You must stand it,” Carlisle told her gravely. “You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will save you now.”
The girl clutched her dirt-encrusted hands around her head, yowling quietly.
“Shouldn’t we move away from her?” I whispered, tugging on Edward’s arm. The girl’s lips pulled back over teeth when she heard my voice, her expression one of torment.
“We have to stay here,” Edward murmured. “They are coming to the north end of the clearing now.”
My heart burst into a sprint as I scanned the clearing, but I couldn’t see anything past the thick pall of smoke.
After a second of fruitless searching, my gaze crept back to the young female vampire. She was still watching me, her eyes half-mad.
I met the girl’s stare for a long moment. Chin-length dark hair framed her face, which was alabaster pale. It was hard to tell if her features were beautiful, twisted as they were by rage and thirst. The feral red eyes were dominant—hard to look away from. She glared at me viciously, shuddering and writhing every few seconds.
I stared at her, mesmerized, wondering if I were looking into a mirror of my possible future.
Then Carlisle and Jasper began to back toward the rest of us. Emmett, Royal, and Esme all converged hastily around where Edward stood with Alice and me. A united front, as Edward had said, with me at the heart, in the safest place.
I tore my attention away from the wild girl to search for the approaching monsters.
There was still nothing to see. I glanced at Edward, and his eyes were locked straight ahead. I tried to follow his gaze, but there was only the smoke—dense, oily smoke twisting low to the ground, rising lazily, undulating against the grass.
It billowed forward, darker in the middle.
“Hmm,” a dead voice murmured from the mist. I recognized the apathy at once.
“Welcome, Jane.” Edward’s tone was coolly courteous.
The dark shapes came closer, separating themselves from the haze, solidifying. I knew it would be Jane in the front—the darkest cloak, almost black, and the smallest figure by more than two feet. I could just barely make out Jane’s angelic features in the shade of the cowl.
The four gray-shrouded figures hulking behind her were also somewhat familiar. I was sure I recognized the biggest one, and while I stared, trying to confirm my suspicion, Felix looked up. He let his hood fall back slightly so that I could see him wink at me and smile. Edward was very still at my side, tightly in control.
Jane’s gaze moved slowly across the luminous faces of the Cullens and then touched on the newborn girl beside the fire; the newborn had her head in her hands again.
“I don’t understand.” Jane’s voice was toneless, but not quite as uninterested as before.
“She has surrendered,” Edward explained, answering the confusion in her mind.
Jane’s dark eyes flashed to his face. “Surrendered?”
Felix and another shadow exchanged a quick glance.
Edward shrugged. “Carlisle gave her the option.”
“There are no options for those who break the rules,” Jane said flatly.
Carlisle spoke then, his voice mild. “That’s in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught.”
“That is irrelevant,” Jane insisted.
“As you wish.”
Jane stared at Carlisle in consternation. She shook her head infinitesimally, and then composed her features.
“Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle. He sends his regards.”
Carlisle nodded. “I would appreciate it if you would convey mind to him.”
“Of course.” Jane smiled. Her face was almost too lovely when it was animated. She looked back toward the smoke. “It appears you’ve done our work for us today… for the most part.” Her eyes flickered to the hostage. “Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there? They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle.”
“Eighteen, including this one,” Carlisle answered.
Jane’s eyes widened, and she looked at the fire again, seeming to reassess the size of it. Felix and the other shadows exchanged a longer glance.
“Eighteen?” she repeated, her voice sounding unsure for the first time.
“All brand-new,” Carlisle said dismissively. “They were unskilled.”
“All?” Her voice turned sharp. “Then who was their creator?”
“His name was Victor,” Edward answered, no emotion in his voice.
“Was?” Jane asked.
Edward inclined his head toward the Eastern forest. Jane’s eyes snapped up and focused on something far in the distance. The other pillar of smoke? I didn’t look away to check.
Jane stared to the east for a long moment, and then examined the closer bonfire again.
“This Victor—he was in addition to the eighteen here?”
“Yes. He had only one other with him. He was not as young as this one here, but no older than a year.”
“Twenty,” Jane breathed. “Who dealt with the creator?”
“I did,” Edward told her.
Jane’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to the girl beside the fire.
“You there,” she said, her dead voice harsher than before. “Your name.”
The newborn short a baleful glare at Jane, her lips pressed tightly together.
Jane smiled back angelically.
The newborn girl’s answering scream was ear-piercing; her body arched stiffly into a distorted, unnatural position. I looked away, fighting the urge to cover my ears. I gritted my teeth, hoping to control my stomach. The screaming intensified. I tried to concentrate on Edward’s face, smooth and unemotional, but that made me remember when it had been Edward under Jane’s torturing gaze, and I felt sicker. I looked at Alice instead, and Esme next to her. Their faces were as empty as his.
Finally, it was quiet.
“Your name,” Jane said again, her voice inflectionless.
“Bree,” the girl gasped.
Jane smiled, and the girl shrieked again. I held my breath until the sound of her agony stopped.
“She’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Edward said through his teeth. “You don’t have to do that.”
Jane looked up, sudden humor in her usually dead eyes. “Oh, I know,” she said to Edward, grinning at him before she turned back to the young vampire, Bree.
“Bree,” Jane said, her voice cold again. “Is his story true? Were there twenty of you?”
The girl lay panting, the side of her face pressed against the earth. She spoke quickly. “Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don’t know!” She cringed, terrified that her ignorance might bring on another round of torture. “Sara and the one whose name I don’t know got in a fight on the way…”
“And this Victor—did he create you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, flinching again. “Riley never said his name. I didn’t see that night… it was so dark, and it hurt…” Bree shuddered. “Riley didn’t was us to be able to think of him. He said that our thoughts weren’t safe…”
Jane’s eyes flickered to Edward, and then back to the girl.
Victor had planned this well. If he hadn’t followed Edward, there would have been no way to know for certain that he was involved.
“Tell me about Riley,” Jane said. “Why did he bring you here?”
“Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here,” Bree babbled quickly and willingly. “He said it would be easy. He said that the city was theirs, and they were coming to get us. He said once they were gone, all the blood would be ours. Riley gave us his scent.” Bree lifted one hand and stabbed a finger in my direction. “he said we would know that we had the right coven, because the human would be with them. Riley said whoever got him first could have him.”
I heard Edward’s jaw flex beside me.
“It looks like Riley was wrong about the easy part,” Jane noted.
Bree nodded, seeming relieved that the conversation had taken this non-painful course. She sat up carefully. “I don’t know what happened. We split up, but the others never came. And Riley left us, and he didn’t come to help like he promised. And then it was so confusing, and everybody was in pieces.” She shuddered again. “I was afraid. I wanted to run away. That one”—she looked at Carlisle—“said they wouldn’t hurt me if I stopped fighting.”
“Ah, but that wasn’t his gift to offer, young one,” Jane murmured, her voice oddly gentle now. “Broken rules demand consequences.”
Bree stared at her, not comprehending.
Jane looked at Carlisle. “Are you sure you got all of them? The other half that split off?”
Carlisle’s face was very smooth as he nodded. “We split up, too.”
Jane half-smiled. “I can’t deny that I’m impressed.” The big shadows behind her murmured in agreement. “I’ve never seen a coven escape an attack of this magnitude intact. Do you know what was behind it? It seems like extreme behavior, considering the way you live here. And why was the boy the key?” Her eyes rested unwillingly on me for one short second.
I shivered.
“Victor held a grudge against Beau,” Edward told her, his voice impassive.
Jane laughed—the sound was golden, the bubbling laugh of a happy child. “This one seems to bring out bizarrely strong reactions in our kind,” she observed, smiling directly at me, her face beatific.
Edward stiffened. I looked at him in time to see his face turning away, back to Jane.
“Would you please not do that?” he asked in a tight voice.
Jane laughed again lightly. “Just checking. No harm done, apparently.”
I shivered, deeply grateful that the strange glitch in my system—which had protected me from Jane the last time we’d met—was still in effect. Edward’s arm tightened around me.
“Well, it appears that there’s not much left for us to do. Odd,” Jane said, apathy creeping back into her voice. “We’re not used to being rendered unnecessary. It’s too bad we missed the fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch.”
“Yes,” Edward answered her quickly, his voice sharp. “And you were so close. It’s a shame you didn’t arrive just a half hour earlier. Perhaps then you could have fulfilled your purpose here.”
Jane met Edward’s glare with unwavering eyes. “Yes. Quite a pity how things turned out, isn’t it?”
Edward nodded once to look at the newborn Bree again, her face completely bored. “Felix?” she drawled.
“Wait,” Edward interjected.
Jane raised one eyebrow, but Edward was staring at Carlisle while he spoke in an urgent voice. “We could explain the rules to the young one. She doesn’t seem unwilling to learn. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Of course,” Carlisle answered. “We would certainly be prepared to take responsibility for Bree.”
Jane’s expression was torn between amusement and disbelief.
“We don’t make exceptions,” she said. “And we don’t give second chances. It’s bad for our reputation. Which reminds me…” Suddenly, her eyes were on me again, and her cherubic face dimpled. “Caius will be so interested to hear that you’re still human, Beau. Perhaps he’ll decide to visit.”
“The date is set,” I answered, surprising myself with my confidence.
“Perhaps we’ll come visit you in a few months.” Alice said, backing up my lie.
Jane’s smile faded, and she shrugged indifferently, never looking at Alice. She turned to face Carlisle. “It was nice to meet you, Carlisle—I’d thought Aro was exaggerating. Well, until we meet again…”
Carlisle nodded, his expression pained.
“Take care of that, Felix,” Jane said, nodding toward Bree, her voice dripping boredom. “I want to go home.”
“Don’t watch,” Edward whispered in my ear.
I was only too eager to follow his instruction. I’d seen more than enough for one day—more than enough for one lifetime. I squeezed my eyes tightly together and turned my face into Edward’s chest.
But I could still hear.
There was a deep rumbling growl, and then a high-pitched keen that was horribly familiar. That sound cut off quickly, and then the only sound was a sickening crunching and snapping.
Edward’s hand rubbed anxiously against my shoulders.
“Come,” Jane said, and I looked up in time to see the backs of the tall gray cloaks drifting away toward the curling smoke. The incense smell was strong again—fresh.
When I woke up in the morning, it was very bright—even inside the tent, the sunlight hurt my eyes. And I was sweating, as Jacob had predicted. Jacob was snoring lightly in my ear, his arms still wrapped around me.
I pulled my head away from his feverishly warm chest and felt the sting of the cold morning on my clammy cheek. Jacob sighed in his sleep; his arms tightened unconsciously.
I squirmed, unable to loosen his hold, struggling to lift my head enough to see…
Edward met my gaze evenly. His expression was calm, but the pain in his eyes was unconcealed.
“Is it any warmer out there?” I whispered.
“Yes. I don’t think the space heater will be necessary today.”
I tried to get to the zipper, but I couldn’t free my arms. I strained, fighting against Jacob’s inert strength. Jacob muttered, still fast asleep, his arms constricting again.
“Some help?” I asked quietly.
Edward smiled. “Did you want me to take his arms all the way off?”
“No, Edward. Just get me free. I’m going to get heat stroke.”
Edward unzipped the sleeping bag in a swift, abrupt movement. Jacob fell out, his bare back hitting the icy floor of the tent.
“Hey!” he complained, his eyes flying open. Instinctively, he flinched away from the cold, rolling onto me. I gasped as his weight knocked the breath out of me.
And then his weight was gone. I felt the impact as Jacob flew into one of the tent poles and the tent shuddered.
The growling erupted from all around. Edward was crouching in front of me, and I couldn’t see his face, but the snarls were ripping angrily out of his chest. Jacob was half-crouched, too, his whole body quivering, while growls rumbled through his clenched teeth. Outside the tent, Seth Clearwater’s vicious snarls echoed off the rocks.
“Stop it, stop it!” I yelled, scrambling awkwardly to put myself between them. The space was so small that I didn’t have to stretch far to put one hand on each of their chests. Edward wrapped his hand around my waist, ready to yank me out of the way.
“Stop it, now,” I warned him.
Under my touch, Jacob began to calm himself. The shaking slowed, but his teeth were still bared, his eyes furiously focused on Edward. Seth continued to growl, a long unbroken sound, a violent background to the sudden silence in the tent.
“Jacob?” I asked, waiting until he finally dropped his glare to look at me. “Are you hurt?”
“Of course not!” he hissed.
I turned to Edward. He was looking at me, his expression hard and angry. “That wasn’t nice. You need to apologize.”
His eyes widened in disgust. “You must be joking—he was crushing you!”
“Because you dumped him on the floor! He didn’t do it on purpose, and he didn’t hurt me.”
Edward groaned, revolted. Slowly, he looked up to glare at Jacob with hostile eyes. “My apologies, dog.”
“No harm done,” Jacob said, a taunting edge to his voice.
It was still cold, though not as cold as it had been. I curled my arms around my chest.
“Here,” Edward said, calm again. He took the parka off the floor and wrapped it over the top of my coat.
“That’s Jacob’s,” I objected.
“Jacob has a fur coat,” Edward hinted.
“I’ll just use the sleeping bag again, if you don’t mind.” Jacob ignored him, climbing around us and sliding into the down bag. “I wasn’t quite ready to wake up. That wasn’t the best night’s sleep I ever had.”
“It was your idea,” Edward said impassively.
Jacob curled up, his eyes already closed. He yawned. “I didn’t say it wasn’t the best night I’ve ever spent. Just that I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I thought Beau was never going to stop talking.”
I winced, wondering what might have come out of my mouth in my sleep. The possibilities were horrifying.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Edward murmured.
Jacob’s dark eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t you have a nice night, then?” he asked, smug.
“It wasn’t the worst night of my life.”
“Did it make the top ten?” Jacob asked, amused.
“Possibly.”
Jacob smiled and closed his eyes.
“But,” Edward went on, “if I had been able to take your place last night, it would not have made the top ten of the best nights of my life. Dream about that.”
Jacob’s eyes opened into a glare. He sat up stiffly, his shoulders tense.
“You know what? I think it’s too crowded in here.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
I elbowed Edward in the ribs—probably giving myself a bruise.
“Guess I’ll catch up on my sleep later, then.” Jacob made a face. “I need to talk to Sam anyway.”
He rolled to his knees and grabbed the door’s zipper.
Pain crackled down my spine and lodged in my stomach as I abruptly realized that this could be the last time I would see him. He was going back to Sam, back to fight the horde of bloodthirsty newborn vampires.
“Jake, wait—“ I reached after him, my hand sliding down his arm.
He jerked his arm away before my fingers could find purchase.
“Please, Jake? Won’t you stay?”
“No.”
The word was hard and cold. I knew my face gave away my pain, because he exhaled and half a smile softened his expression.
“Don’t worry about me, babe. I’ll be fine, just like I always am.” He forced a laugh. “’Sides, you think I’m going to let Seth go in my place—have all the fun and steal all the glory? Right.” He snorted.
“Be careful, Jake. Please.”
He turned back and ran his fingers through my hair. “Don’t worry so much, Beau.”
He was out of the tent before I could say anything else.
I listened for the sound of his retreating footsteps, but it was perfectly still. No more wind. I could hear morning birdsong far away on the mountain, and nothing else. Jacob moved in silence now.
I huddled in my coats, and leaned against Edward’s shoulder. We were quiet for a long time.
“How much longer?” I asked.
“Alice told Sam it should be an hour or so,” Edward said, soft and bleak.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join them?” I said reluctantly.
“We stay together. No matter what, Beau.” He said, his eyes tight.
“No matter what.” I agreed. “I know, I’m terrified for them, too.”
“They know how to handle themselves,” Edward assured me, purposely making his voice light. “I just hate missing the fun.”
“Ha, fun.” I snorted.
He put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he urged, and then kissed my forehead.
As if there was any way to avoid that. “Sure, sure.”
“Do you want me to distract you?” He breathed, running his cold fingers along my cheekbone.
I shivered involuntarily; the morning was still frosty.
“Maybe not right now,” he answered himself, pulling his hand away.
“There are other ways to distract me.”
“What would you like?”
“You could tell me about your ten best nights,” I suggested. “I’m curious.”
He laughed. “Try to guess.”
I shook my head. “There’s too many nights I don’t know about. A century of them.”
“I’ll narrow it down for you. All of my best nights have happened since I met you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really—and by quite a wide margin, too.”
I thought for a minute. “I can only think of mine,” I admitted.
“They might be the same,” he encouraged.
“Well, there was the first night. The night you stayed.”
“Yes, that’s one of mine, too. Of course, you were unconscious for my favorite part.”
“That’s right,” I remembered. “I was talking that night, too.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
My face got hot as I wondered again what I might have said while sleeping in Jacob’s arms. I couldn’t remember what I’d dreamed about, or if I’d dreamed at all, so that was no help.
“What did I say last night?” I whispered more quietly than before.
He shrugged instead of answering, and I winced.
“That bad?”
“Nothing too horrible,” he sighed.
“Please tell me.”
“Mostly you said my name, the same as usual.”
“That’s not bad,” I agreed cautiously.
“Near the end, though, you started rumbling some nonsense about ‘Jacob, my Jacob.’” I could hear the pain, even in the whisper. “Your Jacob enjoyed that quite a lot.”
I stretched my neck up, straining to reach my lips to the edge of his jaw. I couldn’t see into his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling of the tent.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “That’s just the way I differentiate.”
“Differentiate?”
“Between the Jacob I like and the one who annoys the hell out of me,” I explained, lightly.
“That makes sense.” He sounded slightly mollified. “Tell me another favorite night.”
“Flying home from Italy.”
He frowned.
“Is that not one of yours?” I wondered.
“No, it is one of mine, actually, but I’m surprised it’s on your list. Weren’t you under the ludicrous impression that I was just acting from a guilty conscience, and I was going to bolt as soon as the plane doors opened?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “But I still managed to save you… for a change.”
“You did.” He kissed my hair. “You love me more than I deserve.”
I laughed. “Next would be the night after Italy,” I continued.
“Yes, that’s on the list. You were so strong that night.”
“Strong?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I already knew you were a strong person, Beau. But seeing you that night… You didn’t let me get away with anything, you didn’t let me wallow. After everything you’d been through you were still… So wonderful.”
“Well, thank you,” I blushed. “Okay, tell me one of yours, now. Did I guess your first place?”
“No—that would be two nights ago, when you finally agreed to marry me.”
I laughed.
“That doesn’t make your list?”
“Yes, it does. It’s just funny to me how important it is to you. You already had me forever.”
“A hundred years from now, when you’ve gained enough perspective to really appreciate the answer, I will explain it to you.”
“If I live another hundred years, I’ll remind you to explain.”
“Are you warm enough?” he asked suddenly.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Why?”
Before he could answer, the silence outside the tent was ripped apart by an earsplitting howl of pain. The sound ricocheted off the bare rock face of the mountain and filled the air so that it seared from every direction.
The howl tore through my mind like a tornado, both strange and familiar. Strange because I’d never heard such a tortured cry before. Familiar because I knew the voice at once—I recognized the sound and understood the meaning as perfectly as if I’d uttered it myself. It made no difference that Jacob was not human when he cried out. I needed no translation.
Jacob was close. Jacob had heard every word we’d said. Jacob was in agony.
The howl choked off into a peculiar gurgled sob, and then it was quiet again.
I did not hear his silent escape, but I could feel it—I could feel the absence I had wrongly assumed before, the empty space he left behind.
“Because your space heater has reached his limit,” Edward answered quietly. “Truce over,” he added, so low I couldn’t be sure that was really what he’d said.
“Jacob was listening,” I whispered. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
I stared at nothing, seeing nothing.
“I never promised to fight fair,” he reminded me quietly. “And he deserves to know.”
My head fell into my hands.
“Are you angry with me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered. “And with myself.”
“Beau, please, don’t torment yourself—“
“Yes,” I snapped. “I should save my energy to torment Jacob some more. I wouldn’t want to leave any part of him unharmed.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
“Just like you knew what you were doing just now.” The words were biting. “God, I did this. It’s my fault. I keep hurting Jacob, over and over again.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around me. “Beau…”
“Don’t.” My voice was cold and harsh as I struggled free of his arms, he let them drop. “I have to go find Jacob.”
“Beau, he’s already miles away, and it’s cold.”
“I don’t care. I can’t just sit here.” I shrugged off Jacob’s parka, shoved my feet into my boots, and crawled stiffly to the door; my legs felt numb. “I have to find him. I have to talk to him.” I unzipped the door of the tent and climbed out into the bright, icy morning.
Everything was covered in a thick blanket of snow. The sun shone low in the southeast, glancing off the snow and stabbing at my unadjusted eyes. The air still had a bite to it, but it was dead calm on the mountain.
Seth Clearwater was curled up on a patch of dry pine needs in the shadow of a thick spruce, his head on his paws. His sand-colored fur was almost invisible against the dead needles, but I could see the bright snow reflect off his open eyes. He was staring at me with a strange expression.
I knew Edward was following me as I stumbled toward the trees. I couldn’t hear him, but the sun reflected of his skin in fiery shards and glittering rainbows that danced ahead of me. He didn’t reach out to stop me until I was several paces into the forest shadows.
His hand caught my left wrist. He ignored it when I tried to yank myself free.
“You can’t go after him. Not today. It’s almost time. And getting yourself lost wouldn’t help anyone, regardless.”
I twisted my wrist, pulling uselessly.
“I’m sorry, Beau,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I did that.”
“Are you?” I turned on him, angrily. “Are you sorry?”
He nodded solemnly.
“I need to talk to Jacob. I need to apologize for hurting him. He needed to know, but he didn’t deserve to find out this way.” I felt my voice catch in my throat as tears threatened to burst from my eyes. I took a deep breath. I exhaled slowly. “If you are actually sorry then you go find him and you bring him back, Edward.”
Edward stared at me for one long second. Then he was gone, and I was alone.
A sob broke from my chest. I was hurting everyone today, wasn’t I?
I didn’t know why it was hitting me so hard now. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known this was coming eventually. But Jacob had never reacted so strongly—lost his bold overconfidence and shown the intensity of his pain. The sound of his agony still cut at me, somewhere deep in my chest. My heartache. Cracks in my heart that I had thought were long since healed began to throb all over again.
I couldn’t cry over Jacob anymore. I couldn’t just jerk him around when it was convenient for me and my feelings. It wasn’t fair to him. He wanted something I couldn’t give him. I had to tell him that. I had to apologize to him for all the pain I caused, for giving him hope for something that could never be, and then I had to say goodbye.
Why was that so hard? So very much more difficult than saying goodbye to my other friends, to Jess, to Angela, to Mike. Why did that hurt so much more? It wasn’t fair. I had made my choice. I couldn’t have them both, because Jacob could not be just my friend. It was time to give up wishing for that. How could I be so greedy?
I had to get over this irrational feeling that Jacob belonged in my life. He couldn’t belong with me, could not be my Jacob, when I had given my heart to someone else.
I walked slowly back to the little clearing, my feet dragging. When I broke into the open space, blinking against the sharp light, I threw one quick glance toward Seth—he hadn’t moved from his bed of pine needles—and then I looked away, avoiding his eyes.
I grabbed the canteen hanging beside the tent door and shook it. It sloshed wetly, so I unscrewed the lid and took a swig to rinse my mouth with the ice water. I poured a little in my hand and splashed my face, trying to clear my head. I started pacing across the bright little space, feeling Seth’s eyes on me the whole time. Because I wouldn’t look at him, in my head he became the boy again, rather than the gigantic wolf. So much like a younger Jacob.
I wanted to ask Seth to bark or give some other sign if Jacob was coming back, but I stopped myself. It would only make me more anxious.
Seth whined at that moment, and got to his feet.
“What is it?” I asked him stupidly.
He ignored me, trotting to the edge of the trees, and pointing his nose toward the west. He began whimpering.
“Is it the others, Seth?” I demanded. “In the clearing?”
He looked at me and yelped softly once, and then turned his nose alertly back to the west. His ears laid back and he whined again.
A cold trickle of fear began to ooze down my spine. What if the time had run out? What if Jacob and Edward got too close? What if Edward decided to join in the fight?
The icy fear pooled in my stomach. What if Seth’s distress had nothing to do with the clearing, and his yelp had been a denial? What if Jacob and Edward were fighting with each other, far away somewhere in the forest? They wouldn’t do that, would they?
With a sudden, chilling certainty I realized that they would—if the wrong words were said. I thought of the tense standoff in the tent this morning, and I wondered if I’d underestimated how close it had come to a fight.
What would I do if I lost them both? Did I deserve that for being so selfish?
The ice locked around my heart.
I continued pacing, but I was starting to sweat under all my layers. I threw my jacket into the tent, and then I went back to trudging a path across the center of the tiny break in the trees.
Seth was pacing now, too. The hackles on the back of his neck standing up stiffly. I looked around, but saw nothing. He growled, a low warning sound, slinking towards the western rim.
“It’s just us, Seth,” Jacob called from a distance.
I tried to explain to myself why my heart started beating so furiously when I heard him. It had to be fear of what I was going to have to do now. I could not allow myself to be relieved that he’d come back. That would be the opposite of helpful.
Edward walked into view first, his face blank and smooth. When he stepped out from the shadows, the sun shimmered on his skin like it did on the snow. Seth went to greet him, looking intently into his eyes. Edward nodded slowly, and worry creased his forehead.
“Yes, that’s all we need,” he muttered to himself before addressing the big wolf. “I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. But the timing is going to be very close. Please have Sam ask Alice to try to nail the schedule down better.”
Seth dipped his head once, and trotted away. I watched Seth go, then turned my head back to face Jacob.
He had his back to me, facing the way he’d come. I waited warily for him to turn around.
“Beau,” Edward murmured, suddenly right beside me. He stared down at me with nothing but concern and repentance showing in his eyes. “There’s a bit of a complication,” he told me, his voice carefully unworried. “I’m going to take Seth a little ways away and try to straighten it out. I won’t go far, but I won’t listen, either. I know you don’t want an audience, no matter which way you decide to go.”
Only at the very end did the pain break into his voice.
I felt a new wave of guilt over causing him so much hurt. I was too upset to even ask him what the new problem was. I didn’t need anything else right now.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He kissed me lightly on the lips, and then disappeared into the forest where Seth had gone.
Jacob was still in the shadow of the trees; I couldn’t see his expression clearly.
“I’m in a hurry, Beau,” he said in a dull voice. “Why don’t you get it over with?”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly so dry I wasn’t sure if I could make sound come out.
“Just say the words, and be done with it.”
I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve been so selfish. I wish I had been strong enough to make the choice so much sooner. To make it so that I wasn’t hurting you so badly. I won’t do it anymore, I promise. I’ll stay far away from you. I’ll move out of the state. You won’t have to look at me ever again.”
“Is that your solution?” He said bitterly.
I couldn’t make my voice louder than a whisper. “Tell me how to do it right.”
“What if I don’t want you to go away? What if I’d rather you stayed, selfish or not? Don’t I get any say, if you’re trying to make things up to me?”
“That won’t help anything, Jake. It was wrong to stay with you when we wanted such different things. It’s not going to get better. I’ll just keep hurting you. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I hate it.” My voice broke.
He sighed. “Stop. You don’t have to say anything else. I understand.”
I wanted to tell him how much I would miss him, but I bit my tongue. That would not help anything, either.
He stood quietly for a moment, staring at the ground, and I fought against the urge to go and put my arms around him. To comfort him.
Finally he looked up at me.
“It’s not just you, Beau. You’re not the only one at fault here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve behaved pretty badly myself. I’ve made this much harder for you than I needed to. I could have given up with good grace in the beginning. But I hurt you, too.”
“This is my fault, Jacob. I wouldn’t make a choice when I needed to and now look what’s happened.”
“I won’t let you take all the blame here, Beau.”
“Jacob—“
“We can’t keep doing this to each other. One of us has to walk away.” He shook his head, interrupting me. “I can’t change the way I feel about you, Beau. I love you. I’m in love with you, and I probably always will be.” He sighed again. “But I can be strong enough to walk away now. To give you space, and to stop making this so damn hard on you.”
I felt the tears streaming down my face as he spoke. I hated that I was so weak that he had to be the strong one, when he was the one hurting so badly.
“It’s not fair, Jake, it’s not fair.” I sobbed, my hands flying to my face.
Suddenly his arms were around me.
“Shh,” he pulled me close to him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” His voice was low and soothing. “I lost. That’s just how it goes.” He chuckled. “A guy has to bow out gracefully at some point, right? And that’s what I’m doing, Beau. I’m bowing out. I’m making this easier on you, because you don’t deserve me making your life more difficult by refusing to give up.”
“You don’t deserve me hurting you like this.” I sobbed into his chest.
“It’s alright. At least I’ve got a pretty great fight to look forward to.” He shrugged.
“No!” My arms wrapped around his waist and my head shot up. “Jake, no, please don’t go. Not now!”
“Beau, I’m not going to sit this one out. Besides, what does me staying do? I miss the fight so we can cry for a while? Then you go back to him at the end of it all?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Jake.” I shook my head. “I can’t have you get hurt anymore.”
“Babe, I’m going to get hurt one way or another here.” He said quietly. “Less chance of me getting hurt down there than up here.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I buried my face in his chest and sobbed.
He stood holding me for a long moment. Then he finally took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I’ve got to go, Beau.”
“No, Jake, please—“ My words choked off into a sob, and I buried my face deeper into his chest.
Why was this so hard for me? Why couldn’t I let him go? Why couldn’t I stop hurting him.
“We had a good time though, didn’t we?” He kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Beau.”
“I love you, Jacob,” I whispered brokenly.
I could feel him smile. “I know that better than you do.”
And then he dropped his arms. He turned, and he walked away.
I felt the stab of loss, the aching and gnawing feeling that this would be the last time I saw him. I might lose him forever, he was going off to a battle and I might never see him again. And in that moment, I saw everything. I saw every moment I’d spent with Jacob Black. From the first time I saw him on La Push beach, telling me scary stories, to that first time at his house, all the time in his little garage, to the movie theatre where he told me he’d wait for me. I saw him back at his house, telling me we couldn’t be friends. Then in my room, trying so hard to keep his promises. More days in his house, on the beach, in his garage.
And through all of that, through every one of those days—every second—was something I had been trying to deny. Something I had bottled up and hidden away. Pretended didn’t exist, pretended wasn’t there.
I loved Jacob. I was in love with him. Just like he said. My stubborn, stupid denial had only made things more difficult for everyone. I had never stopped loving him. I had admitted it to myself once before, and made myself forget. But I couldn’t deny what was so perfectly obvious, what was right there—always there. We started as friends, then best friends, and then I had fallen in love with him. Somehow I had convinced myself that it wasn’t the same as what I felt for Edward, that it wasn’t as real or as strong, but that was a lie. Because in so many real ways, he was perfect for me. In so many real ways, he was… perfect.
“Jacob…” My voice was barely a whisper. “Jacob, wait…”
Before I realized it, I was running after him. My hands reached out for him. I caught his arm, and my hand slid down grabbing his hand. He paused, and slowly turned to face me. Tears in his eyes.
“Jacob,” I whispered his name again. Then I pulled him closer to me, his face confused.
Overwhelmed by my emotions, I threw my arms around his neck. His arms wrapped around my waist again and we stood there. I pulled my head back and looked into his dark eyes. He stared back into mine, his brow furrowed. Our faces only inches apart.
His arms tightened around my waist. And our faces got closer, and closer. I felt my heart racing in my chest. Both of our breathing sped up.
“Beau… Say it. Please.”
“Jacob… Kiss me.” I breathed.
And his lips were on mine. Passionate and full of fire. It was an unfamiliar feeling as his lips molded to mine. My hands slid up the back of his head, into his hair, tangling in the shaggy strands. One of his hands moved to my waist, and the other slid under the back of my shirt onto the small of my back. The heat of his touch caused my back to arch my body into his body.
My brain stopped thinking, and my instincts took over. There was no hesitation. Just passion. Just love. In my fervor, I grabbed his hair too tightly, pulling it at the roots.
With a wild gasp, he broke the kiss before bringing his lips back to mine with even more passion, his fingers clutching frantically against the skin at my waist. I moaned into his lips, and he moaned back into mine. My lips were moving with his in strange, confusing ways they’d never moved before—because I didn’t have to be careful with Jacob and he didn’t have to be careful with me.
I felt his tongue trace the line of my lower lip, and I moaned again. I pulled him closer to me, deeper into the kiss.
He pulled away for a brief moment, gasping for air. “Beau… Beau…” he panted my name. Then his lips were on my cheek, my jaw, my neck.
He was everywhere. The piercing sunlight turned my eyelids red, and the color fit, matched the heat. The heat was everywhere. I couldn’t see or hear or feel anything that wasn’t Jacob. His lips found mine again.
In this moment, it felt as though we were the same person. For one brief, never-ending second, an entirely different path expanded before me. I could see all the things I wouldn’t ever have to give up. I could see Charlie and Renée mixed into a strange collage with Billy and Sam and La Push. I could see years passing, and meaning something as they passed, changing me. I could see the enormous red-brown wolf that I loved, always standing as protector if I needed him. I could see me and Jacob, sitting on our driftwood tree on First Beach, old and gray. Happy and content.
The kiss slowed, and Jacob reluctantly broke it. I opened my eyes and he was staring at me with wonder and adoration.
“I have to leave,” he whispered.
“No.”
He smiled gently. “I won’t be long,” he promised. “But one thing first…”
He bent to kiss me again and this time it was different. His hands were soft on my face and his warm lips were gentle, unexpectedly hesitant. It was brief, and very, very sweet.
His arms curled around me, and he hugged me securely while he whispered in my ear.
“That should have been our first kiss.”
“It was.”
Against his chest, I sighed. Holding on to this beautiful, sweet moment.
Edward’s soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me gain.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine—like he was afraid we only had so much time left to us.
I couldn’t let myself think about that. Not if I was going to have to act human for the next several hours. I pulled away from him.
“Let’s get this damn party over with,” I mumbled, not meeting his eyes.
He put his hands on either side of my face, waiting until I looked up.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I touched his lips with the fingers of my good hand. “I’m not just worried about myself.”
“Why am I not surprised by that?” he muttered to himself. He took a deep breath, and then he smiled slightly. “Ready to celebrate?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He held the door for me, keeping his arm securely around my waist. I stood frozen there for a minute, then I slowly shook my head.
“Oh. My. God.”
Edward shrugged. “Alice will be Alice.”
The interior of the Cullens’ home had been transformed into a nightclub—the kind that didn’t often exist in real life, only on TV.
“Edward!” Alice called from beside a gigantic speaker. “I need your advice.” She gestured toward a laptop connected to the speaker. “Should we give them familiar and comforting? Or educate their taste in music?”
“Keep it comforting,” Edward recommended. “You can only lead the horse to water.”
Alice nodded seriously, and started working on the laptop—most likely making a playlist. I noticed that she had changed into a sequined tank top and black leather pants. Her bare skin reacted oddly to the pulsing red and purple lights.
“I think I’m underdressed.”
“You’re perfect,” Edward disagreed.
“How dare you question the outfit I picked for you,” Alice glared.
“Sorry, sorry.” I sighed. “Do you really think people will come?” Anyone could hear the hope in my voice. Alice made another face at me.
“Everyone will come,” Edward answered. “They’re all dying to see the inside of the reclusive Cullens’ mystery house.”
“Fabulous,” I moaned.
There wasn’t anything I could do to help. I doubted that—even if I didn’t need sleep or moved at a much faster speed—I would ever be able to get things done the way Alice did.
Edward refused to let me go for a second, dragging me along with him as he hunted up Jasper and then Carlisle to tell them of my epiphany. I listened with quiet horror as they discussed their attack on the army in Seattle. I could tell that Jasper was not pleased with the way the numbers stood, but they’d been unable to contact anyone besides Taras’s unwilling family. Jasper didn’t try to hide his desperation the way Edward would have. It was easy to see that he didn’t like gambling with stakes this high.
I couldn’t stay behind, waiting and hoping for them to come home. I would go mad.
The doorbell rang.
All at once, everything was surreally normal. A perfect smile, genuine and warm, replaced the stress on Carlisle’s face. Alice turned the volume of the music up, and then danced to get the door.
It was a Suburban-load of my friends, either too nervous or too intimidated to arrive on their own. Jessica was the first one in the door, with Mike right behind her. Tyler, Conner, Austin, Lee, Samantha, Lauren… even Logan trailing in last, his critical eyes already alight with curiosity. They all were curious, and then overwhelmed as they took in the huge room decked out like a chic rave. The room wasn’t empty; all the Cullens had taken their places, ready to put on their usual perfect human charade. Tonight I felt like I was acting every bit as much as they were.
I went to greet Jess and Mike, hoping the edge in my voice sounded like the right kind of excitement. Before I could get to anyone else, the bell rang again. I let Angela and Ben in, leaving the door wide, because Erica and Katie were just reaching the steps.
I didn’t get another chance to panic. I had to talk to everyone, concentrate on being upbeat, a host. Though the party had been billed as a joint even for Alice, Edward, and me, there was no denying that I was the most popular target for congratulations and thanks. Maybe because the Cullens looked just slightly wrong under Alice’s party lights. Maybe because those lights left the room dim and mysterious. Not an atmosphere to make your average human feel relaxed when standing next to someone like Emmett. I saw Emmett grin at Mike over the food table, the red lights gleaming off his teeth, and watched Mike take an automatic step back.
Probably Alice had done this on purpose, to force me into the center of attention—a place she thought I should enjoy more. She was forever trying to make me be human the way she thought humans should be.
The party was a clear success, despite the instinctive edginess caused by the Cullens’ presence—or maybe that simply added to the thrill of the atmosphere. The music was infectious, the lights almost hypnotic. From the way the food disappeared, that must have been good, too. The room was soon crowded, though never claustrophobic. The entire senior class seemed to be there, along with most of the juniors. Bodies swayed to the beat that rumbled under the soles of their feet, the party constantly on the edge of breaking into a dance.
It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be. I followed Alice’s lead, mingling and chatting for a minute with everyone. They seemed easy enough to please. I was sure this party was far cooler than anything the town of Forks had experienced before. Alice was almost purring—no one here would forget this night.
I’d circled the room once, and was back to Jessica. We talked animatedly about the party. She was thrilled by the entire thing, and I smiled at her enthusiasm. Edward was at my side—still refusing to let go of me. He kept one hand securely at my waist, pulling me closer now and then in response to thoughts I probably didn’t want to hear.
So I was immediately suspicious when he dropped his arm and edged away from me.
“Stay here,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ll be right back.”
He passed gracefully though the crowd without seeming to touch any of the close-packed bodies, gone too quickly for me to ask why he was leaving. I stared after him with narrowed eyes while Jessica shouted over the music eagerly, hanging on to my elbow, not noticing my distraction.
I watched him as he reached the dark shadow beside the kitchen doorway, where the lights only shone intermittently. He was leaning over someone, but I couldn’t see past all the heads between us.
I stretched up on my toes, craning my neck. Right then, a red light flashed across his back and glinted off the red sequins of Alice’s shirt. The light only touched her face for half a second, but it was enough.
“Excuse me for a minute, Jess, I’m so sorry,” I mumbled.
She nodded her head and smiled as I turned and hurried away.
I ducked my head through the bodies, getting shoved around a bit. A few people were dancing now. I hurried to the kitchen door.
Edward was gone, but Alice was still there in the dark, her face blank—the kind of expressionless look you see on the face of someone who has just witnessed a horrible accident. One of her hands gripped the door frame, like she needed the support.
“What, Alice, what? What did you see?” My hands hovered over her shoulders, like I could somehow help.
She didn’t look at me, she was staring away. I followed her gaze and watched as she caught Edward’s eye across the room. His face was empty as a stone. He turned and disappeared into the shadows under the stair.
The doorbell rang just then, hours after the last time, and Alice looked up with a puzzled expression that quickly turned into one of disgust.
“Who invited the werewolf?” she griped at me.
I scowled. “Guilty.”
I thought I’d rescinded that invitation—not that I’d ever dreamed Jacob would come here, regardless.
“Well, you go take care of it, then. I have to talk to Carlisle.”
“No, Alice, wait!” I tried to put my hands on her shoulders, but she was gone and my hands clutched the empty air.
“Damn it!” I grumbled.
I knew this was it. Alice had seen what she’d been waiting for, and I honestly didn’t feel like I could stand the suspense long enough to answer the door. The doorbell pealed again, too long, someone holding down the button. I turned my back toward the door resolutely, and scanned the darkened room for Alice.
I couldn’t see anything. I started pushing for the stairs.
“Hey, Beau!”
Jacob’s deep voice caught a lull in the music, and I looked up in spite of myself at the sound of my name.
I made a face.
It wasn’t just one werewolf, it was three. Jacob had let himself in, flanked on either side by Quil and Embry. The two of them looked terribly tense, their eyes flickering around the room like they’d just walked into a haunted crypt. Embry’s trembling hand still held the door, his body half-turned to run for it.
Jacob was waving at me, calmer than the others, though his nose was wrinkled in disgust. I waved back—waved goodbye—and turned to look for Alice. I squeezed through a space between Conner’s and Lauren’s backs.
He came out of nowhere, his hand on my shoulder pulling me back towards the shadow by the kitchen. I ducked under his grip, but he caught my good wrist and tugged me from the crowd.
“Friendly reception,” he noted.
I pulled my hand free and scowled at him. “What are you doing here?”
“You invited me, remember?”
“Was my right hook too subtle for you? Or the knee? If they were, let me translate: That was me uninviting you.”
“Come on, Beau, don’t be like that. I brought you a graduation present and everything.”
I folded my arms across my chest. I didn’t want to fight with Jacob right now. I wanted to know what Alice had seen and what Edward and Carlisle were saying about it. I craned my head around Jacob, searching for them.
“Take it back to the store, Jake. I’ve got to do something…”
He stepped into my line of sight, demanding my attention.
“I can’t take it back. I didn’t get it from the store—I made it myself. Took a really long time, too.”
I leaned around him again, but I couldn’t see any of the Cullens. Where had they gone? My eyes scanned the darkened room.
“Oh, c’mon, babe. Don’t pretend like I’m not here!”
“I’m not, Jake.” I couldn’t see them anywhere. “Look, Jake, I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”
He put his under my chin to stop me from looking around. “Could I please have just a few seconds of your undivided attention, Mr. Swan?”
I jerked away from his touch. “Keep your hands to yourself, Jacob,” I hissed.
“Sorry!” he said at once, holding his hands up in surrender. “I really am sorry. About the other day, I mean, too. I shouldn’t of kissed you like that. It was wrong. I guess… well, I guess I deluded myself into thinking you wanted me to.”
“Deluded sounds pretty accurate.”
“Please, Beau. I’m really apologizing here. I feel really bad about the whole thing. I do.”
“Okay, Jake, fine. Apology accepted. Now, if you’ll just excuse me for a moment…”
“Okay,” he mumbled, and his voice was so different from before that I stopped searching for Alice and scrutinized his face. He was staring at the floor, hiding his eyes. His lower lip jutted out a little bit.
“I guess you’d rather be with your real friends,” he said in the same defeated tone. “I get it. I really messed up this time.”
I sighed. “Aw, Jake, come on…”
I leaned forward, peering up, trying to look into his eyes. He looked up then, over my head, avoiding my gaze.
“Jake?”
He refused to look at me.
“Hey, you said you made me something, right?” I asked. “Was that just talk? Where’s my present?” My attempt to fake enthusiasm was pretty sad, but it worked. He rolled his eyes and then grimaced at me.
I kept up the lame pretense, holding my hand open in front of me. “I’m waiting.”
“Right,” he grumbled sarcastically. But he also reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small bag of loose-woven, multi-colored fabric. It was tied shut with leather drawstring. He set it on my palm.
“Hey, that’s pretty, Jake. Thanks!”
He sighed. “The present is inside, Beau.”
“Oh.”
I had some trouble with the strings. He sighed again and took it from me, sliding the ties open with one easy tug of the right cord. I held my hand out for it, but he turned the bag upside down and shook something long and silver into my hand. Metal links clinked quietly against each other.
“I didn’t make the necklace,” he admitted. “Just the charm.”
Attached to the long silver chain was a tiny wooden carving. I held it between my fingers to look at it closer. It was amazing the amount of detail involved in the little figurine—the miniature wolf was utterly realistic. It was even carved out of some red-brown wood that matched the color of his skin.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “You made this? How?”
He shrugged. “It’s something Billy taught me. He’s better at it than I am.”
“That’s hard to believe,” I murmured, turning the tiny wolf around and around in my fingers.
“Do you really like it?”
“Yes! It’s unbelievable, Jake.”
He smiled, happily at first, but then the expression soured. “Well, I figured that maybe it would make you remember me once in a while. You know how it is, out of sight, out of mind.”
I ignored the attitude. “Here, help me put it on.”
I handed the necklace to him and turned around. He put it around my neck and fastened the clasp easily, though it looked too delicate for his big fingers to manage.
“I figured you’d like a necklace more than a bracelet.” He said. “You’ll wear it?”
“Of course I will.” I said as I turned back to face him.
He grinned at me—it was the happy smile that I loved to see him wear.
I returned it for a moment, but then a flash of lights distracted me and my eyes shot reflexively around the room again, imagining I had seen Edward or Alice.
“Why’re you so distracted?” Jacob wondered.
“It’s nothing,” I lied, trying to force my eyes back to him. “Thank you for the present, Jake, really. I love it.”
“Beau?” His brows pulled together, throwing his eyes deep into their shadow. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”
“Jake, I… no, there’s nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, you suck at lying. You should tell me what’s going on. We want to know these things,” he said, slipping into the plural at the end.
He was probably right; the wolves would certainly be interested in what was happening. Only I wasn’t sure what that was yet. I wouldn’t know for sure until I found Alice.
“Jacob, I will tell you, I promise. Just let me figure out what’s happening, okay? I need to talk to Alice.”
Understanding lit his expression. “The psychic saw something.”
“Yes, just when you showed up.”
“Is this about the bloodsucker in your room?” he murmured, pitching his voice below the thrum of the music.
“It’s related,” I admitted.
He processed that for a minute, leaning his head to one side while he read my face. “You know something you’re not telling me… something big.”
What was the point in lying again? He knew me too well. “Yes.”
Jacob stared at me for one short moment, and then he turned to catch his pack brothers’ eyes where they stood in the entry, awkward and uncomfortable. When they took in his expression, they started moving, weaving their way agilely through the partiers, almost like they were dancing, too. In half a minute, they stood on either side of Jacob, towering over me.
“Now. Explain.” Jacob demanded.
Embry and Quil looked back and forth between our faces, confused and wary.
“Jacob, I don’t know everything.”
“What you do know, then.”
They all folded their arms across their chests at exactly the same moment. It was a little bit funny, but mostly menacing.
And then I caught sight of Alice descending the stairs, her white skin glowing in the purple light.
“Alice!” I squeaked in relief.
She looked right at me as soon as I called her name, despite the thudding bass that should have drowned my voice. I waved eagerly, and watched her face as she took in the three werewolves leaning over me. Her eyes narrowed.
But, before that reaction, her face was full of stress and fear. I bit my lip as she skipped to my side.
Jacob, Quil, and Embry all leaned away from her with uneasy expressions. She put her arm around my waist.
“I need to talk to you,” she murmured into my ear.
“Er, Jake, I’ll talk to you later, ok?” I mumbled as we eased around them.
Jacob threw his long arm out to block our way, bracing his hand against the wall. “Hey, not so fast.”
Alice stared up at him, eyes wide and incredulous. “Excuse me?”
“Tell us what’s going on,” he demanded in a growl.
Jasper appeared quite literally out of nowhere. One second it was just Alice and me against the wall, Jacob blocking our exit, and then Jasper was standing on the other side of Jake’s arm, his expression terrifying.
Jacob slowly pulled his arm back. It seemed like the best move, going with the assumption that he wanted to keep that arm.
“We have a right to know,” Jacob muttered, still glaring at Alice.
Jasper stepped in between them, and the three werewolves braced themselves.
“Hey, hey,” I said, my voice scolding. “This is a party, remember?”
They all relaxed slightly, but Jacob continued to glare at Alice while Jasper glowered at Jacob. Alice’s was suddenly thoughtful.
“It’s okay, Jasper. He actually has a point.”
Jasper didn’t move.
I was sure the suspense was going to make my head explode in about one second. “What did you see, Alice?”
She stared at Jacob for one second, and then turned to me, evidently having chosen to let them hear.
“The decision’s been made.”
“You’re going to Seattle?”
“No.”
I felt the color drain out of my face. My stomach lurched. “They’re coming here,” I choke out.
The Quileute boys watched silently, reading every unconscious play of emotion on our faces. They were rooted in place, and yet not completely still. All three pairs of hands were trembling.
“Yes.”
“To Forks,” I whispered.
“For?”
She nodded, understanding my question. “One carried your red shirt.”
I tried to swallow.
Jasper’s expression was disapproving. I could tell he didn’t like discussing this in front of the werewolves, but he had something he needed to say. “We can’t let them come that far. There aren’t enough of us to protect the town.”
“I know,” Alice said, her face suddenly desolate. “But it doesn’t matter where we stop them. There still won’t be enough of us, and some of them will come here to search.”
“No!” I whispered.
The noise of the party overwhelmed the sound of my denial. All around us, my friends and neighbors ate and laughed and swayed to the music, oblivious to the fact that they were about to face horror, danger, maybe death. Because of me.
“Alice,” I mouthed her name. “I have to go, I have to get away from here.”
“That won’t help. It’s not like we’re dealing with a tracker. They’ll still come looking here first.”
“We have to do something, Alice!” My voice was hoarse and strained. “Maybe go to meet them? Something! Anything to keep them from coming here.”
“Beau!” protested.
“Hold it,” Jacob ordered in a low, forceful voice. “What is coming?”
Alice turned her icy gaze on him. “Our kind. Lots of them.”
“Why?”
“For Beau. That’s all we know.”
“There are too many for you?” he asked.
Jasper bridled. “We have a few advantages, dog. It will be an even fight.”
“No,” Jacob said, and a strange, fierce half-smile spread across his face. “It won’t be even.”
“Excellent!” Alice hissed.
I stared, still frozen in horror, at Alice’s new expression. Her face was alive with exultation, all the despair wiped clean from her perfect features.
She grinned at Jacob, and he grinned back.
“Everything just disappeared, of course,” she told him in a smug voice. “That’s inconvenient, but, all things considered, I’ll take it.”
“We’ll have to coordinate,” Jacob said. “It won’t be easy for us. Still, this is our job more than yours.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but we need the help. We aren’t going to picky.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted them.
Alice was on her toes, Jacob leaning down toward her, both of their faces lit up with excitement, both of their noses wrinkled against the smell. They looked at me impatiently.
“Coordinate?” I repeated through my teeth.
“You didn’t honestly think you were going to keep us out of this?” Jacob asked.
“You are staying out of this!”
“Your psychic doesn’t think so.”
“Alice—Jake… No. Just—no!” I insisted. “I don’t want anyone to get killed!”
Jacob, Quil, and Embry all laughed out loud.
“Beau,” Alice said, her voice soothing, placating, “separately we all could get killed. Together—“
“It’ll be no problem,” Jacob finished her sentence. Quil laughed again.
“How many?” Quil asked eagerly.
“No!” I shouted.
Alice didn’t even look at me. “It changes—twenty-one today, but the numbers are going down.”
“Why?” Jacob asked, curious.
“Long story,” Alice said, suddenly looking around the room. “And this isn’t the place for it.”
“Later tonight?” Jacob pushed.
“Yes,” Jasper answered him. “We were already planning a… strategic meeting. If you’re going to fight with us, you’ll need some instruction.”
The wolves all made a disgruntled face at the last part.
“Is no one listening to me?” I moaned.
“This will be odd,” Jasper said thoughtfully, ignoring me. “I never considered working together. This has to be a first.”
“No doubt about that,” Jacob agreed. He was in a hurry now. “We’ve got to get back to Sam. What time?”
“What’s too late for you?”
All three rolled their eyes. “What time?” Jacob repeated.
“Three o’clock?”
“Where?”
“About ten miles due north of the Hoh Forest ranger station. Come at it from the west and you’ll be able to follow our scent in.”
“We’ll be there.”
They turned to leave.
“Wait, Jake!” I called after him. “Please! Don’t do this!”
He paused, turning back to grin at me, while Quil and Embry headed impatiently for the door. “Don’t be ridiculous, babe. You’re giving me a much better gift than the one I gave you.”
“No!” I shouted again. The sound of an electric guitar drowned my cry.
He didn’t respond; he hurried to catch up with his friends, who were already gone. I watched helplessly as Jacob disappeared.
Edward carried me home in his arms, expecting that I wouldn’t be able to hang on. I must have fallen asleep on the way.
When I woke up, I was in my bed and the dull light come through my windows slanted in from a strange angle. Almost like it was afternoon.
I yawned and stretched, my fingers encountered something cool and smooth. His hand.
“Edward?” I mumbled.
“Are you really awake this time?” he murmured.
“Mmm,” I sighed in assent. “Have there been a lot of false alarms?”
“You’ve been very restless—talking all day.”
“All day?” I blinked and looked at the windows again.
“You had a long night,” he said reassuringly. “You’d earned a day in bed.”
I sat up, and my head spun. The light was coming in my window from the west. “Wow.”
“Hungry?” he guessed. “Do you want breakfast in bed?”
“I’ll get it,” I groaned, stretching again. “I need to get up and move around.”
He held my hand on the way to the kitchen, eyeing me carefully, like I might fall over. Or maybe he thought I was sleepwalking.
I kept it simple throwing a couple of Pop-Tarts in the toaster. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflective chrome.
“Ugh, I’m a mess.”
“It was a long night,” he said again. “You should have stayed here and slept.”
“Right! And missed everything. You know, you need to start accepting that I need to be a part of these things.”
He sighed, but he was smiling. “I don’t think I could actually stop you even if I tried.”
I sat down with my breakfast, and he sat next to me. When I lifted him the Pop-Tart to take the first bite, I noticed him staring at my chest. I looked down, and saw that I was still wearing the gift that Jacob had given me at the party.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the tiny wooden wolf.
I swallowed noisily. “Um, sure.”
He moved his hand under the necklace and balanced the little figurine on his snowy palm. For a fleeting moment, I was afraid. Just the slightest twist of his fingers could crush it into splinters.
But of course Edward wouldn’t do that. I was embarrassed I’d even had the thought. He only weighed the wolf in his palm for a moment, and then let it fall. It swung back against my chest.
I tried to read the expression in his eyes. All I could see was thoughtfulness; he kept everything else hidden, if there was anything else.
“Jacob Black can give you presents.”
It wasn’t a question, or an accusation. Just a statement of fact. But I knew he was referring to my last birthday and the rules I’d had over gifts; I hadn’t wanted any. I didn’t like people spending money on me, of course, everyone had ignored me anyway…
“You’ve given me presents,” I reminded him. “You know I like the homemade kind.”
He pursed his lips for a second. “how about hand-me-downs? Are those acceptable?”
“What do you mean?”
“This necklace.” His finger ran lightly along the chain. “You’ll be wearing this a lot?”
I shrugged.
“Because you don’t want to hurt his feelings,” he suggested shrewdly.
“No, I wouldn’t do that. I actually like it, and he spent a lot of time on it.”
“I see,” his finger now ran up my neck, “Don’t you think it’s fair, then,” he asked, his finger reaching my jaw. “If I have a little representation?”
“Representation?”
“A charm—something to keep me on your mind.”
“I don’t think I need reminders.”
“If I gave you something, would you wear it?” he pressed.
“A hand-me-down?” I checked.
“Yes, something I’ve had for a while.” He smiled crookedly.
If this was the only reaction to Jacob’s gift, I would take it gladly. “Whatever makes you happy.”
“Have you noticed the inequality?” he asked, his voice turning accusing. “Because I certainly have.”
“What inequality?”
His eyes narrowed. “Everyone else is able to get away with giving you things. Everyone but me. I would have loved to get you a graduation present, but I didn’t. I knew it would have upset you more than if anyone else did. That’s utterly unfair. How do you explain yourself?”
“Easy.” I shrugged. “I have you and that’s enough. You don’t need to give me anything else.”
He processed that for a moment, and then rolled his eyes, he opened his mouth to speak.
“Besides,” I cut him off, “I’ve explained to you why I don’t like getting gifts. Of course, I appreciate them and I’m thankful to anyone who would get me something, but you know I don’t like people spending money on me. I think, as my boyfriend, you should respect how I feel and maybe figure out other ways to make me happy that I would enjoy, not just that would make you happy.”
I chewed my breakfast calmly while he mulled over what I had said.
“Sometimes,” he sighed. “it can be very frustrating when you’re right.”
“I understand you would like to give me gifts,” I replied. “And if it’s a hand-me-down or something you’ve made, I won’t object in the slightest. Does that work for you?”
He smiled. “Yes sir.”
Edward’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the number before he opened it. “What is it, Alice?”
He listened, and I waited for his reaction, suddenly nervous. But whatever she said didn’t surprise him. He sighed a few times.
“I sort of guessed as much,” he told her, staring into my eyes, a disapproving arch to his brow. “He was talking in his sleep.”
I flushed. What had I said now?
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised.
He glared at me as he pocketed his phone. “Is there something you’d like to talk about?”
I deliberated for a moment. Given Alice’s warning last night, I could guess why she’d called. And then remembering the troubled dreams I’d had as I’d slept through the day—dreams where I chased after Jasper, trying to follow him and find the clearing in the maze-like woods, knowing I would find the fight—knowing my presence would cause enough of a distraction to tip the fight in the favor of the Cullens and the wolf pack… I could also guess what Edward had overheard while I’d slept.
I pursed my lips for a moment, not quite able to meet his gaze. He waited.
“I like Jasper’s idea,” I finally said.
He groaned.
“I want to help. I have to do something.” I insisted.
“It wouldn’t help to have you in danger.”
“Jasper thinks it would. This is his area of expertise.”
Edward glowered at me.
“You can’t force me to keep away,” I insisted. “I’m not going to hide out in the forest while you all take risks for me.”
Suddenly, he was fighting a smile. “Alice doesn’t see you in the clearing, Beau. She sees you stumbling around lost in the woods. You won’t be able to find us; you’ll just make it more time consuming for me to find you afterward.”
I tried to keep as cool as he was. “That’s because Alice didn’t factor in Seth Clearwater,” I said politely. “If she had, of course, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all. But it sounds like Seth wants to be there as much as I do. It shouldn’t be too hard to persuade him to show me the way. In fact, I bet Alice’s visions just went dark.”
Frustration flickered across his face, and he took a deep breath and composed himself. “That might have worked… if you hadn’t told me. Now I’ll just ask Sam to give Seth certain orders. Much as he might want to, Seth won’t be able to ignore that kind of injunction.”
I kept my smile pleasant. “But why would Sam give those orders? If I tell him how it would help for me to be there? I’ll bet Sam would rather do me a favor than you.”
He had to compose himself again. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m sure Jacob would be only too eager to give those same orders.”
I frowned. “Jacob?”
“Jacob is second in command. Did he never tell you that? His orders have to be followed, too.”
He had me, and by his smile, he knew it. My forehead crumpled. Jacob would be on his side—in this one instance—I was sure. And Jacob never had told me that.
Edward took advantage of the fact that I was momentarily stumped, continuing in a suspiciously smooth and soothing voice.
“I got a fascinating look into the pack’s mind last night. It was better than a soap opera. I had no idea how complex the dynamic is with such a large pack. The pull of the individual against the plural psyche… Absolutely fascinating.”
He was obviously trying to distract me. I glared at him.
“Jacob’s been keeping a lot of secrets,” he said with a grin.
I didn’t answer, I just kept glaring, holding on to my argument and waiting for an opening.
“For instance, did you note the leaner gray wolf there last night?”
I nodded one stiff nod.
He chuckled. “Do you have any idea who that was? You already know him, or at least, he knows you.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite, who is it?”
“His name is Liam Clearwater.”
“Liam’s a wolf now?” My jaw dropped. “What? For how long? Why didn’t Jacob tell me?”
“There are things he wasn’t allowed to share—their numbers, for instance. Like I said before, when Sam gives an order, the pack simply isn’t able to ignore it. Jacob was very careful to think of other things when he was near me. Of course, after last night that’s all out the window.”
“I can’t believe it. Liam, too.” Suddenly, I remembered Jacob speaking of Liam and Sam, and the way he acted as if he’d said too much—after he’d said something about Sam having to look in Liam’s eyes every day and know that he’d broken all his promises… Liam on the cliff, a tear glistening on his cheek when Old Quil had spoken of the burden and sacrifice the Quileute sons shared… And Billy, spending time with Sue because she was having trouble with her kids… and here the trouble actually was that both of them were werewolves now!
I hadn’t given much thought to Liam Clearwater, just to grieve for his loss when Harry had passed away, and then to pity him again when Jacob had told his story, about how Sam choosing his duty to the pack—choosing Emily—had broken Liam’s heart.
And now Liam was a part of Sam’s pack, hearing his thoughts… and unable to hide his own.
I really hate that part, Jacob had said. Everything you’re ashamed of, laid out for everyone to see.
“Poor Liam,” I whispered.
Edward snorted. “He’s making life exceedingly unpleasant for the rest of them. I’m not sure he deserves your sympathy.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hard enough for them, having to share all their thoughts. Most of them try to cooperate, make it easier. When even on member is deliberately malicious, it’s painful for everyone.”
“He has reason enough,” I said, still on Liam’s side.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “Sam chose his duty as the leader. It’s an unbearable decision to make, and for Liam to see how happy and in love he is with Emily…” he shook his head. “It’s torture, to be sure.”
“Liam wasn’t open about his relationship with Sam, either, was he?” I asked.
“No,” Edward shook his head. “It was a secret. A secret that everyone was made aware of one by one as they joined the pack.”
“Poor Liam. He lost everything because of the pack…” I sighed. “But what did you mean, malicious?”
“Liam is constantly bringing up things they’d rather not think of,” he explained. “For example, Embry.”
“What’s with Embry?” I asked, surprised.
“His mother moved down from the Makah reservation eighteen years ago, when she was pregnant with him. She’s not Quileaute. Everyone assumed she’d left his father behind with the Makahs. But then he joined the pack.”
“So… Wait a minute…”
“Exactly,” Edward nodded. “So the prime candidates for Embry’s father are Quil Ateara Sr., Joshua Uley, or Billy Black, all of them married at that point, of course.”
“No!” I gasped. Edward was right—this was exactly like a soap opera.
“Now Sam, Jacob, and Quil all wonder which one of them has a half-brother. They’d all like to think it’s Sam, since his father was never much of a father. But the doubt is always there. Jacob’s never been able to ask Billy about that.”
“Wow. How did you get so much in one night?”
“The pack mind is mesmerizing. All thinking together and then separately at the same time. There’s so much to read!”
He sounded faintly regretful, like someone who’d put down a good book just before the climax. I laughed.
“The pack is fascinating,” I agreed. “Almost as fascinating as you are when you’re trying to distract me.”
His expression became polite again—a perfect poker face.
“I have to be in that clearing, Edward.”
“No,” he said in a very final tone.
“But, Edward,” I pressed. “I can’t be sitting somewhere hoping that everything will turn out okay. I know what my limits are. I hate to sound… I don’t know, selflish, but the thought of you leaving me—“
His sudden intake of breath caught me off-guard. Suddenly, his arms were around me, his hands stroking my face.
“You know it’s not like that, Beau,” he murmured. “I won’t be far, and it will be over quickly.”
“I didn’t mean like that, Edward. I know you wouldn’t do that. I just mean, I can’t stand waiting on the sidelines not knowing whether or not any of you will come back. How do I live through that, no matter how quickly it’s over?”
He sighed. “It’s going to be easy, Beau. There’s no reason for your fears.”
“None at all?”
“None.”
“And everybody will be fine?”
“Everyone,” he promised.
“So there’s no way at all that I need to be in the clearing?”
“Of course not. Alice just told me that they’re down to nineteen. We’ll be able to handle it easily. As I said before, someone may have to sit out.” He chuckled, trying to cheer me up.
“Either it’s so dangerous that I have to be hidden away, or it’s so easy someone can sit out. Which is it?”
He pursed his lips. “Beau—“
“Because if it’s that easy, then there’s no reason why I can’t be in the clearing to help in some way, right? If someone’s going to be sitting out, anyway, I mean.”
He finally spoke, his voice strained. “Beau, I can’t put you in danger—you can’t ask me to do that.”
“You can’t ask me to sit out. I feel guilty enough that you all are going off to fight for me, I feel like such a burden as it is. I need to be able to help in any way I can.”
“That’s not acceptable. I can’t have you anywhere near the fight.”
“But if we’re together, what could go wrong? How are you going to be able to fight knowing I’m off somewhere alone with a werewolf? I know you well enough to know that you can’t really be okay with that, Edward.”
“You’re right,” he shook his head. “I’m not.”
“So we need to stay together.”
“You’re right again.” He closed his eyes.
“Okay, so we’re in agreement.” I said, relieved.
His eyes still closed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone again.
“Alice,” he sighed. “Could you come stay with Beau for a bit?” He sighed again. “I need to speak with Jasper.”
“What do you need to talk to Jasper about?” My eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“I’m going to discuss… me sitting out.”
It was easy to read in his face how difficult the words were for him.
“Wait, what?” I gasped. “Edward, you can’t—“
“I can’t leave you alone, Beau,” he said gently. “You are my first priority.”
“But I can’t ask you to choose me over your family.” I argued weakly. I couldn’t help but be slightly pleased at the idea of him staying with me, though thinking even that made me feel horribly selfish.
“You didn’t ask me to choose. You are right, it’s not fair to ask you to sit somewhere alone and panicking. If I’m with you, and we have Seth Clearwater there it will give me a direct line to the pack, it’ll practically be like being there except you won’t be in danger and we’ll be together.” He shrugged. “It’s a compromise.”
“A compromise…” I repeated numbly. “I feel selfish. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said, smiling a little. “Never feel selfish or guilty for telling me how you feel, Beau.” He ran his finger along my jaw. “Besides, you are correct. I wouldn’t be able to stand being away from you.” He smiled my favorite crooked smile. “I’ve never been particularly good at staying away from you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I leaned forward resting my forehead against his chest. “I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you,” he answered, kissing my hair. “more than anything.”
We didn’t move for a long moment. I kept my face hidden, pressed against his shirt. I felt relief at least knowing that Edward would be with me and that also meant an instantaneous connection to the fight through Seth. That relief was in direct opposition with a feeling of selfishness for putting the idea in Edward’s head to stay with me at all, and not having the strength to make a real fight against it. All of this was combined with an overwhelming sense of dread and guilt that people I loved and cared about were ready to fight for me.
“Who’s the third wife?” he asked me suddenly.
“Huh?” I said, snapping out of my reverie.
“You were mumbling something about ‘the third wife’ last night. The rest made a little sense, but you lost me there.”
“Oh.” I didn’t remember having had that dream again. “That was just one of the stories I heard at the bonfire the other night.” I shrugged. “I guess it stuck with me.”
Edward leaned away from me and cocked his head to the side, probably confused by the uncomfortable edge to my voice.
Before he could ask, Alice appeared in the kitchen doorway with a sour expression.
“You’re going to miss all the fun,” she grumbled.
“Hello, Alice,” he greeted her. He put one finger under my chin and tilted my face up to kiss me goodbye.
“I’ll be back later tonight,” he promised me. “I’ll go work this out with the others, rearrange things.”
“Okay.”
“There’s not much to arrange,” Alice said. “I already told them. Emmett is pleased.”
Edward sighed. “Of course he is.”
He walked out the door, leaving me to face Alice.
She looked at me with a strange expression.
“I’m sorry, Alice.” I apologized again. “I didn’t think he’d sit things out. I just wanted to be there—to help! Like Jasper wanted.”
She sighed. “I understand your reasoning, and I can’t fault your logic…” she pursed her lips. “If it were anyone other than Edward, it might have worked.”
“You’re upset.”
“Not with you. With Edward. He’s such a grouch when he doesn’t get his way. I’m just anticipating living with him for the next few months.” She made a face. “Oh well.”
“I really am sorry, Alice. I can try to talk him out of it.”
“Oh, don’t worry so much, Beau.” She pecked me on the cheek. “You’re going to go prematurely gray.” She tried to smooth out my wayward hair. “You just wanted to help, after all. Besides, I think he really would have started to worry too much if you weren’t there.”
“Thanks, Alice.”
“Now, go clean yourself up,” she gently tugged on my arms to lift me to my feet. “Charlie will be home in fifteen minutes, and if you look this ragged he’s not going to want to let you out again.”
Wow. I really had lost the whole day. It felt like such a waste. I felt slightly jealous of the Cullens not actually needing any sleep.
I was entirely presentable when Charlie got home—fully dressed, hair decent, and in the kitchen putting dinner on the table. Alice sat in Edward’s usual place, and this seemed to make Charlie’s day.
“Howdy, Alice! How are you, hon?”
“I’m fine, Charlie, thanks.”
“I see you finally made it out of bed, sleepyhead,” he said to me as I sat beside him, before turning back to Alice. “Everyone’s talking about that party your parents threw last night. I’ll bet you’ve got one heck of a clean-up job ahead of you.”
Alice shrugged. Knowing her, it was already done.
“It was worth it,” she said. “It was a great party.”
“Where’s Edward?” Charlie asked. “Is he helping clean up?”
Alice sighed and her face turned tragic. It was probably an act, but it was too perfect for me to be positive. “No. He’s off planning the weekend with Emmett and Carlisle.”
“Hiking again?”
Alice nodded, her face suddenly forlorn. “Yes. They’re all going. Except me. We always go backpacking at the end of the school year, sort of a celebration, but this year I decided I’d rather shop than hike, and not one of them will stay behind with me. I’m abandoned.”
Her face puckered, the expression so devastated that Charlie leaned toward her automatically, one hand reaching out, looking for some way to help. I glared at her suspiciously. What was she doing?
“Alice, honey, why don’t you come stay with us,” Charlie offered. “I hate to think of you all alone in that big house.”
She sighed. Something squashed my foot under the table.
“Ow!” I protested.
Charlie turned to me. “What?”
Alice shot me a frustrated look. I could tell she thought I was very slow tonight.
“Stubbed my toe,” I muttered.
“Oh.” He looked back at Alice. “So, how ‘bout it?”
She stepped on my foot again, not quite so hard this time.
“Er, Dad, you know, we don’t really have the best accommodations here. I bet Alice doesn’t want to sleep on my floor…”
Charlie pursed his lips. Alice pulled out the devastated expression again.
“Maybe Beau should stay up there with you,” he suggested. “Just until your folks get back.”
“Oh, would you, Beau?” Alice smiled at me radiantly. “You don’t mind shopping with me, right?”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Shopping. Okay.”
“When are they leaving?” Charlie asked.
Alice made another face. “Tomorrow.”
“When do you want me?” I asked.
“After dinner, I guess,” she said, and then put one finger to her chin, thoughtful. “You don’t have anything going on Saturday, do you? I want to go out of town to shop, and it will be an all-day thing.”
“Not Seattle,” Charlie interjected, his eyebrows pulling together.
“Of course not,” Alice agreed at once, though we both knew Seattle would be plenty safe on Saturday. “I was thinking Olympia, maybe…”
“You’ll like that, Beau.” Charlie was cheerful with relief. “Go get your fill of the city.”
“Yeah, it’ll be great.”
With one easy conversation, Alice had cleared my schedule for the battle.
Edward returned not much later. He accepted Charlie’s wishes for a nice trip without surprise. He claimed they were leaving early in the morning, and said goodnight before the usual time. Alice left with him.
I excused myself soon after they left.
“You can’t be tired,” Charlie protested.
“A little,” I lied.
“No wonder you like to skip the parties,” he muttered. “It takes you so long to recover.”
Upstairs, Edward was laying across my bed.
“What time are we meeting with the wolves?” I murmured as I went to join him.
“In an hour.”
“That’s good. Jake and his friends need to get some sleep.”
“They don’t need as much as you do,” he pointed out.
I moved to another topic, assuming he was about to try and talk me into staying home. “Did Alice tell you that she’s kidnapping me again?”
He grinned. “Actually, she’s not.”
I stared at him, confused, and he laughed quietly at my expression.
“I’m the only one who has permission to hold you hostage, remember?” he said. “Alice is going hunting with the rest of them.” He sighed. “I guess I don’t need to do that now.”
“You’re kidnapping me?”
He nodded.
I thought about that briefly. No Charlie listening downstairs, checking on me every so often. And no houseful of wide-awake vampires with their intrusively sensitive hearing… just him and me—really alone.
“Is that all right?” he asked, concerned by my silence.
“Well… sure, except one thing.”
“What thing?” His eyes were anxious. It was mind-boggling, but, somehow, he still seemed unsure of how crazy about him I was. Maybe I needed to make myself more clear.
“Why didn’t Alice tell Charlie you were leaving tonight?” I asked.
He laughed, relieved.
I enjoyed the trip to the clearing more than I had last night. I still felt guilty, still afraid, but I wasn’t terrified anymore. I could function. I could see past what was coming, and almost believe that maybe it would be okay. Edward was apparently fine with the idea of missing the fight… and that made it very hard not to believe him when he said this would be easy. He wouldn’t leave his family if he didn’t believe it himself. Maybe Alice was right, and I did worry too much.
We got to the clearing last.
Jasper and Emmett were already wrestling—just warming up from the sounds of their laughter. Alice and Royal lounged on the hard ground, watching. Esme and Carlisle were talking a few yards away, heads close together, fingers linked, not paying attention.
It was much brighter tonight, the moon shining through the thin clouds, and I could easily see the three wolves that sat around the edge of the practice ring, spaced far apart to watch from different angles.
It was also easy to recognize Jacob; I would have known him at once, even if he hadn’t looked up and stared at the sound of our approach.
“Where are the rest of the wolves?” I wondered.
“They don’t all need to be here. One would do the job, but Sam didn’t trust us enough to just send Jacob, though Jacob was willing. Quil and Embry are his usual… I guess you could call them his wingmen.”
“Jacob trusts you.”
Edward nodded. “He trusts us enough to not try to kill him. That’s about it, though.”
“Are you participating tonight?” I asked, hesitant. I knew this was going to be almost as hard for him as being left behind would have been for me. Maybe harder.
“I’ll help Jasper when he needs it. He wants to try some unequal groupings, teach them how to deal with multiple attackers.”
He shrugged.
And a fresh wave of panic shattered my brief sense of confidence.
They were still outnumbered. I had made that worse.
I stared at the field, trying to hide my reaction.
It was the wrong place to look, struggling as I was to lie to myself, to convince myself that everything would work out as I needed it to. Because when I forced my eyes away from the Cullens—away from the image of their play fighting that would be real and deadly in just a few days—Jacob caught my eyes and smiled.
It was the same wolfy grin as before, his eyes scrunching the way they did when he was human.
It was hard to believe that, not so long ago, I’d found the werewolves frightening—lost sleep to nightmares about them.
I knew, without asking, which of the others was Embry and which was Quil. Because Embry was clearly the thinner gray wolf with the dark spots on his back, who sat so patiently watching, while Quil — deep chocolate brown, lighter over his face — twitched constantly, looking like he was dying to join in the mock fight. They weren’t monsters, even like this. They were friends.
Friends who didn’t look nearly as indestructible as Emmett and Jasper did, moving faster than cobra strikes while the moonlight glinted off their granite-hard skin. Friends who didn’t seem to understand the danger involved here. Friends who were still somewhat mortal, friends who could bleed, friends who could die....
Edward’s confidence was reassuring, because it was plain that he wasn’t truly worried about his family. But would it hurt him if something happened to the wolves? Was there any reason for him to be anxious, if that possibility didn’t bother him? Edward’s confidence only applied to one set of my fears.
I tried to smile back at Jacob, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I didn’t seem to get it right.
Jacob sprang lightly to his feet, his agility at odds with his sheer mass, and trotted over to where Edward and I stood on the fringe of things.
“Jacob,” Edward greeted him politely.
Jacob ignored him, his dark eyes on me. He put his head down to my level, as he had yesterday, cocking it to one side. A low whimper escaped his muzzle.
“I’m fine,” I answered, not needing the translation that Edward was about to give. “Just worried, you know.”
Jacob continued to stare at me.
“He wants to know why,” Edward murmured.
Jacob growled—not a threatening sound, an annoyed sound—and Edward’s lip twitched.
“What?” I asked.
“He thinks my translations leave something to be desired. What he actually thought was, ‘That’s really stupid. What is there to be worried about?’ I edited, because I thought it was rude.”
I halfway smiled, too anxious to really feel amused. “There’s plenty to be worried about,” I told Jacob. “Like a bunch of really stupid wolves getting themselves hurt.”
Jacob laughed his coughing bark.
Edward sighed. “Jasper wants help. You’ll be okay without a translator?”
“I’ll manage.”
Edward looked at me wistfully for one minute, his expression hard to understand, then turned his back and strode over to where Jasper waited.
I sat down where I was. The ground was cold and uncomfortable.
Jacob took a step forward, then looked back at me, and a low whine rose in his throat. He took another half-step.
“Go on without me,” I told him. “I don’t want to watch.”
Jacob leaned his head to the side again for a moment, and then folded himself on to the ground beside me with a rumbling sigh.
“Really, you can go ahead,” I assured him. He didn’t respond, he just put his head down on his paws.
I stared up at the bright silver clouds, not wanting to see the fight. My imagination had more than enough fuel. A breeze blew through the clearing, and I shivered.
Jacob scooted himself closer to me, pressing his warm fur against my left side.
“Er, thanks,” I muttered.
After a few minutes, I leaned against his wide shoulder. It was much more comfortable that way.
The clouds moved slowly across the sky, dimming and brightening as thick patches crossed the moon and passed on.
Absently, I began pulling my fingers through the fur on his neck. That same strange humming sound that he’d made yesterday rumbled through his throat. It was a homey kind of sound. Rougher, wilder than a cat’s purr, but conveying the same sense of contentment.
“You know, I never had a dog,” I mused. “I always wanted one, but Reneé’s allergic.”
Jacob laughed; his body shook under me.
“Aren’t you worried about Saturday at all?” I asked.
He turned his enormous head toward me, so that I could see one of his eyes roll.
“I wish I could feel that positive.”
He leaned his head against my leg and started humming again. And it did make me feel just a little bit better.
“So we’ve got some hiking to do tomorrow, I guess.”
He rumbled; the sound was enthusiastic.
“It might be a long hike,” I warned him. “Edward doesn’t judge distances the way a normal person does.”
Jacob barked another laugh.
I settled deeper into his warm fur, resting my head against his neck.
It was strange. Even though he was in this bizarre form, this felt more like the way Jake and I used to be—the easy, effortless friendship that was as natural as breathing in and out—than the last few times I’d been with Jacob while he was human. Odd that I should find that again here, when I’d thought this wolf thing was the cause of its loss.
The killings games continued in the clearing, and I stared at the hazy moon.
I lay face down across the sleeping bag, waiting for an avalanche or something to bury me. It would be easier that way. Far more so than facing the choice I now had to make.
How had everything become such a mess? How much damage had I caused by not seeing what was right in front of me? No, it was worse than that. How much damage had I caused by not admitting what I already knew? I loved Jacob. I had realized it before. I had admitted it to myself. Yet, somehow, after Jacob had stopped talking to me I had convinced myself that love was no longer part of the equation. I had been so desperate to keep Jacob as a friend that I refused to acknowledge my love for him. Now, I had to face the consequences of my actions. I had to make a choice.
There was no sound to warn me. Out of nowhere, Edward’s cold hand stroked against my hair. I shuddered at his touch.
“Are you all right?” he murmured, his voice anxious.
“No. I want to die.”
“That will never happen. I won’t allow it.”
I groaned and then whispered, “You might change your mind about that.”
“Where’s Jacob?”
“He went to the fight,” I mumbled into the floor.
Jacob had left the camp reluctantly—with a solemn “I’ll be back”—running with renewed vigor for the clearing, already quivering as he prepared to shift into his other self. By now, the whole pack knew everything. Seth Clearwater, pacing outside the tent, was an intimate witness.
Edward was silent for a long moment. “Oh,” he finally said.
The tone of his voice worried me that my avalanche wasn’t coming fast enough. I peeked up at him and, sure enough, his eyes were unfocused as he listened to something I’d rather die than have him hear. I dropped my face back to the floor.
It stunned me when Edward chuckled reluctantly.
“And I thought I was the better man,” he said with grudging admiration. “Now I feel even more guilty for what I did.” His hand brushed against the part of my cheek that was exposed. “I’m not mad at you, love. Jacob being willing to bow out was something even I wouldn’t have expected. I do wish you hadn’t asked him, though.”
“Edward,” I whispered to the rough nylon. “I… I… I’m—“
“Shh,” he hushed me, his fingers soothing against my cheek. “I can’t blame you for what happened. Truly, I can’t. It’s just that now I don’t have an excuse to break his face. I would have really enjoyed that.”
I raised my head slowly to meet his patient gaze. His expression was soft; his eyes were full of understanding rather than the anger or revulsion I expected to see.
“Why aren’t you angry with me?” I asked. “Why don’t you hate me? Or haven’t you heard the whole story yet?”
“I think I got a fairly comprehensive look,” he said in a light, easy voice. “Jacob makes vivid mental pictures. I feel almost as bad for his pack as I do for myself. Poor Seth was so embarrassed he could hardly stand it. But Sam is making Jacob focus now.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head in agony. The sharp nylon fibers of the tent floor scraped against my skin.
“You’re only human,” he whispered, stroking my hair again.
“That’s the most miserable defense I’ve ever heard.”
“But you are human, Beau. And, as much as I might wish otherwise, so is he… There are holes in your life that I can’t fill. I understand that.”
“But—but—“
“You love him,” he murmured gently.
I wished I could deny it, I wished I could say he was wrong.
“I love you,” I said. It was the best I could do.
“Yes, I know that, too. But… when I left you, Beau, I left you bleeding. Jacob was the one to stitch you back up again. That was bound to leave its mark—on both of you. I’m not sure those kinds of stitches dissolve on their own. I can’t blame either of you for something that’s my own fault. I may gain forgiveness, but that doesn’t let me escape the consequences.”
“I knew you’d find some way to blame yourself for this. Please don’t.”
“What would you like me to say?”
“I don’t know. Tell me how angry you are with me. Tell me that you feel betrayed or hurt. Something.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I can’t do that.”
“At least stop trying to make me feel better.”
“No,” he murmured.
I nodded slowly. “You’re right. Keep on being too understanding. That’s probably worse.”
He was silent for a moment, and I sensed a charge in the atmosphere, a new urgency.
“It’s getting close,” I stated.
“Yes, a few more minutes now. Just enough time to say one more thing…”
I waited. When he finally spoke again, he was whispering. “I can bow out too, Beau. I’m not going to make you choose between us. Just be happy, and you can have whatever part of me you want, or none at all, if that’s better. Don’t let any debt you feel you owe me influence your decision.”
I pushed off the floor, shoving myself up onto my knees.
“Dammit, stop that!” I shouted at him.
His eyes widened in surprise. “No—you don’t understand. I’m not trying to make you feel better, Beau, I really mean it.”
“I know you do,” I groaned. “What happened to fighting back? Don’t you do this to me, too. Fight!”
“How?” he asked, and his eyes were ancient with their sadness.
I tried to speak, I scrambled forward towards him, all the words catching in my throat. Finally I collapsed into his lap and cried. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I shouldn’t be angry with you or with Jacob. I’m not. I’m angry with myself. You’re both so willing to let me be happy. But that means choosing one of you and hurting the other. But it’s not just one or the other, it’s all of us. We all get hurt by this.”
“I know, love, I know.” Edward said softly, stroking my hair.
“I don’t know how to do this.” I sobbed.
“Whatever your choice,” Edward murmured, “We will both accept it.”
I cried for what seemed like ages, but was probably only minutes.
Suddenly, Seth howled stridently outside the tent.
My body stiffened to the sound. I didn’t realize my left hand was clenched into a fist, nails biting into my bandaged palm, until Edward took it and gently smoothed my fingers out.
“It’s starting.” I choked out the words.
“It’s going to be fine, Beau,” he promised. “We’ve got skill, training, and surprise on our side. It will be over very soon. If I didn’t truly believe that, I would be down there now—and you’d be here, chained to a tree or something along those lines.”
“Alice is so small,” I moaned.
He chuckled. “That might be a problem… if it were possible for someone to catch her.”
Seth started to whimper.
“He’s just angry that he’s stuck here with us. He knows the pack kept him out of the action to protect him. He’s salivating to join them.”
I scowled in Seth’s general direction.
“The newborns have reached the end of the trail—it worked like a charm, Jasper’s a genius—and they’ve caught the scent of the ones in the meadow, so they’re splitting into two groups now, as Alice said,” Edward murmured, his eyes focused on something far away. “Sam’s taking us to head off the ambush party.” He was so intent on what he was hearing that he used the pack plural.
Suddenly he looked down at me. “Breath, Beau.”
I struggled to do what he asked. I could hear Seth’s heavy panting just outside the tent wall, and I tried to keep my lungs on the same even pace, so that I wouldn’t hyperventilate.
“The first group is in the clearing. We can hear the fighting.”
My teeth locked together.
He laughed once. “We can hear Emmett—he’s enjoying himself.”
I made myself take another breath with Seth.
“The second group is getting ready—they aren’t paying attention, they haven’t heard us yet.”
Edward growled.
“What?” I gasped.
“They’re talking about you.” His teeth clenched together. “They’re supposed to make sure you don’t escape… Nice move, Liam! Mmm, he’s quite fast,” he murmured in approval. “One of the newborns caught our scent, and Liam took him down before he could even turn. Sam’s helping him finish it off. Paul and Jacob got another one, but the others are on the defensive now. They have no idea what to make of us. Both sides are feinting… No, let Sam lead. Stay out of the way,” he muttered. “Separate them—don’t let them protect each other’s backs.”
Seth whined.
“That’s better, drive them toward the clearing,” Edward approved. His body was shifting unconsciously as he watched, tensing for moves he would have made. His hands still held mine; I twisted my fingers through his. At least he wasn’t down there.
The sudden absence of sound was the only warning.
The deep rush of Seth’s breathing cut off, and—as I’d paced my breaths with his—I noticed.
I stopped breathing, too—too frightened to even make my lungs work as I realized that Edward had frozen into a block of ice beside me.
Oh, no. No. No.
Who had been lost? Theirs or ours? Mine, all mine. What was my loss?
So quickly that I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, I was on my feet and the tent was collapsing in ragged shreds around me. Had Edward ripped our way out? Why?
I blinked, shocked, into the brilliant light. Seth was all I could see, right beside us, his face only six inches from Edward’s. They stared at each other with absolute concentration for one infinite second. The sun shattered off Edward’s skin and sent sparkling flames dancing across Seth’s fur.
And then Edward whispered urgently, “Go, Seth!”
The huge wolf wheeled and disappeared into the forest shadows.
Had two entire seconds passed? It felt like hours. I was terrified to the point of nausea by the knowledge that something horrible had gone awry in the clearing. I opened my mouth to demand that Edward take me there, and do it now. They needed him, and they needed me. If I had to bleed to save them, I would do it. I would die if I had to, like the third wife. I had no silver dagger in my hand, but I would find a way—
Before I could get the first syllable out, I felt as if I was being flung through the air. But Edward’s hands never let go of me—I was only being moved, so quickly that the sensation was like falling sideways.
I found myself with my back pressed against the sheer cliff face. Edward stood in front of me, holding a posture that I knew at once.
Relief washed through my mind at the same time that my stomach dropped through the soles of my feet.
I’d misunderstood.
Relief—nothing had gone wrong in the clearing.
Horror—the crisis was here.
Edward held a defensive position—half-crouched, his arms extended slightly—that I recognized with sickening certainty. The rock at my back could have been the ancient brick walls of the Italian alley where he had stood between me and the black-cloaked Volturi warriors.
Something was coming for us.
“Who?” I whispered.
The words came through his teeth in a snarl that was louder than I expected. Too loud. It meant that it was far too late to hide. We were trapped, and it didn’t matter who heard his answer.
“Victor,” he said, spitting the word, making it a curse. “He’s not alone. He crossed my scent, following the newborns to watch—he never meant to fight with them. He made a spur-of-the-moment decision to find me, guessing that you would be wherever I was. He was right. You were right. It was always Victor.”
He was close enough that Edward could hear his thoughts.
Relief again, if it had been the Volturi, we were both dead. But with Victor, it didn’t have to be both. Edward could survive this. He was a good fighter, as good as Jasper. If Victor didn’t bring too many others, Edward could fight his way out, back to his family. Edward was faster than anyone. He could make it.
I was so glad he’d sent Seth away. Of course, there was no one Seth could run to for help. Victor had timed his decision perfectly. But at least Seth was safe; I couldn’t see the huge sandy wolf in my head when I thought his name—just the gangly fifteen-year-old boy.
Edward’s body shifted—only infinitesimally, but it told me where to look. I stared at the black shadows of the forest.
It was like having my nightmares walk forward to greet me.
Two vampires edged slowly into the small opening of our camp, eyes intent, missing nothing. They glistened like diamonds in the sun.
I could barely look at the blond boy—yes, he was just a boy, though he was muscular and tall, maybe my age when he was changed. His eyes—a more vivid red than I had ever seen before—could not hold mine. Though he was the closest to Edward, the nearest danger, I could not watch him.
Because, a few feet to the side and a few feet back, Victor was staring at me.
His orange hair was brighter than I’d remembered, more like a flame. There was no wind here, but the fire around his face seemed to shimmer slightly, as if it were alive.
His eyes were black with thirst. He did not smile, as he always had in my nightmares—his lips were pressed into a tight line. There was a striking feline quality to the way he held his coiled body, a lion waiting for an opening to spring. His restless, wild gaze flickered between Edward and me, but never rested on him for more than a half-second. He could not keep his eyes away from my face any more than I could keep mine from his.
Tension rolled off his body, nearly visible in the air. I could feel the desire, the all-consuming passion that held him in its grip. Almost as if I could hear his thoughts, too, I knew what he was thinking.
He was so close to what he wanted—the focus of his whole existence for more than a year now was just so close.
My death.
His plan was as obvious as it was practical. The big blond boy would attack Edward. As soon as Edward was sufficiently distracted, Victor would finish me.
It would be quick—he had no time for games here—but it would be thorough. Something that it would be impossible to recover from. Something that even vampire venom could not repair.
He’d have to stop my heart. Perhaps a hand shoved through my chest, crushing it. Something along those lines.
My heart beat furiously, loudly, as if to make his target more obvious.
An immense distance away, from far across the black forest, a wolf’s howl echoed in the still air. With Seth gone, there was no way to interpret the sound.
The blond boy looked at Victor from the corner of his eye, waiting on his command.
He was young in more ways than one. I guessed from his brilliant crimson irises that he couldn’t have been a vampire for very long. He would be strong, but inept. Edward would know how to fight him. Edward would survive.
Victor jerked his chin toward Edward, wordlessly ordering the boy forward.
“Riley,” Edward said in a soft, pleading voice.
The blond boy froze, his red eyes widening.
“He’s lying to you, Riley,” Edward told him. “Listen to me. He’s lying to you just like he lied to the others who are dying now in the clearing. You know that he’d lied to them, that he had you lie to them, that neither of you were ever going to help them. Is it so hard to believe that he’s lied to you, too?”
Confusion swept across Riley’s face.
Edward shifted a few inches to the side, and Riley automatically compensated with an adjustment of his own.
“He doesn’t love you, Riley.” Edward’s soft voice was compelling, almost hypnotic. “He never has. He loved someone named James, and you’re no more than a tool to him.”
When he said James’s name, Victor’s lips pulled back in a teeth-baring grimace. His eyes stayed locked on me.
Riley cast a frantic glance in Victor’s direction.
“Riley?” Edward said.
Riley automatically refocused on Edward.
“He knows that I will kill you, Riley. He wants you to die so that he doesn’t have to keep up the pretense anymore. Yes—you’ve seen that, haven’t you? You’ve read the reluctance in his eyes, suspected a false not in his promises. You were right. He’s never wanted you. Every kiss, every touch was a lie.”
Edward moved again, moved a few inches toward the boy, a few inches away from me.
Victor’s gaze zeroed in on the gap between us. It would take him less than a second to kill me—he only needed the tiniest margin of opportunity.
Slower this time, Riley repositioned himself.
“You don’t have to die,” Edward promised, his eyes holding the boy’s. “There are other ways to live than the way he’s shown you. It’s not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away right now. You don’t have to die for his lies.”
Edward slid his feet forward and to the side. There was a foot of space between us now. Riley circled too far, overcompensating this time. Victor leaned onto the balls of his feet.
“Last chance, Riley,” Edward whispered.
Riley’s face was desperate as he looked to Victor for answers.
“He’s the liar, Riley,” Victor said, and my mouth fell open in shock at the sound of his voice. “I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you.”
His voice was not the strong, wild, catlike growl I would have put with his face and stance. It was soft, it was gentle—an alluring tenor. It was almost boyish. Childish. It made no sense coming through his bared, glistening teeth.
Riley’s jaw tightened, and he squared his shoulders. His eyes emptied—there was no more confusion, no more suspicion. There was no thought at all. He tensed himself to attack.
Victor’s body seemed to be trembling, he was so tightly wound. His fingers were ready claws, waiting for Edward to move just one more inch away from me.
The snarl came from none of them.
A mammoth tan shape flew through the center of the opening, throwing Riley to the ground.
“No!” Victor cried, his tenor voice shrill with disbelief.
A yard and a half in front of me, the huge wolf ripped and tore at the blond vampire beneath him. Something white and hard smacked into the rocks by my feet. I cringed away from it.
Victor did not spare one glance for the boy he’d just pledged his love to. His eyes were still on me, filled with a disappointment so ferocious that he looked deranged.
“No,” he said again, through his teeth, as Edward started to move toward him, blocking his path to me.
Riley was on his feet again, looking misshapen and haggard, but he was able to fling a vicious kick into Seth’s shoulder. I heard the bone crunch. Seth backed off and started to circle, limping. Riley had his arms out, ready, though he seemed to be missing part of one hand…
Only a few yards away from that fight, Edward and Victor were dancing.
Not quite circling, because Edward was not allowing him to position himself closer to me. He sashayed back, moving from side to side, trying to find a hole in his defense. Edward shadowed his footwork lithely, stalking him with perfect concentration. Edward began to move just a fraction of a second before Victor moved, reading his intentions in his thoughts.
Seth lunged at Riley from the side, and something tore with a hideous, grating screech. Another heavy white chunk flew into the forest with a thud. Riley roared in fury, and Seth skipped back — amazingly light on his feet for his size — as Riley took a swipe at him with one mangled hand.
Victor was weaving through the tree trunks at the far end of the little opening now. He was torn, his feet pulling him toward safety while his eyes yearned toward me as if I were a magnet, reeling him in. I could see the burning desire to kill warring with his survival instinct.
Edward could see that, too.
“Don’t go, Victor,” he murmured in that same hypnotic tone as before. “You’ll never get another chance like this.”
He showed his teeth and hissed at him, but he seemed unable to move farther away from me.
“You can always run later,” Edward purred. “Plenty of time for that. It’s what you do, isn’t it? It’s why James kept you around. Useful, if you like to play deadly games. A partner with an uncanny instinct for escaping. He shouldn’t have left you — he could have used your skills when we caught up to him in Phoenix.”
A snarl ripped from between her lips.
“That’s all you ever were to him, though. Silly to waste so much energy avenging someone who had less affection for you than a hunter for his mount. You were never more than a convenience to him. I would know.”
Edward’s lips pulled up on one side as he tapped his temple.
With a strangled screech, Victor darted out of the trees again, feinting to the side. Edward responded, and the dance began again.
Just then, Riley’s fist caught Seth’s flank, and a low yelp coughed out of Seth’s throat. Seth backed away, his shoulders twitching as if he were trying to shake off the pain.
Please, I wanted to plead with Riley, but I couldn’t find the muscles to make my mouth open, to pull the air up from my lungs. Please, he’s just a child!
Why hadn’t Seth run away? Why didn’t he run now?
Riley was closing the distance between them again, driving Seth toward the cliff face beside me. Victor was suddenly interested in her partner’s fate. I could see him, from the corner of his eyes, judge the distance between Riley and me. Seth snapped at Riley, forcing him back again, and Victor hissed.
Seth wasn’t limping anymore. His circling took him within inches of Edward; his tail brushed Edward’s back, and Victor’s eyes bulged.
“No, he won’t turn on me,” Edward said, answering the question in Victor’s head. He used his distraction to slide closer. “You provided us with a common enemy. You allied us.”
He clenched his teeth, trying to keep his focus on Edward alone.
“Look more closely, Victor,” Edward murmured, pulling at the threads of his concentration. “Is he really so much like the monster James tracked across Siberia?”
Victor’s eyes popped wide open, and then began flickering wildly from Edward to Seth to me, around and around. “Not the same?” He snarled in his little boy’s tenor. “Impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible,” Edward murmured, voice velvet soft as he moved another inch closer to him. “Except what you want. You’ll never touch Beau.”
Victor shook his head, fast and jerky, fighting Edward’s diversions, and tried to duck around him, but Edward was in place to block him as soon as he’d thought of the plan. Victor’s face contorted in frustration, and then he shifted lower into his crouch, a lion again, and stalked deliberately forward.
Victor was no inexperienced, instinct-driven newborn. He was lethal. Even I could tell the difference between him and Riley, and I knew that Seth wouldn’t have lasted so long if he’d been fighting this vampire.
Edward shifted, too, as they closed on each other, and it was lion versus lion. The dance increased in tempo.
It was like Alice and Jasper in the meadow, a blurred spiraling of movement, only this dance was not as perfectly choreographed. Sharp crunches and cracklings reverberated off the cliff face whenever someone slipped in their formation. But they were moving too fast for me to see who was making the mistakes…
Riley was distracted by the violent ballet, his eyes anxious for his partner. Seth struck, crunching off another small piece of the vampire. Riley bellowed and launched a massive backhanded blow that caught Seth full in his broad chest. Seth’s huge body soared ten feet and crashed into the rocky wall over my head with a force that seemed to shake the whole peak. I heard the breath whoosh from his lungs, and I ducked out of the way as he rebounded off the stone and collapsed on the ground a few feet in front of me.
A low whimper escaped through Seth’s teeth.
Sharp fragments of gray stone showered down on my head, scratching my exposed skin. A jagged spike of rock rolled down my right arm and I caught it reflexively. My fingers clenched around the long shard as my own survival instincts kicked in; since there was no chance of flight, my body—not caring how ineffectual the gesture was—prepared for a fight.
Adrenaline jolted through my veins. I knew time was running out.
Behind Riley, all I could see was the twisting flame of Victor’s hair and a blur of white. The increasingly frequent metallic snaps and tears, the gasps and shocked hissings, made it clear that the dance was turning deadly for someone.
But which someone?
Riley lurched toward me, his red eyes brilliant with fury. He glared at the limp mountain of sand-colored fur between us, and his hands—mangled, broken hands—curled into talons. His mouth opened, widened, his teeth glistening, as he prepared to rip out Seth’s throat.
A second kick of adrenaline hit like an electric shock, and everything was suddenly very clear.
Both fights were too close. Seth was about to lose his, and I had no idea if Edward was winning or losing. They needed help. A distraction. Something to give them an edge.
My hand gripped the stone spike so tightly that I felt it digging into my skin.
Was I strong enough? Was I brave enough? How hard could I shove the rough stone into my body? Would this buy Seth enough time to get back on his feet? Would he heal fast enough for my sacrifice to do him any good?
I raked the point of the shard up my arm, yanking my thick sweater back to expose the skin, and then pressed the sharp tip to the crease at my elbow. I already had a long scar there from my last birthday. That night, my flowing blood had been enough to catch every vampire’s attention, to freeze them all in place for an instant. I prayed it would work that way again. I steeled myself and sucked in one deep breath.
Victor was distracted by the sound of my gasp. His eyes, holding still for one tiny portion of a second, met mine. Fury and curiosity mingled strangely in his expression.
I winced as I sliced the stone shard across my arm. I didn’t dare look down at the damage, but I felt the warm blood ooze down my forearm. Victor’s eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed with ferocious hunger, he lurched forward toward me—ignoring Edward.
In one short second, everything broke violently apart. It happened so quickly that it was over before I could follow the sequence of events. I tried to catch up in my head.
Victor had flown out view and smashed into a tall spruce about halfway up the tree. He dropped back to the earth already crouched to spring.
Simultaniously, Edward—all but invisible with speed—had twisted backward and caught the distracted Riley by the arm. It had looked like Edward had planted his foot against Riley’s back, and heaved—
The little campsite was filled with Riley’s piercing shriek of agony.
At the same time, Seth leaped to his feet, cutting off most of my view.
But I could still see Victor. And, though he looked oddly deformed—as if he were unable to straighten up completely—I could see the smile I’d been dreaming off flash across his wild face.
He coiled and sprang.
Something small and white whistled through the air and collided with him mid-flight. The impact sounded like an explosion, and it threw him against another tree—this one snapped in half. He landed on his feet again, crouched and ready, but Edward was already in place. Relief swelled in my heart when I saw that he stood straight and perfect.
Victor kicked something aside with a flick of his bare foot—the missle that had crippled his attack. It rolled toward me, and I realized what it was.
My stomach lurched.
The fingers were still twitching; grasping at blades of grass, Riley’s arm began to drag itself mindlessly across the ground.
Seth was circling Riley again, and now Riley was retreating. He backed away from the advancing werewolf, his face rigid with pain. He raised his one arm defensively.
Seth rushed Riley, and the vampire was clearly off-balance. I saw Seth sink his teeth into Riley’s shoulder and tear, jumping back again.
With an earsplitting metallic screech, Riley lost his other arm.
Seth shook his head, flinging the arm into the words. The broken hissing noise that came through Seth’s teeth sounded like shrieking.
Riley screamed out a tortured plea. “Victor!”
Victor did not even flinch to the sound of his name. His eyes did not flicker once toward his partner.
Seth launched himself forward with the force of a wrecking ball. The thrust carried both Seth and Riley into the trees, where the metallic screeching was matched by Riley’s screams. Screams that abruptly cut off, while the sounds of rocks being ripped to shreds continued.
Though he spared Riley no farewell glance, Victor seemed to realize he was on his own. He began to back away from Edward, frenzied disappointment blazing in his eyes. He threw me one short, agonized stare of longing, and then he started to retreat faster.
“No,’ Edward crooned, his voice seductive. “Stay just a little longer.”
Victor wheeled and flew toward the refuge of the forest from a bow.
But Edward was faster—a bullet from a gun.
He caught Victor’s unprotected back at the edge of the trees and, with one last, simple step, the dance was over.
Edward’s mouth brushed one across Victor’s neck, like a caress. The squeeling clamor coming from Seth’s efforts covered up every other noise, so there was no discernable sound to make the image one of violence. Edward could have been kissing Victor.
And then the fiery tangle of hair was no longer connected to the rest of his body. The shivering orange waves fell to the ground, and bounced once before rolling toward the trees.
“I have foreseen…,” Alice began in an ominous tone.
Edward threw an elbow toward her ribs, which she neatly dodged.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Edward is making me do this. But I did foresee that you would be more difficult if I surprised you.”
We were walking to the car after school, and I was completely clueless as to what she was talking about.
“In English?” I requested.
“Don’t be a baby about this. No tantrums.”
“Now I’m scared.”
“So you’re—I mean we’re—having a graduation party. It’s no big thing. Nothing to freak out over. But I saw that you would freak out if I tried to make it a surprise party”—she danced out of the way as Edward reached over to muss her hair—“and Edward said I had to tell you. But it’s nothing. Promise.”
I sighed heavily. “Is there any point in arguing?”
“None at all.”
“Okay, Alice. I’ll be there. And I’ll suffer through every minute of it. Promise.”
“That’s the spirit! By the way, I love my gift. You shouldn’t have.”
“Alice, I didn’t!”
“Oh, I know that. But you will.”
I racked my brains in panic, trying to remember what I’d ever decided to get her for graduation that she might have seen.
“Amazing,” Edward muttered. “How can someone so tiny be so annoying?”
Alice laughed. “It’s a talent.”
“Couldn’t you have waited a few more weeks to tell me about this?” I groaned. “Now I’ll just be stressed that much longer.”
Alice frowned at me.
“Beau,” she said slowly. “Do you know what day it is?”
“Monday?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. It is Monday… the fourth.” She grabbed my elbow, spun me halfway around, and pointed toward a big yellow poster taped to the gym door. There, in sharp black letters, was the date of graduation. Exactly one week from today.
“It’s the fourth? Of June? Are you sure?”
Neither one answered. Alice just shook her head sadly, feigning disappointment, and Edward’s eyebrows lifted.
“No way! How did that happen?” I tried to count backwards in my head, but I couldn’t figure out where the days had gone.
I felt like someone had kicked my legs out from under me. The weeks of stress, of worry… somehow in the middle of all my fretting over the time, my time had disappeared. My space for sorting though everything, for making plans, had vanished. I was out of time.
And I wasn’t ready.
I didn’t know how to do this. How to say to Charlie and Reneé… to Jacob… perhaps to being human.
I still wasn’t positive of what I wanted, and I was out of time to decide.
In theory, trading mortality for immortality would solve so many problems. After all, I could stay with Edward forever. And then there was the fact that I was being hunted by known and unknown parties. I’d rather not sit around, helpless and delicious, waiting for one of them to catch up with me.
In theory, that all made sense.
In practice… it meant letting go of nearly everything I knew. Of my friends, my family, of Jacob… of being human. That future was a big, dark abyss that I couldn’t know until I leaped into it.
This simple knowledge, today’s date—which was so obvious that I must have been subconsciously repressing it—made the deadline I’d been nervously counting down toward feel like a date with the firing squad.
In a vague way, I was aware of Edward holding the car door for me, of Alice chattering from the backseat, of the rain hammering against the windshield. Edward seemed to realized I was only there in body; he didn’t try to pull me out of my abstraction. Or maybe he did, and I was past noticing.
We ended up at my house, where Edward led me to the sofa and pulled me down next to him. I stared out the window, into the liquid gray haze, and tried to find where my time had gone. Why was I panicking now? I’d known the deadline was coming. Why should it frighten me that it was here?
I don’t know how long he let me stare out the window in silence. But the ran was disappearing into darkness when it was finally too much for him.
He gently put his cold hands on either side of my face and fixed his golden eyes on mine.
“Would you please tell me what you are thinking? Before I go mad?”
What could I say to him? That I wasn’t ready? That I was a coward? I searched for words.
“Your lips are white. Talk to me, Beau.”
I exhaled in a big gust. How long had I been holding my breath?
“The date took me off guard,” I whispered. “That’s all.”
He waited, his face full of worry and skepticism.
I tried to explain. “I’m not sure what to do… what to tell Charlie… what to say… how to…” My voice trailed off.
“This isn’t about the party?”
I frowned. “No. But thanks for reminding me.”
The rain was louder as read my face.
“You’re not ready,” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” I admitted reluctantly. I took a deep breath, and let it out. “But I have to be.”
“You don’t have to be anything.”
I could feel the panic surfacing in my eyes as I mouthed the reasons. “Victor, Jane, Caius, whoever was in my room…!”
“All the more reason to wait.”
“That doesn’t make much sense, Edward.”
He pressed his hands more tightly to my face and spoke with slow deliberation.
“Beau. Not one of us had a choice. You’ve seen what it’s done… to Royal especially. We’ve all struggled, trying to reconcile ourselves with something we had no control over. I won’t let it be that way for you. You will have a choice.”
“Will I?”
“You aren’t going through with this because a sword is hanging over your head. We will take care of the problems, and I will take care of you,” he vowed. “When we’re through it, and there is nothing forcing your hand, then you can decide to join me, if you still want to. But not because you’re afraid. You won’t be forced into this.”
“But graduation,” I mumbled, still not completely appeased. “It’s right around the corner. It’s literally just a week away. Even if I don’t… change, I’ll still have to leave. Probably start running.”
“It will be fine,” he said in a sure voice. “You won’t have to make any decisions until you’re ready,” he leaned forward and kissed my forehead, “and definitely not while you feel threatened.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have it in me to argue; I couldn’t seem to find the will.
“There.” He kissed my cheek this time. “Nothing to worry about.”
I laughed a shaky laugh. “Nothing but impending doom.”
“Trust me.”
“I do, Edward.”
He was still watching my face, waiting for me to relax.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Anything.”
I hesitated, biting my lip, and then asked a different question than the one I was worried about.
“What am I getting Alice for graduation?”
He snickered. “It looked like you were getting us both concern tickets—“
“That’s right!” I was so relieved, I managed a small smile. “The concert in Tacoma. I saw an ad in the paper last week, and I thought it would be something you’d like, since you said it was a good CD.”
“It’s a great idea. Thank you.”
“I hope it’s not sold out.”
“It’s the thought that counts. I ought to know.”
I sighed.
“There’s something else you meant to ask,” he said.
I frowned. “You’re good.”
“I have lots of practice reading your face. Ask me.”
I closed my eyes and leaned into him, hiding my face against his chest. “You don’t want me to be a vampire.”
“No, I don’t,” he said softly, and then he waited for more. “That’s not a question,” he prompted after a moment.
“Well… I was worrying about… why you feel that way.”
“Worrying?” He picked out the word with surprise.
“Would you tell me why? The whole truth, not sparing my feelings?”
He hesitated for a minute. “If I answer your question, will you then explain your question?”
I nodded, my face still hidden.
He took a deep breath before he answered. “You could do so much better, Beau. I know that you believe I have a soul, but I’m not entirely convinced on that point, and to risk yours…” He shook his head slowly. “For me to allow this—to let you become what I am just so that I’ll never have to lose you—is the most selfish act I can imagine. I want it more than anything, for myself. But for you, I want so much more. Giving in—it feels criminal. It’s the most selfish thing I’ll ever do, even if I live forever.
“If there were any way for me to become human for you—no matter what the price was, I would pay it.”
I sat very still, absorbing this.
Edward thought he was being selfish.
I felt the smile slowly spread across my face.
“So… it’s not that you’re afraid you won’t… like me as much when I’m different—when I’m not soft and warm and I don’t smell the same? You really do want to keep me, no matter how I turn out?”
He exhaled sharply. “You were worried I wouldn’t like you?” he demanded. Then, before I could answer, he was laughing. “Beau, for an incredibly intuitive person, you can be so obtuse!”
I knew he would think it silly, but I was relieved. If he really wanted me, even if I did have to change, maybe even if we were running for the rest of my life… I could get through it. I could appreciate his feelings, I could understand feeling selfish.
“I don’t think you realize how much easier it will be for me, Beau,” he said, the echo of his humor still there in his voice, “when I don’t have to concentrate all the time on not killing you. Certainly, there are things I’ll miss. This for one…”
He stared into my eyes as he stroked my cheek, letting his finger run down my jaw, along the line of my neck, until it rested on my collarbone. I felt the blood rush up to color my skin and he laughed gently.
“And the sound of your heart,” he continued, more serious but still smiling a little. “It’s the most significant sound in my world. I’m so attuned to it now, I swear I could pick it out from miles away. But neither of these things matter. This,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “You. That’s what I’m keeping. You’ll always be my Beau, you’ll just be a little more durable.”
I sighed and let my eyes close in contentment, resting there in his hands.
“Now will you answer a question for me? The whole truth, not sparing my feelings?” he asked.
“Of course,” I answered at once, my eyes opening wide with surprise. What would he want to know?
He spoke the words slowly. “You don’t want to marry me.”
My heart stopped, and then broke into a sprint. A cold sweat dewed on the back of my neck and my hands turned to ice.
He waited, watching and listening to my reaction.
“That’s not a question,” I finally whispered.
He looked down, his lashes casting long shadows across his cheekbones, and dropped his hands from my face to pick up my frozen left hand. He played with my fingers while he spoke.
“I was worrying about why you felt that way.”
I tried to swallow. “That’s not a question, either,” I whispered.
“Please, Beau?”
“The truth?” I asked, only mouthing the words.
“Of course. I can take it, whatever it is.”
I took a deep breath. “You’re going to laugh at me.”
His eyes flashed up to mine, shocked. “Laugh? I cannot imagine that.”
“You’ll see,” I muttered, and then I sighed. My face went white to scarlet in a sudden blaze of chagrin. “Okay, fine! I’m sure this will sound like some big joke to you, but really! It’s just so… so… so much!” I confessed, and I hid my face against his chest again.
There was a brief pause.
“I’m not following you.”
I tilted my head back and glared at him, embarrassment making me talk to much and too fast.
“I’m not that boy, Edward. I never imagined I would ever be married, let alone right out of high school. Even if we didn’t have to worry about judgement or backlash, people just don’t get married at eighteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people! I wasn’t going to be that boy! That’s not who I am… I’m not Reneé and Charlie… They loved each other so much and somehow being married ruined everything…” I trailed off, losing steam, and feeling the threat of tears in my eyes.
Edward’s face was impossible to read as thought through my answer.
“That’s why?” He finally asked.
I blinked. “Yes.”
“It’s not that you were… more eager for immortality itself for just me?”
And then, though I’d predicted that he would laugh, I was suddenly the one having hysterics.
“Edward!” I gasped out between paroxysms of giggles. “And here… I always… thought that… you were… so much… smarter than that!”
He took me in his arms, and I could feel that he was laughing with me.
“Edward,” I said, managing to speak more clearly with little effort, “I don’t even know if I want to be immortal. And if I do, there’s no point to forever without you. I wouldn’t want it unless I had you with me.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said.
“Still… it doesn’t change anything.”
“It’s nice to understand, though. And I do understand your perspective, Beau, truly I do. It’s only natural that you’d have an aversion to marriage considering your parents. I see that now.” He ran his hand through my hair. “But may I ask that you just listen and try to consider mine?”
I’d sobered up by then, so I nodded warily.
His liquid gold eyes turned hypnotic as they held mine.
“You see, Beau, I was always that boy. In my world, I was already a man. I wasn’t looking for love—no, I was far too eager to be a soldier for that; I thought of nothing but the idealized glory of the war that they were selling prospective draftees then—but if I had found…” He paused, cocking his head to the side. “I was going to say if I had found someone, but that won’t do. If I had found you, there isn’t a doubt in my mind how I would have proceeded. Even then. In that time. I was that boy, who would have—as soon as I discovered that you were what I was looking for—gotten down on one knee and endeavored to secure your hand. I would have wanted you for eternity, even when the word didn’t have quite the same connotations.”
He smiled his crooked smile at me.
I stared at him with my eyes frozen wide.
“Breathe, Beau,” he reminded me, smiling.
I breathed.
“Can you see my side, Beau, even a little bit?”
And for one second, I could. I saw myself in a fine dark blue suit and my hair slicked back on my head. I saw Edward looking dashing in a light suit with a bouquet of wildfowers in his hand, sitting beside me on a porch swing.
I shook my head and swallowed. I was just having Anne of Green Gables flashbacks.
“You do make a compelling argument,” I sighed in a shaky voice, still reeling from the picture Edward had painted in mind. “It’s just… scary for me, Edward.”
“More so than becoming a vampire?” He smiled gently. “More so than running for our lives?”
“Maybe not that much,” I conceded. “It’s just a lot, I guess.”
“A lot for you to think about,” he laughed, “and I have no opposition to you taking your time.”
I couldn’t help but smile just a little, as I slid into Edward’s strong, marble arms.
But time continued to move too fast.
That night flew by dreamlessly, and then it was morning and graduation was staring me in the face. I had a pile of studying to do for my finals that I knew I wouldn’t get halfway through in the few days I had left.
When I came down for breakfast, Charlie was already gone. He’d left the paper on the table, and that reminded me that I had some shopping to do. I hoped the ad for the concert was still running; I needed the phone number to get the stupid tickets. It didn’t seem like much of a gift now that all the surprise was gone. Of course, trying to surprise Alice wasn’t the brightest plan to begin with.
I meant to flip right back to the entertainment section, but the thick black headline caught my attention. I felt a thrill of fear as I leaned closer to read the front-page story.
SEATTLE TERRORIZED BY SLAYINGS
It’s been less than a decade since the city of Seattle was the hunting ground for the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, was convicted of the murders of 48 women.
And now a beleaguered Seattle must face the possibility that it could be harboring an even more horrifying monster at this very moment.
The police are calling the recent rash of homicides and disappearances the work of a serial killer. Not yet, at least. They are reluctant to believe so much carnage could be the work of one individual. This killer—if, in fact, it is one person—would then be responsible for 39 linked homicides and disappearances within the last three months alone. In comparison, Ridgeway’s 48-count murder spree was scattered over a 21-year period. If these deaths can be linked to one man, then this is the most violent rampage of serial murder in American history.
The police are learning instead toward the theory that gang activity is involved. This theory is supported by the sheer number of victims, and by the fact that there seems to be no pattern in the choice of victims.
From Jack the Ripper to Ted Bundy, the targets of serial killings are usually connected by similarities in age, gender, race, or a combination of the three. The victims of this crime wave range in age from 15-year-old honor student Amanda Reed, to 67-year-old retired postman Omar Jenks. The linked deaths include a nearly even 18 women and 21 men. The victims are racially diverse: Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanic and Asians.
The selection appears random. The motive seems to be killing for no other reason than to kill.
So why even consider the idea of a serial killer?
There are enough similarities in the modus operandi to rule out unrelated crimes. Every victim discovered has been burned to the extent that dental records were necessary for identification. The use of some kind of accelerant, like gasoline or alcohol, seems to be indicated in the conflagrations; however, no traces of any accelerant have yet been found. All of the bodies have been carelessly dumped with no attempt at concealment.
More gruesome yet, most of the remains show evidence of brutal violence — bones crushed and snapped by some kind of tremendous pressure — which medical examiners believe occurred before the time of death, though these conclusions are difficult to be sure of, considering the state of the evidence.
Another similarity that points to the possibility of a serial: every crime is perfectly clean of evidence, aside from the remains themselves. Not a fingerprint, not a tire tread mark nor a foreign hair is left behind. There have been no sightings of any suspect in the disappearances.
Then there are the disappearances themselves — hardly low profile by any means. None of the victims are what could be viewed as easy targets. None are runaways or the homeless, who vanish so easily and are seldom reported missing. Victims have vanished from their homes, from a fourth-story apartment, from a health club, from a wedding reception. Perhaps the most astounding: 30-year-old amateur boxer Robert Walsh entered a movie theater with a date; a few minutes into the movie, the woman realized that he was not in his seat. His body was found only three hours later when fire fighters were called to the scene of a burning trash Dumpster, twenty miles away.
Another pattern is present in the slayings: all of the victims disappeared at night.
And the most alarming pattern? Acceleration. Six of the homicides were committed in the first month, 11 in the second. Twenty-two have occurred in the last 10 days alone. And the police are no closer to finding the responsible party than they were after the first charred body was discovered.
The evidence is conflicting, the pieces horrifying. A vicious new gang or a wildly active serial killer? Or something else the police haven’t yet conceived of?
Only one conclusion is indisputable: something hideous is stalking Seattle.
It took me three tries to read the last sentence, and I realized the problem was my shaking hands.
“Beau?”
Focused as I was, Edward’s voice, though quiet and not totally unexpected, made me gasp and whirl.
He was leaning in the doorway, his eyebrows pulled together. Then he was suddenly at my side, taking my hand.
“Did I startle you? I’m sorry. I did knock…”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “Have you seen this?” I pointed to the paper.
A frown creased his forehead.
“I hadn’t seen today’s news yet. But I knew it was getting worse. We’re going to have to do something… quickly.”
I didn’t like that. I hated any of them taking chances, and whatever or whoever was in Seattle was truly beginning to frighten me. But the idea of the Volturi coming was just as scary.
“What does Alice say?”
“That’s the problem.” His frown hardened. “She can’t see anything… though we’ve made up our minds half a dozen times to check it out. She’s starting to lose confidence. She feels like she’s missing too much these days, that something’s wrong. That maybe her vision is slipping away.”
My eyes were wide. “Can that happen?”
“Who knows? No one’s ever done a study… but I truly doubt it. These things tend to intensify over time. Look at Aro and Jane.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Self-fulfilling prophecy, I think. We keep waiting for Alice to see something so we can go… and she doesn’t see anything because we won’t really go until she does. So she can’t see us there. Maybe we’ll have to do it blind.”
I shuddered. “No.”
“Did you have a strong desire to attend class today? We’re only a couple days from finals; they won’t be giving us anything new.”
“I think I can live without school for a day. What are we doing?”
“I want to talk to Jasper.”
Jasper, again. It was strange. In the Cullen family, Jasper was always a little on the fringe, part of things but never the center of them. It was my unspoken assumption that he was only there for Alice. I had the sense that he would follow Alice anywhere, but that this lifestyle was not his first choice. The fact that he was less committed to it than the others was probably why he had more difficulty keeping it up.
At any rate, I’d never seen Edward feel dependent on Jasper. I wondered again what he’d meant about Jasper’s expertise. I really didn’t know much about Jasper’s history, just that he had come from somewhere in the south before Alice found him. For some reason, Edward had always shied away from any questions about his newest brother. And I’d always been too intimidated by the tall, blond vampire who looked like a brooding movie star to ask him outright.
When we got to the house, we found Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper watching the news intently, though the sound was so low that it was unintelligible to me. Alice was perched on the bottom step of the grand staircase, her face in her hands and her expression discouraged. As we walked in, Emmett ambled through the kitchen door, seeming perfectly at ease. Nothing ever bothered Emmett.
“Hey, Edward. Hey, Beau. Ditching?” He grinned at me.
“We both are,” Edward reminded him.
Emmett laughed. “Yes, but it’s his first time though high school. He might miss something.”
Edward rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored his favorite brother. He tossed the paper to Carlisle.
“Did you see that they’re considering a serial killer now?” he asked.
Carlisle sighed. “They’ve had two specialists debating that possibility on CNN all morning.”
“We can’t let this go on.”
“Let’s go now,” Emmett said with sudden enthusiasm. “I’m dead bored.”
A hiss echoed down the stairways from upstairs.
“He’s such a pessimist,” Emmett muttered to himself.
Edward agreed with Emmett. “We’ll have to go sometime.”
Royal appeared at the top of the stairs and descended slowly. His face was smooth, expressionless.
Carlisle was shaking his head. “I’m concerned. We’ve never involved ourselves in this kind of thing before. It’s not our business. We aren’t the Volturi.”
“I don’t want the Volturi to have to come here,” Edward said. “It gives us so much less reaction time.”
“And all those innocent humans in Seattle,” Esme murmured. “It’s not right to let them die this way.”
“I know,” Carlisle sighed.
“Oh,” Edward said sharply, turning his head slightly to look at Jasper. “I didn’t think of that. I see. You’re right, that has to be it. Well, that changes everything.”
I wasn’t the only one who stared at him in confusion, but I might have been the only one who didn’t look slightly annoyed.
“I think you’d better explain to the others,” Edward said to Jasper. “What could be the purpose of this?” Edward started to pace, staring at the floor, lost in thought.
I hadn’t seen her get up, but Alice was there beside me. “What is he rambling about?” she asked Jasper. “What are you thinking?”
Jasper didn’t seem to enjoy the spotlight. He hesitated, reading every face in the circle—for everyone had moved in to hear what he would say—and then his eyes paused on my face.
“You’re confused,” he said to me, his deep voice very quiet.
There was no question in his assumption. Jasper knew what I was feeling, what everyone was feeling.
“We’re all confused,” Emmett grumbled.
“You can afford the time to be patient,” Jasper told him. “Beau should understand this, too. He’s one of us now.”
His words took me by surprise. As little as I’d had to do with Jasper, especially since my last birthday when he’d tried to kill me, I hadn’t realized that he thought of me that way.
“How much do you know about me, Beau?” Jasper asked.
Jasper stared at Edward, who looked up to meet his gaze.
“No,” Edward answered his thought. “I’m sure you can understand why I haven’t told him that story. But I suppose he needs to hear it now.”
Jasper nodded thoughtfully, and then started to roll up the arm of his ivory sweater.
I watched, curious and confused, trying to figure out what he was doing. He held his wrist under the edge of the lampshade beside him, close to the light of the naked bulb, and traced his finger across a raised crescent mark on the pale skin.
It took me a minute to understand why the shape looked strangely familiar.
“Oh,” I breathed as realization hit. “Jasper, you have a scar exactly like mine.”
I held out my hand, the silvery crescent more prominent against my cream skin than against his alabaster.
Jasper smiled faintly. “I have a lot of scars like yours, Beau.”
Jaspers face was unreadable as he pushed the sleeve of his thin sweater higher up his arm. At first my eyes could not make sense of the texture that was layered thickly across his skin. Curved half-moons crisscrossed in a feathery pattern that was only visible, white on white as it was, because the bright glow of the lamp beside him threw the slightly raised design into relief, with shallow shadows outlining the shapes. And then I grasped that the pattern was made of individual crescents like the one on his wrist… the one on my hand.
I looked back at my own small, solitary scar—and remembered how I’d received it. I stared at the shape of James’s teeth, embossed forever on my skin.
And then I gasped, staring up at him. “Jasper, what happened to you?”
