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"Movie too much for you?" Jacob asked heartlessly.
Mike's glare was malevolent. "I didn't actually see any of it," he mumbled. "I was
nauseated before the lights went down."
"Why didn't you say something?" I scolded as we staggered toward the exit.
"I was hoping it would pass," he said.
"Just a sec," Jacob said as we reached the door. He walked quickly back to the
concession stand.
"Could I have an empty popcorn bucket?" he asked the salesgirl. She looked at
Mike once, and then thrust a bucket at Jacob.
"Get him outside, please," she begged. She was obviously the one who would
have to clean the floor.
I towed Mike out into the cool, wet air. He inhaled deeply. Jacob was right
behind us. He helped me get Mike into the back of the car, and handed him the
bucket with a serious gaze.
"Please," was all Jacob said.
We rolled down the windows, letting the icy night air blow through the car,
hoping it would help Mike. I curled my arms around my legs to keep warm.
"Cold, again?" Jacob asked, putting his arm around me before I could answer.
"You're not?"
He shook his head.
"You must have a fever or something," I grumbled. It was freezing. I touched my
fingers to his forehead, and his head was hot.
"Whoa, Jake—you're burning up!"
"I feel fine." He shrugged. "Fit as a fiddle."
I frowned and touched his head again. His skin blazed under my fingers.
"Your hands are like ice," he complained.
"Maybe it's me," I allowed.
Mike groaned in the backseat, and threw up in the bucket. I grimaced, hoping my
own stomach could stand the sound and smell. Jacob checked anxiously over his
shoulder to make sure his car wasn't defiled.
The road felt longer on the way back.
Jacob was quiet, thoughtful. He left his arm around me, and it was so warm that
the cold wind felt good.
I stared out the windshield, consumed with guilt.
It was so wrong to encourage Jacob. Pure selfishness. It didn't matter that I'd tried
to make my position clear. If he felt any hope at all that this could turn into
something other than friendship, then I hadn't been clear enough.
How could I explain so that he would understand? I was an empty shell. Like a
vacant house—condemned—for months I'd been utterly uninhabitable. Now I
was a little improved. The front room was in better repair. But that was all—just
the one small piece. He deserved better than that—better than a one-room, fallingdown
fixer-upper. No amount of investment on his part could put me back in
working order.
Yet I knew that I wouldn't send him away, regardless. I needed him too much,
and I was selfish. Maybe I could make my side more clear, so that he would
know to leave me. The thought made me shudder, and Jacob tightened his arm
around me.
I drove Mike home in his Suburban, while Jacob followed behind us to take me
home. Jacob was quiet all the way back to my house, and I wondered if he were
thinking the same things that I was. Maybe he was changing his mind.
"I would invite myself in, since we're early," he said as we pulled up next to my
truck. "But I think you might be right about the fever. I'm starting to feel a little…
strange."
"Oh no, not you, too! Do you want me to drive you home?"
"No." He shook his head, his eyebrows pulling together. "I don't feel sick yet.
Just… wrong. If I have to, I'll pull over."
"Will you call me as soon as you get in?" I asked anxiously.
"Sure, sure." He frowned, staring ahead into the darkness and biting his lip.
I opened my door to get out, but he grabbed my wrist lightly and held me there. I
noticed again how hot his skin felt on mine.
"What is it, Jake?" I asked.
"There's something I want to tell you, Bella… but I think it's going to sound kind
of corny."
I sighed. This would be more of the same from the theater. "Go ahead."
"It's just that, I know how you're unhappy a lot. And, maybe it doesn't help
anything, but I wanted you to know that I'm always here. I won't ever let you
down—I promise that you can always count on me. Wow, that does sound corny.
But you know that, right? That I would never, ever hurt you?"
"Yeah, Jake. I know that. And I already do count on you, probably more than you
know."
The smile broke across his face the way the sunrise set the clouds on fire, and I
wanted to cut my tongue out. I hadn't said one word that was a lie, but I should
have lied. The truth was wrong, it would hurt him. I would let him down.
A strange look crossed his face. "I really think I'd better go home now," he said.
I got out quickly.
"Call me!" I yelled as he pulled away.
I watched him go, and he seemed to be in control of the car, at least. I stared at
the empty street when he was gone, feeling a little sick myself, but not for any
physical reason.
How much I wished that Jacob Black had been born my brother, my flesh-and -
blood brother, so that I would have some legitimate claim on him that still left me
free of any blame now. Heaven knows I had never wanted to use Jacob, but I
couldn't help but interpret the guilt I felt now to mean that I had.
Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew—knew it in
the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my
head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest—was how love
gave someone the power to break you.
I'd been broken beyond repair.
But I needed Jacob now, needed him like a drug. I'd used him as a crutch for too
long, and I was in deeper than I'd planned to go with anyone again. Now I
couldn't bear for him to be hurt, and I couldn't keep from hurting him, either. He
thought time and patience would change me, and, though I knew he was dead
wrong, I also knew that I would let him try.
He was my best friend. I would always love him, and it would never, ever be
enough.
I went inside to sit by the phone and bite my nails.
"Movie over already?" Charlie asked in surprise when I came in. He was on the
floor, just a foot from the TV. Must be an exciting game.
"Mike got sick," I explained. "Some kind of stomach flu."
"You okay?"
"I feel fine now," I said doubtfully. Clearly, I'd been exposed.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, my hand inches from the phone, and tried to
wait patiently. I thought of the strange look on Jacob's face before he drove away,
and my fingers started drumming against the counter. I should have insisted on
driving him home.
I watched the clock as the minutes ticked by Ten. Fifteen. Even when I was
driving, it took only fifteen minutes, and Jacob drove faster than I did. Eighteen
minutes. I picked up the phone and dialed.
It rang and rang. Maybe Billy was asleep. Maybe I'd dialed wrong. I tried again.
On the eighth ring, just as I was about to hang up, Billy answered.
"Hello?" he asked. His voice was wary, like he was expecting bad news.
"Billy, it's me, Bella—did Jake make it home yet? He left here about twenty
minutes ago."
"He's here," Billy said tonelessly.
"He was supposed to call me." I was a little irritated. "He was getting sick when
he left, and I was worried."
"He was… too sick to call. He's not feeling well right now." Billy sounded
distant. I realized he must want to be with Jacob.
"Let me know if you need any help," I offered. "I could come down." I thought of
Billy, stuck in his chair, and Jake fending for himself…
"No, no," Billy said quickly. "We're fine. Stay at your place."
The way he said it was almost rude.
"Okay," I agreed.
"Bye, Bella."
The line disconnected.
"Bye," I muttered.
Well, at least he'd made it home. Oddly, I didn't feel less worried. I trudged up
the stairs, fretting. Maybe I would go down before work tomorrow to check on
him. I could take soup—we had to have a can of Campbell's around here
somewhere.
I realized all such plans were canceled when I woke up early—my clock said four
thirty—and sprinted to the bathroom. Charlie found me there a half hour later,
lying on the floor, my cheek pressed against the cold edge of the bathtub.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"Stomach flu," he finally said.
"Yes," I moaned.
"You need something?" he asked.
"Call the Newtons for me, please," I instructed hoarsely. "Tell them I have what
Mike has, and that I can't make it in today. Tell them I'm sorry."
"Sure, no problem," Charlie assured me.
I spent the rest of the day on the bathroom floor, sleeping for a few hours with
my head on a crumpled up towel. Charlie claimed that he had to work, but I
suspected that he just wanted access to a bathroom. He left a glass of water on the
floor beside me to keep me hydrated.
It woke me up when he came back home. I could see that it was dark in my room
—after nightfall. He clumped up the stairs to check on me.
"Still alive?"
"Sort of," I said.
"Do you want anything?"
"No, thanks."
He hesitated, clearly out of his element. "Okay, then," he said, and then he went
back down to the kitchen.
I heard the phone ring a few minutes later. Charlie spoke to someone in a low
voice for a moment, and then hung up.
"Mike feels better," he called up to me.
Well, that was encouraging. He'd only gotten sick eight hours or so before me.
Eight more hours. The thought made my stomach turn, and I pulled myself up to
lean over the toilet.
I fell asleep on the towel again, but when I woke up I was in my bed and it was
light outside my window. I didn't remember moving; Charlie must have carried
me to my room—he'd also put the glass of water on my bedside table. I felt
parched. I chugged it down, though it tasted funny from sitting stagnant all night.
I got up slowly, trying not to trigger the nausea again. I was weak, and my mouth
tasted horrible, but my stomach felt fine. I looked at my clock.
My twenty-four hours were up.
I didn't push it, eating nothing but saltine crackers for breakfast. Charlie looked
relieved to see me recovered.
As soon as I was sure that I wasn't going to have to spend the day on the
bathroom floor again, I called Jacob.
Jacob was the one who answered, but when I heard his greeting I knew he wasn't
over it.
"Hello?" His voice was broken, cracking.
"Oh, Jake," I groaned sympathetically. "You sound horrible."
"I feel horrible," he whispered.
"I'm so sorry I made you go out with me. This sucks."
"I'm glad I went." His voice was still a whisper. "Don't blame yourself. This isn't
your fault."
"You'll get better soon," I promised. "I woke up this morning, and I was fine."
"You were sick?" he asked dully.
"Yes, I got it, too. But I'm fine now."
"That's good." His voice was dead.
"So you'll probably be better in a few hours," I encouraged.
I could barely hear his answer. "I don't think I have the same thing you did."
"Don't you have the stomach flu?" I asked, confused.
"No. This is something else."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Everything," he whispered. "Every part of me hurts."
The pain in his voice was nearly tangible.
"What can I do, Jake? What can I bring you?"
"Nothing. You can't come here." He was abrupt. It reminded me of Billy the other
night.
"I've already been exposed to whatever you have," I pointed out.
He ignored me. "I'll call you when I can. I'll let you know when you can come
down again."
"Jacob—"
"I've got to go," he said with sudden urgency.
"Call me when you feel better."
"Right," he agreed, and his voice had a strange, bitter edge.
He was silent for a moment. I was waiting for him to say goodbye, but he waited
too.
"I'll see you soon," I finally said. "Wait for me to call," he said again. "Okay…
Bye, Jacob."
"Bella," he whispered my name, and then hung up the phone.
10. THE MEADOW
JACOB DIDN'T CALL.
The first time I called, Billy answered and told me that Jacob was still in bed. I
got nosy, checking to make sure that Billy had taken him to a doctor. Billy said
he had, but, for some reason I couldn't nail down, I didn't really believe him. I
called again, several times a day, for the next two days, but no one was ever there.
Saturday, I decided to go see him, invitation be damned. But the little red house
was empty. This frightened me—was Jacob so sick that he'd needed to go to the
hospital? I stopped by the hospital on the way back home, but the nurse at the
front desk told me neither Jacob or Billy had been in.
I made Charlie call Harry Clearwater as soon as he got home from work. I
waited, anxious, while Charlie chatted with his old friend; the conversation
seemed to go on forever without Jacob even being mentioned. It seemed that
Harry had been in the hospital . . some kind of tests for his heart. Charlie's
forehead got all pinched together, but Harry joked with him, blowing it off, until
Charlie was laughing again. Only then did Charlie ask about Jacob, and now his
side of the conversation didn't give me much to work with, just a lot of hmms and
yeahs. I drummed my fingers against the counter beside him until he put a hand
over mine to stop me.
Finally, Charlie hung up the phone and turned to me.
"Harry says there's been some trouble with the phone lines, and that's why you
haven't been able to get through. Billy took Jake to the doc down there, and it
looks like he has mono. He's real tired, and Billy said no visitors," he reported.
"No visitors?" I demanded in disbelief.
Charlie raised one eyebrow. "Now don't you go making a pest of yourself, Bells.
Billy knows what's best for Jake. He'll be up and around soon enough. Be
patient."
I didn't push it. Charlie was too worried about Harry. That was clearly the more
important issue—it wouldn't be right to bug him with my lesser concerns.
Instead, I went straight upstairs and turned on my computer. I found a medical
site online and typed "mononucleosis" into the search box.
All I knew about mono was that you were supposed to get it from kissing, which
was clearly not the case with Jake. I read through the symptoms quickly—the
fever he definitely had, but what about the rest of it? No horrible sore throat, no
exhaustion, no headaches, at least not before he'd gone home from the movie;
he'd said he felt "fit as a fiddle." Did it really come on so fast? The article made it
sound like the sore stuff showed up first.
I glared at the computer screen and wondered why, exactly, I was doing this.
Why did I feel so… so suspicious, like I didn't believe Billy's story? Why would
Billy lie to Harry?
I was being silly, probably. I was just worried, and, to be honest, I was afraid of
not being allowed to see Jacob—that made me nervous.
I skimmed through the rest of the article, looking for more information. I stopped
when I got to the part about how mono could last more than a month.
A month? My mouth fell open.
But Billy couldn't enforce the no-visitors thing that long. Of course not. Jake
would go crazy stuck in bed that long without anyone to talk to.
What was Billy afraid of, anyway? The article said that a person with mono
needed to avoid physical activity, but there was nothing about visitors. The
disease wasn't very infectious.
I'd give Billy a week, I decided, before I got pushy. A week was generous.
A week was long. By Wednesday, I was sure I wasn't going to live till Saturday.
When I'd decided to leave Billy and Jacob alone for a week, I hadn't really
believed that Jacob would go along with Billy's rule. Every day when I got home
from school, I ran to the phone to check for messages. There never were any.
I cheated three times by trying to call him, but the phone lines still weren't
working.
I was in the house much too much, and much too alone. Without Jacob, and my
adrenaline and my distractions, everything I'd been repressing started creeping up
on me. The dreams got hard again. I could no longer see the end coming. Just the
horrible nothingness—half the time in the forest, half the time in the empty fern
sea where the white house no longer existed. Sometimes Sam Uley was there in
the forest, watching me again. I paid him no attention—there was no comfort in
his presence; it made me feel no less alone. It didn't stop me from screaming
myself awake, night after night.
The hole in my chest was worse than ever. I'd thought that I'd been getting it
under control, but I found myself hunched over, day after day, clutching my sides
together and gasping for air.
I wasn't handling alone well.
I was relieved beyond measure the morning I woke up—screaming, of course—
and remembered that it was Saturday. Today I could call Jacob. And if the phone
lines still weren't working, then I was going to La Push. One way or another,
today would be better than the last lonely week.
I dialed, and then waited without high expectations.
It caught me off guard when Billy answered on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Oh, hey, the phone is working again! Hi, Billy. It's Bella. I was just calling to
see how Jacob is doing. Is he up for visitors yet? I was thinking about dropping by
—"
"I'm sorry, Bella," Billy interrupted, and I wondered if he were watching TV; he
sounded distracted. "He's not in."
"Oh." It took me a second. "So he's feeling better then?"
"Yeah," Billy hesitated for an instant too long. "Turns out it wasn't mono after all.
Just some other virus."
"Oh. So… where is he?"
"He's giving some friends a ride up to Port Angeles—I think they were going to
catch a double feature or something. He's gone for the whole day."
"Well, that's a relief. I've been so worried. I'm glad he felt good enough to get
out." My voice sounded horribly phony as I babbled on.
Jacob was better, but not well enough to call me. He was out with friends. I was
sitting home, missing him more every hour. I was lonely, worried, bored…
perforated—and now also desolate as I realized that the week apart had not had
the same effect on him.
"Is there anything in particular you wanted?" Billy asked politely.
"No, not really."
"Well, I'll tell him that you called," Billy promised. "Bye, Bella."
"Bye," I replied, but he'd already hung up.
I stood for a moment with the phone still in my hand.
Jacob must have changed his mind, just like I'd feared. He was going to take my
advice and not waste any more time on someone who couldn't return his feelings.
I felt the blood run out of my face.
"Something wrong?" Charlie asked as he came down the stairs.
"No," I lied, hanging up the phone. "Billy says Jacob is feeling better. It wasn't
mono. So that's good."
"Is he coming here, or are you going there?" Charlie asked absentmindedly as he
started poking through the fridge.
"Neither," I admitted. "He's going out with some other friends."
The tone of my voice finally caught Charlie's attention. He looked up at me with
sudden alarm, his hands frozen around a package of cheese slices.
"Isn't it a little early for lunch?" I asked as lightly as I could manage, trying to
distract him.
"No, I'm just packing something to take out to the river…"
"Oh, fishing today?"
"Well, Harry called… and it's not raining." He was creating a stack of food on the
counter as he spoke. Suddenly he looked up again as if he'd just realized
something. "Say, did you want me to stay with you, since Jake's out?"
"That's okay, Dad," I said, working to sound indifferent. "The fish bite better
when the weather's nice."
He stared at me, indecision clear on his face. I knew that he was worrying, afraid
to leave me alone, in case I got "mopey" again.
"Seriously, Dad. I think I'll call Jessica," I fibbed quickly. I'd rather be alone than
have him watching me all day. "We have a Calculus test to study for. I could use
her help." That part was true. But I'd have to make do without it.
"That's a good idea. You've been spending so much time with Jacob, your other
friends are going to think you've forgotten them."
I smiled and nodded as if I cared what my other friends thought.
Charlie started to turn, but then spun back with a worried expression. "Hey, you'll
study here or at Jess's, right?"
"Sure, where else?"
"Well, it's just that I want you to be careful to stay out of the woods, like I told
you before."
It took me a minute to understand, distracted as I was. "More bear trouble?"
Charlie nodded, frowning. "We've got a missing hiker—the rangers found his
camp early this morning, but no sign of him. There were some really big animal
prints… of course those could have come later, smelling the food… Anyway,
they're setting traps for it now."
"Oh," I said vaguely. I wasn't really listening to his warnings; I was much more
upset by the situation with Jacob than by the possibility of being eaten by a bear.
I was glad that Charlie was in a hurry. He didn't wait for me to call Jessica, so I
didn't have to put on that charade. I went through the motions of gathering my
school-books on the kitchen table to pack them in my bag; that was probably too
much, and if he hadn't been eager to hit the holes, it might have made him
suspicious.
I was so busy looking busy that the ferociously empty day ahead didn't really
crash down on me until after I'd watched him drive away. It only took about two
minutes of staring at the silent kitchen phone to decide that I wasn't staying home
today. I considered my options.
I wasn't going to call Jessica. As far as I could tell, Jessica had crossed over to the
dark side.
I could drive to La Push and get my motorcycle—an appealing thought but for
one minor problem: who was going to drive me to the emergency room if I
needed it afterward?
Or… I already had our map and compass in the truck. I was pretty sure I
understood the process well enough by now that I wouldn't get lost. Maybe I
could eliminate two lines today, putting us ahead of schedule for whenever Jacob
decided to honor me with his presence again. I refused to think about how long
that might be. Or if it was going to be never.
I felt a brief twinge of guilt as I realized how Charlie would feel about this, but I
ignored it. I just couldn't stay in the house again today.
A few minutes later I was on the familiar dirt road that led to nowhere in
particular. I had the windows rolled down and I drove as fast as was healthy for
my truck, trying to enjoy the wind against my face. It was cloudy, but almost dry
—a very nice day, for Forks.
Getting started took me longer than it would have taken Jacob. After I parked in
the usual spot, I had to spend a good fifteen minutes studying the little needle on
the compass face and the markings on the now worn map. When I was reasonably
certain that I was following the right line of the web, I set off into the woods.
The forest was full of life today, all the little creatures enjoying the momentary
dryness. Somehow, though, even with the birds chirping and cawing, the insects
buzzing noisily around my head, and the occasional scurry of the field mice
through the shrubs, the forest seemed creepier today; it reminded me of my most
recent nightmare. I knew it was just because I was alone, missing Jacob's carefree
whistle and the sound of another pair of feet squishing across the damp ground.
The sense of unease grew stronger the deeper I got into the trees. Breathing
started to get more difficult—not because of exertion, but because I was having
trouble with the stupid hole in my chest again. I kept my arms tight around my
torso and tried to banish the ache from my thoughts. I almost turned around, but I
hated to waste the effort I'd already expended.
The rhythm of my footsteps started to numb my mind and my pain as I trudged
on. My breathing evened out eventually, and I was glad I hadn't quit. I was
getting better at this bushwhacking thing; I could tell I was faster.
I didn't realize quite how much more efficiently I was moving. I thought I'd
covered maybe four miles, and I wasn't even starting to look around for it yet.
And then, with an abruptness that disoriented me, I stepped through a low arch
made by two vine maples—pushing past the chest-high ferns—into the meadow.
It was the same place, of that I was instantly sure. I'd never seen another clearing
so symmetrical. It was as perfectly round as if someone had intentionally created
the flawless circle, tearing out the trees but leaving no evidence of that violence
in the waving grass. To the east, I could hear the stream bubbling quietly.
The place wasn't nearly so stunning without the sunlight, but it was still very
beautiful and serene. It was the wrong season for wildflowers; the ground was
thick with tall grass that swayed in the light breeze like ripples across a lake.
It was the same place… but it didn't hold what I had been searching for.
The disappointment was nearly as instantaneous as the recognition. I sank down
right where I was, kneeling there at the edge of the clearing, beginning to gasp.
What was the point of going any farther? Nothing lingered here. Nothing more
than the memories that I could have called back whenever I wanted to, if I was
ever willing to endure the corresponding pain—the pain that had me now, had me
cold. There was nothing special about this place without him. I wasn't exactly
sure what I'd hoped to feel here, but the meadow was empty of atmosphere,
empty of everything, just like everywhere else. Just like my nightmares. My head
swirled dizzily.
At least I'd come alone. I felt a rush of thankfulness as I realized that. If I'd
discovered the meadow with Jacob… well, there was no way I could have
disguised the abyss I was plunging into now. How could I have explained the
way I was fracturing into pieces, the way I had to curl into a ball to keep the
empty hole from tearing me apart? It was so much better that I didn't have an
audience.
And I wouldn't have to explain to anyone why I was in such a hurry to leave,
either. Jacob would have assumed, after going to so much trouble to locate the
stupid place, I would want to spend more than a few seconds here. But I was
already trying to find the strength to get to my feet again, forcing myself out of
the ball so that I could escape. There was too much pain in this empty place to
bear—I would crawl away if I had to.
How lucky that I was alone!
Alone. I repeated the word with grim satisfaction as I wrenched myself to my feet
despite the pain. At precisely that moment, a figure stepped out from the trees to
the north, some thirty paces away.
A dizzying array of emotions shot through me in a second. The first was surprise;
I was far from any trail here, and I didn't expect company. Then, as my eyes
focused on the motionless figure, seeing the utter stillness, the pallid skin, a rush
of piercing hope rocked through me. I suppressed it viciously, fighting against the
equally sharp lash of agony as my eyes continued to the face beneath the black
hair, the face that wasn't the one I wanted to see. Next was fear; this was not the
face I grieved for, but it was close enough for me to know that the man facing me
was no stray hiker.
And finally, in the end, recognition.
"Laurent!" I cried in surprised pleasure.
It was an irrational response. I probably should have stopped at fear.
Laurent had been one of James's coven when we'd first met. He hadn't been
involved with the hunt that followed—the hunt where I was the quarry—but that
was only because he was afraid; I was protected by a bigger coven than his own.
It would have been different if that wasn't the case—he'd had no compunctions, at
the time, against making a meal of me. Of course, he must have changed, because
he'd gone to Alaska to live with the other civilized coven there, the other family
that refused to drink human blood for ethical reasons. The other family like… but
I couldn't let myself think the name.
Yes, fear would have made more sense, but all I felt was an overwhelming
satisfaction. The meadow was a magic place again. A darker magic than I'd
expected, to be sure, but magic all the same. Here was the connection I'd sought.
The proof, however remote, that—somewhere in the same world where I lived—
he did exist.
It was impossible how exactly the same Laurent looked. I suppose it was very
silly and human to expect some kind of change in the last year. But there was
something… I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
"Bella?" he asked, looking more astonished than I felt.
"You remember." I smiled. It was ridiculous that I should be so elated because a
vampire knew my name.
He grinned. "I didn't expect to see you here." He strolled toward me, his
expression bemused.
"Isn't it the other way around? I do live here. I thought you'd gone to Alaska."
He stopped about ten paces away, cocking his head to the side. His face was the
most beautiful face I'd seen in what felt like an eternity. I studied his features
with a strangely greedy sense of release. Here was someone I didn't have to
pretend for—someone who already knew everything I could never say.
"You're right," he agreed. "I did go to Alaska. Still, I didn't expect… When I
found the Cullen place empty, I thought they'd moved on."
"Oh." I bit my lip as the name set the raw edges of my wound throbbing. It took
me a second to compose myself. Laurent waited with curious eyes.
"They did move on," I finally managed to tell him.
"Hmm," he murmured. "I'm surprised they left you behind. Weren't you sort of a
pet of theirs?" His eyes were innocent of any intended offense.
I smiled wryly. "Something like that."
"Hmm," he said, thoughtful again.
At that precise moment, I realized why he looked the same—too much the same.
After Carlisle told us that Laurent had stayed with Tanya's family, I'd begun to
picture him, on the rare occasions that I thought of him at all, with the same
golden eyes that the… Cullens—I forced the name out, wincing—had. That all
good vampires had.
I took an involuntary step back, and his curious, dark red eyes followed the
movement.
"Do they visit often?" he asked, still casual, but his weight shifted toward me.
"Lie," the beautiful velvet voice whispered anxiously from my memory.
I started at the sound of his voice, but it should not have surprised me. Was I nor
in the worst danger imaginable? The motorcycle was safe as kittens next to this.
I did what the voice said to do.
"Now and again." I tried to make my voice light, relaxed. "The time seems longer
to me, I imagine. You know how they get distracted…" I was beginning to
babble. I had to work to shut myself up.
"Hmm," he said again. "The house smelled like it had been vacant for a while…"
"You must lie better than that, Bella," the voice urged.
I tried. "I'll have to mention to Carlisle that you stopped by. He'll be sorry they
missed your visit." I pretended to deliberate for a second. "But I probably
shouldn't mention it to… Edward, I suppose—" I barely managed to say his
name, and it twisted my expression on the way out, ruining my bluff "—he has
such a temper… well, I'm sure you remember. He's still touchy about the whole
James thing." I rolled my eyes and waved one hand dismissively, like it was all
ancient history, but there was an edge of hysteria to my voice. I wondered if he
would recognize what it was.
"Is he really?" Laurent asked pleasantly… skeptically.
I kept my reply short, so that my voice wouldn't betray my panic. "Mm-hmm."
Laurent took a casual step to the side, gazing around at the little meadow. I didn't
miss that the step brought him closer to me. In my head, the voice responded with
a low snarl.
"So how are things working out in Denali? Carlisle said you were staying with
Tanya?" My voice was too high.
The question made him pause. "I like Tanya very much," he mused. "And her
sister Irina even more… I've never stayed in one place for so long before, and I
enjoy the advantages, the novelty of it. But, the restrictions are difficult… I'm
surprised that any of them can keep it up for long." He smiled at me
conspiratorially. "Sometimes I cheat."
I couldn't swallow. My foot started to ease back, but I froze when his red eyes
flickered down to catch the movement.
"Oh," I said in a faint voice. "Jasper has problems with that, too."
"Don't move," the voice whispered. I tried to do what he instructed. It was hard;
the instinct to take flight was nearly uncontrollable.
"Really?" Laurent seemed interested. "Is that why they left?"
"No," I answered honestly. "Jasper is more careful at home."
"Yes," Laurent agreed. "I am, too."
The step forward he took now was quite deliberate.
"Did Victoria ever find you?" I asked, breathless, desperate to distract him. It was
the first question that popped into my head, and I regretted it as soon as the words
were spoken. Victoria—who had hunted me with James, and then disappeared—
was not someone I wanted to think of at this particular moment.
But the question did stop him.
"Yes," he said, hesitating on that step. "I actually came here as a favor to her." He
made a face. "She won't be happy about this."
"About what?" I said eagerly, inviting him to continue. He was glaring into the
trees, away from me. I took advantage of his diversion, taking a furtive step back.
He looked back at me and smiled—the expression made him look like a blackhaired
angel.
"About me killing you," he answered in a seductive purr.
I staggered back another step. The frantic growling in my head made it hard to
hear.
"She wanted to save that part for herself," he went on blithely. "She's sort of…
put out with you, Bella."
"Me?" I squeaked.
He shook his head and chuckled. "I know, it seems a little backward to me, too.
But James was her mate, and your Edward killed him."
Even here, on the point of death, his name tore against my unhealed wounds like
a serrated edge.
Laurent was oblivious to my reaction. "She thought it more appropriate to kill
you than Edward—fair turnabout, mate for mate. She asked me to get the lay of
the land for her, so to speak. I didn't imagine you would be so easy to get to. So
maybe her plan was flawed—apparently it wouldn't be the revenge she imagined,
since you must not mean very much to him if he left you here unprotected."
Another blow, another tear through my chest.
Laurent's weight shifted slightly, and I stumbled another step back.
He frowned. "I suppose she'll be angry, all the same."
"Then why not wait for her?" I choked out.
A mischievous grin rearranged his features. "Well, you've caught me at a bad
time, Bella. I didn't come to this place on Victoria's mission—I was hunting. I'm
quite thirsty, and you do smell… simply mouthwatering."
Laurent looked at me with approval, as if he meant it as a compliment.
"Threaten him," the beautiful delusion ordered, his voice distorted with dread.
"He'll know it was you," I whispered obediently. "You won't get away with this."
"And why not?" Laurent's smile widened. He gazed around the small opening in
the trees. "The scent will wash away with the next rain. No one will find your
body—you'll simply go missing, like so many, many other humans. There's no
reason for Edward to think of me, if he cares enough to investigate. This is
nothing personal, let me assure you, Bella. Just thirst."
"Beg," my hallucination begged.
"Please," I gasped.
Laurent shook his head, his face kind. "Look at it this way, Bella. You're very
lucky I was the one to find you."
"Am I?" I mouthed, faltering another step back.
Laurent followed, lithe and graceful.
"Yes," he assured me. "I'll be very quick. You won't feel a thing, I promise. Oh,
I'll lie to Victoria about that later, naturally, just to placate her. But if you knew
what she had planned for you, Bella…" He shook his head with a slow
movement, almost as if in disgust. "I swear you'd be thanking me for this."
I stared at him in horror.
He sniffed at the breeze that blew threads of my hair in his direction.
"Mouthwatering," he repeated, inhaling deeply.
I tensed for the spring, my eyes squinting as I cringed away, and the sound of
Edward's furious roar echoed distantly in the back of my head. His name burst
through all the walls I'd built to contain it. Edward, Edward, Edward. I was going
to die. It shouldn't matter if I thought of him now. Edward, I love you.
Through my narrowed eyes, I watched as Laurent paused in the act of inhaling
and whipped his head abruptly to the left. I was afraid to look away from him, to
follow his glance, though he hardly needed a distraction or any other trick to
overpower me. I was too amazed to feel relief when he started slowly backing
away from me.
"I don't believe it," he said, his voice so low that I barely heard it.
I had to look then. My eyes scanned the meadow, searching for the interruption
that had extended my life by a few seconds. At first I saw nothing, and my gaze
flickered back to Laurent. He was retreating more quickly now, his eyes boring
into the forest.
Then I saw it; a huge black shape eased out of the trees, quiet as a shadow, and
stalked deliberately toward the vampire. It was enormous—as tall as a horse, but
thicker, much more muscular. The long muzzle grimaced, revealing a line of
dagger-like incisors. A grisly snarl rolled out from between the teeth, rumbling
across the clearing like a prolonged crack of thunder.
The bear. Only, it wasn't a bear at all. Still, this gigantic black monster had to be
the creature causing all the alarm. From a distance, anyone would assume it was a
bear. What else could be so vast, so powerfully built?
I wished I were lucky enough to see it from a distance. Instead, it padded silently
through the grass a mere ten feet from where I stood.
"Don't move an inch," Edward's voice whispered.
I stared at the monstrous creature, my mind boggling as I tried to put a name to it.
There was a distinctly canine cast to the shape of it, the way it moved. I could
only think of one possibility, locked in horror as I was. Yet I'd never imagined
that a wolf could get so big.
Another growl rumbled in its throat, and I shuddered away from the sound.
Laurent was backing toward the edge of the trees, and, under the freezing terror,
confusion swept through me. Why was Laurent retreating? Granted, the wolf was
monstrous in size, but it was just an animal. What reason would a vampire have
for fearing an animal? And Laurent was afraid. His eyes were wide with horror,
just like mine.
As if in answer to my question, suddenly the mammoth wolf was not alone.
Flanking it on either side, another two gigantic beasts prowled silently into the
meadow. One was a deep gray, the other brown, neither one quite as tall as the
first. The gray wolf came through the trees only a few feet from me, its eyes
locked on Laurent.
Before I could even react, two more wolves followed, lined up in a V, like geese
flying south. Which meant that the rusty brown monster that shrugged through
the brush last was close enough for me to touch.
I gave an involuntary gasp and jumped back—which was the stupidest thing I
could have done. I froze again, waiting for the wolves to turn on me, the much
weaker of the available prey. I wished briefly that Laurent would get on with it
and crush the wolf pack—it should be so simple for him. I guessed that, between
the two choices before me, being eaten by wolves was almost certainly the worse
option.
The wolf closest to me, the reddish brown one, turned its head slightly at the
sound of my gasp.
The wolf's eyes were dark, nearly black. It gazed at me for a fraction of a second,
the deep eyes seeming too intelligent for a wild animal.
As it stared at me, I suddenly thought of Jacob—again, with gratitude. At least I'd
come here alone, to this fairytale meadow filled with dark monsters. At least
Jacob wasn't going to die, too. At least I wouldn't have his death on my hands.
Then another low growl from the leader caused the russet wolf to whip his head
around, back toward Laurent.
Laurent was staring at the pack of monster wolves with unconcealed shock and
fear. The first I could understand. But I was stunned when, without warning, he
spun and disappeared into the trees.
He ran away.
The wolves were after him in a second, sprinting across the open grass with a few
powerful bounds, snarling and snapping so loudly that my hands flew up
instinctively to cover my ears. The sound faded with surprising swiftness once
they disappeared into the woods.
And then I was alone again.
My knees buckled under me, and I fell onto my hands, sobs building in my throat.
I knew I needed to leave, and leave now. How long would the wolves chase
Laurent before they doubled back for me? Or would Laurent turn on them?
Would he be the one that came looking?
I couldn't move at first, though; my arms and legs were shaking, and I didn't
know how to get back to my feet.
My mind couldn't move past the fear, the horror or the confusion. I didn't
understand what I'd just witnessed.
A vampire should not have run from overgrown dogs like that. What good would
their teeth be against his granite skin?
And the wolves should have given Laurent a wide berth. Even if their
extraordinary size had taught them to fear nothing, it still made no sense that they
would pursue him. I doubted his icy marble skin would smell anything like food.
Why would they pass up something warmblooded and weak like me to chase
after Laurent?
I couldn't make it add up.
A cold breeze whipped through the meadow, swaying the grass like something
was moving through it.
I scrambled to my feet, backing away even though the wind brushed harmlessly
past me. Stumbling in panic, I turned and ran headlong into the trees.
The next few hours were agony. It took me three times as long to escape the trees
as it had to get to the meadow.
At first I paid no attention to where I was headed, focused only on what I was
running from By the time I collected myself enough to remember the compass, I
was deep in the unfamiliar and menacing forest. My hands were shaking so
violently that I had to set the compass on the muddy ground to be able to read it.
Every few minutes I would stop to put the compass dowr and check that I was
still heading northwest, hearing—when the sounds weren't hidden behind the
frantic squelching of my footsteps—the quiet whisper of unseen things moving in
the leaves.
The call of a jaybird made me leap back and fall into a thick stand of young
spruce, scraping up my arms and tangling my hair with sap. The sudden rush of a
squirrel up a hemlock made me scream so loud it hurt my own ears.
At last there was a break in the trees ahead. I came out onto the empty road a mile
or so south of where I'd left the truck. Exhausted as I was, I jogged up the lane
until I found it. By the time I pulled myself into the cab, I was sobbing again. I
fiercely shoved down both stiff locks before I dug my keys out of my pocket. The
roar of the engine was comforting and sane. It helped me control the tears as I
sped as fast as my truck would allow toward the main highway.
I was calmer, but still a mess when I got home. Charlie's cruiser was in the
driveway—I hadn't realized how late it was. The sky was already dusky.
"Bella?" Charlie asked when I slammed the front door behind me and hastily
turned the locks.
"Yeah, it's me." My voice was unsteady.
"Where have you been?" he thundered, appearing through the kitchen doorway
with an ominous expression.
I hesitated. He'd probably called the Stanleys. I'd better stick to the truth.
"I was hiking," I admitted.
His eyes were tight. "What happened to going to Jessica's?"
"I didn't feel like Calculus today."
Charlie folded his arms across his chest. "I thought I asked you to stay out of the
forest."
"Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I won't do it again." I shuddered.
Charlie seemed to really look at me for the first time. I remembered that I had
spent some time on the forest floor today; I must be a mess.
"What happened?" Charlie demanded.
Again, I decided that the truth, or part of it anyway, was the best option. I was too
shaken to pretend that I'd spent an uneventful day with the flora and fauna.
"I saw the bear." I tried to say it calmly, but my voice was high and shaky. "It's
not a bear, though—it's some kind of wolf. And there are five of them. A big
black one, and gray, and reddish-brown…"
Charlie's eyes grew round with horror. He strode quickly to me and grabbed the
tops of my arms.
"Are you okay?"
My head bobbed in a weak nod.
"Tell me what happened."
"They didn't pay any attention to me. But aftet they were gone, I ran away and I
fell down a lot."
He let go of my shoulders and wrapped his arms around me. For a long moment,
he didn't say anything.
"Wolves," he murmured.
"What?"
"The rangers said the tracks were wrong for a bear—but wolves just don't get that
big…"
"These were huge."
"How many did you say you saw?"
"Five."
Charlie shook his head, frowning with anxiety, He finally spoke in a tone that
allowed no argument. "No more hiking."
"No problem," I promised fervently.
Charlie called the station to report what I'd seen. I fudged a little bit about where
exactly I'd seen the wolves—claiming I'd been on the trail that led to the north. I
didn't want my dad to know how deep I'd gone into the forest against his wishes,
and, more importantly, I didn't want anyone wandering near where Laurent might
be searching for me. The thought of it made me feel sick.
"Are you hungry?" he asked me when he hung up the phone.
I shook my head, though I must have been starving. I hadn't eaten all day.
"Just tired," I told him. I turned for the stairs.
"Hey," Charlie said, his voice suddenly suspicious again. "Didn't you say Jacob
was gone for the day?"
"That's what Billy said," I told him, confused by his question.
He studied my expression for a minute, and seemed satisfied with what he saw
there.
"Huh."
"Why?" I demanded. It sounded like he was implying that I'd been lying to him
this morning. About something besides studying with Jessica.
"Well, it's just that when I went to pick up Harry, I saw Jacob out in front of the
store down there with some of his friends. I waved hi, but he… well, I guess I
don't know if he saw me. I think maybe he was arguing with his friends. He
looked strange, like he was upset about something. And… different. It's like you
can watch that kid growing! He gets bigger every time I see him."
"Billy said Jake and his friends were going up to Port Angeles to see some
movies. They were probably just waiting for someone to meet them."
"Oh." Charlie nodded and headed for the kitchen.
I stood in the hall, thinking about Jacob arguing with his friends. I wondered if he
had confronted Embry about the situation with Sam. Maybe that was the reason
he'd ditched me today—if it meant he could sort things out with Embry, I was
glad he had.
I paused to check the locks again before I went to my room. It was a silly thing to
do. What difference would a lock make to any of the monsters I'd seen this
afternoon? I assumed the handle alone would stymie the wolves, not having
opposable thumbs. And if Laurent came here…
Or… Victoria.
I lay down on my bed, but I was shaking too hard to hope for sleep. I curled into
a cramped ball under my quilt, and faced the horrifying facts.
There was nothing I could do. There were no precautions I could take. There was
no place I could hide. There was no one who could help me.
I realized, with a nauseous roll of my stomach, that the situation was worse than
even that. Because all those facts applied to Charlie, too. My father, sleeping one
room away from me, was just a hairsbreadth off the heart of the target that was
centered on me. My scent would lead them here, whether I was here or not.
The tremors rocked me until my teeth chattered.
To calm myself, I fantasized the impossible: I imagined the big wolves catching
up to Laurent in the woods and massacring the indestructible immortal the way
they would any normal person. Despite the absurdity of such a vision, the idea
comforted me. If the wolves got him, then he couldn't tell Victoria I was here all
alone. If he didn't return, maybe she'd think the Cullens were still protecting me.
If only the wolves could win such a fight…
My good vampires were never coming back; how soothing it was to imagine that
the other kind could also disappear.
I squeezed my eyes tight together and waited for unconsciousness—almost eager
for my nightmare to start. Better that than the pale, beautiful face that smiled at
me now from behind my lids.
In my imagination, Victoria's eyes were black with thirst, bright with
anticipation, and her lips curled back from her gleaming teeth in pleasure. Her red
hair was brilliant as fire; it blew chaotically around her wild face.
Laurent's words repeated in my head. If you knew what she had planned for you
…
I pressed my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming.
11. CULT
EACH TIME THAT I OPENED MY EYES TO THE MORNING light and
realized I'd lived through another night was a surprise to me. After the surprise
wore off, my heart would start to race and my palms would sweat; I couldn't
really breathe again until I'd gotten up and ascertained that Charlie had survived
as well.
I could tell he was worried—watching me jump at any loud sound, or my face
suddenly go white for no reason that he could see. From the questions he asked
now and then, he seemed to blame the change on Jacob's continued absence.
The terror that was always foremost in my thoughts usually distracted me from
the fact that another week had passed, and Jacob still hadn't called me. But when
I was able to concentrate on my normal life—if my life was really ever normal—
this upset me.
I missed him horribly.
It had been bad enough to be alone before I was scared silly. Now, more than
ever, I yearned for his carefree laugh and his infectious grin. I needed the safe
sanity of his homemade garage and his warm hand around my cold fingers.
I'd half expected him to call on Monday. If there had been some progress with
Embry, wouldn't he want to report it? I wanted to believe that it was worry for his
friend that was occupying all his time, not that he was just giving up on me.
I called him Tuesday, but no one answered. Were the phone lines still having
problems? Or had Billy invested in caller I.D.?
On Wednesday I called every half hour until after eleven at night, desperate to
hear the warmth of Jacob's voice.
Thursday I sat in my truck in front of my house—with the locks pushed down—
keys in hand, for a solid hour. I was arguing with myself, trying to justify a quick
trip to La Push, but I couldn't do it.
I knew that Laurent had gone back to Victoria by now. If I went to La Push, I
took the chance of leading one of them there. What if they caught up to me when
Jake was nearby? As much as it hurt me, I knew it was better for Jacob that he
was avoiding me. Safer for him.
It was bad enough that I couldn't figure out a way to keep Charlie safe. Nighttime
was the most likely time that they would come looking ior me, and what could I
say to get Charlie out of the house? If I told him the truth, he'd have me locked up
in a rubber room somewhere. I would have endured that—welcomed it, even—if
it could have kept him safe. But Victoria would still come to his house first,
looking for me. Maybe, if she found me here, that would be enough for her.
Maybe she would just leave when she was done with me.
So I couldn't run away. Even if I could, where would I go? To Renee? I
shuddered at the thought of dragging my lethal shadows into my mother's safe,
sunny world. I would never endanger her that way.
The worry was eating a hole in my stomach. Soon I would have matching
punctures.
That night, Charlie did me another favor and called Harry again to see if the
Blacks were out of town. Harry reported that Billy had attended the council
meeting Wednesday night, and never mentioned anything about leaving. Charlie
warned me not to make a nuisance of myself—Jacob would call when he got
around to it.
Friday afternoon, as I drove home from school, it hit me out of the blue.
I wasn't paying attention to the familiar road, letting the sound of the engine
deaden my brain and silence the worries, when my subconscious delivered a
verdict it must have been working on for some time without my knowledge.
As soon as I thought of it, I felt really stupid for not seeing it sooner. Sure. I'd had
a lot on my mind—revenue-obsessed vampires, giant mutant wolves, a ragged
hole in the center of my chest—but when I laid the evidence out, it was
embarrassingly obvious.
Jacob avoiding me. Charlie saying he looked strange, upset. . . . Billy's vague,
unhelpful answers.
Holy crow, I knew exactly what was going on with Jacob.
It was Sam Uley. Even my nightmares had been trying to tell me that. Sam had
gotten to Jacob. Whatever was happening to the other boys on the reservation had
reached out and stolen my friend. He'd been sucked into Sam's cult.
He hadn't given up on me at all, I realized with a rush of feeling.
I let my truck idle in front of my house. What should I do? I weighed the dangers
against each other.
If I went looking for Jacob, I risked the chance of Victoria or Laurent finding me
with him.
If I didn't go after him, Sam would pull him deeper into his frightening,
compulsory gang. Maybe it would be too late if I didn't act soon.
It had been a week, and no vampires had come for me yet. A week was more than
enough time for them to have returned, so I must not be a priority. Most likely, as
I'd decided before, they would come for me at night. The chances of them
following me to La Push were much lower than the chance of losing Jacob to
Sam.
It was worth the danger of the secluded forest road. This was no idle visit to see
what was going on. I knew what was going on. This was a rescue mission. I was
going to talk to Jacob—kidnap him if I had to. I'd once seen a PBS show on
deprogramming the brainwashed. There had to be some kind of cure.
I decided I'd better call Charlie first. Maybe whatever was going on down in La
Push was something the police should be involved in. I dashed inside, in a hurry
to be on my way.
Charlie answered the phone it the station himself.
"Chief Swan."
"Dad, it's Bella."
"What's wrong?'"
I couldn't argue with his doomsday assumption this time. My voice was shaking.
"I'm worried about Jacob."
"Why?" he asked, surprised by the unexpected topic.
"I think… I think something weird is going on down at the reservation. Jacob told
me about some strange stuff happening with the other boys his age. Now he's
acting the same way and I'm scared."
"What kind of stuff?" He used his professional, police business voice. That was
good; he was taking me seriously.
"First he was scared, and then he was avoiding me, and now… I'm afraid he's part
of that bizarre gang down there, Sam's gang. Sam Uley's gang."
"Sam Uley?" Charlie repeated, surprised again.
"Yes."
Charlie's voice was more relaxed when he answered. "I think you've got it wrong,
Bells. Sam Uley is a great kid. Well, he's a man now. A good son. You should
hear Billy talk about him. He's really doing wonders with the youth on the
reservation. He's the one who—" Charlie broke off mid-sentence, and I guessed
that he had been about to make a reference to the night I'd gotten lost in the
woods. I moved on quickly.
"Dad, it's not like that. Jacob was scared of him."
"Did you talk to Billy about this?" He was trying to soothe me now. I'd lost him
as soon as I'd mentioned Sam.
"Billy's not concerned."
"Well, Bella, then I'm sure it's okay. Jacob's a kid; he was probably just messing
around. I'm sure he's fine. He can't spend every waking minute with you, after
all."
"This isn't about me," I insisted, but the battle was lost.
"I don't think you need to worry about this. Let Billy take care of Jacob."
"Charlie…" My voice was starting to sound whiney.
"Bells, I got a lot on my plate right now. Two tourists have gone missing off a
trail outside crescent lake." There was an anxious edge to his voice. "This wolf
problem is getting out of hand."
I was momentarily distracted—stunned, really—by his news. There was no way
the wolves could have survived a match-up with Laurent…
"Are you sure that's what happened to them?" I asked.
"Afraid so, honey. There was—" He hesitated. "There were tracks again, and…
some blood this time."
"Oh!" It must not have come to a confrontation, then. Laurent must have simply
outrun the wolves, but why? What I'd seen in the meadow just got stranger and
stranger—more impossible to understand.
"Look, I really have to go. Don't worry about Jake, Bella. I'm sure it's nothing."
"Fine," I said curtly, frustrated as his words reminded me of the more urgent
crisis at hand. "Bye." I hang up.
I stared at the phone for a long minute. What the hell, I decided.
Billy answered after two rings.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Billy," I almost growled. I tried to sound more friendly as I continued.
"Can I talk to Jacob, please?"
"Jake's not here."
What a shock. "Do you know where he is?"
"He's out with his friends." Billy's voice was careful.
"Oh yeah? Anyone I know? Quil?" I could tell the words didn't come across as
casually as I'd meant them to.
"No," Billy said slowly. "I don't think he's with Quil today."
I knew better than to mention Sam's name.
"Embry?" I asked.
Billy seemed happier to answer this one. "Yeah, he's with Embry."
That was enough for me. Embry was one of them.
"Well, have him call me when he gets in, all right?"
"Sure, sure. No problem." Click.
"See you soon, Billy," I muttered into the dead phone.
I drove to La Push determined to wait. I'd sit out front of his house all night if I
had to. I'd miss school. The boy was going to have to come home sometime, and
when he did, he was going to have to talk to me.
My mind was so preoccupied that the trip I'd been terrified of making seemed to
take only a few seconds. Before I was expecting it, the forest began to thin, and I
knew I would soon be able to see the first little houses of the reservation.
Walking away, along the left side of the road, was a tall boy with a baseball cap.
My breath caught for just a moment in my throat, hopeful that luck was with me
for once, and I'd srumbled across Jacob without hardly trying. But this boy was
too wide, and the hair was short under the hat. Even from behind, I was sure it
was Quil, though he looked bigger than the last time I'd seen him. What was with
these Quileute boys? Were they feeding them experimental growth hormones?
I crossed over to the wrong side of the road to stop next to him. He looked up
when the roar of my truck approached.
Quil's expression frightened me more than it surprised me. His face was bleak,
brooding, his forehead creased with worry.
"Oh, hey, Bella," he greeted me dully.
"Hi, Quil… Are you okay?"
He stared at me morosely. "Fine."
"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I offered.
"Sure, I guess," he mumbled. He shuffled around the front of the truck and
opened the passenger door to climb in.
"Where to?"
"My house is on the north side, back behind the store," he told me.
"Have you seen Jacob today." The question burst from me almost before he'd
finished speaking.
I looked at Quil eagerly, waiting for his answer. He stared out the windshield for
a second before he spoke. "From a distance," he finally said.
"A distance?" I echoed.
"I tried to follow them—he was with Embry." His voice was low, hard to hear
over the engine. I leaned closer. "I know they saw me. But they turned and just
disappeared into the trees. I don't think they were alone—I think Sam and his
crew might have been with them.
"I've been stumbling around in the forest for an hour, yelling for them. I just
barely found the road again when you drove up."
"So Sam did get to him." The words were a little distorted—my teeth were gritted
together.
Quil stared at me. "You know about that.?"
I nodded. "Jake told me… before."
"Before," Quil repeated, and sighed.
"Jacob's just as bad as the others now?"
"Never leaves Sam's side." Quil turned his head and spit out the open window.
"And before that—did he avoid everyone? Was he acting upset?"
His voice was low and rough. "Not for as long as the others. Maybe one day.
Then Sam caught up with him."
"What do you think it is? Drugs or something?"
"I can't see Jacob or Embry getting into anything like that… but what do I know?
What else could it be? And why aren't the old people worried?" He shook his
head, and the fear showed in his eyes now. "Jacob didn't want to be a part of
this… cult. I don't understand what could change him." He stared at me, his face
frightened. "I don't want to be next."
My eyes mirrored his fear. That was the second time I'd heard it described as a
cult. I shivered. "Are your parents any help?"
He grimaced. "Right. My grandfather's on the council with Jacob's dad. Sam Uley
is the best thing that ever happened to this place, as far as he's concerned."
We stared at each other for a prolonged moment. We were in La Push now, and
my truck was barely crawling along the empty road. I could see the village's only
store not too far ahead.
"I'll get out now," Quil said. "My house is right over there." He gestured toward
the small wooden rectangle behind the store. I pulled over to the shoulder, and he
jumped out.
"I'm going to go wait for Jacob," I told him in a hard voice.
"Good luck." He slammed the door and shuffled forward along the road, his head
bent forward, his shoulders slumped.
Quil's face haunted me as I made a wide U-turn and headed back toward the
Blacks'. He was terrified of being next. What was happening here?
I stopped in front of Jacob's house, killing the motor and rolling down the
windows. It was stuffy today, no breeze. I put my feet up on the dashboard and
settled in to wait.
A movement flashed in my peripheral vision—I turned and spotted Billy looking
at me through the front window with a confused expression. I waved once and
smiled a tight smile, but stayed where I was.
His eyes narrowed; he let the curtain fall across the glass.
I was prepared to stay as long as it took, but I wished I had something to do. I dug
up a pen out of the bottom of my backpack, and an old test. I started to doodle on
the back of the scrap.
I'd only had time to scrawl one row of diamonds when there was a sharp tap
against my door.
I jumped, looking up, expecting Billy.
"What are you doing here, Bella.'" Jacob growled.
I stared at him in blank astonishment.
Jacob had changed radically in the last weeks since I'd seen him. The first thing I
noticed was his hair—his beautiful hair was all gone, cropped quite short,
covering his head with an inky gloss like black satin. The planes of his face
seemed to have hardened subtly, tightened… aged. His neck and his shoulders
were different, too, thicker somehow. His hands, where they gripped the window
frame, looked enormous, with the tendons and veins more prominent under the
russet skin. But the physical changes were insignificant.
It was his expression that made him almost completely unrecognizable. The open,
friendly smile was gone like the hair, the warmth in his dark eyes altered to a
brooding resentment that was instantly disturbing. There was a darkness in Jacob
now. Like my sun had imploded.
"Jacob?" I whispered.
He just stared at me, his eyes tense and angry.
I realized we weren't alone. Behind him stood four others; all tall and russetskinned,
black hair chopped short just like Jacob's. They could have been brothers
—I couldn't even pick Embry out of the group. The resemblance was only
intensified by the strikingly similar hostility in every pair of eyes.
Every pair but one. The oldest by several years, Sam stood in the very back, his
face serene and sure. I had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat. I
wanted to take a swing at him. No, I wanted to do more than that. More than
anything, I wanted to be fierce and deadly, someone no one would dare mess
with. Someone who would scare Sam Uley silly.
I wanted to be a vampire.
The violent desire caught me off guard and knocked the wind out of me. It was
the most forbidden of all wishes—even when I only wished it for a malicious
reason like this, to gain an advantage over an enemy—because it was the most
painful. That future was lost to me forever, had never really been within my
grasp. I scrambled to gain control of myself while the hole in my chest ached
hollowly.
"What do you want?" Jacob demanded, his expression growing more resentful as
he watched the play of emotion across my face.
"I want to talk to you," I said in a weak voice. I tried to focus, but I was still
reeling against the escape of my taboo dream.
"Go ahead," he hissed through his teeth. His glare was vicious. I'd never seen him
look at anyone like that, least of all me. It hurt with a surprising intensity—a
physical pain, a stabbing in my head.
"Alone!" I hissed, and my voice was stronger.
He looked behind him, and I knew where his eyes would go. Every one of them
was turned for Sam's reaction.
Sam nodded once, his face unperturbed. He made a brief comment in an
unfamiliar, liquid language—I could only be positive that it wasn't French or
Spanish, but I guessed that it was Quileute. He turned and walked into Jacob's
house. The others, Paul, Jared, and Embry, I assumed, followed him in.
"Okay." Jacob seemed a bit less furious when the others were gone. His face was
a little calmer, but also more hopeless. His mouth seemed permanently pulled
down at the corners.
I took a deep breath. "You know what I want to know."
He didn't answer. He just stared at me bitterly.
I stared back and the silence stretched on. The pain in his face unnerved me. I felt
a lump beginning to build in my throat.
"Can we walk?" I asked while I could still speak.
He didn't respond in any way; his face didn't change.
I got out of the car, feeling unseen eyes behind the windows on me, and started
walking toward the trees to the north. My feet squished in the damp grass and
mud beside the road, and, as that was the only sound, at first I thought he wasn't
following me. But when I glanced around, he was right beside me, his feet having
somehow found a less noisy path than mine.
I felt better in the fringe of trees, where Sam couldn't possibly be watching. As
we walked, I struggled for the right thing to say, but nothing came. I just got
more and more angry that Jacob had gotten sucked in… that Billy had allowed
this… that Sam was able to stand there so assured and calm…
Jacob suddenly picked up the pace, striding ahead of me easily with his long legs,
and then swinging around to face me, planting himself in my path so I would
have to stop too.
I was distracted by the overt grace of his movement. Jacob had been nearly as
klutzy as me with his never-ending growth spurt. When did that changed?
But Jacob didn't give me time to think about it.
"Let's get this over with," he said in a hard, husky voice.
I waited. He knew what I wanted.
"It's not what you think." His voice was abruptly weary. "It's not what I thought—
I was way off."
"So what is it, then?"
He studied my face for a long moment, speculating. The anger never completely
left his eyes. "I can't tell you," he finally said.
My jaw tightened, and I spoke through my teeth. "I thought we were friends."
"We were." There was a slight emphasis on the past tense.
"But you don't need friends anymore," I said sourly. "You have Sam. Isn't that
nice—you've always looked up to him so much."
"I didn't understand him before."
"And now you've seen the light. Hallelujah."
"It wasn't like I thought it was. This isn't Sam's fault. He's helping me as much as
he can." His voice turned brittle and he looked over my head, past me, rage
burning out from his eyes.
"He's helping you," I repeated dubiously. "Naturally."
But Jacob didn't seem to be listening. He was taking deep, deliberate breaths,
trying to calm himself. He was so mad that his hands were shaking.
"Jacob, please," I whispered "Won't you tell me what happened? Maybe I can
help."
"No one can help me now." The words were a low moan; his voice broke.
"What did he do to you?" I demanded, tears collecting in my eyes. I reached out
to him, as I had once before, stepping forward with my arms wide.
This time he cringed away, holding his hands up defensively. "Don't touch me,"
he whispered.
"Is Sam catching?" I mumbled. The stupid tears had escaped the corners of my
eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, and folded my arms across
my chest.
"Stop blaming Sam." The words came out fast, like a reflex. His hands reached
up to twist around the hair that was no longer there, and then fell limply at his
sides.
"Then who should I blame?" I retorted.
He halfway smiled; it was a bleak, twisted thing.
"You don't want to hear that."
"The hell I don't!" I snapped. "I want to know, and I want to know now."
"You're wrong," he snapped back.
"Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong—I'm not the one who got brainwashed! Tell
me now whose fault this all is, if it's not your precious Sam!"
"You asked for it," he growled at me, eyes glinting hard. "If you want to blame
someone, why don't you point your finger at those filthy, reeking bloodsuckers
that you love so much?"
My mouth fell open and my breath came out with a whooshing sound. I was
frozen in place, stabbed through with his double-edged words. The pain twisted
in familiar patterns through my body, the jagged hole ripping me open from the
inside out, but it was second place, background music to the chaos of my
thoughts. I couldn't believe that I'd heard him correctly. There was no trace of
indecision in his face. Only fury.
My mouth still hung wide.
"I told you that you didn't want to hear it," he said.
"I don't understand who you mean," I whispered.
He raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "I think you understand exactly who I mean.
You're not going to make me say it, are you? I don't like hurting you."
"I don't understand who you mean," I repeated mechanically.
"The Cullens," he said slowly, drawing out the word, scrutinizing my face as he
spoke it. "I saw that—I can see in your eyes what it does to you when I say their
name."
I shook my head back and forth in denial, trying to clear it at the same time. How
did he know this? And how did it have anything to do with Sam's cult? Was it a
gang of vampire-haters? What was the point of forming such a society when no
vampires lived in Forks anymore? Why would Jacob start believing the stories
about the Cullens now, when the evidence of them was long gone, never to
return?
It took me too long to come up with the correct response. "Don't tell me you're
listening to Billy's superstitious nonsense now," I said with a feeble attempt at
mockery.
"He knows more than I gave him credit for."
"Be serious, Jacob."
He glared at me, his eyes critical.
"Superstitions aside," I said quickly. "I still don't see what you're accusing the...
Cullens"—wince—"of. They left more than half a year ago. How can you blame
them for what Sam is doing now?"
"Sam isn't doing anything, Bella. And I know they're gone. But sometimes…
things are set in motion, and then it's too late."
"What's set in motion? What's too late? What are you blaming them for?"
He was suddenly right in my face, his fury glowing in his eyes. "For existing," he
hissed.
I was surprised and distracted as the warning words came in Edward's voice
again, when I wasn't even scared.
"Quiet now, Bella. Don't push him," Edward cautioned in my ear.
Ever since Edward's name had broken through the careful walls I'd buried it
behind, I'd been unable to lock it up again. It didn't hurt now—not during the
precious seconds when I could hear his voice.
Jacob was fuming in front of me, quivering with anger.
I didn't understand why the Edward delusion was unexpectedly in my mind.
Jacob was livid, but he was Jacob. There was no adrenaline, no danger.
"Give him a chance to calm down," Edward's voice insisted.
I shook my head in confusion. "You're being ridiculous," I told them both.
"Fine," Jacob answered, breathing deeply again. "I won't argue it with you. It
doesn't matter anyway, the damage is done."
"What damage?"
He didn't flinch as I shouted the words in his face.
"Let's head back. There's nothing more to say."
I gaped. "There's everything more to say! You haven't said anything yet!"
He walked past me, striding back toward the house.
"I ran into Quil today," I yelled after him.
He paused midstep, but didn't turn.
"You remember your friend, Quil? Yeah, he's terrified."
Jacob whirled to face me. His expression was pained. "Quil" was all he said.
"He's worried about you, too. He's freaked out."
Jacob stared past me with desperate eyes.
I goaded him further. "He's frightened that he's next."
Jacob clutched at a tree for support, his face turning a strange shade of green
under the red-brown surface. "He won't be next," Jacob muttered to himself. "He
can't be. It's over now. This shouldn't still be happening. Why? Why?" His fist
slammed against the tree. It wasn't a big tree, slender and only a few feet taller
than Jacob. But it still surprised me when tht trunk gave way and snapped off
loudly under his blows.
Jacob stared at the sharp, broken point with shock that quickly turned to horror.
"I have to get back." He whirled and stalked away so swiftly that I had to jog to
keep up.
"Back to Sam!"
"That's one way of looking at it," it sounded like he said. He was mumbling and
facing away.
I chased him back to the truck. "Wait!" I called as he turned toward the house.
He spun around to face me, and I saw that his hands were shaking again.
"Go home, Bella. I can't hang out with you anymore."
The silly, inconsequential hurt was incredibly potent. The tears welled up again.
"Are you… breaking up with me?" The words were all wrong, but they were the
best way I could think to phrase what I was asking. After all, what Jake and I had
was more than any schoolyard romance. Stronger.
He barked out a bitter laugh. "Hardly. If that were the case, I'd say 'Let's stay
friends.' I can't even say that."
"Jacob… why? Sam won't let you have other friends? Please, Jake. You
promised. I need you!" The blank emptiness of my life before—before Jacob
brought some semblance of reason back into it—reared up and confronted me.
Loneliness choked in my throat.
"I'm sorry, Bella," Jacob said each word distinctly in a cold voice that didn't seem
to belong to him.
I didn't believe that this was really what Jacob wanted to say. It seemed like there
was something else trying to be said through his angry eyes, but I couldn't
understand the message.
Maybe this wasn't about Sam at all. Maybe this had nothing to do with the
Cullens. Maybe he was just trying to pull himself out of a hopeless situation.
Maybe I should let him do that, if that's what was best for him. I should do that. It
would be right.
But I heard my voice escaping in a whisper.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't… before… I wish I could change how I feel about you,
Jacob." I was desperate, reaching, stretching the truth so far that it curved nearly
into the shape of a lie. "Maybe… maybe I would change," I whispered. "Maybe,
if you gave me some time… just don't quit on me now, Jake. I can't take it."
His face went from anger to agony in a second. One shaking hand reached out
toward me.
"No. Don't think like that, Bella, please. Don't blame yourself, don't think this is
your fault. This one is all me. I swear, it's not about you."
"It's not you, it's me," I whispered. "There's a new one."
"I mean it, Bella. I'm not…" he struggled, his voice going even huskier as he
fought to control his emotion. His eyes were tortured. "I'm not good enough to be
your friend anymore, or anything else. I'm not what I was before. I'm not good."
"What?" I stared at him, confused and appalled. "What are you saying? You're
much better than I am, Jake. You are good! Who told you that you aren't? Sam?
It's a vicious lie, Jacob! Don't let him tell you that!" I was suddenly yelling again.
Jacob's face went hard and flat. "No one had to tell me anything. I know what I
am."
"You're my friend, that's what you are! Jake—don't!"
He was backing away from me.
"I'm sorry, Bella," he said again; this time it was a broken mumble. He turned and
almost ran into the house.
I was unable to move from where I stood. I stared at the little house; it looked too
small to hold four large boys and two larger men. There was no reaction inside.
No flutter at the edge of the curtain, no sound of voices or movement. It faced me
vacantly.
The rain started to drizzle, stinging here and there against my skin. I couldn't take
my eyes off the house. Jacob would come back. He had to.
The rain picked up, and so did the wind. The drops were no longer falling from
above; they slanted at an angle from the west. I could smell the brine from the
ocean. My hair whipped in my face, sticking to the wet places and tangling in my
lashes. I waited.
Finally the door opened, and I took a step forward in relief.
Billy rolled his chair into the door frame. I could see no one behind him.
"Charlie just called, Bella. I told him you were on your way home." His eyes
were full of pity.
The pity made it final somehow. I didn't comment. I just turned robotically and
climbed in my truck. I'd left the windows open and the seats were slick and wet.
It didn't matter. I was already soaked.
Not as bad! Not as bad! my mind tried to comfort me. It was true. This wasn't as
bad. This wasn't the end of the world, not again. This was just the end of what
little peace there was left behind. That was all.
Not as bad, I agreed, then added, but bad enough.
I'd thought Jake had been healing the hole in me—or at least plugging it up,
keeping it from hurting me so much. I'd been wrong. He'd just been carving out
his own hole, so that I was now riddled through like Swiss cheese. I wondered
why I didn't crumble into pieces.
Charlie was waiting on the porch. As I rolled to a stop, he walked out to meet me.
"Billy called. He said you got in fight with Jake—said you were pretty upset," he
explained as he opened my door for me.
Then he looked at my face. A kind of horrified recognition registered in his
expression. I tried to feel my face from the inside out, to know what he was
seeing. My face felt empty and cold, and I realized what it would remind him of.
"That's not exactly how it happened," I muttered.
Charlie put his arm around me and helped me out of the car. He didn't comment
on my sodden clothes.
"Then what did happen'" he asked when we were inside. He pulled the afghan off
the back of the sofa as he spoke and wrapped it around my shoulders. I realized I
was shivering still.
My voice was lifeless. "Sam Uley says Jacob can't be my friend anymore."
Charlie shot me a strange look. "Who told you that?"
"Jacob," I stated, though that wasn't exactly what he'd said. It was still true.
Charlie's eyebrows pulled together. "You really think there's something wrong
with the Uley kid?"
"I know there is. Jacob wouldn't tell me what, though." I could hear the water
from my clothes dripping to the floor and splashing on the linoleum. "I'm going
to go change."
Charlie was lost in thought. "Okay," he said absently.
I decided to take a shower because I was so cold, but the hot water didn't seem to
affect the temperature of my skin. I was still freezing when I gave up and shut the
water off. In the sudden quiet, I could hear Charlie talking to someone
downstairs. I wrapped a towel around me, and cracked the bathroom door.
Charlie's voice was angry. "I'm not buying that. It doesn't make any sense."
It was quiet then, and I realized he was on the phone. A minute passed.
"Don't you put this on Bella!" Charlie suddenly shouted.
I jumped. When he spoke again, his voice was careful and lower. "Bella's made it
very clear all along that she and Jacob were just friends… Well, if that was it,
then why didn't you say so at first? No, Billy, I think she's right about this…
Because I know my daughter, and if she says Jacob was scared before—" He was
cut off mid-sentence, and when he answered he was almost shouting again.
"What do you mean I don't know my daughter as well as I think I do!" He
listened for a brief second, and his response was almost too low for me to hear.
"If you think I'm going to remind her about that, then you had better think again.
She's only just starting to get over it, and mostly because of Jacob, I think. If
whatever Jacob has going on with this Sam character sends her back into that
depression, then Jacob is going to have to answer to me. You're my friend, Billy,
but this is hurting my family."
There was another break for Billy to respond.
"You got that right—those boys set one toe out of line and I'm going to know
about it. We'll be keeping an eye on the situation, you can be sure of that." He
was no longer Charlie; he was Chief Swan now.
"Fine. Yeah. Goodbye." The phone slammed into the cradle.
I tiptoed quickly across the hall into my room. Charlie was muttering angrily in
the kitchen.
So Billy was going to blame me. I was leading Jacob on and he'd finally had
enough.
It was strange, for I'd feared that myself, but after the last thing Jacob had said
this afternoon, I didn't believe it anymore. There was much more to this than an
unrequited crush, and it surprised me that Billy would stoop to claiming that. It
made me think that whatever secret they were keeping was bigger than I'd been
imagining. At least Charlie was on my side now.
I put my pajamas on and crawled into bed. Life seemed dark enough at the
moment chat I let myself cheat. The hole—holes now—were already aching, so
why not? I pulled out the memory—nor a real memory that would hurt too much,
but the false memory of Edward's voice in my mind this afternoon—and played it
over and over in my head until I fell asleep with the tears still streaming calmly
down my empty face.
It was a new dream tonight. Rain was falling and Jacob was walking soundlessly
beside me, though beneath my feet the ground crunched like dry gravel. But he
wasn't my Jacob; he was the new, bitter, graceful Jacob. The smooth suppleness
of his walk reminded me of someone else, and, as I watched, his features started
to change. The russet color of his skin leached away, leaving his face pale white
like bone. His eyes turned gold, and then crimson, and then back to gold again.
His shorn hair twisted in the breeze, turning bronze where the wind touched it.
And his face became so beautiful that it shattered my heart. I reached for him, but
he took a step away, raising his hands like a shield. And then Edward vanished.
I wasn't sure, when I woke in the dark, if I'd just begun crying, or if my tears had
run while I slept and simply continued now. I stared at my dark ceiling. I could
feel that it was the middle of the night—I was still half-asleep, maybe more than
half. I closed my eyes wearily and prayed for a dreamless sleep.
That's when I heard the noise that must have wakened me in the first place.
Something sharp scraped along the length of my window with a high-pitched
squeal, like fingernails against the glass.
12. INTRUDER
MY EYES FLEW WIDE OPEN WITH FRIGHT, THOUGH I WAS so
exhausted and muddled that I was not yet positive whether I was awake or asleep.
Something scratched against my window again with the same thin, high-pitched
sound.
Confused and clumsy with sleep, I stumbled out of my bed and to the window,
blinking the lingering tears from my eyes on the way.
A huge, dark shape wobbled erratically on the other side of the glass, lurching
toward me like it was going to smash right through. I staggered back, terrified,
my throat closing around a scream.
Victoria.
She'd come for me.
I was dead.
Not Charlie, too!
I choked back the building scream. I would have to keep quiet through this.
Somehow. I had to keep Charlie from coming to investigate…
And then a familiar, husky voice called from the dark shape.
"Bella!" it hissed. "Ouch! Damn it, open the window! OUCH!"
I needed two seconds to shake off the horror before I could move, but then I
hurried to the window and shoved the glass out of the way. The clouds were
dimly lit from behind, enough for me to make sense of the shapes.
"What are you doing?" I gasped.
Jacob was clinging precariously to the top of the spruce that grew in the middle
of Charlie's little front yard. His weight had bowed the tree toward the house and
he now swung—his legs dangling twenty feet above the ground—not a yard away
from me. The thin branches at the tip of the tree scraped against the side of the
house again with a grating squeal.
"I'm trying to keep"—he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him
—"my promise!"
I blinked my wet blurry eyes, suddenly sure that I was dreaming.
"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?"
He snorted, unamused, swinging his legs to improve his balance. "Get out of the
way," he ordered.
"What?"
He swung his legs again, backwards and forward, increasing his momentum. I
realized what he was ttying to do.
"No, Jake!"
But I ducked to the side, aecause it was too late. With a grunt, he launched
himself toward my open window.
Another scream built in my throat as I waited for him to fall to his death—or at
least maim himself against the wooden siding. To my shock, he swung agilely
into my room, landing on the balls of his feet with a low thud.
We both looked to the door automatically, holding our breath, waiting to see if
the noise had woken Charlie. A short moment of silence passed, and then we
heard the muffled sound of Charlie's snore.
A wide grin spread slowly across Jacob's face; he seemed extremely pleased with
himself. It wasn't the grin that I knew and loved—it was a new grin, one that was
a bitter mockery of his old sincerity, on the new face that belonged to Sam.
That was a bit much for me.
I'd cried myself to sleep over this boy. His harsh rejection had punched a painful
new hole in what was left of my chest. He'd left a new nightmare behind him, like
an infection in a sore—the insult after the injury. And now he was here in my
room, smirking at me as if none of that had passed. Worse than that, even though
his arrival had been noisy and awkward, it reminded me of when Edward used to
sneak in through my window at night, and the reminder picked viciously at the
unhealed wounds.
All of this, coupled with the fact that I was dog-tired, did not put me in a friendly
mood.
"Get out!" I hissed, putting as much venom into the whisper as I could.
He blinked, his face going blank with surprise.
"No," he protested. "I came to apologize."
"I don't accept!"
I tried to shove him back out the window—after all, if this was a dream, it
wouldn't really hurt him. It was useless, though. I didn't budge him an inch. I
dropped my hands quickly, and stepped away from him.
He wasn't wearing a shirt, though the air blowing in the window was cold enough
to make me shiver, and it made me uncomfortable to have my hands on his bare
chest. His skin was burning hot, like his head had been the last time I'd touched
him. Like he was still sick with the fever.
He didn't look sick. He looked huge. He leaned over me, so big that he blacked
out the window, tongue-tied by my furious reaction.
Suddenly, it was just more than I could handle—it felt as if all of my sleepless
nights were crashing down on me en masse. I was so brutally tired that I thought I
might collapse right there on the floor. I swayed unsteadily, and struggled to keep
my eyes open.
"Bella?" Jacob whispered anxiously. He caught my elbow as I swayed again, and
steered me back to the bed. My legs gave out when I reached the edge, and I
plopped into a limp heap on the mattress.
"Hey, are you okay?" Jacob asked, worry creasing his forehead.
I looked up at him, the tears not yet dried on my cheeks. "Why in the world
would I be okay, Jacob?"
Anguish replaced some of the bitterness in his face. "Right," he agreed, and took
a deep breath. "Crap. Well… I—I'm so sorry, Bella." The apology was sincere,
no doubt about it, though there was still an angry twist to his features.
"Why did you come here? I don't want apologies from you, Jake."
"I know," he whispered. "But I couldn't leave things the way I did this afternoon.
Thar was horrible. I'm sorry."
I shook my head wearily. "I don't understand anything."
"I know. I want to explain—" He broke off suddenly, his mouth open, almost like
something had cut off his air. Then he sucked in a deep breath. "But I can't
explain," he said, still angry. "I wish I could."
I let my head fall into my hands. My question came out muffled by my arm.
"Why?"
He was quiet for a moment. I twisted my head to the side—too tired to hold it up
—to see his expression. It surprised me. His eyes were squinted, his teeth
clenched, his forehead wrinkled in effort.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He exhaled heavily, and I realized he'd been holding his breath, too. "I can't do
it," he muttered, frustrated.
"Do what?"
He ignored my question. "Look, Bella, haven't you ever had a secret that you
couldn't tell anyone?"
He looked at me with knowing eyes, and my thoughts jumped immediately to the
Cullens. I hoped my expression didn't look guilty.
"Something you felt like you had to keep from Charlie, from your mom… ?" he
pressed. "Something you won't even talk about with me? Not even now?"
I felt my eyes tighten. I didn't answer his question, though I knew he would take
that as a confirmation.
"Can you understand that I might have the same kind of… situation?" He was
struggling again, seeming to fight for the right words. "Sometimes, loyalty gets in
the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell."
So, I couldn't argue with that. He was exactly right—I had a secret that wasn't
mine to tell, yet a secret I felt bound to protect. A secret that, suddenly, he
seemed to know all about.
I still didn't see how it applied to him, or Sam, or Billy. What was it to them, now
that the Cullens were gone?
"I don't know why you came here, Jacob, if you were just going to give me
riddles instead of answers."
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "This is so frustrating."
We looked at each other for a long moment in the dark room, both our faces
hopeless.
"The part that kills me," he said abruptly, "is that you already know. I already told
yon everything!"
"What are you talking about?"
He sucked in a startled breath, and then leaned toward me, his face shifting from
hopelessness to blazing intensity in a second. He stared fiercely into my eyes, and
his voice was fast and eager. He spoke the words right into my face; his breath
was as hot as his skin.
"I think I see a way to make this work out—because you know this, Bella! I can't
tell you, but if you guessed it! That would let me right off the hook!"
"You want me to guess? Guess what?"
"My secret! You can do it—you know the answer!"
I blinked twice, trying to clear my head. I was so tired. Nothing he said made
sense.
He took in my blank expression, and then his face tensed with effort again. "Hole
on, let me see if I give you some help," he said. Whatever he was trying to do, it
was so hard he was panting.
"Help?" I asked, trying to keep up. My lids wanted to slip closed, but I forced
them open.
"Yeah," he said, breathing hard. "Like clues."
He took my face in his enormous, too-warm hands and held it just a few inches
from his. He stared into my eyes while he whispered, as if to communicate
something besides the words he spoke.
"Remember the first day we met—on the beach in La Push?"
"Of course I do."
"Tell me about it."
I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. "You asked about my truck…"
He nodded, urging me on.
"We talked about the Rabbit…"
"Keep going."
"We went for a walk down the beach…" My cheeks were growing warm under
his palms as I remembered, but he wouldn't notice, hot as his skin was. I'd asked
him to walk with me, flirting ineptly but successfully, in order to pump him for
information.
He was nodding, anxious for more.
My voice was nearly soundless. "You told me scary stories… Quileute legends."
He closed his eyes and opened them again. "Yes." The word was tense, fervent,
like he was on the edge of something vital. He spoke slowly, making each word
distinct. "Do you remember what I said?"
Even in the dark, he must be able to see the change in the color of my face. How
could I ever forget that? Without realizing what he was doing, Jacob had told me
exactly what I needed to know that day—that Edward was a vampire.
He looked at me with eyes that knew too much. "Think hard," he told me.
"Yes, I remember," I breathed.
He inhaled deeply, struggling. "Do you remember all the stor—" He couldn't
finish the question. His mouth popped open like something had stuck in his throat.
"All the stories?" I asked.
He nodded mutely.
My head churned. Only one story really mattered. I knew he'd begun with others,
but I couldn't remember the inconsequential prelude, especially not while my
brain was so clouded with exhaustion. I started to shake my head.
Jacob groaned and jumped off the bed. He pressed his fists against his forehead
and breathed fast and angry. "You know this, you know this," he muttered to
himself.
"Jake? Jake, please, I'm exhausted. I'm no good at this right now. Maybe in the
morning…"
He took a steadying breath and nodded. "Maybe it will come back to you. I guess
I understand why you only remember the one story," he added in a sarcastic,
bitter tone. He plunked back onto the mattress beside me. "Do you mind if I ask
you a question about that?" he asked, still sarcastic. "I've been dying ro know."
"A question about what?" I asked warily.
"About the vampire story I told you."
I stared at him with guarded eyes, unable to answer. He asked his question
anyway.
"Did you honestly not know?" he asked me, his voice turning husky. "Was I the
one who told you what he was?"
How did he know this? Why did he decide to believe, why now? My teeth
clenched together. I stared back at him, no intention of speaking. He could see
that.
"See what I mean about loyalty?" he murmured, even huskier now. "It's the same
for me, only worse. You can't imagine how tight I'm bound…"
I didn't like that—didn't like the way his eyes closed as if he were in pain when
he spoke of being bound. More than dislike—I realized I hated it, hated anything
that caused him pain. Hated it fiercely.
Sam's face filled my mind.
For me, this was all essentially voluntary. I protected the Cullens' secret out of
love; unrequited, but true. For Jacob, it didn't seem to be that way.
"Isn't there any way for you to get free?" I whispered, touching the rough edge at
the back of his shorn hair.
His hands began to tremble, but he didn't open his eyes. "No. I'm in this for life.
A life sentence." A bleak laugh. "Longer, maybe."
"No, Jake," I moaned. "What if we ran away? Just you and me. What if we left
home, and left Sam behind?"
"It's not something I can run away from, Bella," he whispered. "I would run with
you, though, if I could." His shoulders were shaking now, too. He took a deep
breath. "Look, I've got to leave."
"Why?"
"For one thing, you look like you're going to pass out at any second. You need
your sleep—I need you firing on all pistons. You're going to figure this out, you
have to."
"And why else?"
He frowned. "I had to sneak out—I'm not supposed to see you. They've got to be
wondering where I am." His mouth twisted. "I suppose I should go let them
know."
"You don't have to tell them anything," I hissed.
"All the same, I will."
The anger flashed hot inside me. "I hate them!"
Jacob looked at me with wide eyes, surprised. "No, Bella. Don't hate the guys. It's
not Sam's or any of the others' faults. I told you before—it's me. Sam is
actually… well, incredibly cool. Jared and Paul are great, too, though Paul is kind
of… And Embry's always been my friend. Nothing's changed there—the only
thing that hasn't changed. I feel really bad abour the things I used to think about
Sam…"
"Sam was incredibly cool." I glared at him in disbelief, but let it go.
"Then why aren't you supposed to see me?" I demanded.
"It's not safe," he mumbled looking down.
His words sent a thrill of fear through me.
Did he know that, too? Nobody knew that besides me. But he was right—it was
the middle of the night, the perfect time for hunting. Jacob shouldn't be here in
my room. If someone came for me, I had :o be alone.
"If I thought it was too… too risky," he whispered, "I wouldn't have come. But
Bella," he looked at me again, "I made you a promise. I had no idea it would be
so hard to keep, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try."
He saw the incomprehension in my face. "After that stupid movie," he reminded
me. "I promised you that I wouldn't ever hurt you… So I really blew it this
afternoon, didn't I?"
"I know you didn't want to do it, Jake. It's okay."
"Thanks, Bella." He took my hand. "I'm going to do what I can to be here for you,
just like I promised." He grinned at me suddenly. The grin was not mine, nor
Sam's, but some strange combination of the two. "It would really help if you
could figure this out on your own, Bella. Put some honest effort into it."
I made a weak grimace. "I'll try."
"And I'll try to see you soon." He sighed. "And they'll try to talk me out of that."
"Don't listen to them."
"I'll try." He shook his head, as if he doubted his success. "Come and tell me as
soon as you figure it out." Something occurred to him just then, something that
made his hands shake. "If you… if you want to."
"Why wouldn't I want to see you?"
His face turned hard and bitter, one hundred percent the face that belonged to
Sam. "Oh, I can think of a reason," he said in a harsh tone. "Look, I really have to
go. Could you do something for me?"
I just nodded, frightened of the change in him.
"At least call me—if you don't want to see me again. Let me know if it's like that."
"That won't happen—"
He raised one hand, cutting me off. "Just let me know."
He stood and headed for the window.
"Don't be an idiot, Jake," I complained. "You'll break your leg. Use the door.
Charlie's not going to catch you."
"I won't get hurt," he muttered, but he turned for the door. He hesitated as he
passed me, staring at me with an expression like something was stabbing him. He
held one hand out, pleading.
I took his hand, and suddenly he yanked me—too roughly—right off the bed so
that I thudded against his chest.
"Just in case," he muttered against my hair, crushing me in a bear hug that about
broke my ribs.
"Can't—breathe!" I gasped.
He dropped me at once, keeping one hand at my waist so I didn't fall over. He
pushed me, more gently this time, back down on the bed.
"Get some sleep, Bells. You've got to get your head working. I know you can do
this. I need you. to understand. I won't lose you, Bella. Not for this."
He was to the door in one stride, opening it quietly, and then disappearing
through it. I listened for him to hit the squeaky step in the stairs, but there was no
sound.
I lay back on my bed, my head spinning. I was too confused, too worn out. I
closed my eyes, trying to make sense of it, only to be swallowed up by
unconsciousness so swiftly that it was disorienting.
It was not the peaceful, creamless sleep I'd yearned for—of course not. I was in
the forest again, and I started to wander the way I always did.
I quickly became aware that this was not the same dream as usual. For one thing,
I felt no compulsion to wander or to search; I was merely wandering out of habit,
because that was what was usually expected of me here. Actually, this wasn't
even the same forest. The smell was different, and the light, too. It smelled, not
like the damp earth of the woods, but like the brine of the ocean. I couldn't see the
sky; still, it seemed like the sun must be shining—the leaves above were bright
jade green.
This was the forest around La Push—near the beach there, I was sure of it. I
knew that if I found the beach, I would be able to see the sun, so I hurried
forward, following the faint sound of waves in the distance.
And then Jacob was there. He grabbed my hand, pulling me back toward the
blackest part of the forest.
"Jacob, what's wrong?" I asked. His face was the frightened face of a boy, and his
hair was beautiful again, swept back into a ponytail on the nape of his neck. He
yanked with all his strength, but I resisted; I didn't want to go into the dark.
"Run, Bella, you have to run!" he whispered, terrified.
The abrupt wave of deja vu was so strong it nearly woke me up.
I knew why I recognized this place now. It was because I'd been here before, in
another dream. A million years ago, part of a different life entirely. This was the
dream I'd had the night after I'd walked with Jacob on the beach, the first night I
knew that Edward was a vampire. Reliving that day with Jacob must have
dredged this dream out of my buried memories.
Detached from the dream now, I waited for it to play out. A light was coming
toward me from the beach. In just a moment, Edward would walk through the
trees, his skin faintly glowing and his eyes black and dangerous. He would
beckon to me, and smile. He would be beautiful as an angel, and his teeth would
be pointed and sharp…
But I was getting ahead of myself. Something else had to happen first.
Jacob dropped my hand and yelped. Shaking and twitching, he fell to the ground
at my feet.
"Jacob!" I screamed, but he was gone.
In his place was an enormous, red-brown wolf with dark, intelligent eyes.
The dream veered off course, like a train jumping the tracks.
This was not the same wolf that I'd dreamed of in another life. This was the great
russet wolf I'd stood half a foot from in the meadow, just a week ago. This wolf
was gigantic, monstrous, bigger than a bear.
This wolf stared intently at me, trying to convey something vital with his
intelligent eyes. The black-brown, familiar eyes of Jacob Black.
I woke screaming at the top of my lungs.
I almost expected Charlie to come check on me this time. This wasn't my usual
screaming. I buried my head in my pillow and tried to muffle the hysterics that
my screams were building into. J pressed the cotton tight against my face,
wondering if I couldn't also somehow smother the connection I'd just made.
But Charlie didn't come in. and eventually I was able to strangle the strange
screeching coming out of my throat.
I remembered it all now—every word that Jacob had said to me that day on the
beach, even the part before he got to the vampires, the "cold ones." Especially
that first part.
"Do you know any of our old stories, about where we came from—the Quileutes,
I mean?" he asked.
"Not really," I admitted.
"Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood
—supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest
trees on the mountain to survive, like Noah and the ark." He smiled then, to show
me how little stock he put in the histories. "Another legend claims that we
descended from wolves—and that the wolves are our brothers still. It's against
tribal law to kill them.
"Then there are the stories about the cold ones." His voice dropped a little lower.
"The cold ones?"
"Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some
much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of
them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land." Jacob
rolled his eyes.
" Your great-grandfather?"
"He was a tribal elder, like my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural
enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf really, but the wolves that turn into men,
like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves."
"Werewolves have enemies?"
"Only one."
There was something stuck in my throat, choking me. I tried to swallow it down,
but it was lodged there, un-moving. I tried to spit it out.
"Werewolf," I gasped.
Yes, that was the word that I was choking on.
The whole world lurched, tilting the wrong way on its axis.
What kind of a place was this? Could a world really exist where ancient legends
went wandering around the borders of tiny, insignificant towns, facing down
mythical monsters? Did this mean every impossible fairy tale was grounded
somewhere in absolute truth? Was there anything sane or normal at all, or was
everything just magic and ghost stories?
I clutched my head in my hands, trying to keep it from exploding.
A small, dry voice in the back of my mind asked me what the big deal was.
Hadn't I already accepted the existence of vampires long ago—and without all the
hysterics that time?
Exactly, I wanted to scream back at the voice. Wasn't one myth enough for
anyone, enough for a lifetime?
Besides, there'd never been one moment that I wasn't completely aware that
Edward Cullen was above and beyond the ordinary. It wasn't such a surprise to
find out what he was—because he so obviously was something.
But Jacob? Jacob, who was just Jacob, and nothing more than that? Jacob, my
friend? Jacob, the only human I'd ever been able to relate to…
And he wasn't even human.
I fought the urge to scream again.
What did this say about me?
I knew the answer to that one. It said that there was something deeply wrong with
me. Why else would my life be filled with characters from horror movies? Why
else would I care so much about them that it would tear big chunks right out of
my chest when they went off along their mythical ways?
In my head, everything spun and shifted, rearranging so that things that had
meant one thing before, now meant something else.
There was no cult. There had never been a cult, never been a gang. No, it was
much worse than that. It was a pack.
A pack of five mind-blowingly gigantic, multihued werewolves that had stalked
right past me in Edward's meadow…
Suddenly, I was in a frantic hurry. I glanced at the clock—it was way too early
and I didn't care. I had to go to La Push now. I had to see Jacob so he could tell
me that I hadn't lost my mind altogether.
I pulled on the first clean clothes I could find, not bothering to be sure they
matched, and took the stairs two at a time. I almost ran into Charlie as I skidded
into the hallway, headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" he asked, as surprised to see me as I was to see him. "Do
you know what time it is?"
"Yeah. I have to go see Jacob."
"I thought the thing with Sam—"
"That doesn't matter, I have to talk to him right now."
"It's pretty early." He frowned when my expression didn't change. "Don't you
want breakfast?"
"Not hungry." The words flew through my lips. He was blocking my path to the
exit. I considered ducking around him and making a run for it, but I knew I would
have to explain that to him later. "I'll be back soon, okay?"
Charlie frowned. "Straight to Jacob's house, right? No stops on the way?"
"Of course not, where would I stop?" My words were running together in my
hurry.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It's just… well, there's been another attack—the
wolves again. It was real close to the resort by the hot springs—there's a witness
this time. The victim was only a dozen yards from the road when he disappeared.
His wife saw a huge gray wolf just a few minutes later, while she was searching
for him, and ran for help."
My stomach dropped like I'd hit a corkscrew on a roller coaster. "A wolf attacked
him?"
"There's no sign of him—just a little blood again." Charlie's face was pained.
"The rangers are going out armed, taking armed volunteers. There're a lot of
hunters who are eager to be involved—there's a reward being offered for wolf
carcasses. That's going to mean a lot of firepower out there in the forest, and it
worries me." He shook his head. "When people get too excited, accidents
happen…"
"They're going to shoot the wolves?" My voice shot through three octaves.
"What else can we do? What's wrong?" he asked, his tense eyes studying my
face. I felt faint; I must be whiter than usual. "You aren't turning into a treehugger
on me, are you?"
I couldn't answer. If he hadn't been watching me, I would have put my head
between my knees. I'd forgotten about the missing hikers, the bloody paw
prints… I hadn't connected those facts to my first realization.
"Look, honey, don't let this scare you. Just stay in town or on the highway—no
stops—okay?"
"Okay," I repeated in a weak voice.
"I've got to go."
I looked at him closely for the first time, and saw that he had his gun strapped to
his waist and hiking boots on.
"You aren't going out there after the wolves, are you, Dad?"
"I've got to help, Bells. People are disappearing."
My voice shot up again, almost hysterical now. "No! No, don't go. It's too
dangerous!"
"I've got to do my job, kid. Don't be such a pessimist—I'll be fine." He turned for
the door, and held it open. "You leaving?"
I hesitated, my stomach still spinning in uncomfortable loops. What could I say to
stop him? I was too dizzy to think of a solution.
"Bells?"
"Maybe it's too early to go to La Push," I whispered.
"I agree," he said, and he stepped out into the rain, shutting the door behind him.
As soon as he was out of sight, I dropped to the floor and put my head between
my knees.
Should I go after Charlie? What would I say?
And what about Jacob? Jacob was my best friend; I needed to warn him. If he
really was a—I cringed and forced myself to think the word—werewolf (and I
knew it was true, I could feel it), then people would be shooting at him! I needed
to tell him and his friends that people would try to kill them if they went running
around like gigantic wolves. I needed to tell them to stop.
They had to stop! Charlie was out there in the woods. Would they care about
that? I wondered… Up until now, only strangers had disappeared. Did that mean
anything, or was it just chance?
I needed to believe that Jacob, at least, would care about that.
Either way, I had to warn him.
Or… did I?
Jacob was my best friend, but was he a monster, too? A real one? A bad one?
Should I warn him, if he and his friends were… were murderers! If they were out
slaughtering innocent hikers in cold blood? If they were truly creatures from a
horror movie in every sense, would it be wrong to protect them?
It was inevitable that I would have to compare Jacob and his friends to the
Cullens. I wrapped my arms around my chest, fighting the hole, while I thought
of them.
I didn't know anything about werewolves, clearly. I would have expected
something closer to the movies—big hairy half-men creatures or something—if
I'd expected anything at all. So I didn't know what made them hunt, whether
hunger or thirst or just a desire to kill. It was hard to judge, not knowing that.
But it couldn't be worse than what the Cullens endured in their quest to be good. I
thought of Esme—the tears started when I pictured her kind, lovely face—and
how, as motherly and loving as she was, she'd had to hold her nose, all ashamed,
and run from me when I was bleeding. It couldn't be harder than that. I thought of
Carlisle, the centuries upon centuries that he had struggled to teach himself to
ignore blood, so that he could save lives as a doctor. Nothing could be harder
than that.
The werewolves had chosen a different path.
Now, what should I choose?
1 3 . KILLER
IF IT WAS ANYONE BUT JACOB, I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, shaking my head
as I drove down the forest-lined highway to La Push.
I still wasn't sure if I was domg the right thing, but I'd made a compromise with
myself.
I couldn't condone what Jacob and his friends, his pack, were doing. I understood
now what he'd said last night—that I might not want to see him again—and I
could have called him as he'd suggested, but that felt cowardly. I owed him a faceto-
face conversation, at least. I would tell him to his face that I couldn't just
overlook what was going on. I couldn't be friends with a killer and say nothing,
let the killing continue… That would make me a monster, too.
But I couldn't not warn him, either. I had to do what I could to protect him.
I pulled up to the Blacks' house with my lips pressed together into a hard line. It
was bad enough that my best friend was a werewolf. Did he have to be a monster,
too?
The house was dark, no lights in the windows, but I didn't care if I woke them.
My fist thudded against the front door with angry energy; the sound reverberated
through the walls.
"Come in," I heard Billy call after a minute, and a light flicked on.
I twisted the knob; it was unlocked. Billy was leaning around an open doorway
just off the little kitchen, a bathrobe around his shoulders, not in his chair yet.
When he saw who it was, his eyes widened briefly, and then his face turned stoic.
"Well, good morning, Bella. What are you doing up so early?"
"Hey, Billy. I need to talk to Jake—where is he?"
"Um… I don't really know," he lied, straight-faced.
"Do you know what Charlie is doing this morning?" I demanded, sick of the
stalling.
"Should I?"
"He and half the other men in town are all out in the woods with guns, hunting
giant wolves."
Billy's expression flickered, and then went blank.
"So I'd like to talk to Jake about that, if you don't mind," I continued.
Billy pursed his thick lips for a long moment. "I'd bet he's still asleep," he finally
said, nodding toward the tiny hallway off the front room. "He's out late a lot these
days. Kid needs his rest—probably you shouldn't wake him."
"It's my turn," I muttered under my breath as I stalked to the hallway. Billy
sighed.
Jacob's tiny closet of a room was the only door in the yard-long hallway. I didn't
bother to knock. I threw the door open; it slammed against the wall with a bang.
Jacob—still wearing just the same black cut-off sweats he'd worn last night—was
stretched diagonally across the double bed that took up all of his room but a few
inches around the edges. Even on a slant, it wasn't long enough; his feet hung off
the one end and his head off the other. He was fast asleep, snoring lightly with his
mouth hanging open. The sound of the door hadn't even made him twitch.
His face was peaceful with (deep sleep, all the angry lines smoothed out. There
were circles under his eyes that I hadn't noticed before. Despite his ridiculous
size, he looked very young now, and very weary. Pity shook me.
I stepped back out, and shut the door quietly behind me.
Billy stared with curious, guarded eyes as I walked slowly back into the front
room.
"I think I'll let him get some rest."
Billy nodded, and then we gazed at each other for a minute. I was dying to ask
him about his part in this.
What did he think of what his son had become? But I knew how he'd supported
Sam from the very beginning, and so I supposed the murders must not bother
him. How he justified that to himself I couldn't imagine.
I could see many questions for me in his dark eyes, but he didn't voice them
either.
"Look," I said, breaking the loud silence. "I'll be down at the beach for a while.
When he wakes up, tell him I'm waiting for him, okay?"
"Sure, sure," Billy agreed.
I wondered if he really would. Well, if he didn't, I'd tried, right?
I drove down to First Beach and parked in the empty dirt lot. It was still dark—
the gloomy predawn of a cloudy day—and when I cut the headlights it was hard
to see. I had to let my eyes adjust before I could find the path that led through the
tall hedge of weeds. It was colder here, with the wind whipping off the black
water, and I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my winter jacket. At least
the rain had stopped.
I paced down the beach toward the north seawall. I couldn't see St. James or the
other islands, just the vague shape of the water's edge. I picked my way carefully
across the rocks, watching out for driftwood that might trip me.
I found what I was looking for before I realized I was looking for it. It
materialized out of the gloom when it was just a few feet away: a long bonewhite
driftwood tree stranded deep on the rocks. The roots twisted up at the
seaward end, like a hundred brittle tentacles. I couldn't be sure that it was the
same tree where Jacob and I had had our first conversation—a conversation that
had begun so many different, tangled threads of my life—but it seemed to be in
about the same place I sat down where I'd sat before, and stared out across the
invisible sea.
Seeing Jacob like that—innocent and vulnerable in sleep—had stolen all my
revulsion, dissolved all my anger. I still couldn't turn a blind sye to what was
happening, like Billy seemed to, but I couldn't condemn Jacob for it either. Love
didn't work that way, I decided. Once you cared about a person, it was impossible
to be logical about them anymore. Jacob was my friend whether he killed people
or not. And I didn't know what I was going to do about that.
When I pictured him sleeping so peacefully, I felt an overpowering urge to
protect him. Completely illogical.
Illogical or not, I brooded over the memory his peaceful face, trying to come up
with some answer, some way to shelter him, while the sky slowly turned gray.
"Hi, Bella."
Jacob's voice came from the darkness and made me jump. It was soft, almost shy,
but I'd been expecting some forewarning from the noisy rocks, and so it still
startled me. I could see his silhouette against the coming sunrise—it looked
enormous.
"Jake?"
He stood several paces away, shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously.
"Billy told me you came by—didn't take you very long, did it? I knew you could
figure it out."
"Yeah, I remember the right story now," I whispered.
It was quiet for a long moment and, though it was still too dark to see well, my
skin prickled as if his eyes were searching my face. There must have been enough
light for him to read my expression, because when he spoke again, his voice was
suddenly acidic.
"You could have just called," he said harshly.
I nodded. "I know."
Jacob started pacing along the rocks. If I listened very hard, I could just hear the
gentle brush of his feet on the rocks behind the sound of the waves. The rocks
had clattered like castanets for me.
"Why did you come?" he demanded, not halting his angry stride.
"I thought it would be better face-to-face."
He snorted. "Oh, much better."
"Jacob, I have to warn you—"
"About the rangers and the hunters? Don't worry about it. We already know."
"Don't worry about it?" I demanded in disbelief. "Jake, they've got guns! They're
setting traps and offering rewards and—"
"We can take care of ourselves," he growled, still pacing. "They're not going to
catch anything. They're only making it more difficult—they'll start disappearing
soon enough, too."
"Jake!" I hissed.
"What? It's just a fact."
My voice was pale with revulsion. "How can you… feel that way? You know
these people. Charlie's out there!" The thought made my stomach twist.
He came to an abrupt stop. "What more can we do?" he retorted.
The sun turned the clouds a slivery pink above us. I could see his expression
now; it was angry, frustrated, betrayed.
"Could you… well, try to not be a… werewolf?" I suggested in a whisper.
He threw his hands up in the air. "Like I have a choice about it!" he shouted.
"And how would that help anything, if you're worried about people
disappearing?"
"I don't understand you."
He glared at me, his eyes narrowing and his mouth twisting into a snarl. "You
know what makes me so mad I could just spit?"
I flinched away from his hostile expression. He seemed to be waiting for an
answer, so I shook my head.
"You're such a hypocrite, Bella—there you sit, terrified of me! How is that fair?"
His hands shook with anger.
"Hypocrite? How does being afraid of a monster make me a hypocrite?"
"Ugh!" he groaned, pressing his trembling fists to his temples and squeezing his
eyes shut. "Would you listen to yourself?"
"What?"
He took two steps toward me, leaning over me and glaring with fury. "Well, I'm
so sorry that I can't be the right kind of monster for you, Bella. I guess I'm just
not as great as a bloodsucker, am I?"
I jumped to my feet and glared back. "No, you're not!" I shouted. "It's not what
you are, stupid, it's what you do!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" He roared, his entire frame quivering with rage.
I was taken entirely by surprise when Edward's voice cautioned me. "Be very
careful, Bella," his velvet voice warned. "Don't push him too far. You need to
calm him down."
Even the voice in my head was making no sense today.
I listened to him, though. I would do anything for that voice.
"Jacob," I pleaded, making my tone soft and even. "Is it really necessary to kill
people, Jacob? Isn't there some other way? I mean, if vampires can find a way to
survive without murdering people, couldn't you give it a try, too?"
He straightened up with a jerk, like my words had sent an electric shock through
him. His eyebrows shot up and his eyes stared wide.
"Killing people?" he demanded.
"What did you think we were talking about?"
He wasn't trembling anymore. He looked at me with half-hopeful disbelief. "I
thought we were talking about your disgust for werewolves."
"No, Jake, no. It's not that you're a… wolf. That's fine," I promised him, and I
knew as I said the words that I meant them. I really didn't care if he turned into a
big wolf—he was still Jacob. "If you could just find a way not to hurt people…
that's all that upsets me. These ate innocent people, Jake, people like Charlie, and
I can't just look the other way while you—"
"Is that all? Really?" he interrupted me, a smile breaking across his face. "You're
just scared because I'm a murderer? That's the only reason?"
"Isn't that reason enough?"
He started to laugh.
"Jacob Black, this is so not funny!"
"Sure, sure," he agreed, still chortling.
He took one long stride and caught me in another vice-tight bear hug.
"You really, honestly don't mind that I morph into a giant dog?" he asked, his
voice joyful in my ear.
"No," I gasped. "Can't—breathe—Jake!"
He let me go, but took both my hands. "I'm not a killer, Bella."
I studied his face, and it was clear that this was the truth. Relief pulsed through
me.
"Really?" I asked.
"Really," he promised solemnly.
I threw my arms around him. It reminded me of that first day with the motorcycles
—he was bigger, though, and I felt even more like a child now.
Like that other time, he stroked my hair.
"Sorry I called you a hypocrite," he apologized.
"Sorry I called you a murderer."
He laughed.
I thought of something then, and pulled away from him so that I could see his
face. My eyebrows furrowed in anxiety. "What about Sam? And the others?"
He shook his head, smiling like a huge burden had been removed from his
shoulders. "Of course not. Don't you remember what we call ourselves?"
The memory was clear—I'd just been thinking of that very day. "Protectors?"
"Exactly."
"But I don't understand. What's happening in the woods? The missing hikers, the
blood?"
His face was serious, worried at once. "We're trying to do our job, Bella. We're
trying to protect them, but we're always just a little too late."
"Protect them from what? Is there really a bear out there, too?"
"Bella, honey, we only protect people from one thing—our one enemy. It's the
reason we exist—because they do."
I stared at him blankly for one second before I understood. Then the blood
drained from my face and a thin, wordless cry of horror broke through my lips.
He nodded. "I thought you, of all people, would reali2e what was really going
on."
"Laurent," I whispered. "He's still here."
Jacob blinked twice, and cocked his head to one side. "Who's Laurent?"
I tried to sort out the chaos in my head so that I could answer. "You know—you
saw him in the meadow. You were there…" The words came out in a wondering
tone as it all sunk in. "You were there, and you kept him from killing me…"
"Oh, the black-haired leech?" He grinned, a tight, fierce grin. "Was that his
name?"