BY THE TIME THE STRANGERS ENTERED THE CLEARING, THEIR FACES were
already so well known to me that it felt as though I were recognizing them rather than seeing them for the first time.
The smaller, ill-favored male started in the lead, but he quickly fell back in a practiced maneuver.
He was focused on our numbers, singling out the threats. He assumed we were two or possibly three friendly covens, meeting for the game. He was very aware of Emmett, hulking beside Carlisle. And then me, obviously agitated; it was strange for a vampire to twitch in anxiety. None of them knew what to make of my cadenced tapping.
For the smallest part of a second, I struggled with the feeling that something was missing in his tally, but there was too much for me to concentrate on to have time to track down that impression.
The male in the lead was tall and handsomer than average, even for a vampire. His thoughts were very confident. His coven meant no mischief here; though, naturally, this large grouping of covens was surprised to be approached by strangers, he was sure we would work it out quickly. He, too, reacted to Emmett’s size and my tension, but was then distracted by Rosalie.
I wonder if she’s mated? Hmm, they do seem to be even in numbers.
His eyes skipped over the rest of us, then settled on Rose again.
The female with the vivid red hair was tenser than any of us, her body nearly vibrating with anxiety. She had a hard time keeping her intense glare off Emmett.
There’re too many. Laurent is a fool.
She’d already catalogued a thousand different routes for escape. Currently, she felt her best chance was to sprint due north to the Salish Sea, where we couldn’t follow her scent. I wondered that she wouldn’t opt for
the much nearer Pacific coast, but I couldn’t see her reasons if she didn’t think of them.
I found myself hoping the jittery female would break for cover and the others follow, but Alice didn’t see that.
The redhead was watching the plainer male, waiting for him to run first. Her eyes danced to Emmett again, and she moved reluctantly as she followed the others closer.
The two males seemed unable to keep their eyes off Emmett for long, either. I found myself appraising my brother. He seemed even bigger than usual tonight, and there was something unnerving about his taut stillness.
Still the leader, Laurent, was sure of his plan. If our covens could get along with each other, then we could get along with his. Everyone would calm down and then we could all play. And he would get to know the glowing blonde.…
He smiled in a friendly way, slowing his approach and then stopping as he got within a few yards of Carlisle. His gaze flickered to Rosalie, to Emmett, to me, then back to Carlisle.
“We thought we heard a game,” he said. He had a faint French accent, but his internal voice came to him in English. “I’m Laurent, these are Victoria and James.”
They didn’t appear to have much in common, this urbane traveler from the continent and his two more feral followers. The female was irritated by his introduction; she was almost consumed by the need to escape. The other male, James, was a little amused at Laurent’s confidence. He was enjoying the unpredictable nature of this encounter and was keen to see how we would respond.
Vic hasn’t split yet, he was thinking. So it probably won’t come to anything.
Carlisle smiled at Laurent, his friendly, open face momentarily disarming even the frightened Victoria. For one second, they all focused entirely on him instead of Emmett.
“I’m Carlisle,” he introduced himself. “This is my family, Emmett and Jasper; Rosalie, Esme, and Alice; Edward and Bella.” He gestured vaguely in our direction as he spoke, not drawing attention to me individually or Bella behind me. Laurent and James were reacting to the information that we were not separate tribes, but I wasn’t entirely paying attention.
In the second that Carlisle said Jasper’s name, I realized what I’d been missing.
Jasper—lacerated with scars on every visible portion of his skin, tall and lean and fierce as any stalking lion, eyes brutal with remembered kills— should have been at the forefront of their assessments. His warlike aspect should, even now, be coloring this negotiation.
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, and found myself… so incredibly bored. It seemed as if there could be nothing less interesting in the world than this nondescript vampire standing docilely to one side of our grouping.
Nondescript? Docile? Jasper?
Jasper was concentrating so hard that, had he been human, his body would have been dripping with sweat.
I’d never seen him do this before, or even guessed that it was possible. Was this something he’d developed during his years in the South? Camouflage?
He was concurrently smoothing the tension surrounding the newcomers and making anyone looking in his direction feel singularly uninterested. Nothing could be duller than examining this nothing male at the back of the group, so unimportant.…
And not just him… He was covering Alice, Esme, and Bella in the same haze of tediousness.
This was why none of them had realized yet. Not because of Bella’s disheveled hair or my ridiculous tapping. They couldn’t cut through the sense of overwhelming mundaneness to look at her closely. She was just one among many, not worth examining.
Jasper was really extending himself to protect the vulnerable members of our family. I could hear his total concentration. He wouldn’t be able to hold it if things got physical, but for now he had Bella encased in a more clever protection than I could have imagined.
Gratitude swamped me again.
I blinked hard and refocused on the strangers. They were affected by Carlisle’s charm, though they did not forget Emmett’s intimidating size or my intensity.
I tried to absorb the soothing calm that Jasper was exuding, but while I could see its effect on the others, I couldn’t access it. I realized that Jasper
was presenting what he wanted, and that included me on edge, a threat, a distraction.
Well, I could certainly lean into that role.
“Do you have room for a few more players?” Laurent was asking, just as amicable as Carlisle.
“Actually, we were just finishing up,” Carlisle responded, his tone oozing warmth. “But we’d certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the area for long?”
“We’re headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the neighborhood. We haven’t run into any company in a long time.”
“No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitor, like yourselves.”
Carlisle’s easy friendliness, along with Jasper’s influence, was winning them over. Even the edgy redhead was beginning to calm. Her thoughts tested this sense of safety, analyzing it in a way that was strange to me. I wondered whether she was aware of Jasper’s performance, but she didn’t seem suspicious. It was more like she questioned her own gut feeling.
James was a little disappointed that a game did not seem to be imminent. And also… that the confrontation had eased. He missed the excitement of the unknown.
Laurent was absorbing Carlisle’s poise and confidence. He wanted to know more about us. He wondered what subterfuge we used to disguise our eyes, and why.
“What’s your hunting range?” Laurent asked. This was a normal thing, an expected question among nomads, but I worried that it would alarm Bella. Whatever she felt, she was motionless and silent as a human could be behind me. The rhythm of her heart, and thus my drumming foot, didn’t change.
“The Olympic Range here, up and down the Coast Ranges on occasion,” Carlisle told him, not lying, but also not disabusing Laurent of his assumption. “We keep a permanent residence nearby. There’s another permanent settlement like ours up near Denali.”
This surprised all of them. Laurent was merely confused, but anything unexpected seemed to turn to fear in the mind of the panicky female; for her, all the effects of Jasper’s efforts vanished in an instant. James, however, was intrigued. Here was something new and different. Not only was our
coven immense, we were apparently not even nomadic. Perhaps this detour wasn’t entirely wasted.
“Permanent?” Laurent asked, bewildered. “How do you manage that?”
James was pleased that Laurent had spoken, so his curiosity could be assuaged without any effort on his part. In a way, his reluctance to draw attention to himself reminded me of Jasper’s much more effective camouflage. I wondered why James would want to play it safe this way. It didn’t seem to line up with his desire for diversion.
Or did he, like Jasper, have something to hide?
“Why don’t you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortably?” Carlisle proposed. “It’s a rather long story.”
Victoria twitched, and I could see that she was holding herself in place by will alone. She guessed what Laurent’s answer would be, and, oh, how she wanted to run. James gave her an encouraging look, but it didn’t alleviate her stress. Still, she would follow his lead.
Could it be this easy? It would be simple to split up if they accepted the invitation, with Carlisle and Emmett safely leading the strangers away. Thanks to Jasper, they might never realize what we were hiding from them.
I looked into Alice’s view of the future—a little more difficult at the moment, as I had to ignore Jasper’s potent veil of tedium, which tried, with energy, to convince me that there must be something more interesting to do. Alice was focused on the closest possible futures. It surprised me that they all ended in a standoff now. A few of the possible fights were clearer
than before.
So it would not be that easy.
In Laurent’s mind, I heard nothing but interest and the coming assent; James was in agreement. Victoria looked for a trap, rigid with dread.
None of them had any intention to cause trouble or even examine our numbers more closely. What would change their minds?
I could think of only one factor that was so sure, so unaffected by any decision or whim.
The weather.
I braced myself, knowing there was nothing I could do. Jasper’s eyes flickered to me. He felt my new anguish.
“That sounds very interesting, and welcome,” Laurent was saying. “We’ve been on the hunt all the way down from Ontario, and we haven’t
had the chance to clean up in a while.”
Victoria shuddered, trying to subtly catch James’s attention, but he ignored her.
“Please don’t take offense, but we’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from hunting in this immediate area,” Carlisle cautioned them. “We have to stay inconspicuous, you understand.”
Carlisle’s voice was perfectly assured. I envied him his hopefulness.
“Of course,” Laurent agreed. “We certainly won’t encroach on your territory. We just ate outside of Seattle, anyway.”
Laurent laughed, and Bella’s heartbeat stuttered for the first time. The movement of my foot faltered quickly, trying to disguise the variation. None of the strangers seemed to notice.
“We’ll show you the way if you’d like to run with us,” Carlisle offered, and only Alice and I knew that it was too late for his plan to succeed. It was so close now—her visions were racing to collide with the present. “Emmett and Alice, you can go with Edward and Bella to get the Jeep.”
It happened exactly as he said Bella’s name.
Just a gentle breeze, a mild flutter from a new direction, an aberration caused by the tail end of the storm swirling westward. So mild. So inescapable.
Bella’s scent, fresh and immediate, wafted directly into the strangers’ faces.
All of them were affected, but while Laurent and Victoria were predominantly confused by the delicious smell coming out of nowhere, James shifted instantaneously into hunting mode. Jasper’s camouflage wasn’t strong enough to deter that kind of focus.
There was no point in pretending any longer. As if he were reading my thoughts, Jasper pulled his concealment back in that second, leaving only himself and Alice still hidden. I realized it was better that he do this, that it would only alert these nomads to his extra talents if he tried to keep Bella obscured now. Yet I still felt a weak prick of betrayal.
But that was only the smallest part of my awareness. Most of my faculties were overwhelmed with fury.
James thrust forward into a crouch. His mind was empty of thought besides the hunt, intent on immediate gratification.
I gave him something else to think about.
I crouched in front of Bella, ready to launch myself into the hunter before he could get any closer to her, all my abilities concentrated on his thoughts. I roared a warning at him, knowing only self-preservation had any hope of distracting him at this point.
My rage was strong enough that I half wanted him to ignore my threat.
The pinpoint focus of his eyes widened out, away from Bella, as he appraised me. A strange flicker of surprise wove through his mind. He was almost… incredulous that I had moved to block him. I could only guess that he was used to acting unopposed. He hesitated, wavering between prudence and desire. It would be foolish to ignore the others—this was not a contest between just the two of us. But he could barely resist my challenge. He wasn’t sure he wanted to resist.
“What’s this?” Laurent cried. I didn’t waste any attention for his reaction.
I saw the ploy in James’s thoughts before he moved. I was in place to block his new angle before the movement was finished. His eyes narrowed, and he adjusted his evaluation of the danger I posed.
Faster than I thought. Too fast?
He was suspicious of me now. Of all of us. Why hadn’t he noticed the girl before? She was so obvious, her apricot skin soft and matte in contrast with the shine of the rest.
“She’s with us,” I heard Carlisle warn in a new voice, friendliness gone. James flashed a glance at him and was aware again of Emmett looming,
massive and eager, beside Carlisle.
I was surprised at his frustration. James didn’t want to be careful. He was anxious for a fight. However—still poised to strike—he spared part of his focus to tune in for some movement from Victoria, but she was frozen with fear.
My own attention was compromised as Laurent finally reacted. “You brought a snack?” he asked, disbelieving.
Like James, he moved a step closer to Bella, though his move was more instinctual than aggressive.
That didn’t matter to me. I twisted slightly, my eyes never leaving the greater threat, and snarled my rage in Laurent’s direction, baring my teeth at him. Unlike James, Laurent immediately retreated.
James shifted again, testing my concentration. I was in place to answer
his maneuver before the motion was complete. His lips pulled back over his teeth.
“I said she’s with us,” Carlisle repeated, his voice closer to a growl than I’d ever heard it before.
“But she’s human,” Laurent pointed out. There was still no aggression in his mind. He was only baffled and frightened. He couldn’t make sense of this situation, but he realized that James’s ill-considered offensive might get them all killed. He glanced toward Victoria, checking her reaction much as James had. As if she were some kind of weathervane.
Emmett was the one to respond to Laurent. I didn’t know if it was Jasper who made it feel as though the ground shook as he took one step closer to the conflict, or if it was just Emmett being Emmett.
“Yes,” he rumbled, his tone absent of all emotion and inflection. The steel of his voice seemed to cut straight through the center of the confrontation, evoking a sudden chill in the air.
I was pretty sure that was Jasper’s work, but I didn’t split my concentration to be sure.
It was effective. The hunter straightened out of his crouch.
I read his reactions minutely, holding my defensive position against the possibility of a trick. I expected anger, frustration. I’d seen before that he was arrogant, not used to being obstructed. Having to concede to a larger force than his own would surely infuriate him.
But instead, a sudden excitement jolted through his thoughts. Though his eyes never entirely left Bella or me, he was cataloguing in his peripheral vision the threats facing him. Not with fear or annoyance, but with a strange, wild pleasure. His eyes still skipped over Jasper and Alice, seeing them only as numbers in a census. Emmett’s threatening mass seemed abruptly exhilarating to him.
“It appears we have a lot to learn about each other,” Laurent observed in a mollifying tone.
And then James’s inexplicable elation gave way to planning. To strategy. To memories of past victories. And for the first time, I realized—with dread and panic—that he was no mere hunter.
“Indeed,” Carlisle agreed, his voice hard.
I desperately wanted to know what Alice was seeing now, but I couldn’t afford to miss any detail in my adversary’s thoughts.
I listened as he remembered cornering target after target, as he relived the lengths of his more exhaustive pursuits, as he catalogued the opposition he’d overcome to get to his prey. None of the previous challenges were greater than what he was looking at now. Eight—no, seven, he corrected. A coven of seven—certainly with some talents among them—and one helpless human girl who smelled better than any meal he’d had in the last century.
Thrilling.
He couldn’t start here, with so many protecting her.
Wait until they separate. Use the time for reconnaissance.
“But we’d like to accept your invitation,” Laurent was saying to Carlisle. James was only superficially aware of the conversation; he was absorbed in his planning.
Until Laurent added, “And, of course, we will not harm the human girl.
We won’t hunt in your range, as I said.”
This broke through both James’s new exhilaration and his vigilant focus. He turned away from me to stare at Laurent with amazement, but Laurent was facing Carlisle, and he didn’t see as the shock turned to loathing.
You dare speak for me?
The heat of his reaction made it clear that the coven would not stay intact. I heard James’s resolution to use Laurent as long as he was convenient, but he would rather kill him than leave him behind when that usefulness was over. It appeared that his desire to destroy Laurent was based entirely on this one comment; I couldn’t find another source of resentment. James was easily provoked, I decided, and unforgiving. Perhaps I could use that.
James had no thought of Victoria choosing Laurent. I wondered whether they were a mated pair, but his thoughts didn’t give away any special feeling for her. They must have been together longer than the alliance with Laurent. They were the original coven, and he the interloper. It fit with how easily James contemplated disposing of the newcomer.
“We’ll show you the way,” Carlisle said, less like an offer and more like a command. “Jasper, Rosalie, Esme?”
Jasper didn’t like this—separating from Alice, especially when things were going poorly. But he couldn’t argue with Carlisle now. We needed to present a united front, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
Carlisle had no idea of the cover Jasper was generating. Jasper resigned himself to keeping up the concealment as long as necessary; if a fight was coming, he intended it to be an ambush.
He looked at Alice, who nodded at him. She was confident she wasn’t in danger. He accepted that but was still unhappy. She darted to Bella’s side.
Without needing to discuss, Jasper, Esme, and Rose moved together to obstruct James’s view of Bella as they joined Carlisle.
James was not perturbed. His desire to attack had vanished. He was plotting now.
Emmett retreated last, his eyes on James as he moved backward into position beside me.
Carlisle gestured for Laurent and his coven to lead the way out of the clearing. Laurent complied quickly, with Victoria right behind. Her mind was still full of escape routes.
James hesitated for a fraction of a second, and his eyes returned to us. I knew Bella was invisible behind Emmett, but he wasn’t looking for her this time. He stared directly into my eyes and smiled.
Something caught his attention—Alice, uncloaked as Jasper moved away from her. There was a flicker of surprise as he took in her face for the first time, perhaps wondering why he hadn’t thought to appraise her before, but that surprise did not resolve into words before he turned and dashed after the others. Carlisle and Jasper ran close on his heels, Rose and Esme following.
I had to work to keep my voice from coming out as a snarl or a shriek. “Let’s go, Bella.”
She seemed paralyzed. Her wide eyes were so blank that I wondered whether she even understood what I was saying. But I didn’t have time to soothe her, or treat her if she were in shock. Right now the only priority was escape.
I took her elbow and pulled her in the opposite direction from where the others had just disappeared. After one staggering step, she found her footing and half ran to keep up with me. Emmett and Alice moved behind us, hiding her, just in case.
I was positive James would not follow Laurent back to our house. When he found an opportunity, he would break off and circle back to catch Bella’s trail. I couldn’t know how long it would take him to find that opportunity,
but I had to act as if he were already watching. If he were, it would be better to let him think that we would move at Bella’s speed. I doubted he would be surprised for long when her scent became suddenly tenuous in the trees, but if we could obscure how we were traveling, he would have to pause to reassess.
His thoughts were too far away for me to pinpoint him now, though I had a sense of where the larger group was. I couldn’t be positive he was still with them. If he ran up the side of one of these peaks, he’d have a good view of our movements. Still, I chafed at our velocity—or lack thereof.
Emmett and Alice didn’t comment on our pace. They were both aware that we might have an audience, though Alice couldn’t see clearly what James was doing. His path wasn’t going to cross ours here, nor in the near future. She’d only seen the strangers in the clearing in the first place because they had decided to interact with us. It wasn’t easy for her to see outsiders unless they were with a member of her family. James would be mostly invisible until he decided to accost one of us.
It seemed hours till we reached the edge of the clearing, but I knew it was really just minutes. As soon as we were deep enough into the trees to be invisible to any watcher, I lifted Bella and settled her against my back. She understood, not too far gone into shock, then. She wrapped her legs tightly around my waist and locked her arms around my neck. Her face was tucked down against my shoulder blade again.
I thought it would feel better, safer, when I was running, when we were racing away from the danger at an acceptable speed, but the momentum did nothing to dissolve the solid block of panic that seemed to weigh me down. I knew this was an illusion—I was flying through the trees as fast as I could go without hurting her—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was making no progress at all.
Even when the Jeep appeared, and in less than a second I had Bella in the backseat, it felt like I was lagging behind.
“Strap her in,” I hissed to Emmett. He’d chosen the back with Bella, recognizing that he would be her bodyguard as long as I needed to drive. He was willing, even eager.
For once, Emmett’s disposition toward humor was quelled—a mercy, as I would not have been able to bear it now. His temper was roused, and his thoughts were all directed toward violence.
Alice sat by me, and without my asking, she was sprinting through all the futures we could face now. Mostly there was a dark road ahead of us, flying away under the tires, with no clear destination in mind. But there were other futures going in the wrong direction, back in Forks, inside Bella’s home and our own, though I couldn’t imagine what would turn me around.
We lurched and careened across the rough road as fast as I dared go without chancing flipping the Jeep, but it continued to feel like I was losing a race.
While Alice kept searching—there was the blistering sunlight again, why would we choose that kind of location when it would trap us indoors?
—I focused on the road. Finally we were back to the highway, and I wished fervently we were in another car, any other—mine, Rose’s, Carlisle’s. The Jeep wasn’t modified for racing. But there was nothing for it.
I was vaguely aware of the sound of my own voice, snarling out half- articulated obscenities, but it felt distant from me, as though not under my control.
That was the only sound besides the roar of the engine, the tires moving against the wet road, Bella’s uneven breathing in the back, and her thudding heart.
Alice was seeing a hotel room now, but it could be anywhere. The curtains were closed.
“Where are we going?”
Bella’s question sounded like it was coming from a distance, too. My thoughts were too wound up inside Alice’s visions or frozen with dread for me to compose an answer. It was almost as if the question didn’t apply to me.
Her voice had quavered, little more than a whisper. But now it turned hard.
“Dammit, Edward! Where are you taking me?”
I pulled away from the confusing swirl of Alice’s futures so that I could be present. Bella must be terrified.
“We have to get you away from here—far away—now,” I explained.
I would have thought the idea of being far away would be a welcome one, but she was suddenly shouting, her hands fighting with the harness as she tried to loose herself.
“Turn around! You have to take me home!”
How did I explain to her that she’d lost her home for now, that the loathsome hunter had stolen more than that from her tonight?
The priority for the moment, though, was keeping her from throwing herself out of the Jeep.
Emmett was already wondering if he should restrain her. I spoke his name, low and hard, so he would know that I wanted him to do this. He caught her wrists carefully in his huge hands and immobilized them.
“No! Edward! No,” she howled at me. “You can’t do this!”
I didn’t know what she thought I was doing. Did she think I had a choice? The sound of her anger, her desperation, made it hard to concentrate. It felt like I was the one hurting her, rather than the danger of the tracker.
“I have to, Bella,” I hissed. “Now please be quiet.” I needed to see what Alice was seeing.
“I won’t!” she shouted at me. “You have to take me back—Charlie will call the FBI! They’ll be all over your family—Carlisle and Esme! They’ll have to leave, to hide forever!”
This was what she was worried about? I supposed it shouldn’t surprise me that she was going to pieces over the wrong menace.
“Calm down, Bella. We’ve been there before.” So we had to start over. It seemed a meaningless thing at the moment.
“Not over me, you don’t!” she shrieked. “You’re not ruining everything
over me!”
She thrashed against Emmett’s hold. The only part of her that was still was her trapped hands. Emmett stared at her, confused.
What am I supposed to do?
Before I could tell Bella why she had it wrong or tell Emmett that he was doing fine, Alice decided to join me in the present.
“Edward, pull over.”
The calmness in her voice irritated me. She was thinking about what Bella was saying, though—clearly—none of those concerns meant anything. Alice should have known better. Bella didn’t grasp what had happened. How could she? She had no context for any of this.
I gunned the engine automatically, suddenly realizing that Alice didn’t have all the context, either. For all her prescience, there were things she
couldn’t see.
“Edward.” Alice was still calm, her tone so reasonable. “Let’s just talk this through.”
“You don’t understand,” I exploded. “He’s a tracker, Alice, did you see
that? He’s a tracker!”
Emmett reacted more powerfully to the word than Alice did. Because of course she had seen that—the moment I’d decided to shout it at her.
We’d not had a great deal of exposure to trackers, aside from stories. The most powerful of them were far away, serving in Italy. Carlisle knew one, but as he was the furthest thing from sociable, none of us had ever met Alistair. Emmett and Alice only knew trackers as those with a talent for finding things, finding people. They didn’t understand the concept in the more dynamic sense. James didn’t just have a talent for finding people. Tracking was everything to him.
“Pull over, Edward,” Alice said, as if I hadn’t spoken. I glowered at her while urging the engine faster.
That’s not how tonight goes, she thought with perfect assurance. “Do it, Edward.”
“Listen to me, Alice,” I seethed, wishing I could put everything I knew directly into her head for once instead of the other way around. She didn’t get it. “I saw his mind. Tracking is his passion, his obsession—and he wants her, Alice—her, specifically. He begins the hunt tonight.”
She was unmoved by my outburst. “He doesn’t know where—”
I cut her off, impatient with her refusal to see. “How long do you think it will take him to cross her scent in town? His plan was already set before the words were out of Laurent’s mouth.”
Bella gasped, and then she was shrieking again. “Charlie! You can’t leave him there! You can’t leave him!”
“She’s right,” Alice said. Still too calm.
My foot eased off the accelerator without my giving it that order. Obviously, I couldn’t have Charlie in danger, either. But how could I be in two places at once?
“Let’s just look at our options for a minute,” Alice coaxed.
I was shocked by the image suddenly in her head. I’d not seen her tracing this future—I would have interrupted, and violently, if I had—but she somehow had it all laid out. Complete.
Alice saw one version of the future in which the tracker lost interest and abandoned the chase.
It’s meaningless to him without the prize, she explained.
It looked just like the old vision, but I could tell it was new. Freshly generated. Bella, her eyes blazing a red so bright it nearly glowed, her features as sharp as though they had been chiseled from diamond, her skin whiter than ice.
Sure enough, the tracker disappeared from this version of destiny. And Bella’s brilliant eyes stared at me coldly… accusingly.
I wrenched the Jeep onto the shoulder and braked hard. We jerked to a stop.
“There are no options,” I snarled at Alice. “I’m not leaving Charlie!” Bella yelled at me.
“We have to take her back,” Emmett interjected. “No.”
Emmett looked at me in the rearview mirror. “He’s no match for us, Edward. He won’t be able to touch her.”
“He’ll wait.” He enjoyed the waiting.
Emmett smiled without amusement. “I can wait, too.”
I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration. “You didn’t see—you don’t understand! Once he commits to a hunt, he’s unshakable. We’d have to kill him.”
Emmett looked at me like I was being slow.
Of course we have to kill him, he thought, but his spoken words were milder. He was being uncharacteristically sensitive, aware of the fragile human he was confining. “That’s an option.”
“And the female,” I reminded him. “She’s with him.” This didn’t affect Emmett at all, so I added, “If it turns into a fight, the leader will go with them, too,” though I doubted that.
“There are enough of us.”
Did he count Rose and Esme in his tally? Of course not. He thought he could do it alone, as if they would stand and face him directly, without subterfuge.
“There’s another option,” Alice repeated.
It’s coming anyway. Why not embrace it and make her safe now?
The fury that gripped me felt dangerous, as though I might actually hurt
Alice now, despite loving her. I tried to contain it, letting it vent only in words.
“There is no other option!” I roared, inches from her face. Alice didn’t flinch.
Don’t be stupid about this. There are too many futures, too many twists and turns that I can’t unravel. It’s too far-reaching. You’re right that he won’t give up.… Unless he has no motivation to continue.
In Alice’s head, I could see decades of James hunting Bella while I tried to hide her. A thousand different traps and ruses. Clearly, he’d be harder to kill than Emmett imagined.
Well, I had no problem being vigilant for decades. I wouldn’t trade her life for an easier future.
A small, shaky voice interrupted us. “Does anyone want to hear my plan?”
“No,” I snapped, still glaring at Alice. She scowled back. “Listen,” Bella continued. “You take me back—”
“No.”
“You take me back,” she insisted, her voice stronger and angrier now. “I tell my dad I want to go home to Phoenix. I pack my bags. We wait till this tracker is watching, and then we run. He’ll follow us and leave Charlie alone. Charlie won’t call the FBI on your family. Then you can take me any damned place you want.”
So she wasn’t thinking entirely irrationally, offering herself as a sacrifice in exchange for Charlie’s life or our protection. She had a plan.
“It’s not a bad idea, really,” Emmett mused. He had little faith in the tracker’s abilities; he’d rather leave a trail to follow than have no idea from what direction the enemy would appear. He also thought it would be quicker this way, and despite his words before, Emmett really wasn’t much for patience.
Alice considered, watching how Bella’s resolve shifted her futures. She could see that, if nothing else, the tracker would be there for the performance.
“It might work,” she allowed. New visions were crowding fast upon the old. We’d split up, three different directions, leaving only the trail we wanted to leave. She saw Emmett and Carlisle hunting in the forest. Sometimes Rosalie was there, too, sometimes it was Emmett and Jasper, but
no grouping held stable.
“And we simply can’t leave her father unprotected. You know that,” Alice added, still watching the play of the images. This part she was sure of. We would go back and give the tracker something to focus on besides Charlie.
But in these very clear visions, the tracker was too close to Bella. The thought strained my already raw nerves.
“It’s too dangerous,” I muttered. “I don’t want him within a hundred miles of her.”
“Edward, he’s not getting through us.” Emmett was frustrated by what he saw as my trying to prevent a fight. He didn’t feel any of the stakes.
Alice worked through the immediate outcomes of this decision—a decision she was making now, seeing that I was frozen with uncertainty. There was no version that ended in a fight at Charlie’s house. The tracker would only wait and observe.
“I don’t see him attacking,” she confirmed. “He’ll try to wait for us to leave her alone.”
“It won’t take long for him to realize that’s not going to happen.”
“I demand that you take me home,” Bella ordered, working to make her voice sound more assertive.
I tried to think through the haze of panic, desperation, and guilt. Did it make sense to set our own trap rather than to wait for the tracker to set his? That sounded right, but when I tried to imagine allowing Bella to be in closer proximity to him, essentially making her bait, I couldn’t force the picture into my mind.
“Please,” she whispered, and there was pain in her voice.
I thought of the tracker finding Charlie at home alone. I knew this must be in the forefront of Bella’s mind. I could only imagine how panicked and desperate it would make her. None of my family was vulnerable that way. Bella was my only vulnerability.
We had to lead the tracker away from Charlie. That much was obvious. This was the only part of her plan that actually mattered. But if it didn’t work the first time, if the tracker didn’t see our performance, I wouldn’t push our luck. We’d come up with another version. Emmett could babysit Charlie as long as necessary. I knew he’d be happy to take on the tracker alone. I was also sure, given Jasper’s enhancements in the clearing, that the
tracker would never willingly put himself within Emmett’s reach.
“You’re leaving tonight, whether the tracker sees or not,” I told Bella, feeling too defeated to look up. “You tell Charlie that you can’t stand another minute in Forks. Tell him whatever story works. Pack the first things your hands touch, and then get in your truck. I don’t care what he says to you. You have fifteen minutes.” I looked in the mirror, meeting her gaze. Her expression was stoic now. “Do you hear me? Fifteen minutes from the time you cross the doorstep.”
I revved the engine, then executed a tight U-turn, in a different kind of hurry now. I wanted to get the bait part over with as quickly as possible.
“Emmett?” she asked.
I could see in Emmett’s mind that she was looking at her fettered hands. “Oh, sorry,” Emmett muttered, freeing her.
He waited for me to object, then relaxed when I didn’t.
Now that the decision was made, I focused on Alice’s visions again. There weren’t very many options, maybe thirty solid versions. In most of them, the tracker would show up at Charlie’s house about two minutes after we did, keeping a safe distance. In a few, he came after we were gone. But even in those, he ignored Charlie and followed our trail.
After that, the possibilities narrowed further. We would go home. The tracker would stay even farther back, not wanting to risk a confrontation. The redhead would be waiting for him there. My family would split up. In no version did Laurent help James and Victoria. So we would only have to split into three groups.
The one thing I didn’t understand was how the makeup of those three groups kept shifting. It didn’t make sense.
Regardless, the next part was very clear.
“This is how it’s going to happen,” I explained to Emmett. “When we get to the house, if the tracker is not there, I will walk her to the door. Then she has fifteen minutes.” I met Bella’s eyes in the mirror again. “Emmett, you take the outside of the house. Alice, you get the truck. I’ll be inside as long as she is. After she’s out, you two can take the Jeep home and tell Carlisle.”
“No way,” Emmett objected. “I’m with you.” You owe me one, remember?
It shouldn’t surprise me he would want that. This was probably why the
future groupings were confused.
“Think it through, Emmett. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” “Until we know how far this is going to go, I’m with you.”
There was no wavering in his mind. Maybe it was for the best. I let it go. In Alice’s head, it was Carlisle and Jasper hunting in the forest now.
“If the tracker is there,” I continued, “we keep driving.” “We’re going to make it there before him,” Alice insisted.
It was ninety-nine percent certain, but I wasn’t taking any chances with some outlier version that was less clear than the others.
“What are we going to do with the Jeep?” Alice asked. “You’re driving it home.”
“No, I’m not,” she said with absolute certainty.
The vision of how we would divide shifted around again. I growled a string of archaic curses in her direction.
Bella interrupted in a low voice. “We can’t all fit in my truck.”
As if we were going to make our escape in that geriatric sloth. I said nothing, though, knowing how sensitive she was about her truck. I didn’t have the energy for a pointless argument.
When I didn’t respond, she whispered, “I think you should let me go alone.”
I’d missed her meaning again. Naturally, she’d think it was her job to sacrifice herself so that Charlie could have a redundant number of bodyguards.
“Bella, please just do this my way, just this once,” I begged, though it didn’t sound like pleading when the words came through my clenched teeth. “Listen, Charlie’s not an imbecile. If you’re not in town tomorrow, he’s
going to get suspicious.”
There were so many layers of meaning I missed entirely with her. Was this the real reason for her willingness to endanger herself, creating a believable alibi for me?
“That’s irrelevant,” I said in a tone that was intended to sound final. “We’ll make sure he’s safe, and that’s all that matters.”
“Then what about this tracker?” she countered. “He saw the way you acted tonight. He’s going to think you’re with me, wherever you are.”
All three of us froze, surprised by this direction. Even Alice. She’d been paying attention to other futures than this conversation.
Emmett embraced the logic immediately. “Edward, listen to her. I think she’s right.”
“Yes, she is,” Alice agreed.
She could see that Bella was right: whichever grouping I was part of was the group the tracker would choose to follow. It would undermine the plan and make an offensive all but impossible. Worst of all, it would make her bait again, and this time there were too many futures to be sure she’d be safe.
But what was the other option? Leave Bella? “I can’t do that.”
Bella spoke up again, her voice as calm as if her first pronouncement had already been accepted. “Emmett should stay, too. He definitely got an eyeful of Emmett.”
“What?” Emmett demanded, stung.
But Alice knew what he was really objecting to. “You’ll get a better crack at him if you stay.”
The divisions, fluctuating so wildly before, seemed to be settling. She saw me with Emmett and Carlisle, first fleeing through the forest, and then changing course in order to hunt.
Where was Bella in this future?
I stared at Alice. “You think I should let her go alone?”
I saw the answer in her visions before she could say it out loud. A standard room in a mediocre hotel, Bella curled into a tight ball as she slept, Alice and Jasper frozen sentinels in the other room.
“Of course not. Jasper and I will take her.”
“I can’t do that.” But my voice was hollow now. I couldn’t see another way. If the tracker was going to choose me as the mark, then I should be far away from Bella. I would have to control the panic, the anguish, and be a hunter. I tried to quash the small amount of pleasure in the idea of destroying the vampire who’d ignited this nightmare. Bella’s safety was the only factor.
Bella was not done with her suggestions.
“Hang out here for a week,” she said quietly. I glanced at her again in the mirror. How little she understood about what had been started tonight. “A few days?” she offered, seeming to think I was objecting to her timeline. I could only pray this would end in a week.
“Let Charlie see you haven’t kidnapped me,” she continued, “and lead this James on a wild-goose chase. Make sure he’s completely off my trail. Then come and meet me. Take a roundabout route, of course, and then Jasper and Alice can go home.”
I looked through Alice’s reaction to this plan, and felt the first relief of the night when I saw that this was possible. There were futures where I would find Bella with Alice and Jasper. The particular destiny I traced resolved into going underground in the long term. The tracker had evaded me. But there were many other threads weaving and unweaving in her mind. In some of them, I found Bella to take her home. Again, the brilliant sunlight intruded, disorienting me. Where were we?
“Meet you where?” I asked. Bella’s decisions were the ones driving the future. She must already know this answer.
Her voice was certain. “Phoenix.”
But I’d seen the next act in Alice’s head. I’d heard the cover story Bella would give Charlie, and I knew what the tracker would hear.
“No. He’ll hear that’s where you’re going,” I reminded her.
“And you’ll make it look like that’s a ruse, obviously.” She drew out the last word, sounding annoyed. “He’ll know that we’ll know that he’s listening. He’ll never believe I’m actually going where I say I am going.”
“She’s diabolical,” Emmett chuckled.
I was not so convinced. “And if that doesn’t work?”
“There are several million people in Phoenix,” Bella said, her tone still irritated. I wondered if it was fear that was sapping her patience. I knew it had exhausted mine.
“It’s not that hard to find a phone book,” I growled. She rolled her eyes. “I won’t go home.”
“Oh?”
“I’m quite old enough to get my own place.”
Alice decided to interrupt our pointless bickering. “Edward, we’ll be with her.”
“What are you going to do in Phoenix?” “Stay indoors.”
Emmett didn’t have access to Alice’s visions, but the picture in his head was close to what I knew was coming. Emmett and I in the forest, hot on the tracker’s trail. “I kind of like it,” he said.
“Shut up, Emmett.”
“Look, if we try to take him down while she’s still around, there’s a much better chance that someone will get hurt—she’ll get hurt, or you will, trying to protect her. Now, if we get him alone…” The picture in his head morphed as he imagined the tracker cornered now, himself closing in.
If we could manage it, if we could deal with the tracker quickly, then this would be the right choice. Why was it so painful to make?
I would feel better if there was any evidence that Bella was concerned about her own safety at all. That she understood everything she was risking. That it wasn’t just her own life on the line.
Maybe that was the key. She never worried about herself… but she always worried about me. If I made this about my distress rather than her actual mortal peril, perhaps she would be more cautious.
My control was weak. I spoke in barely more than a whisper, worried that I might scream otherwise. “Bella.”
She met my eyes in the mirror. Hers were defensive rather than afraid. “If you let anything happen to yourself—anything at all—I’m holding
you personally responsible,” I said softly. “Do you understand that?”
Her lips trembled. Had she finally realized the danger? She swallowed loudly and muttered, “Yes.”
Close enough.
Alice’s mind was in a million places, many of them a sunny freeway viewed through dark-tinted glass. Bella always sat in the backseat, Alice’s arm around her, staring blankly ahead. Jasper watched from the driver’s seat. I thought of my brother, trapped in a small vehicle with Bella’s scent for so many hours.
“Can Jasper handle this?” I demanded.
“Give him some credit, Edward,” Alice chided. “He’s been doing very, very well, all things considered.”
But her mind flashed through a dozen future scenes, just in case. Jasper didn’t lose focus in a single one.
I appraised Alice. The tiny exterior made her look fragile, but I knew she was a fierce opponent. The tracker or anyone else would underestimate her. That should count for something. Still, I felt uneasy picturing her having to physically protect Bella.
“Can you handle this?” I muttered.
Her eyes narrowed in outrage—put on; she’d seen the question coming.
I could take you blindfolded.
She snarled at me, long and loud, a disturbingly ferocious sound that echoed against the Jeep’s glass and pushed Bella’s heart into a sprint.
For half a second, I couldn’t help but smile at Alice’s ridiculous display, and then all humor vanished again. How had it come to this? How would I let myself be separated from Bella, no matter how lethal her guardians?
Another unpleasant thought flickered through my brain. Bella and Alice alone, embarking on their foreseen friendship. Would Alice tell Bella her solution to this nightmare?
I nodded once, a sharp jerk, to let her know that I’d accepted her role as Bella’s protector. “But keep your opinions to yourself,” I warned.
