THAT WAS THE LAST THING ANYONE SAID AS WE RACED BACK TO FORKS. Of
course the way would seem much shorter when I was terrified of arriving. All too soon we were pulling up to Bella’s home, the lights shining from every window, both upstairs and down. The sounds of a college basketball game drifted from the front room. I strained to hear anything not human in the vicinity, but the tracker didn’t seem to have arrived yet. And Alice still could see no future in which this stop turned into an attack.
Maybe we should just stay. Let Bella return to her normal life while the rest of us became perpetual sentries. I could count on Emmett, Alice, Carlisle, Esme—and I was fairly certain Jasper, as well—to join me in such a vigil. The tracker would find it impossible to get to her with so many eyes
—and minds—watching. Was unified strength the safer option than dividing into thirds?
But as I considered this, Alice saw how the tracker would wait, how he would adapt. How he would, after the boredom set in, begin a war of attrition. Bella’s friends disappearing in the night. Favorite teachers. Charlie’s coworkers. Random humans who had no connection to her. The numbers would add up to the point where the resulting scrutiny would force us to disappear, regardless. And I could guess how Bella would feel about all those innocents paying with their lives for her continued safety.
So the original plan would have to be enough.
It was hard to process the strange physical sensation that accompanied this realization. I knew that an actual pit had not opened in the center of my torso, but the impression was unnervingly realistic. I wondered if it was some long-forgotten human response that I’d never felt in my immortal life because I’d never had a reason to panic quite like this.
We needed to move. Though I knew the point was to give the tracker something to follow, I still wanted to have Bella long gone before he could
arrive.
“He’s not here,” I told Emmett. Alice already knew. “Let’s go.”
Alice and I slid silently from the Jeep, minds ranging through distance and time. Alice saw the tracker showing up while we were still inside. The sound of my teeth grinding seemed extra loud.
“Don’t worry, Bella,” Emmett was saying—in a voice I found much too upbeat—while he loosed her from the harness. “We’ll take care of things here quickly.”
“Alice,” I hissed.
She darted to the truck, then dropped to the ground and slid under the running boards. In a fraction of a second, she’d pulled herself against the undercarriage, totally invisible, even to a vampire.
“Emmett.”
He was already moving, scaling the tree in the front yard. His weight bent the pine noticeably, but he moved on quickly to the next tree over. He would keep moving while we were inside. This was a lot more obvious than Alice’s hidden spot, but he’d see anything coming and would be a solid deterrent, if nothing else.
Bella waited for me to open her door. She looked frozen in place with terror, the only movement the slow crawl of tears down her cheeks. She came to life when I reached for her, letting me help her gently from the car. I was surprised by how difficult it was to touch her now, knowing that I was going to leave her. The heat of her skin burned in a new, painful way. Ignoring this unfamiliar ache, I wrapped my arm around her, hoping my body would shield her, and hurried her to the house.
“Fifteen minutes,” I reminded her. It was too much time. I longed to be far away from this targeted place.
“I can do this,” she replied in a stronger voice than I expected. There was steel in the set of her jaw.
As we gained the porch, she pulled back against my forward progress. I stopped automatically, though my muscles screamed at the delay.
Her dark eyes were intense as she stared into mine. She reached up to press her palms against either side of my face.
“I love you,” she said, her voice a whisper that strained like a scream. “I will always love you, no matter what happens now.”
The pit in my stomach yawned open as if it would rip me in half.
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella,” I snarled.
“Just follow the plan, okay?” she insisted. “Keep Charlie safe for me. He’s not going to like me very much after this, and I want to have the chance to apologize later.”
I didn’t know what she meant. My brain was too chaotic with panic to try to decipher her obscure thought processes now.
“Get inside, Bella,” I urged. “We have to hurry.”
“One more thing—don’t listen to another word I say tonight!”
Before I could make any progress in understanding either cryptic request, Bella pushed up onto her toes and crushed her lips against mine with what might be bruising force—for her. More force than I would have ever dared to use with her myself.
Red washed across her cheeks and forehead as she spun away from me. Her tears, which had slowed for our brief and incomprehensible conversation, were flowing freely. I couldn’t fathom why she was raising one leg until she kicked violently against the front door—it flew open.
“Go away, Edward!” she screeched at top volume. Even over the sound of the TV, there was no way Charlie would miss a word.
She slammed the door shut in my face. “Bella?” Charlie called out, alarmed.
“Leave me alone!” she shrieked back. I heard her footsteps pound up the stairs, and another slamming door.
Obviously her frozen silence in the Jeep had not been terrified petrification, but rather preparation. She had a script. My role was to be invisible and silent, I guessed.
Charlie ran up the stairs after her, his footsteps lurching and unsteady. I imagined he was only halfway awake.
I scaled the side of the house, waiting beside her window to see if Charlie would follow her into the room. I couldn’t see Bella at first, which caused me a spasm of fresh panic, but then she was climbing to her feet beside her bed holding a duffel bag and some kind of small knitted sack.
Charlie’s fist hammered against her door. The doorknob rattled—she’d taken the time to lock it—and then the hammering started up again.
“Bella, are you okay? What’s going on?”
I slid the window open and ducked inside while Bella yelled, “I’m going home!” in response.
“Did he hurt you?” Charlie demanded through the door, and I winced while I ran to the dresser to help her pack. Charlie wasn’t wrong.
Despite that, Bella screamed, “NO!” She joined me at the dresser, seeming to expect to find me there. She held open the duffel bag and I tossed clothes into it, trying to get a variety of items. It wouldn’t help her blend in if she only had t-shirts.
The keys to her truck were on the dresser top. I pocketed them.
“Did he break up with you?” Charlie asked in a moderated tone. This question didn’t sting.
But Bella’s answer was a surprise.
“No!” she yelled again, though I thought maybe this—a breakup—was the easiest excuse. I wondered where the script would lead.
Charlie battered against the door again, the rhythm impatient. “What happened, Bella?”
She yanked futilely on the zipper of the now full duffel bag. “I broke up with him!” she shouted.
I moved her fingers out of the way and fastened the zipper, then weighed the bag in my hand. Was it too heavy for her? She reached for it, impatient, and I put the strap carefully over her shoulder.
I rested my forehead against hers for one precious second.
“I’ll be in the truck.” My whisper did nothing to hide the desperation in my voice. “Go!”
I urged her toward the door, then dove back out the window so I would be in place when she exited.
Emmett was on the ground, waiting for me. He jerked his chin toward the east.
I cast my mind in that direction, and sure enough, the tracker was little more than half a mile out.
The big one is playing watchman tonight. Patience.
So he’d seen Emmett in the trees, but he couldn’t see either of us now. Would he assume I was here, or would he be watching for an ambush? I wished we had Jasper with us now. If we could come at him from three sides…
Edward, Alice cautioned from her hiding place. She thought of the possibilities spinning off from my train of thought. The tracker was slippery. We would leave Bella vulnerable.
“What happened? I thought you liked him,” Charlie was demanding. He was back downstairs now.
I made a firm decision about what would happen next.
On it, Alice responded. She slithered out from under the truck and ducked into the Jeep. Once she had it in neutral, she pushed it silently out of the driveway, one hand on the doorframe, the other reaching up as high as she could to move the steering wheel with two fingers. I didn’t want the sudden roar of the Jeep’s engine to distract Charlie from Bella’s performance. It was better if he thought I was already gone.
Emmett watched Alice for half a second, then raised his eyebrows at me.
Do I help her?
I shook my head. Charlie, I mouthed back at him. Follow on foot.
He nodded, then leaped up into the tree, where he would be visible again. It would make the tracker keep his distance. He didn’t retreat, however, even when he caught sight of Emmett; he was fascinated with the scene playing out and confident he could outrun any sudden pursuit. It made me want to prove him wrong. But I couldn’t risk falling into a trap with Bella so near.
“I do like him,” Bella was explaining, her words muffled and breaking. She was crying freely now, and I knew that she wasn’t a good enough actress to fake these tears. The pain in her voice was palpable. The chasm in my stomach twisted in answering agony. She shouldn’t have to do this. She was paying for my mistake. My foolishness.
“That’s the problem,” she railed. “I can’t do this anymore! I can’t put down any more roots here! I don’t want to end up trapped in this stupid, boring town like Mom! I’m not going to make the same dumb mistake she did. I hate it—I can’t stay here another minute!”
Charlie’s mental response was deeper, more searing than I would have expected.
Bella’s weighed-down footsteps moved toward the front door. I climbed silently into the cab of her truck and shoved the key into place, then ducked down. Emmett was close to the front door of the house now, in the shadows. Still, the distance from the door to the truck seemed long. I concentrated on the tracker. He hadn’t moved, listening intently to the drama unfolding inside the house.
What would he hear? This much: Bella preparing to escape, to run. Not
planning to return in the near future.
He would know that Emmett had seen him. He would have to assume that Bella knew he could hear. Or would he?
“Bells, you can’t leave now,” Charlie said quietly, urgently. “It’s nighttime.”
“I’ll sleep in the truck if I get tired.”
Charlie imagined his daughter unconscious in the dark cab of the truck, on the side of a freeway in the middle of nowhere, while all around her, dark, amorphous shapes crept closer and closer. It wasn’t an entirely coherent nightmare, but my own panic, savage and irrational, echoed his own.
“Just wait another week,” he begged. “Renée will be back by then.”
Bella’s footsteps stuttered to a halt. There was a low sound—her shoe squeaking as she turned around to face him?
“What?”
I slid back out of the truck, and hesitated in the middle of the front yard. What would I do if his words confused her, delayed her? Did she realize the tracker was near?
“She called while you were out.” Charlie was tripping over his words, rushing to get them out. “Things aren’t going so well in Florida, and if Phil doesn’t get signed by the end of the week, they’re going back to Arizona. The assistant coach of the Sidewinders said they might have a spot for another shortstop.”
Charlie and I both waited, not breathing, for her response.
“I have a key,” she muttered, and her footsteps were now at the door.
The knob started to turn. I darted back to the truck.
Her words sounded like a weak excuse. The tracker would have to assume this was a story for Charlie and the opposite of the truth.
The door didn’t open.
“Just let me go, Charlie,” Bella said. I could tell she meant the words to sound angry, but the pain in her voice overwhelmed any other emotion.
The door swung open at last. Bella shoved through, Charlie right behind her, his hand outstretched. She seemed aware of that hand, cringing away from it.
I crouched against the floorboards, mostly invisible. I couldn’t help peeking out the window. Without turning to look at her father, Bella
growled, “It didn’t work out, okay?” She jumped off the porch, but Charlie was motionless now. “I really, really hate Forks!”
The words seemed simple enough, but crushing anguish speared Charlie through where he stood. His mind swirled, almost like vertigo. In his thoughts was another face, so much like Bella’s and also tearstained. But this woman’s eyes were pale blue.
It seemed Bella had scripted these words with care. Charlie stood, stunned and splintering, as Bella ran awkwardly across the small lawn, the heavy duffel compromising her balance.
“I’ll call you tomorrow!” she yelled back toward Charlie while she heaved the bulky bag into the bed of the truck.
He hadn’t recovered enough to respond.
I could no longer doubt that Bella understood the gravity of the situation. I knew she would never cause anyone this kind of pain, especially not her father, if there were any other way at all.
I’d put her in this hellish position.
Bella ran around the front of the truck. The quick, fearful glances she threw over her shoulder now were not for Charlie. She yanked the truck door open and jumped into the driver’s seat. She reached to turn the key as if knowing it would be waiting for her in the ignition. The engine’s roar shattered the silence of the night. This would be easy enough for the tracker to follow.
I reached out to brush the back of her hand, wishing I could comfort her, but knowing nothing could make this better.
As soon as she’d reversed out of the driveway, she dropped her right hand from the wheel so that I could hold it. The truck chugged down the street at its maximum speed. Charlie didn’t leave his post at the door, but the street curved and we were quickly out of view. I moved into the passenger seat.
“Pull over,” I suggested.
She blinked hard against the tears that streamed down her face and then splashed off the rain jacket she still wore. She passed Alice, without seeming to notice the Jeep on the side of the road. I wondered whether she could see at all.
Alice, still pushing the Jeep so the noisy engine wouldn’t alert Charlie, easily kept up with us.
“I can drive,” Bella insisted, but her words broke and dragged. She sounded exhausted.
She barely registered surprise when I pulled her gently over my lap and eased into the driver’s position. I kept her close beside me. She drooped there, wilting.
“You wouldn’t be able to find the house,” I said as my excuse, but she didn’t seem to be waiting for a reason. She didn’t care.
We were far enough from the house now (though I could still hear Charlie’s frozen thoughts, motionless in the doorway) that Alice jumped up into the Jeep and started the engine. When the headlights came on behind us, Bella stiffened and twisted to stare out the back window, heart thudding.
“It’s just Alice.” I took her left hand now and squeezed it. “The tracker?” she whispered.
He’s following now. Alice could hear Bella’s whisper easily over the grind of the engine. Emmett’s waiting till he’s clear of the house.
“He heard the end of your performance,” I told her. “Charlie?” Her voice strained raw.
Alice kept me updated. The tracker’s past the house. I don’t see him going back. Em’s catching up.
“The tracker followed us,” I assured Bella. “He’s running behind us now.”
This did not comfort her. Her breath caught and then she whispered, “Can we outrun him?”
“No,” I admitted. Not in this ridiculous truck.
Bella turned to watch out the window, though I was sure the Jeep’s headlights would blind her to everything else. Alice was watching all the futures related to Charlie that she could perceive. A human she’d never met was not the easiest subject for her. But it didn’t look as if the hunter or his apprehensive companion had any plans to return.
Emmett was running in the road close behind us now. I was surprised at his intentions. I would have expected he’d be itching to catch the tracker in pursuit, to bring this ordeal to a quick and violent end. Instead, his thoughts were focused on Bella. His few moments as bodyguard seemed to have affected him deeply. Her safety was his current priority.
Bella brought out everyone’s protective side.
Emmett was imagining the tracker watching; only Alice and I knew he
was carefully keeping his distance, just following the sound of the truck through the darkness. He wouldn’t put himself in closer range tonight. Still, Emmett wanted to make it clear that the tracker would have to go directly through him to get to Bella. He made a running leap that propelled him over the Jeep and into the bed of the truck. I fought with the steering as the truck reacted.
Bella shrieked, her voice rasping with the effort.
I covered her mouth, muffling the sound so she could hear me. “It’s Emmett,” I said.
She inhaled through her nose, slumping again. I freed her mouth and pulled her tight against my side. If felt as if every muscle in her body were trembling.
“It’s okay, Bella. You’re going to be safe,” I murmured. It didn’t feel like she’d even heard me speak. The tremors continued. Her breath came quick and shallow.
I tried to distract her. Speaking in my normal voice, as though there were no danger or terror, I said, “I didn’t realize you were still so bored with small-town life. It seemed like you were adjusting fairly well—especially recently. Maybe I was just flattering myself that I was making life more interesting for you.”
Perhaps it was not the most sensitive observation, considering how her escape had upset her, but it did pull her from her abstraction. She fidgeted, sitting up a little straighter.
“I wasn’t being nice,” she whispered, ignoring my frivolous words and going straight to the painful part. She stared down as if ashamed to meet my gaze. “That was the same thing my mom said when she left him. You could say I was hitting below the belt.”
I’d assumed it was something like that, given the image in Charlie’s head.
“Don’t worry, he’ll forgive you,” I promised.
She looked up at me earnestly, desperate to believe what I was saying. I tried to smile at her, but I couldn’t force my face to obey.
I tried again. “Bella, it’s going to be all right.”
She shuddered. “But it won’t be all right when I’m not with you.” Her words were barely more than a breath.
My arm flexed around her convulsively while the hole in my stomach
stretched wider. Because she was right. Everything would be wrong when she wasn’t with me. I didn’t quite know how I would function.
I forced my face smooth and made my voice as light as I could. “We’ll be together again in a few days.” As I said the words, I willed them to be true. They still felt like a lie. Alice saw so many different futures.… “Don’t forget,” I added, “this was your idea.”
She sniffed. “It was the best idea. Of course it was mine.” I attempted to smile again, then gave up.
“Why did this happen? Why me?” She whispered the questions flatly, as though they were rhetorical.
I answered anyway, my voice sharp-edged. “It’s my fault. I was a fool to expose you like that.”
She stared up at me, surprised. “That’s not what I meant.” What other reason could there be? Whose fault but my own?
“I was there,” she continued. “Big deal. It didn’t bother the other two. Why did this James decide to kill me?” She sniffled again. “There’re people all over the place, why me?”
It was a fair question, an astute question. And there were more answers than one. She deserved a full explanation.
“I got a good look at his mind tonight. I’m not sure if there’s anything I could have done to avoid this, once he saw you. It is partially your fault.” My voice twisted and I hoped she could hear the black humor in it, the irony. “If you didn’t smell so appallingly luscious, he might not have bothered. But when I defended you…” I remembered his incredulity, his indignation even, that I would stand in his way. The arrogance, the ire. “Well, that made it a lot worse. He’s not used to being thwarted, no matter how insignificant the object. He thinks of himself as a hunter and nothing else. His existence is consumed with tracking, and a challenge is all he asks of life. Suddenly we’ve presented him with a beautiful challenge—a large clan of strong fighters all bent on protecting the one vulnerable element. You wouldn’t believe how euphoric he is now. It’s his favorite game, and we’ve just made it his most exciting game ever.”
No matter how I analyzed it, there was no way around this. Once I’d taken her to the clearing, this was the only outcome. If I hadn’t opposed him, perhaps it wouldn’t have triggered his love of the game.
“But if I had stood by,” I muttered, mostly to myself, “he would have
killed you right then.”
“I thought…,” she whispered, “I didn’t smell the same to the others.” She hesitated. “As I do to you.”
“You don’t.” What she was to me, simply physically, was something more intense than I’d ever seen in any other immortal’s mind. “But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t still a temptation to every one of them. If you had appealed to the tracker, or any of them, the same way you appeal to me, it would have meant a fight right there.”
Her body shuddered against mine.
It would have been easier, though, I realized now, if it had come to a fight. I felt certain the frightened redhead would have run, and I doubted that Laurent would have stood with the tracker when it was an obviously losing prospect. Even if they’d all joined in, they could never have survived. Especially with Jasper launching a surprise attack from the midst of his smokescreen while all eyes were riveted on Emmett. I’d seen enough of his memories to believe that Jasper could probably have handled all three. Not that Emmett would have let him.
And if we were a normal coven (though we could never be considered normal at our size), we probably would have attacked just for the insult.
But we weren’t normal, we were civilized. We tried to live to a higher standard. A gentler, more peaceable standard. Because of our father.
Because of Carlisle, tonight we had hesitated. We had chosen the more humane route, because that was our habit, our way of life.
Did that make us… weaker?
I flinched at the thought, but then immediately decided that our choice was still the right one, even if it did make us weak. I could feel that. It resonated deeply in my mind, my being… or my soul, if such a thing existed. Whatever it was that drove this corporeal form.
It didn’t matter now. Alice might give us some power over the future, but the past was as lost for us as it was for anyone else. We had not attacked, and now we had the more complicated version still ahead. The coming fight could not be avoided.
“I don’t think I have any choice but to kill him now,” I murmured. “Carlisle won’t like it.”
But he would understand, I was sure. We’d given this tracker the option to walk away. He wasn’t going to take us up on the offer. There was only
kill or be killed now.
“How can you kill a vampire?” Bella’s voice was a whisper. I could still hear the sound of suppressed tears in it.
I should have anticipated the question.
She stared up at me with a different kind of fear than before, almost as though she was concerned the task would fall to her. Of course, I could never be sure with Bella.
I made no attempt to soften the realities. “The only way to be sure is to tear him to shreds, and then burn the pieces.”
“And the other two will fight with him?”
“The woman will.” If she could control her terror, that is. “I’m not sure about Laurent. They don’t have a very strong bond—he’s only with them for convenience. He was embarrassed by James in the meadow.” Not to mention that James had made plans to kill Laurent. Perhaps I’d tip him off; that was sure to shift alliances.
“But James and the woman—they’ll try to kill you?” she whispered, her voice distorted by pain.
And then I understood. Of course she was panicking about the wrong thing as usual.
“Bella, don’t you dare waste time worrying about me,” I hissed. “Your only concern is keeping yourself safe and—please, please—trying not to be reckless.”
She ignored that. “Is he still following?”
“Yes. He won’t attack the house, though. Not tonight.”
Not while we were together. Was our splitting up exactly what the tracker wanted? But I remembered what Alice saw happening if we tried to guard Bella here. I had no love for Mike Newton, but neither he nor anyone else in Forks was an acceptable sacrifice.
I turned off onto the drive, dully noting that there was no sense of relief in reaching my home. There was no space out of harm’s way while the tracker lived.
Emmett was still riled. I wished I could tell him the tracker’s location to ease his agitation, but I couldn’t risk being overheard. The tracker had guessed that we had extra abilities—it would only help him if we gave clues as to what they were.
I noticed his thoughts drifting to the edges of my hearing just as Alice
chimed in.
He meets the female now, on the other side of the river. They split up again and watch. She takes the mountainside; he takes the trees.
The extra distance didn’t make me feel any better.
Emmett’s overzealous bodyguard mindset was operating at full steam by this point. As we rolled up to the house, he leaped from the truck bed and paced to the passenger side. He wrenched the door open and reached for Bella.
“Gently,” I reminded him almost silently.
I know.
I could have stopped him. This wasn’t necessary. But then, was any precaution too much at this point? If I’d been more cautious, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
It did feel safer in a strange way to see Emmett, massive and indestructible, cradling Bella in his colossal arms—she was barely visible behind them. He ducked through the front door before a second had passed. Alice and I were at his sides instantly.
The rest of my family was gathered in the living room, all on their feet, and in the middle of their circle, Laurent.
His thoughts were frightened, apologetic. The fear was only heightened when Emmett set Bella carefully on her feet beside me and took a deliberate step forward, a bass growl building in his chest. Laurent took a quick half step back.
Carlisle gave Emmett a warning look, and he settled back on his heels. Esme stood close to Carlisle’s side, her eyes flashing from my face to Bella’s and then back again. Rosalie was also staring at Bella, glaring at Bella, but I ignored her as best I could. I had more important things to deal with.
I waited until Laurent’s eyes flickered to me.
“He’s tracking us,” I told him, prompting the thoughts I wanted to hear.
Of course he’s tracking the human. And he’ll find her. “I was afraid of that,” he said aloud.
I need to get out of the way, his thoughts continued. James can’t think I’ve chosen another side. The last thing I need is him looking for me afterward. Laurent suppressed a shudder. Perhaps I could tell him I’m just gathering info. His face, though, when he divided from us in the woods…
Better to disappear while he’s caught up in this hunt.
My teeth were grinding again. Laurent eyed me nervously.
He knew James well enough to understand the rupture he’d caused in the clearing. Though I felt no desire to do him favors, I knew he’d be grateful enough when James was dead.
“Come, my love,” I heard Alice whisper in Jasper’s ear. I hadn’t noticed him especially as we came in; he was still camouflaging himself. Jasper didn’t question Alice now, even in his thoughts. The two of them darted up the stairs hand in hand. Laurent didn’t bother to watch them leave, so effective was Jasper’s effort. I saw that Alice would write down the necessary information so Laurent could not overhear. It wouldn’t take her long to pack what they would need.
“What will he do?” Carlisle demanded of Laurent, though I could have answered as well.
“I’m sorry,” Laurent said with every sign of sincerity. Sorry I ever met those demons. I should have known better than to play with fire. Damned boredom made me foolish. “I was afraid, when your boy there defended her, that it would set him off.” Of course it would. He ensured James would never quit till they were both dead. It’s as if these strangers live in some other world. Or think they do. The real world is about to intrude on that fantasy.
“Can you stop him?” Carlisle pressed.
Ha! “Nothing stops James when he gets started.” “We’ll stop him,” Emmett growled.
Laurent eyed Emmett almost hopefully. If only it were possible. It would certainly make my life easier.
“You can’t bring him down,” Laurent warned. He seemed sure he was doing us a great favor by giving us this information. “I’ve never seen anything like him in my three hundred years. He’s absolutely lethal. That’s why I joined his coven.”
A few scattered memories of his adventures with James and Victoria ran through his head, though Victoria was always a background figure, on the fringes. James had kept Laurent’s life interesting, at least, but the sadism of these rampages had begun to bother Laurent in the last few years. By that point, there hadn’t been a safe way to disengage himself.
He wished he could feel optimistic now, but he’d seen James triumph
over impressive odds. His eyes turned to Bella, and all he saw was a human girl, one of billions, nothing to distinguish her from any of the others.
He didn’t think the words before he spoke them aloud. “Are you sure it’s worth it?”
The roar that ripped through my teeth was as loud as a detonation. Laurent immediately slid into a submissive posture, while Carlisle held his hand up.
Control, Edward. This one is not our enemy.
I worked to calm my fury. Carlisle was right, though Laurent was certainly not our friend, either.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to make a choice,” Carlisle said.
There aren’t many choices left to me, Laurent thought. I can only make myself scarce and hope James doesn’t think I’m worth the trouble. His mind ranged back over the slightly less fraught conversation they’d been having before our arrival and fastened on one piece of information. I’ve clearly burned my bridges with this company, but perhaps I could surround myself with other friends. Talented friends.
“I’m intrigued by the life you’ve created here.” He felt he was choosing his words very diplomatically, trying to make eye contact with each of us. My access to his inner monologue rather ruined the effect for me. “But I won’t get in the middle of this. I bear none of you any enmity, but I won’t go up against James. I think I will head north—to that clan in Denali.” He imagined five strangers like Carlisle, slow to attack, but with great numbers and talents among them. Perhaps that would give James pause.
A feeling of gratitude had Laurent turning to warn Carlisle again. “Don’t underestimate James. He’s got a brilliant mind and unparalleled senses. He’s every bit as comfortable in the human world as you seem to be, and he won’t come at you head-on.” A few of James’s convoluted ploys ran through his memory. The tracker had patience… and a sense of humor. A dark one.
“I’m sorry for what’s been unleashed here,” Laurent continued. “Truly sorry.”
He inclined his head, submissive again, but his eyes darted to Bella and away, his thoughts mystified by the risk we were taking for her sake. They don’t understand about James, he decided. They don’t believe me. I wonder how many of them he’ll leave alive.
Laurent thought us weak. He saw our apparent domesticity as a deficiency. I’d worried the same thing earlier, but not now. Weak was not the impression I planned to leave with James. But let Laurent believe James would win. He could hide in terror for the next century and I would not mourn his discomfort.
“Go in peace,” Carlisle said, both offer and command.
Laurent’s eyes swept through the room, appreciating a kind of life he’d left behind long ago. Though this was not a palace, and he’d lived in several, there was an atmosphere of permanence and sanctuary here that he’d not felt in centuries.
He nodded once at Carlisle, and for a brief moment, I felt a strange kind of yearning from the dark-haired vampire toward my father. A sense of respect and a desire to belong. But he quashed the emotion before it could take root, and then he was racing out the door, with no intention of slowing until he was safely in the ocean, his scent untraceable.
Esme dashed across the living room to start the steel shutters rolling down the huge windows that comprised the back wall of the house.
“How close?” Carlisle asked me.
Laurent was almost outside my range and not slowing. He had no desire to run into James on his way out. He’d hear nothing we said. I reached for James. Alice’s vision had given me the direction. It was far enough that he, too, would not be able to hear our plans.
“About three miles out past the river. The tracker is circling around to meet up with the female.”
He would join her on higher ground, where he could watch in which direction we ran.
“What’s the plan?” Carlisle asked.
Though I knew the tracker couldn’t hear, and the shutters were still groaning, I kept my voice low. “We’ll lead him off, and then Jasper and Alice will run her south.”
“And then?”
I knew what he was asking. I looked straight into his eyes as I answered. “As soon as Bella is clear, we hunt him.”
Though Carlisle knew this was coming, he still felt a flare of pain. “I guess there’s no other choice.”
Carlisle had been scrupulously protecting life for three centuries. He’d
always been able to find common ground with other vampires. This would not be easy for him, but he was no stranger to difficulty.
We needed to hurry, not to give the tracker any more time than necessary before we gave him a trail to chase. But there were practicalities we needed to address before we could run.
I caught Rose’s eye. “Get her upstairs and trade clothes.”
Confusing the scent was the obvious first step. I’d take something of Bella’s with me, too, and create a trail that would goad the tracker forward.
Rosalie knew this, but her eyes flashed with disbelief.
Don’t you see what she’s done to us? She’s ruined everything! And you want me to protect her?
She spit the rest of her answer aloud, resolved that Bella would hear it, too. “Why should I? What is she to me? Except a menace—a danger you’ve chosen to inflict on all of us!”
Bella jerked as if Rosalie had slapped her.
“Rose…,” Emmett murmured, putting one hand on her shoulder. She shook it off. Emmett’s eyes cut to me, half expecting me to spring at her.
But none of this mattered. Rose’s spoiled temper tantrums had always been irritating, but this petty flare-up was ill timed, and time was something I didn’t have enough of.
If she’d decided to cease being my sister tonight, that was her choice and I accepted it.
“Esme?” I knew what her response would be. “Of course!”
Esme understood the time limits. She lifted Bella carefully into her arms, much as Emmett had, though the effect was very different, and flew up the stairs with her.
“What are we doing?” I heard Bella ask from Esme’s office.
I left Esme to it, and focused on my part. The tracker and his wild partner had moved outside my range. They couldn’t hear us, but I was sure they could see us. They would see our vehicles leave. And they would follow.
What do we need? Carlisle asked.
“The satellite phones. The larger sports bag. Are the tanks full?”
I’ll do it. Emmett sprinted out the front door toward the garage. We always kept several gas drums ready for emergencies.
“The Jeep, the Mercedes, and her truck, too,” I whispered after him.
Got it.
We’re splitting into three? Carlisle was also wary of dividing our force. “Alice sees it’s the best way.”
He accepted that.
He’ll get hurt. He doesn’t think. He just rushes in. This is all her fault!
Rosalie was assailing me with a torrent of grievances. I found it easy to tune her out. Easy to pretend she wasn’t even there.
What’s my part? Carlisle wanted to know.
I hesitated. “Alice saw you with Emmett and me. But we can’t leave Esme alone to watch Charlie.…”
Carlisle turned to Rosalie with a stern expression. “Rosalie. Will you do your part for our family?”
“For Bella?” She sneered the name.
“Yes,” Carlisle responded. “For our family, as I said.”
Rosalie glared at him resentfully, but I could hear her pondering the options. If she protracted this fit, turned her back on all of us, then Carlisle would certainly stay here with Esme rather than be on the front line, keeping Emmett from dangerous excesses. Rosalie saw only the danger to Emmett. But part of her was growing nervous about my visible detachment.
She finally rolled her eyes. “Of course I won’t let Esme go alone. I
actually care about this family.”
“Thank you,” Carlisle responded—with more warmth than I would have bothered with—and then dashed out of the room.
Emmett was just coming through the front door with the large bag we kept some of our sports toys in slung over his shoulder. The bag was big enough to fit a small person. Bulky with equipment, it looked like there might already be someone inside it.
Alice appeared at the top of the stairs, just in time to meet Bella and Esme as they emerged from Esme’s office. Together, they lifted Bella by the elbows and rushed her down the stairs. Jasper followed. He was clearly on edge, tightly wound, his eyes roaming restlessly across the windows at the front of the house. I tried to use his savage appearance to calm myself. Jasper was more lethal than the thousands of vampires who’d tried to destroy him. Today he’d exhibited new skills I’d never imagined, and I was sure he had other tricks up his sleeve. The tracker had no idea what he was
up against. Bella would be safer with Jasper standing guard than anyone. And with Alice beside him, the tracker couldn’t take them by surprise. I tried to believe that.
Carlisle was already back with the phones. He gave Esme one, and then brushed her cheek. She looked up at him with total confidence. She was sure we were doing the right thing, and because of that, we would be successful. I wished I had her faith.
She handed me a wad of fabric. Socks. Bella’s scent was fresh and strong. I shoved them in my pocket.
Alice took the other phone from Carlisle.
“Esme and Rosalie will be taking your truck, Bella,” Carlisle told her, as if asking permission. It was so like him.
Bella nodded.
“Alice, Jasper—take the Mercedes. You’ll need the dark tint in the South.”
Jasper nodded. Alice already knew this.
“We’re taking the Jeep. Alice, will they take the bait?”
Alice concentrated, her hands clenched into fists. It wasn’t a simple process, looking for maneuvers that never actually came in contact with any of us, but she was tuning in to these new enemies. She’d get better with time. Hopefully we wouldn’t need that. Hopefully we would end this tomorrow.
I saw the tracker flying through the treetops, focused on the fleeing Jeep. The redhead keeping her distance, following the sound of Bella’s truck as it chugged north a few minutes later. There were only the smallest of variations.
By the time she relaxed her vigil, we were both positive.
“He’ll track you. The woman will follow the truck. We should be able to leave after that.”
Carlisle nodded. “Let’s go.”
I thought I was ready. The passing seconds were already pounding in my head like drumbeats. But I wasn’t.
Bella seemed so forlorn at Esme’s side, her eyes bewildered, as if she couldn’t process how everything had changed so quickly. Only an hour ago, we were perfectly happy. And now she was hunted, left to vampires she barely knew for her protection. She’d never looked so vulnerable as she did
standing there, alone in a room full of inhuman strangers.
Could a dead heart break?
I was at her side, my arms tight around her, pulling her off the ground. Her warmth in my arms was quicksand and I wanted to drown in it, to never pull free. I kissed her just once, worried that the plans would all crumble into chaos if I couldn’t make myself step away from her. Part of me didn’t care if every human life in Forks and La Push and Seattle were sacrificed to keep her by my side.
I had to be stronger than that. I would end this. I would make her safe again.
It felt as though all the cells in my body were dying off one by one as I set her back on her feet. My fingers lingered against her face, and then stung as I forced them free.
Stronger than this, I reminded myself. I had to shut down all this agony so I could do my job. Destroy the danger.
I turned away from her.
I’d thought I’d known what burning felt like.
Carlisle and Emmett fell into step beside me. I took the bag from Emmett. I knew what the tracker expected—that I would be too weak to let her out of my sight. I cradled the bag as though it contained something infinitely more precious than footballs and hockey sticks as I rushed down the front steps flanked by my brother and my father.
Emmett climbed into the backseat of the Jeep and I placed the bag upright beside him, then quickly slammed the door, trying to look stealthy about it. I was in the driver’s seat in a flash, Carlisle already beside me, and then we were jolting up the drive at a pace that would have horrified Bella if she’d actually been there with us.
I couldn’t think like that. I had to trust Alice and Jasper and keep my head focused on my part.
The tracker was still too far away for me to hear him. But I knew he was watching, following. I’d seen it in Alice’s head.
Turning north onto the freeway, I accelerated. The Jeep was a lot faster than the truck, but it wasn’t fast enough to get any headway, even at the maximum speed I could chance without risking the engine. But I didn’t want to outrun the tracker now. He would only see that I was pushing the Jeep hard, as though escape were truly the motive. I hoped he wouldn’t
realize I’d chosen the Jeep for just this purpose. He didn’t know what else I had in my garage.
For just a flicker, he was close enough to hear.
… take a ferry? It’s a long way around otherwise. I could cut through.…
“Make the call,” I said, barely moving my lips, though I knew he was too far behind us to see my face.
Carlisle didn’t bring the phone to his ear; he kept it by his thigh, out of sight, as he dialed one-handed. We all heard the quiet click as Esme picked up. She said nothing.
“Clear,” Carlisle whispered. He disconnected.
And I was disconnected, too. I had no way to see what she was doing now. No chance to hear her voice. I shoved the despair away from me before I could start wallowing.
I had a job to do.
