Thank you for your patience for me to get out Chapter One. I've been through some rough times in real life, but things are on the up and up! I will be going back and forth between Stricken and Space Bound so that my head is in the right place for when the changes come out. I've already shaken this chapter up a bit from the original novel, and I hope you don't mind my liberties. Comment below or PM me any questions, I'll try my best to answer them as new chapters are released.
x
Chapter One
Bella,
/ Several lines are crossed out with a sharpie pen /
Yeah, I miss you too. A lot. It doesn't change anything though, sorry.
Jacob
I ran my fingers across the page of the letter in my hands, feeling the dents in the paper where Jacob had pressed the pen so hard that it had nearly broken through. I could easily picture Jacob writing this – scrawling the angry letters in his rough handwriting, slashing through line after line when the words came out wrong, maybe even snapping the pen in his too-large hand. That would explain the various ink splatters. I could imagine the frustration pulling his black eyebrows together and crumpling his forehead. If I'd have been there, I might have laughed. Don't give yourself a brain hemorrhage, Jake, I would have told him. Just spit it out to me.
Laughing, however, was the last thing I felt like doing now. Re-reading the words I had already memorized. His answer to my pleading note – passed from Charlie to Billy to him, as he pointed out, like a second grader – was no surprise. I'd known the essence of what his note would say even before I unwrapped the paper.
What was surprising was how much each crossed-out line wounded me – as if the points of the letters had dangerously sharp edges. More than that, behind each angry beginning lurked the vast pool of hurt that Jacob felt. His pain cut me deeper than my own, and I found myself stalled for breathing.
While I was pondering this, I caught the unmistakable scent of a smoking burner rising from the kitchen. In another house, the fact that someone besides myself was cooking might not be a cause for panic.
For me, it was.
I shoved the wrinkled paper into my back pocket and ran – making it downstairs in the nick of time.
The jar of spaghetti sauce Charlie had stuck in the microwave was only on its first revolution when I yanked the door open and pulled it out with paper towels covering my hands.
"What?" Charlie demanded.
"You're supposed to take the -lid- off first, Dad! Metal can't go in the microwave!" I swiftly removed the lid as I spoke, pouring the sauce in a bowl to insert that into the microwave instead. Watching his slightly embarrassed eyes, I fixed the time on the microwave and hit the start button with a little too much pressure than needed to illustrate my frustration. Paper towels dumped in the trash.
Charlie watched my adjustments with pursed lips. "Hrm, did I make the noodles right?..."
Glancing at the pan on the stove, I found the source of the smell that had alerted me of danger and grimaced. "Stirring helps, Dad," I said mildly. Finding a spoon, I tried to separate the mushy hunk that was stuck against the bottom of the pan.
Charlie sighed.
"So, what's this all about?" I asked him.
He folded his arms across his chest and glared out the back windows into the sheeting rain. "'All about' what?" he grumbled.
I was mystified. Charlie...cooking? What was with the surly attitude about it? Edythe wasn't here yet, and usually my dad reserved this kind of behavior for my girlfriend's benefit in the form of subtle little comments that snuck out from time to time. Not that the display was necessary, Edythe could hear everything he said in his head.
The word 'girlfriend' had me chewing on the inside of my cheek with a familiar tension while I kept stirring the poor noodles. It wasn't the right word to me, not at all. I needed something more expressive of 'eternal commitment' but words like 'destiny' and 'fate' sounded like hokum when you used them in casual conversation.
Edythe had another word in mind, and that word was the source of the tension I felt. It put my teeth on edge just to think about it privately to myself.
'Fiancee'. Ugh. I shuddered away from the thought.
"Did I miss something, Dad? Since when do you ever cook?" I asked Charlie. The pasta lump bobbed in the boiling water as I poked it. "Or try to cook, I should say."
Charlie shrugged. "Ain't no law that says I can't cook in my own house."
"Well, you would know," I replied playfully, grinning as I eyed the badge still pinned to Charlie's leather jacket.
"Ha, good one." He shrugged out of the jacket, as if my glance reminded him that he still had it on, and hung it up on the peg reserved for his work coat. His gun belt was already slung in place – he hadn't felt the need to wear that to the station for a few weeks. There had been no more disturbing disappearances to trouble the small town of Forks, Washington. No more sightings of the giant, mysterious, wolves in the ever-rainy woods…
I prodded the noodles in silent wonder, guessing that Charlie would get around to talking about whatever was bothering him in his own time. My dad was not a man of many words, and the effort he had put into trying to orchestrate a sit-down dinner with me made it clear that there were an uncharacteristic number of words on his mind.
Glancing at the clock out of habit – something I did every few minutes around this time, I realized there was less than a half hour to go now.
Afternoons were the hardest part of my days. Ever since my former best friend and werewolf, Jacob Black, had tattled on me about the motorcycle I'd been riding on the sly – Edythe was only allowed to see me from seven to nine-thirty pm, always under the confines of my home and under the supervision of my dad's unfailingly poor efforts to mask a crabby glare.
This was an escalation from the previous, slightly less stringent grounding, that I'd earned for a poorly-explained three-day disappearance and one episode of cliff-diving.
Of course, I still saw Edythe every rainy day at school, because there wasn't anything that Charlie could do about that. Edythe also spent almost every night in my room, without my father's knowledge, as her ability to climb silently through my second story window was almost as as on par as her ability to read thoughts of others.
Though the afternoon was the only time I spent away from Edythe, it was enough to make me restless, and the hours dragged on and on. Still, I endured my punishment without complaining. For one thing, I knew I earned it. For another, I couldn't bear to hurt my dad by moving out now when a much more permanent separation hovered – invisible to Charlie – so close on the horizon.
My dad sat down at the table with a grunt and unfolded the damp newspaper in front of him; within seconds he was clicking his tongue in disapproval at something he was perusing through.
"I don't know why you read the news, Dad, it only ticks you off."
He ignored me, grumbling at the paper in his hands. He sighed, slowly, before he spoke. "This is why people want to live in a small town..."
"Hm?"
"Seattle's making a run for murder capital of the country. Five unsolved homicides in the last two weeks. Can you imagine living like that?"
"I think Phoenix is actually higher up on the homicide list, Dad, and I was just fine there," I said aloud, deciding not to count my brush with death in a ballet studio. Which had happened in Phoenix. Reminded that I was still being hunted and wanted dead, the spoon shook in my hands. The water trembled as I stirred.
"Well, you couldn't pay me enough to work there," Charlie said.
I gave up on saving dinner and settled for serving it. Using a steak knife to cut a portion of spaghetti for Charlie and then myself, my father stared at me sheepishly as I coated his helping with sauce and then my own. He dug in without a word necessary, and I followed suit without much enthusiasm. Eating in silence as we both pondered our private thoughts. Me, avoiding the 'F' word, and him...he was still reading the paper.
I was just about to grab my old and abused copy of Wuthering Heights when my father threw the paper on the floor.
"You're right, Bells," Charlie said. "I did have a reason for doing this." He waved his fork at the gluey spread in front of us. "I wanted to...talk to you."
Laying the book aside, the binding so destroyed that it slumped flat on the table, I pushed it away as gently as I could; turning to look at him. "You could have just asked to talk, you know."
He nodded; his eyebrows knotting together uncomfortably. "Yeah, I'll remember that...next time..."
I laughed. "So, what is it you need, Dad?"
"Well, it's about Jacob."
I felt my face harden uncomfortably. "What about him?" I asked through stiffened lips.
Charlie's face was suddenly wary. "Don't get mad at me, alright?"
"Mad?"
"Well, it's about Edythe, too."
My eyes narrowed a little.
Charlie's voice became more gruff, if that was possible. "Now, I let her into the house, now, don't I?"
"You do," I admitted to him, unable to deny that fact. "And I've been pretty good lately, mind you."
"Well, that's kind of where I was heading with this..." Charlie said, before his face stretched into an unexpectedly eye-crinkling grin. For a split second, he looked twenty years younger.
I saw a dim glimmer of possibility in that smile; but, I proceeded slowly. "I'm confused, Dad. Are we talking about Jacob, Edythe, or me being grounded?"
The grin flashed again. "Sort of all three."
"Alright, what's up?"
He sighed, raising his hands in mock surrender. "I'm thinking that maybe you deserve a parole for good behavior. For a teenager, you're amazingly non-whiny."
My voice and eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? I'm not grounded anymore?"
Where was this coming from? I'd been positive that I would be under house arrest until I actually moved out, and Edythe hadn't picked up any wavering in Charlie's thoughts when I poked her brain recently.
Charlie held up one finger. "On one condition."
My enthusiasm vanished. "What's the condition?"
"Bella, this is really more of a 'request' than a demand..." He paused, exhaling out. "You're free, but I'm hoping that you'll use your newfound freedom to visit...some of your other friends."
"Sure, Dad," I said, furrowing my brow in curiosity at my father. "But it seems like there's more to it than that."
Charlie sighed again. "I know you'll be satisfied to spend all your time with Edythe-"
"I spend time with Alice, too," I interjected. Edythe's sister had no hours of 'visitation'. She came and went as she pleased. Charlie was basically putty in her small, capable, hands.
"Of course, there's Alice," he said. "But you have other friends besides the Cullens, Bella. Or, you used to."
We stared at each other for a long moment.
"When was the last time you talked to Angela?"
"Friday, at lunch," I answered immediately.
Before Edythe's return, my school friends had been polarized into two groups. I like to think of those groups as 'good' vs. 'evil'. Us and them worked, too. The good guys were Angela, her steady boyfriend Ben Cheney, and Mike Newton – these three had all very generously forgiven me for going crazy when Edythe left. Lauren Mallory was the evil core on the 'them' side, and almost everyone else – including my first friend in Forks, Jessica Stanley, seemed content to go alone with her anti-Bella agenda. Which was almost funny, considering that Jessica thought we went on a date last year. Maybe she was embarrassed too much to be my friend anymore.
With Edythe back in school, the dividing line had become even more distant.
Edythe's return had taken a toll on Mike's friendship of course, but Angela was unswerving loyal, and Ben followed her lead. Despite the natural aversion that most humans felt toward the Cullens, Angela sat dutifully beside Alice every day at lunch. After a few weeks, Angela even seemed comfortable there. It was difficult not to be charmed by the Cullens – once one gave them the chance to be charming.
"Outside of school?" Charlie asked, calling my attention back to the present moment.
I laughed lightly at him. "Dad, I've been grounded. Plus, Angela has a boyfriend. She's always out with Ben these days. If I'm really free," I added, heavy on the skepticism, "maybe Edythe and I could take them out on a double date?"
My father paled over. Paled white, then reddened. "Well, what about Jake, then? You guys used to be joined at the hip, and now-"
I interrupted him on purpose. "-he doesn't answer my calls, Dad. What is your point?"
"I don't think you should dump all your other friends for your…for...Edythe, Bella." he said in a stern voice. "I think your life would be better balanced if you kept some other people in it, is all. What happened last September..."
I flinched, paling over.
"Well," Charlie said defensively. "If you had more of a life outside of Edythe, it might not have been like that."
"Maybe, maybe not. What's the point?"
"Use your freedom to go visit your other friends too. Keep it balanced."
I nodded slowly. "Balance is good. How often do you want me to see my friends each week?"
He made a face; but, shook his head. "Let's not make this complicated. Just don't forget your other friends."
It was a dilemma I was already struggling with. My friends. People who, for their own safety, I would never be able to see again after graduation.
So what was the better course of action? Spend time with them while I could? Or start the separation now to make it more gradual? I quailed at the idea of the second option. Charlie kept talking while my thoughts had wandered.
"...particularly, Jacob," He added before I could think things through more deeply than I had thus far.
A greater dilemma struck me than the previous one. It took me a moment to find the right words. "I'm trying, Dad...Jacob..."
"The Blacks are practically family, Bella," he said, stern and fatherly again. "And Jacob has been a very good friend for you."
"I know, Dad."
"Don't you miss him at all?" Charlie asked, his tone frustrated.
"Of course, I do." My throat suddenly felt knotted up and swollen; I had to clear it twice before I could add anything to that. "I miss him a lot," I said, still looking down at the table.
"Then why don't you drive down to see him?"
It wasn't something I was at liberty to explain. It was against the rules for normal people – human people like me and Charlie – to know about the clandestine world full of myths and monsters that secretly existed around us. I knew all about that world – and I was in no small amount of trouble as a result. I wasn't about to get Charlie into the same sort of trouble.
"With Jacob, there's a...conflict," I said slowly. "I don't think friendship is enough for Jake." I said, winding my reason out of details that were true – but hardly significant as to the main reason. Jacob's pack hated Edythe's vampire family – and therefore me, as well, as I fully intended to join that family soon. It wasn't something I could work out with Jacob in a note, and he wouldn't answer my phone calls. But my plan to deal with the werewolves in person had not gone over well with my soon-to-be vampire family. Edythe, especially, was entirely against it.
"What? Isn't Edythe up for a little healthy competition?" Charlie's voice was playful now, and I scowled at him.
"You know there's no competition," I chided.
"Still, Jake is suffering, Bells. Avoiding him like this, I'm sure he'd rather just be friends than nothing at all."
Oh, so now I was avoiding him.
"Dad, Jacob doesn't answer any of my calls. Why do you think -I'm- avoiding -him-?"
Charlie looked a mite embarrassed now. "The subject...might have come up with Billy..."
"Gosh, you and Billy gossip like little old ladies," I complained, stabbing my fork viciously into the congealed spaghetti on my plate. Not taking a bite, as it was more something to toy with than something to eat anymore.
"Billy's worried about Jacob," Charlie said, "Jake's having a hard time now...he's very depressed."
I winched, but kept my eyes on the blob haunting my plate.
"And then you were always so happy after spending the day with Jake," Charlie sighed.
I sighed, too. "I'll keep trying, Dad, but I can't make Jake answer the phone."
"Good, find that balance, Bella. Oh, and, yeah, you've got some mail," Charlie said, closing the subject with no attempt at subtlety. "It's by the stove."
Leaving the congealed grunge on my plate, I sighed as I considered what to do about Jacob and the mail Dad informed me of. I already got a package from mom, so it had to be some kind of Junk Mail. I wasn't expecting anything else, and it wasn't like I was popular enough to receive letters or postcards from anyone else.
Charlie shoved his chair away from the table and stretched as he stood to his feet. Taking his plate to the sink, he turned to grab the envelope and toss it at me before he rinsed his plate free. I was a little surprised he ate the whole spaghetti goop, but that would bother me another time. The letter almost stabbed me in the elbow from my fumbling to catch it.
"Er, thanks," I muttered, a little puzzled at his instance for me to read it now. Then I saw the return address – the letter was from the University of Alaska Southeast. "Oh wow, that was quick. I guess I missed the deadline on that one, too."
Charlie chuckled.
I flipped the envelope over and then glared up at my father. "Dad, it's open..."
"I was curious."
"I'm shocked, Sheriff. That's a federal crime," I teased.
"Oh, just read it."
I pulled out the letter, and saw a folded schedule of courses.
"Congratulations!" he said before I could read a single word on the paper. "Your first college acceptance."
"Wow, thanks, Dad."
"We should talk about tuition, I've got some money saved up-"
"H-Hey, hey, none of that. I'm not touching your retirement, Dad. I've got my college fund." What was left of it – and there hadn't been much to begin with.
"I'm not – that – old, Bells. Some of these places are pretty pricey. I just want to help, you don't have to go all the way to Alaska just because it's cheaper than other colleges."
It wasn't cheaper, not at all. But it was far away, and Juneau had an average of three hundred and twenty-one overcast days per year. The first was my prerequisite, the second was Edythe's.
"I have it covered, dad, Besides – there's a lot of financial aid out there. It's easy to get loans these days for just about anything, even eye color." I hoped my bluff wasn't too obvious. I hadn't actually done a lot of research on the subject.
"So..." Charlie began, and then he pursed his lips and glanced away from me.
"So, what?"
"Nothing. I was just...wondering" he frowned "what Edythe's plans are for next year?"
"Oh."
"Well?"
Three quick raps on the door saved me. Charlie rolled his eyes as I jumped like a bunny towards the first door.
"Coming!" I called while Charlie mumbled something that I couldn't hear under his breath. I ignored him and went to let Edythe inside.
Wrenching the door out of my way – ridiculously eager to see her – she stood regally before me. My personal miracle.
Time had not made me immune to the perfection of her glorious face, and I was sure that I would never take any aspect of her for granted. My eyes traced over her pale white features, the hard square of her jaw, the softer curve of her full lips – twisted up into a smile now. The straight line of her nose, the sharp angle of her high cheekbones, the smooth marble span of her forehead – partially obscured by a tangle of rain-darkened golden-bronze hair.
I saved her eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to be obliterated from my train of thought. They were wide and warm with liquid gold; framed by the thick fringe of her long black lashes. Staring into her eyes always made me feel so eerily extraordinary. As though my bones were weightless. Lightheaded from the mere sight of her, forgetting to breathe yet again, I froze like a deer in headlights.
She was a face that any man or woman would trade their soul to have, and that was exactly the asking price for me. One soul. Not that I believed in all of that. I felt guilty even for thinking of it, and was glad that Edythe couldn't read my mind.
I reached out for her hand, and sighed like the first breath of life when her cold and lithe fingers found mine. Her touch brought with it the strangest sense of relief – as if I'd been in pain and that pain had suddenly vanished.
"Hey," I smiled a little at my anticlimactic greeting.
She raised our interlaced fingers to brush my cheek with the back of her hand. "How was your afternoon?"
"Slow."
"For me, as well."
She pulled my wrist up to her face, our hands still twisted together. Her eyes closed as her perfect nose gingerly skimmed along the skin she found there. She smiled gently without opening her eyes, enjoying the bouquet while resisting the wine, as she'd once put it.
I knew that the scent of my blood – so much richer to him than any other person's blood, truly like a drug to an addict, caused her actual pain from the burning thirst it engendered. But she didn't seem to shy away from me as much as she once had. I could only dimply imagine the Herculean efforts behind even this simple gesture of touch.
Sadness welled up within me that she had to try so hard just to stand near me. I comforted myself in the knowledge that I wouldn't be causing her this pain for much longer, but the sadness still reigned under my skin.
Hearing Charlie approaching then, stamping his feet on the way to express his customary greeting to the usual guest, Edythe's eyes snapped open and she let our hands fell; keeping them intertwined.
"Good evening, Charlie," Edythe was always flawlessly polite.
"Evening," Charlie grunted at her, and then stood there with his arms crossed mildly over his chest. He was taking the idea of 'parental supervision' to extremes lately.
"I brought another set of applications," Edythe told us, then. Holding up a stuffed manila envelope. She was wearing a roll of stamps like a ring around her smallest finger.
I groaned. How were there any colleges left that she hadn't forced me to apply to already? How did she keep finding these loophole openings, anyway? It was so late in the year.
She smiled as if she could read my thoughts, and I figured they must have been painfully obvious on my face. "There are still a few open deadlines. And a few places willing to make exceptions."
I could just imagine the motivations behind such exceptions, and the dollar amounts involved. It made my head spin to think about them.
Edythe laughed warmly at my expression.
"Shall we, then?" she asked, towing me toward the kitchen table.
Charlie huffed and followed behind, though he could hardly complain about tonight's chosen activity. He'd been pestering me to make a decision about college on a daily basis.
I was about to clear the table when Edythe took my plate and suspiciously moved it around in front of her face. With embarrassment on my face, I could tell that Edythe was about to ask about it, but Charlie spoke first.
"Speaking of College applications, Edythe," Charlie said, his tone more sullen. "Bella and I were just talking about next year. Have you decided where you're going to school?"
Edythe smiled warmly at Charlie, her voice friendly and obliging. "Not yet, though I have received a few acceptance letters. Still weighing my options for the final decision."
"Where have you been accepted?" Charlie pressed.
"Syracuse, Harvard, Dartmouth...and I just got accepted to the University of Alaska Southeast today." Edythe turned her face slightly to the side to wink at me, and I stifled a giggle.
"Harvard? Dartmouth?" Charlie mumbled, unable to conceal his awe. "Well, that's pretty...well, that's certainly something. Surely your father would rather you go to an Ivy League than the University of Alaska?" Charlie mentioned, and I could tell the idea of us going to the same college made him very nervous of my lifestyle choices.
"Father's always fine with whatever school I choose, except community college," Edythe told him serenely.
"Hmmph," he said, trying to laugh for my sake, but I could tell that Charlie was worried.
"Guess what, Edythe?" I asked in a bright voice, playing along.
"What, Bella?"
I walked over to grab the envelope on the counter where I'd left it. "I just got my acceptance letter to the University of Alaska!"
I held it out to her, but she didn't take it until after she dumped the congealed spaghetti into the trash, rinsed the plate, and dried her hands to open it. Peering inside, her face seemed to be glowing at me.
"Congratulations!" she grinned boyishly. "My, what a coincidence."
Charlie's eyes narrowed with concern as he looked between the two of us. As though unable to accept the truth, but unable to look away from it also, he sighed. "I'm going to go watch the game, Bella."
"Okay, Dad."
"Remember, nine-thirty."
I cleared my throat before Charlie could walk away. "Um, Dad. Remember the veryyy recent discussion about my 'freedom'?"
He sighed. "Right, okay, ten-thirty. You still have a curfew on school nights."
"Bella's no longer grounded?" Edythe asked. Though I knew she wasn't 'really' surprised, I couldn't detect any false note of sudden surprise to her voice.
"Conditionally," Charlie corrected as he turned back around.
"Alice will be thrilled! She's been itching to go shopping with Bella, and I'm sure some city lights would do us some good." She smiled to me.
Charlie instantly growled, "No!" and his face almost flushed purple.
"Woah – Dad, what's the problem with shopping?"
Charlie made an effort to release his teeth from clenching, with little success. "I just don't want you going to Seattle right now. I'd rather none of you went to Seattle."
"Why?"
"I just told you, Bells. The story in the paper – there's some kind of gang on a killing spree in Seattle and I want you to steer clear, okay?"
I rolled my eyes. "There's a better chance that I'll get struck by lightning then that happening-"
"Of course, Charlie," Edythe interrupted me. "I wasn't meaning Seattle though, there's a store Alice just loves in Portland, actually. I wouldn't want Bella in Seattle, either, Mr. Swan. My father's been keeping up on the news as well."
I looked at Edythe in disbelief, but she had Charlie's newspapers in her hands and she was reading the front page intently, to double check her facts.
She must have been trying to appease my father. The idea of being in danger from even the most deadly of humans while I was with Alice of Edythe was downright hilarious. What could a human do against a vampire?
It worked, and Charlie seemed to relax as he stared at Edythe a second more. "Oh, well, alright then." He stalked off toward the living room, in a bit of a hurry now – perhaps afraid he would miss the tip-off.
I waited until I heard the TV turn on, so Charlie wouldn't hear me, before I moved closer to Edythe. "What is it?" I started to ask.
"Hold on, Bella," Edythe said without looking up from the paper. Her eyes stayed focused on the page as she pushed the first application toward me across the table. "I think you can recycle your essays for this one. Same questions."
Charlie must be listening in, I presumed to myself. Sighing, I started to fill out the repetitive information: name, address, social...After a few minutes, I glanced up, but Edythe was now staring pensively out the window. As I bent my head back to my work, I noticed for the first time the name of the school.
I snorted and shoved the papers aside.
"Bella?" Edythe asked with some confusion.
"Be serious, Edythe. Dartmouth?"
Edythe lifted the discarded application and laid it gently in front of me again. Even dusting it off with her graceful hand. "I think you'd like New Hampshire," she said. "There's a full course of night classes for me, and the forests are – conveniently located – for an avid hiker. Plentiful wildlife." She pulled out the crooked smile she knew full well that I couldn't resist.
I took a deep breath through my nose.
"I'll even let you pay me back for the tuition, if that eases you," she promised. "In fact, if you wish it, I can charge you 'interest'."
"As if I can even get in this school without some enormous 'bribe'. Or is that a part of the loan? The new Cullen wing of the library?" I sighed. "Ugh, why are we having this discussion again?"
"Please fill out the application, Bella. It won't hurt you to apply to more places."
My jaw flexed, and stubbornly I pushed that application away. "Hmm, I don't think I will."
I reached further for the other papers, planning to crumple them into a suitable shape for lobbing at the trash-can; but, they were already gone. I stared at the empty table for a moment in confusion before I glanced back to Edythe. The applications were probably already tucked away in her jacket.
"What are you doing with those?"
"You realize I can sign your name better than you do, yourself. You've already written the essays, I'll sign them for you."
"You're going way overboard with this, Edythe." I whispered on the off chance that Charlie wasn't completely lost in his game. "I really don't need to apply anywhere else – I've been accepted to Alaska. I can almost afford the first semester's tuition. It's as good an alibi as any. There's no need to throw away a bunch of money on this charade..."
A pain look tightened her facial features. "Bella, please-"
"Don't start. I agreed to go through the motions for Charlie's sake, but we both know I'm not going to be in any condition to go to school next fall. To be anywhere near people."
My knowledge of those first few years as a new vampire was sketchy. Edythe had never gone into great detail – it wasn't her favorite subject after all – but I knew it would be immensely difficult. Self-control was apparently an acquired skill. Anything more than correspondence school was out of the question.
"I thought the timing was still undecided," Edythe reminded me gently. "You might enjoy a semester or two of college. There are plenty of human experiences you've never had."
"I'll always be able to get those after, Edythe."
She whispered closer to me. "They won't be human experiences afterward, Bella. You don't get a second chance at humanity."
The concern on her face did effect me, and I sighed softly. "You've got to be reasonable about the timing, Edythe. It's just too dangerous to mess around with."
"There's no danger, yet," she insisted.
I could only glare at her. No danger? That was comical. I only had a sadistic vampire after me, trying to avenge her mate's death with my own – preferably through some slow and torturous method. Oh and a royal vampire family with a small army of vampire warriors who insisted that my heart stop beating one way or another in the near future, because humans weren't allowed to know they existed. Right, no reason to panic at all.
Even with Alice keeping watch on the future, it was insane to take unnecessary chances. Besides, I'd already won this argument. The date for my transformation was tentatively set for shortly after my graduation from high school, only a handful of weeks away.
A sharp jolt of unease pierced my stomach as I realized how short of a time that really was. Of course, this change was necessary – and the key to what I wanted more than anything else in the world put together – but I was deeply conscious of Charlie sitting in the other room enjoying the game. Just like every other night. My mother, Renee, far away in sunny Florida, still pleading with me to spend the summer on the beach with her and her husband Phil. My thoughts also ran to Jacob, who, unlike my parents, would know exactly what was going on when I disappeared to some distant school. Even if my parent's didn't grow suspicious of the long time, even if I could put of visits with excuses about travel expenses, study loads, or illnesses, Jacob would always know the truth.
For a moment, the idea of Jacob's certain revulsion overshadowed every other pain I felt.
"Bella," Edythe murmured, her face twisting when she read the distress in my features. "There's no hurry, I won't let anyone harm you. You can take all the time you need before..."
"I don't want to wait," I whispered, smiling weakly at her perfect face. "I want to be with you, forever."
Her teeth clenched as she watched me, so much so that she had to speak through them. "You don't know what you're asking for," she said. Abruptly, she flung the semi-damp newspaper onto the table between us. Her finger pressed against the headline on the front page:
DEATH TOLL ON THE RISE, POLICE FEAR GANG ACTIVITY
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Think about it, Bella," she ushered gently as I watched the headline.
I stared at the paper, taking it in, before I looked to her hard expression toward me. "Wait...a vampire is doing this?" I whispered.
She smiled without any humor to the gesture. Her voice low and cold when she spoke. "You'd be surprised how much damage a new vampire can do, Bella, at how often our kind are the source behind the horrors you see in the papers. It's easy to recognize, when you know what to look for. The information here indicates that it's very likely that a newborn vampire is loose in Seattle. Bloodthirsty, wild, out of control. The way we all were."
Glancing back down to the paper, I felt my face crumble from the pain I felt stinging inside me.
"We've been monitoring this situation for a few weeks. All the signs are there – the unlikely disappearances, always in the night, the poorly disposed-of corpses, the lack of other evidence… Yes, someone brand-new to our life. No one seems to be taking responsibility for the neophyte." She took a deep breath. "Well, it is not our problem. We wouldn't even pay close attention to the situation if this wasn't going on so close to here. This happens all the time, unfortunately. The existence of monsters results in...monstrous consequences."
I tried not to see the names of the victims on the page; but, they jumped out from the rest of the print like they were printed in bold letters. The five people whose lives were now over, whose families were mourning now. It was different from considering murder in the abstract when you read their names. Maureen Gardiner, Geoffrey Campbell, Grace Razi, Michelle O'Connell, Ronald Albrook. People who'd had parents and children, friends and pets, jobs, hopes, plans, memories and futures…
"It won't be like that for me, I have you all to help me..." I whispered, half to myself. "You won't let me lose control like that, and we'll live up in Antarctica if we need to."
Edythe snorted in derision, raising an eyebrow at me. "Ah, breakfast with the penguins. How lovely."
I laughed a shaking laugh as I knocked the paper off of the table so that I wouldn't have to look at those names any longer. It hit the linoleum with a quiet thud. Of course Edythe would consider the hunting possibilities. She and her 'alternative' family were committed to the preservation of human lives. They preferred the flavor of large predators for satisfying their dietary needs. "Alaska, then, as we planned. Only...maybe somewhere more remote than Juneau – somewhere with lots of Grizzlies."
"Better," Edythe allowed with a little smile. "There are polar bears there, though. Very fierce, and the wolves grow to be quite large up th-"
My mouth fell open and my breath blew out in a sharp gust.
"Bella? Darling, forgive me," Edythe near pleaded, moving to me to wrap her arms around me and hold me to her chest. "No wolves, then, never wolves." She whispered, pressing her lips to my forehead. I breathed in the smell of her sweet breath, and I was breathless for a whole different reason.
"It's alright...I know you didn't mean to bring it up that way..." I paused. "He was my best friend, Edythe," I muttered. It stung me deeply to have to refer to Jacob in the past tense.
"It was thoughtless of me, I shouldn't have suggested that to you right now. We would never..."
I leaned up, touching her lips gently with my fingers. "It's alright, I know you wouldn't hurt Jacob or his pack unless you had to."
We were both silent for a moment, and then her cool finger was under my chin, coaxing my face up to look at her. Her expression was soft, serene, and apologetic in nature.
"I-I know it's not the same thing, Edythe. It's just that, well...I was already thinking about Jacob this afternoon." I paused, hesitating. Her tawny eyes seemed to always get a little hint darker whenever Jacob was mentioned in conversation. My voice became oddly pleading as I spoke. "Charlie says Jake is having a hard time, he's really hurting right now...and it's all my fault."
Edythe shook her head enough that tendrils of her golden-bronze hair tickled against my face. "No, no, you've done nothing wrong."
I took a deep breath. "Regardless of who is wrong, I need to make this right, Edythe. I owe him that, and it was one of the conditions for me not being grounded anymore."
Her face changed while I spoke, turning hard again, a statue gazing down at me.
"I want to help heal this, too, Bella, but it's out of the question for you to be around a werewolf unprotected. If I went there with you, I would break the treaty by crossing into their land. Do you want us to start a war?"
"N-No! Of course not."
"Then there is no point in discussing this matter further, right now," she said, dropping her hand before she looked away. I could tell she was searching for a subject change, and her eyes paused on something behind me, and she smiled – though her eyes remained wary.
"I am glad that Charlie has decided to go easy on you – you're sadly in need of a bookstore. I can't believe you're reading Wuthering Heights again. I find it hard to believe that you don't know the book by heart yet."
"Well, not all of us have photographic memory," I said curtly.
"Photographic memory or not, I don't understand how you enjoy that story. The characters are ghastly people who ruin each other's lives. I don't know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like say, Romeo and Juliet, or Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. It is not a love story, it's a story of hatred."
"I see my tastes pick a bone with you," I playfully snapped.
"Perhaps I am simply not impressed by antiquity." She smiled, evidently satisfied that she'd distracted me. "It does give me pause why you love that book, so." Her eyes were vivid with genuine interest now, trying to unravel the convoluted workings of my mind. She reached around to cradle my face in her hands again. "What is it about Wuthering Heights that appeals to you, so?"
The sincerity of her curiosity disarmed me. "Oh, I don't know," I began, scrambling for coherency while her gaze unintentionally scattered my thoughts. "I think it's something about the inevitability. How nothing can keep them apart in the end – not her selfishness, or his evil, or even death, in the end."
Her face was serenely thoughtful as she considered my words. After several moments of thought, she offered me a teasing smile. "I still deem it would be a more intriguing story if either of them had a redeeming quality."
"I think that might be the point, though, Edythe..." I disagreed with a soft smile to her. "Their love is their only redeeming quality."
"I do hope you have better sense than to fall in love with someone so…malignant."
I chuckled softly at her. "It's a bit late for me to worry about who I fall in love with," I pointed out. "But even without the warning, I seem to have managed fairly well."
She laughed quietly to me, her fingers combing gently through my hair. "I'm pleased you find me so."
"Well, then, I hope you're smart enough to stay away from someone so 'selfish'. Catherine truly was the source of all the trouble, not Heathcliff."
"I am sure to be on my guard," she promised.
I sighed, she was indeed good at distractions.
However, the throbbing pinpoint of worry continued to vex me. My hand moved to hold her hand against my cheek before I spoke. "Edythe...I need to see Jacob."
Her eyes closed, worry splashing over her hard face. "No."
"It's truly not dangerous at all, Edythe," I said, pleading again with her. "I used to spend all day in La Push with the whole lot of them and nothing ever happened."
My voice faltered at the end, and I closed my own eyes as I realized my mistake. For a moment I thought of a brief flicker of memory from the last several months. An enormous gray wolf crouched to spring – baring his dagger-like teeth at me, The memory alone had my palms sweating with an echo of remembered panic.
Edythe must have heard my heart-rate accelerate, and nodded as if I'd acknowledged my lie out loud. "The werewolves are very unstable, Bella. Sometimes, when people get near them, they get hurt. Sometimes even killed."
As much as I wished I could deny that, another image flashed into my mind to slow my rebuttal. The once beautiful face of Emily Young, now marred forever by a trio of dark scars that dragged down from the corner of her right eye and left her mouth warped forever into a lopsided scowl.
She waited, grimly victorious, for me to find my voice.
"You don't know them, though..." I whispered.
"I do," She countered.
"How?"
"I was here with Carlisle, when we first settled here..." She began, taking in a breath. "We saw the wolves near Hoquiam. Before Alice and Jasper were with us. We outnumbered them at the time, but that wouldn't have stopped it from turning into a fight if not for Carlisle. He managed to convince Ephraim Black that coexisting was possible, and eventually we made the truce."
Jacob's great-grandfather's name startled me.
"We thought the line may have died out with Ephraim," Edythe mused aloud. "That genetic quirk which allowed the transmutation had been lost, we thought." She broke off, staring at me almost accusingly. "Your bad luck seems to become more potent every day...I wonder if you are the cause of bringing their line back from extinction. If we could bottle your bad luck, we'd have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands and the Volturi would never come near us."
I ignored her ribbing, my attention caught by her assumption. "I didn't bring their line back, Edythe, Jacob told me that the presence of vampires is what draws it out."
Edythe stared at me, her body motionless with surprise. Her eyes slowly narrowing with suspect. "Is that what they believe?"
"Consider the fact, Edythe. Seventy years ago, you came here, and the werewolves showed up. You return, and the werewolves show up again. Surely it's a bit too plain for it to be a coincidence?"
Edythe blinked, and her narrowed eyes seemed to relax. "Carlisle will be interested to hear that theory."
"Theory," I scoffed at her.
She was silent for a moment as she stared out the window into the rain; I imagined she was contemplating the fact that her family's presence was turning the locals into giant dogs.
"Interesting, but not exactly relevant," she murmured after a moment. "The situation remains the same."
I could translate that easy enough: no werewolf friends.
I knew I had to be patient with Edythe, it wasn't that she wasn't reasonable, it was just she didn't understand. She had no idea how very much I owed Jacob Black – how many times he had saved my life and maybe even my sanity.
I didn't like to speak of that barren time with anyone – especially Edythe. She had only been trying to save me when she'd left, trying to save my soul as well. I didn't hold her responsible for the things she couldn't have possibly imagined that happened to me, or how unable I would be to let her go.
But still, she did hold herself responsible. So I would have to word my explanation very carefully for her.
Sitting more comfortably against her, moving even to try and sit on her lap, I looked to her eyes as I nestled into her cool embrace.
"Please just...listen to me for a moment. This is so much more important to me than some whim to drop in on an old friend. Jacob is in pain." My voice distorted the word from concern choking up my throat. "He was there for me when I was...not so human myself. I can't explain well how it was life, but Jake is the one suffering now. He needs me, and I can't give up on him." I hesitated, as Edythe's arms had become rigid around me. Her hands in fists, the tendons in her arms standing out. "If Jacob had not been there for me...I'm not sure what you would have come home to. I owe him better than this, Edythe..."
Glancing up to her face warily, I saw that Edythe's eyes were closed, and her jaw was strained.
"I can never forgive myself for leaving you," she whispered.
I set my hand against her cold face and waited until she sighed and opened her eyes.
"You were only trying to do the right thing for me, and I'm sure, if I didn't love you the way I do, it might have worked on someone else...but you're here now, and that is what matters."
"If I'd never left, this discussion would not be taking place."
"Well, there's no point in 'what if's now..."
"I can't lose you, Bella. I know what it is to feel as though I have lost you forever. I can't tolerate anything remotely dangerous from harming you."
"You have to trust me on this, I'll be fine there."
Her face was pained again. "Please, Bella," she whispered.
I stared into her suddenly burning golden eyes. "Please, what?"
"Right now, you need to consider how you might...smell...to the wolves. My scent lingers on you from our constant contact, if the wolves were to get a whiff of that smell on you while they're in their animal forms...they could mistake you for me. They're already a danger for me, they would surely kill you."
Worry filled me, there was a truth to Edythe's words, and the idea of not being near her for long enough that my smell was sufficiently 'Bella' again was not something I wanted to endure. I didn't answer, in my thoughts, trying to think of a way around this, so Edythe spoke again.
"Do you have any idea how important you are to me? Please, don't go down there..."
"There has to be something I can do, Edythe – if he doesn't answer my calls, then there is no other choice than for me to go down there."
"I can't go with you, you can't go without us. What would you have me do?"
"Let Charlie take me, they won't smell me in the car, and we can call first to let them know to be on their best behavior. I'll just go to Billy's house, Jacob won't shift in front of his dad, and he wouldn't risk Charlie."
Edythe considered it, for a mere moment in the very least. "No."
"Please."
"No, I can't lose you."
"You won't, I promise, they can control themselves better than that. They know me, they know Charlie and Billy," I assured her.
"They know you're with me, they might take it as a betrayal, Bella."
Pain splashed on my face, causing me to flinch.
"I have to try."
"I'll stop you if I have to," She said with a voice that conveyed it might be too easy to stop me. Even if her voice was pained at the thought of causing me harm by keeping me from Jacob.
"We'll see," I bluffed. "Maybe Billy can talk some sense into Jacob to answer my calls."
Edythe reached out to hold my hands, squeezing me against her more prominently. "Do you want to call Billy now?"
I shook my head, knowing full well that at this time of the evening, Jacob was probably not even home. Out tracking for Victoria with the pack.
"Alright, call him when you're ready."
Edythe wanted to help, I know she did, she just couldn't bear to see me hurt or killed. I knew there wasn't a likely chance that Billy would let me talk to Jacob, not when Jacob didn't want to answer my calls.
I could still feel Jacob's note in my pocket, as though it suddenly weighed ten pounds. The words of the note rang in my head with Jacob's raspy voice, almost agreeing with Edythe with perfect harmony – something that would never happen in real life.
It doesn't change anything. Sorry.
