A/N When I wrote the first one of these, I had intended for that to be it. But it was so well received, and so many people asked for more, that I couldn't resist! So for those of you who reviewed my first EPOV, this is for you—sometimes you actually get the things you wish for!

This is a companion scene to the part of Eclipse, chapter 3, where Jacob confronts Edward and Bella at their school. Just so that there is no confusion, let me explain what I mean by companion scene: A scene which has identical dialogue and action sequence to a section in the canon, but which is told from an alternate point of view, giving us a different take on characters' thoughts, emotions, and motivations.

Disclaimer Characters, dialogue, and plot structure taken from Eclipse. (Meyer, Stephenie. Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. 75-85.)

This story is for entertainment purposes only. No profits of any sort have been incurred thereby.

Thanks to Kimjustkim for doing the beta thing!

The Dog Started It

I smelled him first. The wind must have been blowing just right because we were still around the corner. Then again, with a scent that strong, I might be upwind and still have to suffer. I automatically stopped breathing, even as I reached out to try and read the dog's thoughts.

It was Jacob Black, of course it was, and the kid was one seething mass of emotion. Sharp anticipation over seeing Bella writhed with his instinctual hatred for vampires and his very personal hatred for me, while satisfaction over the message he had come to deliver simultaneously strengthened his desire for violence and made him smug. He was a phase disaster waiting to happen.

The steering wheel began to buckle beneath my grip, and I struggled desperately to relax my hands. Rosalie had already replaced it once, and while I was sure she'd be happy to do it again, I wasn't going to endure a second round of her snide remarks on my temper that she felt the repair job entitled her to.

"If I asked you to do something, would you trust me?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but taking the cheap shot out of desperation anyway.

My tension was evident in my voice, and I saw Bella's surprise on her face, even though I couldn't access her thoughts. I heard her heart speed up as she caught my anxiety, but it was accompanied by an expression of wariness. "That depends."

"I was afraid you would say that," I muttered as I swung into the parking lot. There was no way she would remain safely in the car after she spotted Black, and Black and myself face to face after what had happened … not to mention that half the reason for the trip to Florida was to keep Bella from finding out …

"What do you want me to do, Edward?" she asked, her wariness turning to suspicion.

"I want you to stay in the car," I said frankly but without much hope, as I slid into my spot and killed the engine. "I want you to wait here until I come back for you." The stench had increased and seemed to coat the inside of my mouth, since I'd had to resume breathing to talk to Bella.

"But … why?" she demanded.

Even the lightning reflexes of my brain couldn't create an answer to persuade her, and it was too late anyway. She had spotted him through the window. "Oh," she said, automatically, understandingly, even as her spine stiffened.

For a moment, I let myself pretend that her tension came from fear, that Bella was terrified of the monster on the sidewalk, that what she really wanted me to do was speed out of the parking lot and never allow one of the big, ugly dogs within ten miles of her ever again.

In my dreams. If Bella had her way, the three of us would go out for coffee somewhere, to talk things over like reasonable beings. Unfortunately, werewolves are not reasonable, but I didn't think I'd ever get Bella to believe that.

"You jumped to the wrong conclusion last night," I explained, forestalling the next question I knew she'd ask. "He asked about school because he knew that I would be where you were. He was looking for a safe place to talk to me. A place with witnesses." Would the witnesses be enough to keep Black under control? I wasn't worried about myself, but if Black lost his temper, I'd be forced to respond in kind. The children walking past could have no idea how close they were to an incarnation of the horror movie of the century, even if they did give Black a scrupulously wide berth.

"I'm not staying in the car," she informed me.

I groaned in frustration. "Of course not." Bella, after all, was the one who had thought jumping off a cliff to inspire a hallucination was a good idea. "Well, let's get this over with." The more time we gave Black to stew on the sidewalk, the more wound up he would get.

I secured Bella's hand in my own as we walked toward him, determined to keep my body between her and the werewolf, so that I could push her out of the way if things suddenly turned ugly. I had never met Emily Young, but I had seen her face in the minds of others, and it was not a pretty sight.

As we approached, Black's thoughts grew even more frenzied. My scent was affecting him, as was my contact with Bella. In fact, his reaction on that count was remarkably similar to what I knew my own would be if I ever saw him lay a finger on her. But the thought of any sort of sympathy between Black and myself was unacceptable, and I immediately dismissed it.

I didn't get too close, not just out of personal preference but to keep Black as calm as possible. There was an odd buzzing around the edges of his mind—the possibility of phase. At the moment, he was firmly pushing it back, but I had no reliance on his control, and I made sure Bella was safely behind me before I spoke. "You could have called us." And avoided the danger. Or was that too logical of a solution for an animal?

"Sorry," he sneered, clearly everything but. "I don't have any leeches on my speed dial." I didn't mind the insult. What I did mind were the images he had of me clamping onto Bella's neck like a parasite. Oddly enough, they affronted my pride.

"You could have reached me at Bella's house, of course," I jabbed back, wanting to rub in that I practically lived there.

The buzzing hum that rimmed his mind surged forward and was pushed back. He scowled darkly at me and suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a scene from an old black and white film about the days of King Arthur. One knight was throwing his gauntlet at the other, We shall fight to the death, sir, for the lady's hand.

What a pup, I thought, briefly diverted. If Black was a threat, at least he was an unsophisticated one. "This is hardly the place, Jacob. Could we discuss this later?" I don't have my gauntlets with me.

He had momentarily forgotten that I could read minds and thought I referred to his mission. "Sure, sure. I'll stop by your crypt after school." He must have only had a black and white television because there were more grayscale images, which I recognized from a version of Dracula Carlisle had forced us to watch during one of his awareness-of-cultural-perceptions-of-vampires kicks. Actually, Black, a crypt wouldn't be a bad place to dispose of you. It would take a long time for them to find the body … "What's wrong with now?"

'With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain,' I quoted silently, not that Black would even know who Friedrich von Schiller was. I glanced deliberately at our witnesses, all of whom were hoping for a fight. A really bloody one. They were not envisioning their own blood getting spilled in the process. There was no reason to drag this out any farther, since Black's message was pounding insistently in his brain, so forcefully I'd heard it around the block:

If there is ever a repeat of Saturday's events, if one of you bloodsuckers puts so much as a fang across our line, the treaty is over. And you will not be taking Bella with you. I guessed that last part was a personal addendum.

"I know what you came to say. Message delivered. Consider us warned." I said, so low that no one but the werewolf's hearing could pick up. And of course, Bella. She would find out, now, of course she would find out. And all my careful planning to shield her rendered worthless by an ill-mannered, mangy …

Black's thoughts faltered as he remembered that I could read his mind and then frantically tried to recover, to produce a bold front, but I was more focused on Bella.

Her eyes were wide with new apprehension. "Warned? What are you talking about?"

"You didn't tell her?" Black demanded, outwardly shocked, inwardly gloating. "What, were you afraid she'd take our side?" The insolent cur actually thought that she would. But that wasn't the issue at stake.

"Please drop it, Jacob," I requested, forcing myself to use his name, forcing myself to sound calm, even polite.

I don't know what game you're playing, leech, but I am not about to drop it. Not even when you say 'please.' "Why?"

Bella's beautiful brow creased in a frown, and my desire to kill Black renewed itself with a vengeance. "What don't I know? Edward?"

You will suffer you misbegotten, flea-ridden, vomit-eating, drone-minded …

When I didn't answer, Bella appealed to the dog. "Jake?" I didn't want her asking him for anything, I'd rather tell her myself, but I was too angry to speak. Perhaps I had been cocky about my own ability to control my temper around Black.

He was both smug about thwarting me and tensing with the remembered violence of the weekend. "He didn't tell you that his big … brother crossed the line Saturday night?" Black switched his focus to me, all of his prejudice displayed in ugly array. They don't know the meaning of brotherhood. We are brothers. Brothers are of the blood. They join together only to kill... "Paul was totally justified in—"

"It was no man's land," I reminded him. Trust a dog to lie about his territory.

"Was not!" Think we don't know own territory? Think we don't know our own territory? Think we don't… The buzz surged forward, saturating his mind, and he physically trembled, fighting it.

"Emmett and Paul? What happened? Were they fighting? Why? Did Paul get hurt?" Bella's voice pitched higher and higher with her anxiety, and I tried mechanically to comfort her, ninety percent of my focus pinned to Black. "No one fought, no one got hurt. Don't be anxious." I hoped the words were getting through to Black, too. He was perilously close to the edge, his eyes wide as he strained.

Then the buzzing in his mind assumed a new, keening quality, underscored by some repeated rhythm, but I couldn't pay attention to it because other words were pouring out. "You didn't tell her anything at all, did you? Is that why you took her away? So she wouldn't know that—"

I stopped being human. There was a werewolf on the verge of phasing less than a dozen feet from me, and I could no longer hold back my natural instincts. My face, my stance, and even the quality of my vision shifted, imperceptibly, and I was no longer Edward Cullen, repeat high school student. I was a vampire. I was built to kill. Here was my enemy.

But there was still Bella.

So instead of attacking, I managed one last warning, "Leave. Now."

The buzzing in Black's brain abruptly disappeared. Instead, there was a gleeful little voice commenting, Well. That got him.

He slowly raised his eyebrows, goading me, but now that he was no longer on the verge of phasing, I could rein in my own instincts. "Why haven't you told her?" he asked softly, pointedly.

That should be obvious, I fumed. Jacob Black thought he was in love with Bella. I had known that ever since we returned from Italy. And if he was in love with her, then it ought to be apparent why I most emphatically did not want her to know that Victoria had made another attempt to find her. In the name of the Volturi, his mythology taught him that he was guard dog. Didn't he have any protective instincts? I held his gaze fiercely with my own, hoping he would get the message.

And then Bella figured it out. She went rigid and started hyperventilating, literally trembling from head to toe. In one odd way, it was comforting—Bella so often plunged blithely into danger that it was nice to know she had some fear instincts. This was how normal humans reacted to vampires. This was how I wished she would react to werewolves. This was how I would be eternally grateful she did not react to me. Nevertheless, it put pangs back into my senseless heart to see her like this.

"She came back for me," she gasped, and I held her as tightly as I dared, although that was only a fraction of my strength. I wanted to cling to her so tightly the very molecules of our bodies would be forced to bond, so she would know beyond doubt that she was the better half of my soul, and that I would never let Victoria destroy the best part of me.

I took my eyes off Black for the first time since our conversation had begun. His mind was quiet now, and I had more important places to focus. "It's fine, it's fine, I'll never let her get close to you, it's fine." I crooned the words in the same way I sang her lullaby, gently stroking her face, desperate to soothe her, to impart my confidence that I could keep her safe. (As long as she didn't insist on hanging out with Jacob Black.)

After a moment, her heartbeat slowed, and I had time to be angry again. "Does that answer your question, Mongrel?" I snarled, again ready to dismember him. How dare he distress my Bella in this manner?

He wasn't even concerned for her, at least not for the pain he had caused. He was too busy worrying about the supposed manipulation she suffered under my hands. "You don't think Bella has a right to know? It's her life." His voice was too loud, and I was afraid he would be overheard by our audience.

I deliberately pitched my voice lower than necessary, hoping he would take the hint. "Why should she be frightened when she was never in danger?" Bella had already endured too much suffering because of me. It was trend I was determined to end. Now.

"Better frightened than lied to," he snapped back.

Bella drew a shuddering breath and tears leaked beneath her eyelids, and I could sense how desperately she was trying to control her fear and how miserably she was failing. With the lightest touch I could manage, I brushed the tears away, feeling as though my heart were dying all over again. I felt helpless, and I think that was evident in my voice as I asked, "Do you really think hurting her is better than protecting her?"

His thoughts snapped back an answer: Of course not, but you're the one who hurts her, who always hurts her. And besides … "She's tougher than you think," he finished the thought out loud. "And she's been through worse."

I hadn't thought it was possible to feel more irritated than I already did, but Black seemed to have a talent for pushing me to new heights. I knew Bella was strong, resilient, courageous, but that didn't mean I would allow her to suffer if I could ... And then I was distracted as Black deliberately pulled a memory forward, pulled it from somewhere I couldn't see, from inside the buzzing, and as it emerged I realized that it must be a pack memory. But that was all the critical thinking I had time to do before the realization of what I was seeing hit me, and I almost doubled over with the pain of it.

Bella lay on the forest floor, curled on her side, her soft brown hair matted with leaves and half concealing her face. Her eyes were open, but dull and unfocused. She looked dead, and only the soft, slow sound of her heartbeat indicated otherwise. (The perspective wasn't helped by oddly tinged gray tones, and one tiny part of my mind that wasn't paralyzed with horror realized that this must be wolf night vision.) Concern surged through me as I asked softly, "Bella? Bella, are you hurt?"

She didn't respond at first, didn't even blink. Then her lips moved slowly, as though trying to remember the function of speech. Her voice rasped, was so low even my super sensitive hearing strained to catch the two flat words. "He's gone."

So this was what I had done to her. I bit the inside of my lip to stifle a groan as everything beneath my skin writhed, scored by a thousand burning brands. Here lay my bright angel, all but extinguished by my own folly. The pain was far worse than anything even the talented Jane could inflict.

A wash of amusement flooded the agonizing image. "That's funny," Black chuckled, laughing with more real mirth than I had ever heard from him. I realized that my anguish was scrawled across my face, and too late I closed my expression, fighting to pull out of the memory, not willing to surrender this weapon to him.

"What are you doing to him?" Bella demanded, her tone filled with pain and anger. At least her fear had dissipated.

"It's nothing, Bella. Jacob has a good memory, that's all." I tried to make my tone reassuring, but shuddered again as the memory jumped ahead. A frightened Charlie ran toward me, his arms stretched out to receive his broken daughter. "He's gone," she said again.

"Stop it!" Bella seethed. "Whatever you're doing."

My loyal angel, protecting me from the werewolf. Isn't this supposed to be the other way around?

"Sure, if you want," Black agreed, all too amiable, and I almost collapsed in relief as he finally let the memory recede. "It's his own fault if he doesn't like the things I remember, though."

I knew that. I had fully accepted the responsibility of my actions, and I did not need this slavering mongrel to remind me of the atonement I had to make and never could. Next time, Black, I will be the one laughing.

Again aware of the thoughts of those around me, I caught Principal Green's anxious focus on Black and his motorcycle. The last thing Bella needed was academic trouble. "The principal's on his way to discourage loitering on school property. Let's get to English, Bella, so you're not involved," I suggested, eager to bring the scene to a close.

Oh, so you have to save her from the horrors of detention, too? You've got a complex, leech. "Overprotective, isn't he?" Black asked in a confidential tone, pretending I was no longer there. "A little trouble makes life fun. Let me guess, you're not allowed to have fun, are you?"

He was remembering all the fun he had had with Bella while I was gone and gloating over what he termed my anal behavior. What killed me was that he was right. At the moment, Black, leaning oh so casually against his glossy motorcycle, definitely looked like more fun than I, with my "overprotective" tendencies, did. Hot jealousy cascaded through me yet again, and I just caught back a snarl.

"Shut up, Jake," Bella ordered, loyal to the end.

Black was laughing again, confident in their old friendship, boosted by what he thought was a flaw in my defenses. "That sounds like a no. Hey, if you ever feel like having a life again, you could come see me. I've still got your motorcycle in my garage."

"You were supposed to sell that. You promised Charlie you would." Bella was surprised, and, to my regret, not displeased.

Black was really ignoring me now, focusing every inch of his mind on Bella. Come back to me, Bella, come back. "Yeah, right. Like I would do that. It belongs to you, not me. Anyway, I'll hold on to it until you want it back." When you come back to me. We ride together, right Bella?

Never have I hated a piece of machinery as much as I did Black's motorcycle in that moment. Shiny though it was, it wasn't much of a machine—Rosalie would have laughed it to scorn, and I took some small satisfaction from that. But despite its inferior technology it represented a bond between Bella and Black, a bond of which I was definitely not a part. I imagined myself crunching the motorcycle into a neat, compact cube, and then making a nice, round dip on one side, using Black's head as a mold. I could give it to Esme as an innovative vase. Mother's day is coming up …

"Jake," Bella sighed, and I could hear the regret in her voice. She missed him.

I worked hard to keep my jealousy off my face, unwilling to add more fuel to Black's irritating fire.

He was leaning forward, looking earnest, serious, finally making the major move he'd been plotting ever since he'd weaseled this assignment. "I think I might have been wrong before, you know, about not being able to be friends. Maybe we could manage it, on my side of the line. Come see me." Come back to me.

I had no intentions of allowing Bella to wander around the Quileute reservation, accompanied by one monster and surrounded by who knew how many others. But I was glad I had worked to keep my face clear of emotion, when she glanced up at me. I was still grateful she hadn't banned me last night after I disabled her truck to prevent her from driving to La Push, and I didn't want her to think I enjoyed foiling her wishes. Because I didn't. But giving in was not an option.

"I, er, don't know about that Jake," she stammered.

Black's features melted further until he looked positively pathetic. "I miss you every day, Bella. It's not the same without you."

"I know, and I'm sorry, Jake, I just …" I could hear the distress in her tone as she trailed off.

I could tell by his thoughts that he'd been expecting this. He was out to plant seeds, plotting for ultimate victory. I had to admit he surprised me—I wouldn't have expected a teenager who still thought in terms of King Arthur to be this devious. Picking his next move from his mind, I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes.

He sighed mournfully, with just a touch of melodrama. "I know. Doesn't matter, right? I guess I'll survive or something. Who needs friends?" He made a bizarre face, trying to look hurt but brave.

Naturally, Bella fell for it. Her tender heart wouldn't let her do otherwise. She shifted uneasily in my embrace, her instincts probably telling her to run and comfort the poor, brokenhearted werewolf. I remained immovable, determined not to indulge this particular manifestation of Bella's talent for leaping into the jaws of death.

At that moment, Mr. Greene forever endeared himself to me by breaking up the crowd and coming over to kick Black off school property. When the dog was finally gone, his piece of crap bike trailing an ugly cloud of exhaust that smelled slightly better than he did, the principal turned to me and said sternly, "Mr. Cullen, I expect you to ask your friend to refrain from trespassing again."

I repressed a sudden surge of amusement. This was probably the first and last time anyone would call Jacob Black my friend. "He's no friend of mine, Mr. Greene, but I'll pass along the warning." Along with one of my own.

There may not have been any actual gauntlets involved, but Black had definitely started something. He was actually plotting, strategizing to win Bella back (not that he had had anything other than her friendship in the first place), and I wasn't going to accept that passively.

As the last of the motorcycle's exhaust drifted away on the breeze, I wondered if the pup had any idea what he had just gotten himself into. I was no Newborn.

The End

A/N Please, please review! Reviewing produces results!