AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry so short this time, just filling in all the pieces. Next one will be longer, I swear. Anyway, continuing thanks for the lovely, lovely reviews—really, if I could give everyone who reviewed a hug, I totally would. So yeah, the next person who hugs you? Pretend that's me.
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ALICE
I'd realized two things in the last day, as Edward and I raced across the country, Florida to Maryland and then west. The first thing was that I hadn't traveled enough.
I know, weird, right? After all, I'd been alive for more than a hundred years, so there was really no good excuse for not having seen the Washington Monument, the Colorado River. Of course I wasn't exactly seeing them now—I blazed past them with Edward right behind me, two immortals chasing each other down, impossible tall tales in motion. I felt that I changed the landscape as I touched it, my footsteps cracking open canyons, cutting rivers where I passed.
The second thing that I realized was that I couldn't stop Edward. He was elemental right alongside me, a golden blurred line in my peripheral vision, herding me, shadowing me. I kept running—I could run forever—I could fill my mind with the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore, keep my mind away from Jasper for as long as I could. But that was all I could do. I couldn't stop him. Rosalie and Emmett and I, we were all very good, but Edward and Jasper had always been on another level—when we sparred it was always Edward and Jasper, Edward and Jasper off to the side and then the rest of us.
I could throw myself in front of Jasper if I wanted, but it would do very little good. I couldn't stop him physically—none of us could, not even Jasper with Edward's edge of devastating loss. So now I had to start thinking strategy—if force couldn't stop him, then what could? Who could break his rolling volcanic momentum, grab him by the chin and look him in the eyes and make him listen, just for a few moments? There had to be a way to stop the way he was now, this heat-seeking-missile state he was in. There had to be someone who could save Jasper, even if it wasn't me.
Somewhere halfway through Nevada, I looked back and he wasn't there—the familiar comet trail had disappeared. I cut speed immediately—it never occurred to me that I could have lost him. He was too good to lose, and that meant that something had happened. I hoped it hadn't—there had been a thought—
Sure enough, there he was as I stopped, appearing squarely in my way with his arms crossed. He looked—not happy, but grimly satisfied. "Monterrey," he said. "Monterrey, Mexico."
"No." It had been only the tiniest flash of a vision, smashed between the futures of Vegas and Reno, he couldn't possibly have seen it.
"Go home, Alice. You did all you could. This is between me and Jasper now."
"What do you mean it's between you, he's my husband!" I screamed myself hoarse at him, terrified at the sudden removal of the very last thing I could do.
"He killed Bella," Edward said flatly.
"And you realize that if you kill him, you're putting me in the exact same position as you are now. I've done nothing."
He was entirely unaffected, his expression not giving an inch to sympathy or reason. "I'm sorry, Alice." He turned away from me and ran south.
"Edward!" I screamed after him, but his stride didn't even break, and he was disappearing fast.
I turned the other direction and sprinted north, faster even than I'd run from Edward. Back north, back to Oregon. Back to Carlisle. If anyone could stop Edward it would be Carlisle, the surrogate father, the father figure, who he respected and idolized, the one person now who could say stop and maybe get a reaction. Could I get there fast enough, there and back? Would Carlisle even come? Would Edward even listen? It didn't matter, because I was out of options. All I could do now was run.
I ran faster than I had before, tucking my head into my chest, my mind flashing futures of Jasper and Edward, golden against the blue Southern sky. I closed my eyes against them and ran faster still. My footsteps cutting rivers where I passed.
JACOB
I was relieved when the leech's trail finally straightened out. I had been starting to think I was on some kind of a wild goose chase. I mean, the Everglades? Really? What could he possibly be doing in the Everglades, saving the spotted owls?
The trail was headed back south again, though, and it was hotter—I was closer with every hour, closing the gap, patterning my own outsize wolf-prints between his wide-spaced human sneaker treads. There was only so far he could run. If I had to chase him down the tip of South America and into the ocean, fine, whatever. Anger was good fuel, and I wasn't going to be running low anytime soon.
I crossed into Texas at midnight, almost exactly. My grandma used to call it the witching hour, and I guess she would know. Anyway, it looked like she was right—there was a vampire and a werewolf within state lines tonight, that was about as witchy as it got. If I got my way, only one of us would be leaving the state alive.
And by "one of us", I meant me.
Just to clarify.
