21: CHECK OUT

The sixth time Alice checked her wristwatch, I gently hid her hands in mine. Her graceful, dancelike movements were warped and rigid, as though she couldn't trust her fingers to shift even the width of an eyelash without destroying something.

"Alice."

Alice looked up with a sigh. "I'm worried about her, Jazz. Bella's slept nearly all day and hardly eaten a thing."

"Can you blame her?" I asked. "She spent the last thirty-five hours in confinement while being hunted by a madman. The mental exhaustion by itself would interfere with anyone's appetite, let alone—"

My words cut to a halt at the expression on Alice's face. It was as though she had suddenly removed a mask and I could see the full extent of her worry for the first time. Minutes passed as we both sat frozen in silence, listening to Bella's slow, steady breathing in the adjoining room. We could only look at each other, waiting for one or both of us to say something that would relieve the foreboding that still lingered in the air.

"Jasper," Alice said in a soft, careful voice. "Her sleeping isn't a side-effect of your influence, is it?"

"No," I assured her. "Not presently."

Alice checked her watch again and closed her eyes, thinking hard. "We don't know the long-term effects of manipulating someone's emotions for an extended period like this. I don't want to hurt her by mistake."

"I've done it in the past."

"You mean in Galveston," Alice replied. "Maria's newborns."

"Not newborns. Humans." I studied my scarred hands, still listening to Bella's gentle snores.

"Humans?"

"Sometimes Maria would keep a few and ask me to . . . tamper with them. It was a test. A game, of sorts. Playing with my food, she called it."

I ran my thumb along the jagged white skin that ringed the middle joint of my ring finger. A hawk-faced newborn had bitten it off during Maria's war with Lucy and Nettie. I'd barely managed to pull his head free and retrieve the finger from his exposed throat before he was set aflame with the rest of his ragtag little army. I felt Alice studying my face, but I did not meet her gaze. It was impossible to look her in the eyes and confess what I had done. "I would overflow them with different emotions until they could barely speak—fear, trust, calm, grief, mirth, lust—for hours at a time."

"I didn't know that." Alice's voice was very gentle.

"It took over a week of long-term manipulation for the mental strain to really show. It broke me, but I did it to please her. I usually got hungry again before they went mad." My head pounded with the memory of confused laughter and screaming. The worst of it was always the terrible silence that followed. "Maria fed them to me when she was bored of watching."

A rare flash of anger shot through Alice, but she smothered it as quickly as it appeared. She clenched my hand tighter.

"I didn't intend to keep it from you," I murmured. "Some stories you don't want to repeat because you're afraid of living it again. We don't change, Alice. Not really."

"You don't mean that, Jasper." Alice was not arguing with me; she spoke as though she was stating a fact. "I know—"

Alice's eyes widened, and her fingers held me tighter still. Her lips were frozen around the word know. She had the familiar faraway look that always accompanied her vision.

I straightened. "What do you see?" I asked.

"The dark room. It's day."

"What does it look like?"

Alice spoke as though reaching across a great distance. "It looks like a family room. The furniture and television are outdated. I see a window, but I can't tell what's beyond it."

"Is the tracker there again?"

"Yes," Alice's voice was strangely hesitant. "Something has changed. He's—replaying a tape. A cassette tape this time."

Her horror coursed through me like a jolt of lightning. Shaken, I struggled to keep control of my voice. "Do you recognize anything? Can you hear the tape?"

Alice let out a shuddering gasp and her long, distant stare settled back onto me. She briefly clutched my hands to her chest and then released me to fetch the pen and notepad.

Bella started into consciousness in the bedroom, and I lowered my voice. "Alice—"

Her pen tore through the paper and, with a low curse, she replaced the torn page with a fresh one.

"Alice, what happened?" I moved to sit beside her on the sofa, watching as she outlined her new drawing. "What is it?"

"There were photos on the wall. Family photos," Alice whispered. "I can't be sure, but there was a school portrait of a girl who resembles Bella."

Something icy struck a hollow place deep in my stomach. "Show me the room."

The words hardly left my lips when Bella crept over to join us. She edged much nearer to me than I expected.

"Did she see something more?" Bella asked me.

I kept my voice smooth. "Yes. Something's brought him back to the room with the VCR, but it's light now."

The pair of us watched in silence as Alice drew a stone fireplace to the left of a large glass window. A heavy TV and VCR crowded a wooden television stand, and a comfortable sofa occupied the center of the room.

"The phone goes there," Bella whispered, pointing to a small table Alice was drawing near the sofa.

I tore my eyes from Alice's sketch and looked at the girl, knowing what Bella would say even before her lips shaped the words.

"That's my mother's house."

Alice was already on the phone with Edward before Bella could finish her sentence. Panic threatened to suffocate the hotel room. I edged closer to Bella and placed my hand lightly on her shoulder, overwhelming her with serenity. The effect was immediate. Bella's shoulders relaxed and her eyelids sagged. Her panic did not disappear, but it dulled to the point of emotional static.

"Bella," Alice said. Edward's strained voice was still humming from the phone's mouthpiece when she ended the call and turned back to the girl. Bella met her gaze with slow, unfocused interest. Alice continued as though she didn't notice, "Bella, Edward is coming to get you. He and Emmett and Carlisle are going to take you somewhere, to hide you for a while."

Bella's attention sharpened. "Edward is coming?"

"Yes, he's catching the first flight out of Seattle. We'll meet him at the airport, and you'll leave with him."

A spike of adrenaline at Edward's name focused and intensified Bella's panic. "But, my mother . . . he came here for my mother, Alice!"

"Jasper and I will stay till she's safe."

Alice's promise only sharpened Bella's resignation. "I can't win, Alice. You can't guard everyone I know forever. Don't you see what he's doing? He's not tracking me at all. He'll find someone, he'll hurt someone I love. . . . Alice, I can't—"

"We'll catch him, Bella."

"And what if you get hurt, Alice? Do you think that's okay with me? Do you think it's only my human family he can hurt me with?"

Alice shot me a look and I slightly tightened my grip on Bella's shoulder, inundating her body with thick waves of exhaustion. Bella's drooping eyes closed and her breath deepened as she struggled against sleep. But her emotions raged against my interference and—as though jerking free of a dream—Bella's eyes flashed open and she bolted out of arm's reach.

"I don't want to go back to sleep!" she snapped, her voice thick with anger and betrayal as she whipped from me to Alice. With tears welling in her eyes, Bella stormed back into her room and slammed the door shut. Her sobs drowned out the low hum of the television. Alice and I stayed where we were.

"Should I . . . ?"

Alice shook her head sadly. "We can at least allow her to feel what she wants to feel for a little while."

"Very well." I stood up uncertainly and threw on a jacket. After a quick glance at the mirror, I placed a wallet and key card in my pocket. "I should finalize our arrangements for tomorrow. I'll handle check out here and locate a place for us closer to Bella's mother."

Alice still stood in the middle of the living room with the phone hanging limply from her hand. Without a word, I gently pulled the phone from her fingers, set it back on the duffel bag, and lightly pressed my lips to her forehead.

"You're not just going down to the front desk," Alice observed.

"I'd feel better if I did a sweep of the area before we put Bella out in the open."

"Jazz—"

"I'll be cautious. You don't need to worry."

Alice sighed, but she did not object.

"Will she be all right?" I asked, nodding my head towards Bella's bedroom.

Alice paused. "I don't see an immediate problem, at least."

I hesitated at the door. "Will you be all right?"

Alice forced a smile. "Just hurry back."

"Always," I promised.

I made my way to the front desk at a leisurely human pace and leaned comfortably against the countertop. The concierge was friendly and eager to please as I informed her that we would be extending our stay for two more days. In truth, Alice and I planned to abandon the hotel as soon as Bella was safely with Edward, but I did not want our check out date to match her flight departure. If James was truly coming to Phoenix, I didn't want to take any chances.

"O-kay," the concierge sang, tapping at her keyboard with a cheery smile. "We're all set. Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?"

"Yes. I was hoping you could help me find a place to stay nearer to this address," I said, passing her a slip of paper with the address Bella had given Alice.

"Hmm. That's in Scottsdale, about ten miles from here."

The tension in my back relaxed a touch. It wasn't ideal, but ten miles was distance enough to keep James off our trail.

The concierge smiled a little brighter. "The FireSky Resort might have some openings. Would you like me to call them for you?"

"No, thank you," I said with a polite smile. "But I'll keep that recommendation in mind. Would you mind printing up a map for me?"

The woman complied, and I exited the hotel with a quick nod. I passed our Mercedes without a second glance and silently disappeared into the trees beyond the parking lot.

With a quick sniff for any sign of other vampires, I ran east as fast as my legs would carry me. My scouting instincts returned to me like an old friend, and I slipped out of the tree line and deeper into the city with ease. I surveyed the edges of alleys and low rent apartments for familiar signs of feedings or turf wars. Sometimes I came across blackened car windows or dimly lit warehouses that looked promising, but I never smelled anything more remarkable than humans, rats, and the occasional raccoon. It made sense. Compared to cities like Las Vegas or even El Paso, Phoenix was a less than ideal hunting ground. The population was large enough, but the relatively low buildings, sparse trees and low brush created a sense of perpetual exposure.

It wasn't until I passed an auto park near downtown Scottsdale that I hit upon anything promising.

A jogger getting an early start to her day was about ten blocks ahead of me. Even at that distance, I caught the alluring mixture of sweat and adrenaline, and I made a brief show of pretending to look for my car to widen the gap between us. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of shadow hugging an alleyway only a hundred yards ahead of me.

A gaunt, hungry figure in worn jeans and a stained sweatshirt was making a wide circle around a jogger. He was not blood-crazed or starving, and his movements were cautious. I lingered a little behind the vampire, slowly drawing closer as he darted from one shadow to the next. Someone had clearly trained him to look for easy marks that wouldn't draw attention to him or his kind, and he was willing to be patient. There was more than one instance where the jogger was under perfect cover for an attack and he hesitated and let her pass. An eager, hungry growl was starting to buzz at his lips, but he held his instinct at bay for the right moment.

Still, he was green. His senses were too consumed by the human to make note of another of his kind. He did not seem like the sort that had ever fought for his meal.

When the stalker finally hunched in the long shadow of an industrial generator, I grabbed him by the scruff of his sweatshirt and pulled him deeper into the darkness. The vampire snarled and whipped free of my hold with a primal roar.

Amused, I roared back and crouched into a comfortable fighting stance.

The vampire leaped back a few paces. He looked like he'd been changed at around thirty, and he didn't move like a fighter. I guessed he was maybe a decade or two old at most. His hooded burgundy eyes skittered from me to the road beyond. The sound of the jogger's sneakers smacking confidently against the pavement was unbroken. She had no idea how close to death she'd come. They never did. Not unless you wanted to make yourself known.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Why?" he said, his face guarded and nervous. "Are these your grounds?"

"No."

He surveyed me cautiously, transparently weighing his options. The cloud of uneasiness that surrounded him was heightened by fear. "I'm Ennio. Who are you?"

I glanced at my watch. It was still a few hours from dawn, but I did not have time to waste on swapping backstories. "I'm just passing through. Tell me, Ennio. How long have you been hunting here?"

"A few months," he replied. He made no move to approach me, but his body was still tensed to either flee or attack. His eyes were fixated on the torn skin around my throat, and his fingers trembled. "Is that a problem?"

"Relax," I said, pushing away his disquiet. It should have been an easy task, but the effort left me emotionally winded. Keeping hold on Bella's feelings seemed to take more effort than it did for most humans—even some vampires—and I had yet to feed. It felt like an elastic band was contracting around my temples, and my vision softened around the edges. I shook the effect away and reflexively loosened my emotional hold on Ennio.

I shifted my tone to casual curiosity. "I'm just looking for someone. Have you noticed anyone new in the area?"

Ennio scoffed, but his muscles relaxed a fraction. "Everyone is new, stranger."

"Any of them trackers?"

"Besides you?"

"Yes," I said with a slim smile. "Besides me."

Ennio took a few tentative steps backward, watching me for a reaction. I did not move. His pose grew a few degrees more comfortable, and he scratched his smooth-shaven jaw as though by habit. "I saw a pair of nomads downtown about three weeks ago. No one since."

"No sign of other feedings?"

"No. It's been quiet here. Most of us head to Denver or Vegas."

"Good to know." I relaxed my own stance and pulled the sleeves of my jacket further down my arm.

Ennio's cautiously monitored my movements. "Are you leaving town?" he asked.

I weighed his words carefully. There was always the chance that James would arrive at any time with questions of his own. I could not risk leaving him clues, especially if they took him out of Phoenix before Alice and I could finish him off.

"Not for a few days yet," I said at last. "But I keep a low profile. You should, too."

"You think I don't?"

"Runners like that usually live nearby with friends or family," I said. "It's sloppy."

I turned to leave. Ennio took an involuntary step towards me and froze again.

"Wait."

I paused and half-turned back to him. He seemed surprised that I obeyed, and uncertain how he should continue now that he had my attention.

"Yes?" I asked, barely suppressing my impatience.

"You look—old," he said at last. "Like the way things were."

Like the southern turf wars, he meant. I looked like something that wasn't meant to survive.

When I did not correct him, Ennio visibly shuddered. I muted his fear, and my forehead throbbed dully. I ignored the strain.

With his nerves restrained, Ennio inspected me more closely. "Your eyes. . ."

I looked away from him again. My eyes were a dim ocher at the moment, and nearly human in the darkness. This was not something I wanted to explain. "I really do need to go."

"Wait!" Ennio's excitement thrummed through me like a heartbeat. "Please. Are you—?"

"Am I what?"

"Are you one of them?" he asked, lowering his voice to disguise the way it quavered. "The—The Volturi?"

I chuckled dryly to suppress my reaction to hearing that name. "Trust me, Ennio. You would know if I was."

Ennio did not stop me a third time.

I disappeared further into Phoenix, looping back and forth down certain streets in case Ennio or James tried to follow me. I did not smell anything around me but the familiar aromas of urban life, but I covered my path all the same.

At last fortune was on my side, and I crossed paths with a coyote while tracing a confusing route along the Agua Fria River. Without hesitation, I carried the dog into the drybrush of a nearby nature reserve and gratefully sank my teeth into its stomach. I could smell the bright, dry air in the coyote's fur and I breathed more deeply, filling my nose with the smell of dust and sweat and something like sunshine. My body shook with need, but I did not feel the wild edge of bloodlust. It was simple enough to keep my clothes clean and my senses sharp. The park was deserted but poor cover. The trees were thin and grew at a distance from one another, and the moon and stars were bright. My instincts told me to finish quickly, but I allowed myself a sigh of satisfaction.

I thought back to the hotel room and Alice. When my mind strayed to Bella I pushed the corpse away from my mouth with a grimace. I did not need that association.

My hunger tamed for the moment, I got to work disguising the coyote as a scavenged carcass further deeper in the preserve. Finally, I walked at a careful human pace back out of the park, keeping my head tilted toward the sky until the smell of concrete and asphalt overwhelmed the scent of earth. It did not smell like Houston, but my chest was heavy with a memory of home I could not seem to kill.

I thought again of Bella, and the memory of her pain throbbed against my brain. It was time to say goodbye to . . . whatever this was. A mixture of two lifetimes that were long dead.

My mind returned to Alice, and I continued my circular trek back to the hotel.

I could feel something wrong even before I entered the hotel room. Dread and something darker I could not quite identify fogged the air. With a silent curse, I took the steps three at a time and barely managed to pull open the door without ripping it clear off its hinges.

It was like staring at some grim art installation. Alice stood frozen in place, looking dazed. Her head rocked back and forth like a bobble toy and her hands desperately gripped the edge of the desk. Bella reached for her hand, looking stricken and only half-conscious. I could hear the desk beginning to splinter in her hands.

"Alice!" I rushed beside her and tentatively pulled her hands free from the desk. "What is it?"

Alice desperately buried herself against me, and the cold shock of grief shook through my body. I held her tighter. Alice was inconsolable. She was grieving as though someone were dead. Or someone would be dead. The question was nearly on my lips when she finally spoke.

"Bella," she whispered.

"I'm right here," Bella said.

Bella's voice was like a river of ice, shaking the both of us free from the agony of Alice's emotions. Alice and I turned to her, but Bella barely seemed to notice.

"What did you see?" she asked in a dull voice.

Alice's anguish still dominated my senses, but the apathy in Bella's voice scraped curiously against my brain. Something had happened, but I was not quite sure what. Bella was . . . different. She felt different. But the air was so thick with terror and pain that I could not make sense of who was feeling what. I steadied my thoughts and tried to calm them both.

For the first time since we arrived in Phoenix, Bella allowed my calm to settle over her without any emotional resistance. Puzzled, I cautiously released Alice from my sphere of influence to better concentrate on Bella. Her acceptance was oddly unsettling. I wanted to believe that feeding had made me more powerful, but my uneasiness only increased.

Alice pretended not to notice my confusion and took a step away from me as though her terror was forgotten. "Nothing, really," she said, replying to Bella's question with a brightness that nearly hid the hollowness that lurked beneath it. "Just the same room as before," she said with a short, meaningful glance at me.

My brow creased. She must have seen Bella in the dark room . . . or was it the ballet studio? Something was leading her there, though I did not know what.

When she saw my face respond, Alice turned to Bella. "Did you want breakfast?"

"No, I'll eat at the airport." Bella spoke in a robotic, neutral voice. She did not pry into Alice's vision, even though it might mean that James was lurking insider her mother's home. I wondered if it was some means of mental self-preservation.

As though in a dream, Bella left the living room, gathered her things, and disappeared into the bathroom. My eyes followed her movements, but I did not interfere.

I waited for the sound of water spraying from the showerhead before I spoke. "Alice, what happened?" I murmured.

My strong, stunning Alice—always sure, and always a step ahead—looked hopefully lost. "I saw Bella," she whispered. Her voice was steady, but her face was a microcosm of small, shuddering movements she was barely keeping under control. "She was with James at the ballet studio."

"Tell me exactly what you saw."

"I can't," she said, her voice breaking at last. "There was so much blood. She was—I can't, Jazz."

"Never mind. I understand." I pressed her to me and rested my chin in her hair. We rocked gently back and forth together. "Have you heard from Edward or Carlisle? Has anything changed on their end?"

I felt her head shake in the hollow of my neck. "Nothing. Bella's mother called back. Renée. She was very upset, but Bella convinced her to stay out of the city for a while longer."

"Does her mother know she is no longer in Forks? Did Bella tell her where she was?"

"I don't think so. Bella didn't volunteer any information on her end."

I paused. "You didn't hear their conversation?"

"Bella deserved to talk to her mother with some degree of privacy. She has so little control over anything else right now."

I was quiet. Alice's visions of James sat in my brain like a tangled knot. I pulled at the threads carefully, knowing that any sudden movements would only worsen the knot. At moments I thought I could see glimmers of the tracker's thought patterns, but the solution to the larger puzzle still eluded me.

Or perhaps I was making the problem bigger than it was. Perhaps Bella's odd behavior made sense after her phone calls with her mother and Edward. She knew her mother was safe, and Edward was coming to get her. Perhaps there was no room left in her to worry about anything else.

I pressed Alice against me more tightly, trying to suppress the nagging feeling that something terrible was coming.

"We'll have to be very diligent at the airport. James has good instincts; he may be keeping an eye out for inbound flights in case Bella was telling the truth about coming here or Renée can be secured as leverage."

"At least their plane will be early," Alice said. "It's one small mercy in all this."

"We'll get Bella away from this place, Alice," I promised.

"It was a mistake to come here," Alice whispered, shaking her head against me. "We've doomed her, Jasper. I love her—Edward loves her—and I've doomed her."

I tilted her chin up and held her face gently in my hands. "You've done no such thing. Listen to me. Bella is in her bedroom packing up her things. We will keep her safe."

Alice gave me a halfhearted nod, but she did not reply. Her eyes were faraway, lost in other thoughts.

"What is it?" I asked her gently.

"There was . . . something else. I'm not sure what to make of it."

"What?" I repeated.

"The tracker—James—when he was standing over Bella I thought. . ." she paused and shook her head.

"What, Alice?" I asked again.

"He seemed to be—talking about me. Like he knew me."

A ripple of protective anger crawled up my spine, but I tried to suppress it. "What was he saying?"

"I'm not sure. It was impressionistic—like he was going over a speech he hadn't quite settled on. It just felt strangely familiar, and I'm sure it was about me."

"That might not be so odd. I suspect he's had his mate look into all of us. He avoided Edward's mindreading, didn't he?"

"I suppose so." Alice was lost in thought.

I knelt and looked directly into Alice's eyes. Our foreheads touched. "I will keep you safe from James's influence. The both of you."

Alice's gaze lowered to the floor. "What if we fail, Jazz?" Her question was so soft that I felt the words form against my lips more than I heard them.

"We won't. I swear it."

Alice did not reply, and a dark voice in the back of my head warned me that I should not make promises I cannot keep.