A/N: Here's just a little bitelet to hold you over until Chapter 26 is ready to go. Look for it later this week. Review if you like!

. . . . .

I choked the fear back into my throat so I could breathe. The rumbles and growls still echoed in my head, and I couldn't erase the image of the huge russet wolf from the back of my eyelids. I couldn't even think about the body it had left prone and in two pieces on the ground.

Edward's cool touch burned into my upper arms, and my focus finally landed on his face. His eyes were black and wide.

"Are you ok? Did they hurt you?"

"My best friend is a wolf." My voice sounded hollow and far-away. "My best friend is a wolf, my boyfriend is a vampire and there were at least two other vampires trying to kill me."

Edward took a deep breath and pulled me to his granite chest. I felt like stone, too.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Jacob. But it wasn't my secret to tell."

My ears were ringing with sudden realization. "Those wolves aren't killing hikers. Vampires are."

Edward was motionless. I stared at him until he nodded. It was one single, barely-there movement. But it changed everything.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I'd found my voice now, and it was terrified and angry. "Why did you let me think it was the wolves? Didn't you think I'd find out about Jacob? Were—were you trying to frame him?"

His hands tightened on my biceps slightly. "I wasn't framing anyone, Bella. I simply didn't know how to tell you. It would have required me to admit that I knew about the wolves, and the existence of the Volturi. That would have opened up a whole new avenue of fears and questions, and you were so overburdened with questions about me and my family already."

"That's a terrible excuse." I was so loaded with adrenaline from fear that I could barely stand. His hands were wrapped slightly too tightly around my arms, but I was grateful for them. His grip may have been the only reason I was still standing.

"I didn't want you to be afraid, Bella. You had just learned what we were. I didn't know if it was wise to tell you that there were more of us. Besides, my family was handling the situation."

"Handling it?" My voice shot up three octaves as my fear escaped in the form of burgeoning hysteria. "If them confronting me at work and ripping people's throats out on local hiking trails is handling, then ok. But that doesn't sound to me like it was being handled." I knew I was being irrational and accusing him of something he hadn't done in malice, but fear was causing me to lash out.

I took a deep breath and broke away from his grasp. "I need to go home."

"I'll drive you. Let's go." He held out his hand, but I rebuffed it. Instead, I unsteadily lurched back down the path toward my truck. Pangs of fear nipped at my heels, telling me that vampires and giant wolves roamed these thick woods, but I was suddenly more afraid of what I didn't know than what I did. And there was still a lot I didn't know about Edward. I thought he'd been forthcoming with me, but it was clear now that there was so much more for me to learn.

Edward didn't ask again to take me home, but he followed me out of the woods, staying a few steps behind. He didn't so much as snap a twig or rustle a leaf on the way down the trail, but I could sense his presence like an electric shock with every step.

I dug my keys out of my pocket and fumbled with the driver's side lock until it finally relented. I didn't realize that I hadn't buckled up until I pulled onto our street. Charlie's cruiser was in the driveway, and I knew I was going to be in trouble for having left the Blacks'. I toyed with the idea of telling him he should be glad I'd made it home at all, but then it dawned on me that leaving Jake's was the reason I'd been vulnerable to Jane and the wolves in the first place. And there was no way I was trying to tell him about that debacle. He'd think I'd finally lost it and would send me back to Renee's in a heartbeat. Maybe he would already just for disobeying him again.

I parked crookedly and staggered out of the truck, only to plow straight into Edward. "What are you doing here?" The fear bubbled out of my body like anger, and I could see the grief in his eyes. I just couldn't stop being upset with him. I had trusted him to be honest with me, and the day's events were too much to take in. Vampires, werewolves, murdering monsters... it was overwhelming.

"I needed to make sure you got home safely." He reached for me and I brushed past his hand. "Please, Bella."

His voice was so mournful that I paused. I was upset that he'd hidden the truth from me, and terrified about what today's events would mean for my future, but underneath it all, I knew I didn't want to hurt him. I loved him. Still, he let me think my best friend—or at least his shape-shifting alter ego—was a murderer. And he didn't tell me there were other vampires in town—and hunting for me.

"I need space, Edward. I have to sort all of this out. I'm... I'm tired and scared."

"I know. I just don't want you to be scared of me. I'm not the enemy here."

"Then who is? Everything is all normal one minute, and then suddenly I'm living in a Grimm's Fairytale." I consciously kept my voice low, since Charlie was probably seated in his easy chair only a few feet and one thin wall away. "I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't know who to trust."

"Just calm down, Bella. We can talk this out."

The screen door popped open behind me and I heard Charlie's boots hit the porch before I'd formulated my answer.

"Speaking of talking things out, I think someone owes me a conversation." Charlie's voice was stern and low. "Get in the house, Bella."

Edward stepped forward, setting a hand on my lower back. "I'm sorry, sir. This is all my fault. We had a disagreement, and I'm..."

"I don't care, son. You go home, and don't let me catch you around here until Bella's ungrounded."

I closed my eyes and stepped toward the porch. I felt Edward's hand slip from my back, and then everything went numb.

. . . . .

Charlie had really let me have it the moment he'd shut the front door. I buried my face in my pillow and tried not to relive the lecture he'd given me. He was angry at me for leaving Jake's before he'd gotten off of work, and he was livid that I'd left Jake's to spend time with Edward. Most of all, he was angry with me for tiptoeing around behind his back. I'd promised to formally introduce him to Edward before we went on any dates—and Charlie clearly thought what had happened today constituted a date.

He was a little short on details, though, and they were details I couldn't share even if I wanted to, so I forgave him that mistake. Today had been nothing even close to a date. I'd run away from my best friend in a cloud of gravel and dust, only to walk straight into a trap set by a vindictive vampire. Then, my best friend had magically turned into a wolf before my very eyes, murdered one of the vampires and left me terrified and angry and fighting with my boyfriend. Who also happened to be a vampire.

So, a date? Not exactly.

But that not-date had just gotten me grounded for the next month. I was to either be home, in school, with Charlie or at the Blacks'. And any bending of the rules would result in even harsher punishment that Charlie clearly hadn't thought out yet, but still felt the need to use as an unnamed threat.

I sat up halfway and punched my pillow a few times in frustration. I was so completely lost and confused. Edward brought out the best and the worst in me, it appeared. I was so smitten with him that I was abandoning and slighting all of my friends and family to be with him, but I was also so into him that his willful negligence to tell me every detail of his existence—and those of other formerly mythical creatures—sent me over the edge and spiraling into frustration and anger.

I was embarrassed at the way I'd treated Edward, but I was still to upset and stubborn to do anything about it.

I pulled the tattered folder out from under my mattress and flipped it open. I fished through the papers until I found the photograph of Edward. He was ageless and stunning in his fragileness. I stared at the photo until my eyes fluttered closed with exhaustion.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes, and a conversation downstairs woke me from my light sleep.

Jake's voice echoed through the heat register. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but he and Charlie were certainly having a tense conversation. Their muted talking went on for a while, and then stopped. I heard Jake's footfalls on the steps, and then a soft knock on my door.

"Bells? You up for company?"

"No." I threw my pillow against the door as if it could hold back the 200-some pound kid behind it.

He eased open the door and stuck in his head. "I'm coming in. Please don't attack."

I waited until the door was shut before letting out my snarky reply. "I think I'm the one who should humbly request that you not attack."

He sighed and met my even glare with a doe-eyed look that mirrored the one the wolf had given me in the clearing just an hour or so before.

"Please. I—it's so complicated. I can't even begin."

"Really, Jacob? You get upset with me for not telling you that I'm interested in someone, meanwhile, you're busy hiding the fact that you're a freaking mammalian transformer?" My hissed yell spanned the distance between us and crashed into Jake's chest. My words were so leadened with anger that I could almost see them fall to the ground.

"I wanted to tell you, B. So badly. But I couldn't. Sam ordered us to keep quiet."

"Oh, and you just do whatever the hell Sam tells you to these days? I thought you hated that guy."

Jake shrugged his broad shoulders and dug his hands into his pockets. "I have no choice. He's alpha, and I'm a member of his pack. I can't disobey him even when I want to. Which is pretty damn often. Because, yeah, I hate that guy."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"Honest, Bells. I wanted to tell you," he was pleading now, his forehead wrinkling in frustration. "I knew you'd understand me. I knew you could keep my secret."

"Did you know about Edward?" I shook my head. "Obviously you knew about Edward. I'm surprised you didn't... kill him like you did Alec."

"You knew the leaches in the field?" Jacob cocked his head and took a step toward me, his face covered in concern.

I nodded. "They'd stalked me to work one night. I didn't know what they were until Edward told me."

"Monsters, B. They exist. I told you." He shook his head. "I tried to tell you we existed. It was the best I could do."

"You're—you're not a monster, Jake. You're my best friend."

He shook his head. "No. We're monsters. All of us. And you're stuck in the damn middle."

. . . . .