I jerked awake. A scream caught in my throat. My heart was pounding and I could feel the sweat pouring down my face.

Another nightmare.

I was getting tired of these nightmares. They were the same thing every night. No, not every night. The nights I had Tanya with me they weren't as bad. But I refused to ask her to stay with me every night. It wasn't fair to her to be stuck in my room while I slept. It had to be boring for her.

The covers were thrown from my bed and I practically ran to the bathroom. I splashed cold water onto my face and neck. It didn't help. Nothing helped me after a nightmare like this. Well, one thing helped but Tanya had taken my razors away.

I dug through the medicine cabinet as quickly and quietly as I possibly could. After about a minute I found what I was looking for. A bottle of painkillers from when James broke my leg. The bottle was only missing a couple pills as I refused to take them.

Twenty-seven pills. That's how many pills I dumped into my hand. How many pills I planned on taking tonight, or this morning. I wasn't sure what the time was. I grabbed my glass and filled it with water.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I needed a moment to prepare myself. This was it. This was the moment when I would finally succeed after two previous attempts. My first attempt should have worked but I couldn't foresee vampires showing up. The second time was my own fault. I knew better than to bleed around vampires. This time I wasn't making that mistake. They wouldn't know until it was too late.

After a few more deep breaths I opened my eyes, ready to accept my fate. My eyes widened when I saw my hand was empty. All twenty-seven pills. Gone.

I looked around the bathroom, hoping to find some clue as to where my pills went. I found the culprit. Laurent was dumping the pills into the toilet, one at a time.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at him.

He raised an eyebrow at me. "What am I doing?" he repeated. He dumped the last of the pills into the toilet and flushed it. "What are you doing? Do you have any idea how we would react if you succeeded? How Tanya would react?"

I stormed out of the bathroom and back to my room. I tried to shut my door before Laurent could follow me. Somehow, I had forgotten he was a vampire. After my door was shut, I turned around and found Laurent already in my room. He was sitting in the rocking chair.

"How could you have known? There was no blood." The question was mostly to myself. There was no way he could have known.

"Alice," Laurent responded. My eyes shot up to him. "She's been telling us whenever you make a decision."

"Alice," I groaned. Why hadn't I thought of that? Why was she watching my decisions? It wasn't like she cared.

"She does care," he said softly. Had I said that out loud or was I that predictable? "Tanya talks to her regularly. Alice didn't want to leave you. She left because Jasper wanted to leave, in order to keep you safe."

I gasped. Alice didn't want to leave. I couldn't fault Jasper for wanting to leave. I was too much of a temptation to him. It wasn't fair for him to suffer. Now that I knew why Alice left, I couldn't blame her either. Jasper was her mate. She would follow him anywhere. I couldn't compete with that.

"I…I didn't know," I whispered.

"Tanya should have told you," Laurent said.

"Why didn't she tell me?" I muttered. Things would have been different if I had known. I looked at my arms. Would this still have happened if I knew? I honestly didn't know but my gut said yes.

"Tanya wanted to," Laurent said honestly. "It was Alice that told her not to. Alice thought you would move on and heal. She didn't want to suffer."

"But I am suffering," I protested. "I have been suffering since they left."

"Which is why I have told you," Laurent explained. He cocked his head to the side. "Tanya is here. You should try to sleep some more." I climbed back into bed and closed my eyes. "Goodnight Bella."

Not even a minute later I felt Tanya's cool arms wrap around me. I expected her to say something about the pills but no words came. She simply held me while singing that song.

Morning came and I was alone in my bed. There was a note on my nightstand.

Bella,

Kate and I are going to Seattle to look into the disappearances. The others are around if you need them. We should be back by the time you get home from school. Stay safe.

Tanya

I tucked the letter into my nightstand. I was worried about Kate and Tanya in Seattle. I shouldn't be. It was more likely to a human serial killer responsible and they were more than capable of looking after themselves, especially with Kate's gift.

The day went by quickly. The rest of my make-up work was turned in and most of my extra credit. Most of my teachers printed out progress reports in order to show me which assignments I was still missing. Unfortunately, it was still a lot.

"Hey Bella," Angela greeted as I walked to the parking lot.

"Hi Angela," I said with a smile. "How was your day?"

She shrugged. "I didn't realize how hard senior year was going to be."

"Yeah, I'm still trying to play catch up," I told her.

"Right. How are you Bella?" Angela asked concerned.

"I'm okay," I answered honestly. "It's hard still but I'm slowly getting better."

We walked over to where my truck was parked. "Is that Rosalie?" Angela asked squinting at the figure standing by my truck.

It wasn't Rosalie, I realized. For anyone that hadn't spent as much time with the Cullens as I had, it was an easy mistake. Once we got closer, I could see it was Irina. "Irina," I said when we got over to her. She looked fine but that didn't stop me from being worried. "What's wrong?"

"Hello Bella," Irina greeted. She hugged me. "Nothing is wrong." She glanced at Angela. "Who is your friend?"

"Oh, Irina, this is Angela Webber," I introduced. "Angela, this is Irina, umm…"

"Denali," Irina finished. "Irina Denali."

"Denali, like the town?" Angela asked curious.

"Yes like the town," Irina laughed. "My family actually lives there."

"Are you related to the Cullens?" Angela questioned.

Irina glanced at me. "Cousins," she responded. "Why do you ask?"

"It's nothing. It's just, you all look so much alike," Angela said embarrassed.

"What brings you here?" I asked in an attempt to pull the conversation away from how similar the Cullens and Denali's looked despite not actually being related.

"Kate and Tanya are back from their… shopping trip," Irina told me. It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about, that shopping trip was code for their investigation of the disappearances. It wasn't something that could be discussed in front of Angela.

"How did it go?" I asked. What I really wanted to ask was if they were okay. I couldn't do that with Angela here.

"They didn't get everything they needed but other than that it was fine," Irina replied. Good. That meant they were both fine.

"Bella," Angela said pulling my attention away from Irina. "Can I talk to you privately?"

I followed Angela several feet away from my truck. Not that it mattered. Irina was still going to hear everything we said. "I don't know how to say this but… are you dating her?" Angela asked hesitantly. "I mean, I don't care if you are but it's not a good idea. She's Edward's cousin." I flinched. "And I know he hurt you."

"I'm not dating Irina," I said firmly. I could see Irina laughing by my truck. Was the idea of dating me that funny? It wasn't like I wanted to date her. She had a mate and I wasn't interested in her. But did she really think the idea was that funny? Was I that unlovable? I glanced at Irina. The laughing stopped when she looked at me and she frowned. I turned my attention back to Angela. "We're friends Angela. The Denali's are nothing like the Cullen's."

"Bella," Angela said with a sigh. "I'm worried you're going to get hurt."

"Well don't be," I snapped storming off to my truck. I climbed in and looked at Irina, who was still standing beside the truck. "Are you coming?" Irina slid into the passenger seat.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Irina asked once we were out of the parking lot.

"Not particularly," I answered, gripping the steering wheel tightly. I wasn't sure which it she was referring to. Quite frankly I wasn't sure I cared.

"Bella," Irina began.

"Save it," I interrupted. "You don't need to say anything."

"Bella," Irina said again. I ignored her. I didn't want to hear anything she had to say. Out of the corner of her eye I could see her pull out her cell phone. By the time I got the courage to look at her the phone was gone.

I pulled into the driveway and headed inside. I didn't bother looking at Irina, or even acknowledging that she was in my truck still. My only hope was that Charlie and the neighbors didn't see Irina. I didn't want to explain that.

The walk to my room was slow. I wasn't in a hurry to get there. I knew the Denali's well enough to know at least one of them was waiting for me. I fully expected it to be Irina, trying to talk to me about what happened.

To my surprise I was wrong. It wasn't Irina. It was Tanya. "What are you doing here?" I asked confused.

"Hello to you too Bella," Tanya said looking up from her position on my bed. "Was I not who you were expecting?"

"No," I admitted. "I figured Irina would be in here."

"Ah yes, Irina," Tanya said. So, she knew. "Irina feels bad for laughing. She wasn't trying to hurt your feelings." She sat up. "Can I ask you something?" I nodded. "Why did it hurt your feelings so much? Did you want to date her?" She almost seemed hurt at the thought.

I shook my head. "It's not that," I assured her. "I just… it's… it made me feel like I was unlovable… that the thought of dating me was funny. I don't want to date Irina and I know she has a mate and wouldn't want me."

Before I could realize what was happening Tanya was standing in front of me. She pulled me into the room. "Bella, you are not unlovable. Irina was laughing because of how ridiculous it was that your friend assumed you were dating her just because we are related to the Cullen's."

Tears fell from my face. I really was an idiot. "I'm sorry," I said leaning against Tanya. "Can you tell Irina I'm sorry? I was kind of mean to her."

"You weren't mean Bella," Irina said from behind me.

I turned around to see Irina leaning against the wall. I pulled away from Tanya so I could go hug Irina. "I'm sorry," I cried. I could feel Irina's arm wrap around me.

"I'm not mad at you," Irina assured me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Why wasn't I invited to this party?" Kate asked. Leave it to Kate to ruin an emotional moment.

I pulled away from Irina and found Kate in my rocker. "Kate," Tanya groaned. "Now isn't the time."

Kate frowned. "I thought we were telling Bella about Seattle?"

"What happened in Seattle?" I asked moving toward Kate.

"We checked all of Seattle," Kate began. "There's no sign of the missing persons, dead or alive. We're are certain a vampire is involved."

"I don't understand," I said slowly. Why did missing people mean vampires?

"Laurent believes Victoria is creating an army of newborns," Irina continued. "The disappearances started right around the time we came to town. We think that once she realized another coven of vampires had come in town and were protecting you, she needed a new plan to get to you."

"Alice is checking Victoria's decisions," Tanya said taking over the explanation. "So far she isn't finding anything useful."

"So, you all think that Victoria is building an army to kill me?" I asked in disbelief. "That's ridiculous."

"We don't think the army is to kill you," Kate disagreed. "We think the army is a distraction for us, so she can get to you. She doesn't know everything about our relationship with you."

"Kate," Tanya warned.

Kate ignored her. I wondered what they meant. "She thinks we will leave you unprotected to deal with this army," Kate continued. "While it's true we will need to intervene if this gets too much worse, we would never leave you unprotected."

I didn't realize I was shaking until Tanya pulled me into her arms. "You will be safe. I will protect you," Tanya swore.

"Really? I thought that's why were here."

I froze in Tanya's arms. I knew that voice. It was a voice I dreamed about hearing again. I turned around slowly. I didn't dare believe what I heard. My eyes locked on the familiar faces.

Alice and Jasper had returned.