Chicago. My home and birthplace. Only it doesn't feel like home without Bella or my parents. Alice, Jasper and I made it to Chicago after a 18 hour ride. It should have been 34 hours.

They booked a reservation at the Virgin Hotel. So here we are, staying at a basic hotel room with a living area, bathroom, and a bedroom with two beds. I was pretty bored. Because of the sun, Alice and Jasper never left the stateroom, which means that I couldn't, either. Room service was brought up. The curtains stayed closed. And I had nothing to do but worry, sleep, think, and read.

Alice didn't see anything for that time. Which means that everyone was safe, and so was I. But I was still worried. Esme and Carlisle weren't fighters; Emmett focused on strength rather than skill; Rosalie hated me—the only reason she even bothered to help was because she had no choice; and Bella….. well I was worried about her. She was so petite and delicate, but somehow I knew that she would survive.

"Why are you feeling guilty?" Jasper asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Because it's my fault that you're all in this mess. If I had just refused Bella….." I sighed.

"Edward, I have a theory. Since your mate is a Vampire, you feel the same way a Vampire feels about their mate. You want to protect them, keep them safe, and feel like she's too vulnerable. But I've seen Bella fight and kill a Vampire before. Bella's a lot like Jasper. When she wants to kill someone, they end up dead. She may look petite and delicate, but she's actually deadly and dangerous. More so than the rest of us. Why? I don't know. But she is. So please, stop worrying. James will never touch her. Her shield, remember?" Alice told me.

I took a deep breath.

"Alice, how do you become a Vampire?"

"I'll tell you the mechanics of it," she said, "but I don't remember it myself, and I've never done it or seen it done, so keep in mind that I can only tell you the theory."

I waited.

"As predators, we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal—much, much more than really necessary. The strength, the speed, the acute senses, not to mention those of us like Bella, Jasper, and I, who have extra senses as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are physically attractive to our

prey."

I was very still, remembering how pointedly Bella had demonstrated the same concept for me in the meadow.

She smiled a wide, ominous smile. "We have another fairly superfluous weapon. We're also venomous," she said, her teeth glistening. "The venom doesn't kill—it's merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we're that close, the prey doesn't escape. Of course, there are always exceptions. Carlisle, for example."

"So… if the venom is left to spread…" I murmured.

"It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves

through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the

conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death."

I shivered.

"It's not pleasant, you see."

"Bella said that it was very hard to do… I don't quite understand," I said.

"We're also like sharks in a way. Once we taste the blood, or even smell it for that matter, it becomes very hard to keep from feeding. Sometimes impossible. So you see, to actually bite someone, to taste the blood,

it would begin the frenzy. It's difficult on both sides—the blood-lust on the one hand, the awful pain on the other."

"Why do you think you don't remember?"

"I don't know. For everyone else, the pain of transformation is the sharpest memory they have of their human life. I remember nothing of being human." Her voice was wistful.

We lay silently, wrapped in our individual meditations.

Then her eyes glazed over. She was having a vision.

"What, Alice? What do you see?"

"Mirrors...a room full of mirrors." Jasper handed her a piece of hotel stationary and a pen. She started drawing something.

"It's a ballet studio." I realized.

"You know this place?"

I nodded. "My mom sometimes brought me along to her Ballet lessons. She used to teach there. I was probably 8 or 9."

Alice got her phone out before it started ringing. She talked to Carlisle about her vision before handing the phone to me.

"Hello?"

"Edward?" It was Bella!

"Oh, Bella, I was so worried!"

She chuckled. "Did Alice not tell you what a badass bitch I am yet?"

"She did, but I can't help but to worry."

"Where are you?"

"Just outside of Vancouver. We lost the tracker. We don't know where he is. But Esme and Rose are watching your parents. They're safe."

"Okay, good. Hey, I miss you."

"Yeah, me too. I love you so much."

"Me, too. Just….hurry up. I want you back."

She chuckled. "We're trying, Edward. Bye."

"Bye." The phone went dead.

I settled into the sofa, nibbling on a plate of leftover fruit, anticipating a long evening. I thought about calling my parents, but I wasn't sure if I should be home by now or not

Immortality must grant endless patience. Neither Jasper nor Alice seemed to feel the need to do anything at all. For a while, Alice sketched the vague outline of the dark room from her vision, as much as she could see in the light from the TV. But when she was done, she simply sat, looking at the blank walls with her timeless eyes. Jasper, too, seemed to have no urge to pace, or peek through the curtains, or run screaming out the door, the way I did.

I must have fallen asleep on the couch, waiting for the phone to ring again. The touch of Jasper's cold hands woke me briefly as she carried me to the bed, but I was unconscious again before my head hit the pillow.