A:N/ Hi everyone. I'm sorry that this chapter has taken me so long to post. Over the holidays, my nephew destroyed my external hard drive and I lost everything. Every note, every chapter outline, every piece of dialogue that I had for my story going forward. Thankfully, I had some of it written down on paper, but a lot was lost. I think I've finally recovered most of what I'd lost, but it still took time.

Chapter 38: Weakness

BELLA

"All this time spent running from the dead, you forget what evil people can do," Carlisle said, from his place beside Esme and Chris.

I hated that the children were hearing all of this, but it wasn't safe for them to be anywhere else.

Chris didn't seem like he was paying attention anyway. In a way only a child could, he was busy colouring in a book that Esme had given him, completely ignoring what was going on around him. As Esme listened to everyone talk, she was absently running her fingers through the back of his sandy brown hair. In the past, Chris would never have allowed that kind of contact, but now it seemed to soothe him. He was such a cute little boy with his bright hazel eyes and his slightly too large ears that he hadn't grown into yet. As if sensing that I was watching him, he looked up at me and grinned which made me smile wistfully because he was just so innocent.

Too soon I was wrenched back into the conversations around me.

"Seth's on a timeline. He needs to be back within three days if not earlier. Stefan's people will need time to regroup. That should give Seth plenty of time to find out what Stefan and his soldiers are up to and how many are still alive," Ben said as he paced the room.

"That is if my baby brother even makes it back alive," Leah snarled from where she sat in a rocking chair.

"Leah… Seth volunteered. No one forced him to go. He is his own man and he wanted to do this. I'm sorry that it came down to this, but it was Seth's choice," Ben said, firmly.

For such a small man, Ben had a presence about him that made it hard to go against him.

If I had met him in the old world, I would never have known the kind of fighting spirit he had inside.

The calm calculating look that he used to examine the world around him was practically hidden behind thick glasses that had seen better days. His hair was cut short which accentuated his angular features made sharper under the strain of the last few days. On first glance, he might have even looked slightly frail, but he was far from it.

In the old world, I don't think people would have taken the time to notice the man he was because they would have been fooled by his appearance.

"He's the only one that I have left," Leah hissed as she stood up from her seat. "My mom already died in this fucked up situation."

"We've all lost people, Leah," Siobhan said. "We would have all died last night if it wasn't for Jasper. We don't have the luxury anymore of living safely."

Liam pulled Siobhan close and kissed her temple, trying to soothe the distress in her voice.

"How do we know that Seth was even able to follow them?" Katie asked, a frown crossing her face.

"He had a clear path to follow. All he had to do was follow the screams," Quil said with a bleak look. As much as Quil acted tough, he was just as shaken as the rest of us by the massacre of the previous day.

Almost subconsciously, he pulled Claire closer against his side in a possessive hug. I worried about Claire. She had her knees drawn up against her chest with her arms wrapped around them. I could barely see her face as she had her hoodie pulled forward, shadowing her face. She also hadn't spoken a word since yesterday.

"So what do we do with whatever information he brings back to us?" Emmett asked, as he paced the room. "We don't have the element of surprise anymore and we don't have the artillery that they have."

Ben stopped pacing and his eyes rolled upwards as if seeking answers from above with his teeth clasped around his bottom lip.

"We don't have a choice. I think we'll have to take the fight to them," he said. "If not, we'll be constantly on edge waiting for them to return and they will return. There's no way that they will let their defeat just slide."

Everyone fell silent. The thought terrified me. We weren't soldiers. There had to be another way.

"We've worked too hard to build what we have here—and I'll be dammed if I'm going to let anyone take it away from us," Emmett said. "But do you really think that going after them is the right idea? We have walls here and this time the dead are working in our advantage. There are so many surrounding this place that Stefan's soldiers can't get to us anyway."

The dead had come from all over, attracted by the screams and the gunfire, and had stayed, partially because they were able to feast on the dead soldiers lying in the fields.

"Not everyone should go, just a select few who can use the information that Seth's gathered to slip into the camp. We need to get rid of Stefan. He's the one that galvanizes them. I think some of the soldiers would leave if Stefan wasn't in the picture," Arnold said, solemnly.

"I'll take a few-" Ben began, but was interrupted by Embry.

"You're not going, Ben. You need to be here," he said gruffly.

It was raining outside, so Embry was in the process of stoking a fire. It was clear that he was in pain by how he winced when he moved certain ways. His arm was in a sling after he dislocated his shoulder falling off the truck that had been driven by Eleazar. It was a small injury compared to what had happened to Eleazar who lost his life, but it put him at a severe disadvantage in the inevitable fight to come.

"You're not going either, Embry," Edward said. "You're in no condition to fight either."

Embry stood up straight his forehead furrowed and his eyebrows drawn together over eyes that blazed with anger.

"I know that, Edward!" he snapped. "I'm not a fucking idiot!"

Edward stood up too, but instead of being upset he held his hands out in front of him in a gesture of apology.

"Sorry, Embry. I know you're not," Edward said in a soothing voice.

Immediately, Embry's posture relaxed. "Sorry, brother. I'm on edge."

"I get it," Edward said.

His voice was even, but with an undertone of hopelessness that made me pull him down next to me and wrap my arm around his.

He sighed deeply and pulled me closer.

Looking up at him, my worry for him came back to life.

Because of a lack of sleep, his face was bone-white, his eyes no more than dark pits in the dim light coming from the overcast sky through the window. Paired with his hair that fell in jagged spikes around his face, he had an otherworldly appearance that sent a shiver down my spine.

"What do we do while we're waiting for Seth to return?" Katie asked as she paced the room.

The devastation of being present when Mike was shot and killed was etched into her face, making her look much older than she was.

"We continue patrolling and checking how much ammunition we have left. Luckily, we didn't have to use as much as we might have. Thank god, you thought of the traps, Embry… and you too Jasper," Ben said.

People's opinions had changed drastically towards Jasper. Without him, we would have all died yesterday. However, people were still nervous around him because he was unpredictable.

He sat in the corner as far away from everyone as possible with Alice and Clara. He seemed preoccupied with the miscellaneous things that were strewn across the table. Compulsively, he rearranged them over and over again. However, hearing his name, he looked up and nodded in acknowledgement of Ben's words.

"We should also plan for the worst," Mrs. Cope said, cutting through the conversation.

"What?" Ben asked, looking towards her.

"We should pack up our food stores and gasoline in case things go badly," she said, her frail voice quivering with age but still firm.

"Mrs. Cope…" Emmett began, but she interrupted him.

"Hush, Emmett. I'm not saying we're going to lose this place, but we should still plan for the worst."

"I don't think-"

"We won't-"

"Ester-"

"Stop talking. All of you," Mrs. Cope said, silencing the voices of protest that had erupted around us.

"We need to be realistic. Some of these men are military. You're not. Even though you did a good job protecting us from their first attack, it doesn't mean you'll be able to pull it off a second time. Take it from an old-timer. Things rarely work out in the way that you expect them to, so it's best to be prepared for the worst."

As much as I hated to admit it, she was right.

"It won't take much to pack up the seed stores that we have as well as the vegetables that are stored in the root cellar. The fuel is a little more difficult, but at least we can do that," I said.

Edward looked at me with a pained expression on his face.

"We need to plan for the worst. How does being prepared hurt? It won't affect our defense of this place either way," I said.

"Bella, Siobhan, Rose, and I can do it," Mrs. Cope said. "We'll gather and organize what we can in the dump truck. It should have plenty of room."

"Just in case," I said to Edward squeezing his arm.

"Okay," Ben said, in a tired voice. "Shift change on the wall isn't for another hour. In the meantime, let's talk about who will go after Stefan."

It was close to dark by the time we left the community building.

Edward was walking a little ways behind me, our heated argument still hanging in the air between us.

It came to a head when I asked to go on the mission to kill Stefan and Edward told me no. He had no qualms about going himself, but he adamantly refused to discuss me going.

He told me that it was too dangerous and that I wasn't physically strong enough. Sure, in a hand to hand fight, he was stronger. But I was just as good a shot as he was.

That was when things got really heated as I pointed out that his strength didn't help him when he was captured by James.

Edward went stone cold silent at my words and hadn't spoken to me since.

Ben called an end to the discussion saying that we'd pick it up again later.

As we walked towards our guard post, I thought about all the different arguments I would use to convince him that I should go. I knew that he couldn't force me to stay, but I didn't want it to be like that. I wanted us to go together.

We were almost at our guard post when I saw the intermittent flashes and the sounds of a gun being fired from behind a grove of trees that separated us from the wall.

"Shit," Edward hissed and together we started running, hauling out our weapons at the same time.

The minute we got past the trees I heard the moans of the dead and the breathless screams of people being attacked.

Someone, I couldn't tell who in the dark, was already down on the ground by the curb with two zombies piled on top of him or her.

Edward threw himself at the zombies while I continued for the wall.

Liam and Tyler were manning the guard tower and it was clear that one of them had lost their lives.

The person who was still manning the guard post frantically swept his flashlight down on the scene—painting luminous halos around four or five zombies that had somehow gotten past the walls. The person was shooting at the dead, but in the minimal light he was missing the majority of his shots.

I couldn't move any closer because I could get hit accidentally.

"Stop shooting!" I hollered towards the person on the guard tower.

The sound of my voice turned the dead from trying to reach the guard towards easier prey.

I backed up, causing them to spread out as they staggered towards me.

The one closest lunged towards me out of the dark, only really becoming visible when the thing was almost face to face with me. Holding my icepick in an overhand position, I knocked the zombie to the ground and stabbed at its head, not really seeing the dead thing, only rotting flesh and milky eyes in the gloom.

I heard grunts and curses next to me as Edward joined the fight with someone else at his side.

Quickly, we got control of the situation and in the light from the guard's flashlight I saw Edward and what appeared to be Katie finishing off the last few.

However, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the dark heading towards the alley between two houses.

If the dead infiltrated the shadowy nooks and crannies of the community, there would be hell to pay.

I followed the thing between the two homes, but immediately lost track of the thing as the shadows of the looming houses made everything pitch black in the backyard.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I thought, spinning around as I scanned the darkness of the backyard.

Taking the chance, I grabbed for the flashlight in my belt and clicked it on.

The flickering cone of light illuminated a huge corpse, standing less than three feet away.

I let out a yelp and accidentally dropped the flashlight.

I jerked back and fumbled for my gun as the zombie lunged at me, chewing at the air. I lost my balance and fell hard to the ground with a grunt. The zombie pounced—this one hungry and twitchy and full of fight. I flailed impotently at the thing with my gun but I was unable to get a good shot. The gun discharged once, the muzzle flash capturing a snapshot of the monster's snapping teeth as it went for my throat.

I squirmed and writhed and let out a cry of rage as I struggled to aim my gun towards its head. With one violent jerk, I shot off another blast, the bullet glancing off the side of the zombie's head. However, it wasn't enough and my arms were getting tired from holding its snapping jaws away from me.

Suddenly out of the gloom, a shape appeared. I let out a cry of relief as the dead was yanked off of me and with a sharp downward movement the moaning of the dead was silenced.

"Bella? Are you okay?" the voice of Ben asked.

I let out a relieved whimper.

"Yes, I'm okay. Have you found any others?" I asked, practically hyperventilating.

"Not that we've seen. Yours seems to be the only one that wandered away, but we need to do a search," he said, pulling me to my feet.

Together we made our way out of the darkened backyard and into the main streets.

Bouncing beams of light showed that there were six or seven people standing in a group.

"Edward!" I cried out, but he wasn't with the group.

However, before the strangling fear could hit me, Edward appeared out of an alley across the street and rushed towards me.

"Fuck, Bella!" he gasped, grabbing me roughly and pulling me to his chest.

"I went after a stray zombie," I said, fighting to keep the quiver out of my voice.

"Did it bite you? Are you okay?" he gasped, letting go of me only to capture my face in his hands.

"I got to her in time," Ben said. "We need to do a sweep of the community quickly. There might be more. But you two need to switch off with Tyler. We have to keep up with perimeter watch."

My heart froze in my chest.

"Liam?" I asked, thinking about the person that had been overwhelmed by the dead.

With a grim look, Ben shook his head.

Edward pulled me tight to him with the grief and pain that we both felt for Siobhan who had just lost her husband.

Edward pulled me along behind him as we approached the guard tower and climbed up on top of the guard platform.

Tyler was standing there, completely silent.

His face was impassive as he stared down at the weapon in his hands.

"Tyler?" I asked, stepping towards him in sympathy.

"It wasn't my fault. He should never have gone down there by himself," he said.

I recoiled in shock. He had automatically jumped to defending himself while I'd thought that he would have been experiencing grief.

"You're a selfish prick," Edward said. "Liam is dead and all you can think about is protecting your own hide. Get the fuck away from here before I hurt you."

Without a word, Tyler climbed down from the guard tower.

Taking up position on the other side of the blind, I stared out into the darkness.

Tears trickled from my eyes as I thought about the pain Siobhan was about to experience.

"Whatever happens, we're sticking together Bella," Edward said quietly. "Whether that means we stay here or go after Stefan, we do it together."

I reached out and took his hand in order to squeeze it.

The rest of our shift was spent in relative silence, but there were no more zombie attacks that night.

The next day, those of us who were not on guard duty stayed in the community house to sleep and make preparations. It was safer to stay together and after last night no one wanted to be alone anyway.

In the early morning hours with the dawning light, Ben took a group of people to search the walls, trying to figure out how the dead got in. However, none of them could figure it out. Grimly, Ben organized more people to patrol.

We were all running on empty, but we had to deal with it.

Edward and I chose a corner in the kitchen to sleep. We left the couches to the kids. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep with the murmuring of voices around us and the hard floor under our pile of blankets, but surprisingly I fell asleep quickly nestled in Edward's arms.

I don't know how much time had passed when I woke up suddenly.

Most people in the room were sleeping, but in the opposite corner I could see that Alice and Jasper were awake. Alice had Clara in her arms, but she was gently coaxing Jasper to open his so that he could hold her.

There were whispered words of protest from Jasper, but after Alice whispered something in his ear. The fight went out of him.

I watched with a lump in my throat at how Jasper nervously took Clara in trembling arms, a look of fear on his face.

Once she was safely encircled in his arms, he looked worriedly between Alice and the baby.

With a gentle smile on her face, Alice kissed his temple and ran her fingers through his hair before leaving him for the other side of the room. It was then that I noticed the sound that must have woken me. Siobhan was crying. She was trying to muffle the sound, but it wasn't hard to hear the devastation in her sobbing.

Alice pulled her into her arms and together they sat with their heads buried close together.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Edward's raspy sleep filled voice murmured in my ear.

"She has her children, so she has something to live for," I whispered, burrowing back into his arms. Her son Ronan who was only four was sleeping on one of the fold out couches with Chris and Isaac. Maggie, her newborn was sleeping in a makeshift crib with Nelson and Shannon.

Edward let out a huff of sadness and rested his chin in the crook of my neck.

"Look at Jasper," I said with a sigh that was both hopeful and sad. "He's finally trusting himself with his daughter. If he can come out the shit he's witnessed, there's hope for Siobhan."

Edward squeezed me tighter as we watched Jasper stare down at his daughter with a mix of trepidation and wonder.

I almost let out a sob when Clara reached up and batted at Jasper's chin. With a slight smile, Jasper took her hand in his, looking in fascination at her little fingers.

"Let's sleep some more," Edward said, pulling me down with him. "We'll have to wake up soon enough for patrol."

Seth returned in the middle of the night.

Edward and I were on guard duty when Arnold came by to let us know.

With nervous anticipation we waited for Peter and Charlotte to take our place.

When we got to the community house close to dawn, we saw that there was a large piece of paper lying on the table and Seth was busily drawing on it.

Joining Ben, Arnold, Emmett, Rose, and Jasper, Seth explained to us what he was drawing.

"They're using their vehicles as walls. They've got a couple of transports set up here and here," he said pointing at two rectangles that were parallel to each other. "The other ends are blocked with a couple of RVs and hummers. They've surrounded them with stakes and noise makers to stop anyone from sneaking up on them. The war women are in this transport truck," he said pointing at one of the rectangles with a look of disgust.

"Seth says that there are about twenty five of them left. The dead must have killed a lot of them or they took off," Ben said with a frown. "It still doesn't make getting to Stefan any easier."

"We might have some help with that," Seth said in a nervous excitement. "Their camp is set up next to a lake. I think they've been there a while from how the place is set up. It was easy to follow them because there was a horde of dead on their trail. They used up a lot of ammunition on their trek back, but I still think they've got a lot left."

"What do you mean we might have help?" Ben asked, trying to get Seth back on track.

"Well, on the second day, I was hiding just inside the treeline, looking for anywhere that might have a weakness, but I wasn't seeing anything. Then, two soldiers came through the barricade with a woman in tow. I'm assuming she was one of the war women by the way she spit at them as they let her go at the edge of the lake. The guards left her with a large load of laundry and then laughed as they wandered away to smoke. I must have made some kind of noise as I crept closer because suddenly she was looking right at me."

All of us tensed up at the danger Seth had been in.

"She told the guards that she needed to use the washroom, so they let her go into the woods."

"They let her go alone?" I asked in surprise.

"She wasn't wearing any shoes and by the way that she was walking it looked like her feet were hurt."

"I thought about running away because I wasn't sure about her. But there was something in the way that she kept looking behind her to see if the guards were watching that made me decide to take a chance."

I let out a deep breath. The danger Seth had put himself in with that decision was insane.

"I told you that you were only supposed to watch Seth," Ben admonished. "You took too big a risk."

"It worked though," he said with a grin, looking every bit his sixteen years of age. "Tia wants to help us."

Jasper let out a gasp.

Everyone turned towards him startled by his reaction.

"Did you say Tia?" he asked, intensely.

"Yeah," Seth said, nervously. "She's one of the war women and she wants to help."

"I know her," Jasper said. "Stefan killed her family and then took her as a war wife."

"Yeah, she told me that she was the only one that could get close to him. She wants to kill him herself, but up until now she was too worried about what would happen to the other women. She said that she'd be willing to risk it if we took care of the other soldiers."

"I told her that I couldn't make that decision myself, so she told me that she would take laundry duty again in two days and that we could tell her our decision then."

"Do we have that time to spare?" Emmett asked. "Did it look like Stefan's crew was ready for another go at us?"

Seth shook his head, his eyes drooping with exhaustion.

"They don't seem to be doing much of anything besides taking care of their injuries. Stefan doesn't leave his RV very much. That's why Tia says we need her," he said, slouching down at the table as if he'd just used up the last bit of his energy.

"Can we really trust this woman?" Rose asked uncertainly. "How do we know that she won't just run to Stefan and tell him?"

"She won't tell him," Jasper said. "I watched him gun down her entire family, including her husband. Then, he told her that she was his property and that she had no choice about it. She wants him dead. I'm sure of it."

"Did you happen to see James around camp?" Edward asked.

"Yeah, I did. That cocksucker was wandering around the camp like he owned the place with that bitch Victoria hanging off his arm. I don't think the soldiers like him much though."

"Seth, you need to get some sleep," Arnold said, putting his hand on Seth's shoulder. "You did a brave thing, son. You've helped to save all of our lives."

Seth gave him a happy but tired grin before being ushered onto one of the couches by Rose.

"So we have two days to figure out what to do," Ben said, rubbing his face.

We'd barely slept at all in the last three days and I could see that Ben was feeling it.

"Let's talk more in the morning," I suggested. "Why don't you get some sleep, Ben?"

Ben nodded and made his way over to where Angela slept, curling himself around her.

After getting something to eat, Edward and I fell into an exhausted sleep as well.

The next day it was clear that we couldn't keep going the way we were. None of us were sleeping much pulled between patrolling, planning, and taking care of our own needs.

We decided reluctantly to have only one person on guard duty at each post. That way we could get more rest with less people patrolling at a time. Edward didn't like it. He didn't want to be apart from me, but everyone insisted that he couldn't run himself into the ground. He was one of the best fighters we had and we needed him strong. After much arguing, he agreed as long as we were on the same shift and that his post was the one closest to mine.

It was decided that Seth, Ben, Katie, and Peter would meet with Tia and discuss plans with her.

We couldn't send too many people to the meeting because the more people the more noise we could cause. We couldn't begin a fight with Stefan's crew until we were ready.

We also couldn't leave our home with only a skeleton crew in case of an attack.

No one wanted Ben to go, but he insisted. We worried that we'd lose him, but he argued that his life was no more valuable than anyone else's and he wanted to negotiate with Tia himself.

The day passed too quickly as we made plans.

Close to sunset, Edward, Ben, and I walked together to take up our posts for the evening.

We left Edward at the right facing guard tower and Ben escorted me to mine. I was in the middle of climbing the ladder when I suddenly heard a commotion break out behind me.

Spinning towards the sound, I almost fell when I saw someone attacking Ben.

Dropping off the ladder, I started running towards the fight.

The man had a choke hold on Ben, but Ben was fighting with all his might. Pushing back against the man, Ben knocked him backwards into a tree to try and shake him off, but the man whom I assumed was one of Stefan's soldiers was determined and held on even after Ben slammed him against the tree three more times. In desperation to get his arm off his throat, Ben bit the man in the wrist, causing the large man to let go with a yelp of pain.

However, the soldier recovered quickly. He pulled back one of his hands, balling it in a fist and struck Ben across the jaw.

It left Ben dazed for a moment, giving the man another chance to punch him but in the gut this time.

I charged him, jumping onto his back, pummeling him with my fists as I'd forgotten to draw my knife in the desperation to get to Ben.

Thrown off balance by the attack, we crashed to the ground.

Then, Ben was there, pushing me off the soldier. With the wind knocked out of him, Ben had the chance to land a few solid punches to the man's jaw.

On a recoil, the soldier threw Ben off of him and quickly climbed to his feet, wiping the blood from his bottom lip with the back of his hand. I rushed him, swiping at him with my long handled knife, but with a backhand the man knocked me off my feet.

I scrabbled through the grass searching for my knife that had fallen from my grip when I fell to the ground.

By the time I found it, I saw that the soldier had Ben pinned to the ground on his stomach.

With his teeth bared in a snarl, the soldier's hand fisted into Ben's hair and twisted viciously. His head was yanked back far enough that the soldier could slam it on the hard ground. I cried out in horror as the soldier did this a few more times and the fight seemed to go out of Ben entirely.

I ran at them, my knife in hand and stabbed at the soldier, hitting him in the shoulder and then the back.

The soldier snarled at me, clearly wounded but not enough.

Shoving me away with a big meaty hand, he climbed to his feet and then started towards me with a leer.

"Show me what you've got you little bitch," he hissed.

However, before I was able to do anything. Something whizzed by my head and struck the guard in the arm. The soldier looked incredulously down at the arrow that was protruding out of it.

Then another whizzed by and struck his leg, causing his leg to give out from under him.

As the soldier dropped heavily to the ground, I was on top of him with my knife pressed against his jugular.

"Let me do it, Bella," Edward said, grabbing a hold of my arm.

But before either of us could do anything, a strangled voice called out from behind us.

"Stop! Don't kill him. We need him for information."

I spun towards Ben, relieved beyond words to see him awake. But from the amount of blood that was gushing from his forehead I didn't know how injured he was.

With the back of his gun, Edward knocked the soldier unconscious.

"Bella go get Emmett. We need help carrying him to the basement in my house. We can use him to get info-" But before he could finish his sentence, Ben's eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the ground.

Peter, Charlotte, and Embry took our places on the wall so that we could look after Ben and the prisoner.

It took all of Emmett and Edward's strength to carry the dead weight of the soldier to Ben's house, but it was the best place to take him because the basement had no windows.

Carlisle and Arnold carried Ben to the community house, while I held part of my shirt against the wound in his head to staunch the blood.

Once they had Ben on the couch, Carlisle pulled the cloth off his forehead to see what was underneath.

I gasped in horror at how Ben's skin had split apart showing a lot of blood with a hint of white underneath.

Angela let out a shrill cry and held Ben's hand tighter.

"A head wound looks worse than it is. He'll need stitches, but it will heal. However, with that many hits to the head I don't know whether he has any internal injuries. I won't know until he wakes up," Carlisle said. "Bella keep the cloth on his head while I get the stitches ready."

With my hand pressed firmly to Ben's forehead, I tried not to listen to Angela's whispered words to Ben.

"Wake up, baby," Angela murmured in his ear. "Come back to me. I need you."

However, Ben didn't stir.

When a couple of hours had passed and he still hadn't woken up we all began to worry.

"Is he in a coma?" Emmett asked in a hushed voice, not wanting Angela to hear.

"It's too soon to tell," Carlisle said. "But without any medication or equipment, there's nothing I can do but keep him comfortable and hope that he comes out of it on his own."

"How the hell did the soldier get in without anyone noticing?" Quil asked, angrily. "First the zombies and now a soldier. There's a weak spot somewhere."

We all nodded in fear. Even when Ben increased patrols, the soldier still got in. Either there was a gap in our defenses or someone from the inside was helping Stefan's group.

"That soldier was here specifically to kill Ben," Edward said, harshly. "He waited until Ben was on his own and then went after him."

"It would seem that Stefan's group has the same idea as we do. Take out the leader and the rest will fall apart," Arnold said with a bitter smile.

"It's not going to happen," Emmett growled, his hand clenching in a fist. "I think I'm going to head over to Ben's and see if I can get anything out of our prisoner."

"Don't kill him, Emmett," Edward said, although his face said the complete opposite.

"Don't worry. I won't. He might want me to kill him when I'm done with him, but I won't," Emmett growled.

My stomach felt hollow at the look of hatred on Emmett's face. I hated that the happy loving guy that was usually Emmett's persona was slowly leaching away.

After he left, we sat in silence for a while.

"The soldier's not going to tell Emmett anything. He's been trained to resist torture and Emmett's not a torturer," Arnold said, pinching the bridge of his nose in stress.

"Ben's going to be in no condition to meet Tia tomorrow," Edward said. "Who's going to take his place?"

We sat quietly mulling the question over in our heads.

"I want to go," Edward said. "But I'm not leaving Bella behind."

I looked up at Edward in surprise that he wasn't going to try to make me stay.

"If you and Bella go, we'll be short handed in patrol," Arnold said.

"They can take our places," Peter said with a nod from Katie.

Edward leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the table.

"We all know what needs to be done. We just need to work out the logistics with Tia. Let's plan out what we need to talk to her about so that we'll be ready to leave first thing in the morning…"