"I still think this is a bad idea," said Jasper.

Alice shushed him with a look that clearly said, "I love you, but what you are doing isn't helping."

He shut up.

"It doesn't matter if he can read our thoughts," she said. "He will have to come here first. I will see that, enough to give us a warning, at the very least. Even if he narrows it down to a few square miles, he can't know which hotel we are actually in. Unless someone is actively thinking about us at that moment or we are actively thinking about our location, there is no way for him to figure out where we are."

We got close enough to the hotel to use their wireless network on the laptop that was in the car. They had me get the room, not telling them what room number it was, along with rooms in a few other hotels in Phoenix, and Settle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Carson City. By the time we had finished, it was dusk on Sunday. They kept their heads down as I led them to the room, apparently occupying their own thoughts enough to not pay attention to details. Once we were in the suite, I closed the curtains, picked my room, put my stuff in it, and came back out.

"What do we do if he comes?" I asked. Alice was sitting in a chair, her contacts now in a case beside her. I could see her shifting beneath their lids, twitching here and there, as though dreaming.

"Airport," she said. "You get a flight to New York. From there, you pick. We will give you enough cash to live until we can stop him."

"Is that what the others are doing now?" I asked.

"Yes," said Alice.

I frowned, "How do we stop him?"

She turned her head to Jasper and nodded. He opened his bag he was keeping in the room with us at the end of the couch, well-worn and leather, but well-kept and repaired. He pulled out some implement and handed it over to me.

They had stopped before dawn. I remembered. I had been half asleep and went back to fitful sleep soon afterwards. I took what he handed me.

It was a stiletto dagger, one of three.

"I-" I said, almost dropping it.

"Cannot kill Edward with this," said Jasper. "It is unlikely that you could even hurt him with it. It takes a stab into the heart. You have to make sure to get it in between his ribs. Once in, his blood will drain away."

I looked at it.

"Why not just use a gun?" I asked.

He smirked, "Bullets can be dodged."

I blinked at him.

"Also," he went on, "you can close a wound that small fairly quickly. This needs to be removed first, and we tolerate a stab to the heart about as well as you do. Once he is stabbed once, again and again isn't hard. They quickly will not have enough blood to heal, and soon will not have enough blood to move."

I frowned, "Why didn't you do this when he was at the house?"

"We didn't have these at the house," said Jasper.

Alice smirked.

"He keeps one in our room that the others don't know about," she said. "He would be in trouble if they knew. Besides, Edward's a telepath. Had we tried, he would have known. You would have been hurt, likely have died."

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat down. The result was less than satisfactory.

The dream-like feeling had not left me. I was here, but I felt removed, disconnected. If you had asked me what I would be doing now three days ago, I couldn't have told you, but I would have been at home, likely in bed, possibly with Edward visiting. The idea of him being there, outside my window, seemed like a dream come true. I couldn't imagine the scenario going any other way than me inviting him in. I liked the idea of him being the room with me, felt a thrill at the idea of him actually being in the bed beside me. The thrill turned to blissful contentment as I spun out fantasies of him holding me as I drifted off to sleep, staying with me the whole night through. Now, the very idea of him outside my window meant danger. Or, it should mean danger. I was scared that my life might end and what that would mean for him, but I couldn't, absolutely couldn't, think of Edward as something to be feared. And that was very, very stupid.

I drew out the blade and looked at it.

"It won't kill him," he said. "After he is down, you would still need to burn him and disrupt the ashes. Some vampires are so old, even that hasn't worked."

Somehow, that helped. We weren't trying to kill Edward, just stop him. I could do that.

I held the dagger out before me.

"No," he said, "here."

What followed was a short tutorial on the proper way to stab someone in the heart. It is all about using your body weight as leverage and getting your mass and center of gravity behind the blow and and holding your arm just so and aiming and trusting your body. I was terrible at it.

"Let's take a break," I asked.

"Alright," he said, "we will keep practicing, though. It might save your life."

I nodded, finding a seat next to Alice.

"Where is he?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"My ability is like his," she said, "and isn't like his. I can't just know where he is. I can't even see what he is doing. I can see where his current path will lead as he makes the decision to go there, but I may not even know where there is, even if he knows it. And I may not even get that if he doesn't know where he is going."

I gave her a confused look.

"You can go somewhere even if you don't know where it is," she explained, "especially if you have never been there before. How do you get to Central Park in New York?"

I relaxed, "I see. There are so many steps to doing something you have never done before, you never know what step will give you the information you need to make the next decision."

My face went skeptical.

"Then, how did you know?" I asked.

"Know what?" she asked in return.

"You said that Edward would fall in love with me someday," I reiterated. "You said that there were only two outcomes with us; my death or my new status as a vampire. How is it possible for you to know that? Neither he nor I have ever done anything like a relationship."

She smiled, "Bella. You always have a choice. But there are some decisions that you will always make, unless some fundamental aspect of who you are changes. Until that happens, you will always make the same decision."

I thought about that.

"But if you always have a choice," I asked, "couldn't you still choose the same decision as before, even though something has changed? How do you really change?"

She slid closer to me and took my hand.

"Freewill," she said. "Life wears you, as water over a stone, but bigger factors come through as well, like love and fear and pain and truth. Some are too strong, too harsh, too painful, too poignant to ignore. When that happens, your paradigm shifts."

"Paradigm?" I asked, wanting to understand. I had heard the phrase before, but I wasn't sure what she meant in this context.

"Think of it as a lie we tell ourselves," she explained, "for any number of reasons. You were told a lie your entire life because people were angry and wanted you to believe you were small so they could feel big. Or it could be something you believe because it is easier than facing the truth. Or it could simply be something that you have never seen contradicted your entire life and never knew it wasn't true. But finally, you are willing to see the truth for what it is, or, at least, not deny the lie anymore. You then incorporate the truth into your world view."

"So, unless Edward or I have a major paradigm shift," I clarified, "we will be together forever?"

"And if he doesn't kill you," clarified Alice, "yes."

I didn't like that.

"But that sort of suggests that we are lying to ourselves in some way," I complained.

She laughed her tinkling little laugh, "Bella, everyone is lying to themselves in some way. It is how we cope. Some lies are bigger than others. But not all paradigms will keep you and Edward apart."

I nodded. I didn't like it, but I nodded. I turned to Jasper.

"Again?" I asked, and he stood. We practiced again.

That soon became our routine. I woke up. If I was hungry, we ordered room service. I answered the door with the college hoodie that Alice had picked up somewhere and played the sick college student, cooped up in her room trying to study while ill. The fact that I wasn't getting any sun and was hardly eating helped this image. Then I would practice with Jasper until I got tired, then I would talk with Alice about Edward until I got bored. I would watch television until that got boring. Then I would practice with Jasper again, and the cycle would continue until I became tired enough to cry myself to sleep. We shut out the sun and day and night lost all meaning.

"You're improving steadily," said Jasper after what seemed like the longest practice session yet.

"And no," said Alice, speaking sweetly to Jasper, "even if we weren't in a hotel room, I wouldn't allow her to practice upon you. She wouldn't do it anyway."

I blinked at him to see if he was serious, horrified.

Jasper smirked at her, "If I told you it was just an idea, would you believe me?"

She shook her head, smiling, "Never."

I went to the kitchenette to get water and towel the sweat from my brow, but really, I just couldn't be around them when they were so… couply. In my frustration, I realized it wasn't enough and that I needed a shower. I slipped away to the bathroom.

Stripping down usually felt almost cathartic, like I was getting rid of a burden I had long forgotten I was still carrying, but it didn't really do much for me at that moment. The hot water helped my sore muscles, but I wished it helped me relax, but it seemed I was doomed to a state of near constant tension until this plight was over. Here I was, in the city that I thought of as home more than any other, right up until I had really settled back in Forks. I hadn't realized that until that moment, that Forks now truly felt like home, which made being back here so much more bizarre. That, compounded by the fact that I was in some strange hotel room, miles from the place I had thought of as home and would not be going back to, made it all the more strange. And, the fact that I was running from the last person in the world that I thought I would ever need to run from and that I was working really hard to learn how to possibly stab him in the heart in self defense or else risking my death followed by his… I couldn't think about it too hard or I would go nuts with just how out of my life and my element I felt. I was here and coping, but I missed… everything. I missed my friends, my room, my Dad, my life. And him. God, I couldn't think about it anymore or I would start crying again and this time, I didn't think I would stop.

I got out of the shower. I dried myself off with a corse hotel towel, and I slipped back into my room. I took out another set of clothes out of my backpack, from next to the bag I had been sticking the old ones into. Aside from my disheveled sheets, the only evidence of my occupation in this room was in the back I could grab and leave with at a moment's notice. I was here, and I was ready. As hard as this was, I was prepared and I had the support of those around me. I could get through this, even if I didn't know how. I could do this. How was I going to do this?

Shaking my head and stifling my worries, I prepared to go back to them. As I stepped back into the room, freshly clothed, Alice spoke up immediately.

"What is in Riverside, California?" she asked.

I came up short, the question completely unexpected.

"Um," I said, drawing the word out, giving my time to align my thoughts. "It was where my grandmother lived. She passed away almost six years ago. Why?"

She nodded, "He is going there, will be there soon, breaking into the townhall for the census records. Until he finds what he is looking for, he doesn't know where he is going."

"Yeah," I said. "I am not sure what happened to her house. Mom and her weren't very close. She and I were more so. But I think she, my Mom, sold the house as soon as she could get it presentable. She went while I was visiting Charlie one summer and cleaned it out. It hasn't been in our family for years."

She looked thoughtful, "It might be a good fallback spot. He will not likely check where he has already looked for some time."

I smiled, "We might as well go back to Forks, then."

She gave a short breathy giggle.

"Right now," she said, "I think you are more willing to contend with a murderous Edward than you are your father."

I crumpled. She was right. I hadn't even begun to come up with an excuse. What could I say? Sorry, Dad? My boyfriend was trying to kill me? I couldn't even think of a plausible lie.

I felt sleep starting to take me.

"Night," I said ironically, because I had no idea if that word applied. I went to my room and to sleep.

I double checked to make sure my bag was ready to go, laid out my clothes for the next "day", and, as I did every time before bed when I had nothing and no one to occupy myself with, I started to cry.

Edward was going to do his best, was doing his best, to end my life. It didn't make any sense. I had felt safe with him, completely safe, until I found Mike on the floor in a pool of his own blood. I hadn't wanted it to be him, hadn't wanted to believe it, but I knew. I had known immediately what had happened. And I hated it. For the first time since I was old enough to give up childish fits of peak, I truly hated something. I wasn't as though I expected Edward and I to magically live happily forever after, but I certainly would have put this on the short list of impossible things. I knew he might kill me, but I had imagined it would have been some quick, snap of the moment thing. This, trodding, grooling, plodding trek to my doom… it felt so unlike him…

It felt like no time at all had passed when I awoke with a start.

"Bella!" came Alice's voice from my door, harsh and demanding.

"Hmm?" I murmured, still half asleep.

"We have to go, now," she said. "He is here, in Phoenix."

I was suddenly awake.

"How much time do we have?" I asked, standing, nearly toppling as I was still too asleep to be on my feet.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I am not even sure how he did it. But when I looked a moment ago, he was in range to hear my vision. He used his to hijack my sight. As he saw my vision, he changed his choice, and he did it perfectly. He made every possible wild choice and found us on our way to the airport. I managed to stop looking just before he could backtrack us to the hotel. But we have to go, now!"

I felt like I had been asleep for several hours, at least.

"What do I do?" I asked, getting dressed.

"He could be finding his way here now," she continued, "and I can't check again, not without giving us up completely. I have already gotten you the ticket to New York. We might be able to get past him. He can't do anything vampiric too public. We just need to get you on the plane."

I paused, thinking about it.

"Or," I said.

"No," she said, sighing. "We aren't risking you to try to stop him."

I jutted my jaw.

"It's my choice," I said.

I had been giving it a lot of thought. It had been building in me the last few days. I was the only one who had a chance to stop him, to pierce his heart. It would be dangerous, but it was a chance I was willing to take, if I had to.

She looked at me hard, "Bella, I will not let you make a decision that you do not understand the consequences of. I won't. Let's go."

My jaw was still jutted as I did as she asked. I finished dressing. My back was ready to go. I shouldered it, and left my room.

"My bag," said Jasper as I passed the couch.

"I got it," I said, bending over the leather bag, sliding it over my shoulder.

"Hurry," he said, not taking it back from me as we moved down the hall and into the elevator."

"Here," said Alice, holding out a ticket for me. "I didn't check any information on it."

I shook my head, "He is in your thoughts, right now?"

She shook her head, "More than likely. Can't be sure. Doesn't matter. You will have to wing it from here. Best we can do is protect you from a distance."

"My bag," asked Jasper.

I nearly fumbled the bag as I slid out from behind my back and off my arm. He closed the flap and slid it across his body.

"As soon as the elevator is open," said Alice, "go."

I knew what to do.

The elevator opened. I headed for the front doors, in a rush, but not running. The last thing I needed was to twist an ankle. I hurried outside, taking in the sky, dark as ever. There was a shuttle there. Perfect. More people the better.

I was coming up beside the shuttle when I heard a cry behind me. I whipped around, seeing Alice standing beside the door, looking at a concerned Jasper, just in time to hear the harsh chipping sound. I wasn't sure what it was, not until the resounding crack of the rifle caught up to us. At the same moment, a gout of blood spew forth from Jasper's torso in both directions along the bullet's trajectory, high, perhaps from a neighboring building. Perhaps just in the sky.

Alice grabbed Jasper, hoisting him easily and taking him at nearly inhuman speed for cover. People barely had time to react before she was around the corner of the building and gone. I had to run.

I ran in the opposite direction of Alice, unsure where I was going. It had to get somewhere out of the public eye, somewhere he couldn't see me, not until I wanted him to. I wasn't sure where. I crossed the street as quickly as I could without causing a traffic accident. I found myself out front tall building, a bank building. Security. That might help to slow him down. I tried the door, and though it was late at night, the door was open. I went immediately to the elevators, but they needed keycards. I went to the stairs and found that there weren't wasn't anything preventing you from getting onto them, just not onto any of the other floors. Must be a safety thing, I thought madly, my lungs burning and my heart pounding nearly as hard as my feet as I began to climb. I was pretty sure that I had chosen the tallest building in all of Phoenix, taking the stairs as fast as I could. By the time I got to the roof, I felt like I was about to have a coronary.

The door to the roof was unlocked. I couldn't have told you why. It looked like someone had jammed the lock. Next to the door was an ashtray, which pretty much answered my question. I headed out slowly, owing more to my out-of-breath-ness than my trepidation.

There was scaffolding and air conditioning equipment aplenty. I wasn't sure where to go. I knew that he would find me here, either because of Alice or because he would look. I needed to be noticable, to be visible, to be huntable.

I went to the edge of the roof. Reaching into my bag, I grabbed the stiletto dagger that Jasper had given me. It was pretty sharp. How much would I need? A drop? A small cut? Hopefully not a dangerous amount. I needn't have bothered.

With a rush and a skitter of gravel, someone crashed down upon the roof behind me. I turned and there he was.

Edward had looked better, clothing wise. He was wearing his tux, but now, it was in complete disarray. The bottom half seemed to be splattered in mud. Buttons were popped or missing. His cummerbund was gone, as was the stone at his neck and at least one cufflink. There were small tears everywhere and one especially big tear at the seam of his shoulder. His hair was mussed and a bit dirty. But his face…

He was as beautiful as ever, every proportion as I had seen it so many times before. There was no writhing bone or bowing muscle to distort the contours I knew so well. But his eyes… His eyes were different. The majority of the contact pieces were gone, leaving his eyes red. There were glowing darkly, smouldering embers on a low fire, dark but still deceptively hot. They were voids, as emotionless and unwavering as those of a shark. And, they were perfectly zeroed in on me.

"Edward," I whispered, and he almost didn't react at all.

"Please," I said, my voice a firm as I could make it, but unable to completely hide my fear. "Don't do this."

I held the dagger before me, my hand trembling. To my horror, his expression finally changed. He smiled. It was the most harrowing moment of my life.

The dagger skittered across the gravel, back across the roof, far enough away that there was no chance I could get to it before he could get to me. He was gone. No, not gone, behind me. I turned and staggered back, putting distance between him and me. He was on the very edge of the roof, between me and what would have been my one way out. If I had gotten over the edge of the roof before he had gotten to me, there would have been no way for him to catch up before I hit the ground. So much for plan B.

"Why are you doing this?" I practically croaked, trying to buy more time on this Earth. I really didn't expect an answer.

He snorted, "You are prey."

"I'm not prey," I said, feeling shaky with fear. "I'm Bella. Isabella Swan. I'm your Bella."

The truth of what I said shocked me. I was his. He didn't own me. I freely gave myself to him, to be his. It was my gift, one that I found that I had not revoked, even in my impending death.

To my surprise, he reacted again. Not in indifference as I would have expected, and not pleasantly or appropriately for someone romantically involved as we were, which was my deepest wish; my words seemed to hurt him. But then his resolve seemed to find him again.

"You are mine," he said, his voice thick with poorly contained fervor, "my prey, my chalice, the vessel of my sustenance. You are a means to my continued existence. Nothing more."

I… I lost focus. I couldn't… It was my fear. My darkest, truest fear. If I stopped trusting, if I removed all faith from my life, I would believe that there was no way for Edward to love me, no reason, no possibility. I was nothing but a tool to stave off boredom, an artifact to occupy his curiosity until something better came along. I would believe I was unworthy of love, of life, of him.

And in that moment, something crystalized for me as it never had. I was completely comfortable calling myself his Bella, but the inverse terrified me. It scared me to death that it might not be true, might never be true. I needed faith, more than anything else, because if I didn't have faith, I was never making it off of this roof.

"I know you don't believe that," I said, finding my voice more sure than I would have believed. "Come back to me, my Edward."

I didn't think he could have had a bigger reaction if I had applied jumper cables to his chest. He jerked and flinched back, half twisting away. I almost made a run for it, just remembering that running prey is to be chased, to be killed.

Instead, I took a step closer to him. I made it two more steps before his eyes found me, looking angry and, to my dismay, warning. Something of Edward was still there. I dared to hope that I might make it out of this alive.

"Why are you doing this?" he seethed, his voice all but a hiss. "Don't you see what you are doing to me, just by existing? It hurts! I just want it to be over!"

He stilled, the pain in his face pulling back, leaving only a painful intent look as he once again zeroed in on me.

"No more doubt," he said, his voice husky with desire and a fervor that bored on manic, "no more pain, no more risk, no more trying and failing to be what I never will be. I am a monster. You are just another human, another victim…"

"Mike is alive," I said. I don't know why I said it. I just sort of popped out, but I followed the train. "You didn't kill him. You hurt him, sure, but there may not be any lasting effect here. You made a mistake, one from which you can recover."

The pain was back, the confliction, the confusion. I had to keep trying. There was still a way for us both to walk away from this.

He looked at me, really looked into my eyes.

"I am a monster, Bella," he said, his words quiet. "I have never been anything else. I never will be."

I swallowed.

"You always, always have a choice," I said, casting it all into wind, letting go. "If you want to be a monster, then choose."

I looked away. I slumped a little my knees bending, my shoulders twisting back to one side. My hands at my sides, I trembled. I could almost feel him coming, could just make him out in my periphery. He was just beginning to bend, savoring what was to come, knowing there was nothing that I could do. Now.

I stilled. He did too, confused by my fear leaving me as my breathing calmed though my heart still hammered. I reached out, blindly if I hadn't known him so well, memorized him standing beside me, his height, his physicality. My left hand landed on his shoulder, my first point of leverage. Clutching, I twisted my body, hips and shoulders. At the same time, I extended my legs, lifting, pushing with every muscle I knew how, my calves, my thighs, even my back. I raised my right hand, my elbow under the movement, leveraging my shoulder into the motion. I augmented the movement with my forearm, twisting into the upward plunge as I drew him down with my opposing arm. And, as though I had been practicing for months and not days, the second stiletto that I had taken from Jasper's bag found its target.

The force of the blow carried us back. Edward froze, aside from taking the few steps back to stop him from falling with the force of the blow. He was too close for me to see all of his face, until he straightened. He looked down, seeing the hilt of the dagger against his chest, my hand still around the handle. He looked shocked, looking at the blade and then me. Something tinged his expression, something like emotional hurt, of disappointment.

"Bella," he said, sounding small and disbelieving. "You…"

He began to fall. He didn't step back or try to pull himself off of the blade. He simply tilted backwards. Only then did I realize that we were on the very edge of the roof.

"Edward!" I screamed, losing myself completely. I released the blade, and reached for him. My left barely held to him, my right already slick with his blood. I tried but could not get purchase, but I refused to let go, to give up. Only when I had lent too far did I realize we were both going.

We fell, together. In the rush of air passing us by, I pulled myself to him. I knew we had only one chance; I pulled the dagger from his chest. The hurt of it seemed to bring life back into him. He reached out and grabbed me, held me, and our descent slowed. And for a moment, I was with him again. I was in his embrace, and he was protecting me. I let go.

"Edward," I whispered. I don't know if he heard me, but I hoped he did.

We touched down, roughly, I could see the side of a building, an alley of some kind. I wasn't sure how we got here. And then, I couldn't care.

Edwards lips were against my neck. They were cool and electric against me, filling me with such sensation. And then, those cool lips gave way to a slice of deep pain, not diminished in its ecstasy. I bowed against him, backwards into his arm, and felt his mouth pulling against me, heard him vocalize the thrill of his feeding. And I realized, that was the moment in which I was to die.