I didn't really know what my plan was.
I needed to be careful, avoid tipping Billy off, otherwise he'd call Sam and the game would be up. They'd cut me off and push me back. Probably try to make me angry, or even hurt me—somehow force me to phase so that Sam could lay down a new law.
But Billy was expecting me, knowing I'd be in some kind of state. He was in the yard, just sitting there in his wheelchair with his eyes right on the spot where I came through the trees. I saw him judge my direction—headed straight past the house to my homemade garage.
"Got a minute, Julie?"
I skidded to a stop. I looked at him and then toward the garage.
"C'mon kid. At least help me inside."
I gritted my teeth but decided that he'd be more likely to cause trouble with Sam if I didn't lie to him for a few minutes.
"Since when do you need help, old man?"
He laughed his rumbling laugh. "My arms are tired. I pushed myself all the way here from Sue's."
"It's downhill. You coasted the whole way."
I rolled his chair up the little ramp I'd made for him and into the living room.
"Caught me. Think I got up to about thirty miles per hour. It was great."
"You're gonna wreck that chair, you know. And then you'll be dragging yourself around by your elbows."
"Not a chance. It'll be your job to carry me."
"You won't be going many places."
Billy put his hands on the wheels and steered himself to the fridge. "Any food left?"
"You got me. Paul was here all day, though, so probably not."
Billy sighed. "Have to start hiding the groceries if we're gonna avoid starvation."
"Tell Rachel to go stay at his place."
Billy's joking tone vanished, and his eyes got soft. "We've only had her home a few weeks. First time she's been here in a long time. It's hard—the girls were older than you when your mom passed. They have more trouble being in this house."
"I know."
Rebecca hadn't been home once since she got married, though she did have a good excuse. Plane tickets from Hawaii were pretty pricey. Washington State was close enough that Rachel didn't have the same defense. She'd taken classes straight through the summer semesters, working double shifts over the holidays at some café on campus. If it hadn't been for Paul, she probably would have taken off again real quick. Maybe that was why Billy wouldn't kick him out.
"Well, I'm going to go work on some stuff…" I started for the back door.
"Wait up, Julie. Aren't you going to tell me what happened? Do I have to call Sam for an update?"
I stood with my back to him, hiding my face.
"Nothing happened. Sam doesn't want to do anything till we know for sure the treaty's been broken. Guess we're all just a bunch of leech lovers now."
"Julie…"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Are you leaving, Julie?"
The room was quiet for a long time while I decided how to say it.
"Rachel can have her room back. I know she hates that air mattress."
"She'd rather sleep on the floor than lose you. So would I."
I snorted.
"Julie, please. If you need... a break. Well, take it. But not so long again. Come back."
"Maybe. Maybe my gig will be weddings. Make a cameo at Sam's, then Rachel's. Jared and Kim might come first, though. Probably ought to have a dress or something."
"Julie, look at me."
I turned around slowly. "What?"
He stared into my eyes for a long minute. "Where are you going?"
"I don't really have a specific place in mind."
He cocked his head to the side, and his eyes narrowed. "Don't you?"
We stared each other down. The seconds ticked by.
"Julie," he said. His voice was strained. "Julie, don't. It's not worth it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Leave Bella and the Cullens be. Sam is right."
I stared at him for a second, and then I crossed the room in two long strides. I grabbed the phone and disconnected the cable from the box and the jack. I wadded the gray cord up in the palm of my hand.
"Bye, Dad."
"Julie, wait—," he called after me, but I was out the door, running.
The motorcycle wasn't as fast as running, but it was more discreet. I wondered how long it would take Billy to wheel himself down to the store and then get someone on the phone who could get a message to Sam. I'd bet Sam was still in his wolf form. The problem would be if Paul came back to our place anytime soon. He could phase in a second and let Sam know what I was doing...
I wasn't going to worry about it. I would go as fast as I could, and if they caught me, I'd deal with that when I had to.
I kicked the bike to life and then I was racing down the muddy lane. I didn't look behind me as I passed the house.
The highway was busy with tourist traffic; I wove in and out of the cars, earning a bunch of honks and a few fingers. I took the turn onto the 101 at seventy, not bothering to look. I had to ride the line for a minute to avoid getting smeared by a minivan. Not that it would have killed me, but it would have slowed me down. Broken bones—the big ones, at least—took days to heal completely, as I had good cause to know.
The freeway cleared up a little, and I pushed the bike to eighty. I didn't touch the brake until I was close to the narrow drive; I figured I was in the clear then. Sam wouldn't come this far to stop me. It was too late.
It wasn't until that moment—when I was sure that I'd made it—that I started to think about what exactly I was going to do now. I slowed down to twenty, taking the twists through the trees more carefully than I needed to.
I knew they would hear me coming, bike or no bike, so surprise was out. There was no way to disguise my intentions. Edyth would hear my plan as soon as I was close enough. Maybe she already could. But I thought this would still work out, because I had her ego on my side. She'd want to fight me alone.
So I'd just walk in, see Sam's precious evidence for myself, and then challenge Edyth to a duel.
I snorted. The parasite'd probably get a kick out of the theatrics of it.
When I finished with her, I'd take as many of the rest of them as I could before they got me. Huh—I wondered if Sam would consider my death enough. Probably say I got what I deserved. Wouldn't want to offend his bloodsucker BFFs.
The drive opened up into the meadow, and the smell hit me like a rotten tomato to the face. Ugh. Reeking vampires. My stomach started churning. The stench would be hard to take this way—undiluted by the scent of humans as it had been the other time I'd come here—though not as bad as smelling it through my wolf nose.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but there was no sign of life around the big white crypt. Of course they knew I was here.
I cut the engine and listened to the quiet. Now I could hear tense, angry murmurs from just the other side of the wide double doors. Someone was home. I heard my name and I smiled, happy to think I was causing them a little stress.
I took one big gulp of air—it would only be worse inside—and leaped up the porch stairs in one bound.
The door opened before my fist touched it, and the doctor stood in the frame, his eyes grave.
"Hello, Julie," he said, calmer than I would have expected. "How are you?"
I took a deep breath through my mouth. The reek pouring through the door was overpowering.
I was disappointed that it was Carlisle who answered. I'd rather Edyth had come through the door, fangs out. Carlisle was so... just human or something. Maybe it was the house calls he made last spring when I got busted up. But it made me uncomfortable to look into his face and know that I was planning to kill him if I could.
"I heard Bella made it back alive," I said.
"Er, Julie, it's not really the best time." The doctor seemed uncomfortable, too, but not in the way I expected. "Could we do this later?"
I stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he asking to post-pone the death match for a more convenient time?
And then I heard Bella's voice, cracked and rough, and I couldn't think about anything else.
"Why not?" she asked someone. "Are we keeping secrets from Julie, too? What's the point?"
Her voice was not what I was expecting. I tried to remember the voices of the young vampires we'd fought in the spring, but all I'd registered was snarling. Maybe those newborns hadn't had the piercing, ringing sound of the older ones, either. Maybe all new vampires sounded hoarse.
"Come in, please, Jules," Bella croaked more loudly.
Carlisle's eyes tightened.
I wondered if Bella was thirsty. My eyes narrowed, too.
"Excuse me," I said to the doctor as I stepped around him. It was hard—it went against all my instincts to turn my back to one of them. Not impossible, though. If there was such a thing as a safe vampire, it was the strangely gentle leader.
I would stay away from Carlisle when the fight started. There were enough of them to kill without including him.
I sidestepped into the house, keeping my back to the wall. My eyes swept the room—it was unfamiliar. The last time I'd been in here it had been all done up for a party. Everything was bright and pale now. Including the six vampires standing in a group by the white sofa.
They were all here, all together, but that was not what froze me where I stood and had my jaw dropping to the floor.
It was Edyth. It was the expression on her face.
I'd seen her angry, and I'd seen her arrogant, and once I'd seen her in pain. But this— this was beyond agony. Her eyes were half-crazed. She didn't look up to glare at me. She stared down at the couch beside her with an expression like someone had lit her on fire. Her hands were rigid claws at her side.
I couldn't even enjoy her anguish. I could only think of one thing that would make her look like that, and my eyes followed hers.
I saw her at the same moment that I caught her scent. Her warm, human scent.
Bella was half-hidden behind the arm of the sofa, curled up in a loose fetal position, her arms wrapped around her knees. For a long second I could see nothing except that she was still the Bella that I loved, her skin still a soft, pale peach, her eyes still the same silvery blue. My heart thudded a strange, broken meter, and I wondered if this was just some lying dream that I was about to wake up from.
Then I really saw her.
There were deep circles under her eyes, dark circles that jumped out because her face was all haggard. Was she thinner? Her skin seemed tight—like her cheekbones might break right through it. Most of her long, brown hair was pulled away from her face into a messy knot, but a few strands stuck limply to her forehead and neck, to the sheen of sweat that covered her skin. There was something about her fingers and wrists that looked so fragile it was scary.
Shewas sick. Very sick.
Not a lie. The story Charlie'd told Billy was not a story. While I stared, eyes bugging, her body convulsed and she started coughing.
The blond bloodsucker—the showy one, Royal—bent over Bella, cutting into my view, hovering in a strange, protective way.
This was wrong. I knew how Bella felt about almost everything—her thoughts were so obvious; sometimes it was like they were printed on her forehead. So she didn't have to tell me every detail of a situation for me to get it. I knew that Bella didn't like Royal. I'd seen it in the set of her lips when she talked about the blond. Not just that she didn't like him. She was afraid of Royal. Or she had been.
There was no fear as Bella glanced up at Royal now. Bella's expression was... apologetic or something. Then Royal snatched a towel from the nearby table and held it up to Bella's face as she coughed violently into it.
Edyth fell to her knees by Bella's side—her eyes all tortured-looking—and Royal held out his hand, warning Edyth to keep back.
None of it made sense.
When she could raise her head, Bella smiled weakly at me, sort of embarrassed. "Sorry about that," she whispered to me.
Edyth moaned real quiet. Her head slumped against Bella's knees. Bella put one of her hands against Edyth's cheek. Like she was comforting her.
I didn't realize my legs had carried me forward until Royal hissed at me, suddenly appearing between me and the couch. He was like a person on a TV screen. I didn't care he was there. He didn't seem real.
"Roy, don't," Bella whispered. "It's fine."
Blondie moved out of my way, though I could tell he hated to do it. Scowling at me, he crouched by Bella's head, tensed to spring. He was easier to ignore than I ever would have dreamed.
"Bella, what's wrong?" I whispered. Without thinking about it, I found myself on my knees, too, leaning over the back of the couch across from her... wife. Edyth didn't seem to notice me, and I barely glanced at her. I reached out for Bella's free hand, taking it in both of mine. Her skin was icy cold. "Are you all right?"
It was a stupid question. She didn't answer it.
"I'm so glad you came to see me today, Jules," she said.
Even though I knew Edyth couldn't hear Bella's thoughts, she seemed to hear some meaning I didn't. She moaned again, into the blanket that covered Bella, and Bella stroked her cheek.
"What is it, Bella?" I insisted, wrapping my hands tight around her icy, fragile fingers.
She didn't answer me right away, she glanced around the room. Six pairs of anxious yellow eyes stared back at her. Finally, she turned to Royal.
"Help me up, Roy?" she asked.
Royal's lips pulled back over his teeth, and he glared up at me like he wanted to rip my throat out. I was sure that was exactly the case.
"Please, Roy."
The blond made a face, but leaned over Bella again, next to Edyth, who didn't move an inch. He put his arm carefully behind Bella's shoulders.
"No," I whispered. "Don't get up…" She looked so weak.
"Oh, stop fussing," She coughed, rolling her eyes, sounding a littlle bit more like her usual self. "I want to give you a hug."
Royal pulled Bella off the couch. Edyth stayed where she was, sagging forward till her face was buried in the cushions. The blanket fell to the ground at Bella's feet.
She was thinner. Her clothes hung off her body, like she had been wasting away in the short month since I'd seen her last. She staggered forward, weakly holding her arms out to me. I stood up and caught her, and wrapped my arms around her as gently as I could. I felt like I would snap her in half if I wasn't careful. Her body felt small and cold in my arms.
"Jules," She sighed. "I'm obviously not doing so great." She tried to laugh, but she started coughing.
The blond jerked forward, hand outstretched.
"It's fine, Roy," Bella held back the coughs. "It's—shoot, sorry Jules."
I glanced down. I felt a chill run down my spine. There was blood on my chest where her head had been resting.
"Bella, babe," I choked out the words. "What's going on? How—why—"
"We don't know, Jules," She sighed. "It's bad, though. We're trying to fix it."
I didn't know what to think. If she was doing this badly, and if they were still trying to fix it, well, that had to mean that they weren't making good progress. Bella was dying, the longer I was here, the more I could smell it—the sickness—rooted deep inside of her, killing her, destroying her.
Some rare, obviously fatal disease picked up from the other side of the world. All because the bloodsucker had to take Bella away with her. Take her away, but not do a good enough job protecting her.
I always knew the bloodsucker would be responsible for killing her.
Edyth's head snapped up as she heard the words inside mine. One second she was on her knees, and then she was on her feet, inches away from my face. Her eyes were flat black, the circles under them dark purple.
"Outside, Julie," she snarled.
I let go of Bella and turned to face the leech. This was why I was here.
"Let's do this," I agreed.
The big one, Emmett, pushed forward on Edyth's other side, with the hungry-looking one, Jasper, right behind him. I really didn't care. Maybe my pack would clean up the scraps when they finished me off. Maybe not. It didn't matter.
For the tiniest part of a second my eyes touched on the two standing in the back. Esme. Alice. Small and gentle looking. Well, I was sure the others would kill me before I had to do anything about them. I didn't want to kill them… they were so ...tiny.
"No," Bella gasped, coughing as she stumbled forward, weak and out of balance, to clutch at Edyth's arm. Royal moved with her, like there was a chain locking them to each other.
"I just need to talk to her, Bella," Edyth said in a low voice, talking only to her. She reached up to touch her face, to stroke it. This made the room turn red, made me see fire—that, after all the pain she'd put Bella through, after letting her get so sick, she was still allowed to touch her that way. "Don't strain yourself," she went on, pleading. "Please rest. We'll both be back in just a few minutes."
Bellq stared at her face, reading it carefully. Then she nodded and drooped toward the couch. Royal helped lower her back onto the cushions. Bella stared at me, trying to hold my eyes.
"Behave, Julie," she insisted. "And then come back."
I didn't answer. I wasn't making any promises today. I looked away and then followed Edyth out the front door.
A random, disjointed voice in my head noted that separating her from the coven hadn't been so difficult, had it?
She kept walking, never checking to see if I was about to spring at her unprotected back. I supposed she didn't need to check. She would know when I decided to attack. Which meant I'd have to make that decision very quickly.
"I'm not ready for you to kill me yet, Julie Black," she whispered as she paced quickly away from the house. "You'll have to have a little patience."
Like I cared about her schedule. I growled under my breath. "Patience isn't my specialty."
She kept walking, maybe a couple hundred yards down the drive away from the house, with me right on her heels. I was all hot, my fingers trembling. On the edge, ready and waiting.
She stopped without warning and pivoted to face me. Her expression froze me again.
For a second I was just a kid—a kid who had lived all of her life in the same tiny town. Just a child. Because I knew I would have to live a lot more, suffer a lot more, to ever understand the searing agony in Edyth's eyes.
She raised a hand as if to wipe sweat from her forehead, but her fingers scraped against her face like they were going to rip her granite skin right off. Her black eyes burned in their sockets, out of focus, or seeing things that weren't there. Her mouth opened like she was going to scream, but nothing came out.
This was the face a woman would have if she were burning at the stake.
For a moment I couldn't speak. It was too real, this face—I'd seen a shadow of it in the house, seen it in Bella's eyes and hers, but this made it final. The last nail in Bella's coffin.
"This… disease, it's killing her right? She's dying." And I knew when I said it that my face was a watered-down echo of hers. Weaker, different, because I was still in shock. I hadn't wrapped my head around it yet—it was happening too fast. She'd had time to get to this point. And it was different because I'd already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose.
And different because this wasn't my fault.
"My fault," Edyth whispered, and her knees gave out. She crumpled in front of me, vulnerable, the easiest target you could imagine.
But I felt cold as snow—there was no fire in me.
"Yes," she groaned into the dirt, like she was confessing to the ground. "Yes, it's killing her."
Her broken helplessness irritated me. I wanted a fight, not an execution. Where was her smug superiority now?
"So why hasn't Carlisle done anything?" I growled. "He's a doctor, right? Give her medicine, fix it."
She looked up then and answered me in a broken voice. "Nothing is working."
"What do you mean?"
"We weren't lying to Charlie," she whispered. "This sickness… it's unpredictable, violent. One moment, Carlisle thought Malaria, then a strain of Dengue Fever. But just when he thinks he knows what it is—how to fight it—it shifts, and it gets worse. Bella is dying. Her body is giving out on her. She's burning up one moment, then freezing the next. She can't keep food down, she's coughing up blood. Every joint in her body hurts…" She pulled her fingers through her hair. "We can't save her, not with any medicine we have here."
"So take her to a hospital!" I snapped.
She shook her head slowly. "If we take her to a hospital…" She closed her eyes and sighed. "You have to know what our contingency is. If Bella is taken to a hospital, with this disease—it's nothing seen here before. She'd be immediately quarantined, locked up in a lab somewhere while they watch her waste away so they can learn more about this mysterious new illness. I wouldn't be able to save her through…"
She didn't have to say it, I knew what she meant. I shuddered.
"I'm honestly surprised you haven't already changed her, I mean, since you've already put her through so much hell." I sneered.
Her eyes met mine again. "She won't let us."
It took a minute for the words to sink in. Bella was dying of some insane disease, and the Cullens had their damned miracle cure, and she wouldn't let them… It was so stubborn, so human… so Bella.
"You know her well," she whispered. "How quickly you see… I didn't see. Not in time. She wouldn't talk to me on the way home, not really. I thought she was frightened—that would be natural. I thought she was angry with me for putting her through this, for endangering her life. Again. I never imagined what she was really thinking, what she was resolving. Not until my family met us at the airport and she stumbled right into Royal's arms. Royal's! And then I heard what Royal was thinking. I didn't understand until I heard that. Yet you understand after one second…" She half-sighed, half-groaned.
"Just back up a second. She won't let you." The words were acid on my tongue. "So you were going to change her?"
"I wanted to," she whispered. "Carlisle would have…"
So eager to make another reeking bloodsucker.
"No. Not at all. We knew early on; this sickness would kill her. Alice saw it. Changing her was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was the surest way to save her. I was ready to do it, but her bodyguard complicated things."
Oh. Her story hadn't made much sense before, but it fit together now. So that's what Blondie was up to. What was in it for him, though? Did the prom king want Bella to die so bad?
"Hardly," she said. "Royal understands better than the rest of us how precious humanity is."
Huh. Well, I guess I couldn't hate the blonde bloodsucker that much. He was keeping Bella human, at least.
"Yes, and ruined our chances of saving her," Edyth groaned. "I know Bella would never had forgiven me, I know it's selfish, but I couldn't watch her die. I told myself changing her was the right thing—I was only trying to save her. But now…" She shook her head, defeated. "The disease attacked her cardiovascular system."
I raised an eyebrow, confused.
"Her heart," she snapped, "Bella's heart. It's weak. Too weak. She'd never survive the transformation process. Her heart would give out and she would die."
I took all this in for a second. Processed it. My anger was slowly being pushed out of the way for another emotion; despair. Bella was dying. There was no stopping it. Medicine couldn't fix it, and now she couldn't be changed. I was going to lose her.
"Congratulations, bloodsucker. I hope you're happy with yourself."
She stared up at me with a face that looked a thousand years old.
"Even you, Julie Black, cannot hate me as much as I hate myself."
Wrong, I thought, too enraged to speak.
"Killing me now doesn't save her," she said quietly.
"So what does?"
"Julie, you have to do something for me."
"The hell I do, parasite!"
She kept staring at me with those half-tired, half-crazy eyes. "For her?"
I clenched my teeth together hard. "I did everything I could to keep her away from you. Every single thing. You should have left her with me. Now it's too late."
She stared up at me from inside her own personal hell, and I could see that she agreed with me.
"You know her, Julie. You connect with her on a level that I don't even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you. She won't listen to me, because she thinks I'm just punishing myself. She won't let me say anything…" She chocked and then swallowed. "She might listen to you."
"Why would she?"
She lurched to her feet, her eyes burning brighter than before, wilder. I wondered if she was really going crazy. Could vampires lose their minds?
"Maybe," she answered my thought. "I don't know. It feels like it." She shook her head. "I have to try and hide this in front of her, because stress makes her more ill. She can't keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I can't make it harder. But that doesn't matter now. She has to listen to you!"
"I'm not going to march in there and convince her to hold on long enough for you to change her, bloodsucker!" I snarled. "You must be crazy if you think I'd do that."
"I'm not asking that," she whispered. "Carlisle thinks there's a chance—a small chance—Bella can survive this. It won't be easy, but it is possible if we do everything we possibly can." She shook her head. "I don't care about anything but keeping her alive," she said, suddenly focused now. "If she can survive this, I want her to have a long human life. I want her to be happy. I understand now, that I can't be a part of that happiness. We always end up here. Bella clinging to life, in mortal danger, and it is my fault." She paused and let out a slow, ragged sigh "I already knew I would do anything to keep her from dying but seeing her like this—knowing I would go so far as to take away her choice and—and change her…" she choked on the words. "I need you to convince Bella that she belongs with you."
She met my stare for a moment and her face was frenzied under the thin layer of control. My hard scowl crumbled as I processed her words, and I felt my mouth pop open in shock.
"Convince Bella that if she survives this, she needs to go with you. That she needs to stay here in Forks and live a long, happy life with you, Charlie, her human friends. I am a monster, Julie Black. Don't think I've ever for a moment thought otherwise. But I'm not a monster for the reasons you believe. I'm a monster because I would destroy her humanity just to keep myself from losing her. I am a monster because I am so selfish that I would end her mortal life to keep away the pain of her death."
The noise coming from my throat sounded like I was choking.
Was she serious? After everything that had happened—everything I had tried to do—did she really think I could convince Bella to choose me? To love me?
"She does love you."
"Not enough."
"Maybe she does."
"You really have lost your mind," I mumbled.
"Please, Julie." Her eyes were focused on me like lasers. "I know, I know it's going to take a lot of convincing. That's why I need you. You know how she thinks. Make her see sense."
I couldn't think about what she was asking. It was too much. Impossible. Rushing into that stinking house, getting down on one knee, and pleading Bella to leave her wife and run away with me? So messed up.
So tempting.
I didn't want to consider, didn't want to imagine, but the images came anyway. I'd dreamed about Bella loving me like that too many times, back when there was still a possibility of us, and then long after it was clear that the dreams would only leave festering sores because there was no possibility, none at all. I hadn't been able to help myself then. I couldn't stop myself now. Bella in my arms, Bella sighing my name.
I tried to put the idea out of my head. "Make Bella see sense? What universe do you live in?"
"At least try."
I shook my head fast. She waited, ignoring the negative answer because she could hear the conflict in my thoughts.
"Where is this psycho crap coming from? Are you making this up as you go?"
"I can't be allowed to love her anymore. Not when I'm willing to go to such extremes. I've lost the right to call Bella mine. She wants to stay human. I want her to stay human. If she survives this, I don't know if I'll be strong enough to keep myself from changing her if anything like this happens again. I don't think I trust myself."
"You're one hell of a mess."
"Help me," she whispered. "Help me keep her human and happy."
"She'll never do it." I growled. "She won't choose me. She's made that pretty clear."
"Try. There's nothing to lose now. How will it hurt?"
It would hurt me. Hadn't I taken enough rejection from Bella without this?
"A little pain to save her? Is it such a high cost?"
"But it won't work."
"But it might. After everything, you don't think I'm so egotistical that I can't see how much she does love you?"
I hadn't expected that. I didn't have a comeback.
"Talk to her. Convince her. If she chooses you, I won't fight."
I couldn't believe I was thinking about this. I shouldn't let her talk to me, mess with my head. I should just kill her now.
"Not now," she whispered. "Not yet. Right or wrong, it would destroy her, and you know it. No need to be hasty. If she doesn't survive… The moment Bella's heart stops beating, you'll get your chance. I will be begging for you to kill me."
"You won't have to beg long."
The hint of a worn smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I'm very much counting on that."
"Then we have a deal."
She nodded and held out her cold stone hand.
Swallowing my disgust, I reached out to take her hand. My fingers closed around the rock, and I shook it once.
"We have a deal," she agreed.