A/N: The story is coming to an end. Very slowly, but I'm getting there. The next chapter should clear things up a little, so you can look forward to it. I wasn't very happy with this chapter, but the suggestions of my beta KayMarieXW made it so much better that now I really like it! Thank you so much for your help and support!

Thanks to all who took the time to write a review or who alerted to Lifelines! You have no idea how happy that makes me.

BTW, have you seen the Breaking Dawn trailer yet? I LOVED it. Hopefully November 24 will arrive quickly!

Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga is the property of Stephenie Meyer. I'm only borrowing.

25. ARRANGEMENTS

EDWARD

Cause all I ever wanted's so far gone

And if I had my chance, I'd go along

Fallin' Down, Goo Goo Dolls

"You got a minute?"

Turning, I found Jacob standing behind me, a dubious look on his face. I'd heard him approach, but I'd assumed he was headed back to the city. Alice had talked Bella rather forcibly into giving her a ride, meaning that Jacob had to walk. In wolf form he could easily travel the distance to our house that was situated just outside Anchorage, so my eyebrows arched in surprise as I realised he meant to ask me for a ride because I hadn't caught the thoughts leading up to his decision.

"Yes, sure." I gestured at the car. "Get in."

Jacob nodded absently, still frowning rather dubiously as he slid into the passenger's seat, closing the door only when I'd started the engine. He immediately rolled down the window as far as it would go. I smirked, careful not to let Jacob see my face. He smelled as unpleasant to me as I smelled to him.

As I drove up the narrow winding road leading out of the valley, neither of us spoke. Jacob was sorting his thoughts, trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to say, then snorted as remembered that I probably already knew. I could read his mind after all, couldn't I?

"Your mind is very complex," I told him when he turned his head to look at me expectantly. "That makes it difficult for me to catch everything, especially when you're thinking about several things simultaneously."

"Is that so?" Jacob asked, his tone and expression wry. "Are you sure you just don't want to hear me say it? Oh, well, I guess it doesn't matter either way," he said without giving me the chance to answer, sighing a little. He glanced outside, frowning. The landscape was flashing past so fast it was no more than a swirl of white and black for him; his visual perception, while far better than a human's, was still limited compared to a vampire's. The cop in him was horrified by the way I drove, but the wolf couldn't have cared less.

I waited patiently. I hadn't lied—his mind was more complex than a human's, layered somehow. I'd never seen the like, not until I'd met Seth and Embry. Their minds had evolved beyond a human's in order to accommodate their telepathic link, the collective pack mind they shared as wolves. Used to the simple minds of humans and the highly organised minds of vampires, the complexity of Jacob's mind made it difficult for me to pick out specific thoughts when he was thinking about many things at the same time, like he was now.

"I don't like you," he said eventually, briefly looking my way to gauge my reaction and shrugging almost imperceptibly when my face remained expressionless. "I don't hate you—not anymore anyway—because it's kind of hard to hate someone that the person you care about most loves so much." His flat voice held an edge of bitterness. "To be completely honest, I wish she didn't, but I guess you know that already."

"I do," I confirmed, smiling humourlessly. "I know it's hard to believe, but there were times when I wished for the same."

Jacob's eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing into his hairline. I didn't have to be a mind reader to know that he didn't believe me. He'd had to concede that my feelings for Bella were deeper than he'd assumed, but if I loved her as much as I claimed, so much that I wished she didn't love me back, then why hadn't I walked away before she'd fallen for me, before it had been too late?

The brief silence was strained. "I didn't walk away," I said very softly, breaking it, "because I was too weak. I didn't realise I was falling in love with her until I already had. I told her to stay away from me. I may look and act like a human, but I'm not. I'm a predator, designed to kill. I tried to make her understand, but…" I slowly shook my head. "You know how she is."

Jacob heaved a sigh. "Yeah, I do."

"I still should have left, but I convinced myself that she was safe with me, that I could protect her. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but even then I knew that the reason I didn't leave was because I wasn't strong enough to. You think of us as stones," I said when Jacob shot me yet another doubtful look, "and in a way we are because change is almost impossible for us. It takes something extraordinarily powerful to instigate change in us, like falling in love. At the same time our capacity for emotion is greater than you could possibly imagine. It was impossible to change the way I felt about Bella, but I thought I could change how she felt about me."

"That's why you lied to her?" Jacob asked quietly. "That's why you told her you didn't love her anymore? So that she'd let you go?" He shook his head incredulously. "Jeez, you should have known she wouldn't. It's Bella we're talking about."

"You're right," I replied with a curt nod, wishing I'd picked up the phone when Alice had tried to call me in those first weeks after we'd left Forks. If I'd listened to her, maybe she'd have made me change my mind. "I should have. I know that now. In my arrogance, I failed to see that her feelings for me were just as strong as mine for her."

"Why didn't you change her?" Jacob asked, his voice devoid of emotion. It went against his nature to even consider that possibility, to allow a human life to be taken that way, but the memory that filtered into his mind made him wonder for the briefest of moments if maybe, just maybe, it would have been better if I'd turned her. He was remembering the way Bella had looked the first time she'd come to visit him, so frail he'd been afraid the wind would blow her away. "If you loved her so much, then why didn't you turn her into one of you?"

"I feared for her soul." I smiled sadly at the surprise bordering on shock that flashed up in Jacob's mind like lightning. That wasn't what he'd expected. He didn't know what he'd expected, but not that, certainly not that. "For a very long time I believed that I paid for immortality with my soul. I didn't want Bella to lose hers. That's the reason I refused to change her, although she repeatedly asked me to. Looking back, I realise how foolish it was of me to believe that. How can Bella, who is so kind and loving and compassionate, not have a soul anymore? But that was then. That's why I said that there were times I wished that Bella didn't love me. I wanted her to live a normal, a human life. I wanted her to have a family. With me, that was impossible."

"If she didn't love you, none of this would have happened," Jacob said quietly. I felt his eyes bore into me, but I didn't turn my head to meet his gaze, instead staring ahead without really seeing the muddy road. My silence was answer enough.

"I want to hate you for that," Jacob said eventually, his voice impassive and somewhat resigned. "I want to blame you for everything that's happened, for the people that died because of that redheaded bitch and for the pain she caused Bella, but…" An image flickered into his mind. His former alpha Sam, a woman by his side, the left side of her face marred by a ghastly scar. "That's Emily," Jacob said and I realised he'd pulled the picture to the surface of his mind for me to see. "Sam's wife."

"Was she mauled by a bear?" The scars bore resemblance to the ugly crimson gashes in Emmett's skin the night Rosalie had arrived with him on our doorstep, begging Carlisle to change him for her.

Jacob smiled humourlessly. "That's the official story." Another memory, the perspective and pattern of thoughts unfamiliar this time. I saw Emily before me, her face twisted in anger but free of any scars. Fear of losing control laced the thoughts Jacob was showing me. Sam's thoughts, I understood. The memory wasn't Jacob's. Sam stepped back, trying to get away from Emily, but she followed him, her eyes wild. He was reaching out to her to push her away when he lost control and phased, his hand, which suddenly became a paw with claws, too close to Emily's face. Emily staggered backwards, blood erupting from her face and her left arm. Then she fell.

Jacob let the memory slip away. "Sam still struggles with what he did that night, every time he sees the scars on her face," he said quietly. "He knows Emily forgave him the moment she woke up at the hospital, but he can't forgive himself. He… imprinted on her. That's what we call it. Emily literally is the centre of his universe. He is tied to her so completely that after he'd scarred her he couldn't even kill himself without her permission."

My lips twitched faintly. Jacob had just summed up the way I felt about Bella.

"I want to hate you," Jacob said, returning to our original conversation, "but I can't because I know what it feels like to love someone so desperately that staying away from that person is impossible. I never thought I'd say this to a vampire, least of all to you, but I understand why you couldn't walk away. Sam couldn't either."

"Thank you," I said softly.

"That doesn't mean I won't hunt you down if you hurt her," he said, his eyes hard. It was a warning I'd better keep in mind. He wouldn't let me hurt Bella again.

But then, I thought, steering the car along the road leading to our house, paying no attention to the uneven ground, if I do, Jacob hunting me down and tearing me apart limb by limb will be no more than I deserve.

xxx

"That's the colour she wanted?" Jasper asked dubiously, looking over the canary yellow Porsche with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. He, Emmett, Jacob and I stood outside in the bright sunlight, staring at Alice's new car.

"Yes," I confirmed, grimacing. Alice usually had good taste, but this time it seemed to have failed her. "At least it's unlikely she'll get into an accident, with a colour like that," I added, trying to be positive, although the probability of Alice getting into an accident was zero as it was.

"It's… flashy," Jacob agreed, glad that nobody in Anchorage knew him because Alice had asked him to drive the car over to Bella's place. The thought of Embry and Seth seeing him behind the wheel of that thing didn't exactly fill him with happy anticipation.

"It's one ugly car, that's for sure," Emmett said with his usual bluntness.

"I'd better get it over with then," Jacob said, sighing. "I'll see you tonight." Climbing in, he turned the key in the ignition and the engine came to life, gently purring like a pampered cat. Waving at us, Jacob backed out of the driveway, careful to avoid the piled-up snow.

"I thought she had better taste in cars," Emmett said thoughtfully, quickly stepping aside to avoid Jasper's blow. Having anticipated as much, Jasper spun around to close the distance, the edge of his left hand connecting hard with Emmett's skull. "Hey!" he complained, rubbing his head. He tore off after Jasper, the both of them disappearing behind the house to sort out their squabble the way they usually did, with their fists.

I went back inside, indecisive. Esme was upstairs in her study, on the phone with her client. I didn't want to interrupt, so I sat down at the piano instead to work at the piece I'd been composing for Alice.

The night had been quiet. Jacob had joined Emmett and Jasper for a fighting session so that Jasper could get a feel for his abilities as a wolf, then he'd nodded off while watching TV. Nice to see he finally trusts us, Esme had said, smiling down at his sleeping form for a moment before she'd gone off to fetch a blanket. I had to agree, although I still found it hard to reconcile the Jacob I'd met a few days ago with the Jacob asleep on the living room couch. So much had changed in just a few short days that they felt like decades to me.

Rosalie hadn't made an appearance all night. Worried, Esme had called her to make sure she had a place to stay during the day, but Rosalie had switched her phone off. She probably figured that if we were ignoring her she was free to do the same. I sighed, realising I was being unfair. I hadn't paid very close attention to Rosalie's thoughts last night, but enough to notice that she'd been uncharacteristically thoughtful.

Upstairs, Esme dropped her phone on her desk, muttering a mild expletive.

"Why don't you just quit?" I asked. I hadn't really followed the conversation, but what I saw in Esme's mind now was enough to know that her client was being difficult again. He'd been difficult from the second Esme took the job. "Let him find someone else to finish his house," I suggested.

Esme sighed. "I suppose I should." She looked rather unhappy as she walked into the living room. I moved aside, inviting her to sit down beside me. Smiling absently, she sank onto the piano bench. I switched from Alice's piece to the simple tune I'd been teaching Esme. She wasn't very good at it yet because, like Alice, she preferred singing over playing. "I guess the reason I haven't already is because it would feel like giving up," she said thoughtfully. "And then of course he's Carlisle's boss."

I quirked an eyebrow at her. "He is? I didn't know that."

"Neither did I until I met him the day after the reception so we could go after the plans I'd requested for him. Imagine my surprise." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "He was practically drooling. I'm still glad his wife was home that day because if he'd tried to hit on me, I'd have hit back—and not just figuratively. I don't think I've ever met someone more unpleasant. I didn't mention this to Carlisle and I'd rather you didn't either because for all his outward calm you know how protective he can get. I really don't want to move again so soon."

A crack like gunfire made Esme and me jump.

"Oh, what now?" she muttered darkly, shot to her feet and dashed to the window to find out what Emmett and Jasper had wreaked havoc upon now. Opening it, she peered outside, but as my brothers had taken their mock fight to the back of the house, she couldn't see the source of the noise.

I slowly shook my head, grinning. Jasper had made Emmett run into a tree that hadn't been strong enough to withstand the force of roughly a hundred kilos slamming into it. Esme sighed in resignation when I told her, but she wasn't very surprised. Then again she'd had almost half a century to get used to Emmett and Jasper's bickering. She'd seen it all.

Sitting back down, she moved her fingers clumsily over the keys. She was mad at her client and mad at herself because she still put up with him although she'd reached her personal limit for dealing with pig-headed humans almost a week ago. She was afraid because Freya hadn't come back yet and because of what I had suggested last night and upset because Carlisle wasn't here. He should have stayed home, she thought unhappily, frowning at her hands that glittered in the wintry sunlight streaming in through the windows.

"He'll be fine," I said softly. I put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "He's been out before and you know how careful he is."

"I know," Esme whispered. "It's just… There's so much to worry about at the moment. Freya. Bella. That idiotic plan you came up with. Rosalie. I don't want to have to worry about Carlisle too."

"My plan's not idiotic," I muttered darkly, but I couldn't quite keep the smile off my face as I said it, and Esme laughed once, her face lighting up for a moment. She tousled my hair, smiling affectionately, but then the smile faded and was replaced by anxiety again.

"Seriously Edward, how could you even suggest such a thing?" she asked, frowning. "You've seen Bella fight. Even if one of us is with her, do you really think she'll stand a chance?"

At least she's not thinking about Carlisle anymore, I thought as I swallowed a sigh, although Esme was right. The idea had just popped into my head and I'd wanted to say something, anything, to chase the despair off Bella's face. I should have thought it through more thoroughly before I'd brought it up, but I hadn't expected Bella to refuse so flatly.

Was it really so unexpected? I wondered. She'd flown halfway across the country to save her friend and I'd all but asked her to give up on her. That wasn't what I'd intended. I'd promised her to help her find Olivia and I'd keep that promise if it was the last thing I did, but until we figured out a better way to go about it, what I'd suggested was our best option.

"I don't know," I said eventually, in response to Esme's question. "I hope so, because right now that's the only thing we can do. I'm aware that it could take her months, maybe even years, to master her gift and that we don't have that long if we want to save Olivia, but stopping Victoria is our primary objective."

"You sound like Jasper." Esme sighed. "Bella didn't seem very happy about that."

"No," I agreed unhappily, "no, she didn't." Esme was referring to the look of betrayal she'd shot me upon my proposal, but I was thinking of what she'd said to me before she and Alice had left.

"I'm grateful you came to Chicago with me," she'd whispered after dragging me outside so that our family wouldn't overhear what she had to say. "But that doesn't give you the right to suggest something like that without consulting me first."

Her words had struck home. "Bella," I'd begun, but she'd just shaken her head and walked away, ignoring Alice's chatter as the two of them got into the car and drove off. I'd done it again. I'd made a decision without asking her first, which was exactly what had gotten us into this mess in the first place. Worse, I hadn't even realised that I had until she'd pointed it out to me.

You're an idiot, a voice in the back of my mind whispered.

"Edward," Esme said, pulling me back into the present, "I wanted to apologise for the way I acted. I know you'd never put Bella in danger. I'm sorry I even thought about it."

"Oh, Esme." I kissed the top of her head. "You don't have to apologise. I know you didn't mean it and if someone has to apologise for the way he acted, it's me. I'm sorry I snapped at you." Esme always worried about the things she'd said and done, afraid she'd hurt us. In terms of human years, Esme was the oldest of us and her unhappy human life had shaped the way she thought and acted. In the beginning she'd been afraid to speak her mind, afraid Carlisle would get upset and take it out on her like her first husband had. It had taken her a very long time to understand that he wasn't like that and that he valued her opinion.

But old habits died hard.

Esme smiled, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "I don't want to lose another child," she whispered eventually, finally revealing what was really on her mind. "I can't."

I gathered her against my chest, now too wishing that Carlisle was home. He was better at comforting her. "You won't," I said softly. "We'll be careful. I won't let Bella go after Victoria unprepared. I promise. You know I'd never hurt her."

The front door flew open with a bang and Emmett waltzed in, massaging the fingers of his left hand with a grimace. Esme glanced up, narrowing her eyes when she saw him. "Did you lose your hand again?" she asked in the tone of someone who knew she shouldn't be surprised.

"Just a few fingers this time," Emmett replied. He shot a glare over his shoulder, but Jasper pretended not to notice. He flopped on the couch ungracefully. Emmett muttered something under his breath that made Jasper hurl a pillow at him. Emmett, having anticipated as much, ducked. The pillow hit the wall with a thump, grazing the oil painting hanging there. Esme darted over to catch it before it fell.

"What did I tell you?" she demanded, glaring at Jasper from above the gilded frame of the painting that was twice as wide as Esme. "No fighting in the house!" Turning around, she put the painting back where it belonged, deciding to dust the frame while she was at it.

Emmett shrugged. "Jasper started it," he said, conveniently forgetting that he'd provoked him. In the kitchen Esme huffed while she was looking for the feather duster she knew had to be there somewhere. She okay? he asked.

"I think so," I said. "She's worried and I can't really blame her." I mouthed the last sentence because I didn't want Esme to overhear.

"I hope we'll find Victoria soon," Jasper muttered. Esme's constant anxiety was making him edgy. "Do you think Bella will agree to that plan of yours? Which by the way I think is brilliant, although you probably should have talked about it with her first."

"You think?" I asked sourly.

Jasper's face softened. A person's emotions usually gave him a very good idea of what was on his or her mind. It was a lot of guesswork of course, but he'd grown more experienced over time and was right more often than he was wrong. And he knew me too well not to know what I was thinking. "She wasn't very happy about your proposition. I'm not entirely sure if that was because of what it would mean for her friend or because you went over her head, but I suppose it doesn't really matter."

"I guess not," I muttered. "We'll find out tonight. Hopefully she'll be in a better mood than yesterday, though I'm trying not to get my hopes up, what with Alice pestering her all day."

That wasn't the brightest thing to say, I thought thirty seconds later when Jasper was dragging me outside by the collar of my shirt, having lunged at me before his intentions had time to register. Then again, trying to avoid being beaten into pulp—figuratively speaking of course—would maybe finally get my mind off Bella and the threat Victoria posed for a while.

Hope sprang eternal after all.

xxx

This is ridiculous. Jasper's mental remark was directed at nobody in particular, but of course I picked up on it anyway. I shot a sympathetic smile in his direction, trying to chase the tension that had settled over me away. Although I wasn't directly influenced by the emotions of the people around me the way Jasper was, their thoughts did tend to affect my mood. The crushing tension that hung over tonight's meeting had nothing to do with the meeting itself, but was the result of what had transpired during the day. It set the tone nonetheless.

Jasper was right. It was ridiculous.

Alice had come home around sunset, in a mood so foul Jasper had decided to keep away from her until she'd calmed down. She probably would have eventually, but Emmett, never in great supply of tactfulness and lacking Jasper's or my extra senses, had carelessly commented on the fact that she reeked of paint and turpentine. Alice had snapped and gone straight for his throat. Emmett had managed to catch her by the collar of her shirt, holding her at arm's length while she'd snarled at him. Esme, ill-tempered because I'd accidentally thrown Jasper onto the roof of the garage so hard that it had caved in, had lost her temper and yelled at them both. Jasper had cast a blanket of calm over us that was so heavy I'd found it difficult to stay focused.

"What's the matter with you?" Esme had demanded, but Alice had twisted out of Emmett's grip and stomped upstairs into her room without an explanation. Don't you dare tell them! she'd snarled at me before slamming the door shut behind her.

"If I tell you, she'll kill me," I'd said when Esme's gaze shifted to me, her eyebrows raised expectantly. As a result Esme was now upset with me, as well as Alice.

Maybe I should have told her, I mused, resisting the urge to run my hand through my hair. It certainly would have made my life a lot easier. For a while, anyway—Alice would have found a way to pay me back like she always did. I tried to stay out of her way. To be honest, I found the source of her anger quite amusing, although I'd rather bite my tongue off than tell her that. Her day hadn't gone the way she planned, starting with Rosalie's offer to drive Seth and Embry back to Bella's last night. Embry had declined her offer, but Seth had gladly accepted it. He actually liked her and she liked him back, simply because he wasn't treating her the way we had for the last two days. That much had become clear on the short drive out to Denali. He'd been told what she'd said to Freya, and while he was concerned for her, he'd never met the girl and she was a vampire after all. Besides, judging by what I'd seen of Seth so far, he wasn't one to hold a grudge against someone just because everybody else did.

Ticked off by Rosalie's presence, Alice had snapped at Bella, who'd then refused to go along with what Alice had planned for the day. That wouldn't have bothered Alice so much under different circumstances—she'd rather work alone than having people in her way—but last night it had, which had caused her to ignore Bella, and Seth and Rosalie for that matter, for the rest of the day. The final straw had been the delivery of the new furniture for Bella's living room. The delivery men had shown up only shortly before sunset, several hours later than Alice had told them to. Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad if she'd seen it happening. But blinded by the presence of the wolves she missed it, which had led her to make a rather ill-considered remark in Jacob's presence. By what little I'd managed to pick out of my sister's mind before she'd started to recite Milton's Paradise Lost to shut me out, Jacob hadn't taken offence—but Embry had, on his alpha's account. He didn't know Alice had acted so childishly only because she was afraid her inability to see the future with the pack around would make her useless in the upcoming fight. That the redecoration of Bella's living room hadn't gone according to plan wasn't the reason she'd snapped. What with the pressure she was under, it would have happened eventually anyway.

"Why don't we start at the beginning?" Carlisle suggested hoping his pleasant tone would somehow diffuse the tension in the room. He glanced at Jasper, concerned. Jasper had tightly wrapped us in a layer of tranquillity the moment we'd assembled and he looked strained. It wasn't an emotional climate he particularly enjoyed and while he could normally count on Alice to do something about it, tonight she wasn't exactly helpful.

"Oh, for crying out loud," Carmen said suddenly, placing her hand on her hips and glaring on each of us in turn. Alice squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Esme's gaze dropped to the floor. Bella sighed. Rosalie stared her down. "Pull yourselves together! You'd think this was a bunch of kindergarteners. Alice, I'm very sorry you've had a bad day, but that doesn't give you the right to take it out on everyone else. Bella, I know that Alice can be difficult—oh, don't you look at me like that, señorita!" she snapped when Alice shot a glare her way. "I know she can be difficult," she continued, "but that's something you'll just have to get used to. Rose…" For a moment she paused. She was still blaming Rosalie for chasing Freya away, but Carmen despised discord and she was aware that treating Rosalie like a leper wouldn't bring the girl back. "I'm very glad you've made a new friend." She nodded at Seth, who, like Jacob, was in human form tonight and sat in the armchair Rosalie was leaning against, with her arms folded in front of her chest.

Rosalie's eyes widened, surprised—those words were the kindest she'd heard since Freya ran away. Jasper's eyebrows rose as he registered the sudden flare of shame, an emotion he hadn't been sure Rosalie was capable of.

"Now," Carmen said, "why don't we start at the beginning, as Carlisle suggested? When did Victoria start coming after you again, Bella?"

"I wouldn't have gone back quite that far," Carlisle replied, with a wry smile, "but it's actually a good idea. It may give us a better feel for how Victoria works."

Bella exchanged a quick glance with Jacob, then shrugged. "Why not?" she said. "If it helps us." She sounded doubtful. "Well, I suppose it began with me meeting Laurent in the meadow Edward had once taken me to. I went there to… Oh, I guess it doesn't matter why I went there. He told me he'd gone up to Denali and that Victoria had contacted him a few days prior and asked him to try and find out as much as possible about me and the Cullens."

Irina hadn't joined us for today's meeting, but she was upstairs, listening intently to everything Bella was saying. She'd heard it all before and she didn't want to hear it again, but she couldn't bring herself to get up and leave either.

"Luckily Laurent didn't much care about Victoria's plans for revenge and decided to have me for himself. That's when Jake and the pack showed up, only at the time I didn't know it was Jake. I only saw Victoria once after that, in the water after I'd jumped off a cliff…"

I stared at her, with the same expression of horror on my face as the rest of my family wore except for Esme, whose eyes were understanding. She knew what it was like to be so desperate, so alone that death seemed to be the only way out, the only way to gain some peace.

Jesus, you should see the look on your face, Jacob thought, smirking, catching my attention and momentarily distracting me from the paralysing dread at the thought of Bella having tried to kill herself. What had I done to her? She didn't try to kill herself. Jacob rolled his eyes. She'd seen us jump off cliffs for fun and decided to give it a try.

That probably should have cleared things up, but it didn't. The initial horror dissipated quickly, leaving confusion behind. I found it hard to envision Bella doing something so reckless for fun.

"I did not try to kill myself," Bella said, with very little patience, and I gathered that this was a situation she'd been in before. She narrowed her eyes at my family. "Why does everyone always automatically jump to that conclusion?"

"Why else would you jump off a cliff?" Jasper inquired carefully, confused by the wry amusement emanating off Jacob. He was wondering if his initial assessment of Bella's emotional state had been wrong, if she was more unstable than she was letting on.

Bella arched her eyebrows, the disapproving look on her face clearly stating that Jasper should know her better than that—that we all should know her better than that.

"We did it all the time as kids," Jacob put in, still smirking. "I wish she would have waited for me though, and not just because of Victoria. The current that day was wicked."

Bella shot him a grateful smile. "That it was. I hit my head pretty hard trying to get away from Victoria and lost consciousness, so Jake had to pull me out and even perform CPR. Needless to say, I never told Charlie about it. He would have thrown three kinds of fits and grounded me for the rest of my life. He sure did when he found out about the motorcycle… " Her voice trailing off, she looked at us in so droll a way that I had to stifle a laugh, although I was horrified by what I'd learned.

Cliff diving? Motorcycles? What in God's name had Bella gotten herself into?

"Anyway," she continued briskly, "I never saw Victoria again after that, not until she attacked me in my house in Pasadena nine years ago. I probably should have been less surprised than I was, but I hadn't seen in her in so long a time and neither had Jake. I thought she'd given up."

"Well, to be honest," Jacob said, his expression pained, shifting uncomfortably in his seat next to Bella. I quirked an eyebrow at the torrent of thoughts flowing through his mind and knew immediately that Bella was not going to like what he was about to confess.

Bella looked at him, suspicious, as usual quick on the uptake. She knew Jacob too well. "Jake?" she asked ominously. "What didn't you tell me?"

Jacob grimaced, then sighed, steeling himself for the wrath he was expecting. "Before you guys came to Forks," he jerked his chin at us, "and before Victoria got it into her mind to kill Bella off there hadn't been vampire encounters for decades. We chased Victoria all the way down to New York and when she didn't come back for several months, we were convinced she'd given up, just like you were. The vampire encounters actually increased however, became more frequent, which led Sam to believe that they were acting on orders, Victoria's presumably. We got most of them before they could report back, hoping Victoria would get the message, given that Forks was turning into a black hole for vamps. You had just left for Stanford," Jacob said, grimly looking at Bella, "and I didn't want to alarm you. Trust me, if I had reason to believe she was planning to come after you again, I'd have dragged you back to La Push and chained you to a chair until we'd dealt with her once and for all."

Bella ground her teeth, obviously trying to refrain from saying something she thought she'd regret later. "Seven years," she hissed eventually between clenched teeth, her eyes flashing with suppressed anger. "Seven years and you never once told me that I was in danger?"

"I didn't tell you because there was nothing to tell and because I didn't want to scare you," Jacob replied patiently. "We didn't have anything concrete at the time. I only mention it now because it means that Victoria has been creating new vamps for a very long time. We killed maybe twenty, twenty-five and that was eight or seven years ago."

Jacob's last sentence drove the anger away from Bella's face at once. She stared at him, horrified, as the implications of what he'd said sunk in. She wasn't alone in that. The faces of my family wore identical masks of horror.

Jasper was the only one who managed to look at it rationally, his military training kicking in. She can't have created that many. Newborns are volatile and not easily controlled.

"The vampires she has sent after Bella so far weren't newborns, except for Freya and her group," I pointed out quietly. "She knows what the Volturi would do to her if she wasn't careful, if she threatened to expose us. If she kept them in little groups like Freya's or the one we encountered in Chicago, with an older vampire to watch and train them, it would be highly unlikely they'd attract enough attention to warrant a visit from Italy."

"That's madness," Jasper whispered. "She could have created hundreds of vampires all over the place during the last few years. The States, Canada, maybe even South America. We've killed, what, six so far?"

That crazy bitch.

Turning, I found Embry standing in front of the windows, pressing his face against the glass, his ears flattened against his skull. "I'm not sure 'crazy' is the word I'd use," I told him.

Embry huffed, rolling his eyes. Fine. How's delusional?

I shrugged. "That works."

"Are you sure you don't want to phase and come in?" Bella asked somewhat exasperated, leading me to believe Embry's refusal to remain in human form although his pack brothers did had been discussed at length before they'd come here.

Sniffing, Embry sat back on his haunches, looking completely immobile. Thanks, but no thanks. Embry smacked his bushy tail once on the snow-covered veranda for emphasis.

"He says no," I supplied.

Bella arched her eyebrows at me in a way that made me feel like I was fourteen again, standing in the headmaster's office to be scolded for a prank George and I had pulled, the details of which were now lost to me. "Yeah, thanks for the translation," she said, "but I got as much."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about numbers," Eleazar said quietly. "Let's not forget that there are thirteen of us, sixteen if we include Jacob and his pack, and that the… units Victoria sent after Bella were no larger than four or five. It would be a monumental task to coordinate as many as a hundred vampires, provided that she's really created that many. As long as one of these units doesn't catch up with Bella when she's alone, she should be fine."

"Yes, about that," Jacob said, causing Bella to bestow the same look upon him she'd graced me with a moment ago. "Miss Weather Forecast here tells me the weather will be rather vampire friendly for the rest of the week, which means you'll be going to work, right?" At Bella's curt nod he continued, "We're coming with you."

Bella blinked. "Excuse me? And who's 'we'?"

"This morning I called your assistant while you and Shorty were yelling at each other, told her I was a friend of yours and that I was looking for a job," Jacob explained. "I know my way around a morgue, dead people and spilled intestines don't creep me out and I know you." He flashed a grin at Bella, who continued to gape at him, stunned. "Imagine my surprise," Jacob went on, rather enjoying himself, "when I learned who I'd have to talk to about a job." His grin grew broader. "The Head of the Department of Pathology—which incidentally are you."

"Forget it," Bella said flatly, finally recovering from her surprise. "I'm not hiring you. I couldn't even if I wanted to—which I don't—because there are no vacancies at the moment."

"Really? Danielle said you usually had two assistants, one for the dirty work and one for the administrative stuff, and that Number Two went on parental leave recently. You never replaced him."

Bella muttered something under her breath that I didn't quite catch, but it sounded suspiciously like 'tattletale'. "Who's 'we'?" she demanded then, fixing Jacob with an icy stare. "You said 'we'."

Jacob shrugged, paying no attention to Bella's temper. I didn't know Bella even had a temper, but considering how much stress she'd been under lately, it had been only a matter of time until she snapped. And to be honest I'd rather she were angry, furious even, instead of hopeless and desperate. The way she'd clung to me yesterday, sobbing into my shoulder, had scared me.

Now if only she'd manage to direct her anger at Victoria, I thought wistfully. But you can't have everything, I suppose.

"The 'we' part was Carlisle's idea," Jacob said. "Apparently hospital security is chronically understaffed; Carlisle overheard your boss complaining about it on the phone. He was only too happy when Carlisle suggested Emmett, his 'brother-in-law' for the job. Jasper came up with a very impressive vita, complete with references at all. As a cop I should probably be appalled and arrest him for forgery, fraud and whatnot, but hey, sometimes the end does justify the means."

"You've got this all planned out, haven't you?" Bella replied dryly, rolling her eyes at Emmett when he grinned at her. "Do you really think Victoria will send someone to attack me at the hospital? It wouldn't be very inconspicuous."

"Probably not." Jacob shrugged again. "But it's always better to err on the side of caution, isn't it? We'll try not to get in your way."

Bella shot a doubtful look at Emmett. "Just out of curiosity," she said. "Do I have to worry about you killing off patients?"

"Nah." Emmett grinned lazily. "I'm not into corpses."

"He'll work the sub-levels," Carlisle explained quickly before Bella could respond. "Morgue and garage mostly."

We'll keep her safe, Emmett told me, his thoughts far more serious than his expression. I saw the steel-cold determination in his mind to protect Bella at all costs. He hadn't hesitated for a second when Carlisle and Jacob had asked him to help them out. He loved her like a sister.

I gave a minute nod, knowing I would have to trust them. I didn't dare suggesting I accompany her to work as well. If I asked, she'd probably say no. Just showing up at the hospital tomorrow morning wasn't an option either because then she'd be upset, and rightly so, that I'd gone over her head again. Hard as it was, I had to be content with Emmett and Jacob being there for her.

That had to be enough.

"Fine," Bella muttered eventually, in grudging acceptance. "Anything else?"

"Nope." Jacob grinned.

"That's settled then," Carlisle said, visibly relieved. He'd expected it would take longer to persuade Bella to accept what he knew was necessary. Carlisle hadn't seen her fight yet. He only knew about her lack of fighting skills through Esme's account of Bella's first training session, but that had been enough to convince him that a security detail was a necessity. He would have insisted on it even if she was an excellent fighter. A single vampire didn't stand a chance against five or six, no matter how well-trained she was.

"Have you thought about Edward's suggestion?" Eleazar asked quietly. I don't suppose you've had time to talk to her about it again? he wanted to know when Bella returned his inquisitive gaze with an unhappy frown. I grimaced. Eleazar nodded once. Thought so.

Oblivious to our silent exchange, Bella drew a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and pressing her lips tightly together in what nobody mistook for a smile. "I'll do it," she said grimly. "I'm sorry I didn't immediately agree to it yesterday. You were right." Her gaze shifted from Eleazar to Jasper, before it eventually settled on me. For the briefest of moments her expression softened, her smile tuning more natural. The change was almost imperceptible. Was she aware of how she was looking at me? Maybe not. But I found myself smiling back at her nonetheless, a warm flutter in my heart that I recognised as hope.

"You were right," she repeated, her voice very serious. "I'm willing to give it a try. I'm not sure it's going to work because I haven't got a clue how this shield works and when I tried to project it across Jake last night, I failed miserably." She grimaced.

I glanced at Eleazar, who suppressed a sigh. Not a 'glass half full' kind of girl, is she? Oh, well, we'll have to make do with what we have.

"Don't worry about it," Kate put in, smiling reassuringly. "We'll figure out what triggers it and then it's only a matter of learning to use that trigger. The rest will be a piece of cake."

Bella met Kate's optimism with a dubious frown. "You make it sound so easy."

"It is… to an extent." Kate wisely didn't add that it had taken her almost a century to master her gift, though in her case the focus had been on learning to control rather than to activate it so that she would no longer electrocute everyone she happened to touch when she was upset. For vampires that hadn't been much of a problem, although I knew from experience that being struck down like that wasn't very pleasant. Humans on the receiving end of Kate's gift hadn't been so lucky though. The human mind was rather ill-equipped to handle that sort of trauma.

"Tell you what," Kate said now. "Let's go outside and give it a try while the others talk strategy. Just you and me. No audience." And by audience I mean you, Edward, she added unnecessarily. And wolf boy. And Emmett. So if they try to follow us, be a dear and talk them out of it.

"I'll give my very best," I muttered, although trying to keep Emmett from doing something he really wanted was like trying to stop an avalanche. Impossible.

"Yeah, sure," Bella replied, still sounding dubious. "Why not?"

Maybe Kate will be able to give her some confidence, Eleazar mused as the two of them went outside, soon disappearing into the trees. Kate's mind slipped away from me as she left my reach.

"I hope you're right," I replied, managing a tight smile. "I really do."

xxx

How did you like it? Any ideas how they'll find out where Victoria is? Bella needs something to go on after all. Do you think they'll find Liv in time? And what about Freya? Will she turn up again?