A/N: So, moving right along ... things are starting to really get rolling. For those of you who keep track of this kind of thing, there's more of the story behind us than ahead of us. Of course, that doesn't mean the rest of the story is going to be easy on Leah. Where would the fun be if I made it too easy?

Thanks to all who nominated me for a Sunflower Award. Voting opens on Jan. 29. All the nominees are just amazing and I'm going to be spending much of my dwindling free time reading all their stories!

Many thanks to my betas MunkeeRajah and Evelyn-Shaye. I love them more than that new car smell. Not that my current beat-up Mom mobile ever had that smell, but if it had I'd still love them more.

Stephie Meyer. Twilight. Ownership. Respect the copyright. Yada, yada, yada.

Chapter 29 – Dead Men Don't Talk

Leah POV

Father Time is a tricky old son-of-a-bitch, and he has a sick sense of humor. How else do you explain the perception that time speeds up when you're approaching a moment you dread? Then, when the moment arrives, and you just want it over and done with, what should only be an instant stretches into goddamned eternity. Seconds swell to minutes, minutes magnify into hours, and the hours evolve into an epoch.

I was having one of those endless, excruciating moments.

Our massive search party had just crested the hill that separated the forest from the small clearing around that bleak, hell hole of a barn where I'd found Nahuel staked to a wall. It had taken hours to retrace the route I'd taken, the one Renesmee and Jake had followed trying to catch up to me. Dread had compressed the hours into minutes.

With the moment when we'd have to step back into that fucking barn looming, immediate and unavoidable, my imprint was feeling anxious, too. He'd insisted on carrying me the whole way when Carlisle had told him I shouldn't phase because of my still-healing back injury. Now, when I moved my legs as if I would slip from his arms to stand, he tightened his grip on me and brushed his lips through the fine hair at my temple.

We were surrounded by my pack brothers, half of whom were probably reeling in shock that I'd allow myself to be carried around all day like a pampered princess. No one had said a word, but Paul, Beau and even Seth had raised their eyebrows when I'd told them I would only be phasing for a dire emergency. And Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett had been sneaking glances at Nahuel and me the whole day. Only Carlisle, who knew what was up, and Bella and Edward, who were too worried about their daughter to care what was going on with me, seemed to pay no attention to our arrangement.

I didn't give a rat's ass what any of them thought.

I'd have slowed the whole group down if I'd tried to keep up with them in my human form. Even a super-human she-wolf wasn't as fast on two legs as a group of vampires and four-legged werewolves. Having Nahuel carry me made practical sense; he was strong and fast and wouldn't get tired. Plus, it afforded us the comfort of skin-to-skin contact as we approached the place where we'd come so close to losing each other just days before.

I turned my face into his body and drew in a deep, fortifying breath of his sweet, sexy scent. Cinnamon and spice. Comfort and longing. Mine.

My right arm was looped around the back of his neck. My left hand rested over his heart, toying with the diamond solitaire he wore on a gold chain. Although I intended to avoid phasing if at all possible, there was always the chance I'd have to, so I couldn't wear the ring; I'd lose the finger it was on if I changed while wearing metal. Our compromise had been for Nahuel to wear it for me. Seeing it lying against his coffee-and-cream skin, nestled in the dip of his collar bone, was both comforting and arousing at the same time.

With my face pressed against his neck, my lips detected the frantic racing of his pulse. I knew I was right to keep the news of my pregnancy from him—for now.

He was already hair-trigger over returning to this miserable place. His stress level was only going to go up as the search advanced. Ultimately, we all hoped that our hunt for Jake and Renesmee would also lead to Joham. I was certain Nahuel wouldn't be able to handle confronting his father and worrying about his pregnant mate at the same time.

Plus, given Joham's sick interest in supernatural spawn, I figured the fewer people who knew about my baby, the better, even if that meant keeping the secret from the baby's own father.

"I do not want to let you go," Nahuel whispered against my skin, dragging my mind back to the moment. "I do not wish to see you in that place again."

I exhaled softly against his throat. "I know," I replied, matching his tone. "I'm not wild about the idea, either. But we have to do this. We have to find Jake and Renesmee."

He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, but still made no move to release me. I let him resist for a few more seconds, before I gently patted his chest. "C'mon, Nahuel," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "Put me down. Let's get this over with."

Nahuel set me on my feet and suddenly Carlisle was beside us, his golden eyes full of alarm. I glanced around at the other members of our group. We'd split into three teams so that we could approach the barn from multiple angles. Beau and Quil, the wolf members of our team, were staring intently toward the barn, their hackles raised and lips curled. A soft whine wheedled its way through Beau's clenched fangs. Something was up.

"Decay," Carlisle murmured in response to my questioning glance. "Corpses. Many, judging by the smell."

Terror swirled through my gut in the same second a blast of icy air swept past us. My senses weren't nearly as powerful in human form, but the wind was strong enough to carry the scent to me now. Carlisle's herbal supplements did nothing to stem the nausea that pushed into the back of my throat.

"There may be blood as well," Carlisle said quietly. "It's difficult to discern at this distance. The decay may be masking it." His gaze flickered to Nahuel. "Perhaps the two of you should remain here."

"No way, doc," I muttered around a mouthful of bitter, bile-flavored saliva. "I'm going down there."

I had to know whose remains—Please don't let it be my friends!—were in that barn. I hesitated before turning to my imprint. "You can stay here—"

"I go with you," he interrupted, his deep voice layered with annoyance and anxiety. "Always."

Obviously, he wasn't going to be convinced to stay behind. Arguing with him about it would just delay us and add to his unease. Rather than waste time trying to persuade my stubborn imprint, I turned to question Quil.

"Is the area clear?"

Quil rolled his huge brown eyes away from the dilapidated structure shrouded in that grave-like hollow of earth and focused on me. He huffed once, low in his throat—our pre-arranged signal for "yes," since I wasn't able to communicate with my wolf brothers through the pack mind. Carlisle confirmed Quil's assessment.

"Edward and Emmett have scouted the area and found no signs of anyone else," he said.

"Good enough," I sighed, starting down the shallow embankment toward the barn.

"Leah, wait," Carlisle called, bringing me up short. I raised a questioning eyebrow. "Perhaps the wolves should go first," he suggested.

What the hell?

I glared at him for a second, angry that he'd treat me any differently now that we knew about my pregnancy, then turned back to follow Quil's bushy tail toward the clearing.

The other members of our search party were already there, including the Cullens and the rest of Jake's pack. Everyone was facing the barn's ragged, yawning maw. The weak sunlight spilling a few feet past the doorway did nothing to illuminate the interior.

At the sound of our approach, Edward turned to address us. He and Bella both looked like hell—or as much like hell as two vampires could look—but the calm in his eyes eased a little of my fear over what was in that barn.

"Jacob and Renesmee aren't here," he said—for my benefit, since Nahuel and I would be the only members of the group who wouldn't be able to discern that by scent alone.

Relief made my knees rubbery, and I stumbled over my own feet.

Instantly, hands grasped my elbows to steady me—Nahuel's warm, electrified touch on my right and Carlisle's cool granite on my left. Carlisle realized what he'd done, and how strange it would look to everyone around us, when I glared at him and tried to pull my arm from his fingers. His golden eyes widened in barely repressed alarm and he jerked his hand away quickly.

"Knock it off, doc," I growled, hoping my stern look would warn him off. "I'm fine."

If he kept up this overly solicitous attention, or got any more handsy, the others were going to start asking questions. If they were paying attention to my interactions with Carlisle, it would be that much harder for him to monitor my pregnancy without drawing suspicion. And if Nahuel got even a whiff of what was really going on … well, I could forget all about participating in the search for Jake and Renesmee, because I'd be too busy scraping fecal matter off fan blades.

Fortunately for me, everyone else was too focused on what lay moldering away inside the barn to make much of Carlisle's odd behavior. Edward and Jasper stood in the door, poised on the stark edge where weak sunlight abruptly gave way to the inky blackness inside the barn. Seth paced forward to flank them, poking his snout into the gap.

With no words exchanged among them, one by one the three stepped inside the barn. After a few moments, Edward's voice carried, low and clear, through the opening.

"Carlisle?"

He blurred across the clearing and disappeared into the darkness.

The moment stretched and strained, shivered and groaned, until finally the tension of it snapped, and I found myself standing in that damned doorway. I didn't know how I'd gotten there, but I knew I had to go inside.

Nahuel was beside me, holding my hand and gently trying to pull me away from the door.

"Leah, you do not have to go in," he whispered, an imploring edge in his voice.

The petrified school girl had been cowering in her corner, but at his pleading tone, she peeked between her fingers and found her voice.

Listen to him! Listen to him!

I ignored both of them. I had to see what was inside that barn. It couldn't be any worse than what I'd already found—what we'd both lived through—the first time I entered this shit hole five days ago. Could it?

Holding my breath against the smell, I took one step forward … and waited while my eyes adjusted to the dimness.

Fuuuccckkk. How many times can one woman be wrong in a lifetime?

Corpses.

Dozens of them.

Stacked like cordwood along all four walls of the barn. They were in varying states of decay—how to explain that?—and for some the cause of death was obvious, like a ripped out throat or crushed skull. Others seemed to have no apparent injury. Of course, I was no medical examiner, and my super-human senses weren't nearly as sharp as when I was in wolf form, but even I could tell there was no blood anywhere in the barn.

Not even on the three female bodies laid out in an obvious, grotesque display in the center of the floor. The horror of the scene drew me forward, the way you find yourself pulled toward the light switch when a strange sound wakes in you the dark night, even though you know flipping on that switch is a bad idea. That it's going to reveal the monster in the darkness that you'd rather not see at all.

I felt compelled to examine those three bodies, and my feet shuffled forward.

Carlisle, who'd been kneeling beside the carcasses, examining them, looked up at my approach.

"Leah, I don't think it's a good idea for you to be in here."

I ignored him, not stopping my advance until I was standing beside him.

They'd probably been very beautiful when they were alive. It was hard to pin down their ages, but I didn't think any of them looked older than me. One might have even been a young teenager, the corpse was so petite. Lying side by side, they looked less—decomposed—than the other bodies. Did that mean they'd died a relatively short time ago? I didn't know.

But I was sure of one thing. Even I could tell how they'd died. The gaping, gory craters where their abdomens used to be made it obvious what had happened to these women. Something had torn them apart—from the inside out.

You stupid shrew! The school girl shrieked. You're looking into your own future. That's going to be YOU!

Though she'd been silent for a long time—almost long enough to imagine her gone—my inner wolf-bitch rose to my defense.

No. That WON'T be you. Carlisle won't let that happen to you.

He won't be able to stop it! The school girl screamed. You'll die just like them!

There's no telling how long that screeching argument would have raged inside my head if Nahuel hadn't chosen that moment to make a gagging, gasping sound behind me. I whipped around, startled; I hadn't realized he'd come into the barn, too.

Idiot! Of course he would follow you.

My imprint was standing a few paces behind me, his trembling body rooted to the dirt floor. Both hands were clamped, white-knuckled, over his mouth, and his wide, horrified teak eyes were fixed on the bodies at my feet.

Shit! He's losing it.

He'd been doing so well—even in the aftermath of his kidnapping—that I'd allowed myself to forget that the accumulated effects of all he'd been through were still very much with him. Starting with his aunt's murder and culminating in our fight with my would-be rapist, Nahuel had endured more trauma in the past two months than he'd probably ever experienced before in his very long life.

Now, confronted with this gruesome reminder of how his life had begun, he was finally collapsing beneath the weight of it all.

I took a step toward him, reaching to touch him. "Nahuel—"

My words ran out. I didn't know what to say or do to ease the burning misery etched on his beautiful face. His tormented eyes flashed to mine and held for a second. He repeated that retching, strangled noise and, without removing his hands from his face, turned and fled out the door.

I wasted precious seconds standing there stunned and speechless. I knew I needed to go after him, but the subtle waft of cold dread that had been curling in my gut from the moment I realized I'd have to hide my pregnancy from my imprint had escalated into a full-blown blizzard. It froze me in place.

What could I possibly say to him right now that wouldn't give away the secret I was keeping to protect him?

Four sets of eyes—three vegetarian-vampire topaz and Seth's mahogany—regarded me with a mixture of empathy for Nahuel's reaction and annoyance at my lack of movement. Carlisle's quiet voice, layered with regret and concern, floated up from the floor near my feet.

"Go. We can take care of things here."

Swallowing hard against my own nausea, I nodded and jogged back outside. The other pack members were circling the clearing, obviously on alert, watching for any sign of Joham's lackeys. Emmett and Rosalie stood quietly near the barn entrance, and when I emerged, Blondie favored me with the kind of disgusted glare she usually reserved for Jake.

"What's your problem?" I snapped at her before I thought about it.

"I don't have one," she cracked back. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the underbrush on the far side of the clearing. "Yours is behind that bush puking his guts out. You might want to go take care of him, since he's your mate. His sister is already on her way to do your job."

I whipped my head in the direction of Rosalie's gesture, and saw Anjali's back heading for the underbrush. I immediately took off running behind her. I didn't want her anywhere near Nahuel, especially not when he was so emotionally vulnerable.

"Wait!"

At my shout, and the obvious anger in it, she paused and turned back. Her perfect, inky black brows arched questioningly above her cool hazel eyes.

"Nahuel is very upset," she offered calmly as I came abreast of her.

"I fucking know that," I snarled. "I'll take care of him. You go back to the others."

If she registered my rudeness, she didn't permit it to touch her serene, flawless face. She merely swiveled silently and started back toward the barn.

I continued in the direction Rosalie had indicated and found Nahuel on his knees, mostly hidden behind a bush. She was right: he was heaving like he would bring up his intestines. After a few more wet hacks, he sat back on his heels, head bowed, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

I dropped to my knees beside him and began stroking his back. I meant the contact to be soothing and comforting. Instead, it seemed to have the exact opposite effect on him.

He flinched away, dipping his shoulder and jerking out from under my hand as if my fingers burned.

"Please do not touch me," he begged. "I cannot bear it right now."

He flopped onto his butt, drew his knees up against his chest and buried his head in his arms. I fucking hated it when he did that. He split my heart in two and bled it dry every time he assumed that broken, lost pose.

"I am sorry," he moaned, his words muffled and weak. "I am so very sorry."

I willed my voice to remain steady and calm. "Nahuel, you don't need to apologize for being sick or upset," I said. "But you do need to talk to me. I can't help you if you don't tell me what you're thinking."

He rocked silently, rapidly for several long heartbeats. Finally, he lifted his head and slid his fingers into his hair, digging his nails into his scalp as if he were afraid his head would rocket off his shoulders if he let go. His teak eyes, haunted and hollow, met mine.

"I remember her, you know," he whispered raggedly, totally confusing me.

"I don't understand, baby. Remember who?"

He began to gnaw on his full lower lip. Misery shimmered, filmy and liquid, in his eyes.

"My mother."

I didn't want to upset him more by telling him he was wrong—that he had to be wrong—but I couldn't halt my astonishment from leaking out of my big mouth.

"That's not possible. You were just a baby. A newborn. There's no way you could remember her."

He groaned and shook his head, obviously frustrated with my dimness.

"You forget, always, that I am not human," he corrected, annoyance lacing through the agony in his tone. "A human child would not remember its birth, but vampires have perfect recall."

I rocked back on my heels, torn between being peeved at his petulant accusation that I could ever forget what he really was, and utter disgust at myself that he was—at least partially—right. The differences between us—his vampire-like beauty, perfection, speed, strength and immortality—were always present in the back of my mind. But I did tend to forget, probably intentionally, the full import of those differences.

"I remember everything I ever knew of her, from the moment I became aware of anything." The tears were spilling over now, slipping silently down his smooth, flawless cheeks. "She sang to me. Before I was … born. Her voice, singing a lullaby … that is my first memory of her."

His voice broke on a suffering sob and he dropped his head back into his arms. "Her screams as she died are my last."

What could I say to this? What could anyone possibly do or say that would finally absolve his tortured soul of the burden of guilt and horror he'd carried for so very long? I felt like a fool—a thoughtless, uncaring ass—for not having realized before that of course he would remember his mother. Of course he would be able to recount, in excruciating detail, how she died. And of course, seeing the dead women in the barn would dredge up those memories.

Though he'd told me not to touch him, there was no way I could allow him to endure this self-inflicted torment alone. I moved forward on my knees and slipped my arms around him.

I thought he might push me away again. Instead, the tension in his shoulders released, and he twisted his body until he somehow ended up completely twined around me. My rump was in the cold, wet snow between his thighs, my legs splayed out to one side, and his long legs and arms wrapped completely around me. He clutched me to his chest so tightly I had trouble getting a decent breath.

"I am sorry." I could barely hear him; his face was buried in my neck, soaking the collar of my polo shirt with his tears. It made no sense for him to apologize to me, but I let him ramble.

"I am so very sorry, ñi piuque. If you knew the things I have thought … about us … about you … the fantasies I have imagined … I am a monster. A vile, sick monster." He gasped roughly against my throat. "You should not allow me to touch you. You should send me away."

Moody, pregnant bitch that I was, I felt anger push aside my anguish.

Why the hell are we back to this again?

I laced my fingers through his hair and pulled hard, forcing his head back. Forcing him to look at me.

"Stop it," I ground out through gritted teeth. "Two days ago you asked me to marry you. Are you taking it back? Have you changed your mind?"

He gaped at me, bewildered by my apparent non sequitor. "What? I do not understand—"

"Have you changed your mind?" I demanded again. "It's an easy question, Nahuel. Do you want to leave me? Have you fallen out of love with me?"

"Of course not!" he protested, indignation darkening his honey eyes.

"Then stop telling me to send you away," I snapped. "It's not going to happen. Ever. Do you understand?"

He watched me warily, with the caution a small, defenseless creature might use to regard an offered crumb. After a moment, he nodded once.

"I don't ever want to hear you talk about leaving me again," I hammered, even as an inner voice—wolf or schoolgirl, I wasn't sure which—whispered that I had no right to require this of him when I was keeping such a life-altering secret. "Promise me that you will never say that again."

His lush lips compressed into a thin line. He nodded again, reluctantly, grudgingly.

Not good enough, vamp-boy.

"Say it!" I ordered. "Out loud."

He exhaled forcefully, exasperated and resentful. "I will never again suggest we part."

I could see that he wanted to say something more—maybe some caveat that he wanted to add—but I didn't give him the opening. I was on a roll, and while I was blasting away at his demons of self-doubt and loathing, I took aim at the nastiest, most evil one—the one that had sat on his shoulder for more than a hundred years.

"Do you think your mother loved you?"

"What?" He cringed, caught between confusion and hurt at my sudden segue back to the issue that started this little dramatic tableau.

I was ruthless.

"When she was pregnant with you, when she was waiting for you to be born, do you think she loved you?"

His hands dropped away from me and he lowered his eyes, apparently finding the top button of my shirt suddenly fascinating. He shrugged, and I could see he was struggling for words.

"I suppose she must have thought she did," he said, still not meeting my eyes. "But she did not know what would happen to her. She did not know that I would murder her. If she had known—"

I cut him off. "She would have loved you anyway."

He shook his head emphatically, rejecting my words. "No. She could not have."

In that moment, I wanted to tell him so badly that I knew he was wrong, and that I knew it because I was living it. Even knowing there was a possibility that I could die bringing our baby into the world, I still wanted it. Still loved it.

It would have been the perfect, sensible moment to tell him about my pregnancy. I even opened my mouth to say it, but the words that left my lips weren't what I'd intended.

"Nahuel, you know that she loved you, and that's all that matters," I insisted. "Every time you do this to yourself, beat yourself up for killing her, you disrespect the love she had for you. You demean her sacrifice. Do you think she would want you to carry this guilt for so long?"

The fine muscles in his chiseled jaw worked, as if he were struggling to swallow something dry and foul-tasting. He still wasn't looking at me, and I'd had about enough of that. I seized his face in both hands and levered his chin until our eyes were level.

"Look at me," I urged, using that forceful, authoritative tone that I knew he couldn't resist. When his golden eyes finally met mine, the turmoil and suffering in them squeezed my heart painfully.

"She loved you."

How could she not?

"Do you think she would ever blame you? Or do you think she would blame the monster who was really responsible? The monster who seduced her into loving him, impregnated her and then left her alone to deal with the consequences?"

His breath caught. The despair on his face was slowly giving way to some emotion that looked like it could become hope, if he would only allow himself to take that final step into the light of self forgiveness. I coaxed him toward it.

"She didn't have to die," I said. "Joham could have saved her, the way Edward saved Bella. Instead, he let her die. He is responsible for that. Not you. You know that, don't you?"

"I do not know." His voice was small and bewildered, but under the pain I caught an undercurrent of something else. "I do not know anything but that I love you, and I do not want you to end up like her."

Chills scurried down my spine and for a second, the shrieking schoolgirl drowned out all other thoughts in my head.

He knows! He knows!

No, he doesn't, the wolf-bitch countered, confident and collected. He wouldn't be sitting here, relatively calm, if he knew. He'd be having a total meltdown instead of a partial one.

And partly because he needed it, but mostly because I did, I looked him in the eyes—those beautiful, soulful eyes that meant everything to me—and told him what probably was the worst, most bald-faced lie anyone had ever told the one they loved.

"That will never happen to me, baby. It can't."

Until that moment, I'd only been omitting the truth. Now, I'd turned that omission into an outright lie and the screeching school girl called me on it.

Liar! Fucking liar!

It's for his own good, to protect him, I refuted.

My father's voice whispered, barely perceptible beneath my internal din: When we lie, it's almost always to protect ourselves, Leah, not to protect others.

For one split second, that kernel of remembered wisdom from Dad made me think I should do it—renounce the falsehood and tell my imprint the truth. In the next instant, I saw Nahuel swallow the lie, hook, line and sinker, and a profound, peaceful relief swept the anguish from his face.

"I know. I do know," he breathed, drawing me back against his body. "I am eternally grateful to whatever fate that brought me to you."

I felt sick at the horror of what I'd just done, how monumentally I'd just deceived him. To mask my shakiness, I snorted derisively.

"That would be the same fate that made you wait a hundred and fifty years to find me, right?"

His warm lips caressed my neck before roaming upward to my mouth. Even though he'd just hurled like a toddler on a tilt-a-whirl, his breath was still sweet and intoxicating. My head spun. His palms cupped and smoothed my cheeks reverently.

"I would gladly wait a million more for you," he whispered, sealing his lips to mine in a searing kiss. "Nothing before matters. Only this."

His moment of crisis seemed to be past, but mine … I was pretty sure mine was just beginning.

The school girl agreed.

Stupid bitch! How will you ever be able to tell him now?

SSW/SSW/SSW

When we finally returned to the barn, I was surprised to find everyone waiting, doing nothing, including Seth and Paul in human form. I wasn't sure what I'd expected, but I thought they should be doing something. Burying the bodies? Calling the authorities? Scouting for signs of Jake and Renesmee?

Seth was standing with his arm draped around Anjali's shoulders, and while I didn't really want to be anywhere near her, I felt the need to talk to my brother. I went to him, Nahuel following along behind.

"What's going on?" I glanced at Jasper, Edward, Emmett and Carlisle, who were standing in a tight knot, speaking in that rapid, low way that was nearly impossible for a human to detect, let alone understand. "Why's everyone just standing around?"

"We were waiting for you," Seth said, sliding his gaze from me to Nahuel. "You okay, man?"

My imprint nodded and gave my brother a weak smile. "Yes. I was … overwhelmed, but I am fine now."

Anjali's impassive face pulled into a troubled frown, the first time I'd seen her show any real emotion beyond affection or lust—gag!—for Seth. "The bodies inside are very disturbing," she murmured. "Especially the three bred females."

I gaped at her. Bred females? Was she for real? I couldn't hold this back any longer. I had to confront her. I opened my mouth to accuse her, but Jasper beat me to the punch. Kind of.

"Anjali, could you help us out here?" His voice was mild, carefully devoid of any hint of anything negative or threatening. Was that for her benefit? Or Seth's?

She turned her attention to Jasper, but didn't move from Seth's side. "How may I help you?"

I rolled my eyes. She sounded as bland and patently unhelpful as a customer service rep trying to get off the phone and back to her coffee and People magazine.

"We're wonderin' what you make of all this," he said, gesturing toward the barn. "Have you seen Joham do something like this before?"

"No."

Everyone looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to elaborate. When it became apparent she didn't intend to say anything more, Jasper pressed on.

"Is he aware of the Volturi?"

She nodded calmly. "Yes. He is aware."

Jasper's impatience was beginning to show on his lean face. Beside me, Nahuel shifted from one foot to the other—an uncharacteristic display of irritation. Seth looked annoyed, too, and I realized Jasper was probably unintentionally projecting a bit. I wasn't feeling it, but then that was probably because I had a deep well of my own anger to draw on when it came to my brother's imprint.

"Surely he must realize this is the type of thing that will garner their attention." Edward joined the conversation, obviously trying to draw her out.

She shrugged ambivalently. "Perhaps."

"Does he want to get their attention?" Seth asked, sliding his arm from around her shoulders and trailing his fingers down to her hand.

Nothing else had penetrated her shell of indifference, but now Anjali seemed fixated on Seth's hand in hers. Her eyes never left their twined fingers.

"Perhaps he does," she whispered, tentatively.

"Why?" Seth persisted, tugging gently on her fingers.

"I don't know." Her voice, usually so aloof and confident, had taken on a pleading undertone, as if she was asking Seth to make the questioning stop.

"Maybe he's just batshit crazy," Paul muttered. Seth shot him an annoyed look.

"Joham may be crazy, but I don't get the impression that he's stupid, too," Jasper said, reclaiming command of the conversation. "This doesn't seem like the kind of thing he'd do unless he had a reason for it." He continued to study Anjali, who still hadn't looked up from her hand in Seth's. "Am I wrong?"

"No." And now, there was no mistaking the unsettled tone of her whisper. Her composure was rapidly slipping. An opportunity was staring me in the face, but I didn't know what to do or say to take advantage of it.

Maybe he sensed the same thing I did, because Jasper continued to focus on Anjali. Had he sensed her duplicity all along? Was it not just a figment of my imagination?

"Maybe you can help us with somethin' else, darlin'," he continued, his silken tone lacking any hint of the threat that I was pretty sure lurked beneath the surface of his words. "That vampire that attacked Leah, the one Nahuel killed, and they tore apart and buried—" He paused, giving her a moment to absorb the change in direction.

"Well, Seth's boys looked in all the spots where Leah and Nahuel buried the parts … and those holes are empty."

My heart began to hammer and terror coiled in my chest, curling in tight loops around the laboring organ.

Anjali's eyes snapped to Jasper's face and her hand tightened on Seth's so strongly my huge brother actually winced. She looked like she wanted to run—somewhere, anywhere—and hide away in a big, dark hole. I knew exactly how she felt.

"We're thinkin' that means someone came here and dug him up," Jasper continued. "Maybe reassembled him. Would you know anything about who that might be?"

My brother's imprint was shaking now, showing naked fear for the first time since I'd laid eyes on her in that clearing where Joham had sent her and her cohorts to capture Nahuel and kill me all those weeks ago. If I hadn't been dealing with my own impending breakdown in that moment, I might have felt gratified to finally see her snap.

When she didn't immediately answer Jasper, Seth pulled on her hand again, insistently. "Anjali, what's going on?"

She sobbed in soft, pathetic hiccups.

He'd been silent while Jasper plied his subtle interrogation, but now Edward hissed in frustration. "Why are you blocking me?" he demanded, his glittering eyes narrowing on Anjali. "What are you hiding?"

Part of me was relieved that someone else was finally confronting her, that her lying ass was getting called out into the broad, brutal light of day. Another part of me was back in that fucking barn, feeling hard, cold hands on my skin, hearing that whiskey and smoke voice, fighting the press of that icy dick into my flesh. Vaguely, I registered the heat of Nahuel's arms around me, but I couldn't claw my way out of the ice surrounding me to respond to him.

The harsh, ragged sound of my own breathing competed with Anjali's sobs for ascendance in my ears.

"His name was … is … Remy," she gasped, clinging to Seth's chest. "And if he is alive, then my father knows. He knows everything."

Even through the haze of horror surrounding me, I had to respond to that. I heard my own voice, as if from a great distance, sounding calm and unaffected, like I was discussing the weather or if the car was due for an oil change.

"Because you've been helping Joham, telling him our every move, all along, haven't you?"

I lost count of the number of startled gasps from the collected group. Every eye was trained on Anjali and me—Joham's lackeys could have picked us all off easily, so entranced was everyone with our confrontation.

Her hazel eyes shot to me and something hardened beneath her tears. And in that moment I knew—our dislike was mutual.

"Yes," she spat at me, baring her teeth like some small and vicious feral creature that would as soon bite you to the bone as look at you. "And if Remy really is alive …" she trailed off and laughed harshly, "… if he's alive, then you've been feeding him information too, Leah."

End note: Yep. I'm back to the cliffie. Just can't stay away from them. It's a sickness, I know. Next chapter will be Jake POV. So how eager are you to see Jake and Renesmee pick up where they left off? Hmmmm? Reviews will get a tease for Chapter 30.