A/N: I still don't own.

Thanks so much to my betas, StoryPainter, and Thir13enth and the whole Project Team Beta team!

She was beautiful as she slept, holding on to me like a lifeline. Her mahogany hair fell over her face, obscuring her features from my gaze and fluttering softly as she breathed in and out. As light began to fill the hotel room and traffic built up to a constant rumble outside, her sleepy little sighs began to increase in frequency.

Not long after nine, my phone vibrated on the table across the room. I had to fight against what my body was telling me, listen to my head, and extricate myself from her grip. As I rolled away from her, pulling her delicate fingers away from my arm, I lost my balance and fell off the side of the bed. Finding myself lying on the carpeting, staring at the ceiling, I wondered if prolonged exposure to humans could be blamed for such a human-like fall. I knew that Bella was often unsteady on her feet; I just never thought it was contagious and I would be falling off a bed.

I scrambled to my feet and answered the call just before it went to voicemail.

"Yes, Alice?" I attempted to keep my voice low enough to not disturb Bella's sleep. With a glance at her to check she was okay, I moved into the bathroom as my ex-wife began talking.

"We found him," she told me.

"And he's with y'all?"

"Yes." I felt tension fly out of my body. He wasn't chasing after us. It took a lot of pressure off. "He hadn't moved. Even before you left, the realization of what he had almost done hit him. He's incredibly sorry, Jasper."

"Sorry he didn't succeed, I bet," I grumbled into the phone.

"No, he's truly sorry for what he did. You know what it's like – the monster just takes over. Have you known anyone who's been able to resist their singer?"

"No," I admitted. It was rare to last even a few seconds without killing a singer.

"So why are you expecting him to be any different?"

"Because it's Bella, dammit!" My voice rose and echoed around the tiny, tiled room.

"Okay, okay."

I listened out for any signs of Bella waking up but didn't hear any changes. "Why are you defending him all of a sudden?"

"I'm not. I'm just trying to make you realize that this isn't his fault. He can't help it."

"I thought you were on my side."

"I'm always on your side. But he's not doing this on purpose. You must know that."

I refused to admit out loud that she was right. Anybody who threatened my Bella deserved to die.

"Look, all you need to know is that we have him and he's under control. We're making sure he's feeding often enough that he won't get hungry. We're just trying to…." She trailed off.

"Stave off the inevitable?" I guessed.

After so long together, I could picture her body language right now. She would be sitting on the edge of her new bed, her right hand holding the phone and her forehead resting in her left hand in anguish.

"Yeah," she whispered. "My visions aren't any help to me right now. But—he's going to snap eventually."

"Yup."

"We all know it—Esme will barely leave him alone. She wants to spend all the time we have left with him. We all know that next time, you'll kill him."

"I have to. We can't run forever."

I heard her fall back onto the comforter. "I know."

"Tell Esme that I'm sorry, okay? I can't just let him kill her. Try chaining him up in the basement or something – anything to keep him from running away."

"Hmmm…." She hummed noncommittally. "I have to go anyway. Chief Swan is going to be calling you in about ten minutes. You need to wake Bella up and prepare her to talk to him. He's pretty pissed off. He knows what you wrote in the note isn't true."

"Right. Thanks." I shook my head. I had known that it was a long shot that he would just let us go without further questions.

"I'll call again later." She hesitated for a second. "I- I miss you," she whispered.

I couldn't say anything. Now that she mentioned her own feelings, I couldn't deny that I missed her too. Her constant presence was like a security blanket for me. But my logical mind told me that admitting this would just make things worse for her. We needed to wean ourselves off each other. Alice was my past, and Bella was my future.

"Look after her," she said with a sigh. "And we'll do our best on this end."

I ended the call and walked out of the bathroom.

Bella had woken while I was talking. She sat up in bed, the sheets pulled up around her, looking at me expectantly. Her hair was adorably mussed and her shirt had moved to expose her shoulder on one side. She leaned sideways, holding her injured arm close to her chest as if protecting it.

"I woke up and you were gone," she said softly, and I could feel the small amount of fear and heartbreak that was mixed in with the relief she sent out when I returned to the room.

I was at her side instantly. "I'm sorry. My family called." I reached up to caress her cheek, which flushed pink at the contact. Her skin was so incredibly soft it was like spun glass under my fingertips. As my hand descended, it grasped onto her wrist, turning her arm so I could see her wounds. They had stopped bleeding even before we passed Seattle, so the make-shift bandages were long gone. What were left were three angry-looking red cuts, slowly healing. If we had been able to, I would have preferred to get stitches on them, but it was encouraging that the bleeding stopped so quickly. I was sure she would be left with some impressive scarring, however. It was just another way that she would be affected by my meeting her.

Holding her arm gently with one hand, I ran my index finger of the other carefully over one of the jagged lines.

"Does that hurt?"

"No more than normal," she replied breathily. "Actually, your cold skin feels quite nice." She smiled up at me cheekily. "My own personal ice pack."

"Glad to be of service." I slowly moved to press my palm gently against the whole injured area. I was helping her, I told myself. I was making her feel less pain. It had nothing at all to do with wanting to touch her as much as possible.

I mentally slapped myself as I felt my mind clouding from the skin on skin contact. Concentrate, Jasper. "Your father is going to call any minute now."

Her blissful expression turned to confusion. "How do you know that?"

I allowed my pinkie finger to rub tiny circles into her flesh. "You remember how yesterday I told you that some vampires have special powers?"

She nodded.

"Alice's power is to see the future."

She looked at the comforter, deep in thought. "That's how you knew Edward was coming to kill me?"

"Exactly."

"So, why can't she just tell us how to fix all this crap we seem to be in?"

I sighed heavily. "Her power is complicated. She can only see things when the person has made a decision. So she won't see that Edward is coming for you until he makes the decision to do it."

"Weird," she said with a sigh. "So…. My dad?"

"You know him best. What do you think would be the best thing to say to him?"

She chuckled wryly. "You've lived in the same town as him for almost the same cumulative time as I have. I don't know what he'd think at all."

I looked deep into her eyes. "He loves you, you know. So much. Having you in the same house has made him so happy."

"You've felt his emotions?"

I nodded. I hoped that I wouldn't have to reveal that I had been hanging out in trees, practically stalking the poor girl. "I just hope he doesn't take you running away personally."

She sighed. "Yeah, me too. How do I do that, though?"

The device in my pocket began vibrating again. "Well, looks like we don't have time to formulate a plan." I pulled the phone out and handed it to her. She bit her lip as she looked at it warily. "It's hard, I know, sweetheart. You have to hurt him a bit to keep yourself safe. Keeping you safe and where Edward won't think to look for you is the most important thing."

She let out her breath with a sudden rush of air. "Hi, Daddy."

I leaned against the headboard and pulled her into my arms, listening to both sides of the conversation.

"Don't you 'Hi, Daddy' me, Isabella Marie." He was pissed. Bella cringed with her whole body. I began to rub her shoulders, hoping it would help her relax somewhat. "Both when I came home from work and when I left to go fishing this morning, I thought my daughter was safely in her bed where she should be. Would you like to inform me of her true whereabouts?"

"I—I—I wanted to visit Mom. I missed her."

"Is that right? Because I just got off a call with her. She hasn't heard from you at all, let alone know you were coming for a visit."

"I wanted it to be a surprise?" The inflection in her timid voice phrased the sentence as a question. I wanted to take the phone from her and fix everything. But this was her fight. And if her father heard my voice, it would just make him even more mad than he already was. No father wanted to know his baby girl had left town with a guy.

"Don't bullshit me, Isabella. Wasn't it your idea to come and live with me? Wasn't this what you wanted? Please don't tell me that after only a couple of weeks you've decided to go back to your mother. Do you really hate it that much here?" The thought that she didn't want to live with him was tearing him up. But we had to be strong.

I nudged Bella with my elbow. This was our opening. He had practically given us our alibi himself. Bella frowned. I could tell she was struggling to hurt him, especially when she had confided that she really was happy in Forks.

She swallowed forcefully. "No, I don't hate it with you. I don't know what to say. I just had to leave. I'm safe. Can we leave it at that?"

"No! We can't just leave it at that! You're seventeen years old, and you have school tomorrow. And wherever you've gone you must have left with someone considering your truck is still parked in the driveway. Is it a boy?"

"Uh…."

His voice became somewhat muffled, as if his head was in his hands. "Please, Bella. Just tell me you're being safe."

"No! It's not like that!" She blushed bright red and turned her face away from me. "I swear, Dad."

"Sure it isn't." He obviously didn't believe her at all. "Bella, just come home and we won't mention it. No consequences, okay?"

"I can't."

His police radar seemed to pick up on her wording. "Can't? Or won't?" His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Bella, are you being held against your will?"

"No. I'm fine. I just can't be at home right now. You need to understand that. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Don't make me put an APB out on you."

"Please don't do that, Dad. I'll be home. I just don't know when."

Frustrated and despairing, Bella buried her face into my shirt.

"I don't understand, Bella." His voice was quiet and pleading.

"Just, please, Dad. Let me do what I need to do."

"Tell me where you are. I can come get you."

"I can't tell you that." At least that wasn't a lie. She really couldn't tell him. She hadn't really been paying attention to where we went the night before.

"But…."

I felt her steeling her nerves, and a burst of determination spread through her. "I'll call you, okay? I have to go now."

"Bella," he called down the line but was cut off when she disconnected the call.

Within seconds she had buried her face in my lap, sobbing. I petted her hair, shushing her as she cried softly, mumbling every so often. After about five minutes, my jeans were soaked with her tears, and I needed to do something. Bit by bit I pulled her distress away from her, sending her calm in return. And slowly she began to stop crying.

"Shhh, honey. He'll forgive you. I promise."

"No, he won't," she insisted. I upped the ante and sent her more calm.

Resting her cheek on my knee, she peered up at me. "Are you doing that?"

"Sorry. I can stop if you'd rather."

She sniffled a few times, trying to get herself under control. "No. It's fine. I just wanted to check. Now that I know, I think I can tell when it's my real emotions or your manufactured ones."

"You're smart. Most people can't tell, even when they do know what I can do. Are you feeling a bit better?"

"What do you think?"

"Nothing about this is easy. It's hard to know what we should do."

"So how do you seem to just know? I couldn't make decisions like that."

I shrugged. "Making tactical decisions has always come naturally to me. And I've almost always made the right decision, as well. I guess it's an innate skill. It's helped make me a good fighter."

She shuddered. "Don't remind me of that," she whispered. No, she really did not need to be reminded of the fight for her life I had been engaged in just yesterday.

I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her up into a sitting position. "You think you're ready to get out of here?"

She nodded, wiping tears off her cheeks. "Where we going?"

"I don't know exactly. It doesn't matter where we go. All that matters is we're going."

She looked at me appraisingly before nodding once and disappearing into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

We wouldn't stay in any place for long. And if I could make our trail as hard to follow as possible, that would give us a better chance.

If I wanted a future—a forever—with Bella, I would take every chance I could get.

A/N2: The next chapter is almost done, so you'll only have to wait a week for it. That's pretty fast for me!

And from the "What I'm Reading" file... I won't give you a single fic. I'm currently going through and reading everything written by 'BetterInTexas'. Thanks to viola1701e for the reccomendation!

See ya all in a week! :)