"They're back," she said, and I instantly knew who she meant.
"The wolves—Edward—" I began, but she moved too quickly for me to process it and clapped her icy hand over my mouth.
"They all know," she murmured, "we found them in time, we're already fighting off the first wave of them." The first wave—what was Alice telling me? We sat together against the wall; I thought desperately of climbing on to the roof, then realized in the case of fire we would be burned alive or torn apart when we leapt from the flames. Alice watched me thinking and then spoke in a torrent, her words blurring together and rushing over me like a tidal wave. "They won't be coming here, Bella. They're after Jacob Black—he's been hunting vampires for years, and Victoria spread word of the pack, and him, to find other split pairs." I looked at her, unseeing, hearing her and the voice of a blood red mouth at the same time—the hunter's mate, I'll savor you, mine—I was the hunter's mate. I was Jacob's mate, and he had been picking off vampires for years, and now they were swarming him. "Edward saw traces of it in their minds, but we…we were attacking, we didn't concentrate, and then when we left here last night there were more of them, trying to find him." A cloud passed over her face. "We called the rest of the family here, and now we fight."
"Sam," I breathed, and she nodded, reassuring.
"We found them, we found them before anything dangerous happened, and he is calling the pack out too—the small ones are guarding La Push." The bruises on my arms burned, livid purple, against the calming shelf of her cool arm. "None of them should come here, Bella," and a wry smile crossed her face, her eyes still guarded and distant. Multiple futures raged there. "For once, they're after someone else."
Someone else—Jake. I saw him in the starlight, the flex of his pupils in his dark eyes, the stark white scars slashing his beautiful face. Alice watched me.
"Your future was finally still last night," she said. I looked back at her. The gold in her eyes hypnotized me. "You disappeared, and I didn't notice until I was carrying you here." I remembered her leading Edward away in to the trees, the grim set of her mouth.
"Will I be happy?" I whispered. I knew it was selfish, and that she would understand.
"I can't know," she whispered back, and that answered the rest of the questions I would have asked. We looked at each other, and the deafening silence outside was no match for the lack of words between us.
"Will Edward be happy?" I asked, and she bit her lip, nodded, and pulled me closer to her as I wept.
"Most of the time," she whispered, and the sobs wracked my body, the smell of the sea from so long ago surging through me once again. We stayed like that for a long while, and I was grateful for her, for the calming chill of her body, and the perspective her years gave her, and the infinite patience of a true friend.
Edward found us that way, curled in to one another, impossibly small in the corner of the cabin. He was carrying a body—Leah's. I screamed when I saw her, the long, fine limbs hanging limply in his arms. With Edward carrying her, she looked as though she were nothing more than a beautiful rag doll.
"Alice, you've got to help them," he said. He spoke so softly and quickly the words rushed in to one another like a song, and he looked at me with a delicate crease in his white brow. "Bella, we're going to have to do a repeat of last night, immediately." Alice was gone before he had finished his sentence. Leah's chest barely rose and fell; her eyes rolled wildly beneath her twitching lids. The bight was high on her left thigh, and I looked around in spite of the urgency to find something to cover her. The blood coming out of her terrified me—thank god, in all that had happened, I was no longer the ironically fainting mess I had once been when it came to the smell. I shook my head to focus.
Edward neatly lifted her leg and began to pull the venom out. I watched him—his eyes darkened immediately, his nostrils wide; he ripped her leg out of his mouth and thrust it at me just as he had the night before and hissed one word—"Quickly"—before rushing outside. The wound was smooth, unlike Jacob's; this one had been solid and deep. The razor slashes on his side swam before my eyes as I inhaled and forced myself to suck on the bloody flesh.
I saw Leah's eyes flash open. Before I realized what was happening, darkness enfolded me and I heard Edward scream as the room turned sideways.
I awoke to a strange sight. Leah had not staunched her wound, and as I lay on the ground peering up at her, the electric rush of red on the white sheet wrapped around her pulled me in to consciousness. Red. Blood. Leah. What had happened…and then I heard the angry voices.
"—Could have killed her!" Edward was crouched over me, I realized, and as I tried to sit up I bumped in to the dense matter of his calf. He immediately flew out of the way.
"You brought me here to feed her, you freak! You think I don't know what you're doing, it's going to pass as coincidence that just as soon as she shows up all these other bloodsucker zombies show up too—"
"She's human, you dolt! Could you have knocked a vampire unconscious?" Edward kept himself away from Leah, no doubt fearing the scent of her blood and her noxious attitude would be more than his restraint could handle. I heard myself laugh a little, and as though they'd been suddenly doused with cold water they both turned to stare at me.
"Leah, you thought I was a vampire?" I laughed again. It seemed obvious, in retrospect. The taste of irony mixed with the absurd and I found all I could do was howl with laughter. Edward glared at her, plainly livid.
"You should see yourself before you make fun of me," she hissed, and I felt the smile slide off of my face. I could feel a sticky wetness on my chin, and I knew the revulsion in my expression must have reached home with her as I tried to raise myself to walk. She looked momentarily ashamed while Edward flew towards me, helping me stand, and I hobbled over to the sink. Being upright made my head throb.
"Holy crow, Leah," I whined, and turned back to look at her. "I thought you guys knew that's what it took to get the venom out." She rolled her eyes, exasperated, and I scrubbed at my face with my hands. Edward hovered around me protectively.
"It takes all of us," she muttered. "I've never seen just one person do it before—unless you count them as people." She glared back at Edward, and the animosity between them crackled. I laughed again, feeling dizzy.
"Well, Edward saved your life with his vampire vacuum powers, I just got the last little bit of the venom out." I needed ice. I needed anything to keep the deep throbbing on my head from getting worse. "Maybe you should work together more often, if it usually takes the whole pack to do the job of one vampire."
"We're not made to suck blood," she hissed. "We work with what we've got."
I rolled my eyes and turned to her. "So do they—so do I, Leah. You can't be right all the time, it wouldn't kill you to just say you're sorry and be done with it." We stared at each other, and I realized as I looked at her that she was shaking. The red on the sheet was becoming bolder, beginning a small tap, tap, tap as it hit the floor. I turned to Edward. "Do you think you can guard us from the woods, Edward?" He looked hurt, and I immediately reached out a placating hand. His eyes glazed as I touched his arm. "I would like to try and find something else for her to wear, and you might be able to hear them better from out there."
"But I won't hear what's happening in here," he whispered, and then his eyes swept towards Leah. I could see him realizing how little she wore, and the consequential turn of his head told me that as a gentleman, he would find a way to give us some privacy. "Perhaps I can stay on the porch," he said, and he was gone before I'd turned back to Leah.