"Jacob?" Bella exclaimed in utter surprise. "You can't be here, they'll catch you again!"
She heard herself say the words, and realized that she was actually being treacherous to the Resistance by wanting Jacob to get away. But he had been a good friend of hers, and she didn't actually want him to get hurt either.
"Can I come in?" he asked. "They are looking for me, and I've got nowhere else to hide."
She thought about it for half a second, before saying "Sure..."
Jacob leaped effortlessly in through the window. "Thanks!" he said, hiding under the bed where Edward had recently crawled out from.
Bella didn't sleep a wink for the rest of the night. She was really torn about what to do. One part of her wanted to sneak out of the room, to call Edward and Carlisle and tell them she had caught Jacob. He was dangerous, after all. If he escaped back to Paris, he could give his father and Javert so much information that they could use to destroy the revolution. But if she let them catch him, she would be responsible for what happened to him. She remembered seeing him in the jail, chained up and blindfolded in that cold, damp cell. Combeferre was not a merciful man, he would punish Jacob cruelly. Could she really let that happen to the boy she had used to play on the swings with when she was five, and sat with in English class drawing funny portraits of the teachers? She and Jacob had shared so many good memories during the years. And he still trusted her, although she was the enemy.
After several hours, Jacob deemed it safe to sneak out again. Bella went outside first, to make sure no one was about, before he did a runner. Werewolves where not as swift as vampires, but he was gone quickly enough.
"What have I done?" she lamented as she went back inside. It was too late to get any sleep, so she started cooking breakfast instead. René had been to the market and gotten eggs. Bella thought of the brave smugglers who risked their freedom to sneak up to the surface to get items they couldn't produce in the caves. If any of them were caught because of what Jacob could tell, she would be as much responsible as him. She baked fresh bread for the pick-nick, and scrambled the rest of the eggs with herbs. She set the table, lit candles, and went to wake up the family.
Charline hugged her and said it was a wonderful surprise. They ate breakfast while chatting about everything and nothing, and it felt just like in the old days.
"OK, girls," said Charlie when everyone had finished. "As I said, we are going on a trip today, so you'll probably want to get ready."
"I forgot to tell you this, Dad," Bella said with a twinge of guilt. "I have a date. So I think I'll have to pass."
"Oh no no no!" Said René. "You can't miss out in this! It's no fun unless the whole family is there. You'll just have to meet up with your boy later."
"OK," Bella said, realizing that she wasn't getting anywhere. "Can Edmund come boating with us?"
"Oh, we're not going boating!" René revealed. "No, this is much better. It is a surprise!"
OK, so they were probably going to the cinema. Edward wasn't allowed to come along, because it was supposed to be a family day. Bella sighed as they all got into Charlie's old pickup and drove off to some "exiting adventure."
Suddenly Bella realized where they were going... They were heading for the Elevator to Freedom! Oh no, was René going to arrest someone in front of the family to make an example? Did he know what she had done?
"Tadaa!" said René as they got out of the car. "We are going outside!" He handed out sunglasses for them to put on. "I got a tip that there was this new tunnel that lead out of Paris. So today, we'll see blue skies and sun!"
Bella felt scared and confused. She had no idea what her father was up to at all, but it was probably very bad. Surely, someone was going to stop him on the way up. René Aberforce, the werewolf, couldn't just go out and about using the Resistance's secret tunnel? But they got all the way up. René paid the man in the storage room and got the keys to one of the rented cars, a slightly rusty Renault.
After driving for about an hour, they got out of the car in a remote meadow near a river. René sat down on a rock and started fishing while whistling a happy tune. Bella regretted not having brought her bikini, although swimming in a river in March was maybe a bit preposterous if she was going to pass as a human. She sat down next to René and looked into the water. She thought about Edward, and Jacob. What had she done? How could she look Edward in the eyes again? Or Enjolras, for that matter.
They ate lunch, and Bella felt a bit better as they started talking about happy things again. Why did her Dad have to be a traitor? Couldn't he just have remained a good guy, so the family could have nice days like this without it feeling like a crime?
Suddenly, the Thenardiers, Alice and Eponine's parentals, came strolling down the riverbank. They looked a bit dishevelled, because they had probably been roughing it for the night. Why did those two yokels have to show up now, when everything was so nice and normal for once? At least they didn't have red eyes, so they hadn't been preying on humans.
"Any chance of a lift home?" Jean Luc Thenardier asked. "We got away from our party. Got a bit fruity, you see. Blame the Bloody Mary's, ha ha ha ha!"
"There was more booze than blood in those," said Yvonne Thenardier. "Now we have to get home, because the kids probably haven't been fed for 24 hours. Eponine has been too busy otherwize to notice them, if I know her right."
Cosette snickered, and Bella wondered if she should tell them that Alice had moved away from home. Nah, it was better if they discovered that for themselves. Yvonne squeezed into the backseat with Bella and Cossette. There wasn't any room for Jean Luc in the car, so René put him in the boot. He almost didn't manage to close the lid. The Thenardiers had been morbidly obese as humans, so as vamps they were big and buff.
On the way home, Yvonne gave a full report of their drunken hijinks and how they had ended up losing their way back to the hotel. Bella thought about what Esme had said, that Alice was better off in the Cullen house than with her parents. Alice was very petite and graceful with refined tastes, nothing like her family at all. She liked dancing ballet, singing and reading, not bowling and watching trashy sitcoms. If Bella had been a misfit in her family like that, it would have been easier to turn away.