AN: More lovely reviews, thank you all so much for your support and your love. I did review replies last chapter because I've decided that's really the only way I can properly express how much I appreciate you, my readers. I also included teases. This will be continuing, because I'm the kind of author who likes to bribe their way into the hearts of her readers :)

A word of explanation for this chapter. There's a scene that I always intended to set to "With or Without You" by U2. The song just fit the mood and the emotions so perfectly, it was as if it had been created for what is going on between Edward and Bella in this chapter. When I ended up writing this chapter, I decided that it was actually the entire album that "With or Without You" is from, The Joshua Tree, that needed to be the inspiration. Thus, the chapter title. Also, I know I usually abhor using a lot of lyrics in stories, but in this particular scenario, the lyrics fit so perfectly, so beautifully expressed what I was unable to put into words, that I did use lyrics from the first three songs on The Joshua Tree-including the final song, "With or Without You." Please download or listen on the playlist while you read, because I really feel that it takes the chapter to a whole other level.

The songs are as follows (in order): "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and "With or Without You."

Thank you to the most fabulous handholder and beta, JosieSwan, because without her, I would have thrown up my hands and given all this up a long time ago. And of course, to Izzzy, my darling cheerleader, who loved this chapter even though she decidedly did not enjoy its musical inspiration.

Chapter 23: The Joshua Tree

Bella

The night was velvet black, and it wrapped around us like a lover as Edward grasped my hand and we ran. And ran. And ran.

I didn't think Edward could see where he was going any better than I could, but I let him lead, his fingers gripping mine, and my sneaker-clad feet slapped heavily on the ground in the same rhythm as his. We ran for what felt like hours, keeping within sight of the road, but never coming close to it. Even after enough time had passed that the house was out sight and our breathing came in hard gasps, neither of us slowed down. I knew I could feel the cold death of Aro's stare even though he was miles away by now, and it went unspoken that Edward feared a trap as well.

It had been so long since I had breathed in fresh air, and even though it was cold, the chill in the spring air didn't bother me—I relished the freedom of the wind streaming through my hair and blood beating hard just under my skin.

But the exhilaration passed, and I felt labored, aches in my side and legs, and I finally yanked on Edward's arm, trying to tell him that we needed to stop- if only for a minute. Surely, I thought, we were far enough from Aro and Jane now to be certain that this wasn't some manipulative trap.

Edward finally slowed down and as we came to a halt, I released his hand, bending over to try to catch my breath.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his own breath coming in short pants.

It was the first thing either of us had spoken since leaving the house that had been more like a prison, and as much as I had hated that place, it was in there that Edward and I had managed to bridge the seemingly insurmountable gap between us. It was evidence of how weirdly paranoid and unhinged I'd become- that once we were free, I suddenly didn't know if he would be the same Edward. Maybe once he wasn't forced to be in the same room with me 24 hours a day, he wouldn't want to be.

I knew I was being ridiculous, but all my old insecurities came rushing to the surface as I looked up through the darkness and saw Edward standing there, staring at me. Maybe he'd run off now, and I'd never see him again.

"I'm fine," I told him. Fine seemed like a rather ridiculous choice of words, but it was all I could come up with—my brain felt fried with the superfluous emotions of the last forty-eight hours.

"Good." It seemed that Edward himself had reverted to silence, and so I joined him. In any case, it was easier than figuring out what to say to each other.

After a minute, he reached out and to my surprise, found my hand again. "Are you ready?" he asked.

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Let's go. But slower this time?"

"We need to find . . ."

"A phone," I finished when he couldn't seem to put his finger on what exactly it was that we needed to find.

"Yeah," he agreed with a distant voice, but I could nearly hear the gears in his head, and I wasn't sure at all that he did agree.

We progressed more slowly now, more jogging and fast walking than outright running. The farther we went, the more comfortable I became and the reality of our situation began to sink in. While we'd been screwed in the cabin, I wasn't sure we were any less screwed now. Emmett hadn't lied; it was hopelessly empty in this part of Canada. There were no houses, no cars, no lights, no towns. No anything, really. And I shivered, more with the fear that we were maybe the only two people out here than with the cold.

"Are you cold?" Edward asked solicitously, moving to unzip the sweatshirt he wore, but I stopped him.

"I'm fine," I repeated, as if I was one of those toy dolls who had a limited number of phrases they were capable of speaking. Maybe if I repeated it enough times, it would be true.

I knew he was going to question me—I could feel the change in the air between us—as if he'd suddenly realized that I was a big fucking liar and I was scared shitless, but before he could, I felt a sudden rush of relief that nearly brought me to my knees.

"Is that a roof?" I gasped out. "Over there? Over that ridge?"

Edward didn't say anything, but the grip on my fingers tightened considerably, and I found myself being nearly dragged over the landscape, through several bushes, and over a log, and around a stand of trees, until we came face to face with a small dark house not unlike the one we'd just escaped from. But this one, most importantly, didn't have a Red Hands of Ulster flag flying in the yard.

"It looks like nobody's home," I said uncertainly. Naturally, the one residence we'd managed to find and it was empty. Every single damn time I thought we were going to catch a break, things broke the other way.

Of course, I could be branded or even dead right now, so I supposed that things weren't going all that badly.

"I don't care," Edward said shortly, and he let go of my hand then, moving up the pathway towards the front door.

"What are you doing?" I asked, even though I knew perfectly well what he was about to do. Maybe if he said it out loud, he'd see that it was a terrible idea.

"I'm breaking in. We need a phone. And a place to sit and breathe for a minute." Edward said it so matter-of-factly that I had to wonder if he had done this before. He was Esme Platt's son—surely he'd never wanted for anything a day in his whole life. I was the daughter of a rich woman, and an even richer man was my stepfather, but Edward's mother eclipsed both of them. I could only imagine what growing up with that much privilege had been like.

Still, he approached the doorway methodically, examining the lock and the wood, as if he knew how to do this. "That's not going to work," Edward muttered to himself, and he left the pathway and moved around the side of the house until he found a window that was low enough to the ground.

But I'd decided this had gone far enough; yes, I wanted out of the cold, but I also didn't think breaking and entering was an appropriate solution. So I told him that.

At first, I didn't think he'd heard me, but then I heard him chuckling as he inspected the latch on frame of the window. "You're a good girl, aren't you, Swan?"

I shrugged, even though his back was to me. "I think you'd be surprised at how bad I am." I made sure that my voice was totally devoid of any reference to the act—or acts—we'd spent the last two days indulging in. The sex had been great, but it had been just the once. I didn't want him to think that it was something I expected to happen again. Expectations were messy things. They led to hope, feelings, and ultimately, a whole hell of a lot of hurt.

The truth was that Edward would be a whole lot more surprised at how not bad I was. I'd spent my formative years rebelling against what Renee considered "normal" behavior, but that didn't exactly mean I broke any rules that any teenage girl didn't break upon occasion. I toyed with the idea of telling him about the "business" that I'd had with Alice, but I didn't think that Edward Cullen would be very impressed that I'd copied and sold designer clothing.

"Don't tell me you've never done this before," he joked, and I wondered if was covering for his own fear again, but before I could figure it out, the window slid open, and he turned to me, smirking.

"Told you," he said in his insufferable know-it-all voice. "Easy."

"I'm not going in there," I told him, determined to stand my moral ground—sure it wasn't as firm at it had been before, but it did still exist. "The owners could come home and we could be arrested."

"Do you really think being arrested would be such a bad thing? At least if we were in police custody, we'd be safe, and we could get ahold of Carlisle."

I had to admit he had a point. Even if we were arrested, the police were a lot safer alternative than the Red Hands. "Fine," I ground out. "I'll go inside."

"I thought you might see reason," Edward said.

"Don't," I told him warningly as I approached the window. "I'm only doing this because I'm cold, and because you made a whole hell of a lot more sense than you usually do."

"Right." Edward removed the screen and he held out his hands to gave me a quick boost so I could slide into the open window.

"Psychos could live here, you know," I chattered, my voice unnaturally high.

"I'm sure there's a Canadian Norman Bates waiting for you right now," Edward chuckled.

"That's not funny," I insisted, but I laughed anyway, and it felt so damn good to really laugh, without shadows encroaching on anything happy.

"Bella," Edward said in mock seriousness, "we can sit here all night, you halfway out the window, or you can climb the rest of the way inside and we can get warm and maybe take a shower and call the police."

"Are you telling me that I have commitment issues?" I retorted as I scooted my butt further into the window and dropped one leg gingerly into the blackness beyond.

"No, darling, that's me. Remember?" He said it with the same joking, laissez-faire, tone of voice that I'd adopted, but we both knew he wasn't joking. It was becoming harder and harder for me to remember that Edward was Edward, and even if we managed to escape the Red Hands, it didn't mean there was a happily ever after waiting for us. Nothing had really changed.

Partly because I didn't know what to say to that and partly because Edward was right and I couldn't exactly sit on this window ledge all night, I swung my other leg over and dropped as gracefully as I could to the ground.

Luckily, it wasn't far, because it was a whole hell of a lot less graceful than it should have been.

In fact, I literally crashed to the floor. I wasn't hurt, because at least the floor was covered in a nice soft carpeting, but the resounding thump of my body crashing down was enough to make Edward lean over into the room, a concerned look on his face.

"Bella," he hissed, "are you alright?"

"Fine," I ground out, picking myself up off the ground. "The only thing that's wounded is my pride."

My eyes were acclimating to the dark room, and to my relief, it didn't appear as if Norman Bates was present. In fact, the house looked as if it hadn't been occupied in some time. There was a thin coating of dust over everything, and some of the larger pieces of furniture were covered in white sheets. Everything was very tidy, as if it had all been put away and closed up. I crossed the room slowly, making sure not to trip and fall again, and began to look for a light switch.

I heard Edward drop to the floor behind me and slide the window closed. "I'm looking for a light of some kind," I told him, "but the good news is that I'm fairly certain this house isn't currently occupied."

"That makes sense," he said. "This could be someone's vacation house, or a summer cabin for hunting and fishing."

"I hope so. I wasn't exactly looking forward to a very awkward conversation, trying to explain what we were doing breaking into someone's house in the middle of the night."

"We aren't exactly breaking in," Edward said oh-so-reasonably. "We're just borrowing. Appropriating."

"And what exactly are we appropriating?" I asked, finally finding the light switch and praying that the people who owned the house believed in electricity even when they weren't living here. And thank god, light, beautiful, man-made light filled the room. The cabin had always been kept dark, barely lit at all, even in the rooms that weren't the "cell." It had been so long since I hadn't been in dim, dark gloom that it was almost painful to keep my eyes open and let the light flood in, but I did anyway because it was a good, cleansing kind of pain. As if all the shadowy corners were being cleansed of cobwebs.

"Anything we like," Edward said arrogantly, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"It's not like they have anything here worth taking, really," Edward argued, gesturing to the living room we were in. He was right; it was sparsely furnished with basic, older pieces—as if all the older furniture had been moved up here after it had been replaced by newer, more fashionable models.

Edward had, of course, gravitated over to the rack of CDs on the wall next to the old-fashioned television set. "They don't have bad musical taste though," he said with surprise. "They like arena pop-rock. Especially U2. They have all their CDs."

I felt odd snooping through these strangers' possessions, riffling through their CD collection, so I left the living room and wandered into the kitchen.

If I'd needed more evidence that this was a vacation home not occupied year-round, the kitchen convinced me. There was no food in the refrigerator and it had been wiped clean. The pantry contained some basic canned goods, but nothing else.

The house was small, and besides the living room and the kitchen, there was an attached breakfast nook with an old-fashioned circular oak table, and two bedrooms with a tiny bathroom.

But most importantly, there was a phone on the mustard-colored wall in the kitchen. I picked it up and let out a breath that I hadn't even known I'd been holding. We would get out of this—alive, with skin intact.

I finished my quick tour and returned to the living room where Edward was still examining the rack of CDs as if it was the most interesting thing he'd seen in a long time. As much as I tried, I couldn't help but feel slightly hurt at how he didn't even turn at my entrance.

"Edward," I said more than a little impatiently, "is their musical taste really all that important?"

He still didn't turn, and he didn't even answer me. It was easy enough to see that he was lost in his own world, and nothing I could say would drag him out of it. So I flopped down on the couch with a loud exasperated sigh and waited.

I saw him reach out and pluck a CD off the shelf. I was too far away to see what he'd selected, but I supposed I understood his desire to hear real music again. Music was Edward's crack, and to be without it for so long? I'd known that it must be difficult for him, but I hadn't really ever considered how musically-starved he'd been, locked up in that tiny room.

Edward opened the case and slipped the CD into the player on the bookshelf. He pressed play, and then he turned towards me, a smile peeking out from the corners of his lips.

"Sorry," he said apologetically, and I could see the giddiness leaking out of him, "I couldn't help myself. I figured we could use a musical pick-me-up." The CD had started playing and from the opening chords, I knew, knew, what album he'd selected, and then it all made sense.

Edward might be either an asshat or a hero—that was still up for interpretation at this point—but what he did know was his music and there was nothing more perfect for this situation than The Joshua Tree by U2.

I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and let the music seep into my pores, utter exhilaration and the glory.

"Good choice," I managed, trying to keep the sudden tears at bay. It wasn't happiness soaring through me, and not really sadness either—but an odd mixture of both, with an overlay of relief.

"I know," Edward said softly. "I thought you'd appreciate it."

When I go there, I go there with you. It's all I can do.

I briefly considered telling Edward about the working phone in the kitchen, but the music lulled me, until I thought I could sit here forever, with him, and just listen to the intricate and soaring melodies. The song finally ended and the next song began, but I still didn't move. I was suddenly and inexplicably exhausted, and I didn't know if I could—or even wanted—to rejoin the real world again. The music wove its haunting cocoon around Edward and I, and I knew I could stay here forever, with him.

"Someday," Edward said into the fading melodies, "I want to create an album like The Joshua Tree."

I have climbed the highest mountain, I have run through the fields. Only to be with you.

Only to be with you.

He glanced over at me, then, and I could feel his sudden hesitation. He regretted saying it, expressing his desire to create something masterful and real. No doubt he remembered that I'd eviscerated his last album, and he was expecting me to tell him that he wasn't capable of something as timeless as The Joshua Tree. But for years, for almost all of my formative years, I had lived and breathed and worshipped at the altar of Edward Cullen.

He might not know it, but the reason I'd written that review was because I believed in him—believed that he was capable of so much more.

"You will," I said with a bone-deep and utterly simple certainty. I'd always known he was capable, but now that he could actually vocalize the desire, it was undeniable that he would do it. Before I'd met him, I'd begun to doubt that he had a backbone at all, any will or drive or desire to create a real legacy, but now I knew that all that crap was just a smokescreen. Deep down, he wanted to be better, to do better things, and I had to believe that this experience would push him to find the inspiration he needed.

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

He glanced over at me again, this time I could see something new and different in his eyes. It wasn't quite respect—though I was fairly certain he did respect me at this point—and it wasn't quite affection. But before I could really figure out what it was, he stood up from his end of the couch.

"I found the phone," I said in a rush, suddenly afraid of my own response to him. I was honestly terrified that I was falling harder for this man that could possibly be safe. Or sane. "And it works. There's a dial tone."

His eyes met mine as I rose to my feet. "Right," he said hesitantly. "I should call Carlisle. Tell him where we are."

But he didn't move; he just stood there, staring at me.

"Or I could call Renee," I said awkwardly, not at all sure why he wasn't doing anything. He still didn't say anything, so I finally took a step towards the kitchen, figuring his silence was an acceptance.

"Wait."

I turned back. He was still staring at me with that inscrutable expression. "Is everything alright?" I asked in confusion. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." Edward paused, running a hand through his hair. "No."

I folded my arms across my chest, knowing I should be understanding, but only feeling annoyed that we were having a discussion that wasn't a discussion at all because as usual, Edward was shit at communication.

"Why did you sleep with me?" The question fell out of his mouth so fast, the words all clumping together, that I barely understood what he was asking. And then, even when I understood, I still didn't understand. Not at all.

But he didn't give me even a moment to compose a suitable "what the fuck are you talking about" reply, because he forged on, talking faster, and he was suddenly unable to even look at me at all. "I know you did it because you didn't think you'd ever see me again. You thought that it was it. That it was goodbye."

"It was goodbye," I said patiently, still not getting what he was trying to say. The CD had moved onto the next track, the thrumming guitar of the song drifting over my senses.

See the stone set in your eyes; see the thorn twist in your side. I wait for you.

"I know that, damnit," he snapped suddenly. "But. . .but god damn it, Bella. Just tell me. Why did you sleep with me?"

"I don't . . . I don't know," I stumbled. "And I still don't get it. You sleep with girls all the fucking time—you know why they sleep with you. Why would I be any different?"

"Because I'm hot and rich and famous? Because I'm a rock star? That's bullshit," Edward sneered. "That's not why you slept with me."

Sleight of hand, and twist of fate. On a bed of nails, she makes me wait. And I wait without you.

"What do you want from me?" I demanded, suddenly and inexplicably angry that I was being forced into confessing all my reasons for sleeping with him, while he'd always fucked with anything with a pulse.

Edward clamped his lips together, and I could see in the white tautness of his face that he was just as furious as I was. But what he had to be pissed off about, I had no fucking clue. He was the one who was suddenly demanding answers to questions that he'd never cared about before.

"Is it so crazy to think that I wanted to?" I ground out. "Is that so insane? That prim, prissy, Brit Bitch Bella fucking Swan wanted to have sex with the great Edward Cullen?"

He was silent for a moment, for two. My heart thumped wildly in my chest, at the almost feral, angry glint in his eyes. "Yes," he finally said. "It's that insane."

Through the storm, we reach the shore. You gave it all, but I want more.

"I'm not going to call. I can't call," he continued. "Not yet."

"You're not going to call," I stated, sure that he had finally lost what was left of his mind.

Edward shook his head. "No."

And I'm waiting for you.

"I don't understand." And I didn't. I didn't understand this whole fucking conversation and I wanted to throw him back to Aro and Jane at this rate. He'd been so clear that he was Edward Cullen and this was what he did with women, and I had gone along with all of that. I had never, not once, expected a single thing more. What gave him the right to question me and my motives—I had no idea. Edward Cullen had sex with women all the time, just because they were there.

I wondered for a split second if it was because I was different, if he was different when he was with me, but I ruthlessly and instantly cut off that line of thought. If I foolishly thought for even the briefest of seconds that I wasn't like the others, he would rip out my heart and decimate it. And I wasn't about to give him that kind of power over me.

"I don't understand what's happening. But I know that the moment I make the call, this," Edward gestured between us, "is over. Maybe not over over, but the world will come crashing in between us, and I'm not ready for that to happen. Eventually, maybe, but not yet."

I can't live, with or without you.

I closed my eyes in panic and terror. In the deepest, darkest, most secret places, I had wanted him to say that, but now that he had, there was no going back. I was thrilling with the knowledge that it was me he wanted, me he couldn't give up yet, and my ego, which had been more than a little downtrodden for longer than I cared to admit, was doing a crazy dance.

"This isn't a good idea." I said it as calmly as I could, but I was sure he could feel the panic in my voice. He'd just blown my emotional grid to bits, and there was no way that I could hide it anymore.

Edward simply nodded. "I know. It's . . .insane. Probably post traumatic stress-induced. But I don't care. I want you."

My hands are tied, my body bruised. She got me with nothing to win, and nothing else to lose.

I took a single deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart. This is a good idea, I tried to convince myself, this is a fine idea. Just don't—don't . . .

But I couldn't pretend it was just sex anymore, and as Edward closed the distance between us, wrapping his arms around me, his fingers weaving through my hair, I bowed to the inevitable.

I was going to fall in love with Edward Cullen.

Edward kissed me, his tongue sliding into my mouth, and we stumbled back towards the couch. I didn't think, could only feel as I straddled his lap and let my hair fall around our faces, shrouding us from the world.

There was nothing, no Red Hands, no Renee, no Esme, no blog, no bad reviews, not even the separate countries of England and Ireland as Edward peeled his shirt off me, and his mouth slid down my neck, to my collarbone, to my shoulder, and then finally to the upper rise of one breast.

"I've been thinking about this," he murmured into the damp heat of my skin, "ever since we did it before."

I briefly considered lying, but then his lips closed over my nipple and the white hot shot of pleasure was like a truth serum injected through my veins. "Yes," I groaned. "Want you."

And then there was no more need for words—I thought that maybe we had moved beyond the time and space where they were even necessary.

There was only Edward, his bare chest, which was surprisingly muscular despite all his years of boozing, and my fingers sliding across it. My gasp as his grip on the naked curve of my waist tightened with the vise of agonizing pleasure that he was forcing on me.

There was even something that might have been tenderness in his eyes as he laid me on the couch, and he rose over me. But then his eyes went wide and shut hard as he slid inside me and I forgot that I was even supposed to be looking.

This time, we moved together easier, and as I caught his rhythm, rougher than before—desperate, needy, passionate—I gasped into his mouth, my fingers gripping his scalp. "More," I insisted, and he kind of panted-laughed at my petulant demand, before capitulating and giving me exactly what I'd wanted until I lost the train of all thought in a shower of sparks that exploded behind my eyes.

When the light faded, Edward was lying on my chest, his expression strangely serene.

"Is that better?" I asked with a smirk.

"Yes," Edward mumbled into my sweat-dampened skin. "And don't ask me to move, because I don't think I could, you slave driver."

I smiled then, the memory of me urging him on fresh in my mind. "I suppose I could be a trifle . . .demanding," I conceded.

"Don't apologize," he groaned as he finally lifted himself off me, and out of me. "I like you just as you are. Demands and all."

"I'll keep that in mind." I couldn't help the flirtatious note in my voice, and the light in his eyes confirmed that he liked it just as much as I did.

Dragging myself up to a sitting position, I laid my hand on his back and rested my head on his shoulder. "Are you ready now?" I said quietly.

Edward didn't say anything, but he inclined his head slightly. "Do you want me to call?" I asked.

"No," he said with long, gusting sigh. "I'll do it." He leaned down and picked his shirt off the floor, tugging it over his head and slipped his boxers and his pants back up.

He stood, his back to me, and finished dressing. I supposed I should do the same, but there was a laziness, a bone-deep satisfaction that made me not want to move-and a strange desire to prolong this interlude as long as possible.

"Bella," he said slowly, as if he was going to say something he was going to regret later. But I couldn't hear it—I didn't want to hear it. I was terrified he was going to punch the hole in my chest now and pull my heart out, still beating, still dripping blood, and pulverize it with his hands.

"No," I said sharply. "Don't. Not now."

"Alright. I guess I'll go make the call then."

"The phone's in the kitchen. On the wall."

He nodded, walking from the living room to the kitchen.

I sat there, on the couch, naked as the day I was born, and listened to him dial, his finger strokes slow and deliberate as he punched each number in. When he finished dialing, I let out the breath I'd been holding.

"Carlisle," he said. "It's me. Edward."

Edward was right, I realized, the world was about to come crashing in, and it would destroy everything we'd built in the last week and a half. Nothing would ever be the same again. We'd created an oasis of sanity in a desert of insanity because there'd been no other choice. If we hadn't, we would have lost our minds.

"We've escaped. Yes. Bella and I."

And suddenly, I wasn't sure I'd done the right thing, sleeping with him a second time. The first time, it had been a novelty born of desperation and the need of bodily comfort. This time, it had been a beast of a different color, and it was a new, different shade. One that I wasn't sure I recognized.

"We didn't get far-we're in a vacation house maybe a mile or two away from where we were held."

I heard Edward's sharp intake of breath. "You're with Emmett?"

"Thank god," he breathed out, so quietly that I barely heard it. "Yes. Ontario. There's an address here-we're on Goose Hollow Lane. Near Bexley."

"You're that close?" Edward exclaimed. "Wow, I guess you were serious. A real rescue attempt."

There was silence for a moment, as Carlisle spoke.

"Yes, we're both fine. She's alright. Shaken but not hurt."

I glanced down, at my bare, intact skin. Outwardly, Edward was right-I was fine-but would the pieces that had shifted inside of me ever return to their original places? Maybe the experience had forever changed me.

I heard Edward hang up the phone with a decisive click and he appeared in the doorway, a real smile on his face. "They're on their way. Maybe half an hour."

It wasn't just the kidnapping and the Red Hands, I decided. It was Edward. I felt imprinted with him; as if his body and his mind and the force of his personality had been pressed into me like a mold. Edward would never realize, never understand, but he hadn't had to brand me to leave his mark. He was inside me whether he wanted to be or not.

"I'll go get dressed." I fled to the bathroom, my clothes in my hands, and I wondered how I could have let this happen.

I had fought against the reality long and hard, but I couldn't deny the truth any longer: I was in love with him.

AN: Chapter 24 is titled "The Two Edward Cullens" and a review gets you a teaser. And of course, I will be posting on The Fictionators' Teaser Mondays as well.

See you lovelies next Monday!