A/N: I'm on a roll and I'm so glad to be moving along again. I definitely didn't want to leave you hanging for long after that cliff hanger.

As always, I own nothing.

CHAPTER 43

JACOB POV

"OH MY GOD! BELLA!" Alice cried out from behind me.

The leech's shirt was in my hand as I lurched forward and slammed him into the concrete wall with a loud resounding crack. My entire body was vibrating with the urge to shift and take this bloodsucker out. I needed to get a handle on myself and get to Bella, but the rage in me was too much.

"What the hell did you just do leech?!" I slammed him against the wall again. Hard. Tiny fissures crept over his temples and cheeks.

He didn't say anything or try to fight back as I seethed in his face. His gold eyes, full of fear and regret, just held my hard stare, then flicked briefly behind me to Bella and back again. His fear wasn't of me, I realized, but of what he'd done. Something else was in that wild stare… he was willing to accept whatever I decided to do to him, even if I killed him. I think he almost wanted that.

"Be careful moving her Alice," the doc said urgently.

Sam's hand clamped down on my shoulder. "Jake, you need to get control of yourself. Bella is going to need you."

"I know," I said through clenched teeth. The look on the leech's face had taken some of the fight out of me, but I was far from in control. Maybe I'd give this leech what he wanted.

A loud growl ripped from the depths of my soul as I threw my fist toward his pale face with all my strength. He flinched as my fist slammed into the wall right next to his head, small chunks of concrete and dust fell on his shoulder as he glanced at where my hand was beside him then back at me, still silent.

I allowed Sam to pull me away, because I wasn't sure Bella would forgive me if I actually hurt him. I wasn't even positive if I could do much damage to him in this form. It wasn't something that had ever been tested, as far as I knew, but I filed away the fact that I'd made his body crack.

I turned from him and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths to calm down. After only a few moments had passed, I felt more in control and only had a slight tremor in my hands. I finally looked down at Bella and my heart constricted.

There was blood smeared on the floor around her head. The doc was very carefully moving her to hold a towel against where the gash must be, murmuring quietly to Alice.

"I think she may have a neck injury."

Her chest was glowing, the warm light radiating up through her shoulders and neck, her face peaceful. It would have been beautiful if it weren't for the fact that it meant she was hurt. In the moments it took me to absorb what I was seeing, her light began to flicker and fade and her face scrunched up into a grimace as the pain returned.

"Her light Jake… she's struggling," Sam said.

"I see it." I was already in motion, kneeling down next to her. "I'm okay now. Move aside Doc.

"I need to stop the bleeding and finish stabilizing—"

"No Doc, not this time." When he hesitated, I reached around him and pressed my hand to her chest, drawing out my own heated light to send into her. "She's trying to heal herself and she can't do it without me. I don't want anyone else touching her right now."

Wide-eyed, Carlisle looked back and forth between us then slowly nodded his head as he stood and moved away.

I shifted closer to her, caressing her face, which had relaxed again as soon as her light had strengthened, but her skin felt clammy. I took her hand in mine and it was ice cold. That didn't seem like it was a good thing, but we knew so little about this magic.

"Stay with me, baby," I whispered as I stretched out beside her, partially covering her body with mine to give her as much of my heat as I could. Then I closed my eyes to shut out everyone and everything around us and reached out to her mind.

I'm here honey. You still with me?

Her consciousness was there, though somewhat weak it was growing stronger as I wrapped mine around hers and she grabbed hold, pulling herself back up.

Jake?

Yeah, it's me.

What's going on? What happened?

You're working on healing yourself. Edward tried to move you away from me because he thought I was going to phase, but he ended up throwing you into the wall. Damn idiot.

Oh, shoot. That's not the first time he's done something like that.

She showed me a memory of her last birthday at the Cullen's house. As I watched, the blond leech lost his shit and tried to attack Bella, then I couldn't believe it when Edward sent her flying. Well, I guess I could believe it since he'd just done it again right in front of me. That guy seriously needed to learn to control his strength with Bella. Then I saw how badly she got hurt when she landed on the table full of glass. That wasn't helping me keep my cool.

Let's put that memory away for now baby. I need to stay calm.

Oh, sorry. I'm not sure why I felt safe with him after that, but it was only a couple of days later when they all left, so it didn't really matter.

I'm sorry you were put in the position for him to do it again. I almost slammed my fist into his face.

Bella made a happy humming sound. I thought that was a strange reaction to what I had just admitted, but I realized her healing was done and I was just refilling her now.

I can feel your warmth next to me now. Are you laying down beside me?

Yeah, your hands were like ice. You mean you couldn't feel me before?

No, just your mind. I think I'm waking up.

I didn't want to think about what her lack of feeling me beside her might have meant. Probably nothing good. Thank God for this healing ability. A small hand touched my cheek. I opened my eyes to find Bella smiling up at me.

"Welcome back, beautiful."

Her face suddenly twisted into a grimace then her mouth popped open, and she started taking shallow breaths through it, then she buried her face in my chest.

Ugh, the smell of blood makes me nauseous.

Relief washed away the concern that had briefly risen in my chest. I slowly got us both on our feet while Bella continued to breath against my chest, trying to use my scent to chase away the smell of blood, I assumed. I used the towel I'd been holding to her head to try to get as much of the blood out of her hair as I could.

I also became aware of the others in the room again. Edward was right where I'd left him against the wall. Sam was beside us, his hand on Bella's shoulder as she smiled at him. Both Alice and Carlisle were kneeling again, cleaning the blood off the linoleum floor with more towels and bleach, shoving the soiled towels into a trash bag.

Bella pulled away from me and looked around to watch the two vampires working.

Better? I asked, my arm around her waist.

She nodded then looked down at herself. "Where was I bleeding from?"

"The top of your head," I answered. "You're going to need to wash your hair to get it all out."

"You lost a lot of blood in a very short amount of time," Carlisle said as he stood and tied up the trash bag. "Your ability to heal is quite amazing, Bella. It's possible you could have had a neck injury without it."

His voice was quiet and sorrowful with this last statement. I was fairly certain that's exactly what had been wrong with her, and I shuddered at the thought.

Bella's hand came to rest on my cheek. "I'm okay, Jake."

I smiled at her and brushed my fingers over her jaw. "I know." I pressed a kiss to her forehead. I also knew that she wouldn't have been without the healing.

"I'm so sorry that happened Bella," Edward finally spoke from behind me.

Bella tensed under my hands, and anger shot down our bond from her. I turned with her as she stepped around me to stare down the leech still standing near the doorway, looking like he wanted to run away.

"You're sorry?" she said, deathly quiet, then her voice shot up to nearly a yell. "You're sorry!?" She started to move toward him, but I wrapped my arm around her from behind to hold her back.

"I'd feel better if you didn't go near him Bella," I said.

She didn't fight me as she continued. "When are you going to figure out that I'm not in any danger from Jake, or any of the wolves? Jake has not one time even come close to hurting me… none of them have. You know who has hurt me? You, Edward! You have hurt me over and over again. Before you left, when you left, and since you've been back, you just keep hurting me.

His face was a strange combination of remorse, frustration, and anger. Hopefully, he was angry at himself because he had no one else to blame.

"I was only –"

"Only what?" She spat the words at him. "Trying to help? Protect me? For all your attempts at protecting me, you have failed almost every time. The problem is you're trying to protect me from things that I don't need protection from. Jake is my life, and I am his. The wolf pack Is. My. Life."

That's right baby, you tell him how it is! Pride swelled in my chest at her words, and I sent that to her down our bond. The fact that she was finally speaking her mind to this bloodsucker pleased me immensely.

She rubbed her forehead, and her tone softened a little as she continued. "In case you haven't heard it in someone's thoughts yet, we've imprinted. So, Jake is my only future. I will marry him someday and we will build a life and a family together. It's what you wanted for me… to have a human life. Now, please, let me live it without interfering."

"But you could still choose differently. Someday, you may realize –"

"No Edward." Her voice only held compassion now. I liked it better when she was yelling at him. "The imprinting for us goes both ways. Being with Jake was my choice, but it has become a permanent choice. Not only would I never want to change it, but I am also unable to change it. Beyond that, I'm also permanently linked to the whole pack. So much more happened than just the imprinting. You have to let me go."

A look of defeat crossed Edward's face and I could see that he still didn't understand. "I only ever did what I thought was best for you."

"I know that, Edward. But it's not your place to make those decisions for me. It never really was, but it definitely isn't now."

The leech shifted on his feet as he stared a hole into the ground then let out a long surrendering sigh. "Alright, Bella. I won't… I won't interfere anymore." There was still some hesitancy as Edward responded, but he seemed to at least be beginning to accept reality.

Bella drew in a small, sharp breath and I looked down at her.

Jake, I can see his pain, his heartbreak. He has the same aura, like Leah. I can heal something in him. I think I can break his connection to me.

Oh no. We are not doing that today. She would have to touch him and there is no way that I can allow that right now. I shook my head at her, even though she wasn't looking at me.

Not here. Not today. We don't even know what exactly you'd be trying to heal, and I can't tolerate you touching him right now. It'd be more than I can expect from my control today. At least wait to see if you can convince Leah to let you heal her first, so we know more.

She hadn't taken her eyes off Edward, and I could feel the internal struggle she was having between what I'd said and fighting what her power wanted her to do. She finally relaxed and nodded.

Alright, I'll wait for now. If Leah is too stubborn about this for much longer, I may not be able to wait… my powers may not let me.

Fine. We'll figure that out if it gets too hard for you. I brushed the back of my fingers over her cheek to let her know I understood.

As Bella and I had our mental conversation, a tense silence had settled over the room. Finally, Edward let out a big sigh.

"So, if you would be willing to accept my help in the issue of the newborns, I can tell you what I know. I can at least help protect you from that threat."

"I for one want to know, now that we know Bella is okay." Sam said, speaking for the first time since Bella had woken up. "The more information we can have the better."

I nodded, somewhat reluctantly, "I agree."

"Okay," Edward said. "About a month or so after I left last Fall, I needed something to occupy my time, so I decided to try my hand at tracking. I chose Victoria as my target, to try to help get rid of her and make Bella safe. I was horrible at it, always trailing behind her by a day or more, but I did manage to follow her all the way down to Brazil.

"On her way though, she spent a great deal of time in the South." He looked at Carlisle and Alice. "There are still newborn armies all over down there. They are smaller and mostly used for defense now, it appears, but the practice is still being used."

"Are you thinking that is what Victoria was doing?" Carlisle asked. "Trying to build an army to overwhelm us so she could get to Bella?"

"Yes," Edward replied. "After hearing what the wolves have discovered, that was my thought."

"But if I haven't seen anything about this in my visions," Alice said, "it doesn't seem likely that the one who was making decisions for Victoria was aware of who her target was."

"Maybe not," Carlisle said, "but it hasn't even been a week since the pack took her down, so they might not even realize she's dead yet. At this point, I think we are just going to have to stay vigilant and wait to see what happens."

Carlisle looked at me, Bella, and Sam who had just been listening.

"Do you have any questions about this new information?" Carlisle asked us.

"I think I got the gist of it," I answered. "The red head was building an army by creating new vampires so they could attack and distract you all to get to Bella. She obviously didn't factor us into the equation."

"She probably didn't realize that the situation between Edward and Bella had changed so much," Alice said. "I'd say it's a safe bet that she didn't figure out what Bella had come to mean to all of you. Not until the day you killed her anyway."

She looked at Edward then. "If she had any idea that you were tracking her, she probably assumed that was the explanation for your absence here."

"I'm fairly certain she was very aware of me," Edward admitted.

"So, do you have any suggestions about how we should proceed from here?" Sam asked.

Carlisle answered, "Unfortunately, there isn't anything I see that we can do for now but wait until they make another move. Going on the offensive would be nearly impossible and most likely disastrous."

My jaw clenched. "I do not like the 'wait and see' approach Doc."

"I'm sure you don't Jacob," Carlisle said sympathetically. "I don't really like it either, but I don't see any other way for now. If the deaths and disappearances stop, we can assume that the knowledge of what Victoria wanted to do died with her. And if they keep happening, then we can assume someone is trying to continue what she started."

"From what you said of the newborns, they aren't going to just stop killing," Sam said, also frustrated. "So, it could take weeks, or even months, to figure out what their intentions are."

"Perhaps not," Carlisle said. "If the killings continue, it's possible that they will make a decision that will allow Alice to see something. Or they will make some other move that will alert us to their intentions."

"If it continues for too long," Alice said, "we may be able to make a trip to Seattle and see if there is anything we can find out from the vampires themselves. We just have to be careful about doing that because of how extremely volatile and unpredictable newborns can be."

"Alright," I said, glancing at the clock on the wall, "thanks for helping us work out what might be going on. We need to get going but let's keep in touch and keep each other informed of any new information."

"Absolutely." Carlisle said. "And I'm sorry we couldn't come up with a more immediate solution."

"It's okay Doc," I said, "it's not your fault. I appreciate all your help."

Edward, looking dejected, moved well out of the way to let us pass as we headed out the door. A grimace crossed his face when I put my arm around Bella and pulled her close to my side. He may understand our relationship now, but that didn't mean he liked it or that it was easy for him. I just hoped he did what he said and stopped trying to interfere.

BELLA POV

When we got to the parking lot Jake and Sam talked a little while about increasing the patrols again until they could be certain I wasn't in any danger. I didn't like the sound of that because it meant more time away from Jake. And since we had no way of knowing when the threat would end, it meant the increase would be indefinite for now.

Jake and I left the hospital and headed back to my house. We were supposed to leave soon with Embry and Angela to head to Port Angelas. I needed to take a shower and change before I could go anywhere.

When we got to my house, I called Angela to let her know we were going to be delayed and asked if they could meet us there instead. She agreed and I went to get in the shower.

The water ran red and then pink for several minutes as I washed the blood out of my hair. I had to shampoo three times before the water was clear again. More than ever, I was so thankful for my healing powers. Without them, who knows how badly I would have been injured.

I couldn't believe that Edward had showed up and hurt me like that… again. When I was showing Jake the memory of my birthday last year, it occurred to me that even though Jasper had been a threat to me that day, Edward really should have controlled himself better… and the same went for today. I hoped that I actually could break that connection he had to me so he could truly let go.

As I stepped out of the shower, I could hear Jake talking to Angela and Embry. He had apparently filled them in on the events of the afternoon.

"I'm so glad she finally told that bloodsucker how it is and quite coddling him," Embry said. "I know she felt bad for him, but he did it all to himself."

"Yeah, it was pretty satisfying to hear her let him have it," Jake replied. "She still spoke kindly to him at the end, more so than I would have liked, but she was very clear on where she stood. I think he finally gets it, even if he's having trouble accepting it."

"I sure hope so. It sounds like we have enough things to worry about without needing to be concerned about him lurking around and following Bella."

"I still can't believe he knocked her into the wall like that," Angela said quietly.

I wrapped a towel around myself and started gathering my discarded clothes. Ugh, I had gotten blood on the back of both my shirt and pants. I sighed, knowing that they were probably ruined. Shoving them in a trash bag, I went to my room and buried them at the bottom of my hamper to deal with later. Charlie definitely wouldn't look in there, but I would have to figure out the best time to dispose of them so he didn't accidentally see the evidence of this accident that he would never know about.

Once I was dressed and my hair was dry, I went back downstairs where Angela wrapped me in a huge hug.

"I'm so glad you're alright Bella," she said.

"Yeah, me too," I said with a humorless laugh, hugging her back, then I went to Jake where he was sitting in the recliner. "I'm super worn out." I curled up in Jake's lap and he held me tight.

"Well, I don't think we're going to make the matinee movie anyway," Jake said, rubbing my back, "so maybe we should just stay in town tonight. We could go get something to eat at the diner and then come back here and relax for the evening."

"That sounds like a great idea," I said.

We all agreed with that plan and left for the diner. When we got back to the house, Charlie was home and the five of us watched an old comedy that he had on video.

I hated that the wolves were having to go back on high alert, but I was determined to continue to find and enjoy every little bit of normalcy that we could get.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. Comments always greatly appreciated. :D