**Some of you are still having issues with "missing" chapters and asking me to resend them. I'd PM you, but with the issues FFN is having with emails right now, I doubt you'd see it. Some chapters are randomly, temporarily disappearing for a short period of time. My suggestion is to pop in and out, refreshing until it comes back. The chapters are still there, the site is just being terribly difficult.
28.
"You're the most beautiful, precious girl in the whole world," Alice singsongs to Marisol. "Yes, you are."
My daughter's answering coo makes me smile. She's grown so much in the last two months, I can hardly believe it.
"Do you like your new puppy, Marisol?" Alice asks her, holding up the newest addition to our growing pile of stuffed animals. Each week, a new one is left in the glider in the nursery in the middle of the night.
They've all smelled of Edward.
Alice glances my way. "How many does this make?"
"Nine."
"And they all show up—"
"Every Wednesday night like clockwork."
Alice sighs, lifting Marisol over her shoulder. "I wish—" She stops herself, shaking her head.
"I wish you'd just tell me what you see."
"You know why I can't."
I nod. "I know. But … can you at least promise me you can see Marisol and everything is okay?"
Her eyes light with a genuine smile. "I can see a very happy and healthy Marisol."
"That's all that matters."
Before I know it, Edward's birthday has crept up on me. It's been one year since that fateful night … when my living nightmare began.
"Are you sure you don't want us to stay and keep you company?" Alice asks me.
"I'm sure. You and Jasper have been … you've been my rock, Alice. You deserve to take some time off, just the two of you."
Alice waves away my comment. "It's just a hunting trip. We could go any time."
"Please go. Jasper's been talking about whisking you away to Alaska for weeks."
"I'd feel better if Carlisle's conference in Chicago wasn't this week."
I look over at my sleeping angel and smile. "We'll be okay. It'll be good for the two of us to have some time alone." I turn back to Alice. "And we both know Edward isn't far."
I wake some time in the night and glance at the clock.
3:18
The witching hour.
With a creak of a floorboard comes the same chilled sensation I feel when Edward is near. A shiver ripples through me, and my thoughts jump to maybe catching him in Marisol's room this time.
I throw off my light blanket and run as quietly as I can, barefoot, down the hall.
My breath catches when I see his dark figure looming over Marisol's crib while she sleeps.
"Edward," I whisper.
But he doesn't turn to me. And as I step closer to him, something feels so very off.
He's shorter, not as broad, and as I take a deep breath to calm myself, the familiar scent of my husband isn't what fills my senses.
The man standing in my daughter's bedroom is not my husband. When he turns to me, the nightlight illuminates his defined features. I reel back, because staring back at me is not the warm butterscotch of an animal-fed vampire. No, it's the blood red eyes of the monster who stole my life as I knew it.