Winter hung over Forks like a blanket, all through February with the end far out of sight. The days slowly, agonizingly slowly, lengthened, a few more minutes of weak sunlight, a few less of darkness. Bella grew accustomed to the bitter cold and constant drizzle when she worked outside. The constant sniffling stopped and she could finally breathe easily again. The cold air felt refreshing and clean against her skin, rather than biting into her face like tiny needles.
The neverending list of projects Julia gave her allowed Bella to detach slightly from the near-manic chase that seemed to consume the rest of her life. When the sky darkened too much for her to see the work, Bella returned to Charlie's warm house, showered, and cooked dinner. Often, she resented the version of herself that had been so desperate for distraction instead of reminders. Charlie had grown accustomed to those elaborate dinners that took forever, and she didn't want to alarm him by suddenly switching over to microwave meals.
So, she listened to music while she cooked, and while she worked in the office, and showered, and did laundry, and anything other task that could be accomplished within hearing distance of a CD player. Then, when Charlie was stationed on the sofa in the evenings and the house was quiet, she returned to her novels. Wuthering Heights was obvious, and extremely effective. Clear as glass, she could hear Edward's voice criticizing Heathcliff. She could see his marble-white fingers turning the pages as they read together.
Any item that Edward had touched, Bella began to horde obsessively. The books especially, she piled on her nightstand, so she saw them first thing in the morning. She wrapped herself in the blanket he'd used to cover her and sat in the rocking chair where he held her on his lap. She sifted through her closet in search of any clothing items that inspired a reaction, only coming up with her deep blue blouse and the one sundress she'd brought when she moved to Forks, which she wore when they went to Port Angeles for the Fourth of July to watch the fireworks. Otherwise, she felt only a deep annoyance at Edward's prudishness. When he returned, maybe she would try low-cut shirts and tiny shorts just to get a reaction.
One afternoon, Bella brought herself to the Italian restaurant in Port Angeles where Edward had finally started to unwrap for her. She ordered the mushroom ravioli and a coke, though there was already a trio of women sitting at the hidden table Edward had requested. The staff were all different, of course, and this waitress paid Bella the same amount of attention as all the other customers. The world outside was a mild day rather than a cloudy night. But the table settings and menus were the exact same. Similarly nondescript lyrical music played over the speakers. Bella faced the same collection of postcards from Italy: Rome, Florence, Naples, Venice, Verona, Milan, Pisa, Lake Como, Turin, Volterra, Lucca, Genoa, Palermo. And the moment she took the first bite, shivers ran down her whole body because it tasted exactly as it had when Edward was seated across from her.
But eventually, the reminders lost their potency. Just like the distractions. Bella's original memories of the books and music and places started to blur with all the memories of her revisiting them. She began to worry that each time she looked back at a memory, her subconscious was making tiny changes, even without her consenting or realizing. Making Edward's hair a little darker or lighter, the color of his eyes shifting slightly, the melody of his voice exaggerated or understated. At the time, she hadn't forced all the tiny details into her mind, so now her subconscious was filling in all the miniscule gaps.
Bella put away the easiest reminders, to protect them from the stains of her imperfect human memory, and began to chase new ones. One night after work, she drove to the high school in the dark, found the exact spot she'd been parked in when Tyler's fan skid towards her on the ice, and laid out on the pavement. For a moment, the cold asphalt beneath her felt like Edward's marble arms and she could almost hear the crunch of the car colliding with his hand.
In a brief second of heart-pounding insanity, Bella considered smacking her head against the ground, to simulate the small injury that had caused so much drama that day.
"Bella, my god," the angel's voice echoed in her mind.
She grinned and closed her eyes, then responded, "I wasn't actually going to do it."
"There really is no end to your recklessness," he muttered grouchily.
"Don't worry, I promise I'll be here when you come back."
Even in her own ears, the hysteria of the vow registered. She was grateful for the empty, dark parking lot, with no one to witness and label her delusional. The conviction that the two of them would eventually find their way back together was as sure in her mind as the sun rising over the mountains tomorrow.
The problem with these less reliable reminders was they were so often either intangible or incredibly diluted. Edward had been thorough in removing evidence of himself from Bella's life, but she still had the books he'd touched, the music he'd listened to or played, the strawberry-scented shampoo he'd liked the scent of in her hair. Some of the places were decently effective, like the restaurants in Port Angeles. But it was so difficult to find things that held specific, untouched memories of the Cullens and nothing else.
Her efforts at the highschool were mostly unsuccessful, the place was saturated with the hazy memories of her depression. The whole town of Forks, really, was unsatisfactory. Edward had preferred taking her out in Port Angeles or Seattle, so Forks was mostly recollections of her childhood or moments with Jacob.
Sometimes, the constant chase was blissful, like sliding the last piece of a puzzle into place. And sometimes it felt like her mind was unraveling. One night, her subconscious conjured a perfect image of Charlie across from her at the kitchen table, a plate of fried fish in front of her. Bella's voice in the dream mumbled something, the only clear words were 'Edward' and 'the Cullens'. The dream version of her father looked up from his plate, his brown eyes closer to black and said, clearly and slowly, 'Bella, no one named Edward Cullen has ever lived in Forks.' Bella woke up screaming for the first time in eight months.
Bella knew it had been real, she knew. But traces of Edward were increasingly difficult to find. She didn't want to spoil the memories she had, but she was so afraid of losing them, sometimes her throat tightened just imagining the possibility of a future where she barely remembered. The tattoo was a comfort. But in the darkest moments, even that felt like maybe she's just given in to the allure of some delusion.
The Cullens' mansion would have been a gold mine. Bella knew if she returned there, she could sate herself for months just looking at the exterior. What could be more obvious evidence that a giant steel and glass structure? But when she'd driven back and forth along the road for nearly an hour, she hadn't seen the turnoff. The forest had entirely consumed the winding driveway, leaving only a dense wall of trees on either side of the car. That night, the nightmare returned, this time with the addition of Renee and Jacob.
Bella considered going down to La Push, begging one of the pack to transform for her. That would at least be proof that all the magic was real and Edward was possible. But the idea turned her stomach. She hadn't spoken to any of them since New Years' Eve, except Jacob when he came to Forks a few days later. No effort to reach out from either direction, from Bella or from the people she'd so recently considered her closest friends.
The weekend after Valentine's Day, Julia gave Bella three days off in a row. Bella tried to object, because she hadn't yet managed to renew her list of reminders to chase and the prospect of so much time off was terrifying. But Julia insisted, and Charlie awkwardly wondered if it was okay to go fishing while she was home all weekend. And of course, Bella responded, "of course, have fun. I'll be fine."
Then, when Charlie had said it would not only be him and Harry, as it had been for the last several weekends, but also Billy, Bella insisted. Because another, much smaller source of her current turmoil was the tension between her father and his best friend. Jacob and Bella's breakup, immediately followed by Jacob's new relationship, was the elephant in the room between them, which felt bizarre to Bella. The whole thing was only a speck of dust in her rearview mirror, like it was a decade since past.
On Friday night, Bella ripped a page out of a notebook, laid it out on her desk, and tried to sketch the Cullens' house. She used a ruler to replicate the sleek, modern lines. After an hour, she had a fairly accurate representation of the shape, but she couldn't remember some of the details. Had the potted tree sat on the right side of the door, or the left? How many stairs were there up to the door? How many panes were there in the windows? Was it a Douglas Fir or Western Hemlock, that ancient giant of a tree whose branches hung over the balcony?
Feeling defeated and hopeless, Bella abandoned her efforts and got ready for bed. Charlie was already snoring on the other side of his door, resting for his pre-dawn departure. The heating system at their house was older than Bella, and it was struggling to keep up with the cold outside. In the mornings, the floorboards were cold enough to make Bella flinch, so before she climbed under the covers, she padded over to her dresser to grab a pair of socks.
The familiar, yet always annoying, struggle with the old wooden drawer, then her collection of undergarments. The thick wool hiking socks she'd bought from a consignment store in Port Angeles for work were escaping into the neat rows of underwear and bras. As Bella attempted to push everything into its proper place, as had become her routine, her fingertips brushed a piece of paper stashed at the back of the drawer.
By the time her hand had fully withdrawn from the drawer, clutching the collection of papers, she already knew what they were. And her heart was already pounding against her ribcage. She'd moved them from her truck to this hiding place when she'd decided to be romantic with Jacob, never expecting to forget about them so thoroughly.
Bella unfolded the map, Jacob's neat lines and circles radiating out from the end of the road that lead to the meadow. The little compass fell into the pile of socks, drawing Bella's attention. It landed face-up, its tiny needle shook for a moment, then righted itself, pointing confidently towards the north pole.
Knees shaking, socks forgotten, Bella sat on the edge of her bed and examined the map. There were a few paths remaining, and Bella felt a sudden frenzy deciding which to try in the morning. In her haste, she stumbled on the way to the stacks of books along the wall. The campus library in Port Angeles hosted a used book sale at the beginning of the semester, and Bella had bought some of her favorite non-fiction books. In Waterways of the Olympic Peninsula, there was a collection of maps that could be unfolded from the index at the back.
Comparing Jacob's map and the book, Bella compared Jacob's topographical map of the peninsula with the authors' map of all known streams, rivers, brooks, inlets, runoffs, tributaries, spillways, bays, lakes, ponds, and coves in the peninsula. The book's map had significantly more than Jacob's map, some of the tiny blue lines barely wider than a hair. But when Bella looked at the maps side-by-side, only one of the lines Jacob had drawn ended near a waterway. One of the hundred web-like veins that eventually fed into the Sol Duc River, into the Quillayute River, then the Pacific Ocean.
Clear as a bell, in her mind, Bella heard the babbling of a stream in the meadow. It had been close enough for her weak human ears to catch.
Bella's chest felt ripped open, relief flooding into her. Her eyes watered, blurring her vision of the maps on the bed. Her lips split into a smile so wide it made her jaw ache, and she had to cover her mouth to keep an excited shriek from escaping. She collapsed onto her back on the bed, the maps pressed against her chest, and spent a few seconds kicking her feet in the air like a little girl.
After she'd taken a deep breath, regaining control of herself, Bella brought the maps over to her desk. Hand shaking, she drew a tiny star by the line she would follow in the morning.
With the lights off and the covers pulled up to her chin, Bella fidgeted in bed. The restless excitement felt like the night before flying to Forks for the summer or Christmas break. Too jumpy to fall asleep, but desperate to, because that was the fastest way to get the morning to arrive. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep, waking every few hours feeling like she hadn't slept at all, then surprised by the change in hours on her alarm clock.
The racket of Charlie gathering his fishing equipment from the closet beneath the stairs finally pulled her into an alert state. Only 5:24, but she felt almost overwhelmingly energized. Charlie would be suspicious if she bounded down the stairs, fully dressed and ready for the day, as she wanted too. So she laid still in bed until she heard the rumbling of his tires pulling out of the driveway.
By 6:00, Bella was dressed and standing in the kitchen. The sky was still dark outside, so she forced herself to cook a full breakfast. While she cooked and ate, the voice of the local morning news show's host droned through the radio on the counter.
"You fishermen are gonna be happy today. We're expecting cloud cover in the morning, but no rain, and possibly some sun in the afternoon. Last week's cold snap finally seems to be over. I think we might be over the hurdle for winter, but every year I say that we have a cold and miserable March, so maybe I'll just keep it to myself."
The co-host laughed obligingly, then launched into a recap of the previous evening's basketball game, which the Seattle Supersonics had won narrowly. Bella tried to follow the events of the match through his words, which was decently distracting, because she knew none of the players' names or even the rules. She forced herself to look down at her plate while she ate, instead of staring out the window, waiting for the sun to rise.
Bella washed her plate thoroughly, then cleaned the sink and faucet and countertops. She emptied her backpack of notebooks and pencils, filled it with an extra pair of socks, her wallet, first aid kit, flashlight, water bottle, a spool of bright red ribbon, and lunch, then she carefully secured the map in the front pocket.
When she returned from brushing her teeth, Bella looked out the window onto the porch, and saw traces of light blue appearing at the edge of the sky. In her struggle to pull on her boots, she collided with the staircase railing, sending a flare of pain up her arm. It was forgotten a second later when she locked the door behind her and rushed to the truck.
The morning outside was cold, but not wet. The weatherman's forecast on the radio was already looking accurate. Though there were clouds in the sky, they looked thin and light, like all they needed was a few hours of sunshine to burn away entirely. The roar of the truck's engine brought Bella's focus to the task of driving, forcing her to contain her frantic excitement. The needle indicating her gas level was nearly pointing to empty, so Bella drove first to the nearest gas station. It was a better diversion than sitting at the trailhead waiting for the forest to lighten, but she still tapped her fingers impatiently against the edge of the truck bed while she held the nozzle.
The drive to the end of the road felt like someone else was behind the wheel. Bella barely had to think, her body controlled the car like she'd driven the route a thousand times.
By the time she'd parked at the trailhead, the sun had risen enough that she didn't need headlights, and the forest floor was illuminated enough to make out the evergreen ferns and shrubs. Bella spent several minutes with the compass flat on her palm, turning in circles until she was certain she knew where to go. Even that initial step into the forest sent a wave of joy over her, her mind transported vividly back to the first time. The only time she'd made this journey on her own feet, instead of Edward carrying her. Instantly, she knew she was on the correct path.
The sun rose and rose in the sky, until there were streaks of yellow light filtering onto the forest floor through the thin winter canopy. She looked at the map frequently, to check the was still headed the right direction and see how far she'd come. Every time, she stopped to tie a piece of the red ribbon around a tree branch, marking the path for herself later.
Four miles in, Bella felt excitement bubbling inside of her, though distantly she felt the aching exhaustion in her legs and feet. She had to make herself take careful steps instead of careening through the undergrowth towards her destination. Eventually, bright sunlight appeared in the distance, diluted by the enormous trees. Over the thudding of her heart, Bella heard the nearby sound of water breaking over stones.
Bella gave in, she leapt over the ferns and ran towards the treeline, her gaze focused on where she could next put her feet. She only stopped when there were no more obstacles, and only decomposing leaves beneath her feet.
When Bella looked up at the meadow, the world collapsed around her.
She'd come too early in the season, all the wildflowers were gone, their seeds not yet sprouted. The sun was coming from the wrong angle and the trees were the wrong color. Instead of a cover of soft colors, the ground was all brittle debris. Everything had died back to the ground from the winter, the only things growing were a few pale yellow stalks of grass that swayed eerily in the breeze.
Bella took a step forward and touched one of the decaying branches in front of her, the dry material rough against her fingertips. Her mind whirled as her chest cracked in half. The chasm began to yawn once again and all her convictions seemed entirely insignificant. Her arms snaked around her chest as she took a single step forward, leaves and sticks crunched beneath her feet. The sounds and smells were all wrong too.
There was no point going any farther. Nothing lingered in the meadow, none of the energy or atmosphere. Without him, this place was empty of everything, just like everywhere else. Except this was worse, because now Bella had to wonder if her crystal clear memories were only illusions.
At least she hadn't found this place a year earlier, with sweet sunshine Jacob at her side, wondering why some dead wildflowers were eroding all the pillars of her sanity. Alone. Bella repeated the word in her head with grim satisfaction as she turned to leave the way she'd come.
At precisely that moment, a figure stepped out from the trees to the north. On the other side of the wasteland, shaded by enormous trees, the movement barely managed to catch her attention.
Bella wondered, briefly, if someone had wandered off the trail. But in the next moment, Bella knew this was no lost hiker. The figure was utterly still, so rigidly still that the trees around him looked like they were moving. A debilitating rush of hope flooded Bella's system for a split second, until she registered the long black hair, the colorful clothing, and finally, as the wind shifted the trees above to remove the shadow from his face, the dark skin. A tense moment, then, finally, recognition.
"Laurent!" Bella cried, irrational pleasure suppressing any fear.
The fear would have made more sense, but all Bella felt was overwhelming satisfaction. The meadow was a magic place again, if darker than she'd expect. Here was the proof, the evidence that she'd been so desperate for. Laurent was utterly unchanged, down to his clothes and the tight locks in his hair, as if he'd simply stepped out of their last encounter and into this one, with a second in between.
"Bella?" Laurent asked, astonishment clear in his voice.
"You remember." She smiled, ridiculously.
He grinned back, which Bella could only see because in the time it took her to blink, he'd halved the distance between them. "You seem pleased to see me."
The sun landed perfectly on his skin, and it glimmered like a million tiny diamonds. Bella responded in a daze. "I almost believed none of it was real."
"What an odd thing to say," he chuckled. "I didn't expect to see you here."
Laurent strolled toward her, his expression bemused, but his movements weren't right. Slightly too fast and much too silent to be convincingly human, no careful charade like the Cullens'.
"I do live here. I thought you'd gone to Alaska."
He stopped about ten paces away, then tilted his head to the side. Bella studied the flawless features of his face with a strange sense of relief. It had been so long since she'd seen anyone nearly so beautiful.
"I had gone to Alaska. Still I didn't expect…" he trailed off, his lips curling into a smirk. "I went to look in on the Cullens, but the house is empty. I assumed they'd moved on."
The fear began to rise in Bella's chest, until the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, the racing of her heart entirely different. "They did move on."
"Hmm," he murmured, "I'm surprised they left you behind. Weren't you sort of a…pet of theirs?"
Bella forced herself to smile. "Something like that."
"Hmm," Laurent hummed thoughtfully again.
Without Bella realizing, he'd gotten even closer, but in that moment, the utter sameness of his appearance struck her. He'd gone to Alaska to live with the Denalis, but his eyes were unchanged. Not the warm gold of all the Cullens' eyes, of all good vampires. But the same bright crimson they'd been the last time Bella saw him. She took an involuntary step back, and immediately regretted the action. His red predator's gaze followed. His weight shifted towards her.
"Do they visit often?"
For the first time, the angel's voice in her head was accompanied by a blurry mirage of Edward himself, standing between her and Laurent. He stared at her and commanded anxiously, "lie!"
The image nearly knocked Bella sideways, but she obeyed instinctively. "Yea, sure. All the time."
Laurent took a step to his right, then another, beginning to circle her.
"Lie better than that, Bella!" the apparition urged.
"I'll tell them you stopped by. Carlisle will be sorry they missed your visit." Bella pretended to deliberate. "I probably shouldn't tell Edward…He has a temper, especially after what happened with James. He's very protective."
There was an edge of hysteria in Bella's voice that she could only hope Laurent didn't recognize.
"Is he really?" Laurent asked pleasantly…skeptically. "Still, he's far away, isn't he?"
His next step continued the circle, but brought him slightly closer to Bella. The apparition of Edward reappeared for a second to snarl defensively.
"Why are you here?" Bella managed to ask.
"I enjoyed the Denali coven. Tanya, especially her sister Irina. But the novelty eventually fades…and their lifestyle is quite impossible." He smiled at Bella, conspiratorially, like they were sharing a secret. "Sometimes I cheat."
"Oh," Bella responded dumbly. Her foot lifted to step away as Laurent's spiral closed in around her.
"Don't move," the vision of Edward said, standing close enough to touch now.
Laurent continued casually, "Actually I came here searching for Victoria."
"V-Victoria?"
"Hmm." Laurent nodded. "Last time I spoke with her, she was rather put out with you."
Bella's heart thudded so fast she could barely speak. "Me?"
"Victoria believes it's only fair that she kills Edward's mate, since he killed hers. An eye for an eye. I haven't heard from her since, and I thought she might have gotten herself into trouble with the Cullens, but…" he chuckled, "there's no danger here, is there? Not for me or her, anyway."
Bella gaped, but he kept speaking without acknowledging the terror written across her features. "I can't help myself. You are so mouthwatering…She won't be happy about my killing you."
"Threaten him," the beautiful delusion ordered, his voice distorted with dread.
"Edward would know who did it. He'll know, and he'll come after you."
Laurent paused in his circle, faced her directly. "I don't think he will. My scent will wash away with the next rain, no one will find your body. And how much could he really care? If he left you here unprotected?"
Edward's foggy face twisted with panic. "Beg!"
"Please," Bella looked at Laurent in his bloody eyes. "Please, don't."
"Shh, shh," he whispered, suddenly inches from her. The overly sweet fragrance coming off him was a nauseating impression of Edward's scent. His fingertips brushed his hair. "Don't be upset. If Victoria had been the one to find you, she would kill you slowly, painfully. Whereas I'll make it quick. You will feel nothing, I promise."
Bella's head was a rush of noise. Edward's voice roared at the danger. Her own mind dumbly chanting Edward, Edward, Edward. Laurent's hand lifted, and Bella squinted, waiting for the end. Edward, I'm sorry. I love you.
Through her narrowed eyes, Bella watched Laurent go completely still again, for only a split second. Then he wiped his head abruptly to the left. She was afraid to look away from him, though there was nothing she could do to stop him regardless. She was too amazed to feel relief when he started to slowly back away from her.
"I don't believe it," he said, barely audible to Bella's ears.
Bella had to look then. Her eyes scanned the meadow searching for the interruption that had extended her life for a few seconds. At first she saw nothing and her eyes flicked back to Laurent. He was retreating more quickly, staring into the forest.
A low, ferocious growl rumbled across the meadow, and Bella turned to the source in the treeline. For a second, she saw only a mass of shadows, but then her eyes made out the shape. An enormous wolf, tall as a horse. Just as extraordinarily unreal as the vampire retreating the other direction. Bella had only ever seen Jacob and Paul in their wolf forms, that one time when their brawl unintentionally revealed the Quileutes' dearest secret. This black wolf, even larger than Jacob's russet form had been, could only be Sam, the oldest and the pack's alpha.
He took a step into the clearing, and Laurent backed away again. Then another two wolves flanked Sam, neither that Bella recognized, then a fourth and fifth made the rear of the V-shaped unit.
Everyone stood entirely still for a moment, Bella equidistant from the pack and Laurent. He seemed to have forgotten her entirely, as he faced off against the giants. In the second they all waited, Bella's fear returned. Now for her friends, faced against the most fearsome opponent she could imagine. They were huge and strong, but how could anything that depended on a beating heart and working lungs ever stand against a vampire? The smallest of the wolves, who she could only assume was Seth, rocked back and forth.
In the next second, Bella wondered if they would obey, if she told them to turn around and leave her to Laurent.
But then everyone moved, too fast for Bella's eyes to follow. Laurent was already disappearing, his body a blur of crystal skin in the sunlight. The wolves lept into their chase, their massive bodies crossing the entire clearing in a few seconds.
"Run, Bella!" The apparition of Edward appeared, blocking her view of the pack as they ran.
Her body jolted out of its terrified stillness. Stumbling with panic, she turned and ran headlong into the trees. The fear did not fade as she ran. Each time she saw one of the ribbons tied around a branch she lurched towards it like it would somehow protect her. From Laurent if he killed all of her friends and followed her, if he decided not to make her death quick because the fight had been an infuriating inconvenience.
When Bella finally came out of the trees into the empty space around the truck, she sobbed with relief, as if this ancient hunk of metal could somehow protect her too. She climbed inside and forced the stiff locks down, then fumbled in her backpack for the keys, her hands shaking and vision blurry. The roar of the truck's engine was comforting, like sanity returning. It helped Bella calm her breathing and clear her eyes.
Just as she was taking a slow, deep inhale, something banged against the passenger side window. She screamed so loud it rang in her ears as she looked over, expecting to see Laurent covered in her friends' blood. Instead, she saw Embry, shirtless, with his hands held up in surrender. The sight of him made Bella's eyes water again. She leaned over the seat to unlock the door.
"You scared me," her voice wobbled.
"Sorry," he answered, sliding into the cab and shutting the door.
Bella wiped her eyes roughly and asked, "is…is he…did you…?"
"He's dead," Embry said, "not much of a contest. Seth will be grumpy; he barely got to help."
For some reason, the announcement made Bella shatter completely. Her face fell into her hands as sobs rose, then racked through her chest. She collapsed against Embry's naked chest, all the cold from her body quickly draining.
After a while, Embry said, "Bella, it's okay. Don't cry."
She sniffled, face going red as she sat up and faced the steering where. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it," he said with a shrug. His warm, light tone reminded her of Jacob so much, it made that tiny scar inside her chest flare strangely.
"How were you all there? And who was everyone? I didn't see Jacob or Paul, those are the only wolves I'd recognize."
"It's Valentine's Day weekend, they're both in Seattle," Embry explained, then looked embarrassed to mention Jacob's new relationship. "Um, Leah was on a run in the forest, she caught the leech's scent further north, she had to stop at a payphone to let the rest of us know. Sam's probably yelling at her now, because we all heard that at first she thought about taking him on by herself."
Bella gasped.
"Don't worry." He rolled his eyes. "Even Leah's not stubborn enough to do that. We're stronger as a pack."
"I didn't realize you guys…" she didn't know the right term for it, practiced? Trained? "Prepared? For things like this."
"We don't, really. It's mostly instinct."
The thought was not reassuring.
"Why were you there, Bella? Did you…know him?" Embry's eyebrows drew together.
Bella swallowed. "Yea…I knew him, his name is-was Laurent."
"His eyes were red," he said, sounding halfway between condemnation and sympathy, as if breaking bad news to her.
"He's not like the Cullens." Her voice was flat.
Sometimes I cheat, Laurent's words echoed in Bella's head, reactivating the shivers down her arms. With it came his words about Victoria. They made no sense, she wanted Bella, but Laurent hadn't heard from her for a while. Where was she then? Bella imagined her hiding nearby, out of the pack's reach in Vancouver or Seattle or Portland. The wolves hadn't noticed any vampires around, but that meant nothing. My scent will wash away with the next rain, Laurent had informed her confidently. There had been light rain nearly every day for weeks.
"Embry," Bella blurted, startling both of them. Then she launched into a rambling explanation of everything. Laurent and Victoria and James, the chase to Phoenix. She showed him the silver-white scar on her hand and described the burn of the venom. She recounted Laurent's words about Victoria, feeling no less panicked from the fear written across his face. The suggestion of another vampire in Forks was terrifying enough for the both of them to sit still for a few moments after she'd finished talking, staring into the treeline and listening to the truck's roar.
"Sam's coming," Embry said, his head tilting to the right, as if listening for something in the distance. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll make sure you're safe. And Charlie, too. No bloodsuckers getting through us."
Bella tried to feel comforted, she wanted to believe him. But in the center of her chest, all she could think of was the warmth of his blood, the beat of his heart under soft, breakable skin. The mental image of him standing between her and Victoria looked alarmingly like an overconfident, overgrown boy who had gotten lucky once, then convinced himself he could single-handedly take down a tiger.