تكملة رواية شمس منتصف الليل بالانجليزيه حصريا لروايتى*مكتمله برابط للتحميل*

[مورا اسامة]

you.
Now let’s get out of here before I do
something really stupid.” I was so angry at myself, I couldn’t contain a snarl.
Midnight Sun, Part II
356
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
I flipped Bella onto my back
,
and she wrapped her arms and legs around me.
“Don’t
forget to close your eyes
,
”
I prompted, silently blamin
g m
otion sickness
for
th
e
current
crisis.
Bella laid her face against my hair. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of her
body pressed against my back
,
her limbs encircling me, I blocked my reaction to it and
started running. It was a good way to re
-
ch
annel the excitement in my bo
dy and burn off
some of my self
-
disgust.
We reached the clearing after a short time
,
and I stopped to let Bella down. She
didn’t move a muscle, so I reached
over my shoulder
and stroked her hair.
“It’s over, Bella.”
She raised
her head and abruptly let go with her arms
,
but not her legs
, which
caused her to slide
down my body like a fireman on a pole
before
her rear
end
smacked
in
to
the mud.
“Oh!” she grunted, wide
-
eyed astonishment on her face.
For a moment, my mind couldn’t g
rasp that Bella had executed such a silly
maneuver. The fall was almost a parody of grace, except for Bella’s
expression
of surprise
upon landing
.
M
y
previous
displeasure
evaporated
, and
I
burst into laughter
.
Bella rose stiffly
and
slapped
ineffectually
a
t the mud and debris on her jacket.
With a withering glare in my direction, she stomped off into the forest.
I tried to stifle my merriment
before
I leap
t
to
her side
. “Where are y
ou going,
Bella?”
“To watch a baseball game. You don’t seem to be interested
in playing anymore,
but I’m sure the others will have fun without you.”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
She reversed direction
and
resumed
marching until
I grabbed her around the waist.
“Don’t be mad, I couldn’t help myself. You should have seen your face
.
”
“Oh, you’re the only
one who’s allowed to get mad?”
“I wasn’t mad at you.”
“
’
B
ella, you’ll be the death of me
’
?
”
she mimicked.
“
That
was simply a statement of fact.”
She tried to pull away in frustration, but I couldn’t let her go.
“You were mad,” she ac
cused.
“Yes.”
“But you just said

”
“That I wasn’t mad at
you
. Can’t you see that, Bella? Don’t you understand?” I was
now anxious that she should.
“See what?”
“I’m never angry with you

how could I be? Brave, trusting...warm as you are.”
“Then why?” S
he spoke
softly, as if she thought it was
valid
for me to be angry with
her.
I
cupped
her face and looked into her eyes
.
“I infuriate myself, the way I can’t seem to keep from putting you in danger. My
very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes I truly hate
myself. I should be stronger, I
should be able to

”
Bella covered my mouth with her fragrant hand. “Don’t
.
”
Her eyes reflected pain at my words.
I
slid
her hand to my cheek and
savored its
Midnight Sun, Part II
357
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
warmth for a moment, then said,
“I love you. It’s a poor excuse for what I’m doing, but it’s
still true. Now, please try to behave yourself.”
I
leaned forward slowly to signal
my intention
before pressing
my lips to hers.
Mmmm.
Bella
sighed
.
“You promised Chief Swan that you would have
me home early,
remember? We’d better get going.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I
replied
,
ignoring
the pull of longing
I still felt
for her. I took her
hand and led her through some ferns, under some hanging moss, and around a large
hemlock tree. We were there.
Our baseb
all field was an idyllic setting in the Olympic rainforest
,
a large, former
clear
-
cut, deforested by a lumber company back when replanting wasn’t considered
necessary. The
colossal, old
-
growth
trees
had tied up
most of
the soil’s nutrients
in their
wood
,
b
ark, and leaves, so new
trees
had never
take
n
hold
.
The open space was roughly
twice the size of Chicago’s old Wrigley Field
, which is what we required
to make the game
any fun
.
It
let us hit
the ball
hard and get a decent run going
between bases
.
From the
edge of the clearing, I could see
Esme, Emmett, and Rosalie
sitting
on
a
granite
outcropping some
distance away. Rosalie growled
when she spied us
.
Damn him, he br
ou
g
ht
the human! You’d think she was part of our family or
something.
She stood and
picked
up a bat
, then turned her back
on
us.
Emmett watched
her regretfully before he
and
Esme
came
to
ward third base to
greet us.
Sorry, Edward, I tried. You kno
w how stubborn she is.
I nodded once.
I
wouldn’t fight with
Rose as long as she
maintain
ed her dist
ance
from Bella
and ke
p
t
her
nasty
comments to
herself.
“Was that you we heard, Edward?” Esme called as she
approached
.
“It sounded like a bear choking,” Emmett
said in reference
to my raucous laughter.
“That was him
,” Bella acknowledged.
“Bella was being
unintentionally funny
.
” I
flashed
her
a
sideways
grin
.
She
responded
with a twisted expression, and
all but
st
uck
out her tongue
at me
.
Carlisle had just finished marking the bases when Alice left Jasper at home plate
and came twirling toward us.
“It’s tim
e,” she called
,
cocking her head
when she reached us.
On
cue
, thunder
boomed overhead.
Bella flinched and
gazed
at Alice in surprise.
“Eerie, isn’t it?” Emmett
wink
ed at Bella
.
“Let’s go
,
” Alice
said, grabbing
Emmett’s hand
. The
two
raced
away, Alice to h
er
position on
the pit
cher’s mound
and
Emmett
veering off
to
ward
home plate.
“Are you ready for some ball?” I asked Bella,
unable to
contain
my excitement
.
“Go team!”
she offered.
I chuckled at her insincerity,
then
flipped her ponytail, and took off for
left field
.
Ca
rlisle moved to a shallow right
-
field position
. He’d cover the
infield and
the
bases
while
I defended the outfield
.
“Shall we go down?” Esme
said to Bella, then explain
ed her
prefe
r
e
nce for
referee
ing
the games
in order to moderate
our bad s
portsmanship.
Bella laughed.
“You sound like my mom.”
“Well, I do think of them as my children in most ways. I never could get over my
mothering instincts

did Edwar
d tell you I had lost a child?”
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P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
I
hadn’t
mentioned that
. I’d said only
that Esme had “fallen
” off a cliff. Though I
knew
my family
members’ histories
in detail, some of th
at
information came
directly
from
their thoughts,
and it wasn’t my place to divulge it.
It pleased me no end that
Esme
, who’d
already
begun to think of
Bella
like a potential third daughter, was
freely
sharing
her story
.
None of us had happy
human
ending
s
(
or happy
vampire
beginning
s
, depending on
how you looked at it
)
. As far as I knew, there was no
non
-
traumatic way
to become a
vampire.
E
verything you knew
was
ripped from you in unfathomable agony
, and you were
thrust
against your will
into an incomprehensible nightmare existence
from which there
was no easy escape
.
The Cullen’s
stories
differed
from those of other vampires, though. Carlisle’s
respect for hu
man life meant he would not change a person unless they were already dying.
My father
had rescued each of his
progeny
from
human
death

I
through
illness; Esme,
Rosali
e, and Emmett
through
violence
—
by transforming
us into the blood
-
drinking
creatures we
became
.
Esme had
spoken
my name
,
drawing
my attention to
her words
:
“...in one way at
least. That’s why I’m so happy that he’s found you, dear.” She continued
,
and I couldn’t
resist listening, “...far too long; it’s hurt me to see him alone.”
Esme’s love was o
ne of the
miracles of my new existence. No natural mother could care more or
want more for me
than
she
did.
“You don’t mind, then
...
”
—
Bella spoke haltingly
—
“
that I’m
...all wrong for
him?”
“No
,
” Esme replied. “Y
ou
’
re what he wants. It will work
out, somehow.”
I
hoped with all my heart
that she was right,
b
ut
I seemed to be pursuing this course
regardless. I felt a pang of remorse
then
,
and
of
doomed
inevitability,
which frightened me
less than
the
thought
of leaving Bella.
Thunder cracked again, closer this
time
.
Emmett
took
a couple
practice swings
with
an
aluminum bat.
A
luminum
might
distort with a particularly hard hit, but it wouldn’t explode
in splinters
or crumble into dust
in
your
hands
like wood.
He stepped up to home plate, and
Jasper
squatted
behind
him
. The
at
-
bat team supplied the catcher since we always played with six or fewer players.
“All right. Batter up!” Esme called.
Alice was the funniest pitcher anywhere. She could throw hard, like any of us, but
with our fast reflexes, the speed of the pi
tch wasn’t a great advantage. Instead, she used the
stealth approach. She would stand vampire still, holding the ball in both her tiny hands.
Then
she’d flick her wrist
fas
ter than a human eye could see and
pop the ball out over the
plate
while t
he rest of
her body barely moved.
“Was that a strike?” I heard Bella whisper to Esme after the first pitch got by
Emmett. Jasper caught it and tossed it back to Alice.
“If they don’t hit it, it’s a strike,” Esme explained.
Emmett
whacked
the second pitch hard. I sa
w Bella cringe at the impact before I
took off
running
for
the
trees
.
Experience told me that
the ball would easily overfly the
seven
-
hundred
-
f
oo
t clearing between home plate and left field.
I
n the background, I
registered Bella’s comment to Esme, “...home run.”
Not if I could help it.
I
hit
the
forest
at full speed
and darted between the trees in
an effort
to outrun
the
ball.
J
ust bef
ore it would have
hit and
shattered the top of a fir tree,
I
leaped
into the ai
r
and
Midnight Sun, Part II
359
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
flung my hand
in front of it
.
“Out!”
Esme call
ed
when the ball smacked my bare
palm
.
I loped back to the clearing
and showed
off
my prize
to Bella
,
a huge
grin
on my
face
.
This
was
a human rite of passage, impressing your girlfriend with prowess on the
sports field
, and i
t pleased me out of all proportion to the meager accomplishment.
“Emmett hits the hardest
, but Edward runs the fastest,
”
Esme
told Bella.
Emmett
yelled a litany of
rude
mental
comments in my direction
,
You suck!
and
I’ll
get
you on the
flip side
!
being the least offensive.
It was an ordinary Sunday game
for us,
with no spectacular plays and no serious
accidents
.
Bella
watched in utter fascination
,
though,
if
her gasp
s and cries of astonishment
were an
y
indication
.
W
e didn’t get many
opportunities
to
let loose
in our lif
e of mimicry
among the mortals and
never among them, of course.
After catching
Rosalie’s
pop fly to end the third inning, I checked in with Bella
behind home plate.
“What do you think?”
“One thing’s for sure, I’ll never be able to sit through dull old Major League
Baseball again.”
“And it sounds like you did so much of that before,” I teased
.
“I am a little disappointed
.
”
“W
hy?”
“Well, it would be nice if I could find just one thing you didn’t do better than
everyone else on the planet.”
Silly, silly Bella. She should see me try to throw a pot. Disaster!
I smiled
her
favorite crooked smile an
d was rewarded with a hitch in
her
heartbeat.
I trotted off to bat
and hit
the ball short to center field
on a
gamble
that
I could
outrun Emmett’s fielding slightly easier than
I could get the ball by
Rosalie’s catching
arm
in left field. Emmett fumbled the ball,
which allowed
me to beat him to second base.
Then
Carlisle
pounded
a
pitch
over Rose’s head
,
and we each scored a run. Emmett
would
want
a rematch, I could see (and hear). I’d thwarted him a couple times in this game
,
and he
never took that well.
Occasionally
when fielding
, Carlisle or Emmett
tried
to outrun
the
batter to first
base and crash
ed
into
him
instead. The first time
it happened,
I watched
Bella’s mouth gape
at the colossal
CRACK
of
Carlisle and Jasper
smashing
into one another
, followed by the
ground
-
shaking
THUD
when they landed together
in a heap
. Bella l
eapt
up to see who was
hurt
, which made everyone
(but Rose)
laugh
.
Bella
observed
Alice’s ball
-
playing
skills
with great amusement
.
My tiny sister
ha
d
never seen a human baseball game before she started playing with us
, s
o she developed a
style of play all her own. As with pitching, she bat
ted
surreptitiously, not attempting to hit
the ball hard
like Emmett or strategically like me
,
but
rather, making
the in
fielders guess
which pitch she
’d
try for. S
he’d stand fully upright and utterly still, holding the bat
at a
casual angle
in one hand
.
Sometimes she
’d
let
the pitch go by, perhaps twitching to pull the
pitcher off the mound
, and s
ometimes she’d
tap
a
foul.
W
hen she had the
in
fielders
sufficiently irritated, she’d bunt the ball between the pitcher and catcher or between the
pitcher and
base player
. Because we all played aggressively, we’d often crash into, or trip
over, one another trying to
field the
hit. E
ven when the fielding was adept,
though,
Alice
would often
get on base
by dancing or cart
-
wheeling
toward first
, foreseeing the fielder’s
intentions and dodging the
required
tag. We gave her a lot of leeway,
but traded
her
between teams on different
outings
, so no
one
would get too frustrated by playing against
her. Alice is Alice.
It was the fifth inning
Jasper pitching, Carlisle at bat, and I
crouch
ing
down
to
catch

when the warning came.
OH NO
! The words screamed from Alice’s mind.
Her thoughts
snapped
me to attention
,
and
Jasper’s pitch pinged off my arm
and
bounced back to him
.
I barely noticed.
T
he picture in
Alice’s mind
showed t
hree
vampires
two men, one woman
approaching
the clearing
on a run
.
By their disheveled
state, I could see t
hey were
nomads
unaccustomed to living among humans. Their
first
instinct
would be to hunt Bella.
I
leapt to Bella’s
side with a growl and cast
my eyes about for signs of the
unwelcome visitors. Jasper
reacted
to me
instantly by materializing
at
Alice’s side
and
cu
rling
his body
protectively
around
her
s
.
“Alice?” Esme
’s
voice
resonated with concern
.
Sensing danger,
Rosalie and Emmett raced toward home plate at full speed.
“What the hell, Alice?
”
I spoke harshly under my breath
, not wanting to
frighten
Bella.
“
You d
idn’t see them coming? I thought you said they were headed east!”
“I didn’t see

I couldn’t tell,” Alice muttered, aghast.
“What is it, Alice?” Carlisle
asked,
calmly
as always, being
careful not to overreact.
“They were traveling much quicker than I though
t. I can see I had the perspective
wrong before,” Alice
answered
.
Jasper’s eyes darted around the clearing as he hovered over Alice. “What
changed?”
“They heard us playing and it changed their path
.”
Everyone glanced at Bella, all thinking the same thing
at the same time, with more
or less kindness and concern
.
Bella’s in danger!
(Alice)
They’ll hunt
the human
, and w
e’ll get to fight
!
(Emmett)
We must get
Bella
out of harm’s way.
(Carlisle)
How c
an we hide
Bella
?
(Esme)
Idiot!
Why the hell did he bring her?
She’s nothing but trouble.
(Rosalie)
Flank
the human
. Divide
, divert, retreat and
...
(Jasper)
I
blocked my family’s thoughts to listen for those of
the approaching
intruders
.
“You know of them?”
(
malewith a
French accent
)
“I’ve heard rumors of a group in this area.”
(male)
“There must be at least several if they’re playing baseball.”
(female)
“Perhaps they will let us join in.”
(French accent)
“Victoria and me, not you. Haven’t you heard that baseball is the
American
pastime?”
Laughter
.
(male)
I was beginning to recognize their location by the images in their minds.
“How soon?” Carlisle asked.
“Less than five minutes
.
They’re running
they want to play.”
My mind raced through our
options
:
run
not enough time
; hide
they’ll track
Bella’s scent
; f
ight

seven against three, not a problem, but Carlisle
won’t like it;
Midnight Sun, Part II
361
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
b
luff

probably won’t work
; r
eason with them

who knows?
Edward
—
Carlisle claimed my attention
—
we need to get Bella out.
A
lo
ud, he said,
“Can you make it?”
“No,
not carrying

”
Bella,
I almost said. There was no need to alarm her any more
than necessary
, which is why Carlisle was carefully choosing
his
words
. “Besides, the last
thing we need is for them to catc
h the scent and start hunting.”
Then we can’t hide her for the same reason.
W
e’ll have to bluff it out. I don’t have
much hope of that working, but we
won’t fight except as a last resort.
I nodded in agreement.
“How many?” Emmett looked at Alice.
“Three,” she snapped.
She
obviously felt
bad
ly
, but
this
wa
s
her fault
.
No, it
’s
my fault
.
She
’d
told us nomads
were in the area
.
I was the one w
ho kept
putting Bella in danger.
“Three!” Emmett sneered. “Let them come.”
That’s hardly even sporting. I could
probably take them all by myself.
Carlisle
addressed
everyone.
“Let’s just continue the game
.
Alice
said they were
simply curious.”
“Edward
,
”
Esme spoke too softly for Bella’s ears. “Are they thirsty?”
I
’d
continued to monitor
their thoughts and
sensed no pressing thirst
.
I shook my
head m
inutely and saw her relax.
“You catch, Esme, I’ll call it now.” That would keep my hands free to protect Bella.
Alice and Esme
moved
to
guard her open
sides without seeming to.
“Take your hair down,” I told Bella. It would partially hide her face and
throat. She
was pale enough that they might mistake her for one of us if most of her skin was covered.
Bella searched my face.
“The others are coming now.”
She
stated it as a fact,
having followed much of our barely veiled conversation.
“Yes, stay very sti
ll, keep quiet, and don’t move from my side, please.” I kept my
voice as soothing and calm as possible while I rearranged her
hair to cover more of her
face.
There
i
sn’t any serious danger
, I told myself
. S
even against three was very poor
odds for the newc
omers, especially
when you factored in
Alice’s and my skills. If worse
came to worst, we would fight. And
we
had Jasper, an experienced and accomplished
fighter
, though he would exercise his calming talent first, another factor in our favor
.
Watching me fi
ddle with Bella’s hair, Alice said, “That won’t help. I could smell
her across the field.”
“I know
,
”
I admitted.
Even if Bella changed clothes with Esme, they would smell
the human scent within our group
, and i
t wouldn’t take them long to figure out which
of us
had a heartbeat.
Carlisle stepped up to bat
,
and everyone else returned to their positions
. We would
act
casual, but remain poised to fight
.
We
held
another advantage
—
t
he nomads didn’t
know we knew they were coming.
“What did Esme ask you?” Bella wh
ispered.
Damn!
Why did she have to be so perceptive at the wrong time?
But I couldn’t
avoid the question. “Wheth
er they were thirsty,” I said reluctantly
.
We kept the batting to bunts and the fielding shallow, everyone paying more
attention to the forest than
to
the game
Edward!
Rosalie screamed at me in her head.
I knew this wouldn’t e
nd well! Why
are you putting us
...
I did my best to
tune
her
out
. Her tune
didn’t vary much and wouldn’t for a good
long while if I knew Rosalie

and I did. Bella was all that mattered now.
“I’m sorry, Bella. It was stupid, irresponsible, to expose you like this. I’m so sorry.”
I was furious at my
thoughtlessness and
lack of fore
sight.
Just then I heard faint sounds
of
our visitors moving through the trees beyond right
field. They were no longer running, but approaching more cautiously. My family
all
turned
at the same time, our vampire hearing on high alert.
I planted myself betw
een Bella and the t
hreat and prepared for battle.
تم الفصل

[مورا اسامة]

الفصل التاسع عشر
Midnight Sun, Part II
365
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
19. THE HUNT
Three vampires entered the clearing one at a time about ten feet apart. The first male to
enter
slight, with dark blonde hair
stepped aside for the second, allowing him to take
the point position. Though a traditional sign of deference, the
maneuver was a ruse. The
second male, dark, vaguely European, was not the coven leader. The third vampire was a
woman with a full mane of fiery red hair.
Judging by appearance, this coven was nomadic and wild, far removed from any
humanity they once might
have had. Each moved in a hunting crouch, prepared for attack
or defense. They dressed in the style of Northwest backpackers, but were dirty and their
clothes were ragged. They wore no shoes. The female’s long hair was snarled and full of
leaves and twigs.
They carried no gear because they needed none.
Carlisle, flanked by Emmett and Jasper, stepped forward to greet the outsiders. The
group responded by abandoning their bestial stances, but the two in the back did not relax
their vigilance. The woman scann
ed our group and the clearing continuously, alert for
any threat, while the rear male seemed focused on some kind of analysis. His eyes did not
move. I listened to his thoughts and found he was studying our scents, differentiating us
and trying to determin
e our relationships to one another. It was just a matter of time before
he got a whiff of Bella. I stood ready to answer any aggression.
The leading vampire seemed more civilized than the other two, with more human
like gestures and movements. He stepped f
orward as their spokesman and offered a smile.
“We thought we heard a game. I’m Laurent, these are Victoria and James.” The
latter two were partners, while Laurent seemed a more recent addition to the group.
“I’m Carlisle. This is my family, Emmett and Ja
sper, Rosalie, Esme and Alice,
Edward and Bella.” Jasper was promoting a calm atmosphere to deflect any latent
hostility.
“Do you have room for a few more players?” Laurent inquired.
Carlisle returned Laurent’s cordiality, but hedged his bets. “Actually,
we were just
finishing up. But we’d certainly be interested another time. Are you planning to stay in the
area for long?”
“We’re headed north, in fact, but we were curious to see who was in the
neighborhood. We haven’t run into any company in a long time.”
“No, this region is usually empty except for us and the occasional visitor, like
yourselves.”
“What’s your hunting range?” Laurent queried, assuming that we were also
nomads.
“The Olympic range here, up and down the coast ranges on occasion. We keep a
Pe rmanent residence nearby. There’s another permanent settlement like ours up near
Denali.”
Laurent’s surprise was evident. “Permanent? How do you manage that?”
“Why don’t you come back to our home with us and we can talk comfortably? It’s a
rather long stor
y.” Carlisle’s invitation caught the visitors by surprise, more for the word
home
than for the invitation itself. He was being hospitable to discourage violence towards
Bella once they realized she was human. Their blood
red eyes proved they had recently
feasted on human blood
most likely, they had never heard of covens that did not.
“That sounds very interesting, and welcome. We’ve been on the hunt all the way
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down from Ontario, and we haven’t had the chance to clean up in a while.”
Unlike the other two
, Laurent had a certain air of refinement that indicated
experience with a civilized, non
nomadic lifestyle. I guessed he was an old vampire,
possibly as old as Carlisle.
The others were younger, more raw. They had not spent much time, if any, among
the c
ivilized of our kind. They were rough
edged itinerants, and James had an air of
ruthlessness about him. He also seemed to have some agenda, but I couldn’t read what it
was.
Carlisle continued the conversation. “Please don’t take offense, but we’d appreciate
it if you’d refrain from hunting in this immediate area. We have to stay inconspicuous, you
understand.”
“Of course,” Laurent replied congenially. “We certainly won’t encroach on your
territory. We just ate outside of Seattle, anyway.” He chuckled at the
memory of their hunt.
I felt Bella shiver and hoped that she hadn’t heard the cruelty in his voice.
Regardless, she couldn’t miss the trio’s gleaming, red eyes. She must be terrified; I touched
her arm
in reassurance
Speaking with the newcomers, Carlisl
e subtly contrived to get Bella to safety,
while possibly making some new friends.
“We’ll show you the way if you’d like to run with us
Emmett and Alice, you can
go with Edward and Bella to get the Jeep.”
And silently, to me,
Get Bella somewhere safe.
We’ll escort the visitors home and
keep them there until we hear from you.
I acknowledged his words with a nod. Then, just as I was preparing to do as Carlisle
suggested, a light breeze ruffled Bella’s hair, sending a wave of her sweet scent into the air.
I froze to attention, awaiting the fallout.
It didn’t take long. James caught Bella’s scent and jerked his head around toward
her, his nose in the air, nostrils flaring.
A human?
A delicious
smelling human, indeed!
He
lowered to a
crouch.
Instinct
took over. I bared my teeth and snarled at James, matching his crouch, my
arms stretched out to protect Bella.
“What’s this?” Laurent’s mouth gaped in surprise.
James began testing me, feinting first one way then the other. I predicted his moves
easily,
so that by the time he had moved, I was already blocking his new position. He
understood, as I intended, that it would be difficult to get by me.
Ah! A worthy opponent!,
he crowed to himself.
“She’s with us,” Carlisle cautioned James.
But James’sself con
trol was limited, as he had never practiced it. Here was a
human for the taking and he was used to taking what he wanted. By challenging him, I had
made Bella more desirable.
Laurent only then grasped the situation. He caught Bella’s scent and understandi
ng, followed by confusion, flooded his face.
“You brought a snack?” he asked, coming to the only conclusion that made sense to
him. He stepped toward Bella.
The offensive word and his advance set me off. I snarled fiercely,
baring
my teeth
in an unmistakab
le message. Laurent received it and stepped back.
“I said she’s with us.” Carlisle’s voice was harsh, cold.
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“But she’s
human
,” Laurent said, astonished.
“Yes,” Carlisle confirmed.
Emmett and Jasper seemed to have expanded to occupy more space, creating a front line of defense beside Carlisle. Emmett was sizing up James, ready to take him on.
Jasper’s eyes were fixed on Victoria, who had remained in the background, seeming
bewildered, but nevertheless, was crouched for a fight. Carlisle and Laurent, the
spok
esmen, remained committed to a truce.
“It appears we have a lot to learn about each other,” Laurent offered, downplaying
James’ hostility.
“Indeed,” Carlisle agreed, standing firm.
“But we’d like to accept your invitation and, of course, we will not harm t
he human
girl.” He glanced at Bella and met my eyes. “We won’t hunt in your range, as I said.”
James suddenly regretted allowing Laurent to speak for the group. This skirmish
was not over for him
it had just begun. He’d set his course for Bella and, even a
s he relaxed his crouch and straightened to an erect posture, his predator’s eyes remained glued
to her. I read what he was thinking.
“Edward,” was it? Ha, ha! You win the first round, but you cannot hide her from
me. I’ve got her scent now
what an
appetizing scent it is!
and I will find her. I will take
her on the second round. How many are there? Seven...this is going to be fun!
He leered at
Bella, who was tucked safely behind me.
Carlisle took stock of Laurent for a moment, then decided to trust his words.
“We’ll show you the way. Jasper, Rosalie, Esme?” he spoke, rounding up his
troops. They stepped forward, blocking Bella, Alice, and I from view, while Emmett
stepped back, keeping his eyes on James as he did so.
“Let’s go, Bella.” I muttered, ta
king her elbow to urge her stiff body forward.
Emmett and Alice took up rank behind us, as we all marched forward with deliberate
movements, not wanting to trigger a pursuit in the others.
As soon as we reached the forest, I flung Bella onto my back in a s
ingle motion and
accelerated as she tightened her grip around me. I channeled my fury into speed. Because
of me, Bella was in danger, and I knew that she would not be safe again until either she or
James was dead. He was a tracker, a dangerous sort of vamp
ire whose primary skill was to
locate creatures by their scent. For James, it was even more than that
tracking was his
passion and his self definition. He could not retreat from the challenge I had posed to him.
He never would. Ever.
What had I unleashed
here?
When we reached the Jeep, I threw open one of the rear doors and set Bella on the
back seat.
“Strap her in,” I ordered Emmett, as he scooted in beside her. Alice took the front
passenger seat, while I started the engine. I could not contain my rage
at James, at our kind
in general, and at myself in particular.
Damn it to hell, why had I brought her? I knew there were vampires in the area! I’ll
kill that bastard James! Tear his head from his body! Rip his eyes out! Damn it!
I kept my cursing at a vol
ume unintelligible to Bella’s ears
Alice and Emmett
would just have to cope. I drove like a madman. Though there was no question of my
causing an accident, I was mildly surprised that Bella didn’t object. She couldn’t be
comfortable, bouncing around in the
back seat like a rubber ball. She would survive that,
though, whereas she wouldn’t survive James.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
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When we reached the highway, I turned away from Forks. I didn’t know where we
were going, just away from there as fast as I could
coax the Jeep. I knew our running
wouldn’t stop him, though. With his skills, he could find Bella anywhere, given enough
time. As an immortal, all he had was time, and now a new game with which to fill it.
“Where are we going?” Bella asked, agitated
I
didn’t know and the others wouldn’t cross me, so nobody answered the question.
“Damn it, Edward! Where are you taking me?”
“We have to get you away from here
far away
now.” I didn’t want to explain
that she had become a walking target.
“Turn around! You h
ave to take me home!” she yelled. I heard her try to unbuckle
herself from the harness.
“Emmett,” I commanded.
He grabbed Bella’s wrists and held them still. We had no choice!
“No! Edward! No, you can’t do this.”
“I have to, Bella, now please be quiet.”
“Iwon’t! You have to take me back
Charlie will call the FBI! They’ll be all over
your family
Carlisle and Esme! They’ll have to leave, to hide forever!” My parents
would do that for me, I knew.
“Calm down, Bella,” I said flatly. “We’ve been there before.”
Not over me, you don’t! You’re not ruining everything over me!” She tried to
wriggle out of Emmett’s grip, with no visible effect.
Alice cut in with irritating calm, “Edward, pull over.”
She wasn’t going to override me.
“Edward, let’s just talk this throug
h,” Alice insisted.
“You don’t understand,” I bellowed at her. “He’s a tracker, Alice, did you
see
that?
He’s a tracker!” How could she not realize?
“Pull over, Edward.”
No, no, no, no, no!
My foot got heavier. I was glad Bella couldn’t see the
speedomete
r move beyond one
hundred
twenty.
“Do it, Edward.”
It was impossible to argue with Alice when she wouldn’t argue!
“Listen to me, Alice. I saw his mind. Tracking is his passion, his obsession
and he
wants her, Alice
her
, specifically. He begins the hunt to
night.”
“He doesn’t know where
“How long do you think it will take him to cross her scent in town? His plan was
already set before the words were out of Laurent’s mouth.”
Bella’s anxiety rose several levels.
“Charlie! You can’t leave him there! You can’
t leave him!”
Again, she struggled with Emmett and the harness. This is why I didn’t want to
have this conversation in front of Bella!
“She’s right,” Alice
Said Crap!
My foot eased slightly.
“Let’s just look at our options for a minute.” Alice’s voice
was calm.
Damn it!!
My foot eased a little more.
Damn, damn, damn!
I veered off the
roadway and slammed the Jeep to a stop.
“There are no options,” I told Alice, an even emphasis on each word.
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“I’m not leaving Charlie!” Bella hollered from the back seat.
I don’t care about Charlie!
She wouldn’t forgive me if she’d heard that thought.
“We have to take her back,” Emmett
said
“No.”
“He’s no match for us, Edward. He won’t be able to touch her.” Emmett again.
“He’ll wait.”
Emmett smiled. “I can wait, too.”
I was losing ground in this argument. “You didn’t see
you don’t understand.
Once he commits to a hunt, he’s unshakable. We’d have to kill him.”
“That’s an option.” Emmett wasn’t troubled.
“And the female,” I pointed out. “She’s with him. If it turns into a f
ight, the leader
will go with them, too.”
“There are enough of us.”
“There’s another option,” Alice stated coolly.
The snarl I directed at Alice contained an implicit threat.
“There
Is no other option!”
Do not say it, Alice! Don’t you dare say it!
I shouted in my head, though she
couldn’t hear me.
Edward, you know it makes sense. It’s the only thing that makes sense for the long
term. And I
saw
it. You
know
I saw it.
I stared her down, silently threatening. We were caught at an impasse when Bella
interrupted us.
“Does anyone want to hear my plan?”
“No,” I growled. I would not be moved.
Alice was angry now.
You are being completely unreasonable, Edward
“Listen,” Bella asserted, “you take me back...”
“No.”
She would not give up.
“You take me back.
I tell my dad I want to go home to Phoenix. I pack my bags. We
wait ‘til this tracker is watching, and then we run. He’ll follow us and leave Charlie alone.
Charlie won’t call the FBI on your family. Then you can take me any damned place you
want.”
We all
were silenced.
“It’s not a bad idea, really,” Emmett said.
“It might work
and we simply can’t leave her father unprotected. You know
that,” Alice added.
They all waited for my response.
“It’s too dangerous
I don’t want him within a
hundred miles of her.”
“Edward, he’s not getting through us.” Emmett couldn’t imagine losing
any
fight,
but I could, and the stakes were simply too high.
After a quiet moment, Alice said, “I don’t see him attacking. He’ll try to wait for us
to leave her alone.”
“It won’t take lo
ng for him to realize that’s not going to happen
” Emmett asserted.
“I demand
that you take me home.” Bella, again.
Aaaaaahhhh!
I shut my eyes and pushed my fingers into my temples, trying to tune
them out. They were allied against me, but I was responsibl
e for Bella’s safety. I couldn’t
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trust her to put her own life first. And if anything happened to her...
“Please,” Bella begged, finally breaking my resolve. I felt flayed, raw. If it were
possible, I would have cried in frustration and fury and defeat.
So I gave in to her, but not without demands. I kept my voice even as I spoke.
“You’re leaving tonight, whether the tracker sees or not. You tell Charlie that you
can’t stand another minute in Forks. Tell him whatever story works. Pack the first things
your
hands touch, and then get in your truck. I don’t care what he says to you. You have
fifteen minutes. Do you hear me? Fifteen minutes from the time you cross the doorstep.”
I revved the Jeep’s engine, punched the gas, spun us around one
hundred
eighty
degre
es, and shot back toward Forks.
“Emmett?” Bella queried.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, for whatever reason. I was too busy planning strategy to pay
attention. I’d warned Bella that I would be tyrannical until these nomads were gone. I just
wished I’d been more ca
utious before we reached this crisis. I would try to make up for it.
“This is how it’s going to happen. When we get to the house, if the tracker is not
there, I will walk her to the door. Then she has fifteen minutes. Emmett, you take the
outside of the ho
use. Alice, you get the truck. I’ll be inside as long as she is. After she’s out,
you two can take the Jeep home and tell Carlisle.”
No mistakes
“No way,” Emmett dissented. “I’m with you.”
Though I appreciated his loyalty, it was not helpful at this moment.
“Think it through, Emmett. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“Until we know how far this is going to go, I’m with you.” It was hard to argue with
that kind of commitment from someone you loved. I sighed.
“If the tracker
Is there, we keep driving.”
“We’re going to make it there before him,” Alice announced. “What are we going
to do with the Jeep?”
“You’re going to drive it home,” I told her, brooking no dissent.
“No, I’m not
Damn it Alice! Why will nobody listen to me? Damn it, damn it, damn it!
“We can’t all fit in my truck
” Bella said
. “I think you should let me go alone.”
Arghh!
Not her too.
“Bella, please do this my way, just this once.” I gritted my
teeth to keep from yelling.
“Listen, Charlie’s not an imbecile. If you’re not in town tomo
rrow, he’s going to
get suspicious.”
“That’s irrelevant. We’ll make sure he’s safe, and that’s all that matters.”
“Then what about this tracker? He saw the way you acted tonight. He’s going to
think you’re with me, wherever you are.”
Emmett was impressed.
“Edward, listen to her. I think she’s right.”
“Yes, she is,” Alice concurred.
“I can’t do that.”
“Emmett should stay, too. He definitely got an eyeful of Emmett,” Bella added.
“What?” Emmett was taken aback.
“You’ll get a better crack at him if you stay,”
Alice told Emmett.
I was appalled. “You think I should let her go alone?” What the hell was she
thinking?
“Of course not.” Alice said. “Jasper and I will take her.”
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Hmm, I saw her reasoning, but...how could I leave Bella? How? It was not
possible.
“I can’t
do that,” I told Alice.
Then Bella took a shot.
“Hang out here for a week
I scowled and she altered her words.
a few days.
Let Charlie see you haven’t kidnapped me and lead this James on a wild goose chase.
Make sure he’s completely off my trail. Th
en come and meet me. Take a roundabout route,
of course, and then Jasper and Alice can go home.”
Hmmm.
“Meet you where?”
“Phoenix.”
“No. He’ll hear that’s where you’re going.”
No mistakes
“And you’ll make it look like that’s a ruse, obviously. He’ll know
that we’ll know
that he’s listening. He’ll never believe I’m actually going where I say I am going.”
Emmett chortled. “She’s diabolical
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“There are several million people in Phoenix,” Bella reasoned.
I would not be easily conv
inced. There was no
room for errors. None. “It’s not that
hard to find a phone book.”
“I won’t go home.”
What was she thinking? “Oh?”
“I’m quite old enough to get my own place.”
What, alone?
“Edward, we’ll be with her,” Alice reiterated.
Yeah, that would w
ork great...just great. “What are
you
going to do in
Phoenix?”
I asked Alice.
“Stay indoors.”
“I kind of like it.” Emmett wanted a chance at James, but it was not his call to make.
“Shut up, Emmett.”
Would he? No, of course he wouldn’t
“Look, if we try to
take him down while she’s still around, there’s a much better
chance that someone will get hurt
she’ll get hurt, or you will, trying to protect her. Now,
if we get him alone...” Emmett said, anxious to get started.
I had slowed our speed to give myself some
time to think.
After some consideration, I decided that Bella’s plan could work...
if we executed it
perfectly,
if James behaved predictably,
if Charlie bought Bella’s story and let her go...
if, if, if....
Regrettably, this was the best plan we had, and it mea
nt being separated from my
beloved. I did not want to leave her
at all. But it seemed that my presence only made her
more vulnerable.
So what
s new?
“Bella,” I began, knowing that I had no choice. Emmett and Alice peered through
their respective windows, l
ooking for James, but also giving us what passed for privacy in
the Cullen household...non
prying eyes and selective hearing. But this wasn’t that
moment...not yet.
“If you let anything happen to yourself
anything at all
I’m holding
you personally responsible
. Do you understand that?”
“Yes
I wished my warning would grant her some instinct for self
preservation.
“Can Jasper handle this?” I asked Alice.
“Give him some credit, Edward. He’s been doing very, very well, all things
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considered.”
“Can
you
handle th
is?” It was hard to trust Alice’s judgment when we disagreed
utterly
on the best course for Bella’s future. I wanted her word.
Alice deliberately misunderstood and gave us all a demonstration of her vicious
predatory nature. She bared her teeth and issued
a highly convincing snarl that made me
smile. All was forgiven, of course.
“But keep your opinions to your
self,” I added under my breath
تم الفصل

[مورا اسامة]

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20. GOODBYES
I did not like this plan. It violated all my instincts even to pretend to use Bella as bait. Not
only that, but to set the trap, then abandon her to the care of others, appalled me.
My brother and sister were capable as long as they didn’t drink her blood (Jasper),
or change her to a vampire (Alice). It was so hard to control our kind, impossible really.
Though I trusted my family with most things, I didn’t trust even
myself
to keep B
ella safe.
But Bella was right. James knew she was mine and that we would stay together.
Therefore, I served as a useful decoy. If I could get him to follow me, then Bella could
escape.
These thoughts consumed me for the remainder of the drive to Charlie’
s house.
Considering everything she had already been through today, Bella remained remarkably
composed now that we had agreed to protect Charlie. Of course I cared about Charlie,
because she did, but if it came down to saving him or her, there was no contest.
Unfortunately for me, Bella felt the opposite, so I had to protect her from herself as well.
I parked the Jeep and scanned for any signs of James
no scent, no mental activity.
Good. He hadn’t been here. That gave us a little time to get Bella in and o
ut of the house.
Then he could pick up our trail.
“He’s not here,” I announced. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t know what story Bella was going to tell Charlie. In truth, I didn’t care. I
only cared that we get her out of here and that she let us do it. If Charlie di
dn’t believe her
story and came after me or my family, we would deal with that. Keeping Bella safe was my
only concern.
Emmett assisted Bella with the buckles in the back seat.
“Don’t worry, Bella,” he
said, “we’ll take care of things here quickly.”
That was Emmett, always confident, almost always cheerful. Bella had worried that
Rosalie and Emmett didn’t like her, so I was glad she’d had these moments with Emmett.
He was impressed with her plan and happy to help, especially since he’d get the chance to
“kick some vampire butt,” as he would have put it. He complained constantly that his
siblings wouldn’t give him a fair fight and grizzly bears weren’t challenging enough. The
best wrestling he got was with Rosalie in the bedroom, if the noise they made and
the
destruction they wrought were any indication. I’d have chuckled at the thought if our
current situation weren’t so dire.
To my surprise, I smelled the salty scent of tears
Bella’s tears. I didn’t know what
was causing them...fear? At any other time, alle
viating her distress would have been my
first priority, but right now, I had an overriding concern. Bella’s life
and mine, come to
that
dependent on what happened in the next few hours, if not the next several minutes.
“Alice, Emmett,” I instructed. Th
ey silently exited the Jeep and melted into the
darkness. I helped Bella from the vehicle, then held her close to me while we hurried to the
front porch. All the while I scanned the darkness for signs of James or his compatriots.
“Fifteen minutes,” I reit
erated at the door.
“I can do this,” Bella sniffed through her tears. She cupped her hands ardently
around my face and looked into my eyes.
“I love you. I will always love you, no matter what happens now.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella,” I in
sisted.
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“Just follow the plan, okay?” she said, confirming my resolve. “Keep Charlie safe
for me. He’s not going to like me very much after this, and I want to have the chance to
apologize later.”
“Get inside, Bella. We have to hurry,” I pressed. We would
do our best for Charlie,
but I wasn’t going to make any promises.
“One more thing,” she whispered fervently. “Don’t listen to another word I say
tonight!”
Abruptly
, she pulled my face to hers and kissed me, pressing her body fiercely
against mine. Caught u
nawares, I responded in kind before she broke away, turned to the
front door, and kicked it open.
“Go away, Edward!” she shouted, stunning me to inaction as she slammed the door
in my face. I stood frozen for a moment, gathering my wits, until I realized t
hat getting
away from me would be her excuse to leave town. Though Bella was presumably acting, I
felt deflated and forlorn. With her tearful eyes and sharp words, her story was more than
believable. But there was no time for dwelling on that.
I rushed to
Bella’s window and entered her bedroom after she stomped up the stairs
and slammed her door on Charlie. At least it wasn’t just me, I thought wryly. I opened the
dresser and grabbed whatever clothing was within reach and tossed it to her as she stuffed
the articles into her duffle bag.
Bella was crying for real now as she yelled back and forth with Charlie through the
locked door. I heard the argument, but didn’t listen to it, as I did not need this script floating
around in my head. I was vaguely aware t
hat Bella was clearing me of any wrongdoing and
that she was breaking up with me. I knew the former wasn’t true. I hoped the latter wasn’t
true either, though I wouldn’t blame her for leaving me.
I grabbed some dirty socks and t
shirts from the floor and s
tuffed them into the bag,
then I secured it and placed it over Bella’s shoulder.
“I’ll be in the truck
go!” I directed under my breath. Exiting through the window,
I leaped into the truck, and ducked below Charlie’s sightline.
While I waited, I caught the
first snatches of thought from the tracker’s mind. He
was getting closer. Rather than hearing words, I was seeing pictures. He was in his
“hunting mind” with his thoughts switched off, operating on instinct. The primary image in
James’ mind was of a line
extending in front of him, sometimes continuous, sometimes
broken. Tracking required following a scent line
in this case, Bella’s scent
and
traversing any gaps.
James had found a mixture of Bella’s scent and mine in Forks and was tracking her
here just a
s we had expected. His timing was perfect for us, assuming he didn’t try to grab
Bella between the house and the truck. The fresh scents of my siblings and me in the area
should deter him. His mind revealed his preference for stealth and trickery over direct confrontation. It helped that we had him outnumbered.
James was close now, looking down on the house from some height. Judging from
the angle of the image in his mind, he was in one of the tall trees in the woods behind
Charlie’s house. He was watching
and listening, and feeling very smug about how fast he
had located Bella. He had not recognized that we were baiting him.
Charlie and Bella continued to argue, something about Renee coming back to
Arizona next week. And then I heard Bella’s final words: “
It didn’t work out, okay? I
really, really
hate
Forks!”
Charlie’s front door flew open. Bella raced for the truck, threw her bag in the back,
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scrambled behind the steering wheel, and started the engine. Charlie didn’t try to stop her.
When we were out of s
ight of the house, I insisted that Bella pull over and let me drive.
“I can drive,” she argued through heavy tears. I nudged her foot off the gas pedal,
then gently gripped her waist and scooted her across my lap while taking control of the
wheel.
“You wo
uldn’t be able to find the house,” I said, wanting to keep this drive safe.
Regardless of her dubious fitness to drive, I still had faster reflexes.
Bella jumped when Alice turned on the Jeep’s headlights behind us.
“It’s just Alice,” I soothed, taking her hand.
“The tracker?”
“He heard the end of your performance.”
“Charlie?”
“The tracker followed us. He’s running behind us now.”
She stiffened.
“Can we outrun him?”
“No.” But I involuntarily pressed the accelerator until the truck’s engine balked.
Emmett
was watching our backs, running behind us. When he thought we were
safely on our way, he leaped into the truck bed with a thump.
Bella, terrified, shrieked.
Ah, I should have warned her!
I covered her mouth.
“It’s Emmett!”
She quieted and I wrapped my a
rm around her waist.
“It’s okay, Bella. You’re going to be safe.”
She remained rigid with terror and I momentarily regretted not whisking her out of
town against her will. This side trip had put her in much closer proximity to James than I
ever wanted her
to be. I tried to distract her.
“I didn’t realize you were still so bored with small
town life,” I
said
. “It seemed
like you were adjusting fairly well
especially recently. Maybe I was just flattering myself
that I was making life more interesting for you.
“I wasn’t being nice,” she said, ashamed, unable to meet my eyes. “That was the
same thing my mom said when she left him. You could say I was hitting below the belt.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll forgive you
” I smiled in reassurance, but her wild eyes
revealed
her anguish.
“Bella, it’s going to be all right.”
“But it won’t be all right when I’m not with you,” she said in a tiny, frightened
voice.
No, it will be dreadful for us both,
I thought, but I didn’t want to make it worse.
“We’ll be together again in a few days,” I promised, hoping desperately that it was
true. “Don’t forget that this was your idea.” That reminder perked her up a bit.
“It was the best idea
of course it was mine.”
I tried to smile at her little joke, an effo
rt not entirely successful.
“Why did this happen? Why me?” Bella’s voice was heartbreaking. Remorse and
regret overwhelmed me.
“It’s my fault
I was a fool to expose you like that.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Bella continued. I was almost too distraught to
hear her
explanation. “I was there, big deal. It didn’t bother the other two. Why did this James
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decide to kill
me? There’re people all over the place, why me?”
I reviewed what I had heard from James before he set his sights on Bella.
“I got a good look
at his mind tonight. I’m not sure if there’s anything I could have
done to avoid this, once he saw you. It is
partially your fault,” I said. “If you didn’t smell so
appallingly luscious, he might not have bothered. But when I defended you...well, that
made it a lot worse. He’s not used to being thwarted, no matter how insignificant the
object. He thinks of himself as a hunter and nothing else. His existence is consumed with
tracking, and a challenge is all he asks of life. Suddenly we’ve presented him with a
beautiful challenge
a large clan of strong fighters all bent on protecting the one
vulnerable element. You wouldn’t believe how euphoric he is now. It’s his favorite game,
and we’ve just made it his most exciting game ever.” James sickened me. He was the
vampire version of a hurricane...even if you could see him coming, you couldn’t avoid
him, or run, or hide. “But if I had stood by, he would have killed you right then.”
“I thought...I didn’t smell the same to the others...as I do to you
.” Bella stammered
out th
e words identifying her as prey.
“You don’t. But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t still a temptation to every one of
them. If you had
appealed to the tracker
or any of them
the same way you appeal to me,
it would have meant a fight right there.”
None of
these nomads ever attempted to abstain when they were thirsty. In all
probability, they wouldn’t even think to try.
Bella shivered in fear.
“I don’t think I have any choice but to kill him now,” I uttered, thinking through
any possible options. “Carlisle
won’t like it.”
“How can you kill a vampire?” Bella inquired.
I wasn’t sure why she wanted to know, since there was no possibility that she could
do it herself. It took a vampire to kill a vampire. I didn’t want to tell her how, either, as the
procedure was unpleasant and very rarely carried out
by our clan, anyway. It was not
something she would ever have to witness. But looking at her inquisitive, frightened eyes, I
knew I could hold back nothing.
“The only way to be sure is to tear him to shreds and then
burn the pieces.”
“And the other two will fight with him?”
“The woman will. I’m not sure about Laurent. They don’t have a very strong
bond
he’s only with them for convenience. He was embarrassed by James in the
meadow....”
“But James and the woman
they’ll t
ry to kill you?” Oh! She wanted to know how
I could be ended! Silly Bella.
“Bella, don’t you
dare
waste time worrying about me. Your only concern is
keeping yourself safe and
please, please
trying
not to be reckless.”
“Is he still following?”
“Yes. He won’t attack the house, though. Not tonight.” James was methodical. He
was busy assessing our strengths and collecting information. He was in no hurry.
I maneuvered the truck down our three
mile, winding driveway and pulled up to
the porch, with Alice foll
owing behind in the Jeep. Emmett jumped out of the truck bed and
had Bella in his arms almost before we were stopped. He held her close to his chest like a
football and rushed into the house, his large body protecting her from every side. Alice and
I flanked him.
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I heard Laurent’s French
accented inner voice just before I saw him. He was
standing in our living room surrounded by the rest of my family. Emmett growled and set
Bella down beside me to free his hands. He adopted a stance of protective menace.
He’s tracking us,” I informed Laurent, as if he could alter the situation.
Laurent looked about as unhappy as I felt.
“I was afraid of that,” he replied.
Alice stepped toward Jasper and whispered the plan in his ear before they hurried
up the stairs together. Rosalie took her position by Emmett’s side as if to reclaim him from
Bella. She was as angry as I’d ever seen her. All of this upheaval over a human w
as beyond
her capacity to understand. Bella’s being
my human made the drama almost intolerable.
She’d just as soon see Bella taken by James and be done with it. Though I regretted her
attitude, her self
centered view of life was unlikely to change.
“What will he do?” Carlisle asked Laurent. Due to our fixedness, predicting
vampire behavior was not as difficult as predicting human behavior, especially if you knew
the individual in question.
“I’m sorry. I was afraid, when your boy there defended her, that it
would set him
off,” said Laurent.
“Can you stop him?”
“Nothing stops James when he gets started.”
Emmett’s muscles flexed and his chest broadened. “We’ll stop him,” he declared.
“You can’t bring him down. I’ve never seen anything like him in my three
hundred years. He’s absolutely lethal. That’s why I joined his coven.”
Though the rest of us were given pause by these words, Emmett merely grunted his
skepticism. Emmett’s confidence, and at times overconfidence, was as fundamental to his
personality as Ro
salie’s self
centeredness was to hers. As a human, he had always been the
biggest, strongest male around, known throughout Clay County, Kentucky, as the man to
beat in any physical competition. Laurent’s words were nothing new to him, a dare, a
rousing cha
llenge.
Laurent was still trying to understand my family’s response to James’ threat. He
shook his head in confusion and glanced at Bella.
“Are you sure it’s worth it?”
A fierce growl tore through me. That was
something he could understand. He
flinched an
d took a step backward.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to make a choice,” Carlisle stated, clarifying our
position. Though Laurent could not comprehend our protecting Bella, he chose,
nevertheless, not to cross us.
“I’m intrigued by the life you’ve crea
ted here. But I won’t get in the middle of this.
I bear none of you any enmity, but I won’t go up against James. I think I will head
north
to that clan in Denali.”
He thought for another moment, then added, “Don’t underestimate James. He’s got
a brilliant
mind and unparalleled senses. He’s every bit as comfortable in the human world
as you seem to be, and he won’t come at you head on....I’m sorry for what’s been
unleashed here. Truly sorry.” He took another baffled look at Bella, then gave a brief
conciliator
y bow.
“Go in peace,” Carlisle said, dismissing Laurent.
Everyone stood frozen while Laurent made his exit. The instant he was gone, Esme
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moved to a keypad across the room and released the motorized security shutters that
protected the glass wall.
“How cl
ose?” Carlisle asked me.
I’d been listening to James’ thoughts and keeping track of his position.
“About three miles out past the river; he’s circling around to meet up with the
female.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We’ll lead him off, and then Jasper and Alice wi
ll run her south to Phoenix.”
“And then?”
I felt my jaw lock and my whole body tense.
“As soon as Bella is clear, we hunt him.”
“I guess there’s no other choice,” Carlisle
said
. Silently, he added,
I’ll join you and
Emmett going north. Esme and Rosalie w
ill take Bella’s truck and head west. With luck,
James and Victoria will split up.
I nodded once in assent and began to organize the troops.
“Get her upstairs and trade clothes,” I ordered Rosalie. Trying to lead James off
Bella’s trail in two directions
from the start was worth a try.
I was already turning to brief Emmett when Rosalie hissed at me, her eyes blazing
with fury.
“Why should I? What is she to me? Except a menace
a danger you’ve chosen to
inflict on all of us.”
“Rose...,” Emmett protested. Rose shook off his hand when he tried to calm her.
I’d gotten so used to ignoring Rosalie’s raving that it took only a fraction of a
second to block any visible reaction I may have had to her outburst. I wasn’t going to
encoura
ge any more airing of her grievances in front of Bella. And enforcing civility from
Rosalie was not my place.
“Esme?”
“Of course
Esme swept Bella into her arms and rushed up the stairs with her.
I spoke in a quiet tone. Bella did not need to hear the d
etails of our tactics.
“Emmett, grab a traveling bag from the garage, plus a tent. Carlisle and you and I
will lead James north for as long as we can, then ambush him.”
I reached into Bella’s duffle to locate the unwashed items from her bedroom floor that
held her scent. We would use them to convince James that Bella was with us.
“Rosalie, you and Esme will drive Bella’s truck west as a secondary diversion,”
Carlisle directed.
She opened her mouth to protest, but Carlisle interrupted.
“Bella is with Edwa
rd and that makes her a part of this family. We protect our
family.”
His voice rang with the authority of the patriarch that he was. Rosalie closed her
mouth, though her eyes burned with resentment. Her mind was not quiet, but I was used to
that.
Carlisl
e continued speaking at a speed and volume that Esme would hear from
upstairs, but Bella would not.
“We think James will assume Bella is with Edward and will follow him. We hope
that Victoria splits off and follows the truck. She will have no reason to at
tack or engage
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you
this is James’ game. Esme, if you are followed, keep driving west as far as possible
until Victoria stops tracking you. Then return to Forks and take up watch at Charlie’s
house. She may go back there to look for Bella when she realizes
Bella isn’t with you. We
need to keep Charlie safe.”
Alice reappeared at the top of the stairs with a small leather bag, no doubt full of
cash, credit cards, and current identification. The latter was something we had to replace
every decade or so to updat
e our birth years.
I walked to the bottom of the staircase and issued my instructions in the low, fast
cadence that humans could not decipher.
“Alice, you mustn’t let Bella out of your sight for one second. She’s a magnet for
danger and acts irrationally
when she’s frightened. She has an impulse for self sacrifice that
defies logic. You have to stay with her at all times.
At all times!”
I’ve got it, Edward. You don’t need to worry. She’ll be safe with us.
“Alice, I’m trusting you. If anything happens to her...”
Nothing will. Try not to worry.
“And don’t forget that she needs to eat
several
times a day and drink more often
than that.”
I’ve got it! I’ve got it! She will be fine, I promise.
Esme and Bella had finished exchanging clothes and joined Alice in their illfitting
attire. My mother and sister then took an elbow apiece and lifted Bella down the stairs at
near vampire speed. Jasper joined them with a duffle bag over his shoulder. It would
contain changes of clothes, including items used to hide the skin
: hats, sunglasses, gloves,
scarves, and hooded jackets were the usual items.
Carlisle doled out untraceable cell phones, one for Esme, one for Alice, and one for
us. We would use them to coordinate our efforts when our adversaries were outside of
hearing
range.
“Esme and Rosalie will be taking your truck, Bella,” Carlisle said. Bella nodded
and glanced surreptitiously at Rosalie, who was wearing a sullen expression.
“Alice, Jasper
take the Mercedes. You’ll need the dark tint in the south.” They
both nodded.
“We’re taking the Jeep,” Carlisle added.
He looked around the room at each of us, pausing for any questions. There were
none; we were ready.
“Alice, will they take the bait?” he asked.
We all stood in silence while Alice shut her eyes and focused inwardly. When she
opened them, she was sure.
“He’ll track you,” she answered Carlisle. “The woman will follow the truck. We
should be able to leave after that.”
“Let’s go,” Carlisle said to Em
mett and me, as he headed for the back door.
Our moment of separation had come. A heavy weight of dread, anxiety, and
loneliness settled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I moved to Bella’s side, lifted her
from the floor, and pressed myself
lips and
body
desperately against her. Just for that
moment, I forgot where we were and what we were facing, as all of my tangled emotion
burned between us.
Then I set her down. I touched her face in farewell and stared into the deep wells of
her eyes, willing he
r to be safe. I didn’t know how I could possibly let her go...but I did,
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my stone heart breaking as I released her. Then I shut the door on my emotions and turned to face what was to come
تم الفصل

[مورا اسامة]

الفصل الحادى والعشرون

محتوى مخفي

يجب عليك الرد لرؤية النص المخفي

[مورا اسامة]

الفصل الثانى والعشرون
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22. CAMPING
We entered the tiny harbor of Port Renfrew on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island
well before the first light of dawn. Carlisle paid Robert the agreed
upon sum while I
hauled our duffle out of his boat. After giving us a friendly farewell
and a card with his cell
phone number on it, Robert pulled away from the dock and motored off with no fanfare.
We hurried to clear the town and take cover in the rugged forests that spread
outward and upward from the coast. I still hadn’t heard James’ tho
ughts, so I knew he
wasn’t close enough to see us. Nevertheless, we needed to maintain the fiction of Bella’s
presence. It was lucky that Robert planned to spend the day fishing. He would not be on the
dock to answer any questions James might put to him re
garding outsiders in the area. Or to
be eaten for lunch, for that matter.
Edward, what did you make of the old man’s outburst about Billy Black?
Carlisle’s
question broke into my thoughts.
“His mind was unnaturally silent,” I told him. “I couldn’t tell whe
ther it was truly
empty or if it was blocked to me, something like Bella’s. Perhaps he had some dementia.”
Did his comment about Billy’s “other son” mean anything to you?
“Nothing absolute, but he seemed to be impugning Billy’s moral character. I also
got
the word ‘grandson.’ One might infer a familial relationship between Billy Black and
Albert’s progeny.”
Carlisle looked thoughtful.
There are numerous connections between the
Washington coastal tribes
particularly the Quileutes and Makahs. They share some
traditions, legends of origin, and have intermarried often over the centuries.
“And perhaps didn’t marry, as well,” I said wryly.
We were running now,
but
not fast as we had no desire to gain ground on Emmett.
We just needed to find a campsite with good v
isibility of the surrounding area and remote
enough to be private. As we went along, I used Bella’s clothing to mark the occasional tree
with her scent. James would not get a continuous trail of scent, but he would assume we
were carrying her.
I spied a s
teep ridge about 100 yards ahead and suggested we look at it. After
running a short while longer, we leaped to the top of the ridge and found a well
sheltered
area with good lookout posts. We erected the tent and settled in to wait for Emmett.
***
“He’s
here,” I told Carlisle, a couple of hours later.
Emmett?
I nodded. He had just arrived on Vancouver Island where he would follow the
shoreline until he found our scent trail. It wouldn’t take him long to catch up to us.
Less than ten minutes later, Emmett
appeared through the trees about thirty yards
from the bottom of the ridge. Carlisle stood and called to him. With two giant leaps,
Emmett landed next to us, soaking wet, a bright gleam in his eye.
“James?” Carlisle queried.
“He’s trailing,” Emmett replie
d. “He came into Neah Bay about an hour ago,
walked along the pier, then turned back into the forest the way he came. When I was sure
he was gone, I ran out of the woods and took to the water.”
“I wonder why he’s going back,” Carlisle mused.
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I told him my
theory.
“My guess is that he’s keeping track of where we are, but is trying to hide his
thoughts from me. I haven’t heard him since we left. From what Emmett said, it appears he
is making forays into my mind
reading range, then moving out of it. I just h
ave not been
listening for him at those precise moments.”
“How do you suppose he knew about your special skill?” asked Carlisle.
“Again, I’m guessing, but perhaps Victoria spied on our family or maybe Laurent
picked up something about it when he visited ou
r home.”
“Laurent promised to return north and I’m inclined to take him at his word,”
Carlisle said, “but regardless, James must know about you. Which begs the question...
what else does he know?”
Emmett spoke up. “Maybe once he crosses to the island, Edward
can backtrack to
get a reading on him.”
“That’s a good idea,” I responded. “It’s making me nervous to be this blind. I don’t
want him turning back toward Bella. Victoria’s been searching Forks and the whole area.
What if we’ve missed something?”
Emmett tr
ied to reassure me. “Edward, Bella is safe with Jasper and Alice. Even if
by some impossible chance, he found her, she’s still protected. He couldn’t get past those
two.”
“All the same...” My mind was awash with possibilities for how James could hurt
Bella.
We had to take care of him, the sooner, the better. I growled with impatience and
frustration.
“Emmett,” Carlisle spoke, changing the subject, “Do you want to hunt? It’s perfect
country and we need to stay here for six or seven hours.”
“I wish there were
some grizzlies. There are only black bears on this island. But a
bear is a bear, I guess, and they are quite feisty when they’ve just risen from their winter
naps.” Emmett laughed. “I’ll go now, then.”
“Yes, and I’ll go when you get back. Edward hunted on
Friday, so he’ll be fine until
tomorrow. We all need to stay well fed until this situation is resolved.”
“See you soon,” Emmett replied and flipped off the ridge, somersaulting in mid
air
before running off into the woods.
I wished I were here under differ
ent circumstances. Vancouver Island is a wild,
magical place with thousand
year
old trees and unique animal species. Its central,
western, and northern sides are largely inaccessible except on foot. Emmett would be in
heaven, as the black bear population w
as healthy. There was plenty of my favorite,
mountain lion, as well, and there were even wolves. Still, it was hard to enjoy the wildlife
or even the majestic beauty of the primeval forest while separated from, and worrying
about, Bella. It was hard to thi
nk of anything else. I needed to be back by her side.
And yet, until James was eliminated, she would not be safe.
How are you holding up?
Carlisle inquired.
“Not as well as I could be, but I’m more worried about how she’s holding up. She
was so frightene
d and so sad, and she thinks she isn’t worthy of our help. She can be so
irrational...I’m always afraid she will do something impulsive and I’ll lose her forever.”
I dropped my head into my hands, fighting despair. “And here we are, doing
nothing, just wait
ing for him to act.”
Try to be patient, Edward. You know that if we chase him, he’ll only run, then try
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again. Vampires are tenacious creatures. Which brings me to something else...
I knew that Carlisle was trying to divert my attention, but I didn’t protest.
You’ve decided about Bella then?
“Oh Carlisle...,” I moaned, “As much as I wanted to leave her alone, I don’t think I
ever really had any choice in the matter. The decision to stay was made before I had any
chance to effect it.”
You know, son, that we sup
port you, whatever happens. We only want what makes
you happy.
“I know, and I thank you for that. But if anything happens to her, I will never
forgive myself.”
You had no way of knowing. What are the odds?
“True, but it doesn’t alter my culpability.”
Again
, Carlisle changed the subject.
How is your control holding up? Jasper said you seemed to be having no trouble at
all managing your thirst.
“Well...it might appear that way, but it takes constant effort.” I saw his eyes widen,
so I hurried to reassure him.
“Not that I could ever hurt her now. I am sure that I won’t,
though the thirst is always present. What I’m struggling with now are these new... more
human...desires. I want her...in ways I never have wanted before. And even more
surprisingly, she wants me too. I
n fact, she has quite shocking...quite tempting...
responses to my presence. I just don’t want to hurt her. It would be so easy to make a
mistake. ”
I can’t pretend to understand what you’re going through, Edward. I’ve never been
in your situation or even know
n anyone in your situation, so all I can offer you is the
common sense that I know you already have. Take things slowly. Keep yourself fed. As the
more dangerous and more powerful creature, it is your responsibility to protect her where
she can’t protect h
erself. Apart from that, you shouldn’t be afraid to go where your feelings
lead you. You are a good man, Edward. You can trust yourself.
His faith in me was stronger than my faith in myself, but it was still good to hear. “I
will love her always. That won’
t change.”
Yes. We aren’t easily altered, but it is apparent that Bella has already changed you
in remarkable ways. I think she is good for you.
“I am not convinced that I’m at all good for her, but she wants me anyway.” I
sighed heavily, reminded of how much I missed her.
My brooding was interrupted by Emmett’s happy hooting. He was playing
Olympic gymnast through the gigantic, old, Sitka spruces
.
“Emmett’s back,” I warned Carlisle. “Seven seconds.”
We both stared at the top of the ridge, counting down. At zero, Emmett pogo’d into
view above the ridge, dropped out of sight, then popped up again, landing on his hands ten
feet from where we were s
itting before flipping upright onto his feet. I laughed in spite of
myself.
Carlisle smiled at Emmett’s antics, then said, “If you hear nothing from our
‘friend,’ I’ll hunt.”
I focused for a moment, listening to the silent air. It stayed silent. There was
no James and no humans in the vicinity. This was one good reason to lead James north
there
were very few people to hunt.
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“All clear, Carlisle.”
“I’ll be back soon then.”
With that, he leaped off the ridge and out of sight.
“Hey Em. Good hunt?”
“Yeah, tw
o black bears, both testy. Saw some mountain lions.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll take a jaunt when Carlisle gets back.”
“Still no James?”
“No, I hope we haven’t lost him,” I worried.
If you wanna double check, I’ll stay here and guard Bella.
“Do you think you can
handle that?” I asked sarcastically.
Sure thing!
he enthused in my direction.
I took a running leap off the ridge, grabbed a Sitka branch as I flew by, hand
over
handed my way through a few more, then dropped to the ground, running. I was careful to
return
along the same scent trail that we’d made before. We didn’t want James to think we
were going back and forth from the campsite to the shore to check on him, because,
presumably, we didn’t know he was behind us.
I heard him just before I reached the edge o
f the forest outside Port Renfrew. His
mind sounded like one would expect a bloodhound’s to sound, looking for a fresh trail. I
inferred that he was moving along the shoreline, searching for our scent. Either that, or he
was hunting for dinner in town.
I didn’t need to see him to know how close he was. He must have just exited the
water
that’s why I hadn’t heard his thoughts until I was almost on top of him. If I weren’t
specifically looking for a mind underwater, it was easy to miss. Total immersion destr
oys a
vampire’s scenting capability and makes him more reliant on subtler sensory cues and
instinct, much like any creature of the sea. I had to make an effort to differentiate a
swimmer’s mind from that of an animal. It didn’t come up very often, since no
rmally I was
trying to block minds, not reveal them. Except for Bella’s, of course.
Arrrrgh!
Thinking of Bella made me want to track down our enemy and destroy
him without further strategizing or delay. I knew that was irrational. Three to one odds
were better than one to
one. And this battle wasn’t for my satisfaction. It was to ensure
Bella’s safety. I retraced my steps through the woods to Carlisle and Emmett.
Carlisle was already back from his hunt. Out here in the forest, he hadn’t needed to
go far t
o find prey. I informed him that James was near and would undoubtedly spy on us.
We must be cognizant of his presence now, knowing that he might overhear our
conversations. He must believe that Bella was asleep in the tent while we stood guard.
Perhaps we
could also slip in something about Carlisle and Emmett’s return home. That
would entice James to follow us for another day before we sprang our trap on him.
Emmett took his position in front of Bella’s tent, while Carlisle and I took up posts
behind the te
nt in the woods. Ideally, James should see us keeping watch without knowing
that we knew he was there. We expected him to get close enough to verify our position and
numbers, then retreat into the woods. Afterwards, we would pick up camp and head
northward
James’ visit was uneventful. I could hear his mind as he approached and I signaled
to Carlisle when he drew near. Carlisle spoke to me about our phony plans and after a short
time, James left, just as we’d expected. I heard his mind fade as he retreated.
He’d probably
gone back to Port Renfrew. He might be hunting.
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It took us no time to pack and get moving. We traveled north and west toward the
center of Vancouver Island to a remote wilderness called Strathcona Park. It was a vast
protected area with no r
oads and few trails, but mountain peaks high enough to sport
glaciers. Along with the heavy rain, melting ice and snow drained through countless rivers
and creeks, some with breathtakingly beautiful waterfalls. It was among the most
magnificent of landscap
es I had seen and I’d seen a lot in my one hundred years. Even so, it was hard to appreciate it in my state of distress.
We pitched the tent again within view of a very high waterfall. To keep our ruse
alive, we also started a small fire. We didn’t need th
e warmth, but Bella would have. After
checking for any sign of James, I left Emmett to guard the tent and Carlisle to patrol the
area, while I went to hunt. I wasn’t particularly thirsty, but I didn’t know when I’d get
another chance and I needed to stay s
trong.
Before finding any mountain lions, I ran into one of the many black bears on the
island, and as Emmett had said, found him to be crabby
Bella’s word
with hunger. He
wanted to feast on me more than I did on him, but ultimately, he gave me no choice
when
he charged. Bear wasn’t my favorite prey, but it would do. As the bear hurtled toward me,
I raised my stiffened right arm and made a fist. My pathetic
looking defensive measure
didn’t slow the bear’s attack at all and he caught my outstretched fist ri
ght between the
eyes. The blow didn’t even knock me off balance, but the bear’s front legs collapsed and he
tumbled forward. I leaped onto him as he rolled, grabbing his snout and lifting his huge
head upwards. He had no time to fight back. My teeth sunk t
hrough his fur, skin, and sinew
to open the large artery in his neck. I drank mechanically, trying not to spill blood on my
clothes. I preferred to look civilized after feeding as well as before.
The bear lay limp within minutes and I had no enthusiasm to
look for another
hapless creature. One bear was worth at least two deer anyway. I made my way back to
camp.
We spent the night without incident and when dawn came, we renewed our fire,
made coffee, and cooked some oatmeal for the human. The scent would remain on the air
and lend credence to our deception. After burying the evidence, we packed the tent and
trekke
d northwest through the rugged mountain country, jumping over fallen trees and
wading through creeks along the way.
Late in the afternoon, we decided that Carlisle and Emmett would help set up camp
and then leave. They would hike southeast for half a mile
parallel to our original
route
then wait for James to pass by them. James would find me alone at the tent and
Emmett and Carlisle would surprise him from behind. At last we were going to end this
tedious game!
My longing for Bella
to hold her in my arms
, to reassure her, to kiss her
had
only increased during the two days since we’d been apart. I had wanted desperately to call
and hear Bella’s voice, but the risk that James would overhear was too high. Once he
discovered Bella was not with us, the subterf
uge was over. We must have our chance at
him before then.
I listened for any mental activity in our area. There was none, so Carlisle took the
opportunity to check in with Esme. She told him that Victoria had spent Monday night at
Bella’s high school and h
ad visited Charlie’s house in the morning after he’d gone to work.
There was no danger to Charlie, so Esme didn’t interfere. Since then, neither she nor
Rosalie had seen Victoria. They believed she’d left Forks altogether.
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After ending the phone call, Car
lisle turned to Emmett and me.
“Victoria has left Forks,” he informed us for Emmett’s sake, as I had already heard
his thoughts.
“Do you think she could be meeting James?” Emmett asked.
“It’s a distinct possibility,” answered Carlisle. “We must be prepare
d to fight them
both if she joins James here.”
“Three against two still seems like good odds with Emmett’s strength and my
hearing,” I noted.
“Yes,” agreed Carlisle. “It will be more difficult, but still within our abilities. We
will follow them here and w
ill not attack until they reach you at the camp, Edward. I will
take on Victoria and you and Emmett take James.”
Carlisle and Emmett prepared to leave. Our enemies would likely attack at night, so
we had only a few hours to wait for them. We said our goodb
yes, then I stood outside the
tent to wait and brood.
***
So I waited...and brooded...and waited some more. Hours passed, and the dark slowly
retreated from a lightening sky.
“Should we head back to camp?”
I read Emmett’s thoughts.
He had whispered the qu
estion to Carlisle. He and Carlisle had backtracked a mile
from camp and taken a position fifty yards to the side of our original trail, then waited for
James to appear. Now it was dawn and Emmett had grown impatient, having been on alert
all night. Though
Carlisle was willing to wait a few more hours, he recognized Emmett’s
need for action.
“Emmett, why don’t you run back a mile or two toward Port Renfrew and look for
any sign of James or Victoria. Try to avoid detection,”
Carlisle had directed.
Half an ho
ur later, Emmett reported back. He had found both their scents, but not them.
Ah!
Damn it!
That news was disappointing. They must have abandoned the chase.
Considering the timing, I wondered if Victoria had found some information in Forks that
convinced Ja
mes to turn around.
As I waited, listening, I heard Emmett’s and Carlisle’s thoughts coming closer.
They were tracking toward me in tandem. It seemed they were closing the circle behind
nothing.
Edward?
Carlisle called to me.
We’re following James’ trail,
but we have not seen
or heard either of them.
He was right. Neither was anywhere in the vicinity. I loped down the trail to inform
them and we returned to the campsite to review alternate plans.
“We need to find their trail and track them down,” said Em
mett, anxious to go.
“Emmett found Victoria’s scent along with James’,” said Carlisle, “but it stopped
cold not too far from where we were waiting for them.”
“I suppose they turned around. I wonder if Victoria followed James to give him
some kind of infor
mation. Perhaps she discovered where Bella is,” I fretted.
“How could she have?” queried Carlisle.
“If Victoria or James were moving toward Alice, she would see it and call us,
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right?” asked Emmett.
“Yes, I presume she would,” answered Carlisle.
“Therefore, I think we should go
under the assumption that James, at least, is still here tracking Bella.”
“His trail came nearly all the way to this campsite,” I noted.
“Yes, I smelled it too,” said Carlisle.
“Then he must have been here when I was hunt
ing. That’s odd, though. I didn’t go
very far,” I said, puzzled. Why hadn’t I heard his thoughts?
“Okay then,” Emmett concluded, “We need to find James’ trail and follow it. At
least then we’ll know where he went, even if we can’t catch him. There’s no poi
nt in
staying out here if he’s gone.”
“Emmett’s right,” I told Carlisle. “I think it’s time to break camp and track him
down.”
“I concur.”
In no time we were on our way again. With Emmett carrying the duffle, we began
to backtrack along our own trail. We
would continue until either we found James, we found
where James had veered off, or we reached Port Renfrew where we had begun.
After retracing our steps for one hundred miles, Emmett found it.
“Yo! Bingo!” he cried, in an excess of enthusiasm for modern
lingo. Carlisle
laughed and I smiled in spite of myself.
“How fresh is it?” I asked Emmett eagerly, while bounding over to check for
myself.
“A few hours,” said Emmett.
“I’d guess six to seven,” I clarified, “so he would have been closest to the camp
when
I was hunting. Damn! I shouldn’t have gone!” I slapped a nearby tree and watched it
sway sideways before straightening again.
“You couldn’t have known, Edward,” assured Carlisle. “It was wise for you to stay
fed.”
“So let’s track him,
” Emmett prompted.
“There’s no other choice now,” I said. “He’s headed off to the east. We need to
know where he’s going and why.”
“What’s east of here?” asked Emmett.
“Just forest between here and the coast,” Carlisle told him. “On the east side of the
island is Nanaimo, wher
e there’s a ferry to the mainland...Vancouver, BC.”
“He doesn’t need a ferry, obviously,” Emmett said.
“But what about a plane? He might fly back to Seattle,” I worried. “Let’s follow
him.” It was the only plan we had.
We began running, Emmett leading the wa
y. James had a hefty lead on us, so there
was no need for stealth. As we got closer to civilization, that changed. There were more
roads, fewer trees, and more people. We had to stay to the forest, be cautious. That slowed
us down enough that it was nearin
g twilight when we reached Nanaimo. James’ trail was
strong leading all the way to the ferry terminal. We took our cue and boarded the next ship
leaving for the mainland.
During the hour and forty minute crossing, I stood on the frigid outside deck and
sta
red into the water. Why was this damn ferry so
slow
? I felt helpless and forlorn, at the
mercy of a psychotic, sadistic vampire. It sounded like something out of a bad horror
picture. In fact, it
was
...and
Iwas too. What was I
doing?
A severe attack of self
loathing bent me double over the railing. I probably
appeared to be seasick, but I felt much worse than any human sickness I could imagine. My
soul was dead, and like a zombie, I was haunting a beautiful, innocent, and very much
alive, human girl. There
was no reason
at all for my continued existence and yet I lived on.
Destroying myself was the right thing to do. If I couldn’t leave her alone and stop
poisoning her life, it was the only thing left to do. I wished I did have the power to alter
Bella’s mem
ory...to wipe it clean of me and all my kind.
Carlisle appeared at my side and threw his arm around my waist, preventing me
from tumbling into the dark water below us.
What is it, Edward?
When I couldn’t answer, he went on
It’s going to be fine. We’ll catch him. It won’t take much longer
Just hang on,
son
Bella is safe.
Disgust had closed my throat and I could make no reply. I didn’t want to worry
Carlisle, so I propped myself up on the railing and nodded. Unlike me, Carlisle
did
deserve
to live. He was
doing so much good in the world. What had I ever done but take up space
and now, endanger what I loved more than anything else? My body began to shake with
revulsion, and self pity, and despair.
Carlisle spun me toward him and stared into my face. I don’t
know what he saw
there, but it prompted him to wrap his arms tightly around me and hold me to his chest.
We stood there like that, in the dark, for a long time.
When the engine noise eased and we began slowing down, Emmett joined us. By
the time the ferry pulled to the dock on the mainland, I had recovered sufficiently to propel
my aching body onto dry land.

[مورا اسامة]

الفصل الثالث والعشرون
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23. RESCUE
“It’s time to call Alice,” I said as we followed James’ trail through the West Vancouver
ferry terminal and outside to a nearby taxi stand. As discouraged as I felt, I was still
anxious to check on Bella. The thought of talking to her lifted my spirits.
“Let’s look for James at the airport first. If we locate him, then we’ll have a little
more information to share,” Carlisle suggested. He was right. We hired a cab to take us to
the airport Hilton where Emmett ditched the duffle in a large waste bin. We knew the
camping gear would set off the metal detectors at the airport and we preferred to avoid
scrutiny whenever possible.
When we entered the airport terminal, we located t
he check
in area for U.S.
boud
passengers and paced the vicinity looking for signs of James. We found his scent there, but
it was hard to tell how new it was or where it led, since there was so much olfactory
interference from the hundreds of people who p
assed through the terminal each day. We
could only assume that he was flying back to Seattle, and then running to Forks to start over
with his search for Bella.
While Carlisle dialed Alice’s cell phone, Emmett went to the departures board to
find the next
flight to Seattle.
“Hello, Alice.”
“Carlisle.”
“Is Bella with you? Is she okay?”
“Yes
“We’ve lost James. Victoria joined him up north, possibly gave him some
information, and they ran. We think he’s boarded a plane, probably to Seattle. Can you give us
any more information?”
“I just saw him. He’s in a dark room running a tape on a VCR and watching and
waiting. Later, he’ll go to a bigger room full of mirrors with some kind of gold band
around the center and a light wood floor. There’s a VCR, TV, and ster
eo on a black table.
I don’t know where it is, but he’ll be there tonight or tomorrow. Whatever made him get on
that plane...it was leading him to those rooms.”
“I see. Thank you Alice. Is Bella able to speak with Edward now?”
“Yes. Bella?”
Alice called.
Car
lisle held out the phone to me.
“Hello?” Bella answered.
“Bella.” I exhaled with immense relief. The pain in my chest lessened slightly. She
was all right.
“Oh Edward! I was so worried.”
“Bella, I told you not to worry about anything but yourself.”
“Where
are you?”
“We’re outside of Vancouver. Bella, I’m sorry
we lost him. He seems suspicious
of us
he’s careful to stay just far enough away that I can’t hear what he’s thinking. But
he’s gone now
it looks like he got on a plane. We think he’s heading back to
Forks to start over.”
“I know. Alice saw that he got away.”
“You don’t have to worry, though,” I assured her. “He won’t find anything to lead
him to you. You just have to stay there until we catch up to him again.”
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“I’ll be fine. Is Esme with Charlie?”
“Ye
s
the female has been in town. She went to the house while Charlie was at
work. She hasn’t gone near him, so don’t be afraid. He’s safe with Esme and Rosalie
watching.”
“What is she doing?”
“Probably trying to pick up the trail. She’s been all through the
town during the
night. Rosalie tracked her through the airport, along all the streets in town, at the school...
she’s digging, Bella, but there’s nothing to find.”
“And you’re sure Charlie’s safe?”
“Yes, Esme won’t let him out of her sight. And we’ll be ther
e soon. If the tracker
gets anywhere near Forks, we’ll have him.”
“I miss you,” she whispered.
“I know, Bella. Believe me, I know. It’s like you’ve taken half my self away with you.”
“Come and get it, then,” she challenged. I wanted to do that so badly I could taste it.
“Soon, as soon as I possibly can. I will
make you safe first.” Anger flared in me.
“I love you,” she said and the anger cooled.
“Could you believe that, despite everything I’ve put you through, I love you too?”
“Yes, I can, actually.”
l come for you soon,” I promised.
“I’ll be waiting.”
I ended the call reluctantly, but with renewed determination to rid the world of the
vampire, James. And the female too, if she got in the way. I was
a killer after all.
Emmett had rejoined us with news
of a Seattle flight in an hour. After purchasing
first
class seats, we ducked into the nearest airport shop and bought clean clothes and some
hand luggage to hold our discarded clothes, money, passports, some toiletries, and a couple
of books and magazines
. Nothing looked more suspicious than boarding a plane without
luggage, especially on international flights.
Within two hours, we landed at SeaTac airport, located between Seattle and
Tacoma. We dumped our new traveling bags in the trash behind a Starbuck
s coffee shop
and ran northwest to Forks. Going on foot was fast, we could keep searching for a scent
trail.
We reached the outskirts of Forks having found no fresh trace of James. Carlisle
called Esme, who was alternating with Rosalie to watch over Charl
ie when he was home
from work. They’d seen no sign of Victoria or James there, either. We split up and began
tracking systematically through town, covering every street and road. We also went to our
house, the high school, and the airport, repeating Victor
ia’s earlier steps.
We found Victoria’s scent, but it wasn’t fresh. This jibed with our discovery that
Victoria had come to Vancouver Island to meet James. What could she possibly have told
him that caused them both to disappear? I didn’t believe for a mo
ment that they had given
up. As we were contemplating our next move, Carlisle’s cell phone rang.
Carlisle remained quiet and listened while Alice updated the picture for us. She saw
James in a room with dark paneled walls and Bella had recognized Alice’s d
rawing as her
mother’s living room! James was either in Phoenix or soon would be! Not only that...he
would find Renee’s house!
Was he waiting for Renee? For Bella? How had he known to go there? Neither he
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nor Victoria had been inside Charlie’s house to find
the address. We knew that much.
Where else...? Wait, wait, wait...the school must have Renee’s address on file. Did
Victoria go through the school records? Clever. That would explain it.
Alice had also seen James in a room surrounded by mirrors. What did that
mean?
Then abruptly, I realized that it simply didn’t matter. None of this mattered! I had to get to
Bella as quickly as possible.
Carlisle looked at me with a questioning eye and made the obvious suggestion.
I think we should fly to Phoenix
now
. Do you
agree?
“Yes! Yes! Let’s go now!” I didn’t want to waste another second.
Carlisle spoke briefly with Alice, then hung up the phone.
“Emmett, Alice sees James at Bella’s mother’s house in Phoenix. Are you with
us?” Carlisle asked him, already knowing the a
nswer.
“Hell, yes!” Emmett agreed. “I’d hate for all this effort to end in nothing!”
“Then let’s go,” Carlisle directed.
I was already two miles gone.
Edward, when you reach SeaTac, get us three seats on the first flight to Phoenix.
We’ll catch up with yo
u after we retrieve the bags we tossed at Starbucks.
“Done,” I said to myself, knowing I was too far away for Carlisle to hear me.
We were on our way to Phoenix and that was the best we could do. I knew that Jasper and
Alice were capable of protectin
g Bella until we got there, and that James wouldn’t even try
to get past them to hurt her, but still, I was nervous. Worse than nervous, actually, I was
distraught. I couldn’t get to Phoenix fast enough. My brother and sister were bringing Bella
to the air
port to meet us. We would arrive and there she’d be, no delay. It was a small
blessing.
Edward, how do you want to proceed when we get there?
Carlisle asked me from
across the aisle.
“Get Bella out!”
And her mother?
“After I take Bella away, everyone con
verges on Renee’s house and takes care of
him. And the female too, if she’s there.”
And what if it’s a trick? Perhaps you shouldn’t go alone.
“Three on James, two guarding Bella?”
It seems prudent, Edward. Jasper, Emmett, and Alice can handle James, or even
James and Victoria. I would come with you. Or Jasper could, but he might resist leaving
Alice.
“Yes, he would.”
What do you make of the mirrored room?
Carlisle was trying to distract me, but I
didn’t mind.
“Nothing at all. Where are there mirrored rooms?
Clothing stores, gyms.
“Hmm...ladies’ boudoirs, dressing rooms.” I was remembering the old vaudeville
houses turned movie theaters with their red velvet curtains, opulent wall decorations,
chandeliers, and “resting rooms,” that contained brocade or velvet chaises longue, and lots
of mirrors for ladies to use while “powdering their noses.”
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Hotel rooms, banquet halls
Carlisle continued with the list.
“Dance studios, spas.”
Halls of mirrors.
“The mirrored room is a hall of mirrors.”
But no funhouse.
“It gets us nowhere.” Impatience
and frustration overcame me, and I retreated
inside my head for the duration.
Unlike a human who might fidget, or pace, or talk excessively, a vampire under
severe stress goes still...dead still...the kind of unnatural stillness that humans notice. I sat
in my
seat, inert, for some time before Emmett, sitting next to me, took notice and kicked
my foot. The force would have broken a human ankle, but I couldn’t be bothered to
respond. He waited for ten seconds, then elbowed me with a pointed thrust that would have
shattered a mortal’s arm. Again, I barely noticed. Irritated, and determined to snap me out
of my statue
like state, he began cursing in a voice too low for human ears...the crudest,
filthiest curse words and combinations I’d ever heard, some I hadn’t hear
d, and some
whose meanings were a complete mystery to me.
It did the trick. I blinked several times and inhaled sharply. I must have looked like
a mannequin coming to life. Across the aisle, Carlisle was pretending to sleep. I glanced
over and saw the corn
er of his mouth twitch upward in amusement. Mine curved up
slightly too.
Good old
Emmett. My brother could be relied upon to drag me out of myself. Still,
I was impatient. The minutes crawled by.
Then all of a sudden, I was desperate for time to stop so th
at somehow I could alter
what was happening at that very minute. As our plane approached the airport runway,
preparing to touch down, I heard Alice’s frantic mental voice.
Edward! She’s gone! She’s gone! She’s gone to meet him!! Oh Edward, I am so
sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!
I leaped to my feet in panic, wrenching the seatbelt from its mooring with a clean
snap. Emmett, his hand lightning fast, grabbed my shoulder and bounced me back down
into the seat. It was unlikely that the human passengers had noticed.
My movement would
have looked like a blur of color, if anyone had noticed it at all.
Edward, what is it?!
What’s wrong?!
Both Carlisle and Emmett hurled alarmed questions at me.
I spoke so quickly that only my family could understand the words.
“It’s Alic
e. She says Bella’s meeting him! HE’S GOT BELLA!”
How?
Where?
But I was listening for Alice’s thoughts, trying to glean anything I could. I had
never felt such terror in my long existence.
...ballet studio in Scottsdale, corner of 58
Street and Cactus. It’
s around the
corner from her mother’s house. I’ve got a car.
I saw a map image moving through Alice’s mind... the airport, then Phoenix
proper, then northeast Phoenix to Scottsdale, 58
th
Street and Cactus. Alice couldn’t know
whether I was hearing her though
ts, so she repeated everything from the beginning. I made
sure I received it all before retelling Carlisle and Emmett. Now I was
frantic
to escape this
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suffocating tin torpedo and find Bella.
“Carlisle, I’m going to run off the plane. Alice has a car wait
ing.”
“Yes, Edward. We’ll be right behind you.”
“How did he get her, Edward?” Emmett asked.
“She’s meeting him, that’s all I know. He must have tricked her somehow.”
“But how did she get away from Jasper and Alice?” Emmett pressed.
“I don’t know, I don’t k
now...,” I anguished.
The plane was pulling into the gate
finally! What were they doing now?
Open the doors already!
“Carlisle, I’m gone!” I timed my leap from the seat so that I was at the exit hatch the
instant it opened, and was through it before the flig
ht attendant had turned around. Thank
goodns for our first
class seats! I never would have gotten out of coach so
fast without
hurting someone. I raced through the concourse, not being careful, not caring who saw me.
It wasn’t like anyone could catch me
or even identify who I was.
Emmett and Carlisle followed my lead, escaping the plane quickly
I heard them
running through the concourse not far behind me. I exited the airport terminal at the
arrivals level, where Alice and Jasper were waiting at the curb
in what I knew to be a very
capable Cadillac sedan. I slid behind the wheel as Alice bounced into Jasper’s lap on the
passenger’s side. Carlisle and Emmett stuffed themselves into the back seat, yanking the
doors closed as I stomped on the gas pedal.
Please, if there is a God, let me not be too late!
I drove that Cadillac like a rocket through Phoenix, running every red light and
dodging the other vehicles on the road. I remained silent. There was no point in chastising
Alice
she was as terrified for Bell
a as I was. She was explaining in a stricken voice how
Bella had tricked her and Jasper to make her escape. Her words tumbled over one another
as she spoke. I saw the ending to the story in her mind before she’d finished telling it to
Carlisle and Emmett.
“I saw that she might get separated from us, so we were watching her every move.
We’d smelled James’ scent outside the airport and I thought he might make a grab for her.
When she asked Jasper to escort her to breakfast, I started seeing her separated fro
m us, but
I didn’t realize it was her decision and not James’ that was changing the images. At the last
moment, when Jasper agreed to wait for her outside the ladies room, I finally saw the
outcome, but I couldn’t get there
fast
enough to warn Jasper. It s
till seemed okay, because I
saw that we’d catch her at the taxi stand, but she jumped on a passing shuttle bus at the last
second and that’s when I knew he would get her.”
Hearing that, I roared in rage and helplessness.
Alice was practically babbling now
, spilling everything that came into her head.
“With this car, there’s a chance we can get there in time to catch her. It depends on
how fast we get through traffic to Scottsdale. Oh, hurry, Edward, hurry...!” she cried, then
continued her story without pausing.
“You were due to land any minute, so I grabbed this Cadillac out of short term
parking. Carlisle’s Mercedes is buried in the bowels of the long
term parking lot. But I
always think it’s better, anyway, to do any major speeding and dangerous maneuvers
in a stolen car.”
I was half listening to Alice’s words and half reading other details in her mind. I could see that Bella had been terribly distraught and frightened. Despite that, she had been
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clever in escaping her guardians. We had to assume that Jame
s was holding Bella’s mother
hostage. There was no other explanation that made any sense whatsoever.
That coward, James!!
Tormenting defenseless humans for his amusement! It was
no wonder I loathed what I was, when such as he were among my kind. He would kill
Renee anyway. Two for one
I was sure he wouldn’t bother to save one for the other.
I focused on getting to 58
th
and Cactus as quickly as possible, pulling any stunt that
would help. I drove on sidewalks, raced through alleyways, and ignored one
way
street
signs to bypass traffic clogs. I didn’t slow down for corners and we rose up on two wheels
more than once. Even while driving like a “bat out of hell”
that phrase
must
be somehow
connected to vampire lore
there was plenty of space in my mind to comp
ile a list of the
one hundred most excruciating ways to destroy James. It was a good outlet for my rage
until I got to James and could tear him apart, limb from limb.
In another part of my mind, I was desperately begging whatever superior being
might exis
t to save Bella, not to take her away so soon after I had found her. To please
spare her life
I would sacrifice anything...
anything
...including myself.
Finally, I was planning how I would end my own life if...I was too late. I had
realized with utter clarity dur
ing this ordeal that I could not continue if Bella did not.
It takes a vampire to kill a vampire. From Carlisle’s experience, I knew a vampire
could not kill himself. My family would not help me, so I’d have to find another vampire to
do it. If we caught J
ames, and Bella was already...gone, perhaps he would oblige me. But
if my brothers got their hands on him first, he would be dead before he could kill me. Still,
I would find a way, if need be. I cared nothing for my life without Bella. And if not James,
then perhaps the Volturi
they could be provoked. I would go to Italy.
The time for chasing such eventualities was ending. We were on 58
thStreet and
approaching Cactus.
There! There it was! The dance studio
! Part of my mind veered off to
wonder why he had cho
sen this place. Why not Renee’s house if he were holding Renee
hostage? Perhaps he thought we could find him there, but not here. He seemed to know
about my telepathy, but perhaps he didn’t know of Alice’s precognition.
I could not hear Renee’s mind in the
vicinity. That did not bode well. Of course, I
could not hear Bella’s mind, either, but I heard James’
sevil thoughts. He was enjoying his
game, toying with me by tormenting Bella.
Was she still alive??
Please God, let me not be too late! Listen...listen...Y
ES!
I could hear one heart beating, but no human thoughts. It must be her! Did that mean Renee
was already gone? How would Bella cope...?
“Bella’s alive!” I exclaimed, a flicker of hope returning, though I could not yet be
certain. Renee could be unconsciou
s and Bella could be...
“And James is here!” A deep growl began to rumble in my chest, when a
memorJames’ memory
burst into my head. It was the sound of Bella’s shin bone
shattering when he stomped on it, and her tortured scream.
“HE’S HURT BELLA!”
Our ti
res squealed around the last corner and screeched to a halt in the parking lot. I
leapt out and ran, dragging the car door with me for a few feet before I remembered to let
go. Jasper and Emmett were on my heels and Carlisle and Alice were on theirs. I cra
shed
through the double doors of the studio, forearms first, smashing them into splinters. And
everywhere, in every direction, I saw reflected images of
HIM
in the mirrors. He was
crouched over Bella
MY BELLA!
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“It hurts.”
“I know, Bella, I know,” I cried, my heart wrenching in two. To Carlisle, I
complained impatiently, “Can’t you do
anything?”
“My bag please...Hold your breath, Alice, it will help,” Carlisle advised, noticing
her tight grimace as she wiped blood from Bella’s face.
“Alice?” Bella moaned.
“She’s here,” I answered for her in her distress. “She knew where to find you.”
“My hand hurts,” Bella slurred.
“I know, Bella. Carlisle will give you something, it will stop.”
Suddenly she screamed out. “My hand is BURNING!”
Her eyes snapped open, blood from her head wound pooling around her lids.
“Bella?” I didn’t understand. Was she
hallucinating?
“The fire! Someone stop the fire!” she screamed again, trying to be understood.
Her pain tortured me. I grabbed her hands and scanned them for an overlooked
wound
and then I saw it. I gasped, horrified. For there, in a pattern etched in blood, were
the unmistakable bite marks of the recently deceased James.
“Carlisle! Her hand!”
“He bit her.” Carlisle echoed my thought in a stunned voice.
“Edward, you have to do it,” Alice stated matter of
factly
as she tried to wipe more
blood from Bella’s eyes, while resisting her
undoubtedly, fierce
desire.
“No!” I roared. What was she saying? I would not steal Bella’s life! But had James
already done that with his bite? No! No! No!
“Alice,” Bella cried, as if
in supplication.
Then Carlisle shocked us both.
“There may be a chance,” he said as he continued methodically plucking glass from
Bella’s bloody head wound.
“What?” I exclaimed, ready to grasp at any straw.
“See if you can suck the venom back out,” he dir
ected, quashing my fledgling hope
with his ludicrous words. “The wound is fairly clean.” He spoke calmly as if his insane
suggestion were possible.
“Will that work?” Alice asked, surprised. The idea intrigued her, but also intensified her thirst. Despite t
hat, she was coping remarkably well with the mouth
watering fragrance that saturated the air.
“I don’t know,” Carlisle admitted. “But we have to hurry.”
I was astounded, thunderstruck, by the thought of pressing my lips to Bella’s
wound and pulling her wa
rm, sweet blood into my mouth. Hadn’t I dreamed of this?
Ahh!
My throat was in flames. And then I was horrified, ashamed, repulsed by my
own monstrous nature.
“Carlisle, I.....I don’t know if I can do that.” My voice stuttered and broke. It was
degrading
mo
rtifying
to admit my weakness, even to myself.
“It’s your decision, Edward, either way. I can’t help you. I have to get this bleeding
stopped here if you’re going to be taking blood from her hand.”
A Solomon’s choice! There must be no God! How could a hig
her being persecute
me thus?
In that moment, as my mind wrestled with this excruciating dilemma and its
potentially fatal outcome, my choice was made for me when Bella screamed.
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“Edward!” Her agony was palpable. As much as I wished to keep her alive, I
wis
hed not to hear that tortured cry again. I
must
end her suffering, even if
God forgive me
she never suffered again.
Carlisle’s authoritative voice rang out.
“Alice, get me something to brace her leg!” Then he said, “Edward, you must do it
now, or it will
be too late.”
No choice...no choice...no choice...I can do this...I can do this...I must do this...
I must do this...I will
do this! I will
I chanted the words in my head.
With doomed determination, I
clutched
Bella’s hand in both of mine and pulled the
abominab
le bite wound toward my mouth. My trembling lips touched her skin, followed by
the teeth of the monster, sinking in, reopening her wound. Swooning, I began to suck her
sweet, sweet blood onto my tongue.
The taste!
I moaned deeply as I drew her into my bod
y. My throat was met with a
soothing balm of ecstasy. Her blood was more potent than I had ever dreamed. My
thoughts became incoherent, disconnected, as my unholy desire raged
Want...her...more...her...all...mine...her...her.. .me
As I sunk into that velvet
well of no r
eturn, Bella screamed and thrashed, struggling against the searing pain of
James’ venom
and now mine
burning in her veins. Carlisle and Alice held her still, like
a sacrifice, as I continued to draw passionately on her precious blood...filling me, soothing
me. It was a heaven I’d never imagined, this pulsing of Bella’s essence into me. It was a
place I would gladly go to die. And yet, I recognized somewhere at the back of my dim
awareness that her glorious flavor was tainted, first by the enemy’s venom and no
w by the
bitter note of opiates, as Carlisle’s morphine injection spread through Bella’s body.
The corruption of the foreign substance in her blood slowed, but did not stop, me. It
did stop her screaming and her eyes fluttered closed, but she fought her w
ay back to the
surface and whispered my name.
“Edward.”
“He’s right here, Bella,” Alice’s musical voice rang out, as if I, and not the monster,
were crouched over my love.
But I had heard my name on her lips. It was another kind of desire fulfilled...
someth
ing deep, deeper than the bloodlust. It pulled me back from the abyss, granted me a
pinprick of lucidity.
I must
wean myself from Bella’s lifeblood,
a part of me recognized, but the monster
was strong.
So strong!
Carlisle, sensing my torment, settled his
strong, reassuring hand on my shoulder.
He spoke silently to me, protecting Bella from his words.
You must stop now, Edward, or
she will die. Find the wil
my son. Find the will.
From some buried reserve I didn’t know was in me, I located a kernel of resolve. I clung to it and, with a herculean effort, wrestled her hand from my lethal mouth. I laid it
down at her side slowly and deliberately.
“Stay, Edward, stay with me...,” Bella
begged as she felt me detach from her. She
did not know what she asked.
“I will,” I choked out, the flavor of her still thick on my tongue, in my throat. My
love for her had achieved the impossible
it had released Bella from the monster’s grip.
“Is it all
out?” Carlisle inquired.
“Her blood tastes clean. I can taste the morphine,” I replied, chastened by my
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hideous inclinations, but relieved to have overcome them at the critical moment.
“Bella?” Carlisle disturbed her drug
induced fog.
“Mmmmm?”
“Is the fire gone?”
“Yes...thank you Edward,” she uttered dreamily.
“I love you,” I said, my voice shaky.
“I know.”
Such audacity. I laughed with joy and relief.
“Bella?” Carlisle pressed.
She scowled, intent on drifting off to sleep. “What?”
“Where is your mother?”
She sighed. “In Florida. He tricked me, Edward. He watched our videos.”
“Alice,” Bella continued. “Alice, the videohe knew you, Alice, he knew where
you came from.” Her voice was
softly
floating.
The startled look on Alice’s face turned to consternation t
hen to wonder. She
looked at me with curious, but frightened, eyes. I raised my eyebrows in astonishment.
“I smell gasoline,” Bella croaked.
It was our duty to destroy all evidence of our presence here. Emmett and Jasper had
ripped out some floorboards, so
aked them in gasoline siphoned from the car, and set them
on fire, tossing the bits and pieces of James into the flames. A dense, almost animate,
lavender smoke snaked upward from his pyre. My heart was glad...and relieved.
“It’s time to move her,” Carlisle
stated.
“No, I want to sleep,” Bella whined.
“You can sleep, sweetheart, I’ll carry you.”
Very gently, I picked her up and cradled her to my chest, happy that she was
alive...happy I had let her live.
“Sleep now, Bella,” I soothed, as her eyelids closed

[مورا اسامة]

الفصل الرابع والعشرون

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forget the blood streaming down her face or the death I almost dealt her trying to save her
humanity. All of
these memories would torment me for the remainder of my existence.
And poor Alice. The revelation of her origins was as hurtful to her as it was
heartbreaking to me. A family, blessed with an extraordinary child who could see into the
future, regarded her
gift as a curse of the devil and consigned her to an asylum for the rest
of her life. Who knows what had happened to her there? Her lack of human memories
suggested that she may have been incarcerated in that dark cell as a mere tot, in which case
she’d been too young to retain memories. Or perhaps more likely, and equally horrifying,
she had been given a long course of electroshock
common in those days
which had
erased whatever memories she’d had.
James’ version of the story was that an old vampire had be
friended Alice in the
asylum, and when James set his sights on Alice’s sweet
smelling blood, the creature
changed her before James could take her life. If that were true, it seemed a poor kind of
friendship to visit a young girl in her dark prison, no doub
t filthy and cold, for years and
never take a step to free her until forced to do so by James’ threats. It was beyond
comprehension. Knowing Alice, somehow she would turn these revelations into something
worthwhile...though it might take time.
Carlisle and
Esme had made up for a lot of what Alice had missed as a human and
she’d been a treasured part of our family since she found us. By now, she’d had at least four
times more lifespan as a vampire than as a human and, among all of us, seemed uniquely
suited to it. She was not bogged down by human memories like Rosalie, and was not
plagued by unrealized human dreams like Esme. I was certain she would overcome this sad
knowledge.
While technicians were Xraying Bella and plastering her leg into a cast Carlisle
had set it perfectly, securing it to two broom handles
Alice had phoned Charlie to inform
him of Bella’s “terrible fall at the hotel.” As Alice told it, she and Carlisle had accompanied
me to Phoenix so I could plead with Bella to return to Forks. When Bell
a came to meet me
at our hotel, she tumbled down two flights of stairs and fell through a window.
“She’s going to be fine, Chief Swan.”
Alice spoke from the waiting area, while I
listened from outside Radiology.
Alice paused for a moment, listening.
“Thank you, Charlie. Yes, Carlisle was there immediately and got the bleeding
stopped. She has a broken leg and some broken ribs and a cut on her head.”
She paused.
“Carlisle stabilized her before the ambulance got there and Edward rode with her
to the hospita
l. He’s stayed with her every minute since the accident. It wasn’t his fault,
Charlie.”
Alice waited.
“No, she’s going to be absolutely fine. A few stitches under her hairline, some cuts
on her hand and the broken bones. Nothing that won’t completely heal
. No big scars.”
Pause.
“None of us has. They’ve kept her sedated so she won’t move around too much and
to make sure she rests. She lost quite a lot of blood.”
I cringed. I didn’t know how much
she had lost from her head wound, but I suspected she’d lost
more to me.
“Probably two or three days before she’s awake. We won’t leave her alone,
regardless. Also, I will call Renee and tell her.”
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Pause.
“You’re welcome, Charlie. I’m just sorry that this happened.”
She hung up the phone.
“How’d he take it?” I asked
Alice when she found me, though I’d already heard or
extrapolated most of what he’d said.
“Rather well, considering. Now I will call Bella’s mother.”
The second call was much like the first, except that Renee panicked and Alice had
to calm her down. When
Alice rejoined me, she said that Renee was coming to Phoenix as
soon as possible.
“Emmett and Jasper are flying back to Seattle tonight. Carlisle and I will stay until
Renee arrives. Is that okay?”
“Yes, Alice, thank you for everything...and Alice...”
“Yes, E
dward?”
“I’m very sorry about James. Of all the vampire baseball games in all the towns in
all the world...”
“He walked into ours.” She gave me a crooked smile.
“Yes, something like that.”
“At least I know more about myself now. Genealogy
my new hobby.” She
was
trying for upbeat, but I felt the well of loneliness and pain she knew she couldn’t hide from
me. Once again, I was glad she had Jasper
with all of his talents
to console her. I gave
her an encouraging smile.
“I’m going back to the hotel to see Jasper
before he leaves, but I’ll be back tonight
to check in with you.”
“Okay, Alice....and Alice...?”
“Yes, Edward?”
“I love you, Alice.”
“I love you, too, Edward.” She twirled around, blew me a kiss, and was gone.
I followed Bella’s gurney to her room, sat down in
the plastic chair beside her bed,
and listened to her breathe. She was covered in a spaghetti of tubes... tubes for breathing,
tubes for nutrition, tubes for waste, tubes for medication, tubes for blood, and a wire
attached to a clip on her index finger to
monitor her heartbeat. It was devastating to be
reminded so vividly of her human frailty.
I wanted to cry. Instead, I set my chin on Bella’s pillow and breathed along with
her, trying to ignore the disturbing scent of her adulterated blood. Carlisle found
me there,
one thousand, three hundred, and twenty
two inhalations later.
Edward, how are you feeling?
“Honestly, I’ve been better.”
It’s been a hard week for you.
“Truly, the worst of my life...and the best.”
That’s what happens when you love someone in thi
s way, Edward. The highs are
higher, the lows are lower.
“I wouldn’t give back the good to avoid the bad, not for myself. But I would have to
for her sake. I do love her, Carlisle.”
There’s nothing wrong with pursuing what makes you happy,
son
. You have no
reason to blame yourself.
“Thank you Dad,” I responded, though I didn’t agree. “And thank you for saving
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left very abruptly and I thought she was making a ha
sty decision.”
“I take it that you are Bella’s boyfriend? Did you two have a fight?”
“ ‘Yes’ to the first question and ‘no’ to the second. I think I should let her explain
for herself, though.”
Just then, the door opened and Carlisle and Alice walked in.
Isaw that she was here, Edward. We came to help,
Alice conveyed to me.
I nodded slightly.
“Hello,” Carlisle offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Carlisle Cullen and this is my daughter,
Alice. You’ve met Edward, I see. You are Bella’s mother?”
“Yes, call me Renee.
I’m pleased to meet you. And thank you so much for saving
my daughter,” Renee said as the tears started flowing again. “She lost a lot of blood, they
told me. She could have died if you hadn’t been there, right?”
Carlisle smiled. “Shall we step into the ha
llway to talk?” He ushered everyone out.
When he looked at me, I shook my head.
“I’ll stay with Bella.”
I listened as Carlisle related the entire fabricated story to Renee and detailed Bella’s
injuries. I took the chair beside Bella, leaned over the rail,
and began singing softly.
How are you doing, Edward?
Alice asked a short while later, as she reentered the
room.
“I’m okay.”
Are you going to stay here?
“Yes, I won’t leave her.”
All right. We’ll go double
check the ballet studio, then head back to the hotel.
“Did Emmett and Jasper return to Forks?”
Yes, they flew out earlier. Esme called. They haven’t seen anything of the female,
Victoria, since you left.
“We didn’t find any fresh signs of her in Forks. Was Esme saying that they did?”
Rosalie found a tr
ail through the woods toward the airport.
“Toward SeaTac Airport?”
Yes.
“So Victoria watched us leave. She would have known that we were coming to
Phoenix.”
And she told James...
“But he must have been in Phoenix already, because he lured Bella to the studi
o before we arrived, right?”
Yes. We checked the cell phone. He called Bella around five o’clock in the morning
from Renee’s house. We thought it was Renee calling her. I could have sworn I heard
Renee’s voice at the beginning of that phone call.
Alice screwed up her face in puzzlement.
After the phone call, the vision changed to James attacking Bella at the studio. And
that’s when I called you.
There was something about Bella’s running away to meet James that was bothering
me.
“Alice, tell me again wh
at happened at the airport...how Bella got away from you
and Jasper.”
Oh, Edward. We are so, so sorry about that! She wanted something to eat and
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asked Jasper to escort her instead of me because she was so stressed out. Then she made a
detour to the ladies’
room and he waited for her at one exit while she sneaked out a
different exit. Bella had obviously been there before and knew ab
out that back door, but we
didn’
t. I was seeing things change for the worse, but Bella was really good at hiding her
deception,
so we didn‘t realize
it was her decisions that were making things go wrong...
“Bella must have been terrified trying to keep her mother alive and having to trick
you and Jasper to do it.” It was a little frightening to realize that Bella had fooled Alice.
That was something not easily done.
What had she been thinking?
I wondered. Didn’t she
realize that I and my family would have a better chance of saving her mother than she did
all by herself? Probably, she was afraid one of us would get hurt. As if!
Alice
interrupted my thoughts.
I forgot something, Edward. Bella wrote a note to her mother, she said, that I was
supposed to leave at Renee’s house. After she dodged us, though, I opened it and found it
was really a letter for you.
“Alice, you read it?”
Sorry,
Edward. I saw my name. And then I was glad I read it, because it explained
her disappearance. We were frantic!
Alice searched her pockets until she found the crumpled envelope. By the time it was in my hand, I didn’t have to read it. Alice had the image of it in her mind.
Edward,
I love you. I am so sorry. He has my mom, and I have to try. I know it may not work. I am
so very, very sorry.
Don’t be angry with Alice and Jasper. If I get away from them it will be a miracle. Tell
them thank you for me. Alice
especially, please.
And please, please don’t come after him. That’s what he wants, I think. I can’t bear it if
anyone has to be hurt because of me, especially you. Please, this is the only thing I can ask
you now. For me.
I love you. Forgive me.
Bella
It was so poignant. Bella
was self
sacrificing and brave
and deluded, of
course
but there was my answer. It was clearer than ever that I should not expose her to
our world. It was far too dangerous,
especially
for Bella, because she didn’t have even a
nominal
instinct for self
preservation. She put everybody else ahead of herself. How could
I not love her?
“I don’t blame you, Alice, in case you were wondering. My brave Bella. She seems
determined to get herself killed. I don’t know what to do with her.”
You’re
doing all you can do. She’s alive because of you.
“No! She almost died because of me! Twice!”
But she didn’t. And you did
save her human life. You did the impossible, really. I’m
not sure
why
, but you did, so be happy.
“You did too, Alice, coping with al
l that blood. Thank you.”
Of course! I love her, Edward! You know that.
I nodded and smiled.
So...see you later, gator!
When Carlisle and Renee finished talking, Renee reentered Bella’s room.
“Are you going back to the hotel with your family?”
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“No, I’l
l stay here,” I said.
“I’m going to stay with her, so you can go get some rest if you want to.”
“No thank you. I can’t leave her.”
“Well, alrighty then!” she said with false cheer. She was thinking that I was a little
odd and much too intense for a teenager
her mind wasn’t difficult to read. She was right
on both counts, too. I was far too old to be a teenager and I would never be cavalier about
my reason for existing. She’d just have to get used to me.
I picked up a magazine and went to sit in the chair by
the door, giving Renee space
to be closer to Bella. She could stay, but I wasn’t leaving.
At some point
, I knew, she would
fall asleep in the big, turquoise, lounge chair.
Renee and I danced politely around each other for the rest of that day
actually, I was polite and she was wary.
Who is this boy who won’t be separated from my daughter?
What are his intentions? Does she share them? Bella’s been holding out on me!
I was relieved when she fell asleep on Thursday night, though I would have been
happier if s
he had gone home to sleep. I was tired of pretending to take bathroom breaks
and eat food and sleep. I could relax my vigilance when Renee left to call Phil, or run some
errands, or get something to eat. She kept inviting me out for food, but I made excuse
s, as usual, and avoided the uncomfortable social interaction.
Renee was nice enough, but she was far too perceptive for my comfort. I had to stay
sharp and practice my poker face when she made startlingly accurate assessments of me
and my feelings for Be
lla. It wouldn’t surprise me if she eventually figured out that I could
read her mind.
I did enjoy picking images out of her head when she thought about Bella’s
childhood. Judging from Renee’s recollections, Bella had abandoned childhood at a tender
age.
Was that because Renee herself was so childlike and Bella had compensated, or was
Bella just particularly mature? Did her parents’ early divorce have something to do with it?
It was difficult to know.
Alice and Carlisle had said their goodbyes Thursday mor
ning. Carlisle needed to
get back to the hospital in Forks, as this fiasco had kept him away for a week. He planned to
call Charlie when he got home and update him on Bella’s condition, though it hadn’t
changed much. She was still sleeping.
As for me, I w
as staying for the duration. I would not let Bella out of my sight, not
even in the hospital
except when I had to fake some activity for Renee’s benefit. I hadn’t
heard what Carlisle said to her when he left, but she didn’t question my continual presence
anymore.
Renee was in the cafeteria and I was sitting in my usual spot beside Bella, singing
softly to her, when I saw her eyes begin to flutter. After a moment, they opened slowly,
then she squinted them shut against the bright fluorescent lights. Her fing
ers groped at her
face and curled around her breathing tube.
“No, you don’t.” I took her hand in mine, overjoyed to see her eyes. The doctors
had reduced her medication in order to talk to her and check her pain level.
“Edward?” She turned her face toward
mine. The beginning of a smile stretched
across her slack cheeks, then morphed to an expression of guilt and remorse. “Oh, Edward,
I’m so sorry!”
“Shhhh. Everything’s all right now.”
“What happened?” she was dazed and groggy. Her question brought it all ba
ck, the
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fear, the mortification. My voice came out barely a whisper.
“I was almost too late. I could have been too late.”
“I was so stupid, Edward. I thought he had my mom.”
“He tricked us all.” We’d thought he was in Canada when he was on his way to
Ariz
ona.
“I need to call Charlie and my mom,” she said, a little foggy.
“Alice called them. Renee is here
well, here in the hospital. She’s getting
something to eat right now.”
“She’s here?” In her surprise, she tried to sit up. I pressed her shoulder back down
to the pillow.
“She’ll be back soon. And you need to stay still.”
“But what did you tell her?” She was starting to panic. “Why did you tell her I’m
here?”
“You fell down two flights of stairs and through a window.” I smiled to myself.
“You have to admit,
it could happen.”
Bella glanced down at herself to take inventory of the damage.
“How bad am I?” she asked.
“You have a broken leg, four broken ribs, some cracks in your skull, bruises
covering every inch of your skin, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. They gave you a few
transfusions. I didn’t like it
it made you smell all wrong for a while.”
“That must have been a nice change for you.” Huh? What was she
thinking
“No, I like how
you
smell.”
“How did you do it?” Bella
whispered
, uncertainty shading her
words.
“I’m not sure.” I held her fingers gently in mine, but I could not meet her eyes. I
knew it had been touch and go and it could have gone either way. I sighed at the reality of
that.
“It was impossible...to stop,” I whispered. “Impossible. But I did.”
I gave her a crooked smile. “I
must
love you.”
“Don’t I taste as good as I smell?” she teased.
“Even better
better than I imagined.” I groaned inwardly, remembering.
“I’m sorry.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of all the things to apologize for.”
“What
should
I apolog
ize for?”
“For very nearly taking yourself away from me forever.”
“I’m sorry,” she offered again.
“I know why you did it.” I paused. “It was still irrational, of course. You should
have waited for me, you s
hould have told me,” I chided
.
“You wouldn’t have
let me go.”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
She shivered and winced. I was instantly concerned.
“Bella, what’s wrong?”
“What happened to James?”
Of course
S
he needed to know that or how would she feel safe? What was
I thinking?
“After I pulled him off you, Emmett and
Jasper took care of him.” If she hadn’t
been broken and lying in a heap on the floor, I would have done it myself.
“I didn’t see Emmett and Jasper there,” she commented, confused.
“They had to leave the room...there was a lot of blood.”
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“But you stayed.”
“Yes, I stayed.”
“And Alice, and Carlisle...
“They love you too, you know.” They had proved that over and over these past few
days.
Bella’s face looked pained. “Did Alice see the tape?”
“Yes.” A wave of anger and revulsion hit me.
“She was always in the dark
, that’s why she didn’t remember.”
“I know. She understands now.” I involuntarily replayed the tape in my head.
“Ugh,” Bella’s groan brought me back to the present.
“What is it?”
“Needles.” She had noticed one sticking out of her arm and was trying to
avoid
fainting. We’d been through this before.
“Afraid of a needle.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent
on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other
hand...”
“Why are
you
here?” she asked
suddenly.
I was stunned. She didn’t want me here? It took a moment to collect myself.
“Do
you want me to leave?”
“No! No, I meant, why does my mother think you’re here? I need to have my story
straight before she gets back.”
“Oh.” My relief was greater than was warranted, given that I
should
leave.
“I came to Phoenix to talk some sense into you, to convince you to come back to
Forks.” I put on my sincere face, as if to convince her now. “You agreed to see me, and you
drove ou
t to the hotel where I was staying with Carlisle and Alice
of course I was here
with parental supervision
but you tripped on the stairs on the way to my room and...well,
you know the rest. You don’t need to remember any details, though; you have a good
excus
e to be a little muddled about the finer points.”
She absorbed the tale for a moment.
“There are a few flaws with that story. Like no broken windows.”
“Not really. Alice had a little bit too much fun fabricating evidence. It’s all been
taken care of very
convincingly
you could probably sue the hotel if you wanted to. You
have nothing to worry about.” I stroked her pale cheek with my fingertips. “Your only job
now is to heal.”
The heart monitor which had been beeping in the background jumped into high
speed
when my fingers met Bella’s skin. I smiled.
“That’s going to be embarrassing,” Bella said to herself, disgruntled.
I chuckled as a thought occurred to me.
“Hmm, I wonder...”
I bent to kiss her. As my lips approached hers, the beeping became frenetic. I
pa
used there for a moment before leaning in closer and pressing my lips to hers. The
beeping stopped altogether!
Yikes!
I jerked my head away from her and, with great relief,
heard the beeping resume. It was extremely disconcerting.
“It seems that I’m going
to have to be even more careful with you than usual.”
“I was not finished kissing you,” Bella piped up. “Don’t make me come over there"
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that I could if need be.
The nurse entered
the room with a syringe full of fluid.
“Excuse me,” she said to me, a bit rudely.
I moved to the other side of the room out of her way and waited, holding Bella’s
gaze, trying to reassure her.
“Here you go, honey.” The nurse injected the medication into B
ella’s IV drip bag.
“You’ll feel better now.”
“Thanks,” Bella muttered, more to please than because she was pleased. It took
only a moment before her eyes started to close. I stepped to her side and placed my hand on
her cheek.
“Stay,” she breathed to me.
“I will. Like I said, as long as it makes you happy...as long as it’s what’s best for
you.”
“S not the same thing,” she slurred.
I laughed at her. “Don’t worry about that now, Bella. You can argue with me when
you wake up.”
She was fading away, but tried to
smile. “’Kay.”
I moved my lips to her ear. “I love you,” I whispered.
“Me, too,” she answered groggily.
“I know,” I repeated the words she’d said to me after James’ attack. It made me
smile.
She turned her head toward me, leading with her lips.
I indulged
her by pressing
mine against hers lightly.
“Thanks,” she breathed.
“Anytime.”
“Edward?” It was difficult now for her to speak.
“Yes?”
“I’m betting on Alice,” she slurred before dropping off to sleep
The irony almost made me smile

[مورا اسامة]

الخاتمه
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by the van, she would already be gone? My point is that as a human, Bella has to live
according to the rules of human existence, including the certainty that she will die an
d that
her death could occur at any time. You will have to accept that for as long as she remains
human.”
“Yes...I see what you mean, but the other way is completely untenable.”
“Why is that, Edward?”
“Because I don’t want Bella to be damned to our way of li
fe! I can’t be a party to
destroying her soul!”
Carlisle paused for a moment while I pulled myself together.
“You know, son
, I find it hard to believe in an omniscient being that doesn’t care
for you, or Esme, or Alice just as much as any human. I’m not sa
ying that we are the same,
but perhaps we’re part of God’s creation too.”
“I don’t believe it, Carlisle.”
“No, I know you don’t. That puts you in a tremendously difficult position, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, impossible. I want her so much. I’m afraid I’m too selfi
sh to leave her alone.”
Carlisle grew quiet as he pulled the car into the garage and cut the engine.
“I’m here for you, Edward. Whatever I can do.”
“Thanks, Dad.” It solved nothing, but I felt slightly better for having put words to
my misery.
I returned to Bella’s house several hours later after I’d hunted. She was asleep, I
saw when I entered her window. I needed to hold her, though; I needed reassurance. As
gently as possible, I straightened the covers over my beloved and lay atop them, wrapp
ing
my arm around her waist. I didn’t want to wake her with my icy touch.
Bella wriggled against me in her sleep and said, “Edward, stay.”
For now
, I thought. I had no will to leave, especially since I was lying beside her
again, listening to her heartbea
t and smelling her hair. What a cruel joke it was, this
existence of mine.
***
In the weeks that followed, Alice became a fixture at Charlie’s house. She had arrived the
evening after we returned, when Bella called to ask her for physical assistance. Bella
couldn’t take a shower with her leg in the cast and she needed help to bathe. It became
Alice’s routine to show up at Charlie’s house at nine o’clock in the evening to lift Bella in
and out of the bathtub and, every few days, to wash her hair. She retur
ned in the morning to
help Bella dress for school. Bella had argued vehemently that she could dress herself, but
Alice went anyway.
I knew Alice’s secret motive
she was appalled by Bella’s clothing. So, piece by
piece, she began to upgrade Bella’s tiny
and in Alice’s view, unfashionable
wardrobe.
Bella was like a dry leaf in a stiff wind trying to curb Alice’s enthusiasm for dressing her.
Once Bella realized that she could not stop Alice from bringing her new clothes, she
changed tack and tried at least t
o influence the selections.
As Alice had predicted, she and Bella became close friends and her vision of the
two of them together came true. It was now common to see Bella with her arm over Alice’s
shoulders and Alice’s arm wrapped around her waist as Bel
la hobbled down the hallway in
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her dressing gown. Naturally, when Charlie wasn’t watching, Alice simply picked up Bella
and carried her like a doll from room to room.
One side effect of Alice’s routine was that, even though I was not present for the
bathi
ng, I sometimes caught glimpses of Bella in the bath through Alice. I tried to block the
pictures in Alice’s mind, but she liked to tease me by tossing a bathroom memory at me
when I was off guard. Though I protested and chastised her, she just laughed and
feigned
innocence. Heaven knows, I’m no saint, and I wasn’t as disturbed by the images as I
pretended to be. Alice had an ulterior motive for her antics and, to my embarrassment, her
strategy worked
catching fleeting glimpses of my beloved partially cloth
ed further
destroyed my willpower to leave her. I wanted her more than ever.
Charlie had grounded Bella after she returned from Phoenix. She had to be home
half an hour after school, and I was allowed to visit only after Charlie got home from work.
The lat
ter was a compromise Bella exacted from her father, who would have preferred we
not see each other at all.
In addition to our time together at school, I came to Bella’s window every night
after Charlie was asleep. Except for my continuing anguish over how
to do the right thing
for Bella, those nights were blissful. I’d promised her in the hospital that I would stay as
long as it was best for her. Judging by the near
hysterics she had suffered when I suggested
we should separate, it
was
best for Bella if I
set aside talk of the future at least until she was
healed
or so I told myself.
In the meantime, there was prom. I didn’t want Bella to miss any human
experiences because of me. Alice had agreed wholeheartedly that Bella should go to prom
and began to plan
how to get her there. Her idea was to present the evening as a surprise
formal occasion, but not tell Bella what the occasion was. I was certain she would know
immediately when we told her the date of the event, but she didn’t seem to catch on, not
even w
hen Alice reserved most of the day with her for doing her hair, her nails, her
makeup, and whatever else ladies do for such events. Bella had grumbled for several days
beforehand, submitting only reluctantly and with bad humor. It didn’t seem to dampen
Ali
ce’s enthusiasm.
When I arrived to pick up Bella, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. She looked
absolutely exquisite, despite the ugly walking cast on her leg. Alice had pulled Charlie into
the surprise, so with little resistance, he had agreed to allow
Bella out of the house for the
evening. Charlie wanted to see Bella go to prom and, since it was not something she
normally would have agreed to do, he was pleased that Alice had arranged everything.
I was surprised that Bella was so cranky about not bein
g told our destination. I
could hardly believe she hadn’t figured it out, and I couldn’t fathom where else she thought
we’d be going, with her in a French gown and me in a tuxedo.
When my cell phone rang in the car and I saw that it was Charlie on the line
I wasn’t sure whether to answer or not. Had he changed his mind? As far as I knew, I’d never
given Charlie my cellphone number. Bella must have done so as part of the deal with
Charlie that enabled us to go out.
It could be important,
I thought. I didn’
t dare ignore it.
“Hello, Charlie
“Hello. Listen, I’ve got this kid on my doorstep who’s dressed in a suit and
claiming Bella’s going to prom with him.”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed, laughing.
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“Nope. It’s the kid that nearly ran down Bella with his pare
nts’ van,” Charlie said,
sounding disgusted
“Why don’t you let me talk to him?” This conversation was going to make my night
complete!
“Hey, what’s going on?” Tyler queried when Charlie handed him the phone.
“Hello, Tyler, this is Edward Cullen,” I said,
in a pseudo
friendly voice. “I’m sorry
if there’s been some kind of miscommunication, but Bella is unavailable tonight.” It was
right to apologize, given that Tyler had been inconvenienced, but that was as much as good
manners required of me.
I put just a
touch of menace in my voice and continued. “To be perfectly honest,
she’ll be unavailable every night, as far as anyone besides myself is concerned. No offense.
And I’m sorry about your evening.” Okay, so I wasn’t
really
sorry.
The idiot child! How could
he possibly have maintained the illusion for weeks that
Bella had agreed to go out with him? And beyond that, why hadn’t he checked with her
even once before now? Besides, he must have realized it was no coincidence that Bella and
I both had missed over t
wo weeks of school at the same time and that since we’d come
back, we walked side
byside everywhere and ate lunch together every day. I had no
sympathy for him
the jackass deserved what he got.
I laughed heartily as I hung up the phone, but when I looked
at Bella, I was startled
to see her face turning red and tears forming in her eyes. What? Surely she wasn’t upset
over Tyler!
“Was that last part a bit too much? I didn’t mean to offend you.” Maybe it
was
offensive to have announced that Bella couldn’t
date anyone but me. That wasn’t really my
decision to make and it would be far better for her if she dated human boys.
I had it wrong.
“You’re taking me to
the prom
!” Bella wailed.
No!
She wasn’t going to make a big fuss about this when anyone else would
have
figured it out days ago.
“Don’t be difficult, Bella.” Alice had invested too much in this
evening for Bella to disappoint her.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Bella raged.
Gesturing toward my tux, I asked, “Honestly, Bella, what did you think we were
doing?”
Tears ran down her face. I was dumbfounded.
“This is completely ridiculous,” I said. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I’m
mad!
Oh. I guessed I would have to turn on the charm.
“Bella.” I said,
gazing
into her eyes.
“What?” Her tears slowed as she s
tared back.
“Humor me,” I said in my most compelling voice. Bella’s face was softening.
Thank goodness for my secret weapons.
“Fine,” Bella retorted. “I’ll go quietly. But you’ll see. I’m way overdue for more
bad luck. I’ll probably break my other leg. Loo
k at this shoe! It’s a death trap!”
Bella lifted the ruffles to reveal her bare, intact leg and the object of her derision.
Beneath her long skirt, she wore the sexiest high
heeled slipper I’d ever seen, with a
narrow stiletto heel, and tied on with ribbo
ns wrapped around her foot and ankle. Perhaps
we didn’t have to go to prom after all, I thought wickedly, as other, more interesting
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activities came to mind.
“Hmmm,” I said as I admired her leg, which was shown to its best advantage by the
scandalous shoe.
“Remind me to thank Alice for that tonight.”
“Alice is going to be there?” Bella asked, her spirits lifting.
“With Jasper, and Emmett...and Rosalie.” I’d rather not have brought up my other
sister’s name, but she
would
be there. Fair warning.
As I expected,
Bella’s face dropped before she suddenly inquired, “Is Charlie in on this?”
“Of course,” I chuckled, “but apparently Tyler wasn’t.”
This story would keep me in laughs for a good long while. Bella seemed angry at
Tyler, rather than amused by him as I was
. I hoped he would put in an appearance. It would
be extremely pleasant to see Tyler alone tonight while Bella was dancing on my arm. With
self
reproach, I realized that much of my delight over taking Bella to prom was in showing
off my beautiful prize. Be
lla had chosen me! I liked it that everybody would know. Selfish,
again.
When we reached the high school, I opened Bella’s door and extended my hand to
help her from the car. She just sat there like a stubborn child, her arms folded across her
chest as if
I couldn’t make her go. We both knew I could, but I wouldn’t, of course. I sighed
in resignation. She made no sense to me sometimes.
“When someone wants to kill you, you’re brave as a lion
and then when someone
mentions dancing...” I shook my head in disbel
ief. “Bella, I won’t let go of you once, I
promise.”
Her expression softened. She was worried about falling or looking awkward, I
guessed, but I would not let that happen. I bent over to take her around the waist and lift her
from the car and she didn’t r
esist. It seemed she’d changed her mind.
Good
“There, now, it won’t be so bad
I carried Bella’s weight as she shuffled along beside me. Entering the gym,
she seemed to cheer
up when she saw the extensive decorations...balloon arches to walk
through, twi
nkling lights, and colored crepe paper hanging from every surface. They’d
used that stuff to decorate back in my day, I recalled vaguely. It had been around a long
time.
“This looks like a horror movie waiting to happen,” Bella giggled.
“Well, there are
more
than enough vampires present,” I commented, seeing my
siblings whirl about on the otherwise empty dance floor. Everyone had made room for
Alice and Jasper and Rosalie and Emmett as they danced in their extravagant formal attire.
Perhaps no one else c
ould match their skillful maneuvers. No wonder
even Emmett, the
youngest vampire in the family, had had sixty
five years to practice his ballroom dancing.
We were naturally graceful creatures anyway...another of our “weapons.”
“Do you want me to bolt the
doors so you can massacre the unsuspecting
townsfolk?” Bella whispered to me, finding more humor in that scenario than I thought was
warranted.
“And where do you fit into that scheme?” I challenged.
“Oh, I’m with the vampires, of course.”
“Anything to get
out of dancing.” I smirked.
“Anything,” Bella agreed.
I’d thought that we were past the “refusing to participate” stage of the evening. So
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when Bella became an anchor as I walked her toward the dance floor, I was surprised, but
determined.
“I’ve got all ni
ght,” I warned.
“Edward, I
honestly
can’t dance,” Bella whispered, a look of true terror on her face.
I couldn’t understand this kind of fear. It was ridiculous compared to everything else Bella
had braved in the past month or two.
“Don’t worry, silly,” I
said, “I can
I wrapped Bella’s arms around my neck, then lifted her by the waist and set her toes
down on top of my feet. The pop song blaring from the speakers was in three
quarter time,
so I swung Bella around in a waltz step. It was not your usual, t
wenty
first
century, prom
fare, but all of us preferred the elegance of the classic steps to the random wiggling in place
that passed for dancing these days.
“I feel like I’m five years old,” Bella laughed, finally relaxing now that she was
whirling and t
wirling effortlessly.
“You don’t look five,” I assured her, a tinge of lust in my voice.
Bella was wondrously beautiful. She was beautiful without makeup or fancy
clothes, but it was a special treat to see her looking so lavishly feminine. In her timeless
gown, she looked like the sort of girl I might have married before going off to war in
Europe. Given the brutality of that war, it was unlikely I would have lived to see twenty
years old. World War I wiped out most British and European men of my age, as w
ell as vast
numbers of us from the United States. Those who remained were grossly damaged both
inside and out. If I hadn’t contracted the Spanish influenza, I
probably
would have died in
the war. Perhaps I should be more grateful to have survived that deca
de at all, even as I was
now. At least I’d gotten the chance to know my true love.
My reminiscence was derailed when a familiar mind entered
the gym. It was Jacob
Black and he was looking for Bella. His mind was so loud and clear that it would be easy to
mistake his thoughts for words said out loud. Damn this night! All of my irritating, former
rivals for Bella’s affection were popping out of the woodwork. Jacob made me especially
angry, for he didn’t just want Bella, he was here on a mission to separate me
from her.
Though I knew Bella would disregard his missive, the continuing interference of Jacob’s
meddling old father infuriated me.
“Okay, this isn’t half bad,” Bella started to say before noticing the expression on
my face.
“What is it?” she asked. The
n she caught sight of Jacob walking toward us across
the dance floor.
I snarled at the imminent intrusion. I didn’t practically kidnap Bella tonight just to
have Jacob impose himself and his father’s edicts upon us.
“Behave
!” Bella chastised.
“He wants to
chat with you,” I sneered, irritated almost beyond good manners.
“Hey, Bella, I was hoping you would be here,” Jacob called.
The only thing that kept me from being openly rude was Jacob’s obvious
discomfort at being here under such dubious pretenses.
“Hi,
Jacob, what’s up?” Bella asked. I remained silent.
“Can I cut in?” Jacob asked, glancing over at my carefully neutral expression. Bella
was willing to talk to Jacob, so I lifted her off of my feet and stepped aside.
“Thanks,” Jacob said without looking at me.
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I started walking to the edge of the dance floor, but kept an eye on Bella to make
sure she could manage with her crippled leg and the one high heel. I’d promised to hold her
upright tonight. Jacob had better not let her stumble or fall, or I would...!
As I walked away, I heard Bella say, “Well, I hope you’re enjoying yourself... Seen
anything you like?
“Yeah, but she’s taken,” Jacob replied. I snarled under my breath.
“You look really pretty, by the way,” Jacob went on. I wanted to grab him by the
neckt
ie and hurl him across the room. He was pushing it.
Even if I’d tried not to listen to their conversation, which I didn’t, I couldn’t fail to
hear Jacob’s message. His father had bribed him with an expensive part for his car if he
would come to Bella’s
prom and warn her to stop seeing me. I was enraged, but with some
effort, held my position by the wall, outwardly calm. I watched for Bella’s reaction.
She
laughed as if Billy were just a superstitious old native. Then Jacob said something painful.
“He wa
s...kind of over the top when you got hurt down in Phoenix. He didn’t
believe...”
“I fell,” Bella interrupted.
“I know that,” Jacob answered hastily. He was keen not to offend Bella. Too late. I
could see that she was irritated.
“He thinks Edward had somethin
g to do with me getting hurt.” She sounded
disgusted. “Look, Jacob, I know Billy probably won’t believe this, but just so you know,
Edward really did save my life. If it weren’t for Edward and his father, I’d be dead.”
It felt good to have Bella defend me
to her would
be suitor, but I knew she was
being generous. Perhaps I had saved her life, but it wouldn’t have been at risk at all but for me.
“I know,” Jacob replied, seeming slightly more convinced.
Bella tried to soften her criticism of Billy by makin
g excuses for him. She didn’t
realize that Jacob had more to say.
“‘We’ll be watching’,” Jacob quoted his father’s final message to Bella. Of course
they would. I didn’t blame them, really.
Bella just laughed.
“Sorry you had to do this, Jake,” she snickered.
Finally, Jacob was at ease, too. “I don’t mind
that
much,” he said, ogling Bella in
her fancy dress. I hurried across the floor as the song ended, anxious to see Mr. Black
remove his hands from my girl and to send him on his way. He offered her anot
her dance
just as I cut in.
“That’s all right, Jacob. I’ll take it from here,” I said, standing silently and
dangerously just off his left shoulder. I was gratified to see him flinch when I spoke.
“Hey, I didn’t see you there,” he said to cover his discom
fort. “I guess I’ll see you
around, Bella.”
Good. He was leaving. How dare he? I felt especially protective of Bella now. I
wrapped my arms around her waist and held her slightly off the floor. She leaned her head
into my chest and we swayed gently, ignor
ing the music and the other dancers around us.
“Feeling better?” she smirked.
“No
t really
“Don’t be mad at Billy. He just worries about me for Charlie’s sake. It’s nothing
personal.”
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“I’m not mad at Billy, but his son is irritating me,” I said, the ange
r still in my voice.
He had a lot of nerve.
“Why?” Bella asked, surprised.
“First of all, he made me break my promise.” Bella didn’t get it. “Ipromised I
wouldn’t let go of you tonight,” I said, raising one eyebrow.
“Oh. Well, I forgive you.” Of course she did.
“Thanks. But there’s something else.” What really angered me were his wandering
eyes, his blatant desire for her, and his vivid imagination. If he knew I could read his
thoughts, he probably
would
be afraid of me. He should be. But I wasn’t going to
reveal
Jacob’s excessive interest in Bella to her.
“He called you
pretty
. That’s practically an insult, the way you look right now.
You’re much more than beautiful.”
She disregarded my irritation with a laugh. “You might be a little biased.”
She had no i
dea how gorgeous she looked, how desirable. Had she not seen the jaws
dropping around the room as she entered? If only she could hear the thoughts of half the
boys in the room...but I was glad she couldn’t. It might put her off men altogether.
“I don’t think
that’s it. Besides, I have excellent eyesight,” I reminded her. Her
blindness to her own beauty was part of her charm.
“So are you going to explain the reason for all of this?” she inquired.
All of what? Oh, prom, I realized when she looked pointedly at the crepe paper
decorations. Since she didn’t care about being there and since numerous other males
wanted to follow Jacob’s lead and get their hands on her, I decided to find a quiet place to
be alone with my stunning, desirable date. I guided us around the dance floor, her feet on
mine, aiming for the back door of the gym.
When we were outside and out of sight, I lifted my love into my arms and carried
her across the grounds to a bench under
the madrona trees from where we could watch the
tail end of the sunset. We could still see some color in the sky through breaks in the clouds
near the horizon. The moon was already glowing too, casting beautiful white light onto
Bella’s blue silk, which co
ntrasted sharply with her pale skin and dark eyes. She looked
like one of us. Remorse swept through me as I considered my failings: my selfishness, my
lack of will, my inability to let her go, my very existence in her life.
“Twilight, again.” I spoke almo
st to myself. “Another ending. No matter how
perfect the day is, it always has to end.”
And not just the day. The sun that Bella had brought into my never
ending,
midnight existence also would have to set. Transience was part of the beauty of
creation...eve
rything changed, all the time. I was reminded of a passage from the Bible,
Ecclesiastes, 3:18:
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heavens: a time to be born and a time to die...a time to kill, and a time to
heal...a time
to weep, and a time to laugh...a time to embrace, and a time to
refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; ... a time to love,
and a time to hate...a time to keep, and a time to cast away...
This summed up what I knew mattered most in life. That
is why my kind were such
an abomination
we lived forever, always there, but never changing. Or not much,
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Suddenly, the
silly side of Bella’s thought process
occurred to me
“You thought
that would be a black tie occasion, did you?” I smirked, gesturing toward my formal attire.
She was duly embarrassed by her reverse Sleeping Beauty fantas
y and scowled at
me, the imposter prince.
“I don’t know how these things work. To me, at least, it seems more rational than
prom does.” I was still amused by her naiveté. “It’s not funny,” she added, in response to
my grin.
“No, you’re right, it’s not. I’
d rather treat it like a joke, though, than believe you’re
serious.”
“But I am serious,” Bella insisted.
“I know,” I said with a heavy sigh. She couldn’t grasp the pain, the horror, the
finality of such a choice. And she didn’t know how desperately all of
us wished we could
return to being what she was.
“And you’re really that willing?” I asked her, already
knowing her answer. To imagine taking such a beautiful soul. It was appalling. “So ready
for this to be the end,” I mused, saddened. “For this to be th
e twilight of your life, though
your life has barely started. You’re ready to give up everything.”
“It’s not the end, it’s the beginning,” she murmured.
“I’m not worth it,” I told her. I was no Prince Charming and that was the honest
truth.
“Do you remembe
r when you told me that I didn’t see myself very clearly? You
obviously have the same blindness.”
“I know what I am.”
Living death.
Bella sighed heavily, as frustrated as I was.
W
hat
would
she do if I called her bluff
Would she finally feel the fear and a
version that she should feel?
“You’re ready now,
then?” I asked in a lower, more somber tone of voice.
“Um, yes?” Bella said uncertainly.
Exactly!
I leaned toward her, touching my lips to the top of her throat just below the
hinge of her jaw.
“Right now?”
I whispered against her skin. She shivered deliciously, but
icouldn’t be sure whether it was from fear or desire.
“Yes,” she whispered back
She was
serious. She wanted to give up her life for me. It was a heady realization,
but not one I could honor.
You can’t really believe that I would give in so easily,” I said, drawing away.
“A girl can dream.”
“Is that what you dream about? Being a monster?”
“Not exactly,” Bella replied, sadness evident in her voice. “Mostly I dream about
being with you forever.”
My heart touched, I took pity on her then. Though I was a monster, though I was not
worth it, though she would lose everything of value in her life, she would do it just to be
with me. As I would for her, I supposed, if our positions were reversed. I
could
understand
it. I just couldn’t accept it for her. Was there another way?
“Bella,” I said touching my fingertips to her lips. “I
will
stay with you
isn’t that
enough?” I said, knowing that she did not understand what a huge concession this
just
this
would
be, given what I knew to be right.
“Enough for now,” she
muttered
I sighed, exasperated, but resigned to Bella’s stubbornness. She simply couldn’t
Midnight Sun, Part II
435
P.A. Lassiter
Twilight: The Missing Pieces
accept reason. It was as much of a concession as I could give her and she still wanted
more
or less,
actually.
She touched my cheek and looked into my eyes.
“Look, I love you more than
everything else in the world combined. Isn’t that enough?”
“Yes, it is enough,” I said, smiling, a wicked, unthinkable thought in my mind.
What she wanted was what I wanted
too, truly. “Enough for forever.”
I leaned in toward her throat. Her heart pounded
wildly. Her carotid artery
throbbed
beneath her translucent skin
I could hear her blood rushing
rhythmically
through it. Ifmy
teeth barely pierced her skin there, her sweet, hot blood would pump into me with the full
force of her frantic heart. The thought was enticing, seductive. It made my mouth water.
Would I be able to stop?
Then I bent over Bella’s thumping artery and pr
essed my mouth to it. I was amonster, after all


تمت بحمد الله

[ام بوشا]

شـكــ وبارك الله فيك ـــرا لك ... لك مني أجمل تحية .
شـكــ وبارك الله فيك ـــرا لك ... لك مني أجمل تحية .
شـكــ وبارك الله فيك ـــرا لك ... لك مني أجمل تحية .

[aleta]

شـكــ وبارك الله فيك ـــرا لك ... لك مني أجمل تحية .