So I’d been all geared up to be keeping that secret. And then, two days after Rachel got home, Paul ran into her on the beach. Bada bing, bada boom—true love! No secrets necessary when you found your other half, and all that imprinting werewolf garbage.
Rachel got the whole story. And I got Paul as a brother-in-law someday. I knew Billy wasn’t much thrilled about it, either. But he handled it better than I did. ’Course, he did escape to the Clearwaters’ more often than usual these days. I didn’t see where that was so much better. No Paul, but plenty of Leah.
I wondered—would a bullet through my temple actually kill me or just leave a really big mess for me to clean up?
I threw myself down on the bed. I was tired—hadn’t slept since my last patrol—but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. My head was too crazy. The thoughts bounced around inside my skull like a disoriented swarm of bees. Noisy. Now and then they stung. Must be hornets, not bees. Bees died after one sting. And the same thoughts were stinging me again and again.
This waiting was driving me insane. It had been almost four weeks. I’d expected, one way or another, the news would have come by now. I’d sat up nights imagining what form it would take.
Charlie sobbing on the phone—Bella and her husband lost in an accident. A plane crash? That would be hard to fake. Unless the leeches didn’t mind killing a bunch of bystanders to authenticate it, and why would they? Maybe a small plane instead. They probably had one of those to spare.
Or would the murderer come home alone, unsuccessful in his attempt to make her one of them? Or not even getting that far. Maybe he’d smashed her like a bag of chips in his drive to get some? Because her life was less important to him than his own pleasure…
The story would be so tragic—Bella lost in a horrible accident. Victim of a mugging gone wrong. Choking to death at dinner. A car accident, like my mom. So common. Happened all the time.
Would he bring her home? Bury her here for Charlie? Closed-casket ceremony, of course. My mom’s coffin had been nailed shut.…
I could only hope that he’d come back here, within my reach.
Maybe there would be no story at all. Maybe Charlie would call to ask my dad if he’d heard anything from Dr. Cullen, who just didn’t show up to work one day. The house abandoned. No answer on any of the Cullens’ phones. The mystery picked up by some second-rate news program, foul play suspected…
Maybe the big white house would burn to the ground, everyone trapped inside. Of course, they’d need bodies for that one. Eight humans of roughly the right size. Burned beyond recognition—beyond the help of dental records.
Either of those would be tricky—for me, that is. It would be hard to find them if they didn’t want to be found. Of course, I had forever to look. If you had forever, you could check out every single piece of straw in the haystack, one by one, to see if it was the needle.
Right now, I wouldn’t mind dismantling a haystack. At least that would be something to
do.
I hated knowing that I could be losing my chance. Giving the bloodsuckers the time to escape, if that was their plan.
We could go tonight. We could kill every one of them that we could find.
I liked that plan because I knew Edward well enough to know that, if I killed any one of his coven, I would get my chance at him, too. He’d come for revenge. And I’d give it to him—I wouldn’t let my brothers take him down as a pack. It would be just him and me. May the better man win.
But Sam wouldn’t hear of it.
We’re not going to break the treaty. Let them make the breach.
Just because we had no proof that the Cullens had done anything wrong. Yet. You had to add the yet, because we all knew it was inevitable. Bella was either coming back one of them, or not coming back. Either way, a human life had been lost. And that meant game on.
In the other room, Paul brayed like a mule. Maybe he’d switched to a comedy. Maybe the commercial was funny. Whatever. It grated on my nerves.
I thought about breaking his nose again. But it wasn’t Paul I wanted to fight with. Not really.
I tried to listen to other sounds, the wind in the trees. It wasn’t the same, not through human ears. There were a million voices in the wind that I couldn’t hear in this body.
But these ears were sensitive enough. I could hear past the trees, to the road, the sounds of the cars coming around that last bend where you could finally see the beach—the vista of the islands and the rocks and the big blue ocean stretching to the horizon. The La Push cops liked to hang out right around there. Tourists never noticed the reduced speed limit sign on the other side of the road.
I could hear the voices outside the souvenir shop on the beach. I could hear the cowbell clanging as the door opened and closed. I could hear Embry’s mom at the cash register, printing out a receipt.
I could hear the tide raking across the beach rocks. I could hear the kids squeal as the icy water rushed in too fast for them to get out of the way. I could hear the moms complain about the wet clothes. And I could hear a familiar voice.…
I was listening so hard that the sudden burst of Paul’s donkey laugh made me jump half off the bed.
“Get out of my house,” I grumbled. Knowing he wouldn’t pay any attention, I followed my own advice. I wrenched open my window and climbed out the back way so that I wouldn’t see Paul again. It would be too tempting. I knew I would hit him again, and Rachel was going to be pissed enough already. She’d see the blood on his shirt, and she’d blame me right away without waiting for proof. Of course, she’d be right, but still.
I paced down to the shore, my fists in my pockets. Nobody looked at me twice when I went through the dirt lot by First Beach. That was one nice thing about summer—no one cared if you wore nothing but shorts.
I followed the familiar voice I’d heard and found Quil easy enough. He was on the south end of the crescent, avoiding the bigger part of the tourist crowd. He kept up a constant stream of warnings.
“Keep out of the water, Claire. C’mon. No, don’t. Oh!
Nice
, kid. Seriously, do you want Emily to yell at me? I’m not bringing you back to the beach again if you don’t—Oh yeah? Don’t—ugh. You think that’s funny, do you? Hah! Who’s laughing now, huh?”
He had the giggling toddler by the ankle when I reached them. She had a bucket in one hand, and her jeans were drenched. He had a huge wet mark down the front of his tshirt.
“Five bucks on the baby girl,” I said.
“Hey, Jake.”
Claire squealed and threw her bucket at Quil’s knees. “Down, down!”
He set her carefully on her feet and she ran to me. She wrapped her arms around my leg.
“Unca Jay!”
“How’s it going, Claire?”
She giggled. “Qwil
aaaaawl
wet now.”
“I can see that. Where’s your mama?”
“Gone, gone, gone,” Claire sang, “Cwaire pway wid Qwil
aaaawl
day. Cwaire nebber gowin home.” She let go of me and ran to Quil. He scooped her up and slung her onto his shoulders.
“Sounds like somebody’s hit the terrible twos.”
“Threes actually,” Quil corrected. “You missed the party. Princess theme. She made me wear a crown, and then Emily suggested they all try out her new play makeup on me.”
“Wow, I’m
really
sorry I wasn’t around to see that.”
“Don’t worry, Emily has pictures. Actually, I look pretty hot.”
“You’re such a patsy.”
Quil shrugged. “Claire had a great time. That was the point.”
I rolled my eyes. It was hard being around imprinted people. No matter what stage they were in—about to tie the knot like Sam or just a much-abused nanny like Quil—the peace and certainty they always radiated was downright puke-inducing.
Claire squealed on his shoulders and pointed at the ground. “Pity wock, Qwil! For me, for me!”
“Which one, kiddo? The red one?” “No wed!”
Quil dropped to his knees—Claire screamed and pulled his hair like a horse’s reigns.
“This blue one?”
“No, no, no…,” the little girl sang, thrilled with her new game.
The weird part was, Quil was having just as much fun as she was. He didn’t have that face on that so many of the tourist dads and moms were wearing—the when-is-naptime? face. You never saw a real parent so jazzed to play whatever stupid kiddie sport their rugrat could think up. I’d seen Quil play peekaboo for an hour straight without getting bored.
And I couldn’t even make fun of him for it—I envied him too much.
Though I did think it sucked that he had a good fourteen years of monkitude ahead of him until Claire was his age—for Quil, at least, it was a good thing werewolves didn’t get older. But even all that time didn’t seem to bother him much.
“Quil, you ever think about dating?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“No, no yewwo!” Claire crowed.
“You know. A real girl. I mean, just for now, right? On your nights off babysitting duty.”
Quil stared at me, his mouth hanging open.
“Pity wock! Pity wock!” Claire screamed when he didn’t offer her another choice. She smacked him on the head with her little fist.
“Sorry, Claire-bear. How about this pretty purple one?”
“No,” she giggled. “No poopoh.”
“Give me a clue. I’m begging, kid.”
Claire thought it over. “Gween,” she finally said.
Quil stared at the rocks, studying them. He picked four rocks in different shades of green, and offered them to her.
“Did I get it?”
“Yay!”
“Which one?” “
Aaaaawl
ob dem!!”
She cupped her hands and he poured the small rocks into them. She laughed and immediately clunked him on the head with them. He winced theatrically and then got to his feet and started walking back up toward the parking lot. Probably worried about her getting cold in her wet clothes. He was worse than any paranoid, overprotective mother.
“Sorry if I was being pushy before, man, about the girl thing,” I said.
“Naw, that’s cool,” Quil said. “It kind of took me by surprise is all. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“I bet she’d understand. You know, when she’s grown up. She wouldn’t get mad that you had a life while she was in diapers.”
“No, I know. I’m sure she’d understand that.”
He didn’t say anything else.
“But you won’t do that, will you?” I guessed.
“I can’t see it,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t imagine. I just don’t… see anyone that way. I don’t notice girls anymore, you know. I don’t see their faces.”
“Put that together with the tiara and makeup, and maybe Claire will have a different kind of competition to worry about.”
Quil laughed and made kissing noises at me. “You available this Friday, Jacob?”
“You wish,” I said, and then I made a face. “Yeah, guess I am, though.”
He hesitated a second and then said, “You ever think about dating?”
I sighed. Guess I’d opened myself up for that one.
“You know, Jake, maybe you should think about getting a life.”
He didn’t say it like a joke. His voice was sympathetic. That made it worse.
“I don’t see them, either, Quil. I don’t see their faces.”
Quil sighed, too.
Far away, too low for anyone but just us two to hear it over the waves, a howl rose out of the forest.
“Dang, that’s Sam,” Quil said. His hands flew up to touch Claire, as if making sure she was still there. “I don’t know where her mom’s at!”
“I’ll see what it is. If we need you, I’ll let you know.” I raced through the words. They came out all slurred together. “Hey, why don’t you take her up to the Clearwaters’? Sue and Billy can keep an eye on her if they need to. They might know what’s going on, anyway.”
“Okay—get outta here, Jake!”
I took off running, not for the dirt path through the weedy hedge, but in the shortest line toward the forest. I hurdled the first line of driftwood and then ripped my way through the briars, still running. I felt the little tears as the thorns cut into my skin, but I ignored them. Their sting would be healed before I made the trees.
I cut behind the store and darted across the highway. Somebody honked at me. Once in the safety of the trees, I ran faster, taking longer strides. People would stare if I was out in the open. Normal people couldn’t run like this. Sometimes I thought it might be fun to enter a race—you know, like the Olympic trials or something. It would be cool to watch the expressions on those star athletes’ faces when I blew by them. Only I was pretty sure the testing they did to make sure you weren’t on steroids would probably turn up some really freaky crap in my blood.
As soon as I was in the true forest, unbound by roads or houses, I skidded to a stop and kicked my shorts off. With quick, practiced moves, I rolled them up and tied them to the leather cord around my ankle. As I was still pulling the ends tight, I started shifting. The fire trembled down my spine, throwing tight spasms out along my arms and legs. It only took a second. The heat flooded through me, and I felt the silent shimmer that made me something else. I threw my heavy paws against the matted earth and stretched my back in one long, rolling extension.
Phasing was very easy when I was centered like this. I didn’t have issues with my temper anymore. Except when it got in the way.
For one half second, I remembered the awful moment at that unspeakable joke of a wedding. I’d been so insane with fury that I couldn’t make my body work right. I’d been trapped, shaking and burning, unable to make the change and kill the monster just a few feet away from me. It had been so confusing. Dying to kill him. Afraid to hurt her. My friends in the way. And then, when I was finally able to take the form I wanted, the order from my leader. The edict from the Alpha. If it had been just Embry and Quil there that night without Sam… would I have been able to kill the murderer, then?
I hated it when Sam laid down the law like that. I hated the feeling of having no choice. Of having to obey.
And then I was conscious of an audience. I was not alone in my thoughts.
So self-absorbed all the time,
Leah thought.
Yeah, no hypocrisy there, Leah,
I thought back.
Can it, guys,
Sam told us. We fell silent, and I felt Leah’s wince at the word
guys
. Touchy, like always.
Sam pretended not to notice.
Where’s Quil and Jared?
Quil’s got Claire. He’s taking her to the Clearwaters’.
Good. Sue will take her.
Jared was going to Kim’s,
Embry thought.
Good chance he didn’t hear you.