It took a minute for the words to sink in. Jeez, she was running true to form. Of course, die for the monster spawn. It was so
Bella
.
“You know her well,” he whispered. “How quickly you see.… I didn’t see. Not in time. She wouldn’t talk to me on the way home, not really. I thought she was frightened—that would be natural. I thought she was angry with me for putting her through this, for endangering her life. Again. I never imagined what she was really thinking, what she was
resolving
. Not until my family met us at the airport and she ran right into Rosalie’s arms. Rosalie’s! And then I heard what Rosalie was thinking. I didn’t understand until I heard that. Yet
you
understand after one second. . . .” He half-sighed, half-groaned.
“Just back up a second. She won’t
let
you.” The sarcasm was acid on my tongue. “Did you ever notice that she’s exactly as strong as a normal hundred-and-ten-pound human girl? How stupid are you vamps? Hold her down and knock her out with drugs.”
“I wanted to,” he whispered. “Carlisle would have. . . .”
What, too noble were they?
“No. Not noble. Her bodyguard complicated things.”
Oh. His story hadn’t made much sense before, but it fit together now. So that’s what Blondie was up to. What was in it for her, though? Did the beauty queen want Bella to die so bad?
“Maybe,” he said. “Rosalie doesn’t look at it quite that way.”
“So take the blonde out first. Your kind can be put back together, right? Turn her into a jigsaw and take care of Bella.”
“Emmett and Esme are backing her up. Emmett would never let us… and Carlisle won’t help me with Esme against it. . . .” He trailed off, his voice disappearing.
“You should have left Bella with me.”
“Yes.”
It was a bit late for that, though. Maybe he should have thought about all this
before
he knocked her up with the life-sucking monster.
He stared up at me from inside his own personal hell, and I could see that he agreed with me.
“We didn’t know,” he said, the words as quiet as a breath. “I never dreamed. There’s never been anything like Bella and I before. How could we know that a human was able conceive a child with one of us—”
“When the human should get ripped to shreds in the process?”
“Yes,” he agreed in a tense whisper. “They’re out there, the sadistic ones, the incubus, the succubus. They exist. But the seduction is merely a prelude to the feast. No one
survives
.” He shook his head like the idea revolted him. Like he was any different. “I didn’t realize they had a special name for what you are,” I spit.
He stared up at me with a face that looked a thousand years old.
“Even you, Jacob Black, cannot hate me as much as I hate myself.”
Wrong
, I thought, too enraged to speak.
“Killing me now doesn’t save her,” he said quietly.
“So what does?”
“Jacob, you have to do something for me.”
“The
hell
I do, parasite!”
He kept staring at me with those half-tired, half-crazy eyes. “For her?”
I clenched my teeth together hard. “I did everything I could to keep her away from you. Every single thing. It’s too late.”
“You know her, Jacob. You connect to her on a level that I don’t even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you. She won’t listen to me, because she thinks I’m underestimating her. She thinks she’s strong enough for this. . . .” He choked and then swallowed. “She might listen to you.”
“Why would she?”
He lurched to his feet, his eyes burning brighter than before, wilder. I wondered if he was really going crazy. Could vampires lose their minds?
“Maybe,” he answered my thought. “I don’t know. It feels like it.” He shook his head. “I have to try to hide this in front of her, because stress makes her more ill. She can’t keep anything down as it is. I have to be composed; I can’t make it harder. But that doesn’t matter now. She has to listen to you!”
“I can’t tell her anything you haven’t. What do you want me to do? Tell her she’s stupid? She probably already knows that. Tell her she’s going to die? I bet she knows that, too.”
“You can offer her what she wants.”
He wasn’t making any sense. Part of the crazy?
“I don’t care about anything but keeping her alive,” he said, suddenly focused now. “If it’s a child she wants, she can have it. She can have half a dozen babies. Anything she wants.” He paused for one beat. “She can have puppies, if that’s what it takes.” He met my stare for a moment and his face was frenzied under the thin layer of control. My hard scowl crumbled as I processed his words, and I felt my mouth pop open in shock.
“But not this way!” he hissed before I could recover. “Not this
thing
that’s sucking the life from her while I stand there helpless! Watching her sicken and waste away. Seeing it
hurting
her.” He sucked in a fast breath like someone had punched him in the gut. “You
have
to make her see reason, Jacob. She won’t listen to me anymore. Rosalie’s always there, feeding her insanity—encouraging her. Protecting her. No, protecting
it
. Bella’s life means nothing to her.”
The noise coming from my throat sounded like I was choking.
What was he saying? That Bella should, what? Have a baby? With
me
? What? How? Was he giving her up? Or did he think she wouldn’t mind being shared?
“Whichever. Whatever keeps her alive.”
“That’s the craziest thing you’ve said yet,” I mumbled.
“She loves you.”
“Not enough.”
“She’s ready to die to have a child. Maybe she’d accept something less extreme.”
“Don’t you know her at all?”
“I know, I know. It’s going to take a lot of convincing. That’s why I need you. You know how she thinks. Make her see sense.”
I couldn’t think about what he was suggesting. It was too much. Impossible. Wrong. Sick. Borrowing Bella for the weekends and then returning her Monday morning like a rental movie? So messed up.
So tempting.
I didn’t want to consider, didn’t want to imagine, but the images came anyway. I’d fantasized about Bella that way too many times, back when there was still a possibility of
us
, and then long after it was clear that the fantasies would only leave festering sores because there was no possibility, none at all. I hadn’t been able to help myself then. I couldn’t stop myself now. Bella in
my
arms, Bella sighing
my
name…
Worse still, this new image I’d never had before, one that by all rights shouldn’t have existed for me. Not yet. An image I knew I wouldn’t’ve suffered over for
years
if he hadn’t shoved it in my head now. But it stuck there, winding threads through my brain like a weed—poisonous and unkillable. Bella, healthy and glowing, so different than now, but something the same: her body, not distorted, changed in a more natural way. Round with
my
child.
I tried to escape the venomous weed in my mind. “Make
Bella
see sense? What universe do you live in?”
“At least try.”
I shook my head fast. He waited, ignoring the negative answer because he could hear the conflict in my thoughts.
“Where is this psycho crap coming from? Are you making this up as you go?”
“I’ve been thinking of nothing but ways to save her since I realized what she was planning to do. What she would die to do. But I didn’t know how to contact you. I knew you wouldn’t listen if I called. I would have come to find you soon, if you hadn’t come today. But it’s hard to leave her, even for a few minutes. Her condition… it changes so fast. The thing is… growing. Swiftly. I can’t be away from her now.”
“What
is
it?”
“None of us have any idea. But it is stronger than she is. Already.”
I could suddenly see it then—see the swelling monster in my head, breaking her from the inside out.
“Help me stop it,” he whispered. “Help me stop this from happening.”
“
How?
By offering my stud services?” He didn’t even flinch when I said that, but I did. “You’re really sick. She’ll never listen to this.”
“Try. There’s nothing to lose now. How will it hurt?”
It would hurt me. Hadn’t I taken enough rejection from Bella without this?
“A little pain to save her? Is it such a high cost?”
“But it won’t work.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it will confuse her, though. Maybe she’ll falter in her resolve. One moment of doubt is all I need.”
“And then you pull the rug out from under the offer? ‘Just kidding, Bella’?”
“If she wants a child, that’s what she gets. I won’t rescind.”
I couldn’t believe I was even thinking about this. Bella would punch me—not that I cared about that, but it would probably break her hand again. I shouldn’t let him talk to me, mess with my head. I should just kill him now.
“Not now,” he whispered. “Not yet. Right or wrong, it would destroy her, and you know it. No need to be hasty. If she won’t listen to you, you’ll get your chance. The moment Bella’s heart stops beating, I will be begging for you to kill me.”
“You won’t have to beg long.”
The hint of a worn smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I’m very much counting on that.”
“Then we have a deal.”
He nodded and held out his cold stone hand.
Swallowing my disgust, I reached out to take his hand. My fingers closed around the rock, and I shook it once.
“We have a deal,” he agreed.
10. WHY DIDN’T I JUST WALK AWAY? OH RIGHT, BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT.
I felt like—like I don’t know what. Like this wasn’t real. Like I was in some Goth version of a bad sitcom. Instead of being the A/V dweeb about to ask the head cheerleader to the prom, I was the finished-second-place werewolf about to ask the vampire’s wife to shack up and procreate. Nice.
No, I wouldn’t do it. It was twisted and wrong. I was going to forget all about what he’d said.
But I would talk to her. I’d try to make her listen to me.
And she wouldn’t. Just like always.
Edward didn’t answer or comment on my thoughts as he led the way back to the house. I wondered about the place that he’d chosen to stop. Was it far enough from the house that the others couldn’t hear his whispers? Was that the point?
Maybe. When we walked through the door, the other Cullens’ eyes were suspicious and confused. No one looked disgusted or outraged. So they must not have heard either favor Edward had asked me for.
I hesitated in the open doorway, not sure what to do now. It was better right there, with a little bit of breathable air blowing in from outside.
Edward walked into the middle of the huddle, shoulders stiff. Bella watched him anxiously, and then her eyes flickered to me for a second. Then she was watching him again.
Her face turned a grayish pale, and I could see what he meant about the stress making her feel worse.
“We’re going to let Jacob and Bella speak privately,” Edward said. There was no inflection at all in his voice. Robotic.
“Over my pile of ashes,” Rosalie hissed at him. She was still hovering by Bella’s head, one of her cold hands placed possessively on Bella’s sallow cheek.
Edward didn’t look at her. “Bella,” he said in that same empty tone. “Jacob wants to talk to you. Are you afraid to be alone with him?”
Bella looked at me, confused. Then she looked at Rosalie.
“Rose, it’s fine. Jake’s not going to hurt us. Go with Edward.”
“It might be a trick,” the blonde warned.
“I don’t see how,” Bella said.
“Carlisle and I will always be in your sight, Rosalie,” Edward said. The emotionless voice was cracking, showing the anger through it. “We’re the ones she’s afraid of.”
“No,” Bella whispered. Her eyes were glistening, her lashes wet. “No, Edward. I’m not. . . .”
He shook his head, smiling a little. The smile was painful to look at. “I didn’t mean it that way, Bella. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Sickening. He was right—she was beating herself up about hurting his feelings. The girl was a classic martyr. She’d totally been born in the wrong century. She should have lived back when she could have gotten herself fed to some lions for a good cause.
“Everyone,” Edward said, his hand stiffly motioning toward the door. “Please.”
The composure he was trying to keep up for Bella was shaky. I could see how close he was to that burning man he’d been outside. The others saw it, too. Silently, they moved out the door while I shifted out of the way. They moved fast; my heart beat twice, and the room was cleared except for Rosalie, hesitating in the middle of the floor, and Edward, still waiting by the door.
“Rose,” Bella said quietly. “I want you to go.”
The blonde glared at Edward and then gestured for him to go first. He disappeared out the door. She gave me a long warning glower, and then she disappeared, too.
Once we were alone, I crossed the room and sat on the floor next to Bella. I took both her cold hands in mine, rubbing them carefully.
“Thanks, Jake. That feels good.”
“I’m not going to lie, Bells. You’re hideous.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I’m scary-looking.”
“Thing-from-the-swamp scary,” I agreed. She laughed. “It’s so good having you here. It feels nice to smile. I don’t know how much more drama I can stand.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, okay,” she agreed. “I bring it on myself.”
“Yeah, you do. What’re you thinking, Bells? Seriously!”
“Did he ask you to yell at me?”
“Sort of. Though I can’t figure why he thinks you’d listen to me. You never have before.”
She sighed.
“I told you—,” I started to say.
“Did you know that
‘I told you so’
has a brother, Jacob?” she asked, cutting me off. “His name is ‘
Shut the hell up.
’”
“Good one.”
She grinned at me. Her skin stretched tight over the bones. “I can’t take credit—I got it off a rerun of
The Simpsons.
”
“Missed that one.”
“It was funny.”
We didn’t talk for a minute. Her hands were starting to warm up a little.
“Did he really ask you to talk to me?”
I nodded. “To talk some sense into you.
There’s
a battle that’s lost before it starts.”
“So why did you agree?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I knew.
I did know this—every second I spent with her was only going to add to the pain I would have to suffer later. Like a junkie with a limited supply, the day of reckoning was coming for me. The more hits I took now, the harder it would be when my supply ran out.