I glared at him with real irritation. Jasper shuffled uneasily next to me. We were all crowded so close that every tiny movement seemed very big.
“What is your
problem
, Jacob?” I demanded. I tugged lightly against his hold on Renesmee, and he just stepped closer to me. He was pressed right up to me, Renesmee touching both of our chests.
Edward hissed at him. “Just because I understand, it doesn’t mean I won’t throw you out, Jacob. Bella’s doing extraordinarily well. Don’t ruin the moment for her.”
“I’ll help him toss you, dog,” Rosalie promised, her voice seething. “I owe you a good kick in the gut.” Obviously, there was no change in
that
relationship, unless it had gotten worse.
I glared at Jacob’s anxious half-angry expression. His eyes were locked on Renesmee’s face. With everyone pressed together, he had to be touching at least six different vampires at the moment, and it didn’t even seem to bug him.
Would he really go through all this just to protect me from myself? What could have happened during my transformation—my alteration into something he hated—that would soften him so much toward the reason for its necessity?
I puzzled over it, watching him stare at my daughter. Staring at her like… like he was a blind man seeing the sun for the very first time.
“No!”
I gasped.
Jasper’s teeth came together and Edward’s arms wrapped around my chest like constricting boas. Jacob had Renesmee out of my arms in the same second, and I did not try to hold on to her. Because I felt it coming—the snap that they’d all been waiting for.
“Rose,” I said through my teeth, very slowly and precisely. “Take Renesmee.”
Rosalie held her hands out, and Jacob handed my daughter to her at once. Both of them backed away from me.
“Edward, I don’t want to hurt you, so please let go of me.”
He hesitated.
“Go stand in front of Renesmee,” I suggested.
He deliberated, and then let me go.
I leaned into my hunting crouch and took two slow steps forward toward Jacob.
“You didn’t,” I snarled at him.
He backed away, palms up, trying to reason with me. “You know it’s not something I can control.”
“You
stupid mutt
! How
could
you?
My baby!
”
He backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down the stairs. “It wasn’t my idea, Bella!”
“I’ve held her all of
one
time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She’s
mine
.”
“I can share,” he said pleadingly as he retreated across the lawn.
“Pay up,” I heard Emmett say behind me. A small part of my brain wondered who had bet against this outcome. I didn’t waste much attention on it. I was too furious.
“How dare you
imprint
on
my
baby? Have you lost your mind?”
“It was involuntary!” he insisted, backing into the trees.
Then he wasn’t alone. The two huge wolves reappeared, flanking him on either side. Leah snapped at me.
A fearsome snarl ripped through my teeth back at her. The sound disturbed me, but not enough to stop my advance.
“Bella, would you try to listen for just a second? Please?” Jacob begged. “Leah, back off,” he added.
Leah curled her lip at me and didn’t move.
“Why should I listen?” I hissed. Fury reigned in my head. It clouded everything else out.
“Because you’re the one who told me this. Do you remember? You said we belonged in each other’s lives, right? That we were family. You said that was how you and I were supposed to be. So… now we are. It’s what you wanted.”
I glared ferociously. I did dimly remember those words. But my new quick brain was two steps ahead of his nonsense.
“You think you’ll be part of my family as my
son-in-law
!” I screeched. My bell voice ripped through two octaves and still came out sounding like music.
Emmett laughed.
“Stop her, Edward,” Esme murmured. “She’ll be unhappy if she hurts him.”
But I felt no pursuit behind me.
“No!” Jacob was insisting at the same time. “How can you even look at it that way? She’s just a baby, for crying out loud!”
“That’s my
point
!” I yelled. “You know I don’t think of her that way! Do you think Edward would have let me live this long if I did? All I want is for her to be safe and happy—is that so bad? So different from what you want?” He was shouting right back at me.
Beyond words, I shrieked a growl at him.
“Amazing, isn’t she?” I heard Edward murmur.
“She hasn’t gone for his throat even once,” Carlisle agreed, sounding stunned.
“Fine, you win this one,” Emmett said grudgingly.
“You’re going to stay away from her,” I hissed up at Jacob.
“I can’t do that!”
Through my teeth: “
Try
. Starting
now
.”
“It’s not possible. Do you remember how much you wanted me around three days ago? How hard it was to be apart from each other? That’s gone for you now, isn’t it?”
I glared, not sure what he was implying.
“That was her,” he told me. “From the very beginning. We had to be together, even then.”
I remembered, and then I understood; a tiny part of me was relieved to have the madness explained. But that relief somehow only made me angrier. Was he expecting that to be enough for me? That one little clarification would make me okay with this?
“Run away while you still can,” I threatened.
“C’mon, Bells! Nessie likes me, too,” he insisted.
I froze. My breathing stopped. Behind me, I heard the lack of sound that was their anxious reaction.
“
What
… did you call her?”
Jacob took a step farther back, managing to look sheepish. “Well,” he mumbled, “that name you came up with is kind of a mouthful and—”
“You nicknamed my daughter after the
Loch Ness Monster
?” I screeched. And then I lunged for his throat.
23. MEMORIES
“I’m so sorry, Seth. I should have been closer.” Edward was
still
apologizing, and I didn’t think that was either fair or appropriate. After all,
Edward
hadn’t completely and inexcusably lost control of his temper.
Edward
hadn’t tried to rip Jacob’s head off—Jacob, who wouldn’t even phase to protect himself —and then accidentally broken Seth’s shoulder and collarbone when he jumped in between.
Edward
hadn’t almost killed his best friend.
Not that the best friend didn’t have a few things to answer for, but, obviously, nothing Jacob had done could have mitigated my behavior.
So shouldn’t
I
have been the one apologizing? I tried again.
“Seth, I—”
“Don’t worry about it, Bella, I’m totally fine,” Seth said at the same time that Edward said, “Bella, love, no one is judging you. You’re doing so well.”
They hadn’t let me finish a sentence yet.
It only made it worse that Edward was having a difficult time keeping the smile off his face. I knew that Jacob didn’t deserve my overreaction, but Edward seemed to find something satisfying in it. Maybe he was just wishing that he had the excuse of being a newborn so that he could do something physical about his irritation with Jacob, too.
I tried to erase the anger from my system entirely, but it was hard, knowing that Jacob was outside with Renesmee right now. Keeping her safe from me, the crazed newborn.
Carlisle secured another piece of the brace to Seth’s arm, and Seth winced.
“Sorry, sorry!” I mumbled, knowing I’d never get a fully articulated apology out.
“Don’t freak, Bella,” Seth said, patting my knee with his good hand while Edward rubbed my arm from the other side.
Seth seemed to feel no aversion to having me sit beside him on the sofa as Carlisle treated him. “I’ll be back to normal in half an hour,” he continued, still patting my knee as if oblivious to the cold, hard texture of it. “Anyone would have done the same, what with Jake and Ness—” He broke off mid-word and changed the subject quickly. “I mean, at least you didn’t bite me or anything. That would’ve sucked.”
I buried my face in my hands and shuddered at the thought, at the very real possibility. It could have happened so easily. And werewolves didn’t react to vampire venom the same way humans did, they’d told me only now. It was poison to them.
“I’m a bad person.”
“Of course you aren’t. I should have—,” Edward started.
“Stop that,” I sighed. I didn’t want him taking the blame for this the way he always took everything on himself.
“Lucky thing Ness—Renesmee’s not venomous,” Seth said after a second of awkward silence. “’Cause she bites Jake all the time.”
My hands dropped. “She does?”
“Sure. Whenever he and Rose don’t get dinner in her mouth fast enough. Rose thinks it’s pretty hilarious.”
I stared at him, shocked, and also feeling guilty, because I had to admit that this pleased me a teensy bit in a petulant way.
Of course, I already knew that Renesmee wasn’t venomous. I was the first person she’d bitten. I didn’t make this observation aloud, as I was feigning memory loss on those recent events.
“Well, Seth,” Carlisle said, straightening up and stepping away from us. “I think that’s as much as I can do. Try to not move for, oh, a few hours, I guess.” Carlisle chuckled. “I wish treating humans were this instantaneously gratifying.” He rested his hand for a moment on Seth’s black hair. “Stay still,” he ordered, and then he disappeared upstairs. I heard his office door close, and I wondered if they’d already removed the evidence of my time there.
“I can probably manage sitting still for a while,” Seth agreed after Carlisle was already gone, and then he yawned hugely. Carefully, making sure not to tweak his shoulder, Seth leaned his head against the sofa’s back and closed his eyes. Seconds later, his mouth fell slack.
I frowned at his peaceful face for another minute. Like Jacob, Seth seemed to have the gift of falling asleep at will. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to apologize again for a while, I got up; the motion didn’t jostle the couch in the slightest. Everything physical was so easy. But the rest…
Edward followed me to the back windows and took my hand.
Leah was pacing along the river, stopping every now and then to look at the house. It was easy to tell when she was looking for her brother and when she was looking for me. She alternated between anxious glances and murderous glares.
I could hear Jacob and Rosalie outside on the front steps bickering quietly over whose turn it was to feed Renesmee. Their relationship was as antagonistic as ever; the only thing they agreed on now was that I should be kept away from my baby until I was one hundred percent recovered from my temper tantrum. Edward had disputed their verdict, but I’d let it go. I wanted to be sure, too. I was worried, though, that
my
one hundred percent sure and
their
one hundred percent sure might be very different things.
Other than their squabbling, Seth’s slow breathing, and Leah’s annoyed panting, it was very quiet. Emmett, Alice, and Esme were hunting. Jasper had stayed behind to watch me. He stood unobtrusively behind the newel post now, trying not to be obnoxious about it.
I took advantage of the calm to think of all the things Edward and Seth had told me while Carlisle splinted Seth’s arm. I’d missed a whole lot while I was burning, and this was the first real chance to catch up.
The main thing was the end of the feud with Sam’s pack—which was why the others felt safe to come and go as they pleased again. The truce was stronger than ever. Or more binding, depending on your viewpoint, I imagined.
Binding, because the most absolute of all the pack’s laws was that no wolf ever kill the object of another wolf’s imprinting. The pain of such a thing would be intolerable for the whole pack. The fault, whether intended or accidental, could not be forgiven; the wolves involved would fight to the death—there was no other option. It had happened long ago, Seth told me, but only accidentally. No wolf would ever intentionally destroy a brother that way.
So Renesmee was untouchable because of the way Jacob now felt about her. I tried to concentrate on the relief of this fact rather than the chagrin, but it wasn’t easy. My mind had enough room to feel both emotions intensely at the same time.
And Sam couldn’t get mad about my transformation, either, because Jacob—speaking as the rightful Alpha—had allowed it. It rankled to realize over and over again how much I owed Jacob when I just wanted to be mad at him.
I deliberately redirected my thoughts in order to control my emotions. I considered another interesting phenomenon; though the silence between the separate packs continued, Jacob and Sam had discovered that Alphas could speak to each other while in their wolf form. It wasn’t the same as before; they couldn’t hear every thought the way they had prior to the split. It was more like speaking aloud, Seth had said. Sam could only hear the thoughts Jacob wanted to share, and vice versa. They found they could communicate over distance, too, now that they were talking to each other again.
They hadn’t found all this out until Jacob had gone alone—over Seth’s and Leah’s objections—to explain to Sam about Renesmee; it was the only time he’d left Renesmee since first laying eyes on her.
Once Sam had understood how absolutely everything had changed, he’d come back with Jacob to talk to Carlisle. They’d spoken in human form (Edward had refused to leave my side to translate), and the treaty had been renewed. The friendly feeling of the relationship, however, might never be the same.
One big worry down.
But there was another that, though not as physically dangerous as an angry wolf pack, still seemed more urgent to me.
Charlie.
He’d spoken to Esme earlier this morning, but that hadn’t kept him from calling again, twice, just a few minutes ago while Carlisle treated Seth. Carlisle and Edward had let the phone ring.
What would be the right thing to tell him? Were the Cullens right? Was telling him that I’d died the best, the kindest way? Would I be able to lie still in a coffin while he and my mother cried over me?
It didn’t seem right to me. But putting Charlie or Renée in danger of the Volturi’s obsession with secrecy was clearly out of the question.
There was still my idea—let Charlie see me, when I was ready for that, and let him make his own wrong assumptions. Technically, the vampire rules would remain unbroken. Wouldn’t it be better for Charlie if he knew that I was alive—sort of—and happy? Even if I was strange and different and probably frightening to him?