Eclipse (32 page)

"What if she wants me to?" Jacob drawled, arrogant.

"Hah!" I snorted.

"If that's what she wants, then I won't object." Edward shrugged, untroubled. "You might want to wait for her to
say
it, rather than trust your interpretation of body language - but it's your face."

Jacob grinned.

"You wish," I grumbled.

"Yes, he does," Edward murmured.

"Well, if you're done rummaging through my head," Jacob said with a thick edge of annoyance, "why don't you go take care of her hand?"

"One more thing," Edward said slowly. "I'll be fighting for her, too. You should know that. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I'll be fighting twice as hard as you will."

"Good," Jacob growled. "It's no fun beating someone who forfeits."

"She
is
mine." Edward's low voice was suddenly dark, not as composed as before. "I didn't say I would fight fair."

"Neither did I."

"Best of luck."

Jacob nodded. "Yes, may the best
man
win."

"That sounds about right . . . pup."

Jacob grimaced briefly, then he composed his face and leaned around Edward to smile at me. I glowered back.

"I hope your hand feels better soon. I'm really sorry you're hurt." Childishly, I turned my face away from him.

I didn't look up again as Edward walked around the car and climbed into the driver's side, so I didn't know if Jacob went back into the house or continued to stand there, watching me.

"How do you feel?" Edward asked as we drove away.

"Irritated."

He chuckled. "I meant your hand."

I shrugged. "I've had worse."

"True," he agreed, and frowned.

Edward drove around the house to the garage. Emmett and Rosalie were there, Rosalie's perfect legs, recognizable even sheathed in jeans, were sticking out from under the bottom of Emmett's huge Jeep. Emmett was sitting beside her, one hand reached under the Jeep toward her. It took me a moment to realize that he was acting as the jack.

Emmett watched curiously as Edward helped me carefully out of the car. His eyes zeroed in on the hand I cradled against my chest.

Emmett grinned. "Fall down again, Bella?"

I glared at him fiercely. "No, Emmett. I punched a werewolf in the face." Emmett blinked, and then burst into a roar of laughter.

As Edward led me past them, Rosalie spoke from under the car.

"Jasper's going to win the bet," she said smugly.

Emmett's laughter stopped at once, and he studied me with appraising eyes.

"What bet?" I demanded, pausing.

"Let's get you to Carlisle," Edward urged. He was staring at Emmett. His head shook infinitesimally.

"What bet?"
I insisted as I turned on him.

"Thanks, Rosalie," he muttered as he tightened his arm around my waist and pulled me toward the house.

"Edward . . . ," I grumbled.

"It's infantile," he shrugged. "Emmett and Jasper like to gamble."

"Emmett will tell me." I tried to turn, but his arm was like iron around me. He sighed. "They're betting on how many times you . . . slip up in the first year."

"Oh." I grimaced, trying to hide my sudden horror as I realized what he meant. "They have a bet about how many people I'll kill?"

"Yes," he admitted unwillingly. "Rosalie thinks your temper will turn the odds in Jasper's favor."

I felt a little high. "Jasper's betting high."

"It will make him feel better if you have a hard time adjusting. He's tired of being the weakest link."

"Sure. Of course it will. I guess I could throw in a few extra homicides, if it makes Jasper happy. Why not?" I was babbling, my voice a blank monotone. In my head, I was seeing newspaper headlines, lists of names. . . .

He squeezed me. "You don't need to worry about it now. In fact, you don't have to worry about it ever, if you don't want to."

I groaned, and Edward, thinking it was the pain in my hand that bothered me, pulled me faster toward the house.

My hand
was
broken, but there wasn't any serious damage, just a tiny fissure in one knuckle. I didn't want a cast, and Carlisle said I'd be fine in a brace if I promised to keep it on. I promised.

Edward could tell I was out of it as Carlisle worked to fit a brace carefully to my hand. He worried aloud a few times that I was in pain, but I assured him that that wasn't it. As if I needed - or even had room for - one more thing to worry about.

All of Jasper's stories about newly created vampires had been percolating in my head since he'd explained his past. Now those stories jumped into sharp focus with the news of his and Emmett's wager. I wondered randomly what they were betting. What was a motivating prize when you had everything?

I'd always known that I would be different. I hoped that I would be as strong as Edward said I would be. Strong and fast and, most of all, beautiful. Someone who could stand next to Edward and feel like she belonged there.

I'd been trying not to think too much about the other things that I would be. Wild. Bloodthirsty. Maybe I would not be able to stop myself from killing people. Strangers, people who had never harmed me. People like the growing number of victims in Seattle, who'd had families and friends and futures. People who'd had
lives.
And I could be the monster who took that away from them.

But, in truth, I could handle that part - because I trusted Edward, trusted him absolutely, to keep me from doing anything I would regret. I knew he'd take me to Antarctica and hunt penguins if I asked him to. And I would do whatever it took to be a good person. A good vampire. That thought would have made me giggle, if not for this new worry. Because, if I really were somehow like that - like the nightmarish images of newborns that Jasper had painted in my head - could I possibly be
me
? And if all I wanted was to kill people, what would happen to the things I wanted
now
?

Edward was so obsessed with me not missing anything while I was human. Usually, it seemed kind of silly. There weren't many human experiences that I worried about missing. As long as I got to be with Edward, what else could I ask for?

I stared at his face while he watched Carlisle fix my hand. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than him. Would that,
could
that, change?

Was there a human experience that I was
not
willing to give up?

16. EPOCH

"IHAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!" I MOANED TO MYSELF.

Every item of clothing I owned was strewn across my bed; my drawers and closets were bare. I stared into the empty recesses, willing something suitable to appear.

My khaki skirt lay over the back of the rocking chair, waiting for me to discover something that went with it just exactly right. Something that would make me look beautiful and grown up. Something that said
special occasion.
I was coming up empty. It was almost time to go, and I was still wearing my favorite old sweats. Unless I could find something better here - and the odds weren't looking good at this point - I was going to graduate in them.

I scowled at the pile of clothes on my bed.

The kicker was that I knew exactly what I would have worn if it were still available - my kidnapped red blouse. I punched the wall with my good hand.

"Stupid, thieving, annoying vampire!" I growled.

"What did I do?" Alice demanded.

She was leaning casually beside the open window as if she'd been there the whole time.

"Knock, knock," she added with a grin.

"Is it really so hard to wait for me to get the door?"

She threw a flat, white box onto my bed. "I'm just passing through. I thought you might need something to wear."

I looked at the big package lying on top of my unsatisfying wardrobe and grimaced.

"Admit it," Alice said. "I'm a lifesaver."

"You're a lifesaver," I muttered. "Thanks."

"Well, it's nice to get something right for a change. You don't know how irritating it is - missing things the way I have been. I feel so useless. So . . . normal." She cringed in horror of the word.

"I can't imagine how awful that must feel. Being normal? Ugh." She laughed. "Well, at least this makes up for missing your annoying thief - now I just have to figure out what I'm not seeing in Seattle."

When she said the words that way - putting the two situations together in one sentence - right then it clicked. The elusive something that had been bothering me for days, the important connection that I couldn't quite put together, suddenly became clear. I stared at her, my face frozen with whatever expression was already in place.

"Aren't you going to open it?" she asked. She sighed when I didn't move immediately, and tugged the top of the box off herself. She pulled something out and held it up, but I couldn't concentrate on what it was. "Pretty, don't you think? I picked blue, because I know it's Edward's favorite on you."

I wasn't listening.

"It's the same," I whispered.

"What is?" she demanded. "You don't have anything like this. For crying out loud, you only own one skirt!"

"No, Alice! Forget the clothes, listen!"

"You don't like it?" Alice's face clouded with disappointment.

"Listen, Alice, don't you see? It's the
same
! The one who broke in and stole my things, and the new vampires in Seattle. They're together!"

The clothes slipped from her fingers and fell back into the box.

Alice focused now, her voice suddenly sharp. "Why do you think that?"

"Remember what Edward said? About someone using the holes in your vision to keep you from seeing the newborns? And then what you said before, about the timing being too perfect - how careful my thief was to make no contact, as if he knew you would see that. I think you were right, Alice, I think he did know. I think he was using those holes, too. And what are the odds that
two
different people not only know enough about you to do that, but also decided to do it at exactly the same time? No way. It's one person. The same one. The one who is making the army is the one who stole my scent."

Alice wasn't accustomed to being taking by surprise. She froze, and was still for so long that I started counting in my head as I waited. She didn't move for two minutes straight. Then her eyes refocused on me.

"You're right," she said in a hollow tone. "Of course you're right. And when you put it that way. . . ."

"Edward had it wrong," I whispered. "It was a test . . . to see if it would work. If he could get in and out safely as long as he didn't do anything you would be watching out for. Like trying to kill me. . . . And he didn't take my things to prove he'd found me. He stole my scent . . . so that
others
could find me."

Her eyes were wide with shock. I was right, and I could see that she knew it, too.

"Oh, no," she mouthed.

I was through expecting my emotions to make sense anymore. As I processed the fact that someone had created an army of vampires - the army that had gruesomely murdered dozens of people in Seattle - for the express purpose of destroying
me,
I felt a spasm of relief. Part of it was finally solving that irritating feeling that I was missing something vital. But the larger part was something else entirely.

"Well," I whispered, "everyone can relax. Nobody's trying to exterminate the Cullens after all."

"If you think that one thing has changed, you're absolutely wrong," Alice said through her teeth. "If someone wants one of us, they're going to have to go through the rest of us to get to her."

"Thanks, Alice. But at least we know what they're really after. That has to help."

"Maybe," she muttered. She started pacing back and forth across my room.
Thud, thud
-a fist hammered against my door.

I jumped. Alice didn't seem to notice.

"Aren't you ready yet? We're gonna be late!" Charlie complained, sounding edgy. Charlie hated occasions about as much as I did. In his case, a lot of the problem was having to dress up.

"Almost. Give me a minute," I said hoarsely.

He was quiet for half a second. "Are you crying?"

"No. I'm nervous. Go away."

I heard him clump down the stairs.

"I have to go," Alice whispered.

"Why?"

"Edward is coming. If he hears this . . ."

"Go, go!" I urged immediately. Edward would go berserk when he knew. I couldn't keep it from him for long, but maybe the graduation ceremony wasn't the best time for his reaction.

"Put it on," Alice commanded as she flitted out the window.

I did what she said, dressing in a daze.

I'd been planning to do something more sophisticated with my hair, but time was up, so it hung straight and boring as on any other day. It didn't matter. I didn't bother to look in the mirror, so I had no idea how Alice's sweater and skirt ensemble worked. That didn't matter, either. I threw the ugly yellow polyester graduation robe over my arm and hurried down the stairs.

"You look nice," Charlie said, already gruff with suppressed emotion. "Is that new?"

"Yeah," I mumbled, trying to concentrate. "Alice gave it to me. Thanks." Edward arrived just a few minutes after his sister left. It wasn't enough time for me to pull together a calm façade. But, since we were riding in the cruiser with Charlie, he never had a chance to ask me what was wrong.

Charlie had gotten stubborn last week when he'd learned that I was intending to ride with Edward to the graduation ceremony. And I could see his point - parents should have some rights come graduation day. I'd conceded with good grace, and Edward had cheerfully suggested that we all go together. Since Carlisle and Esme had no problem with this, Charlie couldn't come up with a compelling objection; he'd agreed with poor grace. And now Edward rode in the backseat of my father's police car, behind the fiberglass divider, with an amused expression - probably due to my father's amused expression, and the grin that widened every time Charlie stole a glance at Edward in his rearview mirror. Which almost certainly meant that Charlie was imagining things that would get him in trouble with me if he said them out loud.