rouched to spring, baring his dagger-like teeth at me - had my 
palms sweating with an echo of remembered panic. 

Edward heard my heart accelerate and nodded as if I'd acknowledged the lie aloud. 
"Werewolves are unstable. Sometimes, the people near them get hurt. Sometimes, they get 
killed." 

I wanted to deny it, but another image slowed my rebuttal. I saw in my head the once 
beautiful face of Emily Young, now marred by a trio of dark scars that dragged down the 
corner of her right eye and left her mouth warped forever into a lopsided scowl. 

He waited, grimly triumphant, for me to find my voice. 

"You don't know them," I whispered. 

"I know them better than you think, Bella. I was here the last time." 

"The last time?" 

"We started crossing paths with the wolves about seventy years ago. . . . We had just settled 
near Hoquiam. That was before Alice and Jasper were with us. We outnumbered them, but 
that wouldn't have stopped it from turning into a fight if not for Carlisle. He managed to 
convince Ephraim Black that coexisting was possible, and eventually we made the truce." 

Jacob's great-grandfather's name startled me. 

"We thought the line had died out with Ephraim," Edward muttered; it sounded like he was 
talking to himself now. "That the genetic quirk which allowed the transmutation had been 
lost. . . ." He broke off and stared at me accusingly. "Your bad luck seems to get more potent 
every day. Do you realize that your insatiable pull for all things deadly was strong enough to 
recover a pack of mutant canines from extinction? If we could bottle your luck, we'd have a 
weapon of mass destruction on our hands." 

I ignored the ribbing, my attention caught by his assumption - was he serious? "ButI didn't 
bring them back. Don't you know?" 

"Know what?" 

"My bad luck had nothing to do with it. The werewolves came back because the vampires 
did." 

Edward stared at me, his body motionless with surprise. 

"Jacob told me that your family being here set things in motion. I thought you would already 
know. . . ." 

 

His eyes narrowed. "Is that what they think?" 

"Edward, look at the facts. Seventy years ago, you came here, and the werewolves showed 
up. You come back now, and the werewolves show up again. Do you think that's a 
coincidence?" 

He blinked and his glare relaxed. "Carlisle will be interested in that theory." 

"Theory," I scoffed. 

He was silent for a moment, staring out the window into the rain; I imagined he was 
contemplating the fact that his family's presence was turning the locals into giant dogs. 

"Interesting, but not exactly relevant," he murmured after a moment. "The situation remains 
the same." 

I could translate that easily enough: no werewolf friends. 

I knew I must be patient with Edward. It wasn't that he was unreasonable, it was just that he 
didn't understand. He had no idea how very much I owed Jacob Black - my life many times 
over, and possibly my sanity, too. 

I didn't like to talk about that barren time with anyone, and especially not Edward. He had 
only been trying to save me when he'd left, trying to save my soul. I didn't hold him 
responsible for all the stupid things I'd done in his absence, or the pain I had suffered. 

He did. 

So I would have to word my explanation very carefully. 

I got up and walked around the table. He opened his arms for me and I sat on his lap, 
nestling into his cool stone embrace. I looked at his hands while I spoke. 

"Please just listen for a minute. This is so much more important than some whim to drop in 
on an old friend. Jacob is in pain ." My voice distorted around the word. "I can't not try to 
help him - I can't give up on him now, when he needs me. Just because he's not human all 
the time. . . . Well, he was there for me when I was . . . not so human myself. You don't 
know what it was like. . . ." I hesitated. Edward's arms were rigid around me; his hands were 
in fists now, the tendons standing out. "If Jacob hadn't helped me . . . I'm not sure what you 
would have come home to. I owe him better than this, Edward." 

I looked up at his face warily. His eyes were closed, and his jaw was strained. 

"I'll never forgive myself for leaving you," he whispered. "Not if I live a hundred thousand 
years." 

I put my hand against his cold face and waited until he sighed and opened his eyes. 

 

"You were just trying to do the right thing. And I'm sure it would have worked with anyone 
less mental than me. Besides, you're here now. That's the part that matters." 

"If I'd never left, you wouldn't feel the need to go risk your life to comfort a dog ." 

I flinched. I was used to Jacob and all his derogatory slurs -bloodsucker, leech, parasite . . . . 
Somehow it sounded harsher in Edward's velvet voice. 

"I don't know how to phrase this properly," Edward said, and his tone was bleak. "It's going 
to sound cruel, I suppose. But I've come too close to losing you in the past. I know what it 
feels like to think I have. I am not going to tolerate anything dangerous." 

"You have to trust me on this. I'll be fine." 

His face was pained again. "Please, Bella," he whispered. 

I stared into his suddenly burning golden eyes. "Please what?" 

"Please, for me. Please make a conscious effort to keep yourself safe. I'll do everything I can, 
but I would appreciate a little help." 

"I'll work on it," I murmured. 

"Do you really have any idea how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I 
love you?" He pulled me tighter against his hard chest, tucking my head under his chin. 

I pressed my lips against his snow-cold neck. "I know how much I love you ," I answered. 

"You compare one small tree to the entire forest." 

I rolled my eyes, but he couldn't see. "Impossible." 

He kissed the top of my head and sighed. 

"No werewolves." 

"I'm not going along with that. I have to see Jacob." 

"Then I'll have to stop you." 

He sounded utterly confident that this wouldn't be a problem. 

I was sure he was right. 

"We'll see about that," I bluffed anyway. "He's still my friend." 

I could feel Jacob's note in my pocket, like it suddenly weighed ten pounds. I could hear the 
words in his voice, and he seemed to be agreeing with Edward - something that would never 

 

happen in reality. 

Doesn't change anything. Sorry. 

 

2. EVASION 

I FELT ODDLY BUOYANT AS I WALKED FROM SPANISH toward the cafeteria, and 
it wasn't just because I was holding hands with the most perfect person on the planet, though 
that was certainly part of it. 

Maybe it was the knowledge that my sentence was served and I was a free woman again. 

Or maybe it wasn't anything to do with me specifically. Maybe it was the atmosphere of 
freedom that hung over the entire campus. School was winding down, and, for the senior 
class especially, there was a perceptible thrill in the air. 

Freedom was so close it was touchable, taste-able. Signs of it were everywhere. Posters 
crowded together on the cafeteria walls, and the trashcans wore a colorful skirt of 
spilled-over fliers: reminders to buy yearbooks, class rings, and announcements; deadlines to 
order graduation gowns, hats, and tassels; neon-bright sales pitches - the juniors campaigning 
for class office; ominous, rose-wreathed advertisements for this year's prom. The big dance 
was this coming weekend, but I had an ironclad promise from Edward that I would not be 
subjected to that again. After all, I'd already had that human experience. 

No, it must be my personal freedom that lightened me today. The ending of the school year 
did not give me the pleasure it seemed to give the other students. Actually, I felt nervous to 
the point of nausea whenever I thought of it. I tried to not think of it. 

But it was hard to escape such an omnipresent topic as graduation. 

"Have you sent your announcements, yet?" Angela asked when Edward and I sat down at 
our table. She had her light brown hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail instead of her usual 
smooth hairdo, and there was a slightly frantic look about her eyes. 

Alice and Ben were already there, too, on either side of Angela. Ben was intent over a comic 
book, his glasses sliding down his narrow nose. Alice was scrutinizing my boring 
jeans-and-a-t-shirt outfit in a way that made me self-conscious. Probably plotting another 
makeover. I sighed. My indifferent attitude to fashion was a constant thorn in her side. If I'd 
allow it, she'd love to dress me every day - perhaps several times a day - like some oversized 
three-dimensional paper doll. 

"No," I answered Angela. "There's no point, really. RenÃ©e knows when I'm graduating. Who 
else is there?" 

"How about you, Alice?" 

Alice smiled. "All done." 

"Lucky you." Angela sighed. "My mother has a thousand cousins and she expects me to 
hand-address one to everybody. I'm going to get carpal tunnel. I can't put it off any longer 

 

and I'm just dreading it." 

"I'll help you," I volunteered. "If you don't mind my awful handwriting." 

Charlie would like that. From the corner of my eye, I saw Edward smile. He must like that, 
too - me fulfilling Charlie's conditions without involving werewolves. 

Angela looked relieved. "That's so nice of you. I'll come over any time you want." 

"Actually, I'd rather go to your house if that's okay - I'm sick of mine. Charlie un-grounded 
me last night." I grinned as I announced my good news. 

"Really?" Angela asked, mild excitement lighting her always-gentle brown eyes. "I thought 
you said you were in for life." 

"I'm more surprised than you are. I was sure I would at least have finished high school before 
he set me free." 

"Well, this is great, Bella! We'll have to go out to celebrate." 

"You have no idea how good that 