I noticed that Emily didn't particularly like that Sam would be in the smaller grouping. Her worry had me glancing up at Jacob, worrying, too.

"Don't worry...the pup seems to be able to handle himself just fine," Edward said. "They must be the best fighters. That's why Sam paired them together."

Sam caught my eye. "Jacob thinks it would be best if you spent as much time as possible here in La Push. She won't know where to find you so easily, just in case."

"What about Charlie?" I demanded.

"March Madness is still going," Jacob said. "I think Billy and Harry can manage to keep Charlie down here when he's not at work."

"It's really not that hard drawing Charlie in, is it?" Emmett chuckled.

"No...and that's good," Edward sighed.

"Wait," Sam said, holding one hand up. His glance flickered to Emily and then back to me.

"I think whatever it is, Emily's the one telling him to do this," Rosalie said, almost smirking - it was at least the closest thing to a kind word that she's said about the wolves.

"That's what Jacob thinks is best, but you need to decide for yourself. You should weigh the risks of both options very seriously. You saw this morning how easily things can get dangerous here, how quickly they get out of hand. If you choose to stay with us, I can't make any guarantees about your safety."

"She cares more about the safety of others than her own," Edward grumbled.

"I won't hurt her," Jacob mumbled, looking down.

Sam acted as if he hadn't heard him speak. "If there was somewhere else you felt safe…"

I bit my lip. Where could I go that wouldn't put someone else in danger? I recoiled again from the idea of bringing Renee into this – pulling her into the circle of the target I wore… "I don't want to lead Victoria anywhere else," I whispered.

Sam nodded. "That's true. It's better to have her here, where we can end this."

"I don't think that's exactly what she meant by that," Alice smirked.

I flinched. I didn't want Jacob or any of the rest of them trying to end Victoria. I glanced at Jake's face; it was relaxed, almost the same as I remembered it from before the onset of the wolf thing, and utterly unconcerned by the idea of hunting vampires.

"You'll be careful, right?" I asked, an audible lump in my throat.

The boys burst into loud hoots of amusement. Everyone laughed at me – except Emily. She met my eyes, and I could suddenly see the symmetry underlying her deformity.

"It really must be hard being a human in the supernatural world," Esme sighed.

Her face was still beautiful, and alive with a concern even more fierce than mine. I had to look away, before the love behind that concern could start me aching again.

"Food's ready," she announced then, and the strategic conversation was history. The guys hurried to surround the table – which looked tiny and in danger of being crushed by them – and devoured the buffet-sized pan of eggs Emily placed in their midst in record time. Emily ate leaning against the counter like me – avoiding the bedlam at the table – and watched them with affectionate eyes. Her expression clearly stated that this was her family.

All in all, it wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting from a pack of werewolves.

I spent the day in La Push, the majority of it in Billy's house. He left a message on Charlie's phone and at the station, and Charlie showed up around dinnertime with two pizzas. It was good he brought two larges; Jacob ate one all by himself.

I saw Charlie eyeing the two of us suspiciously all night, especially the much-changed Jacob.

He asked about the hair; Jacob shrugged and told him it was just more convenient.

I knew that as soon as Charlie and I were headed home, Jacob would take off – off to run around as a wolf, as he had done intermittently through the entire day. He and his brothers of sorts kept up a constant watch, looking for some sign of Victoria's return. But since they'd chased her away from the hot springs last night – chased her halfway to Canada, according to Jacob – she'd yet to make another foray.

I had no hope at all that she might just give up. I didn't have that kind of luck.

"And vampires aren't that forgiving," Edward growled.

Jacob walked me to my truck after dinner and lingered by the window, waiting for Charlie to drive away first.

"Don't be afraid tonight," Jacob said, while Charlie pretended to be having trouble with his seat belt. "We'll be out there, watching."

"I won't worry about myself," I promised.

"Bella," Edward groaned, sighing and smiling all at once.

"You're silly. Hunting vampires is fun. It's the best part of this whole mess."

I shook my head. "If I'm silly, then you're dangerously unbalanced."

He chuckled. "Get some rest, Bella, honey. You look exhausted."

"I'll try."

Charlie honked his horn impatiently.

"See you tomorrow," Jacob said. "Come down first thing."

"I will."

Charlie followed me home. I paid scant attention to the lights in my rearview mirror. Instead, I wondered where Sam and Jared and Embry and Paul were, out running in the night. I wondered if Jacob had joined them yet.

"He probably did as soon as she was out of sight of him," Emmett smiled.

When we got home, I hurried for the stairs, but Charlie was right behind me.

"What's going on, Bella?" he demanded before I could escape. "I thought Jacob was part of a gang and you two were fighting."

"Oh, that was so last night," Alice said dramatically.

"We made up."

"And the gang?"

"I don't know – who can understand teenage boys? They're a mystery. But I met Sam Uley and his fiancée, Emily. The seemed pretty nice to me." I shrugged. "Must have all been a misunderstanding."

His face changed. "I hadn't heard that he and Emily had made it official. That's nice. Poor girl."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"Mauled by a bear, up north, during salmon spawning season – horrible accident. It was more than a year ago now. I heard Sam was really messed up over it."

"I think I heard of that," Edward said. "It happened a little while ago."

"So it's already too late," Carlisle sighed.

"That's horrible," I echoed. More than a year ago. I'd bet that meant it had happened when there was just one werewolf in La Push. I shuddered at the thought of how Sam must have felt every time he looked at Emily's face.

Edward looked thoughtful and sad at that, he could definitely sympathized with him.

That night, I lay awake for a long time trying to sort through the day. I worked my way backward through dinner with Billy, Jacob, and Charlie, to the long afternoon in the Blacks' house, waiting anxiously to hear something from Jacob, to Emily's kitchen, to the horror of the werewolf fight, to talking with Jacob on the beach.

I thought about what Jacob had said early this morning, about hypocrisy. I thought about that for a long time. I didn't like to think that I was a hypocrite, only what was the point of lying to myself?

I curled into a tight ball. No, Edward wasn't a killer. Even in his darker past, he'd never been a murderer of innocents, at least.

Edward rolled his eyes, "She sounds like you mom."

Esme smiled at that.

But what if he had been? What if, during the time I that I'd known him, he'd been just like any other vampire? What if people had been disappearing from the woods, just like now?

Would that have kept me away from him?

"If he was like that, you wouldn't have been able to get near him...you'd be dead," Jasper chuckled.

I shook my head sadly. Love is irrational, I reminded myself. The more you loved someone, the less sense anything made.

"So I guess that means she would have allowed it," Edward said skeptically.

"It wouldn't have stopped her from loving you," Alice said. "But I doubt she would have been okay with it."

I rolled over and tried to think of something else – and I thought of Jacob and his brothers, out running in the darkness. I fell asleep imagining the wolves, invisible in the night, guarding me from danger. When I dreamed, I stood in the forest again, but I didn't wander. I was holding Emily's scarred hand as we faced into the shadows and waited anxiously for our werewolves to come home.

Edward frowned at that.

"That's the end," Esme said and gave the book to Jasper.

Chapter Fifteen

Pressure

"Pressure," Jasper read.

It was spring break in Forks again.

"Do I sense a theme going on here?" Emmett smiled.

"I really hope not," Esme fretted.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I lay in bed for a few seconds absorbing that. Last spring break, I'd been hunted by a vampire, too. I hoped this wasn't some kind of tradition forming.

"But this year, no vampire is getting close to her," Edward glared.

"What if you decided to come back?" Alice asked smirking.

"Well... that would be okay," Edward sighed, "but I don't think it's likely."

"I wouldn't say that... you must be dying by now... not seeing her for so long," Alice smiled.

Edward didn't say anything, but it looked like he was chuckling.

Already I was falling into the pattern of things in La Push. I'd spent Sunday mostly on the beach, while Charlie hung out with Billy at the Black's house. I was supposed to be with Jacob, but Jacob had other things to do, so I wandered alone, keeping the secret from Charlie.

"Is that safe?" Edward frowned.

"They must be keeping tabs on her," Jasper said. "I doubt that Victoria could get through so many guards...and on their home turf."

When Jacob dropped in to check on me, he apologized for ditching me so much. He told me his schedule wasn't always this crazy, but until Victoria was stopped, the wolves were on red alert.

When we walked along the beach now, he always held my hand.

Edward hissed at that.

This made me brood over what Jared had said, about Jacob involving his "girlfriend." I supposed that that was exactly what it looked like from the outside. As long as Jake and I knew how it really was, I shouldn't let those kinds of assumptions bother me. And maybe they wouldn't, if I hadn't known that Jacob would have loved for things to be what they appeared. But his hand felt nice as it warmed mine, and I didn't protest.

"She should protest," Edward growled.

"Yeah, it's giving the pup false hope," Alice said.

I worked Tuesday afternoon – Jacob followed me on his bike to make sure I arrived safely – and Mike noticed.

"Are you dating that kid from La Push? The sophomore?" He asked, poorly disguising the resentment in his tone.

"What does it matter to you? She doesn't owe you anything," Edward snapped.

"Don't take your anger out on poor Mikey, you know you're really mad at the pup," Emmett laughed.

"The pup is helping her... now in more than one sense... but this guy hasn't done a thing for her, so I have every right to be mad at him," Edward said, looking like he was fully enjoying the opportunity to be angry at someone and not be conflicted about it.

I shrugged. "Not in the technical sense of the word. I do spent most of my time with Jacob, though. He's my best friend."

Mike's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "Don't kid yourself, Bella. The guy's head over heels for you."

"I know," I sighed. "Life is complicated."

"And girls are cruel," Mike said under his breath.

I supposed that was an easy assumption to make, too.

That night, Sam and Emily joined Charlie and me for dessert at Billy's house. Emily brought a cake that would have won over a harder man than Charlie. I could see, as the conversation flowed naturally through a range of casual subjects, that any worries Charlie might have harbored about gangs in La Push were being dissolved.

Jake and I skipped out early, to get some privacy. We went out to his garage and sat in the Rabbit. Jacob leaned his head back, his face drawn with exhaustion.

"You need some sleep, Jake."

"I'll get around to it."

He reached over and took my hand. His skin was blazing on mine.

"Is that one of those wolf things?" I asked him. "The heat, I mean."

"Yes...I imagine it is so they can tolerate any type of weather and not be affected by it," Carlisle mused.

"Yeah. We run a little warmer than the normal people. About one-oh-eight, one-oh-nine. I never get cold anymore. I could stand like this" – he gestured to his bare torso – "in a snowstorm and it wouldn't bother me. The flakes would turn to rain where I stood."

"And you all heal fast – that's a wolf thing, too?"

"Yeah, wanna see? It's pretty cool." His eyes flipped open and he grinned. He reached around me to the glove compartment and dug around for a minute. His hand came out with a pocketknife.

"I think she'd rather skip that," Emmett chuckled.

"Yeah, she wouldn't want to get nauseated from the smell of the blood," Jasper laughed.

"No, I do not want to see!" I shouted as soon as I realized what he was thinking. "Put that away!"

Jacob chuckled, but shoved the knife back where it belonged. "Fine. It's a good thing we heal, though. You can't go see just any doctor when you're running a temperature that should mean you're dead."

"They could come to me," Carlisle said.

"You know, I don't see that one happening," Edward smirked.

"I know... it's too bad," Carlisle sighed.

"No, I guess not." I thought about that for a minute. "… And being so big – that's part of it? Is that why you're all worried about Quil?"

"That and the fact that Quil's grandfather says the kid could fry an egg on his forehead."

Jacob's face turned hopeless. "It won't be long now. There's no exact age… it just builds and builds and then suddenly –" He broke off, and it was a moment before he could speak again.

"Sometimes, if you get really upset or something, that can trigger it early. But I wasn't upset about anything – I was happy." He laughed bitterly. "Because of you, mostly. That's why it didn't happen to me sooner. Instead it just kept on building up inside me – I was like a time bomb. You know what set me off? I got back from that movie and Billy said I looked weird. That was all, but I just snapped. And then I – I exploded. I almost ripped his face off – my own father!" He shuddered, and his face paled.

Edward groaned at that.

"That was the first time... he didn't know what was happening," Carlisle reasoned.

"Is it really bad, Jake?" I asked anxiously, wishing I had some way to help him. "Are you miserable?"

"No, I'm not miserable," he told me. "Not anymore. Not now that you know. That was hard, before." He leaned over so that his cheek was resting on top of my head.

"I know the feeling," Edward sighed, he was so relieved when he found out that she had excepted him monster and all.

He was quiet for a moment, and I wondered what he was thinking about. Maybe I didn't want to know.

Edward hissed, imagining what Jacob would be thinking.

"What's the hardest part?" I whispered, still wishing I could help.

"The hardest part is feeling…out of control," he said slowly. "Feeling like I can't be sure of myself – like maybe you shouldn't be around me, like maybe nobody should. Like I'm a monster who might hurt somebody. You've seen Emily. Sam lost control of his temper for just one second…and she was standing too close. And now there's nothing he can ever do to put it right again. I hear his thoughts – I know what that feels like…

"That must be so hard," Esme sighed.

"But that would help him," Edward said. "He knows how bad it feels to hurt someone he l... cares about...he'll be less likely to do it himself."

"Ah, the benefit to a collective consciousness," Carlisle smiled.

"Who wants to be a nightmare, a monster?"

"And then, the way it comes so easily to me, the way I'm better at it than the rest of them –does that make me even less human than Embry or Sam? Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm losing myself."

"Is it hard? To find yourself again?"

Carlisle smiled excitedly at throughout this conversation, happy to be gaining so much information on the wolves no doubt.

"At first," he said. "It takes some practice to phase back and forth. But it's easier for me."

"Why?" I wondered.

"Because Ephraim Black was my father's grandfather, and Quil Ateara was my mother's grandfather."

"Ah...so he has lineage on both sides of his family," Carlisle said. "That should make him stronger."

"Quil?" I asked in confusion.

"His great-grandfather," Jacob clarified. "The Quil you know is my second cousin."

"But why does it matter who your great-grandfathers are?"

"Because Ephraim and Quil were in the last pack. Levi Uley was the third. It's in my blood on both sides. I never had a chance. Like Quil doesn't have a chance."

"Maybe he will…if we leave," Carlisle sighed again.

"Carlisle, we know it's already been set in motion," Edward said. "And our leaving doesn't seem to have any effect."

"But that's because there are still other vampires threatening their land," Carlisle argued. "Vampires that are there because of us!"

"Well, they won't be around this time," Alice said. "And I don't think the wolf population would have grown as big if it was just us..."

"I agree... we're not really a threat to them," Jasper offered. "I would imagine the first few would be all that's necessary…as long as it's just us."

His expression was bleak.

"What's the very best part?" I asked, hoping to cheer him up.

"The best part," he said, suddenly smiling again, "is the speed."

"Better than the motorcycles?"

He nodded, enthusiastic. "There's no comparison."

"How fast can you… ?"

"Run?" he finished my question. "Fast enough. What can I measure it by? We caught… what was his name? Laurent? I imagine that means more to you than it would to someone else."

"Yeah, that does," Emmett said. "They really are fast."

"Yeah...you shouldn't challenge them to a foot race," Edward chuckled and Emmett's eyes sparkled like he would have been pleased to do just that.