- •Eclipse Stephenie Meyer
- •237 Park Avenue, New York, ny 10017
- •I saw a dim glimmer of possibility in that smile, but I proceeded slowly. “I’m confused, Dad. Are we talking about Jacob, or Edward, or me being grounded?”
- •I leveled a dark look at him. “There’s no competition.”
- •I pointed to the thick envelope on the counter. “I just got my acceptance to the University of Alaska!”
- •I took a deep breath. “I need to make it better, Edward. I owe him that. And it’s one of Charlie’s conditions, anyway —”
- •I ignored the ribbing, my attention caught by his assumption — was he serious? “But I didn’t bring them back. Don’t you know?”
- •It didn’t take long to determine where my restlessness stemmed from.
- •In my head, I went through the conversation again. . . .
- •I wiped my hand dramatically across my forehead, and then pretended to wring my hair out.
- •I sighed. Of course Charlie was waiting to pounce.
- •I turned slowly to face him. His expression was perfectly smooth — impossible to read.
- •I frowned in confusion. “What don’t I know? Edward?”
- •I was vividly conscious of Edward, his arms still wrapped protectively around me, motionless as a stone. I shot a look at his face — it was calm, patient.
- •I did try. And surprisingly, there were other things almost as stressful to dwell on besides my status on the endangered species list. . . .
- •I stopped with one arm in my vest. I knew that look.
- •I clutched the papers in both hands as I stared at the picture beneath the caption. A lump rose in my throat.
- •I tried to compose my face so that he would go on. My nails were digging into my palms with the stress of the story, even though I knew it had turned out fine.
- •I shuddered; of course she would be back. Would Edward really tell me next time? I wasn’t sure. I’d have to keep an eye on Alice, to look for the signs that the pattern was about to repeat. . . .
- •It was disconcerting the way he said this, like it would be a good thing to have no vampires in Forks. My heart thumped unevenly at the emptiness of the picture he painted.
- •I growled unimpressively.
- •I glanced up and down his mammoth frame, trying to be unbiased. “Not exactly, I guess.”
- •I took a deep breath. “Sorry. Age is a touchy subject for me. That hit a nerve.”
- •I gasped. “Emily is Leah’s cousin?”
- •I frowned. “Did Jared tell you that? He shouldn’t have.”
- •I followed Angela up the stairs to her room. She kicked toys out of the way as she went. The house was unusually quiet.
- •I shrugged.
- •I gasped and his eyes opened. They were as cold and hard as night.
- •I frowned suspiciously. “Or . . . Is this something else altogether? Some vampires-and-werewolves-are-always-enemies nonsense? Is this just a testosterone-fueled —”
- •It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but it looked like her bone white face got paler.
- •I shook my head.
- •I trudged off to English. Without Edward, the day was guaranteed to be unbearable. I sulked through my first class, well aware that my attitude wasn’t helping anything.
- •I nodded cautiously.
- •I stared at his face, waiting for his eyes to open.
- •I stopped breathing. This wasn’t the kind of thing he usually allowed. Despite his cold hands, I felt suddenly warm. His lips moved in the hollow at the base of my throat.
- •I smiled. “Didn’t you find any mountain lions?”
- •I shuddered.
- •I cringed at my father’s name.
- •I winced, and Esme rubbed my shoulder.
- •I handed the phone to Edward; I hoped he could read the warning in my eyes.
- •I took it slowly, feeling confused.
- •I pulled away from him and ran to put the knife in the sink before I doused it with bleach.
- •I shuddered again. “What can we do?”
- •I stared at him blankly. “I do?”
- •I took the red helmet, weighing it in my hands. “I’ll look stupid.”
- •I didn’t mention it out loud, but the biggest difference between the two circumstances was that Renйe and Charlie had been on better terms.
- •I tucked the helmet under my arm and threw the jacket across the seat.
- •11. Legends
- •It was easier being with my Quileute friends than I’d expected.
- •I shrank a little closer to Jacob’s side. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch with humor, and his arm tightened around me.
- •I paused, one foot on the ground. “No, Jake. Get some rest, I’ll be fine.”
- •I sighed and let my eyes close in contentment, resting there in his hands.
- •I’d sobered up by then, so I nodded and struggled to keep the frown off my face.
- •I shuddered. “No.”
- •I shuddered.
- •I didn’t realize Alice had come to stand behind me again.
- •I looked only at her as I answered. My voice was just slightly louder than a whisper. “I could help.”
- •I felt my face slip into a pout. He laughed at my expression as he extricated himself from my arms and legs. He leaned against the counter next to me and put one arm lightly around my shoulders.
- •I watched his face carefully for any change in expression. His eyes tightened the tiniest bit.
- •I shook my head. “You’re impossible.”
- •I jerked away from him.
- •I held up my injured hand.
- •I heard Charlie heave himself off of the sofa. Jacob got to the hall first, and much more quietly, but Charlie was not far behind him. Jacob’s expression was alert and eager.
- •I wasn’t listening.
- •I stared down blankly at my hands. My left hand rested lightly on the dark brace I rarely thought about. My broken knuckle didn’t hurt much anymore.
- •I stared, still frozen in horror, at Alice’s new expression. Her face was alive with exultation, all the despair wiped clean from her perfect features.
- •18. Instruction
- •I stared at Edward, my eyes stretched wide. “They’re coming as wolves?”
- •I squinted toward the forest, seeing nothing.
- •I watched with anxious eyes as he waved Alice forward.
- •I watched Alice more carefully now.
- •I grimaced, trying to ignore her.
- •I reached my hand out, my fingers trembling slightly, and touched the red-brown fur on the side of his face.
- •Inspiration came swiftly. “Angela and Ben,” I decided at once. “At least that will get them out of town.”
- •I stared at Edward as he explained, my forehead creasing. He patted my arm.
- •I swayed on my feet. Edward put his arm around my waist, pulling me closer and supporting my weight.
- •If this was the only reaction to Jacob’s gift, I would take it gladly. “Whatever makes you happy.”
- •I tried to smile back at Jacob, swallowing against the lump in my throat. I didn’t seem to get it right.
- •It was after dark when we reached the house. In spite of that, the meadow was bright in the light shining from every window.
- •I began to feel cautiously optimistic. Perhaps getting what I wanted would not be as difficult as I’d expected it to be.
- •I shook my head against his chest, grimacing. “You’re just trying to distract me. Let’s get back to the subject.”
- •I twisted my head to kiss the palm of his hand.
- •I glared. “That’s not what I meant. I already know how strong you are. You didn’t have to break the furniture.”
- •I was wrong.
- •I shook my head, and laughed glumly. “You make me feel like a villain in a melodrama — twirling my mustache while I try to steal some poor girl’s virtue.”
- •I glared at him through narrowed eyes.
- •I rolled my eyes. “Very mature, Edward.”
- •I looked at Edward, and he was smiling; whatever was bugging Alice amused him.
- •I turned to Alice, worried now, but she didn’t look at me. Her bad mood hadn’t passed yet.
- •I grimaced in horror as she grabbed my left hand and then dropped it just as quickly.
- •I watched him carefully as he cleaned the gash, looking for some sign of distress. He continued to breathe evenly in and out, the same small smile on his lips.
- •I rolled my eyes. “Same old, same old.”
- •I took a slow breath before I spoke. “No. I’m pretty sure it’s because you can’t talk.”
- •22. Fire and ice
- •I stared at him in outrage. No wonder Edward was reacting this way.
- •I was too far gone to ask them to stop talking about me like I wasn’t there. The conversation had taken on a dreamlike quality to me, and I wasn’t sure I was really awake.
- •It took Jacob a minute. “Oh. Ugh. The third wife. Okay, I see your point.”
- •It was quiet again, and the tent held still for a few minutes. The wind seemed to have decided that it wasn’t going to flatten us after all, and was giving up the fight.
- •I winced, wondering what might have come out of my mouth in my sleep. The possibilities were horrifying.
- •I elbowed Edward in the ribs — probably giving myself a bruise.
- •I stretched my neck up, straining to reach my lips to the edge of his jaw. I couldn’t see into his eyes. He was staring up at the ceiling of the tent.
- •It would be no more than I deserved if I somehow lost them both.
- •It was a moment before I could speak, and still the only answer I could give him was, “Please.”
- •It stunned me when Edward chuckled reluctantly.
- •I raised my head slowly to meet his patient gaze. His expression was soft; his eyes were full of understanding rather than the revulsion I deserved to see.
- •I closed my eyes and shook my head in agony. The sharp nylon fibers of the tent floor scraped against my skin.
- •It would be quick — she had no time for games here — but it would be thorough. Something that it would be impossible to recover from. Something that even vampire venom could not repair.
- •Victoria jerked her chin toward Edward, wordlessly ordering the boy forward.
- •Victoria’s gaze zeroed in on the gap between us. It would take her less than a second to kill me — she only needed the tiniest margin of opportunity.
- •Victoria kicked something aside with a flick of her bare foot — the missile that had crippled her attack. It rolled toward me, and I realized what it was.
- •Victoria did not even flinch to the sound of her name. Her eyes did not flicker once toward her partner.
- •I nodded, trying to hide the sudden terror — how much more could I handle before I collapsed? “No reason to be afraid. Got it.”
- •I already had my story memorized and corroborated. “I don’t care. I want to be there when Jacob wakes up.”
- •I took a deep breath to steady myself. Jacob had begun healing too quickly, and some of his bones had set wrong. He’d been out cold for the process, but it was still hard to think about.
- •I turned back to the fridge so that he couldn’t see my face.
- •I bent down to get a frying pan out of the cupboard, and hid there an extra second or two.
- •I winced, but Charlie was so caught up in his story that he didn’t notice.
- •I bit my lip. I was never going to get through this. Why didn’t anyone ever try to kill me when I wanted to die?
- •It took me a minute to even understand. He babbled on, looking more and more awkward, until I got what he was saying. Then I hurried to reassure him.
- •I winced and nodded. “I’m so sorry.”
- •I touched his face, laying my hand against his cheek. He exhaled at my touch and closed his eyes. It was very quiet. For a minute I could hear the beating of his heart, slow and even.
- •I knew what he meant. “After.”
- •I managed to convey, after several attempts, that it wasn’t going to get any better anytime soon. I needed to get past Charlie before it got late enough for him to call Billy.
- •I smiled just a bit at his correction, and then I sighed. “We are going to go see Alice.”
- •I shook my head.
- •I repeated for him the conversation I had with Charlie last night before I’d gone to see Jacob.
- •It would be wrong to strike back. I knew that. I was biting my tongue. But she’d be sorry if she didn’t walk away. Now.
I frowned in confusion. “What don’t I know? Edward?”
Edward just glared at Jacob as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Jake?”
Jacob raised his eyebrow at me. “He didn’t tell you that his big . . . brother crossed the line Saturday night?” he asked, his tone thickly layered with sarcasm. Then his eyes flickered back to Edward. “Paul was totally justified in —”
“It was no-man’s land!” Edward hissed.
“Was not!”
Jacob was fuming visibly. His hands trembled. He shook his head and sucked in two deep lungfuls of air.
“Emmett and Paul?” I whispered. Paul was Jacob’s most volatile pack brother. He was the one who’d lost control that day in the woods — the memory of the snarling gray wolf was suddenly vivid in my head. “What happened? Were they fighting?” My voice strained higher in panic. “Why? Did Paul get hurt?”
“No one fought,” Edward said quietly, only to me. “No one got hurt. Don’t be anxious.”
Jacob was staring at us with incredulous eyes. “You didn’t tell her anything at all, did you? Is that why you took her away? So she wouldn’t know that —?”
“Leave now.” Edward cut him off mid-sentence, and his face was abruptly frightening — truly frightening. For a second, he looked like . . . like a vampire. He glared at Jacob with vicious, unveiled loathing.
Jacob raised his eyebrows, but made no other move. “Why haven’t you told her?”
They faced each other in silence for a long moment. More students gathered behind Tyler and Austin. I saw Mike next to Ben — Mike had one hand on Ben’s shoulder, like he was holding him in place.
In the dead silence, all the details suddenly fell into place for me with a burst of intuition.
Something Edward didn’t want me to know.
Something that Jacob wouldn’t have kept from me.
Something that had the Cullens and the wolves both in the woods, moving in hazardous proximity to each other.
Something that would cause Edward to insist that I fly across the country.
Something that Alice had seen in a vision last week — a vision Edward had lied to me about.
Something I’d been waiting for anyway. Something I knew would happen again, as much as I might wish it never would. It was never going to end, was it?
I heard the quick gasp, gasp, gasp, gasp of the air dragging through my lips, but I couldn’t stop it. It looked like the school was shaking, like there was an earthquake, but I knew it was my own trembling that caused the illusion.
“She came back for me,” I choked out.
Victoria was never going to give up till I was dead. She would keep repeating the same pattern — feint and run, feint and run — until she found a hole through my defenders.
Maybe I’d get lucky. Maybe the Volturi would come for me first — they’d kill me quicker, at least.
Edward held me tight to his side, angling his body so that he was still between me and Jacob, and stroked my face with anxious hands. “It’s fine,” he whispered to me. “It’s fine. I’ll never let her get close to you, it’s fine.”
Then he glared at Jacob. “Does that answer your question, mongrel?”
“You don’t think Bella has a right to know?” Jacob challenged. “It’s her life.”
Edward kept his voice muted; even Tyler, edging forward by inches, would be unable to hear. “Why should she be frightened when she was never in danger?”
“Better frightened than lied to.”
I tried to pull myself together, but my eyes were swimming in moisture. I could see it behind my lids — I could see Victoria’s face, her lips pulled back over her teeth, her crimson eyes glowing with the obsession of her vendetta; she held Edward responsible for the demise of her love, James. She wouldn’t stop until his love was taken from him, too.
Edward wiped the tears from my cheek with his fingertips.
“Do you really think hurting her is better than protecting her?” he murmured.
“She’s tougher than you think,” Jacob said. “And she’s been through worse.”
Abruptly, Jacob’s expression shifted, and he was staring at Edward with an odd, speculative expression. His eyes narrowed like he was trying to do a difficult math problem in his head.
I felt Edward cringe. I glanced up at him, and his face was contorted in what could only be pain. For one ghastly moment, I was reminded of our afternoon in Italy, in the macabre tower room of the Volturi, where Jane had tortured Edward with her malignant gift, burning him with her thoughts alone. . . .
The memory snapped me out of my near hysteria and put everything in perspective. Because I’d rather Victoria killed me a hundred times over than watch Edward suffer that way again.
“That’s funny,” Jacob said, laughing as he watched Edward’s face.
Edward winced, but smoothed his expression with a little effort. He couldn’t quite hide the agony in his eyes.
I glanced, wide-eyed, from Edward’s grimace to Jacob’s sneer.
“What are you doing to him?” I demanded.
“It’s nothing, Bella,” Edward told me quietly. “Jacob just has a good memory, that’s all.”
Jacob grinned, and Edward winced again.
“Stop it! Whatever you’re doing.”
“Sure, if you want.” Jacob shrugged. “It’s his own fault if he doesn’t like the things I remember, though.”
I glared at him, and he smiled back impishly — like a kid caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t by someone who he knows won’t punish him.
“The principal’s on his way to discourage loitering on school property,” Edward murmured to me. “Let’s get to English, Bella, so you’re not involved.”
“Overprotective, isn’t he?” Jacob said, talking just to me. “A little trouble makes life fun. Let me guess, you’re not allowed to have fun, are you?”
Edward glowered, and his lips pulled back from his teeth ever so slightly.
“Shut up, Jake,” I said.
Jacob laughed. “That sounds like a no. Hey, if you ever feel like having a life again, you could come see me. I’ve still got your motorcycle in my garage.”
This news distracted me. “You were supposed to sell that. You promised Charlie you would.” If I hadn’t begged on Jake’s behalf — after all, he’d put weeks of labor into both motorcycles, and he deserved some kind of payback — Charlie would have thrown my bike in a Dumpster. And possibly set that Dumpster on fire.
“Yeah, right. Like I would do that. It belongs to you, not me. Anyway, I’ll hold on to it until you want it back.”
A tiny hint of the smile I remembered was suddenly playing around the edges of his lips.
“Jake . . .”
He leaned forward, his face earnest now, the bitter sarcasm fading. “I think I might have been wrong before, you know, about not being able to be friends. Maybe we could manage it, on my side of the line. Come see me.”