Alice kept searching for the future, but the things she found were unrelated to what she was looking for.
A new trend in the stock market; a possible visit of reconciliation from Irina, though her decision was not
firm; a snowstorm that wouldn't hit for another six weeks; a call from Renee （I was practicing my "rough"
voice, and getting better at it every day—to Renee's knowledge, I was still sick, but mending）。
We bought the tickets for Italy the day after Renesmee turned three months. I planned for it to be a very
short trip, so I hadn't told Charlie about it. Jacob knew, and he took Edward's view on things. However,
today the argument was about Brazil. Jacob was determined to come with us.
The three of us, Jacob, Renesmee, and I, were hunting together. The diet of animal blood wasn't
Renesmee's favorite thing—and that was why Jacob was allowed to come along. Jacob had made it a
contest between them, and that made her more willing than anything else.
Renesmee was quite clear on the whole good vs. bad as it applied to hunting humans; she just thought
that donated blood made a nice compromise. Human food filled her and it seemed compatible with her
system, but she reacted to all varieties of solid food with the same martyred endurance I had once given
cauliflower and lima beans. Animal blood was better than that, at least. She had a competitive nature,
and the challenge of beating Jacob made her excited to hunt.
"Jacob," I said, trying to reason with him again while Renesmee danced ahead of us into the long
clearing, searching for a scent she liked. "You've got obligations here. Seth, Leah—"
He snorted. "I'm not my pack's nanny. They've all got responsibilities in La Push anyway."
"Sort of like you? Are you officially dropping out of high school, then? If you're going to keep up with
Renesmee, you're going to have to study a lot harder."
"It's just a sabbatical. I'll get back to school when things… slow down."
I lost my concentration on my side of the disagreement when he said that, and we both automatically
looked at
Renesmee. She was staring at the snowflakes fluttering high above her head, melting before they could
stick to the yellowed grass in the long arrowhead-shaped meadow that we were standing in. Her ruffled
ivory dress was just a shade darker than the snow, and her reddish-brown curls managed to shimmer,
though the sun was buried deeply behind the clouds.
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As we watched, she crouched for an instant and then sprang fifteen feet up into the air. Her little hands
closed around a flake, and she dropped lightly to her feet.
She turned to us with her shocking smile—truly, it wasn't something you could get used to—and opened
her hands to show us the perfectly formed eight-pointed ice star in her palm before it melted.
"Pretty," Jacob called to her appreciatively. "But I think you're stalling, Nessie."
She bounded back to Jacob; he held his arms out at exactly the moment she leaped into them. They had
the move perfectly synchronized. She did this when she had something to say. She still preferred not to
speak aloud.
Renesmee touched his face, scowling adorably as we all listened to the sound of a small herd of elk
moving farther into the wood.
"Suuuureyou're not thirsty, Nessie," Jacob answered a little sarcastically, but more indulgently than
anything else. "You're just afraid HI catch the biggest one again!"
She flipped backward out of Jacob's arms, landing lightly on her feet, and rolled her eyes—she looked
so much like Edward when she did that. Then she darted off toward the trees.
"Got it," Jacob said when I leaned as if to follow. He yanked his t-shirt off as he charged after her into
the forest, already trembling. "It doesn't count if you cheat," he called to Renesmee.
I smiled at the leaves they left fluttering behind them, shaking my head. Jacob was more a child than
Renesmee sometimes.
I paused, giving my hunters a few minutes' head start. It would be beyond simple to track them, and
Renesmee would love to surprise me with the size of her prey. I smiled again.
The narrow meadow was very still, very empty. The fluttering snow was thinning above me, almost
gone. Alice had seen that it wouldn't stick for many weeks.
Usually Edward and I came together on these hunting trips. But Edward was with Carlisle today,
planning the trip to Rio, talking behind Jacob's back… I frowned. When I returned, I would take Jacob's
side. He should come with us. He had as big a stake in this as any of us—his entire life was at stake, just
like mine.
While my thoughts were lost in the near future, my eyes swept the mountainside routinely, searching for
prey, searching for danger. I didn't think about it; the urge was an automatic thing.
Or perhaps there was a reason for my scanning, some tiny trigger that my razor-sharp senses had caught
before I realized it consciously.
As my eyes flitted across the edge of a distant cliff, standing out starkly blue-gray against the
green-black forest, a glint of silver—or was it gold?—gripped my attention.
My gaze zeroed in on the color that shouldn't have been there, so far away in the haze that an eagle
wouldn't
have been able to make it out. I stared.
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She stared back.
That she was a vampire was obvious. Her skin was marble white, the texture a million times smoother
than human skin. Even under the clouds, she glistened ever so slightly. If her skin had not given her away,
her stillness would have. Only vampires and statues could be so perfectly motionless.
Her hair was pale, pale blond, almost silver. This was the gleam that had caught my eye. It hung straight
as a ruler to a blunt edge at her chin, parted evenly down the center.
She was a stranger to me. I was absolutely certain I'd never seen her before, even as a human. None of
the faces in my muddy memory were the same as this one. But I knew her at once from her dark golden
eyes.
Irina had decided to come after all.
For one moment I stared at her, and she stared back. I wondered if she would guess immediately who I
was as well. I half-raised my hand, about to wave, but her lip twisted the tiniest bit, making her face
suddenly hostile.
I heard Renesmee's cry of victory from the forest, heard Jacob's echoing howl, and saw Irina's face jerk
reflexively to the sound when it echoed to her a few seconds later. Her gaze cut slightly to the right, and I
knew what she was seeing. An enormous russet werewolf, perhaps the very one who had killed her
Laurent. How long had she been watching us? Long enough to see our affectionate exchange before, I
was sure.
Her face spasmed in pain.
Instinctually, I opened my hands in front of me in an apologetic gesture. She turned back to me, and her
lip curled back over her teeth. Her jaw unlocked as she growled.
When the faint sound reached me, she had already turned and disappeared into the forest.
"Crap!" I groaned.
I sprinted into the forest after Renesmee and Jacob, unwilling to have them out of my sight. I didn't know
which direction Irina had taken, or exactly how furious she was right now. Vengeance was a common
obsession for vampires, one that was not easy to suppress.
Running at full speed, it only took me two seconds to reach them.
"Mine is bigger," I heard Renesmee insist as I burst through the thick thornbushes to the small open
space where they stood.
Jacob's ears flattened as he took in my expression; he crouched forward, baring his teeth—hismuzzle
was streaked with blood from his kill. His eyes raked the forest. I could hear the growl building in his
throat.
Renesmee was every bit as alert as Jacob. Abandoning the dead stag at her feet, she leaped into my
waiting arms, pressing her curious hands against my cheeks.
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"I'm overreacting," I assured them quickly. "It's okay, I think. Hold on."
I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial. Edward answered on the first ring. Jacob and
Renesmee listened intently to my side as I filled Edward in.
"Come, bring Carlisle," I trilled so fast I wondered if Jacob could keep up. "I saw Irina, and she saw me,
but then
she saw Jacob and she got mad and ran away, I think. She hasn't shown up here—yet, anyway—but
she looked pretty upset so maybe she will. If she doesn't, you and Carlisle have to go after her and talk
to her. I feel so bad."
Jacob rumbled.
"We'll be there in half a minute," Edward assured me, and I could hear the whoosh of the wind his
running made.
We darted back to the long meadow and then waited silently as Jacob and I listened carefully for the
sound of an approach we did not recognize.
When the sound came, though, it was very familiar. And then Edward was at my side, Carlisle a few
seconds behind. I was surprised to hear the heavy pad of big paws following behind Carlisle. I supposed
I shouldn't have been shocked. With Renesmee in even a hint of danger, of course Jacob would call in
reinforcements.
"She was up on that ridge," I told them at once, pointing out the spot. If Irina was fleeing, she already
had quite a head start. Would she stop and listen to Carlisle? Her expression before made me think not.
"Maybe you should call Emmett and Jasper and have them come with you. She looked… really upset.
She growled at me."
"What?" Edward said angrily.
Carlisle put a hand on his arm. "She's grieving. HI go after her."
Tm coming with you," Edward insisted.
They exchanged a long glance—perhaps Carlisle was measuring Edward's irritation with Irina against his
helpfulness as a mind reader. Finally, Carlisle nodded, and they took off to find the trail without calling for
Jasper or Emmett.
Jacob huffed impatiently and poked my back with his nose. He must want Renesmee back at the safety
of the house, just in case. I agreed with him on that, and we hurried home with Seth and Leah running at
our flanks.
Renesmee was complacent in my arms, one hand still resting on my face. Since the hunting trip had been
aborted, she would just have to make do with donated blood. Her thoughts were a little smug.
28. THE FUTURE
Carlisle and Edward had not been able to catch up with Irina before her trail disappeared into the sound.
They'd swum to the other bank to see if her trail had picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of
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her for miles in either direction on the eastern shore.
It was all my fault. She had come, as Alice had seen, to make peace with the Cullens, only to be
angered by my camaraderie with Jacob. I wished I'd noticed her earlier, before Jacob had phased. I
wished we'd gone hunting somewhere else.
There wasn't much to be done. Carlisle had called Tanya with the disappointing news. Tanya and Kate
hadn't seen Irina since they'd decided to come to my wedding, and they were distraught that Irina had
come so close and yet not returned home; it wasn't easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary
the separation might be. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losing their mother so many
centuries ago.
Alice was able to catch a few glimpses of Irina's immediate future, nothing too concrete. She wasn't
going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture was hazy. All Alice could see was that Irina
was visibly upset; she wandered in the snow-swathed wilderness—to the north? To the east?—with a
devastated expression. She made no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless grieving.
Days passed and, though of course I forgot nothing, Irina and her pain moved to the back of my mind.
There were more important things to think of now. I would leave for Italy in just a few days. When I got
back, we'd all be off to South America.
Every detail had been gone over a hundred times already. We would start with the Ticunas, tracing their
legends as well as we could at the source. Now that it was accepted that Jacob would come with us, he
figured prominently in the plans—it was unlikely that the people who believed in vampires would speak
to any of us about their stories. If we dead-ended with the Ticunas, there were many closely related
tribes in the area to research. Carlisle had some old
friends in the Amazon; if we could find them, they might have information for us, too. Or at least a
suggestion as to where else we might go for answers. It was unlikely that the three Amazon vampires had
anything to do with the legends of vampire hybrids themselves, as they were all female. There was no
way to know how long our search would take.
I hadn't told Charlie about the longer trip yet, and I stewed about what to say to him while Edward and
Carlisle's discussion went on. How to break the news to him just right?
I stared at Renesmee while I debated internally. She was curled up on the sofa now, her breathing slow
with heavy sleep, her tangled curls splayed wildly around her face.Usually, Edward and I took her back
to our cottage to put her to bed, but tonight we lingered with the family, he and Carlisle deep in their
planning session.
Meanwhile, Emmett and Jasper were more excited about planning the hunting possibilities. The Amazon
offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to
wrestle with an anaconda. Esme and Rosalie were planning what they would pack. Jacob was off with
Sam's pack, setting things up for his own absence.
Alice moved slowly—for her—around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the already immaculate space,
straightening Esme's perfectly hung garlands. She was re-centering Esme's vases on the console at the
moment. I could see from the way her face fluctuated—aware, then blank, then aware again—that she
was searching the future. I assumed she was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob and
Renesmee made in her visions as to what was waiting for us in South America until Jasper said, "Let it
go, Alice; she's not our concern," and a cloud of serenity stole silently and invisibly through the room.
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Alice must have been worrying about Irina again.
She stuck her tongue out at Jasper and then lifted one crystal vase that was filled with white and red
roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers,
but Alice seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction to her lack of vision tonight.
Staring at Renesmee again, I didn't see it when the vase slipped from Alice's fingers. I only heard the
whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into
ten thousand diamond shards against the edge of the kitchen's marble floor.
We were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every direction with an
unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice's back.
My first illogical thought was that Alice was playing some joke on us. Because there was no way that
Alice could have dropped the vase by accident I could have darted across the room to catch the vase in
plenty of time myself, if I hadn't assumed she would get it. And how would it fall through her fingers in the
first place? Her perfectly sure fingers…
I had never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.
And then Alice was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn't exist.
Her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they
seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried
in the terror and
despair and agony of her gaze.
I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.
"What?"Jasper growled, leaping to her side in a blurred rush of movement, crushing the broken crystal
under his feet. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her sharply. She seemed to rattle silently in his
hands. "What Alice?"
Emmett moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window,
anticipating an attack.
There was only silence from Esme, Carlisle, and Rose, who were frozen just as I was.
Jasper shook Alice again. "What is it?"
"They're coming for us," Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."
Silence.
For once, I was the quickest to understand—because something in their words triggered my own vision.
It was only the distant memory of a dream—faint, transparent, indistinct as if I were peering through thick
gauze… In my head, I saw a line of black advancing on me, the ghost of my half-forgotten human
nightmare. I could not see the glint of their ruby eyes in the shrouded image, or the shine of their sharp
wet teeth, but I knew where the gleam should be…
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Stronger than the memory of the sight came the memory of the feel —the wrenching need to protect the
precious thing behind me.
I wanted to snatch Renesmee up into my arms, to hide her behind my skin and hair, to make her
invisible. But I couldn't even turn to look at her. I felt not like stone but ice. For the first time since I'd
been reborn a vampire, I felt cold.
I barely heard the confirmation of my fears. I didn't need it. I already knew.
"The Volturi," Alice moaned.
"All of them," Edward groaned at the same time.
"Why?" Alice whispered to herself. "How?"
"When?" Edward whispered.
"Why?" Esme echoed.
"When?"Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.
Alice's eyes didn't blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her
mouth held on to her expression of horror.
"Not long," she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. "There's snow on the forest, snow on
the town. Little more than a month."
"Why?" Carlisle was the one to ask this time.
Esme answered. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see …"
"This isn't about Bella," Alice said hollowly. "They're all coming—Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of
the guard, even the wives."
"The wives never leave the tower," Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. "Never. Not during the
southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting
the immortal children. Never."
"They're coming now," Edward whispered.
"But why?" Carlisle said again. "We've done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that
would bring f/?/sdown on us?"
"There are so many of us," Edward answered dully. "They must want to make sure that…" He didn't
finish.
"That doesn't answer the crucial question! Why?"
I felt I knew the answer to Carlisle's question, and yet at the same time I didn't. Renesmee was the
reason why, I was sure. Somehow I'd known from the very beginning that they would come for her. My
subconscious had warned me before I'd known I was carrying her. It felt oddly expected now. As if I'd
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somehow always known that the Volturi would come to take my happiness from me.
But that still didn't answer the question.
"Go back, Alice," Jasper pleaded. "Look for the trigger. Search."
Alice shook her head slowly, her shoulders sagging. "It came out of nowhere, Jazz. I wasn't looking for
them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn't where I expected her to be…" Alice trailed
off, her eyes drifting again. She stared at nothing for a long second.
And then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. I heard Edward catch his breath.
"She decided to go to them," Alice said. "Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide…
It's as if they're waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her___"
It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice's
appalling vision?
"Can we stop her?" Jasper asked.
"There's no way. She's almost there."
"What is she doing?" Carlisle was asking, but I wasn't paying attention to the discussion now. All my
focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming together in my head.
I pictured Irina poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and a werewolf who were
best friends. I'd been focused on that image, one that would obviously explain her reaction. But that was
not all that she'd seen.
She'd also seen a child. An exquisitely beautiful child, showing off in the falling snow, clearly more than
human…
Irina… the orphaned sisters… Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the Volturi's justice had made
Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.
Just half a minute ago, Jasper had said the words himself: Not even when they were hunting the
immortal children… The immortal children—the unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo…
With Irina's past, how could she apply any other reading to what she'd seen that day in the narrow field?
She
had not been close enough to hear Renesmee's heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body.
Renesmee's rosy cheeks could have been a trick on our part for all she knew.
After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina's point of view, maybe this meant
nothing was beyond us…
Irina, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness—not mourning Laurent, after all, but knowing it was
her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would happen to them if she did. Apparently her
conscience had won out over the centuries of friendship.
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And the Volturi's response to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was already decided.
I turned and draped myself over Renesmee's sleeping body, covering her with my hair, burying my face
in her curls.
"Think of what she saw that afternoon," I said in a low voice, interrupting whatever Emmett was
beginning to say. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would
Renesmee look like?"
Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already.
"An immortal child," Carlisle whispered.
I felt Edward kneel beside me, wrap his arms over us both.
"But she's wrong," I went on. "Renesmee isn't like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows
so much every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Charlie or Sue or even shows them
things that would upset them. She can control herself. She's already smarter than most adults. There
would be no reason___"
I babbled on, waiting for someone to exhale with relief, waiting for the icy tension in the room to relax as
they realized I was right. The room just seemed to get colder. Eventually my small voice trailed off into
silence.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Edward whispered into my hair. "It's not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love," he said
quietly. "Aro's seen Irina's proof in her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with."
"But they're wrong," I said stubbornly.
"They won't wait for us to show them that."
His voice was still quiet, gentle, velvet… and yet the pain and desolation in the sound was unavoidable.
His voice was like Alice's eyes before—like the inside of a tomb.
"What can we do?" I demanded.
Renesmee was so warm and perfect in my arms, dreaming peacefully. I'd worried so much about
Renesmee's speeding age—worried that she would only have little over a decade of life… That terror
seemed ironic now.
Little over a month…
Was this the limit, then? I'd had more happiness than most people ever experienced. Was there some
natural law that demanded equal shares of happiness and misery in the world? Was my joy overthrowing
the balance? Was four months all I could have?
It was Emmett who answered my rhetorical question.
"We fight," he said calmly.
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"We can't win," Jasper growled. I could imagine how his face would look, how his body would curve
protectively over Alice's.
"Well, we can't run. Not with Demetri around." Emmett made a disgusted noise, and I knew instinctively
that he was not upset by the idea of the Volturi's tracker but by the idea of running away. "And I don't
know that we can't win," he said. "There are a few options to consider. We don't have to fight alone."
My head snapped up at that. "We don't have to sentence the Quileutes to death, either, Emmett!"
"Chill, Bella." His expression was no different from when he was contemplating fighting anacondas. Even
the threat of annihilation couldn't change Emmett's perspective, his ability to thrill to a challenge. "I didn't
mean the pack. Be realistic, though—do you think Jacob or Sam is going to ignore an invasion? Even if it
wasn't about Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro knows about our alliance with the pack
now, too. But I was thinking of our other friends."
Carlisle echoed me in a whisper. "Other friends we don't have to sentence to death."
"Hey, we'll let them decide," Emmett said in a placating tone. "I'm not saying they have to fight with us." I
could see the plan refining itself in his head as he spoke. "If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough
to make the Volturi hesitate. Bella's right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that
might take away any reason for a fight___"
There was a hint of a smile on Emmett's face now. I was surprised no one had hit him yet. I wanted to.
"Yes," Esme said eagerly. "That makes sense, Emmett. All we need is for the Volturi to pause for one
moment. Just long enough to listen*
"We'd need quite a show of witnesses," Rosalie said harshly, her voice brittle as glass.
Esme nodded in agreement, as if she hadn't heard the sarcasm in Rosalie's tone. "We can ask that much
of our friends. Just to witness."
"We'd do it for them," Emmett said.
"We'll have to ask them just right," Alice murmured. I looked to see her eyes were a dark void again.
"They'll have to be shown very carefully."
"Shown?"Jasper asked.
Alice and Edward both looked down at Renesmee. Then Alice's eyes glazed over.
"Tanya's family," she said. "Siobhan's coven. Amun's. Some of the nomads—Garrett and Mary for
certain. Maybe Alistair."
"What about Peter and Charlotte?" Jasper asked half fearfully, as if he hoped the answer was no, and his
old brother could be spared from the coming carnage.
"Maybe."
"The Amazons?" Carlisle asked. "Kachiri, Zafrina, and Senna?"
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Alice seemed too deep into her vision to answer at first; finally she shuddered, and her eyes flickered
back to
the present. She met Carlisle's gaze for the tiniest part of a second, and then looked down.
"I can't see."
"What was that?" Edward asked, his whisper a demand. "That part in the jungle. Are we going to look
for them?"
"I can't see," Alice repeated, not meeting his eyes. A flash of confusion crossed Edward's face. "We'll
have to split up and hurry—before the snow sticks to the ground. We have to round up whomever we
can and get them here to show them." She zoned again. "Ask Eleazar. There is more to this than just an
immortal child."
The silence was ominous for another long moment while Alice was in her trance. She blinked slowly
when it was over, her eyes peculiarly opaque despite the fact that she was clearly in the present.
"There is so much. We have to hurry," she whispered.
"Alice?" Edward asked. "That was too fast—I didn't understand. What was—？"
"I can't see!" she exploded back at him. "Jacob's almost here!"
Rosalie took a step toward the front door. "I'll deal with—"
"No, let him come," Alice said quickly, her voice straining higher with each word. She grabbed Jasper's
hand and began pulling him toward the back door. "I'll see better away from Nessie, too. I need to go. I
need to really concentrate. I need to see everything I can. I have to go. Come on, Jasper, there's no time
to waste!"
We all could hear Jacob on the stairs. Alice yanked, impatient, on Jasper's hand. He followed quickly,
confusion in his eyes just like Edward's. They darted out the door into the silver night.
"Hurry!" she called back to us. "You have to find them all!"
"Find what?" Jacob asked, shutting the front door behind himself. "Where'd Alice go?"
No one answered; we all just stared.
Jacob shook the wet from his hair and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt, his eyes on
Renesmee. "Hey, Bells! I thought you guys would've gone home by now___"
He looked up to me finally, blinked, and then stared. I watched his expression as the room's atmosphere
finally touched him. He glanced down, eyes wide, at the wet spot on the floor, the scattered roses, the
fragments of crystal. His fingers quivered.
"What?" he asked flatly. "What happened?"
I couldn't think where to begin. No one else found the words, either.
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Jacob crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside Renesmee and me. I
could feel the heat shaking off his body as tremors rolled down his arms to his shaking hands.
"Is she okay?" he demanded, touching her forehead, tilting his head as he listened to her heart. "Don't
mess with me, Bella, please!"
"Nothing's wrong with Renesmee," I choked out, the words breaking in strange places.
"Then who?"
"All of us, Jacob," I whispered. And it was there in my voice, too—the sound of the inside of a grave.
"It's over. We've all been sentenced to die."
29. DEFECTION
We sat there all night long, statues of horror and grief, and Alice never came back.
We were all at our limits—frenzied into absolute stillness. Carlisle had barely been able to move his lips
to explain it all to Jacob. The retelling seemed to make it worse; even Emmett stood silent and still from
then on.
It wasn't until the sun rose and I knew that Renesmee would soon be stirring under my hands that I
wondered for the first time what could possibly be taking Alice so long. I'd hoped to know more before I
was faced with my daughter's curiosity. To have some answers. Some tiny, tiny portion of hope so that I
could smile and keep the truth from terrifying her, too.
My face felt permanently set into the fixed mask it had worn all night. I wasn't sure I had the ability to
smile anymore.
Jacob was snoring in the corner, a mountain of fur on the floor, twitching anxiously in his sleep. Sam
