Her voice trailed off, and the frown on her face relaxed until it was just a little pucker at the corner of her lips. I waited for her to pour some more lemon juice into my paper cuts, but then a soft snore came from the back of her throat."She's exhausted," Edward murmured. "It's been a long day. A hard day. I think she would have gone to sleep earlier, but she was waiting for you."

I didn't look at him.

"Seth said it broke another of her ribs."

"Yes. It's making it hard for her to breathe."

"Great."

"Let me know when she gets hot again."

"Yeah."

She still had goose b.u.mps on the arm that wasn't touching mine. I'd barely raised my head to look for a blanket when Edward snagged one draped over the arm of the sofa and flung it out so that it settled over her.

Occasionally, the mind-reading thing saved time. For example, maybe I wouldn't have to make a big production out of the accusation about what was going on with Charlie.

That mess. Edward would just hear exactly how furious- "Yes," he agreed. "It's not a good idea."

"Then why?" Why was Bella telling her father she was on the mend when it would only make him more miserable?

"She can't bear his anxiety."

"So it's better-"

"No. It's not better. But I'm not going to force her to do anything that makes her unhappy now. Whatever happens, this makes her feel better. I'll deal with the rest afterward."

That didn't sound right. Bella wouldn't just shuffle Charlie's pain off to some later date, for someone else to face. Even dying. That wasn't her. If I knew Bella, she had to have some other plan.

"She's very sure she's going to live," Edward said.

"But not human," I protested.

"No, not human. But she hopes to see Charlie again, anyway."

Oh, this just got better and better.

"See. Charlie." I finally looked at him, my eyes bugging. "Afterwards. See Charlie when she's all sparkly white with the bright red eyes. I'm not a bloodsucker, so maybe I'm missing something, but Charlie seems like kind of a strange choice for her first meal."

Edward sighed. "She knows she won't be able to be near him for at least a year. She thinks she can stall. Tell Charlie she has to go to a special hospital on the other side of the world. Keep in contact through phone calls..."

"That's insane."

"Yes."

"Charlie's not stupid. Even if she doesn't kill him, he's going to notice a difference."

"She's sort of banking on that."

I continued to stare, waiting for him to explain.

"She wouldn't be aging, of course, so that would set a time limit, even if Charlie accepted whatever excuse she comes up with for the changes." He smiled faintly. "Do you remember when you tried to tell her about your transformation? How you made her guess?"

My free hand flexed into a fist. "She told you about that?"

"Yes. She was explaining her... idea. You see, she's not allowed to tell Charlie the truth -it would be very dangerous for him. But he's a smart, practical man. She thinks he'll come up with his own explanation. She a.s.sumes he'll get it wrong." Edward snorted.

"After all, we hardly adhere to vampire canon. He'll make some wrong a.s.sumption about us, like she did in the beginning, and we'll go along with it. She thinks she'll be able to see him... from time to time."

"Insane," I repeated.

"Yes," he agreed again.

It was weak of him to let her get her way on this, just to keep her happy now. It wouldn't turn out well.

Which made me think that he probably wasn't expecting her to live to try out her crazy plan. Placating her, so that she could be happy for a little while longer.

Like four more days.

"I'll deal with whatever comes," he whispered, and he turned his face down and away so that I couldn't even read his reflection. "I won't cause her pain now."

"Four days?" I asked.

He didn't look up. "Approximately.""Then what?"

"What do you mean, exactly?"

I thought about what Bella had said. About the thing being wrapped up nice and tight in something strong, something like vampire skin. So how did that work? How did it get out?

"From what little research we've been able to do, it would appear the creatures use their own teeth to escape the womb," he whispered.

I had to pause to swallow back the bile.

"Research?" I asked weakly.

"That's why you haven't seen Jasper and Emmett around. That's what Carlisle is doing now. Trying to decipher ancient stories and myths, as much as we can with what we have to work with here, looking for anything that might help us predict the creature's behavior."

Stories? If there were myths, then...

"Then is this thing not the first of its kind?" Edward asked, antic.i.p.ating my question.

"Maybe. It's all very sketchy. The myths could easily be the products of fear and imagination. Though ..."-he hesitated-"your myths are true, are they not? Perhaps these are, too. They do seem to be localized, linked..."

"How did you find... ?"

"There was a woman we encountered in South America. She'd been raised in the traditions of her people. She'd heard warnings about such creatures, old stories that had been pa.s.sed down."

"What were the warnings?" I whispered.

"That the creature must be killed immediately. Before it could gain too much strength."

Just like Sam thought. Was he right?

"Of course, their legends say the same of us. That we must be destroyed. That we are soulless murderers."

Two for two.

Edward laughed one hard chuckle.

"What did their stories say about the... mothers?"

Agony ripped across his face, and, as I flinched away from his pain, I knew he wasn't going to give me an answer. I doubted he could talk.It was Rosalie-who'd been so still and quiet since Bella'd fallen asleep that I'd nearly forgotten her-who answered.

She made a scornful noise in the back of her throat. "Of course there were no survivors," she said. No survivors, blunt and uncaring. "Giving birth in the middle of a disease-infested swamp with a medicine man smearing sloth spit across your face to drive out the evil spirits was never the safest method. Even the normal births went badly half the time. None of them had what this baby has-caregivers with an idea of what the baby needs, who try to meet those needs. A doctor with a totally unique knowledge of vampire nature. A plan in place to deliver the baby as safely as possible. Venom that will repair anything that goes wrong. The baby will be fine. And those other mothers would probably have survived if they'd had that-if they even existed in the first place.

Something I am not convinced of." She sniffed disdainfully.

The baby, the baby. Like that was all that mattered. Bella's life was a minor detail to her -easy to blow off.

Edward's face went white as snow. His hands curved into claws. Totally egotistical and indifferent, Rosalie twisted in her chair so that her back was to him. He leaned forward, shifting into a crouch.

Allow me, I suggested.

He paused, raising one eyebrow.

Silently, I lifted my doggy bowl off the floor. Then, with a quick, powerful flip of my wrist, I threw it into the back of Blondie's head so hard that-with an earsplitting bang -it smashed flat before it ricocheted across the room and snapped the round top piece off the thick newel post at the foot of the stairs.

Bella twitched but didn't wake up.

"Dumb blonde," I muttered.

Rosalie turned her head slowly, and her eyes were blazing.

"You. Got. Food. In. My. Hair."

That did it.

I busted up. I pulled away from Bella so that I wouldn't shake her, and laughed so hard that tears ran down my face. From behind the couch, I heard Alice's tinkling laugh join in.

I wondered why Rosalie didn't spring. I sort of expected it. But then I realized that my laughing had woken Bella up, though she'd slept right through the real noise.

"What's so funny?" she mumbled.

"I got food in her hair," I told her, chortling again."I'm not going to forget this, dog," Rosalie hissed.

"S'not so hard to erase a blonde's memory," I countered. "Just blow in her ear."

"Get some new jokes," she snapped.

"C'mon, Jake. Leave Rose alo-" Bella broke off mid-sentence and sucked in a sharp breath. In the same second, Edward was leaning over the top of me, ripping the blanket out of the way. She seemed to convulse, her back arching off the sofa.

"He's just," she panted, "stretching."

Her lips were white, and she had her teeth locked together like she was trying to hold back a scream.

Edward put both hands on either side of her face.

"Carlisle?" he called in a tense, low voice.

"Right here," the doctor said. I hadn't heard him come in.

"Okay," Bella said, still breathing hard and shallow. "Think it's over. Poor kid doesn't have enough room, that's all. He's getting so big."

It was really hard to take, that adoring tone she used to describe the thing that was tearing her up. Especially after Rosalie's callousness. Made me wish I could throw something at Bella, too.

She didn't pick up on my mood. "You know, he reminds me of you, Jake," she said- affectionate tone-still gasping.

"Do not compare me to that thing," I spit out through my teeth.

"I just meant your growth spurt," she said, looking like I'd hurt her feelings. Good.

"You shot right up. I could watch you getting taller by the minute. He's like that, too.

Growing so fast."

I bit my tongue to keep from saying what I wanted to say-hard enough that I tasted blood in my mouth. Of course, it would heal before I could swallow. That's what Bella needed. To be strong like me, to be able to heal....

She took an easier breath and then relaxed back into the sofa, her body going limp.

"Hmm," Carlisle murmured. I looked up, and his eyes were on me.

"What?" I demanded.

Edward's head leaned to one side as he reflected on whatever was in Carlisle's head."You know that I was wondering about the fetus's genetic makeup, Jacob. About his chromosomes."

"What of it?"

"Well, taking your similarities into consideration-"

"Similarities?" I growled, not appreciating the plural.

"The accelerated growth, and the fact that Alice cannot see either of you."

I felt my face go blank. I'd forgotten about that other one.

"Well, I wonder if that means that we have an answer. If the similarities are gene-deep."

"Twenty-four pairs," Edward muttered under his breath.