"Has she heard it?" I asked Edward.

There was no humor on his tense face-he didn't move his eyes from Bella. But he said, "No.""Awesome. So you'll enjoy this, bloodsucker-a blonde's brain cells die alone."

Rosalie still didn't look at me. "I have killed a hundred times more often than you have, you disgusting beast. Don't forget that."

"Someday, Beauty Queen, you're going to get tired of just threatening me. I'm really looking forward to that."

"Enough, Jacob," Bella said.

I looked down, and she was scowling at me. It looked like yesterday's good mood was long gone.

Well, I didn't want to bug her. "You want me to take off?" I offered.

Before I could hope-or fear-that she'd finally gotten tired of me, she blinked, and her frown disappeared. She seemed totally shocked that I would come to that conclusion.

"No! Of course not."

I sighed, and I heard Edward sigh very quietly, too. I knew he wished she'd get over me, too. Too bad he'd never ask her to do anything that might make her unhappy.

"You look tired," Bella commented.

"Dead beat," I admitted.

"I'd like to beat you dead," Rosalie muttered, too low for Bella to hear.

I just slumped deeper into the chair, getting comfortable. My bare foot dangled closer to Rosalie, and she stiffened. After a few minutes Bella asked Rosalie for a refill. I felt the wind as Rosalie blew upstairs to get her some more blood. It was really quiet. Might as well take a nap, I figured.

And then Edward said, "Did you say something?" in a puzzled tone. Strange. Because no one had said anything, and because Edward's hearing was as good as mine, and he should have known that.

He was staring at Bella, and she was staring back. They both looked confused.

"Me?" she asked after a second. "I didn't say anything."

He moved onto his knees, leaning forward over her, his expression suddenly intense in a whole different way. His black eyes focused on her face.

"What are you thinking about right now?"

She stared at him blankly. "Nothing. What's going on?"

"What were you thinking about a minute ago?" he asked."Just... Esme's island. And feathers."

Sounded like total gibberish to me, but then she blushed, and I figured I was better off not knowing.

"Say something else," he whispered.

"Like what? Edward, what's going on?"

His face changed again, and he did something that made my mouth fall open with a pop.

I heard a gasp behind me, and I knew that Rosalie was back, and just as flabbergasted as I was.

Edward, very lightly, put both of his hands against her huge, round stomach.

"The f-" He swallowed. "It... the baby likes the sound of your voice."

There was one short beat of total silence. I could not move a muscle, even to blink.

Then- "Holy crow, you can hear him!" Bella shouted. In the next second, she winced.

Edward's hand moved to the top peak of her belly and gently rubbed the spot where it must have kicked her.

"Shh," he murmured. "You startled it... him."

Her eyes got all wide and full of wonder. She patted the side of her stomach. "Sorry, baby."

Edward was listening hard, his head tilted toward the bulge.

"What's he thinking now?" she demanded eagerly.

"It... he or she, is ..." He paused and looked up into her eyes. His eyes were filled with a similar awe-only his were more careful and grudging. "He's happy," Edward said in an incredulous voice.

Her breath caught, and it was impossible not to see the fanatical gleam in her eyes. The adoration and the devotion. Big, fat tears overflowed her eyes and ran silently down her face and over her smiling lips.

As he stared at her, his face was not frightened or angry or burning or any of the other expressions he'd worn since their return. He was marveling with her.

"Of course you're happy, pretty baby, of course you are," she crooned, rubbing her stomach while the tears washed her cheeks. "How could you not be, all safe and warm and loved? I love you so much, little EJ, of course you're happy."

"What did you call him?" Edward asked curiously.She blushed again. "I sort of named him. I didn't think you would want... well, you know."

"EJ?"

"Your father's name was Edward, too."

"Yes, it was. What-?" He paused and then said, "Hmm."

"What?"

"He likes my voice, too."

"Of course he does." Her tone was almost gloating now. "You have the most beautiful voice in the universe. Who wouldn't love it?"

"Do you have a backup plan?" Rosalie asked then, leaning over the back of the sofa with the same wondering, gloating look on her face that was on Bella's. "What if he's a she?"

Bella wiped the back of her hand under her wet eyes. "I kicked a few things around.

Playing with Renee and Esme. I was thinking... Ruh-nez-may."

"Ruhnezmay?"

"R-e-n-e-s-m-e-e. Too weird?"

"No, I like it," Rosalie a.s.sured her. Their heads were close together, gold and mahogany. "It's beautiful. And one of a kind, so that fits."

"I still think he's an Edward."

Edward was staring off into s.p.a.ce, his face blank as he listened.

"What?" Bella asked, her face just glowing away. "What's he thinking now?"

At first he didn't answer, and then-shocking all the rest of us again, three distinct and separate gasps-he laid his ear tenderly against her belly.

"He loves you," Edward whispered, sounding dazed. "He absolutely adores you."

In that moment, I knew that I was alone. All alone.

I wanted to kick myself when I realized how much I'd been counting on that loathsome vampire. How stupid-as if you could ever trust a leech! Of course he would betray me in the end.

I'd counted on him to be on my side. I'd counted on him to suffer more than I suffered.

And, most of all, I'd counted on him to hate that revolting thing killing Bella more than I hated it. I'd trusted him with that.

Yet now they were together, the two of them bent over the budding, invisible monster with their eyes lit up like a happy family.

And I was all alone with my hatred and the pain that was so bad it was like being tortured. Like being dragged slowly across a bed of razor blades. Pain so bad you'd take death with a smile just to get away from it.

The heat unlocked my frozen muscles, and I was on my feet.

All three of their heads snapped up, and I watched my pain ripple across Edward's face as he trespa.s.sed in my head again.

"Ahh," he choked.

I didn't know what I was doing; I stood there, trembling, ready to bolt for the very first escape that I could think of.

Moving like the strike of a snake, Edward darted to a small end table and ripped something from the drawer there. He tossed it at me, and I caught the object reflexively.

"Go, Jacob. Get away from here." He didn't say it harshly-he threw the words at me like they were a life preserver. He was helping me find the escape I was dying for.

The object in my hand was a set of car keys.

17. WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE? THE WIZARD OF OZ? YOU NEED A BRAIN? YOU NEED A HEART? GO AHEAD. TAKE MINE. TAKE EVERYTHING I HAVE.

I sort of had a plan as I ran to the Cullens' garage. The second part of it was totaling the bloodsucker's car on my way back.

So I was at a loss when I mashed the b.u.t.ton on the keyless remote, and it was not his Volvo that beeped and flashed its lights for me. It was another car-a standout even in the long line of vehicles that were mostly all drool-worthy in their own ways.

Did he actually mean to give me the keys to an Aston Martin Vanquish, or was that an accident?

I didn't pause to think about it, or if this would change that second part of my plan. I just threw myself into the silky leather seat and cranked the engine while my knees were still crunched up under the steering wheel. The sound of the motor's purr might have made me moan another day, but right now it was all I could do to concentrate enough to put it in drive.I found the seat release and shoved myself back as my foot rammed the pedal down.

The car felt almost airborne as it leaped forward.

It only took seconds to race through the tight, winding drive. The car responded to me like my thoughts were steering rather than my hands. As I blew out of the green tunnel and onto the highway, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Leah's gray face peering uneasily through the ferns.

For half a second, I wondered what she'd think, and then I realized that I didn't care.

I turned south, because I had no patience today for ferries or traffic or anything else that meant I might have to lift my foot off the pedal.

In a sick way, it was my lucky day. If by lucky you meant taking a well-traveled highway at two hundred without so much as seeing one cop, even in the thirty-mile-an- hour speed-trap towns. What a letdown. A little chase action might have been nice, not to mention that the license plate info would bring the heat down on the leech. Sure, he'd buy his way out of it, but it might have been just a little inconvenient for him.

The only sign of surveillance I came across was just a hint of dark brown fur flitting through the woods, running parallel to me for a few miles on the south side of Forks.

Quil, it looked like. He must have seen me, too, because he disappeared after a minute without raising an alarm. Again, I almost wondered what his story would be before I remembered that I didn't care.

I raced around the long U-shaped highway, heading for the biggest city I could find.

That was the first part of my plan.

It seemed to take forever, probably because I was still on the razor blades, but it actually didn't even take two hours before I was driving north into the undefined sprawl that was part Tacoma and part Seattle. I slowed down then, because I really wasn't trying to kill any innocent bystanders.

This was a stupid plan. It wasn't going to work. But, as I'd searched my head for any way at all to get away from the pain, what Leah'd said today had popped in there.

That would go away, you know, if you imprinted. You wouldn' t have to hurt over her anymore.

Seemed like maybe getting your choices taken away from you wasn't the very worst thing in the world. Maybe feeling like this was the very worst thing in the world.

But I'd seen all the girls in La Push and up on the Makah rez and in Forks. I needed a wider hunting range.

So how do you look for a random soul mate in a crowd? Well, first, I needed a crowd.

So I tooled around, looking for a likely spot. I pa.s.sed a couple of malls, which probably would've been pretty good places to find girls my age, but I couldn't make myself stop.

Did I want to imprint on some girl who hung out in a mall all day?I kept going north, and it got more and more crowded. Eventually, I found a big park full of kids and families and skateboards and bikes and kites and picnics and the whole bit. I hadn't noticed till now-it was a nice day. Sun and all that. People were out celebrating the blue sky.

I parked across two handicapped spots-just begging for a ticket-and joined the crowd.

I walked around for what felt like hours. Long enough that the sun changed sides in the sky. I stared into the face of every girl who pa.s.sed anywhere near me, making myself really look, noticing who was pretty and who had blue eyes and who looked good in braces and who had way too much makeup on. I tried to find something interesting about each face, so that I would know for sure that I'd really tried. Things like: This one had a really straight nose; that one should pull her hair out of her eyes; this one could do lipstick ads if the rest of her face was as perfect as her mouth...

Sometimes they stared back. Sometimes they looked scared-like they were thinking, Who is this big freak glaring at me? Sometimes I thought they looked kind of interested, but maybe that was just my ego running wild.

Either way, nothing. Even when I met the eyes of the girl who was-no contest-the hottest girl in the park and probably in the city, and she stared right back with a speculation that looked like interest, I felt nothing. Just the same desperate drive to find a way out of the pain.

As time went on, I started noticing all the wrong things. Bella things. This one's hair was the same color. That one's eyes were sort of shaped the same. This one's cheekbones cut across her face in just the same way. That one had the same little crease between her eyes-which made me wonder what she was worrying about...

That was when I gave up. Because it was beyond stupid to think that I had picked exactly the right place and time and I was going to simply walk into my soul mate just because I was so desperate to.