Eclipse (Twilight, #3)

by Stephenie Meyer

Somewhere, far, far away in the cold forest, a wolf howled.

ran my fingers across the page, feeling the dents where he had pressed the pen to the paper so hard that it had nearly broken through. I could picture him writing this—scrawling the angry letters in his rough handwriting, slashing through line after line when the words came out wrong, maybe even snapping the pen in his too-big hand; that would explain the ink splatters. I could imagine the frustration pulling his black eyebrows together and crumpling his forehead. If I’d been there, I might have laughed. Don’t give yourself a brain hemorrhage, Jacob, I would have told him. Just spit it out. Laughing was the last thing I felt like doing now as I reread the words I’d already memorized. His answer to my pleading note—passed from Charlie to Billy to him, just like second grade, as he’d pointed out—was no surprise. I’d known the essence of what it would say before I’d opened it.

Jacob’s pain cut me deeper than my own.

I shoved the wrinkled paper into my back pocket and ran, making it downstairs in the nick of time.

The jar of spaghetti sauce Charlie’d stuck in the microwave was only on its first revolution when I yanked the door open and pulled it out. “What did I do wrong?” Charlie demanded. “You’re supposed to take the lid off first, Dad. Metal’s bad for microwaves.” I swiftly removed the lid as I spoke, poured half the sauce into a bowl, and then put the bowl inside the microwave and the jar back in the fridge; I fixed the time and pressed start. Charlie watched my adjustments with pursed lips. “Did I get the noodles right?” I looked in the pan on the stove—the source of the smell that had alerted me. “Stirring helps,” I said mildly. I found a spoon and tried to de-clump the mushy hunk that was scalded to the bottom.

“So what’s all this about?” I asked him. He folded his arms across his chest and glared out the back windows into the sheeting rain. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled. I was mystified. Charlie cooking? And what was with the surly attitude? Edward wasn’t here yet;...

“Seattle’s making a run for murder capital of the country. Five unsolved homicides in the last two weeks. Can you imagine living like that?”

“Well, it’s about Edward, too.” My eyes narrowed. Charlie’s voice got gruffer. “I let him in the house, don’t I?” “You do,” I admitted. “For brief periods of time. Of course, you might let me out of the house for brief periods now and then, too,” I continued—only jokingly; I knew I was on lockdown for the duration of the school year. “I’ve been pretty good lately.”

“Okay.” He sighed, raising his hands as if in surrender. “So I’m thinking maybe you deserve a parole for good behavior. For a teenager, you’re amazingly non-whiney.”

Charlie held up one finger. “Conditionally.” The enthusiasm vanished. “Fantastic,” I groaned. “Bella, this is more of a request than a demand, okay? You’re free. But I’m hoping you’ll use that freedom… judiciously.” “What does that mean?” He sighed again. “I know you’re satisfied to spend all of your time with Edward—” “I spend time with Alice, too,” I interjected. Edward’s sister had no hours of visitation; she came and went as she pleased. Charlie was putty in her capable hands. “That’s true,” he said. “But you have other friends besides the Cullens, Bella. Or you used to.”

“I don’t think you should dump all your other friends for your boyfriend, Bella,” he said in a stern voice. “It’s not nice, and I think your life would be better balanced if you kept some other people in it. What happened last September…”

“With Jacob there is a… conflict,” I said slowly. “A conflict about the friendship thing, I mean. Friendship doesn’t always seem to be enough for Jake.” I wound my excuse out of details that were true but insignificant, hardly crucial compared to the fact that Jacob’s werewolf pack bitterly hated Edward’s vampire family—and therefore me, too,

“Billy’s worried about Jacob,” Charlie said. “Jake’s having a hard time right now.… He’s depressed.” I winced, but kept my eyes on the blob.

Three quick raps on the door saved me. Charlie rolled his eyes and I jumped up. “Coming!” I called while Charlie mumbled something that sounded like, “Go away.” I ignored him and went to let Edward in.

My eyes traced over his pale white features: the hard square of his jaw, the softer curve of his full lips—twisted up into a smile now, the straight line of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the smooth marble span of his forehead—partially obscured by a tangle of rain-darkened bronze hair.… I saved his eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to lose my train of thought. They were wide, warm with liquid gold, and framed by a thick fringe of black lashes. Staring into his eyes always made me feel extraordinary—sort of like my bones were turning spongy. I was also a little lightheaded, but that could have been because I’d forgotten to keep breathing. Again.

Of course, that might be exactly the asking price: one soul. No. I didn’t believe that. I felt guilty for even thinking it, and was glad—as I was often glad—that I was the one person whose thoughts were a mystery to Edward.

“It’s just good to know,” Edward said. “Alice has been itching for a shopping partner, and I’m sure Bella would love to see some city lights.” He smiled at me. But Charlie growled, “No!” and his face flushed purple. “Dad! What’s the problem?” He made an effort to unclench his teeth. “I don’t want you going to Seattle right now.” “Huh?” “I told you about that story in the paper—there’s some kind of gang on a killing spree in Seattle and I want you to steer clear, okay?”

My jaw flexed. “You know what? I don’t think I will.” I reached for the papers, planning to crumple them into a suitable shape for lobbing at the trashcan, but they were already gone. I stared at the empty table for a moment, and then at Edward. He didn’t appear to have moved, but the application was probably already tucked away in his jacket. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “I sign your name better than you do yourself. You’ve already written the essays.”

“I want to hurry,” I whispered, smiling weakly, trying to make a joke of it. “I want to be a monster, too.” His teeth clenched; he spoke through them. “You have no idea what you’re saying.” Abruptly, he flung the damp newspaper onto the table in between us. His finger stabbed the headline on the front page: DEATH TOLL ON THE RISE, POLICE FEAR GANG ACTIVITY “What does that have to do with anything?” “Monsters are not a joke, Bella.” I stared at the headline again, and then up to his hard expression. “A… a vampire is doing this?” I whispered.

“It won’t be the same for me,” I whispered, half to myself. “You won’t let me be like that. We’ll live in Antarctica.” Edward snorted, breaking the tension. “Penguins. Lovely.”

“Better,” he allowed. “There are polar bears, too. Very fierce. And the wolves get quite large.” My mouth fell open and my breath blew out in a sharp gust. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Before I could recover, the confusion vanished and his whole body seemed to harden. “Oh. Never mind the wolves, then, if the idea is offensive to you.” His voice was stiff, formal, his shoulders rigid. “He was my best friend, Edward,” I muttered. It stung to use the past tense. “Of course the idea offends me.”

“Please forgive my thoughtlessness,” he said, still very formal. “I shouldn’t have suggested that.”

We were both silent for a moment, and then his cool finger was under my chin, coaxing my face up. His expression was much softer now. “Sorry. Really.”

“You know it’s out of the question for you to be around a werewolf unprotected, Bella. And it would break the treaty if any of us cross over onto their land. Do you want us to start a war?” “Of course not!” “Then there’s really no point in discussing the matter further.” He dropped his hand and looked away, searching for a subject change. His eyes paused on something behind me, and he smiled, though his eyes stayed wary.

“Perhaps it’s because I’m not impressed by antiquity.” He smiled, evidently satisfied that he’d distracted me.

I put my hand over his to hold it to my face. “I need to see Jacob.” His eyes closed. “No.”

“It’s truly not dangerous at all,” I said, pleading again. “I used to spend all day in La Push with the whole lot of them, and nothing ever happened.” But I made a slip; my voice faltered at the end because I realized as I was saying the words that they were a lie. It was not true that nothing had ever happened. A brief flash of memory—an enormous gray wolf crouched to spring, baring his dagger-like teeth at me—had my palms sweating with an echo of remembered panic. Edward heard my heart accelerate and nodded as if I’d acknowledged the lie aloud. “Werewolves are unstable. Sometimes, the people near them get hurt. Sometimes, they get killed.” I wanted to deny it, but another image slowed my rebuttal. I saw in my head the once beautiful face of Emily Young, now marred by a trio of dark scars that dragged down the corner of her right eye and left her mouth warped forever into a lopsided scowl.

“You don’t know them,” I whispered. “I know them better than you think, Bella. I was here the last time.” “The last time?” “We started crossing paths with the wolves about seventy years ago.… We had just settled near Hoquiam. That was before Alice and Jasper were with us. We outnumbered them, but that wouldn’t have stopped it from turning into a fight if not for Carlisle. He...

“We thought the line had died out with Ephraim,” Edward muttered; it sounded like he was talking to himself now. “That the genetic quirk which allowed the transmutation had been lost.…” He broke off and stared at me accusingly. “Your bad luck seems to get more potent every day. Do you realize that your insatiable pull for all things deadly was strong enough to recover a pack of mutant canines from extinction? If we could bottle your luck, we’d have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands.”

“But I didn’t bring them back. Don’t you know?” “Know what?” “My bad luck had nothing to do with it. The werewolves came back because the vampires did.” Edward stared at me, his body motionless with surprise. “Jacob told me that your family being here set things in motion. I thought you would already know.…” His eyes narrowed. “Is that what they think?” “Edward, look at the facts. Seventy years ago, you came here, and the werewolves showed up. You come back now, and the werewolves show up again. Do you think that’s a coincidence?” He blinked and his glare relaxed. “Carlisle will be interested in that theory.” “Theory,” I scoffed.

“The situation remains the same.” I could translate that easily enough: no werewolf friends.

It wasn’t that he was unreasonable, it was just that he didn’t understand. He had no idea how very much I owed Jacob Black—my life many times over, and possibly my sanity, too.

“Please just listen for a minute. This is so much more important than some whim to drop in on an old friend. Jacob is in pain.” My voice distorted around the word. “I can’t not try to help him—I can’t give up on him now, when he needs me. Just because he’s not human all the time.… Well, he was there for me when I was… not so human myself. You don’t know what it was like.…” I hesitated. Edward’s arms were rigid around me; his hands were in fists now, the tendons standing out. “If Jacob hadn’t helped me… I’m not sure what you would have come home to. I owe him better than this, Edward.”

“I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you,” he whispered. “Not if I live a hundred thousand years.”

“If I’d never left, you wouldn’t feel the need to go risk your life to comfort a dog.” I flinched. I was used to Jacob and all his derogatory slurs—bloodsucker, leech, parasite.… Somehow it sounded harsher in Edward’s velvet voice.

Edward said, and his tone was bleak. “It’s going to sound cruel, I suppose. But I’ve come too close to losing you in the past. I know what it feels like to think I have. I am not going to tolerate anything dangerous.”

“You have to trust me on this. I’ll be fine.” His face was pained again. “Please, Bella,” he whispered. I stared into his suddenly burning golden eyes. “Please what?” “Please, for me. Please make a conscious effort to keep yourself safe. I’ll do everything I can,...

He kissed the top of my head and sighed. “No werewolves.” “I’m not going along with that. I have to see Jacob.” “Then I’ll have to stop you.” He sounded utterly confident that this wouldn’t be a problem. I was sure he was right. “We’ll see about that,” I bluffed anyway. “He’s still my friend.”

Doesn’t change anything. Sorry.

BUOYANT

and it wasn’t just because I was holding hands with the most perfect person on the planet, though that was certainly part of it. Maybe it was the knowledge that my sentence was served and I was a free woman again. Or maybe it wasn’t anything to do with me specifically. Maybe it was the atmosphere of freedom that hung over the entire campus. School was winding down, and, for the senior class especially, there was a perceptible thrill in the air.

The big dance was this coming weekend, but I had an ironclad promise from Edward that I would not be subjected to that again. After all, I’d already had that human experience.

“I’ll help you,” I volunteered. “If you don’t mind my awful handwriting.” Charlie would like that. From the corner of my eye, I saw Edward smile. He must like that, too—me fulfilling Charlie’s conditions without involving werewolves.

“What should we do?” Alice mused, her face lighting up at the possibilities. Alice’s ideas were usually a little grandiose for me, and I could see it in her eyes now—the tendency to take things too far kicking into action. “Whatever you’re thinking, Alice, I doubt I’m that free.” “Free is free, right?” she insisted. “I’m sure I still have boundaries—like the continental U.S., for example.”

Ever since I’d said goodbye to Jacob Black in the forest outside my home, I’d been plagued by a persistent, uncomfortable intrusion of a specific mental picture. It popped into my thoughts at regular intervals like some annoying alarm clock set to sound every half hour, filling my head with the image of Jacob’s face crumpled in pain. This was the last memory I had of him.

Sure, I was free to go to anywhere I wanted—except La Push; free to do anything I wanted—except see Jacob. I frowned at the table. There had to be some kind of middle ground.

Alice’s expression was something I recognized—an expression that sent an automatic shock of panic through my body. The vacant look in her eyes told me that she was seeing something very different from the mundane lunchroom scene that surrounded us, but something that was every bit as real in its own way. Something that was coming, something that would happen soon. I felt the blood slither from my face.

I opened my mouth to suggest my mechanic, and then snapped it shut again. My mechanic was busy these days—busy running around as a giant wolf.

“Are we a little impatient today?” he murmured.

i'd bite those fingers bc aint no way