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I paused to check the locks again before I went to my room. It was a silly thing to do. What difference would a lock make to any of the monsters I'd seen this afternoon? I assumed the handle alone would stymie the wolves, not having opposable thumbs. And if Laurent came here…

 

Or… Victoria.

 

I lay down on my bed, but I was shaking too hard to hope for sleep. I curled into a cramped ball under my quilt, and faced the horrifying facts.

 

There was nothing I could do. There were no precautions I could take. There was no place I could hide. There was no one who could help me.

 

I realized, with a nauseous roll of my stomach, that the situation was worse than even that. Because all those facts applied to Charlie, too. My father, sleeping one room away from me, was just a hairsbreadth off the heart of the target that was centered on me. My scent would lead them here, whether I was here or not.

 

The tremors rocked me until my teeth chattered.

 

To calm myself, I fantasized the impossible: I imagined the big wolves catching up to Laurent in the woods and massacring the indestructible immortal the way they would any normal person. Despite the absurdity of such a vision, the idea comforted me. If the wolves got him, then he couldn't tell Victoria I was here all alone. If he didn't return, maybe she'd think the Cullens were still protecting me. If only the wolves could win such a fight…

 

My good vampires were never coming back; how soothing it was to imagine that the other kind could also disappear.

 

I squeezed my eyes tight together and waited for unconsciousness—almost eager for my nightmare to start. Better that than the pale, beautiful face that smiled at me now from behind my lids.

 

In my imagination, Victoria's eyes were black with thirst, bright with anticipation, and her lips curled back from her gleaming teeth in pleasure. Her red hair was brilliant as fire; it blew chaotically around her wild face.

 

Laurent's words repeated in my head. If you knew what she had planned for you …

 

I pressed my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming.

11. CULT

 

 

EACH TIME THAT I OPENED MY EYES TO THE MORNING light and realized I'd lived through another night was a surprise to me. After the surprise wore off, my heart would start to race and my palms would sweat; I couldn't really breathe again until I'd gotten up and ascertained that Charlie had survived as well.

 

I could tell he was worried—watching me jump at any loud sound, or my face suddenly go white for no reason that he could see. From the questions he asked now and then, he seemed to blame the change on Jacob's continued absence.

 

The terror that was always foremost in my thoughts usually distracted me from the fact that another week had passed, and Jacob still hadn't called me. But when I was able to concentrate on my normal life—if my life was really ever normal—this upset me.

 

I missed him horribly.

 

It had been bad enough to be alone before I was scared silly. Now, more than ever, I yearned for his carefree laugh and his infectious grin. I needed the safe sanity of his homemade garage and his warm hand around my cold fingers.

 

I'd half expected him to call on Monday. If there had been some progress with Embry, wouldn't he want to report it? I wanted to believe that it was worry for his friend that was occupying all his time, not that he was just giving up on me.

 

I called him Tuesday, but no one answered. Were the phone lines still having problems? Or had Billy invested in caller I.D.?

 

On Wednesday I called every half hour until after eleven at night, desperate to hear the warmth of Jacob's voice.

 

Thursday I sat in my truck in front of my house—with the locks pushed down—keys in hand, for a solid hour. I was arguing with myself, trying to justify a quick trip to La Push, but I couldn't do it.

 

I knew that Laurent had gone back to Victoria by now. If I went to La Push, I took the chance of leading one of them there. What if they caught up to me when Jake was nearby? As much as it hurt me, I knew it was better for Jacob that he was avoiding me. Safer for him.

 

It was bad enough that I couldn't figure out a way to keep Charlie safe. Nighttime was the most likely time that they would come looking ior me, and what could I say to get Charlie out of the house? If I told him the truth, he'd have me locked up in a rubber room somewhere. I would have endured that—welcomed it, even—if it could have kept him safe. But Victoria would still come to his house first, looking for me. Maybe, if she found me here, that would be enough for her. Maybe she would just leave when she was done with me.

 

So I couldn't run away. Even if I could, where would I go? To Renee? I shuddered at the thought of dragging my lethal shadows into my mother's safe, sunny world. I would never endanger her that way.

 

The worry was eating a hole in my stomach. Soon I would have matching punctures.

 

That night, Charlie did me another favor and called Harry again to see if the Blacks were out of town. Harry reported that Billy had attended the council meeting Wednesday night, and never mentioned anything about leaving. Charlie warned me not to make a nuisance of myself—Jacob would call when he got around to it.

 

Friday afternoon, as I drove home from school, it hit me out of the blue.

 

I wasn't paying attention to the familiar road, letting the sound of the engine deaden my brain and silence the worries, when my subconscious delivered a verdict it must have been working on for some time without my knowledge.

 

As soon as I thought of it, I felt really stupid for not seeing it sooner. Sure. I'd had a lot on my mind—revenue-obsessed vampires, giant mutant wolves, a ragged hole in the center of my chest—but when I laid the evidence out, it was embarrassingly obvious.

 

Jacob avoiding me. Charlie saying he looked strange, upset.... Billy's vague, unhelpful answers.

 

Holy crow, I knew exactly what was going on with Jacob.

 

It was Sam Uley. Even my nightmares had been trying to tell me that. Sam had gotten to Jacob. Whatever was happening to the other boys on the reservation had reached out and stolen my friend. He'd been sucked into Sam's cult.

 

He hadn't given up on me at all, I realized with a rush of feeling.

 

I let my truck idle in front of my house. What should I do? I weighed the dangers against each other.

 

If I went looking for Jacob, I risked the chance of Victoria or Laurent finding me with him.

 

If I didn't go after him, Sam would pull him deeper into his frightening, compulsory gang. Maybe it would be too late if I didn't act soon.

 

It had been a week, and no vampires had come for me yet. A week was more than enough time for them to have returned, so I must not be a priority. Most likely, as I'd decided before, they would come for me at night. The chances of them following me to La Push were much lower than the chance of losing Jacob to Sam.

 

It was worth the danger of the secluded forest road. This was no idle visit to see what was going on. I knew what was going on. This was a rescue mission. I was going to talk to Jacob—kidnap him if I had to. I'd once seen a PBS show on deprogramming the brainwashed. There had to be some kind of cure.

 

I decided I'd better call Charlie first. Maybe whatever was going on down in La Push was something the police should be involved in. I dashed inside, in a hurry to be on my way.

 

Charlie answered the phone it the station himself.

 

"Chief Swan."

 

"Dad, it's Bella."

 

"What's wrong?'"

 

I couldn't argue with his doomsday assumption this time. My voice was shaking.

 

"I'm worried about Jacob."

 

"Why?" he asked, surprised by the unexpected topic.

 

"I think… I think something weird is going on down at the reservation. Jacob told me about some strange stuff happening with the other boys his age. Now he's acting the same way and I'm scared."

 

"What kind of stuff?" He used his professional, police business voice. That was good; he was taking me seriously.

 

"First he was scared, and then he was avoiding me, and now… I'm afraid he's part of that bizarre gang down there, Sam's gang. Sam Uley's gang."

 

"Sam Uley?" Charlie repeated, surprised again.

 

"Yes."

 

Charlie's voice was more relaxed when he answered. "I think you've got it wrong, Bells. Sam Uley is a great kid. Well, he's a man now. A good son. You should hear Billy talk about him. He's really doing wonders with the youth on the reservation. He's the one who—" Charlie broke off mid-sentence, and I guessed that he had been about to make a reference to the night I'd gotten lost in the woods. I moved on quickly.

 

"Dad, it's not like that. Jacob was scared of him."

 

"Did you talk to Billy about this?" He was trying to soothe me now. I'd lost him as soon as I'd mentioned Sam.

 

"Billy's not concerned."

 

"Well, Bella, then I'm sure it's okay. Jacob's a kid; he was probably just messing around. I'm sure he's fine. He can't spend every waking minute with you, after all."

 

"This isn't about me," I insisted, but the battle was lost.

 

"I don't think you need to worry about this. Let Billy take care of Jacob."

 

"Charlie…" My voice was starting to sound whiney.

 

"Bells, I got a lot on my plate right now. Two tourists have gone missing off a trail outside crescent lake." There was an anxious edge to his voice. "This wolf problem is getting out of hand."

 

I was momentarily distracted—stunned, really—by his news. There was no way the wolves could have survived a match-up with Laurent…

 

"Are you sure that's what happened to them?" I asked.

 

"Afraid so, honey. There was—" He hesitated. "There were tracks again, and… some blood this time."

 

"Oh!" It must not have come to a confrontation, then. Laurent must have simply outrun the wolves, but why? What I'd seen in the meadow just got stranger and stranger—more impossible to understand.

 

"Look, I really have to go. Don't worry about Jake, Bella. I'm sure it's nothing."

 

"Fine," I said curtly, frustrated as his words reminded me of the more urgent crisis at hand. "Bye." I hang up.

 

I stared at the phone for a long minute. What the hell, I decided.

 

Billy answered after two rings.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Hey, Billy," I almost growled. I tried to sound more friendly as I continued. "Can I talk to Jacob, please?"

 

"Jake's not here."

 

What a shock. "Do you know where he is?"

 

"He's out with his friends." Billy's voice was careful.

 

"Oh yeah? Anyone I know? Quil?" I could tell the words didn't come across as casually as I'd meant them to.

 

"No," Billy said slowly. "I don't think he's with Quil today."

 

I knew better than to mention Sam's name.

 

"Embry?" I asked.

 

Billy seemed happier to answer this one. "Yeah, he's with Embry."

 

That was enough for me. Embry was one of them.

 

"Well, have him call me when he gets in, all right?"

 

"Sure, sure. No problem." Click.

 

"See you soon, Billy," I muttered into the dead phone.

 

I drove to La Push determined to wait. I'd sit out front of his house all night if I had to. I'd miss school. The boy was going to have to come home sometime, and when he did, he was going to have to talk to me.

 

My mind was so preoccupied that the trip I'd been terrified of making seemed to take only a few seconds. Before I was expecting it, the forest began to thin, and I knew I would soon be able to see the first little houses of the reservation.

 

Walking away, along the left side of the road, was a tall boy with a baseball cap.

 

My breath caught for just a moment in my throat, hopeful that luck was with me for once, and I'd srumbled across Jacob without hardly trying. But this boy was too wide, and the hair was short under the hat. Even from behind, I was sure it was Quil, though he looked bigger than the last time I'd seen him. What was with these Quileute boys? Were they feeding them experimental growth hormones?

 

I crossed over to the wrong side of the road to stop next to him. He looked up when the roar of my truck approached.

 

Quil's expression frightened me more than it surprised me. His face was bleak, brooding, his forehead creased with worry.

 

"Oh, hey, Bella," he greeted me dully.

 

"Hi, Quil… Are you okay?"

 

He stared at me morosely. "Fine."

 

"Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I offered.

 

"Sure, I guess," he mumbled. He shuffled around the front of the truck and opened the passenger door to climb in.

 

"Where to?"

 

"My house is on the north side, back behind the store," he told me.

 

"Have you seen Jacob today." The question burst from me almost before he'd finished speaking.

 

I looked at Quil eagerly, waiting for his answer. He stared out the windshield for a second before he spoke. "From a distance," he finally said.

 

"A distance?" I echoed.

 

"I tried to follow them—he was with Embry." His voice was low, hard to hear over the engine. I leaned closer. "I know they saw me. But they turned and just disappeared into the trees. I don't think they were alone—I think Sam and his crew might have been with them.

 

"I've been stumbling around in the forest for an hour, yelling for them. I just barely found the road again when you drove up."

 

"So Sam did get to him." The words were a little distorted—my teeth were gritted together.

 

Quil stared at me. "You know about that.?"

 

I nodded. "Jake told me… before."

 

"Before," Quil repeated, and sighed.

 

"Jacob's just as bad as the others now?"

 

"Never leaves Sam's side." Quil turned his head and spit out the open window.

 

"And before that—did he avoid everyone? Was he acting upset?"

 

His voice was low and rough. "Not for as long as the others. Maybe one day. Then Sam caught up with him."

 

"What do you think it is? Drugs or something?"

 

"I can't see Jacob or Embry getting into anything like that… but what do I know? What else could it be? And why aren't the old people worried?" He shook his head, and the fear showed in his eyes now. "Jacob didn't want to be a part of this… cult. I don't understand what could change him." He stared at me, his face frightened. "I don't want to be next."

 

My eyes mirrored his fear. That was the second time I'd heard it described as a cult. I shivered. "Are your parents any help?"

 

He grimaced. "Right. My grandfather's on the council with Jacob's dad. Sam Uley is the best thing that ever happened to this place, as far as he's concerned."

 

We stared at each other for a prolonged moment. We were in La Push now, and my truck was barely crawling along the empty road. I could see the village's only store not too far ahead.

 

"I'll get out now," Quil said. "My house is right over there." He gestured toward the small wooden rectangle behind the store. I pulled over to the shoulder, and he jumped out.

 

"I'm going to go wait for Jacob," I told him in a hard voice.

 

"Good luck." He slammed the door and shuffled forward along the road, his head bent forward, his shoulders slumped.

 

Quil's face haunted me as I made a wide U-turn and headed back toward the Blacks'. He was terrified of being next. What was happening here?

 

I stopped in front of Jacob's house, killing the motor and rolling down the windows. It was stuffy today, no breeze. I put my feet up on the dashboard and settled in to wait.

 

A movement flashed in my peripheral vision—I turned and spotted Billy looking at me through the front window with a confused expression. I waved once and smiled a tight smile, but stayed where I was.

 

His eyes narrowed; he let the curtain fall across the glass.

 

I was prepared to stay as long as it took, but I wished I had something to do. I dug up a pen out of the bottom of my backpack, and an old test. I started to doodle on the back of the scrap.

 

I'd only had time to scrawl one row of diamonds when there was a sharp tap against my door.

 

I jumped, looking up, expecting Billy.

 

"What are you doing here, Bella.'" Jacob growled.

 

I stared at him in blank astonishment.

 

Jacob had changed radically in the last weeks since I'd seen him. The first thing I noticed was his hair—his beautiful hair was all gone, cropped quite short, covering his head with an inky gloss like black satin. The planes of his face seemed to have hardened subtly, tightened… aged. His neck and his shoulders were different, too, thicker somehow. His hands, where they gripped the window frame, looked enormous, with the tendons and veins more prominent under the russet skin. But the physical changes were insignificant.

 

It was his expression that made him almost completely unrecognizable. The open, friendly smile was gone like the hair, the warmth in his dark eyes altered to a brooding resentment that was instantly disturbing. There was a darkness in Jacob now. Like my sun had imploded.

 

"Jacob?" I whispered.

 

He just stared at me, his eyes tense and angry.

 

I realized we weren't alone. Behind him stood four others; all tall and russet-skinned, black hair chopped short just like Jacob's. They could have been brothers—I couldn't even pick Embry out of the group. The resemblance was only intensified by the strikingly similar hostility in every pair of eyes.

 

Every pair but one. The oldest by several years, Sam stood in the very back, his face serene and sure. I had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat. I wanted to take a swing at him. No, I wanted to do more than that. More than anything, I wanted to be fierce and deadly, someone no one would dare mess with. Someone who would scare Sam Uley silly.

 

I wanted to be a vampire.

 

The violent desire caught me off guard and knocked the wind out of me. It was the most forbidden of all wishes—even when I only wished it for a malicious reason like this, to gain an advantage over an enemy—because it was the most painful. That future was lost to me forever, had never really been within my grasp. I scrambled to gain control of myself while the hole in my chest ached hollowly.

 

"What do you want?" Jacob demanded, his expression growing more resentful as he watched the play of emotion across my face.

 

"I want to talk to you," I said in a weak voice. I tried to focus, but I was still reeling against the escape of my taboo dream.

 

"Go ahead," he hissed through his teeth. His glare was vicious. I'd never seen him look at anyone like that, least of all me. It hurt with a surprising intensity—a physical pain, a stabbing in my head.

 

"Alone!" I hissed, and my voice was stronger.

 

He looked behind him, and I knew where his eyes would go. Every one of them was turned for Sam's reaction.

 

Sam nodded once, his face unperturbed. He made a brief comment in an unfamiliar, liquid language—I could only be positive that it wasn't French or Spanish, but I guessed that it was Quileute. He turned and walked into Jacob's house. The others, Paul, Jared, and Embry, I assumed, followed him in.

 

"Okay." Jacob seemed a bit less furious when the others were gone. His face was a little calmer, but also more hopeless. His mouth seemed permanently pulled down at the corners.

 

I took a deep breath. "You know what I want to know."

 

He didn't answer. He just stared at me bitterly.

 

I stared back and the silence stretched on. The pain in his face unnerved me. I felt a lump beginning to build in my throat.

 

"Can we walk?" I asked while I could still speak.

 

He didn't respond in any way; his face didn't change.

 

I got out of the car, feeling unseen eyes behind the windows on me, and started walking toward the trees to the north. My feet squished in the damp grass and mud beside the road, and, as that was the only sound, at first I thought he wasn't following me. But when I glanced around, he was right beside me, his feet having somehow found a less noisy path than mine.

 

I felt better in the fringe of trees, where Sam couldn't possibly be watching. As we walked, I struggled for the right thing to say, but nothing came. I just got more and more angry that Jacob had gotten sucked in… that Billy had allowed this… that Sam was able to stand there so assured and calm…

 

Jacob suddenly picked up the pace, striding ahead of me easily with his long legs, and then swinging around to face me, planting himself in my path so I would have to stop too.

 

I was distracted by the overt grace of his movement. Jacob had been nearly as klutzy as me with his never-ending growth spurt. When did that changed?

 

But Jacob didn't give me time to think about it.

 

"Let's get this over with," he said in a hard, husky voice.

 

I waited. He knew what I wanted.

 

"It's not what you think." His voice was abruptly weary. "It's not what I thought—I was way off."

 

"So what is it, then?"

 

He studied my face for a long moment, speculating. The anger never completely left his eyes. "I can't tell you," he finally said.

 

My jaw tightened, and I spoke through my teeth. "I thought we were friends."

 

"We were." There was a slight emphasis on the past tense.

 

"But you don't need friends anymore," I said sourly. "You have Sam. Isn't that nice—you've always looked up to him so much."

 

"I didn't understand him before."

 

"And now you've seen the light. Hallelujah."

 

"It wasn't like I thought it was. This isn't Sam's fault. He's helping me as much as he can." His voice turned brittle and he looked over my head, past me, rage burning out from his eyes.

 

"He's helping you," I repeated dubiously. "Naturally."

 

But Jacob didn't seem to be listening. He was taking deep, deliberate breaths, trying to calm himself. He was so mad that his hands were shaking.

 

"Jacob, please," I whispered "Won't you tell me what happened? Maybe I can help."

 

"No one can help me now." The words were a low moan; his voice broke.

 

"What did he do to you?" I demanded, tears collecting in my eyes. I reached out to him, as I had once before, stepping forward with my arms wide.

 

This time he cringed away, holding his hands up defensively. "Don't touch me," he whispered.

 

"Is Sam catching?" I mumbled. The stupid tears had escaped the corners of my eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, and folded my arms across my chest.

 

"Stop blaming Sam." The words came out fast, like a reflex. His hands reached up to twist around the hair that was no longer there, and then fell limply at his sides.

 

"Then who should I blame?" I retorted.

 

He halfway smiled; it was a bleak, twisted thing.

 

"You don't want to hear that."

 

"The hell I don't!" I snapped. "I want to know, and I want to know now."

 

"You're wrong," he snapped back.

 

"Don't you dare tell me I'm wrong—I'm not the one who got brainwashed! Tell me now whose fault this all is, if it's not your precious Sam!"

 

"You asked for it," he growled at me, eyes glinting hard. "If you want to blame someone, why don't you point your finger at those filthy, reeking bloodsuckers that you love so much?"

 

My mouth fell open and my breath came out with a whooshing sound. I was frozen in place, stabbed through with his double-edged words. The pain twisted in familiar patterns through my body, the jagged hole ripping me open from the inside out, but it was second place, background music to the chaos of my thoughts. I couldn't believe that I'd heard him correctly. There was no trace of indecision in his face. Only fury.

 

My mouth still hung wide.

 

"I told you that you didn't want to hear it," he said.

 

"I don't understand who you mean," I whispered.

 

He raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "I think you understand exactly who I mean. You're not going to make me say it, are you? I don't like hurting you."

 

"I don't understand who you mean," I repeated mechanically.

 

"The Cullens," he said slowly, drawing out the word, scrutinizing my face as he spoke it. "I saw that—I can see in your eyes what it does to you when I say their name."

 

I shook my head back and forth in denial, trying to clear it at the same time. How did he know this? And how did it have anything to do with Sam's cult? Was it a gang of vampire-haters? What was the point of forming such a society when no vampires lived in Forks anymore? Why would Jacob start believing the stories about the Cullens now, when the evidence of them was long gone, never to return?

 

It took me too long to come up with the correct response. "Don't tell me you're listening to Billy's superstitious nonsense now," I said with a feeble attempt at mockery.

 

"He knows more than I gave him credit for."

 

"Be serious, Jacob."

 

He glared at me, his eyes critical.

 

"Superstitions aside," I said quickly. "I still don't see what you're accusing the... Cullens"—wince—"of. They left more than half a year ago. How can you blame them for what Sam is doing now?"

 

"Sam isn't doing anything, Bella. And I know they're gone. But sometimes… things are set in motion, and then it's too late."

 

"What's set in motion? What's too late? What are you blaming them for?"