“C’mon, you think somebody’s going to get past all — all six of us?”

There was a strange pause as he stuttered over the end of his question. I wondered if he had trouble saying the word werewolf aloud, the way I often had difficulty with vampire.

His big dark eyes were full of unashamed pleading.

“I’ll ask,” I said doubtfully.

He made a noise in the back of his throat. “Is he your warden, now, too? You know, I saw this story on the news last week about controlling, abusive teenage relationships and —”

“Okay!” I cut him off, and then shoved his arm. “Time for the werewolf to get out!”

He grinned. “Bye, Bells. Be sure you ask permission.”

He ducked out the back door before I could find something to throw at him. I growled incoherently at the empty room.

Seconds after he was gone, Edward walked slowly into the kitchen, raindrops glistening like diamonds set into the bronze of his hair. His eyes were wary.

“Did you two get into a fight?” he asked.

“Edward!” I sang, throwing myself at him.

“Hi, there.” He laughed and wrapped his arms around me. “Are you trying to distract me? It’s working.”

“No, I didn’t fight with Jacob. Much. Why?”

“I was just wondering why you stabbed him. Not that I object.” With his chin, he gestured to the knife on the counter.

“Dang! I thought I got everything.”

I pulled away from him and ran to put the knife in the sink before I doused it with bleach.

“I didn’t stab him,” I explained as I worked. “He forgot he had a knife in his hand.”

Edward chuckled. “That’s not nearly as fun as the way I imagined it.”

“Be nice.”

He took a big envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it on the counter. “I got your mail.”

“Anything good?”

“I think so.”

My eyes narrowed suspiciously at his tone. I went to investigate.

He’d folded the legal-sized envelope in half. I smoothed it open, surprised at the weight of the expensive paper, and read the return address.

“Dartmouth? Is this a joke?”

“I’m sure it’s an acceptance. It looks exactly like mine.”

“Good grief, Edward — what did you do?”

“I sent in your application, that’s all.”

“I may not be Dartmouth material, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that.”

“Dartmouth seems to think that you’re Dartmouth material.”

I took a deep breath and counted slowly to ten. “That’s very generous of them,” I finally said. “However, accepted or not, there is still the minor matter of tuition. I can’t afford it, and I’m not letting you throw away enough money to buy yourself another sports car just so that I can pretend to go to Dartmouth next year.”

“I don’t need another sports car. And you don’t have to pretend anything,” he murmured. “One year of college wouldn’t kill you. Maybe you’d even like it. Just think about it, Bella. Imagine how excited Charlie and Renée would be. . . .”

His velvet voice painted the picture in my head before I could block it. Of course Charlie would explode with pride — no one in the town of Forks would be able to escape the fallout from his excitement. And Renée would be hysterical with joy at my triumph — though she’d swear she wasn’t at all surprised. . . .

I tried to shake the image out of my head. “Edward. I’m worried about living through graduation, let alone this summer or next fall.”

His arms wrapped around me again. “No one is going to hurt you. You have all the time in the world.”

I sighed. “I’m mailing the contents of my bank account to Alaska tomorrow. It’s all the alibi I need. It’s far enough away that Charlie won’t expect a visit until Christmas at the earliest. And I’m sure I’ll think of some excuse by then. You know,” I teased halfheartedly, “this whole secrecy and deception thing is kind of a pain.”

Edward’s expression hardened. “It gets easier. After a few decades, everyone you know is dead. Problem solved.”

I flinched.

“Sorry, that was harsh.”

I stared down at the big white envelope, not seeing it. “But still true.”

“If I get this resolved, whatever it is we’re dealing with, will you please consider waiting?”

“Nope.”

“Always so stubborn.”

“Yep.”

The washing machine thumped and stuttered to a halt.

“Stupid piece of junk,” I muttered as I pulled away from him. I moved the one small towel that had unbalanced the otherwise empty machine, and started it again.

“This reminds me,” I said. “Could you ask Alice what she did with my stuff when she cleaned my room? I can’t find it anywhere.”

He looked at me with confused eyes. “Alice cleaned your room?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what she was doing. When she came to get my pajamas and pillow and stuff to hold me hostage.” I glowered at him briefly. “She picked up everything that was lying around, my shirts, my socks, and I don’t know where she put them.”

Edward continued to look confused for one short moment, and then, abruptly, he was rigid.

“When did you notice your things were missing?”

“When I got back from the fake slumber party. Why?”

“I don’t think Alice took anything. Not your clothes, or your pillow. The things that were taken, these were things you’d worn . . . and touched . . . and slept on?”

“Yes. What is it, Edward?”

His expression was strained. “Things with your scent.”

“Oh!”

We stared into each others eyes for a long moment.

“My visitor,” I muttered.

“He was gathering traces . . . evidence. To prove that he’d found you?”

“Why?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. But, Bella, I swear I will find out. I will.”

“I know you will,” I said, laying my head against his chest. Leaning there, I felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the number. “Just the person I need to talk to,” he murmured, and then he flipped it open. “Carlisle, I —” He broke off and listened, his face taut with concentration for a few minutes. “I’ll check it out. Listen . . .”

He explained about my missing things, but from the side I was hearing, it sounded like Carlisle had no insights for us.

“Maybe I’ll go . . . ,” Edward said, trailing off as his eyes drifted toward me. “Maybe not. Don’t let Emmett go alone, you know how he gets. At least ask Alice keep an eye on things. We’ll figure this out later.”

He snapped the phone shut. “Where’s the paper?” he asked me.

“Um, I’m not sure. Why?”

“I need to see something. Did Charlie already throw it out?”

“Maybe. . . .”

Edward disappeared.

He was back in half a second, new diamonds in his hair, a wet newspaper in his hands. He spread it out on the table, his eyes scanning quickly across the headlines. He leaned in, intent on something he was reading, one finger tracing passages that interested him most.

“Carlisle’s right . . . yes . . . very sloppy. Young and crazed? Or a death wish?” he muttered to himself.

I went to peek over his shoulder.

The headline of the Seattle Times read: “Murder Epidemic Continues — Police Have No New Leads.”

It was almost the same story Charlie had been complaining about a few weeks ago — the big-city violence that was pushing Seattle up the national murder hot-spot list. It wasn’t exactly the same story, though. The numbers were a lot higher.

“It’s getting worse,” I murmured.

He frowned. “Altogether out of control. This can’t be the work of just one newborn vampire. What’s going on? It’s as if they’ve never heard of the Volturi. Which is possible, I guess. No one has explained the rules to them . . . so who is creating them, then?”

“The Volturi?” I repeated, shuddering.

“This is exactly the kind of thing they routinely wipe out — immortals who threaten to expose us. They just cleaned up a mess like this a few years ago in Atlanta, and it hadn’t gotten nearly this bad. They will intervene soon, very soon, unless we can find some way to calm the situation. I’d really rather they didn’t come to Seattle just now. As long as they’re this close . . . they might decide to check on you.”

I shuddered again. “What can we do?”

“We need to know more before we can decide that. Perhaps if we can talk to these young ones, explain the rules, it can be resolved peacefully.” He frowned, like he didn’t think the chances of that were good. “We’ll wait until Alice has an idea of what’s going on. . . . We don’t want to step in until it’s absolutely necessary. After all, it’s not our responsibility. But it’s good we have Jasper,” he added, almost to himself. “If we are dealing with newborns, he’ll be helpful.”

“Jasper? Why?”

Edward smiled darkly. “Jasper is sort of an expert on young vampires.”

“What do you mean, an expert?”

“You’ll have to ask him — the story is involved.”

“What a mess,” I mumbled.

“It does feel that way, doesn’t it? Like it’s coming at us from all sides these days.” He sighed. “Do you ever think that your life might be easier if you weren’t in love with me?”

“Maybe. It wouldn’t be much of a life, though.”

“For me,” he amended quietly. “And now, I suppose,” he continued with a wry smile, “you have something you want to ask me?”

I stared at him blankly. “I do?”

“Or maybe not.” He grinned. “I was rather under the impression that you’d promised to ask my permission to go to some kind of werewolf soirée tonight.”

“Eavesdropping again?”

He grinned. “Just a bit, at the very end.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to ask you anyway. I figured you had enough to stress about.”

He put his hand under my chin, and held my face so that he could read my eyes. “Would you like to go?”

“It’s no big thing. Don’t worry about it.”

“You don’t have to ask my permission, Bella. I’m not your father — thank heaven for that. Perhaps you should ask Charlie, though.”

“But you know Charlie will say yes.”

“I do have a bit more insight into his probable answer than most people would, it’s true.”

I just stared at him, trying to understand what he wanted, and trying to put out of my mind the yearning I felt to go to La Push so that I wouldn’t be swayed by my own wishes. It was stupid to want to go hang out with a bunch of big idiot wolf-boys right now when there was so much that was frightening and unexplained going on. Of course, that was exactly why I wanted to go. I wanted to escape the death threats, for just a few hours . . . to be the less-mature, more-reckless Bella who could laugh it off with Jacob, if only briefly. But that didn’t matter.