Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer [56]
Outside, Jacob, he snarled.
I was on my feet, too. Looking down on him now. This was why I was here.
Lets do this, I agreed.
The big one, Emmett, pushed forward on Edwards other side, with the hungry-looking one, Jasper, right behind him. I really didnt care. Maybe my pack would clean up the scraps when they finished me off. Maybe not. It didnt matter.
For the tiniest part of a second my eyes touched on the two standing in the back. Esme. Alice. Small and distractingly feminine. Well, I was sure the others would kill me before I had to do anything about them. I didnt want to kill girls even vampire girls.
Though I might make an exception for that blonde.
No, Bella gasped, and she stumbled forward, out of balance, to clutch at Edwards arm. Rosalie moved with her, like there was a chain locking them to each other.
I just need to talk to him, Bella, Edward said in a low voice, talking only to her. He reached up to touch her face, to stroke it. This made the room turn red, made me see fire- that, after all hed done to her, he was still allowed to touch her that way. Dont strain yourself, he went on, pleading. Please rest. Well both be back in just a few minutes.
She stared at his face, reading it carefully. Then she nodded and drooped toward the couch. Rosalie helped lower her back onto the cushions. Bella stared at me, trying to hold my eyes.
Behave, she insisted. And then come back.
I didnt answer. I wasnt making any promises today. I looked away and then followed Edward out the front door.
A random, disjointed voice in my head noted that separating him from the coven hadnt been so difficult, had it?
He kept walking, never checking to see if I was about to spring at his unprotected back. I supposed he didnt need to check. He would know when I decided to attack. Which meant Id have to make that decision very quickly.
Im not ready for you to kill me yet, Jacob Black, he whispered as he paced quickly away from the house. Youll have to have a little patience.
Like I cared about his schedule. I growled under my breath. Patience isnt my specialty.
He kept walking, maybe a couple hundred yards down the drive away from the house, with me right on his heels. I was all hot, my fingers trembling. On the edge, ready and waiting.
He stopped without warning and pivoted to face me. His expression froze me again.
For a second I was just a kid-a kid who had lived all of his life in the same tiny town. Just a child. Because I knew I would have to live a lot more, suffer a lot more, to ever understand the searing agony in Edwards eyes.
He raised a hand as if to wipe sweat from his forehead, but his fingers scraped against his face like they were going to rip his granite skin right off. His black eyes burned in their sockets, out of focus, or seeing things that werent there. His mouth opened like he was going to scream, but nothing came out.
This was the face a man would have if he were burning at the stake.
For a moment I couldnt speak. It was too real, this face-Id seen a shadow of it in the house, seen it in her eyes and his, but this made it final. The last nail in her coffin.
Its killing her, right? Shes dying. And I knew when I said it that my face was a watered-down echo of his. Weaker, different, because I was still in shock. I hadnt wrapped my head around it yet-it was happening too fast. Hed had time to get to this point. And it was different because Id already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose.
And different because this wasnt my fault.
My fault, Edward whispered, and his knees gave out. He crumpled in front of me, vulnerable, the easiest target you could imagine.
But I felt cold as snow-there was no fire in me.
Yes, he groaned into the dirt, like he was confessing to the ground. Yes, its killing her.
His broken helplessness irritated me. I wanted a fight, not an execution. Where