Breaking Dawn

I inhaled once and then nodded again.

Edward hugged me on my free side. “You can do this,” he repeated, murmuring the encouragement in my ear.

“Two minutes,” Alice said. “Maybe you should start out already on the couch. You’ve been sick, after all. That way he won’t have to see you move right at first.”

Alice pulled me to the sofa. I tried to move slowly, to make my limbs more clumsy. She rolled her eyes, so I must not have been doing a good job.

“Jacob, I need Renesmee,” I said.

Jacob frowned, unmoving.

Alice shook her head. “Bella, that doesn’t help me see.”

“But I need her. She keeps me calm.” The edge of panic in my voice was unmistakable.

“Fine,” Alice groaned. “Hold her as still as you can and I’ll try to see around her.” She sighed wearily, like she’d been asked to work overtime on a holiday. Jacob sighed, too, but brought Renesmee to me, and then retreated quickly from Alice’s glare.

Edward took a seat beside me and put his arms around Renesmee and me. He leaned forward and looked Renesmee very seriously in the eyes.

“Renesmee, someone special is coming to see you and your mother,” he said in a solemn voice, as if he expected her to understand every word. Did she? She looked back at him with clear, grave eyes. “But he’s not like us, or even like Jacob. We have to be very careful with him. You shouldn’t tell him things the way you tell us.”

Renesmee touched his face.

“Exactly,” he said. “And he’s going to make you thirsty. But you mustn’t bite him. He won’t heal like Jacob.”

“Can she understand you?” I whispered.

“She understands. You’ll be careful, won’t you, Renesmee? You’ll help us?”

Renesmee touched him again.

“No, I don’t care if you bite Jacob. That’s fine.”

Jacob chuckled.

“Maybe you should leave, Jacob,” Edward said coldly, glaring in his direction. Edward hadn’t forgiven Jacob, because he knew that no matter what happened now, I was going to be hurting. But I’d take the burn happily if that were the worst thing I’d face tonight.

“I told Charlie I’d be here,” Jacob said. “He needs the moral support.”

“Moral support,” Edward scoffed. “As far as Charlie knows, you’re the most repulsive monster of us all.”

“Repulsive?” Jake protested, and then he laughed quietly to himself.

I heard the tires turn off the highway onto the quiet, damp earth of the Cullens’ drive, and my breathing spiked again. My heart ought to have been hammering. It made me anxious that my body didn’t have the right reactions.

I concentrated on the steady thrumming of Renesmee’s heart to calm myself. It worked pretty quickly.

“Well done, Bella,” Jasper whispered in approval.

Edward tightened his arm over my shoulders.

“You’re sure?” I asked him.

“Positive. You can do anything.” He smiled and kissed me.

It wasn’t precisely a peck on the lips, and my wild vampiric reactions took me off guard yet again. Edward’s lips were like a shot of some addictive chemical straight into my nervous system. I was instantly craving more. It took all my concentration to remember the baby in my arms.

Jasper felt my mood change. “Er, Edward, you might not want to distract her like that right now. She needs to be able to focus.”

Edward pulled away. “Oops,” he said.

I laughed. That had been my line from the very beginning, from the very first kiss.

“Later,” I said, and anticipation curled my stomach into a ball.

“Focus, Bella,” Jasper urged.

“Right.” I pushed the trembly feelings away. Charlie, that was the main thing now. Keep Charlie safe today. We would have all night. . . .

“Bella.”

“Sorry, Jasper.”

Emmett laughed.

The sound of Charlie’s cruiser got closer and closer. The second of levity passed, and everyone was still. I crossed my legs and practiced my blinks.

The car pulled in front of the house and idled for a few seconds. I wondered if Charlie was as nervous as I was. Then the engine cut off, and a door slammed. Three steps across the grass, and then eight echoing thuds against the wooden stairs. Four more echoing footsteps across the porch. Then silence. Charlie took two deep breaths.

Knock, knock, knock.

I inhaled for what might be the last time. Renesmee nestled deeper into my arms, hiding her face in my hair.

Carlisle answered the door. His stressed expression changed to one of welcome, like switching the channel on the TV.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said, looking appropriately abashed. After all, we were supposed to be in Atlanta at the Center for Disease Control. Charlie knew he’d been lied to.

“Carlisle,” Charlie greeted him stiffly. “Where’s Bella?”

“Right here, Dad.”

Ugh! My voice was so wrong. Plus, I’d used up some of my air supply. I gulped in a quick refill, glad that Charlie’s scent had not saturated the room yet.

Charlie’s blank expression told me how off my voice was. His eyes zeroed in on me and widened.

I read the emotions as they scrolled across his face.

Shock. Disbelief. Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. Suspicion. More pain.

I bit my lip. It felt funny. My new teeth were sharper against my granite skin than my human teeth had been against my soft human lips.

“Is that you, Bella?” he whispered.

“Yep.” I winced at my wind-chime voice. “Hi, Dad.”

He took a deep breath to steady himself.

“Hey, Charlie,” Jacob greeted him from the corner. “How’re things?”

Charlie glowered at Jacob once, shuddered at a memory, and then stared at me again.

Slowly, Charlie walked across the room until he was a few feet away from me. He darted an accusing glare at Edward, and then his eyes flickered back to me. The warmth of his body heat beat against me with each pulse of his heart.

“Bella?” he asked again.

I spoke in a lower voice, trying to keep the ring out of it. “It’s really me.”

His jaw locked.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

“Really and truly great,” I promised. “Healthy as a horse.”

That was it for my oxygen.

“Jake told me this was… necessary. That you were dying.” He said the words like he didn’t believe them one bit.

I steeled myself, focused on Renesmee’s warm weight, leaned into Edward for support, and took a deep breath.

Charlie’s scent was a fistful of flames, punching straight down my throat. But it was so much more than