“Oh, c’mon, Bell. Don’t pretend like I’m not here!”

“I’m not.” I couldn’t see them anywhere. “Look, Jake, I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

He put his hand under my chin and pulled my face up. “Could I please have just a few seconds of your undivided attention, Miss Swan?”

I jerked away from his touch. “Keep your hands to yourself, Jacob,” I hissed.

“Sorry!” he said at once, holding his hands up in surrender. “I really am sorry. About the other day, I mean, too. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that. It was wrong. I guess . . . well, I guess I deluded myself into thinking you wanted me to.”

“Deluded — what a perfect description!”

“Be nice. You could accept my apology, you know.”

“Fine. Apology accepted. Now, if you’ll just excuse me for a moment . . .”

“Okay,” he mumbled, and his voice was so different from before that I stoppd searching for Alice and scrutinized his face. He was staring at the floor, hiding his eyes. His lower lip jutted out just a little bit.

“I guess you’d rather be with your real friends,” he said in the same defeated tone. “I get it.”

I groaned. “Aw, Jake, you know that’s not fair.”

“Do I?”

“You should.” I leaned forward, peering up, trying to look into his eyes. He looked up then, over my head, avoiding my gaze.

“Jake?”

He refused to look at me.

“Hey, you said you made me something, right?” I asked. “Was that just talk? Where’s my present?” My attempt to fake enthusiasm was pretty sad, but it worked. He rolled his eyes and then grimaced at me.

I kept up the lame pretense, holding my hand open in front of me. “I’m waiting.”

“Right,” he grumbled sarcastically. But he also reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small bag of a loose-woven, multi-colored fabric. It was tied shut with leather drawstrings. He set it on my palm.

“Hey, that’s pretty, Jake. Thanks!”

He sighed. “The present is inside, Bella.”

“Oh.”

I had some trouble with the strings. He sighed again and took it from me, sliding the ties open with one easy tug of the right cord. I held my hand out for it, but he turned the bag upside down and shook something silver into my hand. Metal links clinked quietly against each other.

“I didn’t make the bracelet,” he admitted. “Just the charm.”

Fastened to one of the links of the silver bracelet was a tiny wooden carving. I held it between my fingers to look at it closer. It was amazing the amount of detail involved in the little figurine — the miniature wolf was utterly realistic. It was even carved out of some red-brown wood that matched the color of his skin.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “You made this? How?”

He shrugged. “It’s something Billy taught me. He’s better at it than I am.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I murmured, turning the tiny wolf around and around in my fingers.

“Do you really like it?”

“Yes! It’s unbelievable, Jake.”

He smiled, happily at first, but then the expression soured. “Well, I figured that maybe it would make you remember me once in a while. You know how it is, out of sight, out of mind.”

I ignored the attitude. “Here, help me put it on.”

I held out my left wrist, since the right was stuck in the brace. He fastened the catch easily, though it looked too delicate for his big fingers to manage.

“You’ll wear it?” he asked.

“Of course I will.”

He grinned at me — it was the happy smile that I loved to see him wear.

I returned it for a moment, but then my eyes shot reflexively around the room again, anxiously scanning the crowd for some sign of Edward or Alice.

“Why’re you so distracted?” Jacob wondered.

“It’s nothing,” I lied, trying to concentrate. “Thanks for the present, really. I love it.”

“Bella?” His brows pulled together, throwing his eyes deep into their shadow. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”

“Jake, I . . . no, there’s nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, you suck at lying. You should tell me what’s going on. We want to know these things,” he said, slipping into the plural at the end.

He was probably right; the wolves would certainly be interested in what was happening. Only I wasn’t sure what that was yet. I wouldn’t know for sure until I found Alice.

“Jacob, I will tell you. Just let me figure out what’s happening, okay? I need to talk to Alice.”

Understanding lit his expression. “The psychic saw something.”

“Yes, just when you showed up.”

“Is this about the bloodsucker in your room?” he murmured, pitching his voice below the thrum of the music.

“It’s related,” I admitted.

He processed that for a minute, leaning his head to one side while he read my face. “You know something you’re not telling me . . . something big.”

What was the point in lying again? He knew me too well. “Yes.”

Jacob stared at me for one short moment, and then turned to catch his pack brothers’ eyes where they stood in the entry, awkward and uncomfortable. When they took in his expression, they started moving, weaving their way agilely through the partiers, almost like they were dancing, too. In half a minute, they stood on either side of Jacob, towering over me.

“Now. Explain,” Jacob demanded.

Embry and Quil looked back and forth between our faces, confused and wary.

“Jacob, I don’t know everything.” I kept searching the room, now for a rescue. They had me backed into a corner in every sense.

“What you do know, then.”

They all folded their arms across their chests at exactly the same moment. It was a little bit funny, but mostly menacing.

And then I caught sight of Alice descending the stairs, her white skin glowing in the purple light.

“Alice!” I squeaked in relief.

She looked right at me as soon as I called her name, despite the thudding bass that should have drowned my voice. I waved eagerly, and watched her face as she took in the three werewolves leaning over me. Her eyes narrowed.

But, before that reaction, her face was full of stress and fear. I bit my lip as she skipped to my side.

Jacob, Quil, and Embry all leaned away from her with uneasy expressions. She put her arm around my waist.

“I need to talk to you,” she murmured into my ear.

“Er, Jake, I’ll see you later . . . ,” I mumbled as we eased around them.

Jacob threw his long arm out to block our way, bracing his hand against the wall. “Hey, not so fast.”

Alice stared up at him, eyes wide and incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“Tell us what’s going on,” he demanded in a growl.

Jasper appeared quite literally out of nowhere. One second it was just Alice and me against the wall, Jacob blocking our exit, and then Jasper was standing on the other side of Jake’s arm, his expression terrifying.

Jacob slowly pulled his arm back. It seemed like the best move, going with the assumption that he wanted to keep that arm.

“We have a right to know,” Jacob muttered, still glaring at Alice.

Jasper stepped in between them, and the three werewolves braced themselves.

“Hey, hey,” I said, adding a slightly hysterical chuckle. “This is a party, remember?”

Nobody paid any attention to me. Jacob glared at Alice while Jasper glowered at Jacob. Alice’s face was suddenly thoughtful.

“It’s okay, Jasper. He actually has a point.”

Jasper did not relax his position.

I was sure the suspense was going to make my head explode in about one second. “What did you see, Alice?”

She stared at Jacob for one second, and then turned to me, evidently having chosen to let them hear.

“The decision’s been made.”

“You’re going to Seattle?”

“No.”

I felt the color drain out of my face. My stomach lurched. “They’re coming here,” I choked out.

The Quileute boys watched silently, reading every unconscious play of emotion on our faces. They were rooted in place, and yet not completely still. All three pairs of hands were trembling.

“Yes.”

“To Forks,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“For?”

She nodded, understanding my question. “One carried your red shirt.”

I tried to swallow.

Jasper’s expression was disapproving. I could tell he didn’t like discussing this in front of the werewolves, but he had something he needed to say. “We can’t let them come that far. There aren’t enough of us to protect the town.”

“I know,” Alice said, her face suddenly desolate. “But it doesn’t matter where we stop them. There still won’t be enough of us, and some of them will come here to search.”

“No!” I whispered.

The noise of the party overwhelmed the sound of my denial. All around us, my friends and neighbors and petty enemies ate and laughed and swayed to the music, oblivious to the fact that they were about to face horror, danger, maybe death. Because of me.

“Alice,” I mouthed her name. “I have to go, I have to get away from here.”

“That won’t help. It’s not like we’re dealing with a tracker. They’ll still come looking here first.”

“Then I have to go to meet them!” If my voice hadn’t been so hoarse and strained, it might have been a shriek. “If they find what they’re looking for, maybe they’ll go away and not hurt anyone else!”

“Bella!” Alice protested.

“Hold it,” Jacob ordered in a low, forceful voice. “What is coming?”

Alice turned her icy gaze on him. “Our kind. Lots of them.”

“Why?”

“For Bella. That’s all we know.”

“There are too many for you?” he asked.

Jasper bridled. “We have a few advantages, dog. It will be an even fight.”

“No,” Jacob said, and a strange, fierce half-smile spread across his face. “It won’t be even.”

“Excellent!” Alice hissed.

I stared, still frozen in horror, at Alice’s new expression. Her face was alive with exultation, all the despair wiped clean from her perfect features.

She grinned at Jacob, and he grinned back.

“Everything just disappeared, of course,” she told him in a smug voice. “That’s inconvenient, but, all things considered, I’ll take it.”

“We’ll have to coordinate,” Jacob said. “It won’t be easy for us. Still, this is our job more than yours.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but we need the help. We aren’t going to be picky.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted them.

Alice was on her toes, Jacob leaning down toward her, both of their faces lit up with excitement, both of their noses wrinkled against the smell. They looked at me impatiently.