Hello! Welcome to Bella's Boyfriend, the sequel to Bella's Guitar. If you haven't read Bella's Guitar, please read that first. Bella's Boyfriend resumes the storyline on the morning after the end of Bella's Guitar.

This story is rated M for mature content. The Twilight characters and world are the intellectual and creative property of Stephenie Meyer. I am not profiting from this work of fan fiction.

Enjoy!

BELLA'S BOYFRIEND

Chapter One

"The Morning After"

Bella awoke to the strangest sound. For a moment she thought it was a seagull. There was a brightness to it, a sudden, high-pitched, chicken-like be-gawk! Then it sounded different, lower-pitched, a shuddering yawp, a sibilant gasp. A sure sign of the heebie-jeebies. She sat up. And she was promptly thwacked across the face with something big and fluffy.

"Dad?" she squawked.

"Yee-ow!" he said. "Yip! Yow! Yoooow-eeesh!" Each of these statements was punctuated by the pillow he aimed at his daughter's head. Fwap. Fwap. Ffffffwap.

"Dad?!"

Fwap.

It was still dark outside, and it was dark in her room. Bella tried to look at her alarm clock, but she was struck across the face with the pillow again. Was it five a.m.? Or six?

"Dad, what are you—?"

Fwap. "It's a rat!"

"A rat?"

"In your bed!" Fwap.

"A rat!" She kicked the covers off her feet. "Where?! Where?!"

"In your bed!" Fwap! Fwap!

Squealing, Bella spun around on her bottom. Her bare feet fluttered in the air above a long, dark, hairy thing on the mattress. She squealed again and tried to leap away, but Charlie thwacked her with the pillow and she fell between the bed and the wall, landing on her shoulder as her legs and her quilts piled on top of her. The dark thing slid off the mattress as well.

"It's touching me!" she cried. "It's touching me!"

Charlie shoved her bed away from the wall and whipped her quilts off of her. "Yeee-oowww-iiiishhh!" When no rat scuttled away, he dropped the quilts and stomped all over them. Bella cringed, waiting for a squeak and a crunch, but as her father stomped and stomped and nothing happened, she sat up and looked around. It was under the bed.

"Quick! Dad! There it is!"

Charlie grabbed her bedpost and lifted her bed halfway off the floor in a single-handed feat of strength and adrenaline. His slippered foot found its quarry. Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

"Oh, you're killing it!" cried Bella. Her own adrenaline rush went straight to the part of her heart that loved little animals. "Don't kill it!" she wailed.

Charlie stomped it anyway until he was sure it wasn't moving. Then he turned on the light.

Blinking up at him from the yellow hardwood floor, his daughter lay in a tangle of pink-flowered bedsheets. Her hair was snarled to three times its usual volume, her eyes were bleary, and her white "Save the Whales" nightshirt had slipped off one shoulder, exposing her skinny collarbone and a collection of tiny purple—

"What's that on your neck?" he said.

Bella tucked her chin and twisted her head, but she couldn't see what he meant.

"Right there." His eyebrows rushed together as the adrenaline found a new target. "What's that on your neck, young lady?"

Bella licked her finger and rubbed it on her neck. "Is it coming off?" She moved her nightshirt and rubbed her hands all over her neck and shoulders and upper chest. Charlie's eyes flared, and his skin went pinker and pinker and then bone white. "It's not coming off, is it?" said Bella.

Her father closed his eyes and counted to at least fifty. When he opened them, he moved his slipper and picked up the rat: a long, black, heavy lock of hair secured by a rubber band at one end.

Without a word, he strode across the hall and returned with a handheld mirror from the bathroom. He tossed it at her, and she gaped at herself in bewilderment. Her neck, shoulders, upper chest, and even parts of her forearms, near her wrists, were decorated with small purplish brown or pink blotches. Amazing. What was this? For a moment she wondered if she'd caught some weird illness—it was that bad—and she touched her skin gingerly. Several places felt tender. How could this have—

Oh.

Charlie tossed the hair at her, too. "Did this come from the same place?"

She nodded.

He shut the door when he left.

It was 6:42 a.m. The red numbers of her alarm clock glowed softly when she turned off the light. Bella flopped her quilts back on the bed. She took more care with the hair, combing it smooth with her fingers and placing it on her pillow again. Then she lay on her back, tracing her fingers over the tender spots on her neck and shoulders. She touched her face, too. It felt strange. She realized it was because there was a huge, fat, idiotic grin on it that wouldn't go away. Stretching luxuriously, she enjoyed the sensation of pointing her toes, arching her back, and feeling her ribcage rise. She liked the feeling of the taut skin on her stomach, too, and the awareness she had of her hip bones. It felt good to wiggle them as she got comfortable in her bed again. Between her white curtains, the slimmest streak of peach had appeared in the sky. She rolled to her side to look at it and touched her neck again.

Wow. Just... Wow.

Breakfast was a little uncomfortable. Charlie sat across from her at the table, alternately glaring into his coffee cup and opening his mouth to speak, then closing it again. He also squeezed his eyes shut, over and over, and looked out the window with big, slow blinks. But mostly, there was the glaring.

Bella poured milk on a bowl of raisin bran and sat down as carefully and quietly as she could. The sound of her spoon moving through the crunchy cereal flakes seemed obnoxious.

Thank goodness for turtleneck sweaters. Wearing one felt ridiculous, like something teenagers from the nineteen-fifties did, and even then only in movies. But here in Forks, on February 21, 2006, it proved to be a time-tested solution. In her closet she had found a brand-new, light blue, cotton cable knit sweater with the tags still on. Had Renee sent it to her last Christmas? She couldn't remember much from her zombie days. But now she was glad to have it. She pulled the cuffs down past her wrists and nudged the neckline as high as it would go. Then she nibbled at her cereal and waited.

It's not like I did anything wrong, she told herself. She also thought, If he glares at that coffee any harder, it'll burst into flames. She snorted, just once, with laughter. It made Charlie stand up suddenly.

"This is really bad timing, Bella. Really bad." He pulled open a drawer to get a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper. Smacking the drawer shut, he sat down across from her again and made a diagram of what he told her was "shit I have to think about."

He proceeded to draw a pie chart from hell.

On the yellow legal paper, he drew a large circle and sliced it in half with a vertical, angry black line. One half of the circle he labeled "Reality." In it, he wrote, "Two dead hikers. Thirty-two bags of body parts. Crying relatives flying here from Cincinnati. No suspects." He scratched these words into the paper so fiercely that the pen broke through in one place. Bella cringed to think about the thirty-two separate bags. It sounded familiar. She tried to remember where she had heard that before.

"And this," continued Charlie, "is eating up the other half of my brain." He labeled the second half of the circle "Possibilities" and filled it with a list that read, "What's Sam hiding? Killer bear in the woods? Did Dorsic see something out there? Serial killer/survivalist? Should I call the FBI?"

He pushed the paper in front of her, saying, "Look. Look at what I have to think about!" Then he drew two squares next to the large circle. He labeled one "daughter dating" and the other "Edward killed someone." He made several forceful arrows pointing to the circle. Scratch, scratch, scratch went his pen.

"What's this?" he demanded, pointing to the Edward square. Bella felt her face go pale. The sun was up outside, but the kitchen light was still on, making the yellow paper look yellower, more urgent, in its artificial glow. Charlie's words were written in all capital letters, with short, hard strokes. "What the hell is this, Bella? Is this connected? Because I might need to make a bigger circle."

He scrawled around and around his pie chart. It looked like a tornado.

"And now this?"

She looked at the "daughter dating" box, off to the side of that mess.

"No," said Charlie. "Abso-fucking-lutely not."

He got up, shoved the pen and paper back into the drawer, and slapped it shut. In the living room, she heard him open the coat closet. He came back and shoved her coat at her, telling her to go to work and come straight home when she was through.

When Bella arrived at work, Mrs. Newton gave her a big smile.

"Why, sweetie," she said. "You came!"

"Uh, hi?" said Bella.

Mike was at home. As Bella had guessed, he was too sick to work. But she had come to fill in before Mrs. Newton could call her. This act, she gathered from Mrs. Newton's astonishment, was called "taking initiative." She got the impression it was a good thing. So she got a bucket and mop and went to clean the restroom without being asked. After that, Mrs. Newton set her to work in the camping section.

In order to make room for a new display, four shelves had to be emptied. Bella kept the merchandise organized as she stacked it up on the floor: sleeping bags, camping stoves, small propane tanks, dehydrated meals, water purification systems, and more. Then the empty shelves had to be shoved closer together and restocked. Mr. Newton, thank goodness, came out of the accounting office to help with the shoving. He was a slim but sturdy man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes, like Mike. After they created more floor space, Mrs. Newton asked Bella to set up a tent.

"Like this?" she asked, pointing to a small box. The photo on the box showed two happy campers on a mountaintop beside an adorable green backpacking tent. It was called "The Grasshopper."

"No," said Mrs. Newton. "Let's show off our best model." She pointed to a box about the size of Bella's locker at school. The photo showed a family of eight posing next to an enormous, candy-red, three-room contraption. Two of the tent's zippered windows were open. Two more children—a pair of twin girls with pigtails—poked their heads out of one window, grinning with identical glee, and a pair of golden retrievers stood panting out of the other window. The tent was called "Pemberley." In the background of the photo, a pickup truck towing a horse trailer was kicking up dust as it rolled into the campground.

Assembling Pemberly took the rest of the morning. It had many poles, windows, screens, sections, and three interior rooms. It had a rainfly so big that if it were an American flag, it would have been suitable for hoisting over a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, and when she dragged it all out of the box and spread it on the floor, it looked like a parachutist had crash landed. Well, she thought, if Mr. Darcy ever went camping, he'd probably have a tent like this.

As she worked, she thought about Charlie. His reaction surprised her. He liked Jacob, didn't he? There were times when it seemed like he thought Jacob was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It used to make her mad. She'd be visiting, as a little girl, and Charlie would say things like, Oh, look, Jacob can roller skate. Would you like me to buy you some roller skates, Bells?

That had ended badly.

She threaded the long, flexible tent poles through their sleeves and crawled into the flat tent, trying to lift it into position from the inside.

Maybe, she thought, Charlie would have reacted better if she and Jacob could have eased him into the idea. They could have talked about it. Or she and Jacob could have simply stood in front of him until the change in their friendship became apparent. It wouldn't have taken long. She imagined Charlie looking between the two of them with his eyebrows squinched up, kind of low over his nose, and then he would frown a little... And then everything would have been okay. Right? But maybe the sight of her neck this morning looking like... well, like it looked... Maybe that would make any parent flip out.

That slow, stupid smile returned to her face as she thought about what her neck looked like.

Jacob, Jacob, Jacob...

Were things different now between them? She crawled through the tent, squirming beneath the poles that wiggled and flapped above her. Light through the red fabric made the tent seem like a giant heart; she crept into each chamber, unzipping the windows for air. What would happen when she saw him again? Would she turn pink immediately? Would he? Her hands were pink now, tinted by the red light, as she rolled the window coverings down and tied them in place. Would his smile look different? Would it look as stupid as her own?

Probably stupider, she thought. But just barely.

She rolled onto her back and let the red fabric flutter over her body. It was nylon, but it felt like silk as it slid over her face and hands and neck. Arching her back, she stretched luxuriously, turning from side to side. She remembered his hands on her shoulders, and his lips, and his warmth, and the scent of his skin and hair. Just thinking about it made shivers run through her. She had never felt this way before, and it felt so good. So alive. And then thinking about the feeling of being alive brought her contrasting memories of Edward, whose lips were made of stone.

Screw you, Edward.

Even with no one to see her in the tent, she covered her mouth with her hands. But then she thought it again—Yeah, screw you, Edward—and she breathed hard into her cupped hands. You can't take this from me!

For the first time, she was glad he left. Even though she had struggled through her terrible heartache, she was still glad. Now she had friends. She had a father. And she had a freaking fantastic feeling after last night on the porch. This is MINE, she thought. And you can't have it. Then she wanted to laugh, and she kicked her legs, drumming her heels on the floor as the tent fabric rustled above her. Mine!

Jacob was not going to push her away next time she wanted to kiss him. She was pretty sure. She felt all shivery again and had to roll onto her stomach. Then she rolled back, stretched more, and rolled around and around in the tent, enjoying the sensation of fabric sliding over her skin and the rich, red light.

"Bella?" said Mrs. Newton after a while. "Are you okay?"

She waved her arms and legs as if making a snow angel.

At home again, Bella made dinner for Charlie. She had worked at Newton's till six o'clock, half-ashamed of the fact that she was avoiding her father, and half-defiantly pleased with herself for having a job that allowed her to earn money while avoiding her father. While working, she had also managed to avoid Jessica Stanley, who stopped by the store looking for Mike. From behind a bookcase, she saw Jessica peek down a few aisles. Mrs. Newton confronted her.

"Jessica." Her smile was tight. "Haven't seen you in a while."

Jessica murmured a hello. She said she had seen Mike last night at the movies in Port Angeles, and she wanted to know if he was feeling well.

"At the movies. Yes. He went with Bella. And he told me you were there with—"

"With someone else," Jessica said cautiously. "But I don't think I'll be seeing him anymore." She spoke quietly, but her chin went up.

Mrs. Newton did not uncross her arms from her chest, but after a moment, she suggested that Jessica come back tomorrow. "Mike might be feeling better then."

Bella sighed with relief when Jessica left, but then, as she was straightening some photography books, she began to frown. She didn't like the way Mrs. Newton said that Mike had gone to the movies with her. Yes, he had, but he also went with Angela, Jacob, and Quil. Was Mrs. Newton confused about her friendship with Mike? Or was she trying to tell Jessica to forget about him? Why did she have to pull Bella into this? Was Mike's mom another factor in the multiplication of Jessica's suspicious dislike?

Darn it. Double dog-gone darn it!

This felt like a game Bella didn't want to play. She hadn't known she was playing, and maybe that's why she had been losing. Mrs. Newton had never acted like she wanted Bella and Mike to get together, so she could only guess that Mrs. Newton mentioned her to dissuade a girl who had been making her son unhappy.

But what about me? she thought. I am not a pawn. She shoved the books into place a little too brusquely. Unnecessary roughness, she could imagine Quil saying.

She frowned and frowned at the books. And she realized, after a while, that part of her irritation was related to Renee. Bella didn't have a mother who would defend her from skanks. But Mike had one. A nosey, bossy, freedom-limiting, discouraging, wrinkly old mom who actually gave a flying fig about him. She wondered if Mike would laugh or grimace if she told him he was kind of lucky.

At six o'clock, after a whole day of Bella asking if there wasn't anything else she could do—Pemberly was looking surprisingly good, after the Newtons had helped her—Mike's mom dismissed her.

Now she stood in Charlie's kitchen, browning half a pound of ground beef for tacos.

The sizzling in the pan seemed the only sound in the house. She added garlic, cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Then she chopped a quarter of an onion and added that, too. The scent stung her eyes. She had to open the freezer and stick her face in there, letting the cold air soothe her.

As she worked, she watched her father out of the corner of her eye. He had cleared the table and even removed the table cloth, replacing it with a huge, awkward sheet of white paper, and now he was busy with what she could only imagine was something awful. There were magic markers involved.

Bella picked up the phone and dialed Angela's number, stretching the cord across the kitchen so she could keep her spatula in the pan. Mrs. Weber answered.

"Hi. Is Angela there?"

Her mother said yes, she was, but that she had the flu and was sleeping.

"Oh. I'm sorry. That's why I called. She threw up last night."

"And this morning. And this afternoon." Mrs. Weber said she'd likely be sick for a few days, and she asked if Bella were feeling all right.

"I'm okay."

"Well, don't come to visit. She's probably contagious. I'll tell her you called. Stay healthy!"

Bella said goodbye and glanced at Charlie again. He was drawing. She also glanced at the answering machine, whose little red light was not blinking.

"Dad? Did— Um, did Jacob call today?"

He glared at her.

Why can't we have more than one phone in this house?

She grimaced as she dialed Jake's number, turning her back on her father to hide her blush. In Billy's house, the phone rang and rang and rang. After a couple minutes, she gave up, turned the burner off on the stove, and began chopping lettuce and tomatoes. She found some shredded cheddar cheese in a bag in the fridge. When she carried their meal to the table, she stopped in surprise. On the paper that covered the whole table, Charlie had drawn an exactingly detailed and impeccably proportioned outline of the Olympic Peninsula.

"Sit," he ordered. "And keep your tacos off of Hoquiam."

Her blood ran suddenly cold. She sank slowly into her chair as her father darkened the lines of the western coast with a black marker. Then, with an orange one, he made a dotted boundary around the national park.

"Impressive," she managed. "How do you know how to—"

"Because I've lived here for thirty-two years," he drawled. And then, presumably, to show off, he added a few of the islands off the coast. A large one off Cape Flattery. A couple of smaller ones near La Push. One of them he labeled, "Akalat." He had oriented this giant map so she sat near the southern end of the peninsula, looking north. Her tacos, indeed, were infringing on Hoquiam.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Charlie said. "So much of this is classified. But I'm on the edge of something, and I'm starting to think that after all this time, one of the biggest clues has been right here in front of me."

"In Forks?"

"No." His brown eyes held hers. "In my house."

It was hard to swallow with Charlie looking at her like that.

Her father, however, ate quickly and deliberately. He drew quickly, too, his hands swishing over the map as he added towns in black, rivers in green, the contours and peaks of Mount Olympus in blue, and the Indian reservations in purple. There were a lot more of those than she'd realized. Clockwise, starting at the noon position in Port Angeles, were the lands of the Lower Elwha Klallam, the Jamestown S'Klallam, the Port Gamble S'Klallam, the Suquamish, the Skokomish, the Quilnault, the Hoh, the Quileute, and the Makah, rounding out the circle at about ten o'clock, on the northwest tip of the peninsula. It was, Charlie told her, the westernmost point in the lower forty-eight states.

"Neat, huh?" he said dryly.

Bella felt as if she were backed up on those cliffs.

Charlie extended each tribal territory beyond the modern reservation boundaries, using purple dotted lines to show historical possession. Truly, the Quileutes' land included many more miles of sea coast and vast swaths of forest, sweeping all the way to the top of Mount Olympus. She had once gazed in boredom at a poster of this territory in the La Push Community Center; however, seeing it now on Charlie's table sent shivers through her. Forks was part of that territory. But Forks was a modern speck in a vast, ancient landscape. When Charlie included the Hoh tribe's holdings (they were relatives of the Quileutes, he reminded her), the Hoh Rainforest, its parkland, trails, and visitor center were also part of Quileute territory. So was was the Hoh River.

"Here," said Charlie, tracing the Hoh River Trail in red, "is where we lost the first one. The female hiker, a couple weeks ago." He made an X. "Here's where Sam found the other hiker, yesterday morning." A second X. "And here's where my friend died, last spring." He made a final X for Waylon, who was found dead in his boat on the Hoh River near Forks. "Animal attack." Each corpse, he reminded her, was more gruesomely mauled than the last. It was nearly impossible to identify the victims.

"But maybe that's the point. It's also nearly impossible to tell how they died."

"The point?"

"If there's a point to it, then it was done on purpose."

Bella's eyes filled with tears. To her surprise, Charlie's did, too. He held her gaze, though, and she watched his skin redden and his mustache tremble, just once, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

"Bella. Please help me."

She couldn't speak.

Charlie kept drawing. "Huge gray bear," he recited from one of his files, "spotted February 6 in the Queets River Valley." Bella felt more frightened as she realized that he'd memorized these words. Her father remembered a lot of things. Quite accurately. It was one of many reasons why he was the Chief. "Ran across the river approximately one a.m.," he continued. "Estimated size, eight feet long. Five feet high. Long tail. Witnesses, itinerant campers." He sketched a bear in a river valley south of Forks, giving it gray fur and a long tail.

"That look like a bear to you?"

"No," she whispered.

He drew a big red paw print next to the bear and more paw prints next to each of his X's for the animal attacks. "If there's a point to it," he said again, "it was done on purpose." Then he looked at his hand, opening and closing his fingers. "I'm going out of my mind." More forcefully, he said, "I'm going out of my mind, Bella. You think I can sit across from the sheriff in Port Angeles and show him this? I need you to help me."

She smudged away her tears with her napkin as Charlie became more agitated. He made two columns of clues on the side of his map. In one column: bear. paw prints. animal attack. In the second column: this was done on purpose.

"What kind of animal does things like this? On purpose? Why do I keep thinking this was done on purpose?"

He added more clues to his map, including another paw print for the huge, half-seen animal Matt Hathaway nicked on its hind quarters on February 13, also in the Hoh River Valley.

"There's an animal. These people are shredded. My friend—"

"Oh, Dad—"

"My friend is dead! You know something, don't you?"

"I can't—"

"You can!" He slapped the table. "Is this killer trying to make it look like an animal did this? Maybe. But there's definitely an animal out there. A killer. And an animal. They might or might not be the same."

Bella got up and put all of their dishes in the sink. Dinner was over. Charlie commanded her to sit down again as he unfolded a slip of yellow notebook paper from his pocket.

"Edward killed someone," he read.

"Oh, Dad, no."

"I wrote it down as soon as I could. I think I remembered everything. Yesterday morning, you said, Edward killed someone. It was a long time ago. He didn't love me. He loved someone else. There was a tree. Her brother. A piano. A yearbook. A wedding dress. A hungry baby. It was a logging accident." He put down the paper gently. "It was a long time ago," he repeated. "Bella, what do you know about this?"

"I can't tell you."

"Did Edward kill these people? These hikers? My friend?"

"No."

"But he did kill someone."

Bella cupped her hands over her mouth and nose as tears spilled from her eyes. Her heart was pounding so badly that she couldn't stand, no matter how much she wanted to run away. Her kitchen, this table, her father... everything seemed to hover in the air, ungrounded. The room began to spin.

"You can tell me," said her father. Then his face went pale, and his own eyes watered again. "Oh, Bella," he managed. "You can't tell me. You can't. Oh, honey, are you... involved? Is this why?"

She stared at him.

"Oh, my poor girl! The nightmares. Your withdrawal, your depression. It's guilt!"

"What?"

"I'll recuse myself. I'll step aside from this case. I'll get you a lawyer." He gave a harsh, choked sob into his hands and lay his face on the table, his shoulders shaking.

"No!" cried Bella. She moved into the chair beside him and put her arms around him. "No, I didn't hurt anyone."

"Did they hurt you? Did Edward— That night in the forest— Did he—"

"No! No, Dad, I'm okay. That didn't happen."

"I'll kill that boy!"

"No, no, it's nothing like that!"

Charlie shuddered, sat up, and wiped his arm across his face. She scooted her chair closer as he hugged her against his side, putting his chin on the top of her head. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Bella pressed her face into his shoulder, feeling the unevenness of his breathing. After a while he whispered that he could probably make it look like an accident. It was his way of calming himself, she understood. To make a joke. Neither of them could smile about it, though.

She stared at his map and the crumpled yellow paper.

"Why can't you tell me?"

She bit her lip. It was so tempting.

Slowly, Charlie spun the map so they were both looking north again. Five red pawprints: two for the hikers, one for Waylon, one in the Queets River Valley, and one along the Hoh. She felt afraid, sick, and confused. If a vampire were in the woods, killing these people, then what were these paw prints? Charlie kept his arm around her; she pressed her face to his shoulder and his soft, green flannel shirt. He smelled like coffee and aftershave and chili powder. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried not to think of him going into the woods again for the investigation. What would she do to keep him out of there? Tell the truth?

"Edward killed someone," he said quietly. "Does Dr. Cullen know?"

"Probably," she whispered.

Charlie swore. "Where did this happen?"

She was silent.

"In Forks?"

"No."

"Were the police involved?"

"No."

"Do you know of any reason why any person, anywhere, is in danger right now?"

"No."

"You promise? If you know of a threat to anyone's safety, anything at all, you have to tell me."

"There's nothing. Nothing."

They spent the rest of the evening silently watching basketball. The Huskies were terrible, as usual. Charlie scooped big bowls of chocolate ice cream for each of them and sat beside her on the couch instead of in his recliner.

Mike was at work in the morning. Bella was surprised to find him in the camping section, pulling sleeping bags out of their stuff sacks and clipping hangers onto the foot ends. He was hanging them upside down from a cable his parents had strung along a wall. Bella helped him attach labels to each bag. They were rated for bulk, warmth, type of filling material, and cost, of course. One of the women's bags, she noticed, had extra insulation near the feet.

"Good idea, right?" said Mike. "Girls' feet get colder at night."

"I guess so."

"It says so on the tag, anyway." He swayed a little as he stretched to hang up the bag.

"You okay?"

"Just a little tired."

She helped him display one example from each model of sleeping bag. As she hung them up, she imagined a vampire hanging from the ceiling like a bat, sleeping upside down. She almost laughed to think of how wrong Hollywood was, but then she just ended up feeling nervous again, thinking of Charlie and the investigation.

At lunch time, she and Mike walked next door to the grocery store and bought a couple of microwave meals. They heated them in the employee break room and sat at the table there, having macaroni and cheese and Dr. Pepper.

"Jessica came by yesterday," she said.

"Really?"

"Your mom didn't mention this?"

"No."

"Well, your mom told her we went to the movies together."

"Which we did."

"No, I mean, she made it sound like a date."

Mike frowned.

"Jessica hates my guts, I swear."

"This is so stupid." If he could just have a conversation with her, he said, a real conversation, he could fix all of this. He set down his fork as a wave of pallor crossed his face. Bella reached across the table and lay the back of her hand on his forehead.

"You feel really warm."

"Stomach cramp. I'm okay."

"I think you have a fever."

"Caffeine." He chugged the soda. "Just need to wake up a little."

Bella stirred her macaroni listlessly. She felt kind of tired, too.

They finished lunch and washed up. Mrs. Newton asked them to make a display inside the red Pemberley tent, so Bella arranged a couple of folding chairs next to a small collapsible table in the main chamber while Mike assembled a propane stove. Bella added cups, bowls, and a few envelopes of dehydrated meals. One of them claimed to make red velvet cake. She remembered Jacob joking that this was what people ate on Valentine's Day. Newton's carried a very slim collection of greeting cards at the front counter. She trotted up there and found one for Valentines's Day, fifty percent off, with shiny pink and red foil hearts, and she set it up on the little table next to a field guide to wildflowers.

"Pretty," said Mike. He tossed in a package of trail mix with chocolate chips and dried raspberries.

"Awww..." said Bella. "Let's get a candle."

So they found a citronella insect-repellant candle and put that on the table, too.

"This display is way better than those snowboard snowmen a couple weeks ago."

They laughed about it as they dragged two sleeping bags into the tent, his and hers, and arranged them side by side.

"So..." said Mike, kneeling over then men's bag, unzipping it, "what happened with... you know. Friday night. After the movies."

Bella blushed. She'd managed to find another turtleneck sweater to wear this morning, and now she pulled down the neck, just a bit.

"Nice." He smirked. Then he sat back on his heels as his face went pale, and Bella put her hand on his forehead again.

"You're still sick," said Bella. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting paid."

"Come on. You should be at home, sleeping."

He shrugged. They went out to the shoe section to straighten up the shelves, but after only a few minutes, he sank onto one of the benches.

"You are seriously sick," insisted Bella. "Your forehead's too hot. You look like you're going to pass out. I'm going to get your mom."

"No. She'll clock me out." He glanced at his mother at the front counter. "And I'm not hot; I actually feel kind of cold."

"Fever chills, dummy. That's really bad."

He stretched out his arm. His hand shook. Suddenly he looked like he wanted to cry. "I think I'm still sick."

She got up to call his mother, but he tugged on her arm, saying that really, he just needed a moment to rest. Maybe lie down somewhere. She helped him walk to the tent. "This is a good idea," he sighed as she zipped him into the men's sleeping bag.

"Hide in here. Go to sleep, whatever. I'll cover for you." She left the tent with a sense of purpose. How many times had Mike covered for her when she was late, clumsy, or just plain unresponsive during her zombie days? Now she could do something for him. I'm such a good friend. She smiled as she returned to the shoe section.

It didn't take long to straighten the shelves. This was good because she felt pretty tired, too, all of a sudden. She sat on the floor and pretended to arrange socks on a bottom shelf.

A young man came in looking for hiking boots. He wore khaki pants, a short-sleeved white shirt, and a name tag with the Ace Hardware store's red logo. Ace was in the same shopping center as the Outfitters, on the other side of the Thriftway. She'd been in there once or twice to get lightbulbs for Charlie. His red polyester work apron was jammed into one of his back pockets, most of it hanging out, with the strings trailing down his pant leg. He turned a boot over in his hands, looking at the treads.

"Can I try this in a ten and a half?"

In the stock room, Bella leaned against a cabinet for a moment. Then she pulled boxes for size ten, ten and a half, and eleven. She also grabbed the same sizes in a similar boot style and swayed through the green curtain back to the sales floor. The boxes were heavy, and naturally a couple slipped out of her hands. He helped her pick them up. He was good looking, she thought, with thick blond hair curling under the back of his green ball cap. There was an O on it for the University of Oregon, but what she most noticed when he looked up was his name tag.

"Your name is Beers?" she blurted.

He rolled his eyes. "It's B-I-E-R-S, but my stupid boss spelled it wrong. He thinks he's funny."

"Bosses suck." She blurted that, too, and then, wondering if Mrs. Newton could hear her, she added, "Except for mine. Mine's awesome."

He lifted an eyebrow.

"She is."

Bella laced a pair boots for him and knelt on the floor, lacing the others, as he walked up and down a concrete boulder Mr. Newton had made. It looked strange in the store, but it was good for testing the way the boots felt going uphill and down. After trying a few pairs, he sat on the bench next to her and pulled out the laces on one.

"Too much pressure on the tops of my feet," he explained. "Sometimes you can re-lace them like this."

He knew a lot about hiking boots. Bella was impressed. He showed her how to rearrange the laces to ease pressure or make more support for the ankles. His fingers were strong and quick, slipping the laces through grommets. You should work here instead, she joked, but he said no, the hardware store was good for him. He could pick up hours whenever he felt like coming home for a weekend. It was a really long drive, but he was hoping to do his student teaching at Forks High, and since he didn't have any classes this semester on Fridays or Mondays, he came home often to work with one of his former teachers.

"I think I'm going to teach history," he said, double knotting his boots. "You know Mrs. Kranz?"

"She's my teacher."

"Mine, too. At least, she was a few years ago."

"No way."

He held out his hand. "My name's Riley."

Forks High class of 2003, he said. Next fall he hoped to be Mrs. Kranz's student teacher. In the meantime, he came home to have brunch with her sometimes and to go hiking and camping with his family.

"Hiking?" she said. "You heard about the park closure, right?"

"Yeah. Some hikers got killed by a bear. Terrible. But it's just the Hoh Trail that's closed. I can hike somewhere else."

Bella kept her head down, replacing the boots he'd chosen in their box. "You shouldn't hike anywhere," she mumbled.

At the cash register, she passed the scanner over the barcode on the box. Boop, said the machine. God, this is horrible, she thought. I work at a store that practically urges people to go into the woods. I should picket this place in the parking lot. She looked at the hairs on his arm, fine and golden, as he opened his wallet.

"You shouldn't hike anywhere," she said again. Mrs. Newton was outside sweeping the sidewalk, so she added, "My dad's the police chief. Something bad is out there."

"Like what?"

She bit her lip. If it were Angela buying hiking boots, wouldn't she be more frank? If it were Angela, she'd run out into the parking lot after her, begging her to reconsider. She'd knock Angela to the ground and sit on her. But what could she say to this guy? She took his credit card and slid it through the card reader, thinking of Charlie's map and the paw prints. The killer was a vampire, right? She was almost sure of it. But why was Charlie finding giant paw prints? What about the huge gray bear those hippies had seen in the Queets Valley?

Were there two kinds of danger out there?

The register printed the receipt on a curled slip of white paper. Bella held it out to him along with his card, but when he took it in his fingers, she didn't let go. She stared at the paper, so small and flimsy, and she felt her cheeks flush.

"You should be careful. You know. Until this thing goes away."

"Thing?"

"The bear."

He tugged very gently on the receipt. He started to say something about how bears usually avoid people, but then he stopped himself with a surprised, "Oh!"

She looked up.

"Ohhh…," he said. His smile was a little lopsided, and his eyes, a warm brown, flickered to hers and then away. "Sorry. I didn't get it. Can we start over?"

"Huh?"

Still holding the receipt, he tapped her hand with his forefinger. "You're sweet. Please tell me you're graduating this spring."

"Uh, yes?"

"Okay. Good. I'm, uh, just down the sidewalk, really. Ace closes at six tonight. You like milkshakes? Or anything. Dinner?"

"Milkshakes?"

"God, I suck at this." His face was as pink as hers now. "What's your name?"

"Bella."

"Bella. Nice. So, Bella, I could come back at six. If you want." He replaced his card in his wallet and picked up the box of boots, holding it against his side under his arm.

He was tall and slim, and he hadn't shaved that day, and she caught herself staring at the soft brown stubble on his jaw. She liked the way he'd curved the brim of his hat and the worn places on the visor that made it seem like it must be his favorite, that he wore it every day. His hair, she saw now, wasn't blond exactly, not like Mike's family's hair; it was more of a honey brown color, with gold curls at the ends of the strands, the parts that had grown the longest, the parts that must have been there since last summer, soaking up half a year's worth of precious, rare sunshine to turn so light. And he was asking her out.

Her eyes widened in surprise, then pleasure. A beautiful, friendly, only slightly dorky college student was asking her to have dinner with him.

This had never happened before. Had Edward ever asked her on a date? Not exactly. He'd asked her to walk with him to a meadow while he wrestled with himself about maybe eating her, and he'd asked her to meet his family while they wrestled with each other about whether she was worth trusting. Had Jacob asked her out? Sort of. He'd asked her out for pizza on his birthday, but she'd had to shoot him down. Then she'd asked him out for pizza, but she pretty much ruined their evening. After that was that wonderful evening in the meadow with the stars, but Jacob made sure she understood that it was NOT a date. That was his way of making her feel comfortable, she realized now, but she guessed that couldn't really count for a date when you put it that way. Then they'd gone to the movies, but it was with a group of friends. And of course, they'd made out in a ditch by the highway.

"Oh!" she said. "I can't. I'm sorry."

Riley looked confused.

"I'm so sorry. You're great. But I— I guess I— Oh, my gosh, I kind of have a boyfriend." And then that thought, on top of everything else, made her blush so much more that she had to cup her hands over her face and stare at him above her fingers.

"You don't sound too sure."

"Well, I've only had him for like, a day and a half."

My boyfriend... Is Jacob my boyfriend now? Does kissing equal a boyfriend? She had to breathe through her cupped fingers, and then she wanted to laugh, but she thought it would be horribly rude.

"But you were totally flirting with me!" he said.

"I'm sorry. I can't flirt."

"Fooled me!" His cheeks were still pink, but he wasn't angry. He looked like he wanted to laugh, too. "A day and a half! I miss you by a day and a half."

She took her hands away from her face and shook them as if to shake away the nervous, giggly feeling.

He sighed dramatically. "Cupid hates me."

At that she did laugh. They ended up standing at the register for another fifteen minutes, talking about Mrs. Kranz, of all things, and the history scholarship she wanted Bella to apply for. You should apply, he said. Mrs. Kranz had helped him find a scholarship, too, when he graduated, and she'd steered him toward secondary education.

"Why do you want to be a teacher?" said Bella. "Ew."

"It's a good job," he retorted. "You can work almost anywhere. Summers off. Reading about stuff you love, every day. Fun with kids. Summers off."

"You already said that."

Well, he said, it was a good perk. And you feel like you're doing something important. Like Mrs. Kranz. He said she was one of the best teachers he'd ever had, even compared to some of his college professors. Really? she said. It was hard to think of her history teacher as at all remarkable. She's very nice, Bella thought, and helpful, but Riley insisted that she was definitely above average. She took the time to encourage him.

"Sounds like you're her new pet. I'm kind of jealous."

"No. Not a pet. That's weird."

"Teacher's pet."

"Okay, now you're flirting."

When they finally said goodbye, she was pretty sure she'd made a new friend.

"Don't go hiking," she said as he left. "Seriously."

"You sound like my mom. I gotta get back to work. Gotta ask my boss for a new name tag."

She waved as he crossed in front of the store window. He walked past Mrs. Newton, nodding hello, and down the sidewalk, turning for a final glance at Bella. The red strings of his apron swirled around his knees. No hiking, she mouthed, with a stern expression. He smirked and leaned backward, almost cartoonishly, keeping her in sight until his feet carried him beyond the window.

Oh. My. Gosh.

So much!

She had to fan her cheeks. If only she had her journal! She would have made a list:

A) Me, boring Bella Swan, hit on by gorgeous college student.

B) I have a boyfriend!

C) I am so dizzy. Is this lust? What does lust feel like? My head is so woozy and I feel really warm. Too warm?

She went to the restroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Just one month ago, she'd been crying on the floor in this room, doing her best to keep her grief silent, and when she'd looked in the mirror she'd seen a ghastly pale, scrawny girl who took comfort in achieving an un-deadly pallor. Now she looked healthier, rosier. She stood up straighter. And a guy she'd just met thought she was "sweet" and attractive. Attractive personally, as in someone to talk to. And attractive, she had to assume, physically. Definitely someone look at across a table and to share a milkshake with. I look kind of... good. She grinned at herself with the same goofy grin she'd had on Saturday morning. When Jacob looked at her, is this what he saw?

He sees my heart.

The thought made her tear up. Yes, he saw her heart and how it could begin to mend. But also, she thought, smiling at herself, he sees this, too. Maybe he's been seeing this for a long time.

She stuck her chin out like a chicken and did a little dance. But it made her head feel woozy again. She slid down the wall and rested her face on her knees.

Why do my jeans feel hot? Why is everything so hot?

"Where's Michael?" said Mrs. Newton when she returned to the sales floor.

"Oh. He's, uh, in the bathroom."

"Weren't you just in the bathroom?"

"Yes. He went in when I came out."

Mrs Newton shrugged and walked to the register. "Check on the tent, okay?" she called over her shoulder. "It looks like one of the poles came loose."

The tent. Oh, no!

Bella hurried to the camping section. The tent's left side was partly collapsed, the top part sagging and the bottom part stretched too far by some weighty thing inside. She unzipped the door and crawled to Mike. Still in the sleeping bag, he had rolled against the side of the tent.

"Wake up!" she hissed. "Mike?"

It was nearly four o'clock, and he'd been in there since shortly after lunch. He was perspiring and shivering, and the air in the tent was hot and muggy. She unzipped some windows.

"Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"Grandma?"

"Wake up."

Risking the tent's entire collapse, she crawled over Mike and squeezed between his sleeping bag and the fabric wall. The whole tent swayed as she pushed on his torso through the bag. She felt so tired all of a sudden that she could hardly summon the energy, but luckily, the slick fabric allowed her to slide him toward the middle of the tent. She knelt behind him and brushed the sweaty strands of hair from his forehead.

"I'm getting your mom."

"I'm fine. Just lying down on the job." He tried to laugh, but coughed weakly. "Bella?"

"Yes, it's me, Bella. You're burning up." She unzipped the sleeping bag halfway.

"Cold!" he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and curling into a ball.

Bella put a hand on his back. His white Newton's Outfitters polo shirt was soaked through with perspiration. Even his jeans were damp. His lips were red and his skin was pale. Unzipping the bag completely, she peeled his sweaty socks off and fanned his white, clammy feet. He wouldn't get up, though, no matter how much she urged him to. He kept reaching for the sleeping bag, complaining of the cold.

"It's because you're covered in dampness. Dude, you have the flu. You need to go home. Get some dry pajamas."

The best she could manage was to make him take off the shirt before she gave back the sleeping bag. He got the shirt peeled halfway off before he lost his will and lay down again with it wrapped around his arms and face. Bella looked at his pale stomach, moving softly with his exhausted breaths, and a few wispy hairs on his chest.

She sure was getting a lot of male interaction lately. Getting hit on by a customer. A super cute customer. Making out with Jacob on the porch. Shrine of Porch, sacred now forever. And even seeing a boy entirely naked, though it was that freak Paul, and it was mercifully too dark to see much. Also, the terror of that night in the meadow completely erased any interest in getting a better peek. But now here she was, in a sweaty tent with an eyeful of half-conscious boy.

This was not sexy.

"Mike?"

Under the fabric stretched across his face, he began to cry softly. It deflated her. She tugged his shirt off and flopped onto her back beside him, groaning, "Fine. Don't get up. I feel bad, too."

"You do?"

"Feel my forehead." She rolled over enough to mash her head against his stomach.

"Super hot," he groaned. "Get off."

"But I have chills."

"Sleeping bag."

It seemed like a good idea to crawl into the ladies' bag. Mike curled up again in the other one.

"I don't want to be sick," she said, tearing up, shivering now. "I hate being sick."

"Take a nap. I'll cover for you."

"Your mom will fire us."

"Fuck it."

Clenching all her muscles, she shivered and shivered, curled up tight, leaking tears onto the fluffy sleeping bag. This is a really nice bag. I'm wrecking it. I'm a horrible person! It was a beautiful violet color, with blue stripes down the side with the zipper. It was nicer than her bed at home, nicer even than any hotel she'd stayed in. There was a hood with a drawstring and a large pocket where campers could insert a folded shirt to make a pillow. She looked at Mike's white polo, a sopping, sweaty heap. Disgusting. Trembling with fever, she took off her sweater and placed it in the pocket. It wasn't as if anyone could see her. Then she curled up tightly again with her hands between her knees. Her stomach was beginning to hurt. Please don't let me throw up. Her head hurt, too, but it was better if she closed her eyes.

Dimly she was aware, a short time later, of Mrs. Newton's voice, greeting someone at the door. "Feel free to look around."

Crap, a customer.

She must have fallen asleep. Now she tried to sit up. Her hair was stuck to her face and a rivulet of sweat trickled down her breastbone and dampened her white bra. She sniffed her armpit and lay down again.

"Mike? I feel so bad. Can you check on the customer?"

He made no reply, so Bella, keeping the sleeping bag tucked up to her chin for modesty, tried again to sit up. He looked even worse, still curled and shivering. Poor Mike. Her eyes began to water, just looking at him. She rolled over and scooted behind him in her sleeping bag so they could keep each other warm. We must look like caterpillars, she thought. Two puffy, sweaty, puke-y caterpillars. The thought of herself as a miserable bug made her tears spill down her cheeks.

She heard footsteps outside the tent. Maybe if she closed her eyes again, the customer would go away. Instead she heard the zipper on the tent's door. She looked up. It was Jessica Stanley on her knees, one hand pushing aside the red fabric and its mosquito netting. Bella rolled over onto her face and put her hands over her ears, partly muting Jessica's voice, high-pitched and insistent, indignant. These were the words that made it through her fingers and into Bella's stuffy, spinning, sea-sick head: Mike. Thought so. What is this? Lied to me. Bella skank.

Fever had burned away everything in her brain, including her inhibition. "Shut up," she groaned.

More of Jessica's anger leaked through her hands: So hurt, Mike. Romantic trail mix? This is what you do at work? Camping candle sneaky tent cheater.

"Mosquito candle!" said Bella. She struggled to sit up. She knocked the candle off the table and tried to lob it at Jessica, but it just rolled into Mike's chin. When he sat up suddenly, Jessica gasped.

Bella managed to open one eye. Mike was shirtless, rubbing his hands over his face to smear away the sweat, and Bella's sleeping bag had fallen away to reveal her own nakedness, except for her plain white bra.

"This is not what it looks like," she said.

"Then what's on your neck?" said Jessica.

"Souvenirs," said Bella flatly. "I got them on Friday after the movies."

"Shut up," groaned Mike. "Hurting my head." He wrapped the sleeping bag around himself and lay down again. Jessica, her face pink and her eyes full of tears, threw the trail mix package at his head. It bounced off with a crinkly sound and he retreated by rolling onto his knees and heaping the puffy sleeping bag over his head. She threw the Valentine's Day card at him, and the backpacking food envelopes, and even the candle.

"Ow!"

Bella began to cry, too. "Leave him alone!" She flopped over Mike like a half-dead snake over a boulder. "He's sick!" Pulling her sleeping bag over her own head again, she slid down Mike's side, curling up, clutching her head. "You're so mean," she cried. "You're a mean, bitchy cow!"

"Bitchy cow," groaned Mike.

"Bitchy, mean cow!" Bella thrust one arm out of the bag, swiping it over the floor until she found the leg of the folding table. It collapsed with one tug, sending the camping stove and its tiny propane tank at Jessica's knees. When Jessica stood up, her shoulders caught the flap of the tent's door and tugged a pole loose. The red fabric began to slide up the other poles as they splayed out, their black legs stretching over the floor like a giant, squished spider.

"Go away," groaned Mike.

Still in her sleeping bag, Bella inched over the floor to a window and pressed her face to the netting.

The red fabric settled over the shivering lump that was Mike.

Bella managed to crawl forward enough that the window folded in half as the tent fell, one half over her face. By squirming more, she dragged the whole tent a little farther, getting her window netting off the blue tarp and onto the poured concrete floor. She pressed her face to the soothing coolness. Behind her, the tent rustled and flapped. Hands pressed on her sleeping bag until they found her ankles, and then she was dragged backward. She kicked her feet free and rolled, twisting herself tightly into the swirling fabric.

"You'll never find me!" she screeched. "Bitchy cow!"

Wriggling out of the cumbersome bag, she got her arms free and crawled into one of the side chambers. She managed to find a zipper and tugged it along its track—zip!—just as Jessica caught up with her. There were zippers on each side of the partition. Bella struggled to hold hers in place. More rustling told her that Mike was getting up.

Wearing just his jeans, he crawled over Jessica and pressed her beneath him. He kissed her face and neck until she opened her mouth, and then he kissed her again, deeply. She melted against his chest as he slid a knee between her legs and she melted there, too. Murmured his name.

"Apologize," he whispered, and she went stiff. After a moment, she rolled her eyes and said to Bella that she was sorry. The way she put it was, "Sorry."

"A little more," said Mike.

Another pause. Then Bella listened while Jessica added some reluctant embellishment.

"Really?" frowned Bella. She was still holding the zipper.

Mike kissed Jessica until little tears trembled from the corners of her eyes and slid down her temples into her hair. "Yes, really," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want your boyfriend," Bella whispered.

"Hickies?"

"Someone else."

More kissing. Then Mike sat up, found the main door of the tent, and pulled it over his and Jessica's heads: fresh, cool air. She asked him to come home with her.

"No. Go apologize."

She looked confused.

"To Angela," said Mike. He dug his sweaty shirt out of the tent, put it on, and went to tell his mother that he and Bella were clocking out.

The Newtons drove her home. She rode in the Suburban with Mike and his mom while Mr. Newton followed in her old truck. It was nice of them to think of that. She thanked them as they dropped her off, then she wearily climbed the porch steps.

It was Sunday night. Normally at this time of the week —Normally? When was the last time anything in my life was normal?—she would have been gathering her homework, getting ready for Monday morning. Maybe doing a little laundry. Now she put her hand on the doorknob and just stood there, swaying on her feet.

Her essay for Mrs. Kranz was still due. What on earth was she going to say? My horrible vampire ex-boyfriend broke the heart of another girl in nineteen thirty-six? Oh, and he killed her brother. More importantly, what was she going to say to Charlie? He wasn't going to forget about this.

Then there was Billy. He had rescued her from...something...on Friday. She still wasn't sure what happened. She'd passed out in Mr. Horowitz's room at Olympic Acres on Thursday and Angela had taken her home. She knew that. And she'd spent the next twenty-four hours mostly incoherent, inconsolable, or unconscious. The unconsciousness was troubling. Was it normal to pass out from shock? And why had she been out for so long? There was something about her room that wasn't right. Billy had said so. Something is wrong in your house, he said. And what had Billy said to Charlie that night? All she could remember was that she'd spent a lot of that time on the floor, and that it had been so very hard to get up.

"Get the fuck in the house, Bella, and shut the door."

Charlie didn't usually talk like that. It made her pulse skip as she hurried inside.

The house was quiet. In the living room, the television was tuned to a basketball game, but the sound was off. Players ran across the court, fans waving their arms in the stands, in a silent rush of energy and emotion. Except for a glow coming around the corner from the kitchen, there were no other lights on, which made the light of the television more insistent, almost desperate. Bella hung up her coat in the front closet and drifted into the kitchen.

Dinner was on the table. Leftover tacos. Charlie had his map out again.

"Sit," he commanded.

She sank into her chair. Her head hurt, and she was pretty sure she still had a fever.

"I've had a busy day," said Charlie. "You know how I like to work on Sundays." He spooned ground beef into two taco shells for her, sprinkled cheese and tomatoes on top, and slid her plate across the map. She made sure to keep them, as he had ordered yesterday, off Hoquiam. "Yes, indeedy," he continued. "A very busy day. I've been to the morgue. Trying to reassemble that poor man from Cincinnati. Would you like to know what I found out?"

"No."

"He was not attacked by an animal. Paw prints all around the body, but no serrations in the muscle. No puncture wounds, like from a tooth. No lacerations on the bones. No animals gnawed on him. You see what I'm getting at?"

She tried to change the subject. "Wouldn't you like to eat your tacos?"

Charlie pushed his plate aside. "I have never in my life seen anything so painfully, gut-wrenchingly sickening. I'm not going to be able to sleep. This man— His eyes. Popped. Like grapes. One of them flattened, all the liquid inside gone, and one just dropped in the dirt. His liver: gray, dry. Stomach, intestines: intact. His heart: crushed to pulp."

A trembling tear spilled down her face. "Why are you telling me this? I don't want to know." She pushed her own plate aside. This was so much worse than she thought. Surely a vampire, but not an ordinary one. A savage. "I don't want to know this!"

"But you already do!" said her father. "I need you to help me."

He uncapped the red marker, pointing to the paw prints he'd drawn on the map yesterday. Five of them. Two for the hikers, one for Waylon, one for the gray bear the campers had seen, and one for the huge, strange animal his deputy shot at. "Look at this" said Charlie. He swept his hand in an arc, making a hasty dotted line to connect the prints. "They're all in a line. Like a semi-circle, curving around Forks. And look at this."

He opened a manila folder. It was marked "classified." Removing several photos, he spread them on the table in front of her. At first she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Just images of earth and moss. But as she looked closer, she could see the impression of an animal: footpad, toes, and even, in one example from a mudbank, the pierce-marks of claws in front of the toes. Each print was photographed with a ruler next to it. They spanned about twelve inches.

"What is this?" she cried.

"This was damned hard to collect, that's what it is. My new deputies are awful clumsy with these prints, stepping in them, disturbing the plants, brushing pine needles over them with their boots. I can't photograph these things when they're around. And when I come back to the scene later, they're all gone."

She did not know what he was getting at. Wasn't the killer a vampire? What kind of animal made prints like these? An animal that did not chew on the corpse?

"There's one more," he said again, pulling from his folder a final photograph. It was almost pure white. It took her a moment to realize that it was snow. And another enormous paw print with a central pad, four toes, and the impressions of four sharp claws.

She didn't understand.

"Found this at the back of the yard," said her father. "The morning of Jake's birthday. You woke up early, you were yelling, and when I came in your room you acted like everything was fine. But when I went out back, I found these."

"You photographed them?"

"Damn straight I did. Something's going on around here. I sound like a paranoid lunatic if I talk about this at work. But here's what I know. Three people have died in what we think are animal attacks. An animal isn't eating these people. But there is some kind of animal out there, something abnormally large and dangerous." He made another red paw print at the edge of Forks. It was, she finally understood, in her backyard.

"What did you see, honey? That morning at your window?"

Paul.

The memory came back to her, Paul standing in the snow, taking her windowsill from the brush pile. I saw Paul. He hadn't been wearing a shirt. Maybe he hadn't been wearing any clothes; the brush pile rose to his waist. Was it twice now that she'd seen him running through the woods naked? I saw Paul...

"And what," said Charlie, "or who, could be killing these people if it isn't an animal? 'Stay out of the woods, stay out of the woods.' For weeks, I've been saying that to other people, and now they're saying it to me. Sam. Billy. You." He capped the marker and held onto her hands across the table. "Honey, what IS it?"

Her heart hurt so much. If only she could ease the pain of living with this horrible secret. But there was nothing she could do but frighten him. There was no way, no way to protect oneself against a vampire like this. She tried to pull her hands away to wipe them over her cheeks, but he wouldn't let go.

"I can't tell you," she wept.

"You can."

"You'll never believe me. You'll think I'm crazy." She cried more as a fresh possibility of pain presented itself to her. "You'll send me away. Please don't send me away."

"No. I'll believe you. Just try. Try me."

"I—" She closed her eyes. Maybe— There was, she remembered, one other keeper of this secret. "Billy," she said. "Did he— Did he tell you anything?"

"Billy." Charlie swore and tossed her hands away. He got up and stuffed his photos back into the folder, rolled up his map angrily. "It all comes back to Billy. Like people gotta ask Billy permission to take a piss. And no, Bella, Billy is not talking. Friday night, when you were so sick, he gave me a bunch of crap about tribal business. My own daughter."

Bella put her head on the table.

"The two people I care about most in this world, my child and my oldest friend, are keeping something from me, something that might save somebody's life one day. Where is your loyalty?" He tossed his magic markers into a kitchen drawer and slapped it shut. "Your sense of common decency? You want to see another person die?"
"No!" she cried. "But it won't do any good!"

"You need to talk!" He pounded a fist against a cupboard; it made the dishes inside rattle and Bella cringe. She put her hands over her ears and got up, but she couldn't make it past the doorway without feeling lightheaded. Shivering, trembling, she leaned on the wall.

It made the fight go out of Charlie. Sit down, he told her, more gently. She skipped the chair and slid to the linoleum. When Charlie stuck a thermometer in her mouth, it came out reading one hundred and three.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry. Let's get you to bed."

He gave her some Tylenol and helped her up the stairs. After she'd changed into her pajamas, he came back with a glass of water, some saltines on a little plate, and a banana. "Try to eat a little. Or just sleep. It's okay."

She lay on her side, staring out the window at the sun going down over the forest.

Thank you for reading.

Questions, if you like. You pick. You guys have given me so many good ideas from your responses, and here we are with a new story and new plot possibilities!

1. What do you think of Charlie's progress with the investigation? Do you think Bella should tell him about vampires?

2. I've been waiting for two years to write my take on Twilight's love-triangle "tent scene." What do you think about that? How about Mike and Jessica's relationship now?

3. Your thoughts on Riley's character? Should he appear in the story again?

4. Your thoughts on Bella's feelings about Jacob after last night? Does kissing equal a boyfriend, as Bella wonders? Is he her "boyfriend" now? What's changed? What hasn't? My goodness, what HASN'T changed, indeed?

5. What do you think about Charlie's reaction to Bella's, uh, indecorous appearance on the morning after her date with Jacob? And what do you think about his reaction to the "daughter dating" thing?

6. Favorite parts? Funny parts?

No pressure, of course, to answer all that. I'd just like to hear what you think, on any topic that catches your interest.

Hello again! Please review. I'll send you a preview. Oh, and please log in when you review so I can write back to you. Thank you!

Are there readers of Bella's Guitar who are here for the sequel? I hope you'll say hello. Readers new and old, I hope to hear from you.