"It's hard reading this," Bella said.

"Do you wa...?" Jacob started to ask.

Bella shook her head, "I'll read... anyway, it's thinking about it..."

"Yeah," Jacob agreed as the both shuddered.

Bella jumped through the open door without hesitating, pulling the door shut behind her.

And then she looked up at me with the most trustful expression I had ever seen on a human face, and all my violent plans crumbled.

Bella was a little relieved by that.

It took much, much less than a second for me to see that I could not leave her in the car in order to deal with the four men in the street.

"Argh... obviously you can't do that," Jacob said thinking about what that would look like and cringing at the idea. Then he cringed inwardly at the fact that he didn't really care at the moment if Edward did rip these guys... not just the sick bastard... apart limb from limb. Then he thought of what the bloodlust might do to Edward if that did happen... and how much more dangerous he would be to Bella then... No, Edward had to leave those guys alone.

What would I tell her, not to watch? Ha! When did she ever do what I asked? When did she ever do the safe thing? Would I drag them away, out of her sight, and leave her alone here? It was a long shot that another dangerous human would be prowling the streets of Port Angeles tonight, but it was a long shot that there was even the first! Like a magnet, she drew all things dangerous toward herself.

Bella felt a pang of annoyance at that sentence, but with all the other emotions she was feeling it barely registered to her.

I could not let her out of my sight.

It would feel like part of the same motion to her as I accelerated, taking her away from her pursuers so quickly that they gaped after my car with uncomprehending expressions. She would not recognize my instant of hesitation. She would assume the plan was escape from the beginning.

I couldn't even hit him with my car. That would frighten her.

I wanted his death so savagely that the need for it rang in my ears and clouded my sight and was a flavor on my tongue. My muscles were coiled with the urgency, the craving, the necessity of it. I had to kill him. I would peel him slowly apart, piece by piece, skin from muscle, muscle from bone...

Bella shuddered at that image and Jacob looked a little sick by it, too.

Except that the girl - the only girl in the world - was clinging to her seat with both hands, staring at me, her eyes still wide and utterly trusting. Vengeance would have to wait.

"Put on your seatbelt," I ordered. My voice was rough with the hate and bloodlust. Not the usual bloodlust. I would not sully myself by taking any part of that man inside me.

She locked the seatbelt into place, jumping slightly at the sound it made. That little sound made her jump, yet she did not flinch as I tore through the town, ignoring all traffic guides.

Bella found that sentence odd, or at least the part of her brain that was listening to her own reading, found it odd. She hated it when he'd mentioned driving fast, but of course at the moment she must have had more important things on her mind.

I could feel her eyes on me. She seemed oddly relaxed. It didn't make sense to me - not with what she'd just been through.

"Why are you so relaxed?" Jacob asked, and he noticed that she seemed that way now too. If he had been reading that about himself, he would have been panicking by now.

"I'm good with compartmentalizing things like this," Bella said.

"How many times have you been through something like this?" Jacob exclaimed.

"Relax, Jake," Bella said, "I just meant bad situations... nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Plus... Edward is there... I think that must be making me feel safer."

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice rough with stress and fear.

"Shouldn't he be asking you that?" Jacob said, trying to force himself to regain his calm.

"I suppose," Bella shrugged. "But you have to admit that Edward at this moment wouldn't look okay."

She wanted to know if I was okay?

I thought about her question for a fraction of a second. Not long enough for her to notice the hesitation. Was I okay?

"No," I realized, and my tone seethed with rage.

I took her to the same unused drive where I'd spent the afternoon engaged in the poorest surveillance ever kept. It was black now under the trees.

I was so furious that my body froze in place there, utterly motionless. My icelocked hands ached to crush her attacker, to grind him into pieces so mangled that his body could never be identified....

But that would entail leaving her here alone, unprotected in the dark night.

"Don't go," Bella said, she wanted him to stay and she didn't what him to kill that guy.

"Bella?" I asked through my teeth.

"Yes?" she responded huskily. She cleared her throat.

"Are you all right?" That was really the most important thing, the first priority.

Retribution was secondary. I knew that, but my body was so filled with rage that it was hard to think.

"Yes." Her voice was still thick - with fear, no doubt.

And so I could not leave her.

Even if she wasn't at constant risk for some infuriating reason - some joke the universe was playing on me - even if I could be sure that she would be perfectly safe in my absence, I could not leave her alone in the dark.

She must be so frightened.

"Well, of course she is... she was nearly attacked and..." Jacob started hissing and trailed off at the end with a shudder.

Yet I was in no condition to comfort her - even if I knew exactly how that was to be accomplished, which I did not.

"You are comforting me," Bella said. "Just by being there."

"Wow, that was cheesy," Jacob teased her and Bella rolled her eyes.

Surely she could feel the brutality radiating out of me, surely that much was obvious. I would frighten her even more if I could not calm the lust for slaughter boiling inside me.

I needed to think about something else.

"Distract me, please," I pleaded.

"I'm sorry, what?"

I barely had enough control to try to explain what I needed.

"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down," I instructed, my jaw still locked.

"Just prattle about something... that's kind of rude to say," Jacob said.

"Jake, he..." Bella started, staring at him oddly.

"I'm trying to calm down here too," Jacob shrugged. "I usually do that by joking around..."

"Right, sorry," Bella said. "That just wasn't a very good joke."

"I'll try better next time," Jacob shrugged.

Only the fact that she needed me held me inside the car. I could hear the man's thoughts, his disappointment and anger... I knew where to find him... I closed my eyes, wishing that I couldn't see anyway...

"Um..." She hesitated - trying to make sense of my request, I imagined. "I'm going to run over Tyler Crowley tomorrow before school?"

Jacob started laughing at that, albeit it was a weak laugh, but still.

"Why would you do that?" Jacob said, but Bella didn't answer.

She said this like it was a question.

Yes - this was what I needed. Of course Bella would come up with something unexpected. Like it had been before, the threat of violence coming through her lips was hilarious - so comical it was jarring.

"I can cause violence," Bella mumbled.

"Sure you can," Jacob said laughing.

Bella glared at him, which only seemed to make Jacob laugh more.

If I had not been burning with the urge to kill, I would have laughed.

"Why?" I barked out, to force her to speak again.

"He's telling everyone that he's taking me to prom," she said,

"Jerk," Bella hissed at the book. "How can he tell people that... he didn't even ask me."

"Don't know," Jacob shrugged, still laughing.

her voice filled with her tiger-kitten outrage.

More laughter at that from Jacob and Bella glared at the book. However, she did note that this talk had definitely helped both her and Jacob relax a little after what had just happened. Her glare loosened as she thought of that and her tone was lighter when she started reading again.

"Either he's insane or he's still trying to make up for almost killing me last...well you remember it," she inserted dryly, "and he thinks prom is somehow the correct way to do this. So I figure if I endanger his life, then we're even, and he can't keep trying to make amends.

"That's not why he's asking you out," Jacob laughed.

I don't need enemies and maybe Lauren would back off if he left me alone.

Bella groaned at that, even madder at this Tyler guy.

I might have to total his Sentra, though," she went on, thoughtful now. "If he doesn't have a ride he can't take anyone to prom..."

It was encouraging to see that she sometimes got things wrong. Tyler's persistence had nothing to do with the accident. She didn't seem to understand the appeal she held for the human boys at the high school. Did she not see the appeal she had for me, either?

Bella blushed at the idea that she appealed to the other guys at school, but that wasn't anything to the blush she had at the mention of her appeal for Edward.

Ah, it was working. The baffling processes of her mind were always engrossing.

I was beginning to gain control of myself, to see something beyond vengeance and torture...

"I heard about that," I told her. She had stopped talking, and I needed her to continue.

"You did?" she asked incredulously. And then her voice was angrier than before.

"If he's paralyzed from the neck down, he can't go to the prom either."

"What's the matter, Bells, don't you like that Edward knows about this?" Jacob chuckled and she glared at him.

I wished there was some way I could ask her to continue with the threats of death and bodily harm without sounding insane. She couldn't have picked a better way to calm me. And her words - just sarcasm in her case, hyperbole - were a reminder I dearly needed in this moment.

I sighed, and opened my eyes.

"Better?" she asked timidly.

"Not really."

No, I was calmer, but not better. Because I'd just realized that I could not kill the monster named Lonnie,

"I guess that's right," Jacob said, he had calmed down quite a lot by this point.

and I still wanted that more than almost anything else in the world. Almost.

The only thing in this moment that I wanted more than to commit a highly justifiable murder, was this girl. And, though I couldn't have her, just the dream of having her made it impossible for me to go on a killing spree tonight - no matter how defensible such a thing might be.

Bella deserved better than a killer.

Bella smiled at this, it was rather intoxicating to know that she had this kind of power over him. Though she didn't think of him as a killer, it was still nice to know that he was trying to be better for her.

I'd spent seven decades trying to be something other than that - anything other than a killer. Those years of effort could never make me worthy of the girl sitting beside me.

Bella narrowed her eyes at this point, not agreeing with him at all.

And yet, I felt that if I returned to that life - the life of a killer - for even one night, I would surely put her out of my reach forever. Even if I didn't drink their blood - even if I didn't have that evidence blazing red in my eyes - wouldn't she sense the difference?

"That depends," Bella said.

"On?" Jacob encouraged her to continue her thought.

"On whether he acts differently or not," Bella said. "If he starts acting even more moody than he already is, it would be hard to miss."

"Would you forgive him... if he did kill this guy?" Jacob asked.

"I don't think he's the monster that he seems to think he is," Bella said in a way to answer.

"That's not an answer," Jacob said.

"I don't want him to kill him," Bella said, "but it wouldn't change the way I think of him."

I was trying to be good enough for her. It was an impossible goal. I would keep trying.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

Her breath filled my nose, and I was reminded why I could not deserve her. After all of this, even with as much as I loved her...she still made my mouth water.

Jacob shivered at that, a little afraid how he would react to this in his maddened state, but he wasn't too worried.

"How does my scent make it so he doesn't deserve me?" Bella said a little angrily.

I would give her as much honesty as I could. I owed her that.

"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella." I stared out into the black night, wishing both that she would hear the horror inherent in my words and also that she would not. Mostly that she would not. Run, Bella, run. Stay, Bella, stay.