"Ha!" I exulted when I heard my feet touch the grass first.

Listening for his landing, I heard something I did not expect. Something loud and much too close. A
thudding heart.

Edward was beside me in the same second, his hands clamped down hard on the tops of my arms.

"Don't breathe," he cautioned me urgently.




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I tried not to panic as I froze mid-breath. My eyes were the only things that moved, wheeling instinctively
to find the source of the sound.

Jacob stood at the line where the forest touched the Cullens' lawn, his arms folded across his body, his
jaw clenched tight. Invisible in the woods behind him, I heard now two larger hearts, and the faint crush
of bracken under huge, pacing paws.

"Carefully, Jacob," Edward said. A snarl from the forest echoed the concern in his voice. "Maybe this
isn't the best way—"

"You think it would be better to let her near the baby first?" Jacob interrupted. "It's safer to see how
Bella does with me. I heal fast."

This was a test? To see if I could not kill Jacob before I tried to not kill Renesmee? I felt sick in the
strangest way—it had nothing to do with my stomach, only my mind. Was this Edward's idea?

I glanced at his face anxiously; Edward seemed to deliberate for a moment, and then his expression
twisted from concern into something else. He shrugged, and there was an undercurrent of hostility in his
voice when he said, "It's your neck, I guess."