Breaking Dawn

In the end, we had pulled together seventeen witnesses—the Irish, Siobhan, Liam, and Maggie; the Egyptians, Amun, Kebi, Benjamin, and Tia; the Amazons, Zafrina and Senna; the Romanians, Vladimir and Stefan; and the nomads, Charlotte and Peter, Garrett, Alistair, Mary, and Randall—to supplement our family of eleven. Tanya, Kate, Eleazar, and Carmen insisted on being counted as part of our family.

Aside from the Volturi, it was probably the largest friendly gathering of mature vampires in immortal history.

We all were beginning to be a little bit hopeful. Even I couldn’t help it. Renesmee had won over so many in such a brief time. The Volturi only had to listen for just the tiniest second. . . .

The last two surviving Romanians—focused only on their bitter resentment of the ones who had overthrown their empire fifteen hundred years earlier—took everything in stride. They would not touch Renesmee, but they showed no aversion to her. They seemed mysteriously delighted by our alliance with the werewolves. They watched me practice my shield with Zafrina and Kate, watched Edward answer unspoken questions, watched Benjamin pull geysers of water from the river or sharp gusts of wind from the still air with just his mind, and their eyes glowed with their fierce hope that the Volturi had finally met their match.

We did not hope for the same things, but we all hoped.

33 FORGERY

“Charlie, we’ve still got that strictly need-to-know company situation going. I know it’s been more than a week since you saw Renesmee, but a visit is just not a good idea right now. How about I bring Renesmee over to see you?”

Charlie was quiet for so long that I wondered if he heard the strain beneath my façade.

But then he muttered, “Need to know, ugh,” and I realized it was just his wariness of the supernatural that made him slow to respond.

“Okay, kid,” Charlie said. “Can you bring her over this morning? Sue’s bringing me lunch. She’s just as horrified by my cooking as you were when you first showed up.”

Charlie laughed and then sighed for the old days.

“This morning will be perfect.” The sooner the better. I’d already put this off too long.

“Is Jake coming with you guys?”

Though Charlie didn’t know anything about werewolf imprinting, no one could be oblivious to the attachment between Jacob and Renesmee.

“Probably.” There was no way Jacob would voluntarily miss an afternoon with Renesmee sans bloodsuckers.

“Maybe I should invite Billy, too,” Charlie mused. “But… hmm. Maybe another time.”

I was only half paying attention to Charlie—enough to notice the strange reluctance in his voice when he spoke of Billy, but not enough to worry what that was about. Charlie and Billy were grown-ups; if there was something going on between them, they could figure it out for themselves. I had too many more important things to obsess over.

“See you in a few,” I told him, and hung up.

This trip was about more than protecting my father from the twenty-seven oddly matched vampires—who all had sworn not to kill anyone in a three-hundred-mile radius, but still… Obviously, no human being should get anywhere near this group. This was the excuse I’d given Edward: I was taking Renesmee to Charlie so that he wouldn’t decide to come here. It was a good reason for leaving the house, but not my real reason at all.

“Why can’t we take your Ferrari?” Jacob complained when he met me in the garage. I was already in Edward’s Volvo with Renesmee.

Edward had gotten around to revealing my after car; as he’d suspected, I had not been capable of showing the appropriate enthusiasm. Sure, it was pretty and fast, but I liked to run.

“Too conspicuous,” I answered. “We could go on foot, but that would freak Charlie out.”

Jacob grumbled but got into the front seat. Renesmee climbed from my lap to his.

“How are you?” I asked him as I pulled out of the garage.

“How do you think?” Jacob asked bitingly. “I’m sick of all these reeking bloodsuckers.” He saw my expression and spoke before I could answer. “Yeah, I know, I know. They’re the good guys, they’re here to help, they’re going to save us all. Etcetera, etcetera. Say what you want, I still think Dracula One and Dracula Two are creep-tacular.”

I had to smile. The Romanians weren’t my favorite guests, either. “I don’t disagree with you there.”

Renesmee shook her head but said nothing; unlike the rest of us, she found the Romanians strangely fascinating. She’d made the effort to speak to them aloud since they would not let her touch them. Her question was about their unusual skin and, though I was afraid they might be offended, I was kind of glad she’d asked. I was curious, too.

They hadn’t seemed upset by her interest. Maybe a little rueful.