So this is a two-shot I wrote for my friend who recently died. She had a kind heart and she absolutely loved Twilight so this is for her. Rest in peace my fellow scout sister~
Part 1
Bella was just walking casually down the familiar street towards a bus stop in which she rarely went to. She had just finished a tedious shift at Newton's Outfitters and was more than ready to go home and fall asleep on her bed. Unfortunately the fastest way home was the bus.
Bella didn't mean to get stuck at a bus stop. Her father was supposed to pick her up after work but apparently Charlie got caught up in a cat-and-mouse chase with an escaped criminal and called her saying that he wasn't going to be home for a while. Bella would have also gladly called Edward if it weren't for the fact that he was all the way up in Alaska.
Summer break had just begun and Bella was looking forward to celebrating the first week with her wonderful boyfriend, but no, Edward's cousins (another group of vegetarian vampires that lived all the way up in Denali, Alaska) asked him and his family to visit them for the first week. So Bella painfully let him go and he hesitantly gave her a temporary goodbye, promising her that he would be back before she new it and that they would have the rest of the summer to spend together. He also left saying his usual mantra to her:
"I love you so you can't do anything to hurt yourself or be reckless while I'm gone."
And Bella followed his words…sometimes. She couldn't help it she was life's personal danger magnet (maybe even death magnet).
Bella sat down on the wooden bench of the bus stop sandwiched between a gruff, middle-aged man and a small, black-haired girl. Bella tapped her foot with each second that went by that she waited for the bus. Bella was about to decide to walk home when a large bus come rolling down the hill and screeched to a stop in front of the bench.
The people who were sitting on the bench filed in to a straight line while getting change out of their pockets and purses. As Bella reached into her pocket to look for something to pay the bus driver, she realized that all her pockets were empty.
Oh, Crud! Bella exclaimed inside her head. Bella had no idea what to do when everyone else in front of her had paid and moved inside the bus.
"What'll it be, miss?" Asked the bus driver. Bella was about to turn around and walk home until the girl that sat next to her on the bus stop came in front of her.
"She's with me," the girl said and handed the bus driver a one-dollar bill. She then proceeded to take Bella by the hand and walk her towards the back of the bus where they sat next to each other. When everyone was on the bus and when it started to move forward Bella turned to the girl.
"Thank you for paying for me," Bella said with a sincere smile.
"It's fine. It's only a little money anyway," the girl responded back.
"What's your name?" Bella asked curiously.
"Charlotte. What's yours?"
"Bella."
"It's nice to meet you Bella. You from around here?"
"Yah, I live in Forks I actually just recently moved here. I'm the police chief's daughter."
"Cool my uncle's a police officer."
"That's nice," Bella said then speculated something for a second, "Um…Charlotte, are you by yourself?"
"Yes but I live close by. My mom is waiting for me at home."
Before their conversation could continue, the bus stopped and the bus driver shouted an address that Bella recognized as her destination.
As Bella got up from her seat, she said to Charlotte, "I have to go now. Thank you so much and if we ever meet again I promise to repay you."
Charlotte said goodbye and Bella quickly got off the bus before the bus doors could close and trap her in the vehicle. Bella gave Charlotte a wave that Charlotte reciprocated back as the bus trudged away towards its next destination.
Rain started pouring down on Bella's head and she quickly ran down the street towards her house. She walked up the stairs in front of her house-almost slipping on the already wet concrete-and scrambled to get her house key into the lock.
Once the door opened Bella slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She then proceeded up the stairs towards her bedroom. One inside her room, Bella crashed down on her bed and fell asleep in her damp clothes.
Bella woke up the next day alone and cold in her bedroom; her hair in a tangled muddle and her clothes in a wrinkled mess. She grumbled dragged herself out of bed and put on some fresh clothing. She then ensued towards the bathroom where she pulled a brush through her hair and growling every time the brush got stuck in a knot.
Once she was done with her hair, she splashed some water on her face to wake her from her morning stupor. She then walked ungracefully down the stairs to go make some breakfast.
It was no surprise when she found Charlie sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee mug in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Charlie was reading the newspaper carefully and seemed wary about what he was reading.
"What are you reading there?" Bella asked as she threw some Ego waffles into the toaster.
"Remember how I said I was looking for that criminal?"
"Yah, did you catch him?"
"No. He ran off and tried to rob a little girl and ended up shooting her...and um…she died. They put the girl's obituary in the newspaper."
"That's horrible," Bella gasped. What if it was someone I knew? Bella thought.
"What was her name?" Bella asked.
"Says her name was Charlotte H. E. Ather."
"Charlotte?" Bella said incredulously and grabbed the newspaper from her father. Well enough a school picture of Charlotte smiling was sitting smack in the middle of the newspaper with the headlines "Girl Murdered" hovering over her picture. There were no words to describe how stunned Bella was.
"You knew her?" Charlie asked.
"Yes. I just briefly met her yesterday she gave me change to ride the bus and we talked a bit. She was such a nice a girl…"
"I'm sorry Bells…," Charlie said softly, but then his fist came down on the table, shaking it, and yelled, "If only we had caught him in time!"
"It's not your fault. You'll find him," Bella said while laying a comforting hand on her father's shoulder.
"Where did you say you last saw that little girl?" Charlie asked.
"On the bus."
"Did you see this man?" Charlie then pulled out of his pocket a mug shot of a gruff-looking man. Bella didn't recognize him at first but then she realized that he was the man she sat next to on the bench at the bus stop. Bella also thought she saw him sit in front of her and Charlotte on the bus.
"Yes!" Bella exclaimed.
"He's the criminal we've been looking for. Where did you last see him?"
"At the bus stop and on the bus. I remember him sitting close to me and Charlotte at both places."
"Bella, can you do me a favor?"
"What?"
"I'm going to need you to come to a line-up at the police station."
"Why do you need me to help you find a criminal you already have pictures of?" Bella asked bemused. Bella and Charlie had drove off towards the police station the minute they were finished with breakfast. Charlie had caught a couple of people being suspected of the criminal last night and they were put into the police station's prison until further inspection during the line-up today.
Charlie was practically tugging Bella by the arm through the police station hallways towards the line-up room.
"That picture I showed you of him is the only picture we had of him and it only shows his head and face so were not quite sure of his entire physical appearance and the picture is a bit worn out and outdated so were not quite to sure of his age either."
"So why'd you give me a picture of a person that I could have mistaken as someone else?"
"Because if you saw someone that looked like the criminal in the picture by that Charlotte girl then it was most likely him."
"Who's this criminal anyway?"
"Martin Jones. Jones escaped the state prison about two weeks ago and the officials think he's hiding somewhere around here."
"How many suspects did you find?"
"Not many just four." Just as Charlie said that they came up to the hallway where the line-up room was. In the line-up room, four gruff looking men were standing with their backs against the wall and their hands firmly at their sides. They could be seen through a one-sided mirror that was part of the wall that divided the room from the hallway.
"Now remember Bella," Charlie said softly, "It's a one-sided mirror so you can see them but they can't see you so you have nothing to worry about, okay?"
"Okay." Bella peered at the men through the mirror closely. They were all gruff looking but they all had a different physical structure, posture, and fashion to them. Two men were petite while the other two were lanky, all of them had straight backs except for one boy who was slumping over, and two of them had biker outfits while one looked like a plumber and other one had business suit. Despite their demeanors, Bella could not pinpoint one of them as the possible criminal she saw yesterday.
"He's not here," Bella said disappointed.
"Are you sure?" Charlie asked.
"I'm sure, not one of them looks the slightest like him."
"Take another look," Charlie suggested. Despite a second examination, Bella could not condemn any of the men as the murderer.
"I guess we'll have to keep looking," Charlie said disheartened, "I'll drive you home Bells."
The car ride home was not joyful one as a depressive feeling filled around Bella and her father. Bella didn't even look at her dad as she fiddled with hem of her skirt thinking about poor Charlotte's family and where Jones could be hiding.
Bella thought about the men she just saw and thought that maybe one of them was actually Jones and that she'd just missed him. But then again when she thought about their faces she just couldn't match one of them to the face she saw on the bus.
If only I had followed her to her home Bella thought. She couldn't help but blame herself a bit for Charlotte's death. Charlotte was just a little girl alone on a bus and it was selfish of her to not make sure she got home safely after what Charlotte did for her.
But, Bella thought, if I went with her to her home, would anything have changed? Could I have stopped an escape convict from hurting a little girl? Would I have died too?
So many questions, not enough answers…
Bella was pulled out of her thoughts by Charlie's police cruiser coming to a halt in the driveway.
"Okay Bella, I'm going to work till eight tonight and if I have to work later I'll call you, okay?"
"Okay. Be safe." Bella got out of the car and waved at Charlie as he pulled out of the driveway and down the street. Bella then continued to walk inside her little home, completely unaware of the stranger watching her from afar…
Bella stared disbelievingly at the clock as it read eight-thirty p.m. Charlie was supposed to be home half and hour ago and she didn't get a call once saying he was going to be home late and Bella was starting to get a bit anxious.
Bella spent the whole day cooking, eating, sleeping, cleaning, and reading and now with nothing to do she could only worry about her absent father. That's when possibilities started swarming within her head.
What if he was chasing Jones right now? What if he just forgot to call? What if he found another civilian killed by Jones? What if he was just late running home? What if he was dead? What if he was alive?
Bella's optimistic and pessimistic side battled uncontrollably inside her head until it became enough and she just had to leave the house to look for Charlie. She grabbed her car keys off the counter and sped out the door; she was already outside when the phone rang inside the house.
Bella jammed her keys into the ignition and hoped that today wasn't the day her car would finally break down. The car roared to life and Bella sighed in relief. She carefully but hurriedly pulled out of the driveway and drove the way towards the police station.
It started to pour down harsh rain that made Bella grit her teeth; now she had to navigate through the darkness and the rain with only worn out windshield wipers and headlights.
As she was driving, Bella's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled to the side of the rode and picked up the phone.
"Hello," I said.
"Hello, Bella love," a voice said at the other end of the line, which Bella recognized to be the voice of her boyfriend.
"Hey Edward! How's Alaska?"
"Actually I have good news."
"Is it long?"
Bella could practically see Edward frowning from the other end of the line. "Why?" Edward asked.
"I just have to find my dad real quick…you know what I'll call you later," Bella said before hanging up. She continued to drive through the wet roads not even noticing the silver Volvo following her several meters behind her.
Bella continued to squint through the rain and darkness and managed not to get lost on her way. Her phone buzzed a couple more times but she just continued to ignore it. Little did Bella know that it was her father calling her this time and he was just as anxious as she.
Bella was just a mile away from the police station when she noticed a man waving at her from the side of the road. Bella didn't recognize the man (at first) and she was still in a hurry to find her father, but she might as well help the poor soul find a way home. Maybe this time she could actually save someone from death.
She pulled over next to the man on the sidewalk and opened the passenger door for him.
"Where are you heading?" Bella said nonchalantly but then her eyes widened a bit when she recognized the man from the bus stop. The man took out a large caliber pistol and pointed it directly between Bella's eyes.
"Hello, Bella," the man said with a sadistic grin.
"Hello…Jones," Bella replied back. On the outside Bella was staring unflinchingly at Jones and the gun pointed at her head, but on the inside Bella was mentally saying prayers and curses at the same time.
So like I said before, this if for my friend who recently died (no she was not murdered but she did die a horrible death at a young age) and I dedicate this story to her. Maybe there's Wi-Fi in heaven and she's reading this right now, but in any case I would appreciate it if you would send your prayers to her. I'll update the second part of this story during this week.
-J.J.
