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Prey For Protection

"There are no explanations for human evil. Only excuses."

-Dean Koontz

Chapter One:

You could see the heat rising off the asphalt as the blistering Arizona sun beat down. We reluctantly stepped out of the air-conditioned comfort of the Paradise Valley Mall, into the sweltering heat, and across the densely populated parking lot to Renee's car. God love my capricious mother, she'd insisted on taking me shopping for what she dubbed 'more appropriate attire' before I left for WA. What is one supposed to wear when running for their life? In spite of the discernible tension that had surrounded us lately, she'd made an enormous effort to keep the air light, even laughing like we did during our more carefree days, when we went on shopping excursions together.

We hurriedly approached her dark blue Toyota Avalon; anxious for it's promise of air-conditioned relief to the oppressive heat. On the way, I couldn't help but notice what appeared to be a red flyer of some sort neatly folded and tucked under the driver's side windshield wiper. It struck me as odd only because I didn't notice anything similar on any of the other cars nearby. Renee saw it too, and she reached out and picked it up as she opened the driver side door to get into the car. She hit the switch and unlocked my door as she slid into her plush leather seat and unfolded the red piece of paper.

Her breath hitched and her eyes widened and darted to me immediately. She furiously wadded the paper into a tight ball and tried to shove it into her purse. I looked at her quizzically, curious as to what on the flyer could have possibly upset her. She pointedly ignored my questioning look as she jammed her key into the ignition starting the car. She moved to check her mirror before backing out of her parking space, and I carefully reached under her arm, playfully snatching the wadded up red paper from the top of her purse.

She yelled something incomprehensive and tried to pry it from my fingers; but I quickly distracted her with a "Look out mom!" calling her attention to the bright yellow SUV that she was about to back into. She slammed on the brakes and cursed under her breath before returning her attention to the task of maneuvering the car out of the busy mall parking lot.

I slid as close to my door as possible, trying to stay out of her reach as I straightened out the crumpled piece of paper. I immediately realized that it wasn't a flyer at all. The blood red color of the paper should've been enough to alert me; it was another message from James. It had been over a month since I'd received anything from him; and with all the packing and planning in preparation for my leaving, I'd all but pushed his letters and poems from my mind. I was surprised that I hadn't thought of it immediately, and Renee's reaction should've made it clear. I felt the sting of tears burning my eyes before I could make out any of the words on the page. I tried to focus on the paper, but my mind was reeling, and I couldn't read through the tears anyway. I shoved the offensive piece of paper into my bag and dropped my head into my hands choking back my sobs.

"Bella…" my mother started soothingly, "don't worry baby. We'll have you on that plane tomorrow morning and you'll be safe in Forks with your dad by tomorrow night." She reached over and smoothed my hair reassuringly, "Everything will be ok."

I can't tell you how desperately I wanted to believe her. I so wanted to be able to take some solace from her words; but I'd been afraid for so long, I wasn't even sure I remembered what it felt like for everything to be 'ok'. It was hard to imagine not having to look over my shoulder constantly. It was nearing impossible to remember the days when I hadn't cringed every time the phone rang or cried myself to sleep while trying to keep at least one eye open. To think that there had been a time when I wasn't afraid of the dark…

It hadn't always been this way… I hadn't always been this way. I'd had a pretty normal life once upon a time... I spent two weeks with my dad in Forks, WA every summer until I was twelve. The rest of the time it was Renee and I in Phoenix.

I'd always thought my mother was beautiful. Like me she had brown hair, but where mine was a dull brown hers was, much like her personality, shiny and bouncy and vibrant. Her skin was a peaches and cream color, much more appealing than my own deathly pallor. She had a warm and ready smile that went all the way to her eyes; which were a slightly lighter shade of brown than mine and they seemed to sparkle with her love of life. She was an elementary school teacher and my best friend in the entire world. We were more like sisters than mother and daughter and it had been that way for as far back as I could remember.

She met Phil the summer before I started eighth grade; and they got married the summer before my freshman year. He was by no means unattractive. He was a minor league baseball player, so he was physically fit. He was close to 6'2" tall and weighed in around 235 pounds. He had dark blond hair; his eyes were slate gray, and he had a deep dark tan. Renee lovingly described him as 'quite the catch'. I liked him because he seemed like a good guy and he made my mother very happy.

I met James in third grade. Pesky little Newton Davies was pulling on my pigtails at recess, and James punched him in the gut and told him to leave me alone. His parents had just moved to the area and we became best friends that very first day. All throughout elementary school and junior high we were practically inseparable. He slept over frequently and was a regular at our dinner table. Renee was very fond of him and he loved her like a second mother.

When we were in sixth grade James' father, Cal, lost his job. Things got really rough at home for him then. Cal was a proud man, and the inability to provide for his family was simply not acceptable in his eyes. He looked for another job, but he became really depressed and started drinking when he couldn't find one right away.

I remember at one point thinking that James' dad was handsome. He kept his dirty blond hair cropped short, and it was always flawlessly styled. His eyes were a bright, clear blue and they sparkled when he laughed. He was well built and his love for the outdoors kept him with a glowing year round tan. As time wore on and his drinking increased, his hair became shaggy and always hung limply in his face and looked greasy and dirty. His once beautiful eyes were always bloodshot, he stopped shaving, and sometimes he smelled like he bathed in whiskey. The worst part was that when Cal drank he got angry… really angry; a lot of times he even got violent. Sometimes it would be James' mother Sophie, that felt the brunt of his rage, and sometimes it was James. James slept over a lot during that time.

Sophie was probably the sweetest woman I'd ever met. She constantly made excuses for her husband, and constantly apologized for his actions and his hateful words. She tried to keep James away from his father as much as possible. She intervened when she could, but she was just a tiny little thing, not much bigger than me at the time, and well over a foot shorter than her husband. She'd convinced herself that once Cal got back to work everything would go back to normal. She loved him too much to actually blame him for anything.

I remember waving goodbye to her many times, from the backseat of Renee's car as we whisked James off to the safety of our apartment while Cal cooled off or sobered up. She'd stand in the driveway waving and trying to prevent the tears from falling from her sad green eyes until we were out of sight. She always wore her strawberry blond hair pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head, and there was always a sad smile on her pale thin lips. I remember thinking about how unfair it all was, that she was just too good to be so sad.

One night, just before holiday vacation in seventh grade, Cal came home in a drunken stupor. James was sleeping at our house that night, and I thought I would be forever grateful for that fact. He on the other hand would feel forever guilty. Cal went off in a drunken rage and beat Sophie within an inch of her life. Both of her wrists were broken, as well as her nose, her right leg and four of her ribs. Her jaw was dislocated and she'd suffered a moderate concussion in addition to some internal bleeding from where one of her broken ribs nicked her right lung. It was touch and go until they'd treated her internal injuries. James swore he could've prevented it. I think he would've just taken her place. The truth was that he would have willingly traded places with her as opposed to idly sitting by and watching his mother suffer like she did.

A concerned, anonymous neighbor heard the crashes and screams from the house and placed the call to 9-1-1. Cal was taken away in handcuffs and Sophie was whisked off in an ambulance to St. Joseph's Hospital where she stayed for five weeks. When he wasn't at the hospital, James stayed with us the entire time. When his mother was finally discharged, he went home to help take care of her. He started doing odd jobs to help pay the bills and he never ever complained.

Sooner than anyone expected, his dad came home, and he was worse than ever. He'd get a job, work a few days or maybe as long as a couple weeks before he did something that caused him to get fired. Then he'd sit around the house for weeks and make his family miserable. Eventually he'd go out and find another job and he'd start the whole cycle all over again. James hated being home, but he was also afraid to stay away for long.

In the eighth grade James told me that he loved me, and that he always had. He said he was going to marry me some day, and that we were going to move far away, and raise our own family. He just knew we'd be happy, and he swore that he'd be better than his father. He wanted to run away from home; in fact, he talked about it all the time. He wanted me to go with him, but he knew there was no way I would leave Renee. I tried to convince him to just stay with us, but he was afraid that Cal would come looking for him and hurt one of us if he was hiding at our house. I hated it, but I had a horrible feeling that he was right.

The summer before we started high school James and I shared our first 'real' kiss. That was when I realized that I loved him too. He'd always been a 'cute kid', but as we grew up he'd graduated to absolutely gorgeous. He'd let his hair, which was the same dirty blonde as his father's, grow out to his shoulder blades and he usually wore it pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were my favorite of his feature. I swore I could get lost in his pale blue eyes; and they were so expressive! When he was angry his eyes would turn a deep icy blue, when he was happy they were more like the pale blue color of the summer sky; and when he was sad or worried, they would darken with the exception of a light ring around the pupils.

Renee, being one of the most observant people in the known universe, picked up on the difference in our relationship immediately. James was still always welcome to sleep over; however it became custom for him to sleep on the couch in the living room, instead of on the floor in my room where he'd previously slept.

As soon as we started our freshman year of high school it immediately became apparent that things were destined to change. For starters, for the first time since we'd met, James and I didn't share a single class. This meant that the only time we had together during the school day was at lunch. Between the worries brought on by his home life and the time he spent working, James' interest in school was waning at best. I, on the other hand, was positively enthralled with everything about high school. I later found out that James regularly left school after walking me to my 1st period class, only to return in time to meet me by my locker at the end of the day.

I complained about our schedules to Renee when I got home from school that first day. She listened sympathetically and then she mentioned that it would probably be good for both of us to spend a little time apart. She said that we'd been 'attached at the hip' since elementary school and that she thought it would do us both good to make more friends, even going so far as to call us borderline antisocial. Which wasn't at all true… I just really liked hanging out with James, and he really liked hanging out with me. That was all.

I did end up making some new friends, almost in spite of myself. I was even invited to a slumber party at Tiffany Saunders' house that very first weekend. She was ridiculously pretty and popular. She was the kind of girl that ends up having all the boys making fools of themselves trying to impress her. She always wore her platinum blonde hair twisted into a long braid that hung down almost to her waist. She had bright blue eyes and a much more developed figure than I had. She was several inches taller than me, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I was genuinely surprised to learn that her physical beauty paled in comparison to her inner beauty. She was in my Homeroom, Algebra, and Gym class. I thought she was one of the nicest, sweetest people I'd ever met, and I was actually excited at the prospect of going…

Well, at least until I told James about it. He kind of freaked out on me… Asking me what I knew about Tiffany Saunders and why I'd want to hang out with her. Then he was yelling and complaining about how we never got to spend any time together any more.

He'd never acted that way before, and to be honest, it scared me a little when he yelled at me; but then he seemed to feel really guilty. He said he was sorry at least a hundred times. He said that he was just really stressed out and he missed me like crazy and it got the best of him. I backed out of the sleepover Friday afternoon claiming cramps.

That seemed to set the tone for the rest of the school year. If I tried to join a group or activity James got angry. If I tried to make plans with other people he got angry. Each and every time he got angry he would yell and curse and call me names, usually just inconsequential things like stupid or selfish, but sometimes it was worse… He called me a 'heartless fucking bitch' once, when I mentioned going shopping with Tiffany and her sister Amanda. Yeah. I didn't see where it fit either…

He wasn't always bad then either. James had good days; and when James was having a good day, if I didn't do anything to make him mad I had a good day too. We spent a lot of evenings on the couch in my living room watching movies and snuggling. Those were some of my favorite times with James.

"Hey! Bella, are you alright?"

I jumped as the sound of Renee's concerned voice ripped me from my reverie. We were parked in our driveway; I'd been totally oblivious to everything around me the entire trip home. "Yeah… Sorry mom… Just thinking."

She smiled warmly and reached forward to caress my cheek. "My dear, sweet, beautiful daughter…" she cooed. "Everything's going to work out Bella; I know it's hard to believe right now but have faith. Things are going to get better for you; I can feel it. Just be strong a little longer sweetheart." Her hand slid down my arm and when it came to rest over my own hand she gave it a reassuring pat and said, "Come on, let's go finish getting you all packed. Big day tomorrow!" she added with what sounded very much like forced enthusiasm.

~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~**~

The next day, the trip to the airport was downright horrible. Renee's husband Phil totally freaked out when he heard about the note on the car. He was convinced that James was going to follow us to the airport and that he would try to physically prevent me from getting on an airplane and leaving Phoenix. The tension in the air was palpable. We got to Sky Harbor International Airport at a little before 9am and went over my itinerary for what seemed like the one-hundredth time. I was scheduled to leave at 10:59 for Minneapolis, MN, where I had a ninety-minute layover. At 4:30pm I would depart Minneapolis for Seattle Tacoma International Airport where I'd meet Charlie and set off on the nearly four-hour drive to the rainy town of Forks.

I got checked in and said my goodbyes to Renee and Phil. "I'll call Charlie as soon as you get on the plane Bella. You call me as soon as you land young lady," she demanded, sounding more motherly than she ever had in her free-spirited life. She wrapped her arms around me in a warm embrace, and I could feel her tears soaking through the shoulder of my thin cotton blouse. "You take care of yourself Isabella," she said much more softly, "You know you can always come back baby, once all this blows over and we know it's safe. Everything will be ok."

I nodded slowly and quickly wiped my own tears away before pulling back to look at her one more time. I had to be strong, if not for myself, for Renee. I knew that if I broke down in front of her, she'd break down too and then she wouldn't let me get on the plane. I also knew that if I stayed in Phoenix, James was going to hurt someone trying to get to me.

I couldn't take any chances. He knew the easiest way to hurt me and hurt me the deepest would be through my mother. I desperately wanted to believe that he wouldn't actually be able to hurt her. They'd been so close once; but deep down I knew I was kidding myself. So I needed to be as far away from her as I could get. She and Phil were heading to Jacksonville, FL later that same week to check out a team there. I was praying that things would go well for him; and that they'd end up moving to Florida as quickly as possible.

When they announced final boarding for my flight I gave Renee and Phil each one last hug before turning to make my way toward the gates. Holding back the tears was no longer an option; the dam had burst. I heard Renee sobbing behind me; but I refused to turn around. Instead I took a deep breath, strengthened my resolve and quickened my pace; reminding myself that if I turned around I would fall apart and never make it to the plane.

Once I was onboard I stowed my carry-on bag in the overhead compartment and settled myself into my seat, mentally preparing myself for the twelve-hour journey ahead of me. I stared blindly out the window as we taxied down the runway and started our ascent. I didn't notice the shrinking landscape beneath us as the plane left the ground, or the Captain's speech, or anything else that might've been going on. In fact I was surprised when the flight attendant interrupted my thoughts to ask if I needed anything.

"Thanks, I'm fine." I assured her and smiled weakly.

I stood up and pulled my carry-on bag out and rummaged through it until I found my iPod. In the process, my hand grazed what felt like a crumpled up piece of paper. I pulled it out and upon closer inspection I realized it was the note that James had left on Renee's car the day before. I shoved the paper into my seat before stashing the bag back into the overhead compartment. I donned my ear buds and started James' playlist. I took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm my frantically racing heart as I smoothed out the crumpled red page.

When I looked down at James' familiar handwriting I felt fresh hot tears stinging my eyes again before I'd even started reading. By the time I'd finished my breath was coming in short gasps and I was sobbing uncontrollably. The paper itself was of a thick stock and was bright red in color. This had become something of a trademark with James. Every poem, every letter, every threat had come on this blood red parchment. It had been folded in quarters and the word 'Izzy' was written on what had been the front. James had been the only one to call me Izzy. I personally detested the nickname, which was why he'd initially started using it; and somehow over the years it had just stuck. On the inside of the page in James' precise scrawl it read:

'Don't listen to them Izz, don't believe their lies. They can't protect you. You are mine. Listen to me when I tell you that I will kill anyone that tries to come between us. You'd better hear what I'm telling you and believe my words. I will kill every fucking one of them without thinking twice about it. Do you want that? Do you want their blood on your hands? If so try to run, and I'll let you wipe it from my lips.

Yes Izzy, I heard that you were going to run. Why are you doing this? God damn it Izzy, you can't hide from me. I will find you. You are mine You have ALWAYS been mine and you ALWAYS will be.

Mine.

FOREVER.

James

I felt a chill run through me and shivered involuntarily. I leaned my head against the cool glass and stared unseeingly out the window, my mind already slipping back to the past… Desperate to understand how things had gotten so out of control…

A/N: Thanks for reading!