Bella's POV:

I started panting heavily; my breath came in painful gasps, tearing at my throat. I bit my lip and stared back to where the man had been moments before. Now he was gone. How had he disappeared so fast? It wasn't quite human, but it wasn't quite vampire either.

"Bella? Bella, are you okay?" Alice voice was nervous as though she didn't quite know if she wanted to hear what I was about to say.

"Did…did…you…s-s-see… him" I stuttered, not quite sure of what I had seen.

"Um… who?"

"The man who was pointing at me!" I regained control of my voice, but not of my quivering body.

"Bella, relax," Alice commanded firmly. "You're just hallucinating, there's no one out there." Alice looked as if she had convinced herself, but she couldn't fool me.

"Can vampires hallucinate?" the question was meant to sound like a challenge though it came out sounding frightened. Alice fell silent and turned all her attention back to the road as if it required immense amounts of concentration. The silence rang in my ears as I waited nervously for her response. Alice's eyes glazed over as she looked into the future once again.

Alice's POV:

At first pictures flashed randomly across my sight with no apparent order. I focused my mind on Bella's future. She was probably just freaking out about her mother being in the hospital or maybe the man was just pointing at a friend, Bella might just be paranoid and thought he was pointing at her. That is if there really was a man.

I hesitantly looked into the future. What would happen if I saw Bella's mom die? Would I be able to tell her? I saw her standing beside her mom's bed. Renee smiled up at Bella. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. Outside the window of the hospital room the Arizona sun blazed. I could almost feel the warmth of the room. Something caught Bella's attention. She kissed her mom's hand and walked toward the window, peered out, and screamed. The future abruptly changed as Renee's fate changed rapidly. The picture went blank and I could no longer see either of their futures.

I could feel the tension building in the car. I said the first thing I could think, "Renesmee is going to have a great first day of school," I lied easily. I didn't know what her first day of school would be like; I had been too preoccupied with Renee to even check. Bella bought my lie and her face lit up like it was Christmas. She was so lucky to have a daughter. I would love to have a child, but if giving up one meant I could have Jasper I was fine with it.

"Really? Tell me everything," she said eagerly. I wasn't sure if she was more eager to hear about Renessmee's first day or distract herself from her problems at least for a moment.

"Well, she'll make a new friend named…" Shoot! I hated lying, mostly because I was terrible at it. "Lily!" I blurted out randomly. The lie didn't sound convincing at all, but Bella was more than willing to buy it. I started again more confident this time, "The teacher will love her and she will ace her first pop quiz," I finished beaming at myself. As much as I despised lying, I was happy that I could make Bella feel better. Before she could ask me to tell her more, I started talking again desperate not to get sucked into the silence. "I opened a bunch of fortune cookies yesterday," I told her giddily. This at least was true.

"Fortune cookies?" She asked skeptically raising an eyebrow. Her facial expression made me giggle as the mood in the car steadily rose.

"Yeah."

"You can't even eat human food!"

"I didn't eat them, yuck!" I gagged internally at the thought. Human food was vile; I don't know how they stand it. "Anyway, I read about a hundred fortunes…"

"And saw if they were true?"

"Yep. Sadly they were all way off."

"Maybe because they were intended for humans," Bella teased playfully.

Much to my joy the rest of the ride went smoothly. We talked effortlessly never fading back to the muteness the ride had begun with. With Bella, talking was easy. We laughed and joked the whole time careful not to brush any heavier topics. Bella was in good spirits and I wanted her to stay that way. She had so much on her mind, with her mother just having had cancer and her husband and daughter couldn't come with her to visit her mom in the hospital. That is why I decided to go with her even if that meant leaving Jasper behind for a few days. She must have forgotten about that man from the forest by now.

"We are here," Bella announced.

"Almost," I corrected her. "We are almost there. We still have to fly to Arizona."

"You know it only took us about forty minutes to make a two hour drive. You couldn't have been speeding could you?" she asked in mock horror. To make her point she put her hands against her face and let her jaw go slack in a Scream style expression. I bumped her gently with my elbow.

We both climbed out and headed through the parking garage. Our footsteps echoed eerily in the damp air. I turned to Bella about to start up out conversation again when she drew in a sharp breath.

Bella's POV:

As we walked through the parking garage I looked out at the change of landscape. Buildings were all around us, breaking up the beautiful night sky. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. I glanced at my watch. The neon numbers flashed 12:05, although I wasn't tired. I never would be tired again. I glanced at Alice and then back outside. Alice would never be able to understand how much her coming with me meant. I had thanked her countless times yet she always brushed it off saying, "It's nothing." It wasn't nothing to me that's for sure.

The streets outside were nearly empty with only a few cars and no people walked the sidewalks. Without warning the man I had seen from the woods appeared on the sidewalk. No it wasn't him. It couldn't be him. It's not him. I told myself over and over again until I willed it to be true. I almost truly believed it until he raised his arm for the second time today to point at me. There was no doubt in my mind that it was the same man as before. My breath came in so quickly it hurt.

"A-A-Alice," my brain felt numb, just coming up with her name seemed like an effort. Horror pumped through my body.

"Bella, are you okay?" Alice's eyes passed over me to make sure I wasn't hurt and then followed my gaze. "There's nothing out there, Bella. You need to relax," she looked at me as if I were a crazy person to be wary of.

"Sorry, I overacted. There's nothing out there, it must have been a shadow or something," I tried to make it sound as if I actually believed what I was telling her. I don't know what it was, but it was definitely not a shadow. I forced myself to look away from the streets and back at her.

"Shoot! We're going to be late. Let's hurry up," she said trying to end our stress. I nodded slowly and start to follow her. She was already going faster than any human could yet in spite of that she still had not reached her top speed. She was just giving me time to catch up. I raced after, catching up and passing her quickly. She caught up with me and out strides fell in sync. Seconds later we were aside the doorway into the airport.

The rest all became a blur. The man at the counter flirting with Alice and probably myself too, yet I didn't pay any attention to him. Security was a breeze. The lines were short and the process was swift. We arrived just in time to board, first class of course. If Alice had anything to do with it, and she probably did, she wouldn't have us flying anything but first class. We sat down on the plane, and waited anxiously for take off.

"Want to play cards?" Alice wiggled her eyebrows at me holding up an unopened pack of cards.

"Oh yeah, 'cause that would be fair," I said sarcastically, letting a smile play across my lips.

"Please, it's better than nothing."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Fine," I sighed dramatically. Before I could change my mind Alice had the cards open and laid out for a game of poker. "Yeah, not happening. I don't stand a chance at poker, not with you cheating."

"I know. And for the record I don't cheat I just have a really good strategy."

"And by strategy you mean you look at see what cards I'll play by using your gift?"

"So it's settled, I don't cheat. You have a gift too."

She was an unstoppable force of nature. It made me smile. The sarcasm came out again as I said, "Great, you know how helpful my gift is when it comes to poker."

She handed me my hand and said sweetly, "You go first. Just so you know that's a bad move."

"I haven't even… oh whatever." I finally just gave in, too mentally exhausted to protest. One hundred forty-seven loses later (games go quickly when you play a physic) we landed.

"I win again!" Correction: One hundred forty-eight loses later we landed.

"This can't possibly be good for my self esteem," I laughed poking fun at her. She just smirked and collected all the cards.

I peered out the window exited to finally see Arizona again. "Here we ar-" I stopped abruptly just in time to see a man disappear behind the building. The man was wearing the same thing as the man I had seen before. Coincidence. That's all; it's just a coincidence.

Alice poked me, "Time to go. Let's check into the hotel first and then go to the hospital in the morning," she looked past me and out the window, "when there's actually a sun in the sky."

"Aren't we going to rent a car?"

"There's not really a point. The hotel is an hour away by car and a minute or so on foot."

"What about all the people?" I challenged her.

"I knew you'd say that," she smirked, clearly not through beating me for the night.

I snorted at her. "So are you going to answer my question, oh so wise one," I pretended to bow to her.

"It's past three in the morning, there's no light, and no people out to see us even if there was."

"Tomorrow?"

Even thought it wasn't a sentence much less a question she promptly responded, "The hospital is right across the street and out plane ride home is at nighttime too. That is unless you prefer to run home. This piece of metal hardly goes half as fast as I do."

"Alice, lower your voice people are staring."

People began to stream out of the plane all pushing to be first. Alice and I followed the rest of the crowd out. The cool kiss of night brushed against my skin. I breathed deeply through my nose, thrilled to be so close to home. We were at one of those airports where you have to walk outside when you get off the plane before you can get into the airport. The scenery around us was breath taking. We were surrounded by hundreds of cactus and different types of desert grasses.

"I'll be right back, Bella, I forgot my sweater on the plane." Alice hurried away as quickly as she could without drawing attention to herself.

"Bella," an icy voice called out to me from every direction. I spun around looking for the source. "Bella, come to me," the words sent a chill down my spine.

"Who are you?" I choked out in my panic-stricken state.

"Oh, you know very well who I am. You've seen me before, but not as much as I've seen you." I swallowed hard holding my breath, waiting for him to say more. The realization hit me and I doubled over as if I had been kicked in the stomach. He was the man from the forest, sidewalk, and now this runway.

A/N- Hope you liked it! Please review! Questions, comments, critics, anything you want. If I get a lot of reviews you may get to find out who or what this man/creature is.

Love,

Louise