Disclaimer: I own nada except the idea.
A/N: Ok, updating within 48 hours is a rare thing for me. Just goes to show how much I am really loving writing this story. Hope you enjoy reading it just as much.
Haunted
Two
Edward
The news – economic crisis, man mauled to death by bear, leading politician in sex scandal – winked out as Bella hit the remote in frustration.
"Why is there never any good news?" she moaned. "News is always inevitably bad."
"Especially when people are going missing and being mauled by bears," said Edward. Bella immediately picked up on the grimness in his voice.
"You don't think it's a bear, do you?" she said nervously.
"No. None of us think it's a bear. We think it's something far more dangerous."
Just then the phone rang, and Edward sprinted to answer it. He picked it up before the first ring had died, recognising Carlisle's extension at the hospital.
"Carlisle? What's up?"
"Esme." Carlisle had rarely sounded as worried as he did then. "Can you come and pick her up from the hospital please?"
"Esme's in the hospital?" Edward repeated in disbelief.
"What?" Bella called from the living room, getting up and running through to the phone as fast as she could.
"She had a funny turn in the supermarket. They thought she'd fainted and called her an ambulance. She's alright now."
Edward couldn't hear Carlisle's thoughts over the phone, but he could hazard a pretty good guess as to what they were. I hope.
"Is she ok?" Edward asked. "Being in the ER I mean."
"I discharged her from ER; she's in reception at the moment." Carlisle sighed heavily. "The nearest blood is at least three doors away. In all honesty, I think she's too shell-shocked by the experience to act on instinct."
"She's not the only one. What happened?"
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line.
"I don't think it's my place to tell you," Carlisle said eventually. "Esme's upset and embarrassed at the moment. We'll discuss it later."
"Ok..." Edward wasn't entirely satisfied with this non-explanation, but he knew better than to push it. He'd talk to Esme on the way home, read her if necessary to get to the bottom of things. "I'll be there ASAP."
He hung up and looked at Bella, confused and worried.
"Esme's in the hospital?" she reiterated with the same disbelief in her voice. Edward nodded.
"We're going to pick her up. Come on."
"But what happened?" Bella persisted as they got into the Volvo and raced down the drive onto the main road.
"I don't know. Carlisle wouldn't say. We can ask Esme in a minute."
Edward noticed Bella's unconscious glance at the speed. At the rate they were going, they really would be there in under a minute. Edward relaxed his foot on the accelerator in response to her unspoken plea, and the needle gradually dropped back to below eighty.
It took them under ten minutes to reach the hospital, a good half-hour's drive for the regular human, and they hurried through the reception doors. Esme was sitting on a blue plastic chair tucked around the corner, leaning her head against the softly humming vending machine.
"Esme!" Bella ran over to her. "Are you alright? What happened?"
"I'm fine," Esme mumbled, rising from her seat awkwardly. "Nothing happened. Just a misunderstanding."
Edward tuned into her thoughts, easily ignoring the many other voices of the hospital.
Misunderstanding. Trick of the light. Overactive imagination. It was all a dream.
"Come on Esme," he said gently, placing an arm around her to guide her to the doors. "Let's get you home."
Esme nodded and let them walk her blindly out of the main doors, casting a longing look at ER as they went past. Edward caught a glimpse of Carlisle peering out through the slatted blinds of a consulting room, and he heard his whispered words of reassurance across the parking lot.
It'll be ok Esme. Everything will be fine.
"Esme," Edward said, once they were safely in the car away from eavesdroppers. "Will you please tell us what's happening?"
"Nothing is happening," she said slowly. She kept her eyes on the road, staring straight out of the windscreen, forgetting to blink. Edward kept glancing over at her, trying to make sense of her thoughts. They were simple, repetitive, a mantra to prevent herself thinking of anything else.
Road. Sky. Trees. Lots of trees. I like trees. Road. Clouds. That one looks like a five-legged zebra. Road. Trees. Sky.
Bella caught his eye in the rear-view mirror and raised an eyebrow to question. Edward shook his head. They weren't going to get anything out of Esme for the foreseeable future.
"Oh no," she said presently, and closed her eyes.
"What?" Edward slammed on the brakes and pulled into the kerb.
"Bella's dinner," Esme moaned. "Everything happened at once, I forgot..."
"It doesn't matter," said Bella firmly. "I'll get take-out later."
"But Charlie..."
"Charlie will understand when I tell him you spent the afternoon in ER."
They arrived back at the house even quicker than the opposite journey had taken, and the door opened before they reached it. Alice peered around the frame.
"I saw what happened," she said. "We came straight back as soon as we could. Emmett and Rosalie are on their way."
They entered the house to find Jasper a little further in. A pulse of calm settled over the group, and its perpetrator came over to Esme, the source of the nervousness that he was trying to combat.
"Calm down Esme," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, and Edward could see a flicker of worry in his brother's eyes at the sheer amount of tension that he was evidently feeling from her.
"I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me," Esme muttered, shrugging off Jasper's hand and racing towards the stairs. Edward heard her final mental message clearly.
Please leave me alone.
He sighed and tuned out Esme's voice before turning to Alice.
"What happened?" he pressed as the gathered family made their way back to the living room. "What did you see?"
"I saw Esme in the store, I saw her collapse and then in the ambulance." Edward, you don't know how scared I was, and then I couldn't get hold of her cell or Carlisle...Wait, something's happening...
Alice's eyes unfocussed. The future had changed, and she was seeing its outcome. Whilst tuned to her mind, Edward could see what she did, and what he saw did nothing to quell the fears that had been brewing ever since he had first answered the phone. Firstly, an official from the forestry commission was lying mauled in the woods, an unfamiliar face with blood red eyes leering up at them from the corpse. Then there was a more horrifying vision. Esme was screaming in pain, the look in her eyes one of unadulterated terror.
"The killer's getting closer." Alice was whispering for the benefit of those who could not share her sight. "He's being methodical."
"It's definitely not a bear then," said Bella, panic choking her voice.
"Does he want Bella?" Jasper asked.
"No..." Alice was still focussing, wide-eyed, into that awful second vision. "He wants Esme."
"But that's impossible!" Jasper exploded. "Trackers don't hunt other vampires!"
Their thoughts drifted involuntarily to events earlier in the year, when the first pieces of Alice's history had begun to unravel after James' revelations.
"What happened to Esme before she was a vampire?" asked Bella, but before anyone could reply, the front door burst open again.
"Where's Esme? Is she ok?"
"She's upstairs. Emmett. Emmett!"
Emmett paused halfway up the stairs.
"She wants to be on her own."
Emmett grunted and returned to the ground floor, coming into the living room with Rosalie. They sat down with the others and Edward caught Rosalie's thoughts.
Something has gone very wrong somewhere along the line here.
Aloud she spoke to Alice.
"Have you seen any more of our mystery 'bear'?"
Alice nodded sadly.
"He's linked to Esme..."
That explains it.
"... I just can't see how. He's not close enough for Edward to read him yet."
Rosalie looked at Edward expectantly.
But you can read Esme.
Edward looked pained, hoping that his expression would convey his unwillingness.
"He's changing course," said Alice suddenly. "He's going to end up at the hospital."
"Carlisle."
Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper jumped up in unison.
"He's just hanging around. He's not going to strike. He's just watching."
The others sat down again with a slight but not complete feeling of relief.
"That settles it though," said Edward darkly. "He's tied up with Esme. Could you draw him Alice? For the benefit of the gathered party."
"I could try."
Alice's eyes wandered to the middle distance as Jasper placed a pencil in her hand and guided her to a piece of paper that Rosalie had torn out of the back of the nearest book. Edward hid his grimace on seeing such a good piece of literature so mistreated. Their priority was intercepting this maniac before any harm could come to the woman they all loved as a mother.
"I don't recognise him," said Alice, turning her thumbnail sketch to the rest of the group. "But then none of us would recognise him from her human life. We've all been with her all the time since she was changed, one or other of us..." She tailed off and turned to Edward. They had all heard his story of leading the nomadic life for a few years.
"Carlisle's always been with her," he said in answer to the question that no-one quite knew how to formulate. "I'm not sure whether he would know him or not."
"Do you think it's like James and Alice?" Bella asked. "He was hunting her whilst she was human but she became a vampire before he could strike? Now he wants revenge so he's just going to kill her?"
Edward sighed.
"Carlisle didn't change her to save her from another vampire. There were no other vampires in Wisconsin at the time. That said..." He paused. "It does seem to be the most plausible explanation."
"Look, what actually happened during Esme's human life?" asked Bella. "You must know something, maybe that would have a bearing on it."
Edward gave her a brief, clinical account of Esme's early life, focussing as little as possible on her 'unhappy' marriage. He knew how much Esme hated it being brought up. She had worked long and hard to forget that torturous period in order to concentrate wholly on her wondrous new life and love. She could talk candidly about her suicide and her son, but even after all these years, she was still afraid of Charles Evenson. At the slightest mention of him she clammed up, retreating into her shell, blocking out everything and everyone.
Much like she was doing now.
"Do you think?" Bella began, the first seeds of a theory planted in her mind. "No, that's ridiculous."
Edward nearly cursed out loud in his frustration at being unable to hear her thoughts. At that point in time, any explanation was better than none.
"Carlisle's coming home," said Alice. "Dr Snow's told him to take care of Esme. He wants us to have a family conference about the unwanted guest."
"And what is the unwanted guest doing?" Edward asked, anxious.
Alice shook her head.
"It's grey. He hasn't made any decision yet."
"Does Carlisle know he's connected to Esme?" asked Jasper. Alice shrugged.
"I'd better take Bella home," said Edward. "If he does decide to follow Carlisle... Even if it's Esme he's looking for, I don't think that would stop him investigating her tasty human friend."
Bella protested but Edward didn't take no for an answer, even when Alice confirmed that the tracker had decided to stay put for the time being.
"He might change his mind at the last minute," he said darkly, handing her into the Volvo. "I'll tell you what happens at the meeting."
"You'd better," said Bella. "I want a second by second account."
She glanced back at the house in the oncoming dusk and sighed sadly at the uppermost window on the east facade. Edward knew what she was thinking without having to ask or read her. She, like he, was praying that everything would turn out for the best, for Esme's sake alone.
TO BE CONTINUED
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