AN: Ok, so I'm back with the forth chapter… which if you think about it is quite a biggie :). I think you'll enjoy it. Quite a few things a revealed in this chapter, firstly Bella's power (psh, you didn't think I'd leave Bella Swan an ordinary vamp). It won't be entirely explained for quite a while, but this chapter contains a pretty hefty clue.
Secondly there will be some CullenBella interaction… of some sort grins wickedly. Kinda. Stay tuned folks.
AN2: RE: Phantom-writer3739. Yes, awesome! I love the metaphor and since I still have the epilogue to write, with your permission I'll probably use it. I had no idea there was a plant called Belladonna.
--
People
They don't mean a thing to you
They move right through you
Just like your breath
But sometimes
I still think of youAnd I just wanted to
Just wanted you to know
My old friend...
I swear I never meant for this
I never meant...
The Bravery, An Honest Mistake--
For seven days neither Bella nor Edward's life altered significantly. For Bella, Jonathan's company was enough to annoy her to distraction. He seemed perfectly content to hang around Forks until, as he had muttered rather ominously, the final act of Bella's performance worked itself out.
Edward on the other hand did not have the luxury of distraction.
So by the time Edward walked into his fathers office, his eyes dark and his mouth hardened into an impossibly grim expression, his mood by definition, sucked. He folded his body sloppily into the chair looking over Carlisle's desk and glared as only a vampire could glare.
"Trouble?"
Carlisle looked up at him in surprise, his handsome features knitting together.
"Should there be? Have we really reached the stage in our lives where the only time you permit yourself to speak to me is when something bad is threatening the family?"
Edward immediately felt awful. It wasn't Carlisle's fault that he was in a bad mood.
"Of course not." He replied, his voice warmed by several degrees. "Alice is worried."
Carlisle relaxed and his usual smile overtook the concern that marred perfection.
"That is a coincidence. I just saw Alice, and she came to me worried about you."
Edward scowled heavily.
"I don't want to talk about it."
Carlisle shrugged with feigned indifference.
"I told her you would say that, but I thought it was imperative for you to have the opportunity…"
"Pass." Edward interrupted icily. "Although I will make it a point to let Alice know where else she can stick that nose."
An awkward silence hung between father and son as Edward tried vainly to ignore the pity in Carlisle's eyes. It pained Edward to realise strain in his relationship with Carlisle, but he was sure it would be a great deal more painful to tell him the truth.
Finally Carlisle cleared his throat, deciding upon something and looked to Edward for his attention.
"I fear that something is arise in the reservation."
Edward mirrored Carlisle's thoughtful expression.
"You
said you where concerned about the treaty. Is that why we came
back?"
"Yes and no, I suppose."
Carlisle gave his son an apologetic half smile.
"There have been rumours about certain restlessness in the…" Carlisle faltered and looked mildly embarrassed. "La Push werewolf population."
"Werewolves? I didn't realise…"
Carlisle looked distinctly sheepish at this point.
"No neither did I actually, I was under the impression that the gene had died out with Ephraim Black, but apparently…" Edward gazed at his father curiously, he was almost positive that if Carlisle could have gone red with embarrassment, he would have. "This generation of werewolves remain from when we frequented Forks last time. You may remember Jacob Black…"
There was too much awkwardness in Carlisle's tone for him to have told Edward the full truth.
"Should we have known that there were werewolves prowling the reserves while we were here?"
"Yes, I suppose. They were for the most part dormant until after we… left."
Edward swallowed softly but his face to Carlisle remained as smooth as stone. Carlisle's golden eyes only studied Edward for a moment before he continued.
"The dilemma we face now is the unusual werewolf activity. The only reason I could phantom for this kind of behaviour is another vampire on their territory."
Edward nodded slowly. "Is Jacob Black still the Alpha? Perhaps we should organize a conference."
"Actually." Carlisle said sharply. "Jacob Black died some time ago. He stopped phasing at some point and died of natural causes."
There was something that Edward couldn't decipher in Carlisle's tone, something that was being deliberately kept from his fathers' thoughts. He pressed one sharp tooth against the cool flesh of his lip and studied his father under the cover of his eyelids.
"Why would Black stop phasing?"
Carlisle cleared his throat.
"My source is… unreliable, but as far as I can tell Jacob Black began to resent his other nature after the…" Edward knew it was coming moments before Carlisle voiced it, and his entire body shuddered pathetically. "…Death of a dear friend."
There was no need to ask to whom Carlisle referred to. Edward straightened with a hiss of escaping air, his face crumpling for a single moment into a mask of inexpressible anguish. He pulled himself, with unusual carelessness, to his feet.
"I'm going to join Jasper and Rosalie on their hunting trip." He said blandly. "Please keep me updated when you find out more."
"You know I will." Carlisle said softly.
Edward was already out the door. He felt like he was doing this too much lately, running away from his family. Yet the remainder of what his inability to protect Bella had cost… it was too much. As he gazed out into the misty countryside he half expected to see Bella again, her eyes pleading with him, and hating him, and loving him.
But no slim, pale figure immerged and Edward almost hated himself for being sorry.
--
If Rosalie had not arrived fifteen minutes early for class, then Bella might have escaped notice by the Cullen family forever; fortunately however Rosalie did arrive to her Literature class on time, and she was present fifty minutes later to ferry her information on to her brother.
Edward frowned as he strode into the cafeteria. The conspiratorial expressions on his sister's faces, both Rosalie and Alice practically buzzing with excitement, might have warned him that something was up, if the identical recitals of French verbs had not. Cecily's absence was also suspect.
His tray landed on the table with a clang and Edward's eyebrows arched decadently at Alice.
"I can not believe you told her Alice Cullen."
Alice's expression balanced between sloppily disguised excitement and hardly sincere bashfulness.
"Like you're even surprised."
Rosalie sniffed at Edward and when she spoke her tone was icy.
"It's your own fault Edward, you should have told us anyway. It's hardly fair that you get to be the only member of the Cullen household with secrets."
"This didn't concern you." Edward hissed. "I was embarrassed, ok? Frequent delusions of an ex girlfriend kind of point to a not of right mind sort of complex."
Rosalie looked smug.
"News flash Edward, we've lived with you for a century and a half now. We get that you're 'not of right mind'.
Alice rolled her eyes, although to which sibling her irritation was directed was a matter of interpretation, and laid one slim hand upon Rosalie's back.
"Rose, tell Edward what you told me."
Rosalie didn't bother vocalising the memory, her recall was sharper and more defined then her words could be. Her eyelids fluttered shut and Edward's own eyes closed too as he saw her memory as clearly as if he had lived it himself.
The two boys who sat in front of Rosalie during her Literature class were both tall and gangly, their voices and hands rough from time spent learning trades of men from their fathers. Rosalie was eavesdropping more out of sheer character then any necessity or interest but when the two boys had mentioned the house of the former police chief, she had listened hard.
"Dad said he saw some girl sneaking around the back way of Chief Swan's old place… " The darker of the two boys had begun. Both his friend and Rosalie had leaned forward unwittingly, curiosity peaking interest in the conversation.
"Did he check it out?"
"Yeah, nobody was there. One of the beds looked slept in but."
"Squatters." The lighter haired boy had exclaimed, his voice sharp with criticism. Whether out of respect for Charlie's memory or out of respect for some other presence entirely it seemed that Forks had unanimously considered the old Swan residence out of bounds.
"Or ghosts…" The dark haired young man's voice was teasing, but underneath layers of mockery Rosalie recognized something not unlike fear.
"Scared of the monsters under your bed Rob?"
Rob had sneered at his friend with the best of his ability gained in seventeen years.
"Not me."
Rosalie's memory became garbled and irrelevant but for a moment Edward didn't open his eyes, he sat, a marble Adonis in Forks Cafeteria, his mind almost entirely wiped clean.
Then his eyes opened and he looked with amazing calm, back at his two sisters.
"Coincidence."
Alice didn't go red with frustration, because, well, she couldn't, but if she had possessed the ability she probably would have resembled some sort of tomato at that moment.
"A pretty big one if you ask me."
"I didn't."
"You should."
Alice was on her feet with a glare that could cut steel. She took Rosalie and pulled her up beside her.
"Don't go to that house, Alice."
Edward warned, his eyes dark.
Alice snorted indelicately and stomped off, leaving Edward to sit alone.
"Alice! I mean it!" Edward called after her; oblivious to the curious looks he was beginning to get from the student body.
He didn't need to read Alice's mind to know he was being ignored.
--
For her own part Bella had only a moments warning that the Cullen's were re-entering her life. Had she arrived home from hunting sooner then she might have recognized the two feminine scents soon enough to flee.
Yet fate intervened again, trapping Bella in the secret compartment she had designed inside her wall. More glad then ever that she was able to conceal her scent.
The few seconds that stretched between the Cullen's re entry into her life felt like an eternity, and Bella was unprepared for the flurry of emotions that hit her as Alice and Rosalie's scents grew stronger and closer. Anger, nostalgia, love, despair, disappointment, longing; Bella knew that it was only her vampire biology that was expunging tears from her eyes.
The two vampiresses slipped almost soundlessly through Bella's bedroom window, an action that reminded Bella eerily and painfully of Edward. She could picture in her minds eye both the willowy blonde and the elfin brunette as perfectly as if she were eighteen again, and for a moment she was tempted to reveal herself if only too see them once again illuminated by the moonlight.
"Bella."
She heard Alice call in a half whisper. "Bella are you there?"
Bella smiled as she heard Rosalie sigh in irritation.
"Alice use your brain, she knows we're in town and she hasn't tried to contact us. If she really was here she probably wouldn't answer."
"No." Alice said, a hard edge of conviction colouring her voice. "Bella wouldn't hide from me."
Bella's smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. She was mortified, and now she was horribly guilty. She hopped that Alice never found out that she had been only feet away. There was a soft shuffle of feet on hardwood floors and then Rosalie spoke again.
"Well something has been living here. I can smell whoever it is on everything."
Alice's voice was very soft.
"I don't smell Bella. It's someone else. Edward was right."
Apart from the usual flinch that accompanied Edward's name, Bella was unsure how to react to Alice's last statement. Had he not recognized her? Had he simply not cared?
Even from behind her hidden door, Bella heard the despair and disappointment in Alice's sigh. She knew that Alice at least had missed her and remembered her, and for that Bella knew a part of her would always love Alice best of all.
"Do you want to leave?"
Rosalie's voice was uncharacteristically sympathetic.
"I suppose… I was just so hoping… Weren't you?"
Rosalie's silence stretched between, unknown to the two Cullens, all three of them. Bella's stomach dropped in unreasonable disappointment.
"You weren't?" Alice's voice was sharp and Rosalie huffed in indignation.
"Of course I was. You think I don't miss… everything; but be reasonable Alice, Carlisle told us that people are dying in Forks. You think I, any of us, want Bella to live like that."
Bella's stomach turned with an emotion very unlike disappointment. Fear? Confusion? She was sure she had just turned a shade paler. How could she have been unaware that people where dying on her own turf? How was it possible she had been that disassociated? She thought of nameless bodies, ripped up by an animal more vicious then bear or wolf and understood, not for the first time in her short life, Edward's self-loathing. She understood what it meant to be a monster. She knew that no matter the perpetrator of the killings she would be able to condemn them little more then Jon, Lilly or Viv; she lived with the knowledge that her own beast, constantly screaming for human blood, meant that it could have easily been her that slipped, hidden by thick forest.
Speaking of Jon.
With a jolt Bella recognized her sire's presence closing in on the house, and it seemed before she could blink that a third voice male voice joined the soft, quarrelling, female ones.
"Well, well. I wasn't aware I had guests."
Jonathan's voice was specifically mild, calmer and more docile then even Carlisle. Yet Bella had lived with him long enough to know Jon had a mean streak that was both unpredictable and ferocious. She knew he was probably well aware she was eavesdropping; the hidden annex had been his idea after all. She probably couldn't count on him to keep her identity a secret.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?"
Alice's voice was hard and demanding, and through the wall Bella heard Jonathan chuckle at her tone. Bella had to admit that the idea of 5 foot 4 Alice threatening big bad vampire Jonathan bordered on comical, although the reality would probably be less funny. Alice was, after all, Edward's sister and Edward was nothing if not lethal.
"I am Jonathan Stone and I have express permission to be here. Unlike, I assume, you."
'The real owner of this house wouldn't mind us being here."
"Really." Bella knew both parties well enough to picture the scene, despite the completely frustrating obstacle of the wall. Jon's tone was still pleasant, but his undertone less so. She imagined his eyes narrowing. "Are you sure about that Alice Cullen?"
Bella pictured Alice flinching in surprise, a soft gasp escaping her throat. She could see the prouder, scarier Rosalie tensing suspiciously.
"Mind reader?"
Rosalie's voice was carefully smooth.
"Not in this circumstance, no. We have mutual… acquaintances."
The unmistakeable stench of cigarette smoke meant that Jon had lit one of his vile cigarettes. Bella heard him pacing carefully and rolled her eyes, Jonathan always had possessed a flair for the dramatic.
"Your eyes are yellow." Rosalie commented, her voice thick with distain for Jon's smoking. "You follow our diet?"
"Most of the time." Bella knew with out seeing that Jonathan's eyes were lighting up and his lips were twisting in an innately predatory way. "My reasons are less noble then your own, so I do allow myself to… cheat occasionally."
"You've been 'cheating' on our land and it's causing some problems."
Bella had already considered and discarded the idea of Jon being the mysterious vampire killing in the Forks countryside. His eyes where a deep golden after all, showing no signs of human blood, not to mention any killing in Bella's hometown would be a direct insult. As much as Jonathan despaired of her, Bella knew he valued her companionship as much as she did his.
"I haven't but I agree somebody has. Perhaps you will let me know when you discover who, I assume I may be staying in Forks for a while yet."
Rosalie snorted softly. A tense sort of quiet fell awkwardly over the three vampires. For one long minute the only noise was Jon's feet clicking against the hardwood floors of Bella's bedroom. Then, abruptly, Jon stopped and addressed Alice.
"How is your brother, by the way Alice? Edward."
Bella's body tensed, and her lips shaped into a silent growl of contempt. She heard the unmistakable sounds of surprise and unease coming from Alice and Rosalie as well.
"How do you know my brother?"
"Your brother has had a very… extraordinary impact on the life of an old friend. You, I assume, know to whom I refer. He was everywhere in her mind, absolutely everywhere, I've never seen anything like it. Edward Cullen truly intrigues me."
Bella stood completely motionless, waiting to be exposed.
"Bella…
You know Bella?" Alice's voice was excited and impatient. "So
she's alive?"
"She… was. She remembered you very fondly
Alice Cullen, although I'm not sure that were she here today she
would agree with me."
Bella relaxed slightly in the confined space. Jon was having so much fun play the cryptic she doubted the idea of exposing her was even entering his head.
"You do read minds then?"
"No. I'm more of a spiritual whore. I see the very thing that you want most. Parlour trick for most, but not for all, Bella for instance found it very useful." Jon paused, and chuckled softly. "I suppose I am a curiosity for you. I'm talking a lot but answering none of the questions you want answered. It's very rude of me actually."
"Why do you refrain from drinking human blood?" Rosalie blurted out. It was a very Rosalie inquiry and Bella was sure she wasn't the only immortal in the room rolling her eyes.
Jon's laughter intensified.
"I enjoy the company of humans. An over indulgence of my eating habits would get in the way of that?"
"You enjoy the company of humans?" Alice repeated incredulously. "And what is that suppose to mean."
Bella had already heard the explanation of this question before. It was after all one of the first questions she had asked him.
"Mortals are… interesting. They want many things. They wish impossibly and fiercely. They are unpredictable… It is very rare for one of us to want something more ardently then human blood. It takes a very special kind of vampire."
An uneasy silence hung in the room as these words sunk in.
"If it makes you feel better, you all want something more then you want blood. I suppose your model of self-control is responsible for that particular anomaly. Your brother Edward though, I can hear him screaming. Exquisite, I never heard a need like it. Except well…" Jon paused meaningfully and Bella winced. "Once."
Bella wondered if Jon had added that for her benefit. It seemed unlikely that Edward would have that kind of passion for a girl he had left with mere second thought. It was impossible that Edward loved her the same painful, beautiful way she loved him. Wasn't it?
No, Bella shook her head, she had spent the better part of sixty years acclimatizing her self to the fact she was alone, Edward's presence couldn't, wouldn't, change that.
Alice's tiny voice broke through her reverie.
"He's very… sad."
"It's a terrible thing to loose a mate. Rarely do we recover."
Bella shut her eyes in a hopeless attempt to block Jon's mocking words. She hated him at this moment, both Jonathan and Edward; hated them.
Jonathan sniffed softly and Bella knew he was stiffening awkwardly.
"I apologize." He said politely to his audience. "I must ask you to leave. The sun is coming up soon and I was hoping to make it into the mountains before light."
Rosalie and Alice assented noiselessly, the soft scuff of feet on floor the only indication to Bella that they where leaving. She wasn't prepared for Alice's voice when it came; unexpectedly sharp even when directed to Jon.
'This isn't over."
"I assure you I never expected it to be."
Then both Rosalie and Alice where gone. Bella waited until their sounds disappeared entirely before opening her hidden door. Jon was waiting for her, an expression of supreme amusement colouring his pale face.
"I thought you might be listening. How very sly of you Bella."
Bella gave him a look that could have withered a rose.
"Don't talk to me."
Jonathan shrugged and strolled out of the door, his face still screening a satisfied grin. Bella flopped back down onto her bed with a pout.
"Philistine!"
From the other side of the house Bella heard Jon chuckle.
"Coward."
--
Don't look at me that way
It was an honest mistake
Don't look at me that way
It was an honest mistake
An honest mistake
