4. The Darker Side of Me

"Aaarrrrghhhh! Aaarrrrghhhh!"

That was the sound that greeted me when I reached Chief Swan's house in Forks.

Bella screamed again. Louder.

"Bella, it's okay." The gruff, half asleep voice of her father attempted to soothe the fear that was almost bringing me to my knees even from this distance away from the house. Even the fear, horror and terror of my victims wasn't like this, this was like someone was watching their family being doused in petrol then set alight, whilst they were all still alive and conscious.

Sobbing. Hysterical crying was the next sound to take over.

This is what I've done, what my actions had started.

"It's all right now." Charlie murmured.

How long had this been happening? Every night? Every couple of nights? He didn't seem too alarmed by the screaming so my money would be on the earlier guess.

I could only imagine the horror that awaited her in her dreams, a place that should be reserved for childish fantasies. A place where nothing bad ever happens.

I gritted my teeth when another—extremely powerful—burst of fear touched me. She was reminiscing about her nightmare, and the truth behind it. That had to be it, she was utterly terrified and there was nothing there with her now to cause that.

After a few more minutes Bella's emotions began to come under control and her crying slowed to irregular panting shudders.

"Are you okay now, Bella?" Charlie asked rhetorically. She clearly was not all right, she was hurt. Badly. Anyone could see that, but he was obviously desensitized to it now.

"Mmmm hmm." she hummed her reply and I heard the bed springs squeak when she lay back down.

"Okay… well, try to get some more sleep." he suggested before leaving, stumbling loudly back across the second floor landing.

It was about two am now and everyone else in my former neighborhood was fast asleep. They were all happy and warm in their beds, not that I really cared about them. The one human here that I did care about wasn't happy and in a way I was spiteful to the rest of them for being able to have simple things like an unbroken night's sleep.

I crept closer to the house then around to the front where Bella's window was located, on the second floor. Her light was out but the short gasps, racing heartbeat and gut wrenching emotions told me she wasn't asleep in the darkness.

In a way I was intrigued, was she the mere shell that—if emotions were indicative of physical appearance—she should by all rights be? Or was she just an extremely heartbroken eighteen year old girl who was under the impression that no one loved her? Either way it was tearing her—and now me—apart to feel such pain.

Rejection is a sensation I'd never really experienced as a vampire, in our world it was rarely something in the middle. All or nothing, when we change it's permanent so no one ever really feels rejected because if they want it they go after it.

And by God does rejection hurt.

"Please just let it be a dream." Bella mumbled through her tears.

I wish I could make it that. It all seems like a horrible nightmare to me, too. I looked up to her window and apologized to the wooden frame with my expression, every ounce of remorse I felt was coursing through me then out my tensed eyes and furrowed brow. My breathing became labored and I felt strangely heavy, the full weight of everything came crashing down now I was back in this real life version of Wonderland. Nothing was as it seems or was meant to be.

There were vampires here, real vampire but not the types from the fantasy novels. No, these vampires were more unconventional than just the lack of fangs and sparkles rather than instant death when in direct sunlight. In this land, vampires didn't kill people; they lived on animal blood, freaks among the freaks.

Whether Bella knew it or not, her childhood friend was also a member of this confusing world. The Quileute boy, Jacob, grandson of Ephraim Black whom we originally made the treaty with.

It seems like you couldn't escape it here, your vampire friends skip town and if you know where to look you can just climb right in with the giant wolves. And of course, Bella's father—probably a danger magnet too—chooses to become best friends with the family right at the heart of it all.

It will always be a dream in this place, a very warped and highly unbelievable dream.

The deep breathing in the bedroom slowed even further and the emotions dulled some. She was going back to sleep. I climbed up into the tree a few meters from her window and sat back in the deep foliage of the branches.

I'm a stalker. I mused in my thoughts.

The way the curtains were pulled across I couldn't see anything but Bella's feet, covered in the thick, purple blanket. She seemed to sleep more soundly in this attempt at resting. It probably had something to do with the thorough amount of screaming she'd just done to vent her feelings.

I was tempted to calm her, but that would be interfering, and after the extremely harsh phone call Alice had received from Edward on day three of our nomadic life, I wasn't going to in any way alert her to my presence. His broken voice shouted over the phone that Alice was to stop looking for Bella at all in her visions and we weren't to go anywhere near her. He wanted her to continue on with her life like a regular human girl.

But Bella wasn't a normal human, she was something different. She handled the completely fucked up things that only our mythical world could produce with finesse but shuddered and cringed away from the thought of dancing. She stared death in the face and did nothing more than grit her teeth in preparation of her imminent demise but the idea of having attention paid to her on her birthday was worthy of panic.

Although. Bella was always good at reining in her emotions. If that's what she's doing now then I couldn't imagine what the full extent of her feelings would be like to endure. If I was only feeling the edited version that she couldn't control, what she was experiencing would be shredding her apart.

The heartbeat coming from her room slowed considerably more over the next few minutes until it joined the pace of her fathers. Slow pounding. Ba-bom, ba-bom, ba-bom, ba-bom...

It was hypnotic.

The hours passed slowly, finally I managed to spend a considerable amount of time without thinking. To truly clear my head after obsessing and analyzing like a mad man for the past ten days was actually pleasurable.

The sound of Bella's father getting up for work snapped me out of the blank hole. The sun was slowly rising and around me the sounds of early risers was beginning. Kettles boiling, televisions playing, showers running.

And from Bella's room… nothing. She didn't seem to have any intention of going anywhere.

Was her pain that great she was bed ridden? Has she really done anything other than scream and cry, had she even gotten out of bed since Edward left?

Another hour. Charlie had left for work, not noticing my statuesque body in the very top of the tree beside his cruiser, and many of the neighbours did the same during that time. And still Bella remained asleep.

By nine o'clock I knew she wasn't going to school. The typical rain of Forks started to come down, quickly soaking me in the already waterlogged tree where I too remained motionless like Bella was in her bed.

At nine thirty I heard her heart rate pick up and I knew she was finally waking up. But then, I wished she hadn't.

She changed positions, judging by the way her feet changed angles anyway, and sucked in a deep breath. It was silent for about thirty seconds, the time it took for her to orient herself, and then it began. She remembered everything and the crippling pain blazing off her was like nothing I'd ever felt. It hurt. It hurt my indestructible body in a way I imagined that only the violent death that our kind looked forward to would feel.

It burnt, crushed, squeezed, pulled, tore, stabbed, stretched and twisted. How she wasn't writhing on the bed in agony was beyond me, I was doing just that in the most restrained manner I could. I wanted to yell but I couldn't.

I slipped down the tree and took off for the forest at a full powered sprint. The only thought that registered in my head was that I had to escape that; I couldn't be around her when she was conscious. My intent was to apologize but how do I do that when the only time I can bear to be near her was when she was out cold?

Forks was wet but it wasn't cold. I needed the cold to soothe the flames burning in my chest; it was like thirst, only more intense.

I raced back North, to Denali and Alice. I certainly wasn't after Bella's blood anymore; I couldn't possibly hurt her more than she was now, that much was certain. Did Alice see this? Did she know what I would see and how it would affect me?

:-:-:-:

It wasn't too long before the ground and trees were covered in snow again then I found myself surrounded in the scent of the Denali's. I was almost back. The aching was still fresh my mind and muscles as I burst through the front door.

"Where's Alice?" I asked Laurent, the first person I saw when I got into the house.

"I'm here." she mumbled from the den.

I turned around and walked in there, shaking off the remainder of Bella's emotions in the softer climate here. "Why?" I asked, she knew, there was no way she couldn't.

Alice closed her eyes exhaled a long breath. "So you would know." she murmured. I could hear myself panting, like the running had bothered me even a little bit. So I would know? Know what? Know what I did?

"Thanks, I couldn't have continued on oblivious to her pain. Thank you, Alice! I'm eternally grateful!" I threw my hands in the air in frustration as I spoke, walking back towards the door then spun around to her again. Indecisive on what to do now, she purposefully sent me off to kill a human, knowing I would go back to Forks to apologise to Bella.

"No!" she growled.

I turned back to her once more. "What?"

"No, I did not let you go there to see her pain. Do you think I'm that cruel? I let you go so you could see that it wasn't you that made her like that, it was Edward. He made the decision that left her like this, not you." she said firmly, her eyes pinched into an angry glare. What did she have to be angry about? Now she's angry, what, for me separating her from her best friend? What's next? Rose hates me for making her lose someone to be jealous of?

"I ATTACKED HER!" I yelled furiously, how could she not see the truth? "I attacked her, I gave him a reason to leave, I put the final nail in the coffin of Edward's belief in the dangers of our family. Why would you do that?"

"HE CHOSE TO LEAVE!" Alice yelled back, exasperated.

Then everything went silent.

Everything.

I stared at her pitch black eyes; she was completely lost in frustration and what little tolerance she had left for me. She stared back at me, mirroring the same unblinking intensity. He chose to leave, no matter what I did, it was Edward that chose to leave her. He could have sent me away, stayed with her himself, but he left. He left.

"He left." I realized.

"He left." Alice repeated with a relieved sigh.

I made a mistake, I lost control. But no one forced his hand, he left.

"He left," I whispered. "It's not my fault. He left."

"It's not your fault." she agreed quietly, observing me as I paced backwards and forward across the width of the room. Edward left, I made mistakes but Edward chose not to stick with Bella through them, he left her all alone to think he doesn't love her because I made a mistake. I made the mistake that made him feel the need to protect her by removing himself…

"It is my fault." I amended my previous statement.

"No!"

"Yes. I put her in danger, it's my fault!"

"NO! It's not, it is not your fucking fault!" Alice wailed. She never swore, she just didn't, it wasn't in her DNA or something because she just doesn't. But she did, and then I knew.

She was mad.

That's what all the silence between us had meant, she was mad at me for blaming myself.

"You've been moping around like a middle aged man for the past week and I can't stand it anymore! You know full well how much I love you but if you don't do something to make yourself feel better soon it's going to send us both down. Jazz, please, I've tried but you have to help yourself. Please," Her rage dissipated in a fraction of a second, so fast I was left reeling, and she stepped the few paces forward to close the distance, wrapped her arms around me at the same time and pressed herself firmly against me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get angry. It's hard, I know."

I felt myself crumble too, I yelled at her, again. "I'm sorry, too. I can't control myself sometimes. Obviously. I didn't mean to yell… I need you to believe in me, because I can't believe in myself now." I pulled my arms free of her iron grip and wrapped them around her. There was thirteen inches of height difference between us but when Alice yelled I still felt about four inches tall. When I yelled at her it was even less.

"I always do, I can see the good in you." She rubbed her hands up and down my back soothingly while the electricity in the air faded.

"Then why can't I?"

"We never see ourselves clearly."

Or maybe no one else ever see's us for the animals we really are.

I sighed loudly and nodded, hoping that she was right and I wasn't as bad as I thought. But the human blood in my system, glowing in my eyes, begged to differ.

:*:*:*:

Eternally sorry about how late this one is. I'm having trouble figuring out how to proceed without starting a massive shit storm.

Thank you to all who have put this story on their alerts and reviewed. If you would be so kind as to give me your thoughts again…