As the bus rolled into the Montrose depot, Bella came fully awake. She had managed to get some sleep during the two day bus ride. Her sore ribs had managed to wake her before her nightmares ended in her screaming – Bella couldn't help laughing at the irony. She was so far down the creek without her paddle, that here she was grateful her injuries had prevented her from drawing attention to herself.
Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, Bella gathered her one backpack, gritted her teeth against the pain she knew would come, and made her way off the bus. Once on solid pavement, Bella took a look around. She was convinced the Cullen's had to be here. It was almost the perfect setting for their family to blend in. But how was she to go about finding them? And would they run off again the moment they detected her? She wanted to believe they would at least hear her out, but given the way things had ended in Forks, she knew better than to believe that.
Deciding she needed a plan in place, Bella started down the sidewalk towards the center of town. Stopping at a deli, she grabbed a simple sandwich and a bottle of water. Being careful of her limited funds, she finished the first half and wrapped the other half up, stashing it in her backpack for dinner. As Bella ate, she had also been observing her surroundings. Noticing an old payphone on the opposite side of the street, she began to hatch her plan. As Charlie Swan's runaway daughter, she couldn't just show up at the hospital looking for Carlisle – surely her picture was all over the news by now. Not to mention her disheveled injured state. The nurses would take one look at her and slap an IV in her arm. Victoria would then follow Charlie straight to Bella. Calling the hospital looking for Carlisle might spook the Cullen's into running. Especially if Alice happened to search the future for the mysterious caller's identity. But in a town this small the hospital's parking lot was likely outdoors. She could get close enough to spot Carlisle's Mercedes without her scent giving her away. That was one car she would recognize anywhere. Taking one last sip of her water, she put the cap back on the bottle, tucked it into her bag and crossed the street to find the phone book.
Two days later, Bella was tired, in serious pain and feeling defeated. Between her normal clumsiness and her twisted ankle, she had taken more than one tumble. The last time she managed to catch her already injured ribs on a park bench. Now each deep breathe she took brought severe pain with it. She had spent the last two days scouring parking lots for any sign of the Cullen's vehicles. When the hospital lots had turned up empty of the Mercedes, she had checked every urgent care and doctor's office she could find. The high school parking lot had been her last hope.
With no sign of the Cullen's anywhere in Montrose, Bella finally had to face the fact that she had chosen the wrong city. She knew she had just enough funds to purchase a bus ticket to Ithaca, NY, but not much left after that. She briefly considered finding a job here in Montrose to supplement her wallet, but she was already drawing curious gazes here. With such a small town it wouldn't take long before someone recognized her as the missing girl from Forks. Perhaps her chances of getting a job without giving her name would be better in the larger busier town. Instead of spending another cold night under a pine tree maybe she would find room in a shelter, or better yet, maybe even with the Cullen's themselves. Mentally slapping herself for that last thought, Bella reminded herself that the Cullen's saw fit to leave her defense-less against Laurent and Victoria. Surely if Alice truly cared, she would have seen Bella's desperate plight and intercepted her here in Montrose. No, Susan was wrong; if Bella managed to find the Cullen's in Ithaca she would be grateful if they even bothered to listen to her before they turned her away. She was not going to get her hopes up that they would actually help her. Heck, she should probably worry that Rosalie would kill her for bringing the danger of Victoria to their new home.
Already too late in the day to catch a bus, Bella headed for the park to settle under the same tree as last night. In the morning, she would head back to the bus depot and Ithaca. As she bedded down for the night, with only her backpack for a pillow and her jacket for a blanket, she prayed Susan information would lead her to the right city this time. Sleep was hard to find. The hard ground was not easy on her bruised body and it seemed her ankle, hand and head each took their turns throbbing. Bella attempted to distract herself by imagining that she was out on a camping trip with her father. With a prayer for Jacob and Sam's recovery, she finally managed to drift off in the early morning hours.
