Disclaimer:I don't own Twilight, or any of its characters nor do I own the SCU idea and characters, they are from a series I enjoy and if you are interested in learning about them, shoot me a PM. However this is not at all centralized on them, they are just supporting cast for my version of the Twilight Characters and my plot. Thank you, Stephanie Meyer for creating such a wonderful franchise for me to manipulate with my warped imagination and share with the masses.
The Game of Chase
Rated M for violence and future lemons
Chapter 3:
Setting: Hoboken, New Jersey
Chapter 3:
"Quentin?" He heard his name being called as he waited in the private hotel sitting room looking out the window as the dark slightly stretched limo pulled up.
"Yea?" He didn't spare a glance towards Bishop when he heard him; instead he watched as the driver got out and opened the door.
"Do you remember what I told you, back when I first met you at The Lodge?"
"'Some things have to happen just the way they happen.'" Quentin responded to Bishop as he watched the three people get out of the Limo and make their way into the sitting room. Miranda was sitting across from him in another chair, watching the same things he did with slightly wide eyes. Bishop instead took his stance at the cold fireplace that was in the empty room and didn't bother to look at the two people walking in and the one that was practically bouncing in.
"QUENTIN!" Alice squealed upon seeing the older man who stood up from the chair he had been sitting in. In nearly three bounces she had made her way right into his arms and smashed her face against his chest. She felt an immediate ease when she saw him, the same relief she always felt when she knew that the events she had seen were coming together. She looked up at the tall man catching his dirty and shaggy blonde hair and deep blue eyes that were crinkled at the corners in a laughing smile that he seemed to always wear. "It's so good to see you! It's been so long! How are you? How is Diana? How is the baby?" Her voice got increasingly higher pitched with her excitement.
"Good God Alice chill out, we just got here, give him a second to breathe." John stepped inside next to Edward with a smile on his face at her antics.
"Agent Bishop, I'm Edward Cullen, nice to meet you finally," The tall bronze haired man nodded to them but did not offer his hand to shake Bishop's but instead kept his hands in his pocket.
"Likewise, this is my wife Agent Miranda Bishop, and you know already know Quentin." Bishop was aware of the Cullen children, from John and Maggie but even with his extensive research into them he wasn't aware of that much information on them, with a very powerful father, much of their records were blocked. They were both psychic, and Maggie hinted that they had been very high up on the FBI's scale. Maggie admitted she wasn't aware of the extent of their gifts, other than that they seemed very in control and very strong. Bishop had kept an eye on them since nearly as long as the birth of the SCU but waited to see how things played out as they each got older. He had Quentin occasionally check up on them when he went to visit John and Maggie and drop hints as to the SCU to see if any of them had been interested.
"Yes we do, he has stopped by from time to time in Seattle and has never hesitated to let Alice and I know about the SCU, I'm sure under your agenda." Edward looked at all of them with apprehension and a slight grimace on his face. Quentin's smile got wider when he looked at Edward, while Miranda's wide eyes got wider. This was the Cullen child that didn't exude a large amount of energy that the small one did and subsequently this was the one that intrigued Bishop the most. Maggie had yelled at Bishop over the phone once to leave Edward alone and don't include him into what they called Bishop's chess game. She said that the boy wasn't strong enough to withstand his game and that he was always in a state of pain from his abilities, ones that she didn't even know or understand and none of the Cullen children had ever offered any more information. However, now that Bishop stood here his eyes sharpened because he began to understand exactly what Edward was capable of. 'I may have mentioned it to him that it was acceptable to let you and Alice aware of our organization, you both would be great assets. Have you considered it? 'Bishop thought the question to confirm his curiosity since Edward still stood with his hands in his pockets.
"No I have not considered joining your precious SCU, unless you need a doctor on your FBI super hero squad." Edward spoke with slight irritation, his striking green eyes narrowed at Bishop but then shot over to Miranda and softened slightly. "Sorry, you are right Agent Bishop, my tone is a bit out of place, and Quentin I'm not mad at you for not-so-subtly hinting to Alice and I about the SCU, or for giving them details on our abilities."
"Well fuck-me-sideways, Bishop he's better than you!" Quentin laughed and elbowed Alice who stood next to him and giggled with him.
"Alright can someone explain to the only non-psychic here what is going on?" John bristled well aware that there was always something more going on in these conversations than he was privy to.
"Edward is telepathic, and as far as I can tell you can read everyone in this room? You don't even need touch?" Bishop kept his tone calm and dry to match Edward's but he couldn't help the excitement he felt as learning this.
"I don't need to touch someone, though it does help sometimes with people who are slightly more muted to me, but as far as I know I haven't met a single person whose thoughts I couldn't read." Edward said with a slightly calmer tone, having taken Miranda's mental advice.
"Not a single person?" Bishop couldn't hide the surprise in his voice; this was unlike anything he'd ever encountered. He wondered if the other Cullen who was glued to Quentin was as powerful as Edward.
"Alice sees visions of the future, but it is entirely dependent on the decisions that are made. Sometimes that allows us to change our decisions to find a better future alternative."
"That much control over the future is quite surprising." Miranda spoke up next to Bishop with a kind voice. She looked towards Alice and wondered if the seer was the reason that the two decided to show up with John.
"You are correct Agent Bishop, Alice saw us here, and was determined to go." Edward didn't give any more details about the vision that Alice saw, that she'd seen the vision of the murder and knew that she needed to come to Hoboken with John.
"Yep, I saw all of us here at some point! Though you guys aren't very surprised, but that's because of Quentin." Alice gave Quentin a side glance and a smile; he slung his arm around her shoulders and laughed lightly. He always knew that Alice was a fellow seer, but also was aware that Alice was far stronger than he was, that she didn't have that familiar tingle or whispered voice but rather she saw events happening. She was on the same level as Miranda with her vision, only that she saw smaller more frequent things than Miranda did.
"Have you found Bella?" Edward asked the question quietly from the couch he had sat in.
"Are you acquainted with her?" Bishop asked, he sat on the arm of Miranda's chair noticing that everyone else was sitting somewhere in one of the many decoratively placed chairs and chaises of the hotels private parlor. Except for Alice who seemed to still be vibrating with excitement in her spot even with Quentin's large arm draped over her small frame.
"Nope, we don't know her. We will though. I saw the body with her name carved in it, then it shifted and I saw you and Miranda, then John was going to meet you in New Jersey. So we went to visit them and talked him into taking us, though we may have let on that we would have known where we were going and gone if he hadn't chosen to take us." She gave a sideways glance with a slight smirk to John, they hadn't really known as much as they'd let on to him.
"When I was there I saw Quentin and me hugging here in this parlor and I knew that this is where we needed to be. I don't argue with what the visions give me I just go along with them."
"Have you found the body that this name, 'Bella' was carved into?" John asked Bishop, attempting to steer this conversation towards the aspects of the case that he could deal with.
"No we haven't found the body, but we have spoken with Bella." Bishop thought of the meeting yesterday and the murder and the things they had learned from the three that they had met yesterday and he heard the sharp intake of breath to his right. Edward's green eyes were piercing into his and he realized that it may become more of a hindrance than a help to have someone like that helping them. Nothing was hidden.
"Yes it's not going to be so easy playing your little games of little explanation with someone like me around is it? Why don't you tell all of us what is going on." Edward's face was set in a straight thin line again as he glared at Bishop, while Quentin's laugh burst through the tension of the group.
"Oh God, I'm so glad I came. Bishop is getting taken down a peg? Alice, honey, how come you didn't tell me about Edward before? I would have brought him around a lot faster." Alice started giggling and John couldn't help the smile that covered his face.
"Alright, very funny, Quentin you are getting way too much enjoyment out of this." Bishop lightly snapped but glanced down at his chuckling wife and raised an eyebrow. Miranda nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, her electric blue eyes had clouded slightly and she looked at Edward who had sat up much straighter in his seat.
"What is this? What are you doing? I can't get…anything!" Edward snapped at both of them, obviously uncomfortable at what he saw. He did slightly feel a sense of wonderment at the fact that he couldn't hear either of their thoughts. It was the first time that some of the noise had quieted.
"Miranda is shielding the both of us. I'm going to share what went on yesterday but I do need some private thoughts Edward. After all some of it is FBI business only, you are still a civilian." Bishop's scar scrunched in a smirk at surprising the young kid who seemed a bit overly cocky with his ability.
"I'm still not sure this is a good idea. Working with the Feds, psychic feds? We're making ourselves known by a government organization. Jesus, what if they want to like use us for experiments or something?" Rosalie was bristling while she parked her car in the W hotels Parking ramp. "Since when can feds afford to stay in this nice of a hotel?" Rosalie muttered under her breath while she collected her purse.
"Rose, it's a moot point now. This is Bonnie's older sister and she is a psychic too, quit with your conspiracy theory shit. Besides, eighteen murders Izz has seen in over six years and now he knows her name! Like it or not, we need outside help before this gets out of hand." Jasper usually didn't yell at his twin, but her lack of willingness with something that could finally purge Bella of seeing these things was grating on his nerves. He got out of the car and slammed the door shut before opening Bella's door and offering her his hand. She got out and smiled weakly at him, and he felt her guilt at his and Rosalie's words immediately. Pulling her into a hug he kissed the top of her head and smoothly rubbed her back.
"Stop that, there is no need to feel that way." Holding the crook of his arm, which she took gratefully, they followed Rosalie in through the door from the ramp toward the parlor. As they opened the doors to where they knew the FBI agents were, Jasper wasn't the only one shocked at seeing three additional people in the room. Before he could even evaluate the feelings or commit to memory the new people there was a sudden commotion.
"Bella!" Alice's high pitched squeal was followed by her bounding dash to the dark haired girl who just entered on the arm of a man who Alice paid no attention to. Before she could encase the girl in a hug as was her customary greeting she ran face first into a tall, lean, but very solid wall. When she stepped back and looked up her entire body froze. Her gaze became locked into the pair of pale striking blue eyes set in shaggy curly blonde hair. Her own grey eyes took on a sort of glazed look as visions upon visions flitted across her sight. They went so fast that she had trouble keeping up with them until he forcefully set her away from him by grasping her arms and then dropped them. Alice closed her eyes and shook her head to clear the onslaught of visions that left her confused. She placed her hands on her small hips and looked up at the man who clearly stood well over a foot taller than her. "What was that for?"
"Jasper it's okay I'm sure she didn't mean any harm." Bella stepped around Jasper with her hand on his arm and followed his intense gaze to smile at the pixie-woman standing in front of her. Bella always felt short to Jasper who stood at six feet and one inch, but compared to this woman who couldn't possibly reach five feet, she didn't feel so small. "Isabella Swan, please call me Bella, and you are?" Her other hand reached out to shake the woman's hand in front of her but she froze in shock when the woman went ahead and threw her arms around her in a hug. Jasper stiffened beside her, but she relaxed into the hug from this strange person which that confused her because she was not one for physical contact.
"It's so nice to finally meet you! I'm so excited! We are going to be best friends, I just know it." Alice vibrated around Bella before stepping back to stand next to the tall man that Bella hadn't noticed stand up to flank Alice. "I'm Alice Cullen and this is my brother Edward!" Alice reached to clasp Bella's hand and drag her to one of the loveseats and pulled her down to sit right next to her without even allowing her proper introduction to her brother. However Jasper was not far behind, he followed after Bella and Alice, and his gaze was torn between the two small women so he opted to stand behind the couch unsure of what to do with Bella's hand clutched in Alice's.
"Who are these people?" Rosalie snapped at Noah, it was obvious her displeasure at the additional people in the room.
"Rosalie, Jasper, Bella this is John Garrett. He runs Haven out of Seattle, a civilian organization that parallels the SCU." Bishop replied to the angry Rosalie with a smile while John stood to shake her hand.
"I was planning on coming alone in case Bishop needed a bit of operative help outside of the strict laws for the FBI, but these two felt the need to come as well." John shook her hand with a smile as well. He seemed delightful and easy to get along with. "Out of everyone in the room it appears that I'm the only non-psychic here. However I'm not at all jealous."
"We had to come because I saw the murder, and your name Bella and I saw that we were needed here. I also saw that we would be great friends. You too Rosalie, after all you have much more impeccable fashion sense than Bella!" Alice did not leave anything out and just kept the bright smile on her face.
Bella's eyes widened and a flush fell across her cheeks. She looked down at her plainness and then looked around the room at everyone else. It was painfully obvious that she was the ugly duckling in the group. Each person in the room was striking in their own right, that it was nothing that Bella could do even if she weren't wearing her plain v-neck t-shirt, jeans and chucks. Alice was impeccable in her obvious designer duds; she then glanced at the other Cullen who sat across the room from her with a slight grimace on his face. His electric green eyes were almost glaring at her when she met them and she looked down once again at her plainness before glancing back up to find him still looking at her. This time she couldn't break away when she took in his appearance.
He was obviously beautiful with his slightly too long bronze hair that had no order, she had noticed that he was just as tall as Jasper if not slightly taller and had slightly broader shoulders. His jaw was strong and his lips were full and made for naughty things, everything about him screamed perfection which made her thankful for the slight bend in his straight nose which gave relief to his perfection. She couldn't break away from those green eyes if she hadn't noticed them narrow and the scowl that she took to be directed at her. Her gaze tore away to fall on Alice which she suspected had caught her oogling her brother with a slight smirk.
Embarrassment flooded her as her cheeks reddened again and she wished nothing more than to leave this suddenly awkward meeting. Almost immediately she felt two hands on her shoulders and a sense of ease wash over her and she looked up at Rosalie and Jasper to give them a shy smile.
"That seems a bit controlling," Edward snapped from his position on the couch while glaring at Rosalie and Jasper.
"What are you insinuating?" Jasper replied equally as acidic to Edward.
"I heard you discuss briefly that you two would calm her down."
"U-uh, no, just me. I'm the one who did it. She was embarrassed with shame and I could feel her need for flight. I can do it when Rosalie is touching me." Jasper was hesitant, but his need to protect Rosalie from any judgment forced him to describe what they could do.
"Ah so that's what it is. I noticed that someone was manipulating our emotions yesterday and I wondered how it happened. I didn't realize that Rosalie needed to be in contact but that makes sense, twins that are telepathic aren't really a surprise when it comes to psychic twins," Bishop was quiet in his musings with a distant look on his face.
"Look it isn't something I do often, but Bella doesn't mind, can we get more on track to these murders?" Jasper asked with an exasperated sigh. He was getting slightly frustrated at the inquiring gazes of the FBI and Haven members in the room.
"Certainly, I've already explained to everyone here about our meeting yesterday and Case 51. This morning I got contacted from the NYPD that there was a woman found dead early this morning by the same description as the woman in your projection. They have found very little evidence but are still processing the scene and the body has already been moved to autopsy. Quentin is going to go with John to the body, while I'd like to take Rosalie, Bella and Edward with myself to the scene. Alice and Jasper if you could stay with Miranda, Alice really doesn't have a need to be around the scene and Jasper I was wondering if you would be willing to go over our case files? I know that you are close to completing your PhD. in forensic anthropology and you have your degree in criminal psychology. I'd like your insight into the past cases since you are familiar with the murders from Bella's stand point. We have a conference room set up as our bull pen at NYPD's station; we will meet you back there." Bishop finished the start of his leadership and waited for the complaints to begin. He was actually quite surprised when he met none.
He watched as Bella stood and Jasper gave her a hard hug and kissed the top of her head. He was curious if there was a romantic relationship between the two since a relationship between two psychics usually brought about a particularly strong bond. He made no comment or question and watched as one of their black SUV's pulled up in front of the outside doors with their large driver back at the helm.
Edward had a choice between two seats, one up front with Bishop or sliding in back to sit next to the small woman who left him full of confusion. He was also aware that by sitting next to her, it would piss off the tall blonde woman who had snapped at everyone in the room more than once. As he settled himself next to her he couldn't help but glance sideways at her form, taking in more of her physical features than he could have when he was in the room with all the other people.
She sat against the window fiddling with a hole in her jeans, while her knee bounced incessantly. He had cringed slightly at Alice's description of her fashion sense, it was plain of course but it didn't hide her figure. She was slim with curves in the appropriate places. He wouldn't have imagined her weighing more than a buck ten, but when he watched her fingers and arm move he delighted in seeing the slight ripple of obvious muscle. His gaze ran up her arm to see that her long mahogany hair was shielding her from everyone else in the car including him, but that didn't matter because he had studied her face in the room.
She had a pale heart-shaped face with large soulful brown eyes. He had been drawn to her chocolate eyes, wondering if he could read her through them since it seemed that he couldn't pick up her thought stream. He had tried the entire time in the parlor to focus on her thoughts out of the hundreds he could hear, but he couldn't seem to even pick up a murmur.
His long fingers reached out and his hand covered hers on her bouncing knee in what he would pretend was an attempt to calm her jitters. In reality he had just wanted to touch her and see if he could focus in on her thoughts through her touch. He didn't get anything he expected from that touch. Instead there was a type of shock that ran up his arm and she sucked in a breath and pulled her hand away immediately, turning to look at him in surprise.
"Sorry," Edward offered and forced a smile to his face. "You look nervous and your boyfriend isn't here to calm you." She didn't say anything to him for a moment, just search his eyes with her own and he lamented in the fact that he still couldn't read her thoughts.
"He's not my boyfriend," her soft voice barely reached his ears, and his eye brows furrowed at that statement.
"Really? Couldda fooled me and everyone else around you two. He wouldn't even let my sister hug you." He has nearly punched the man who had stepped directly in front of Alice, causing her to smack right into him.
"Jasper is just…protective of me. He and Rosalie are like older siblings to me." She said with a smile while looking from him to the blonde in front of him, before resting her eyes on him again. Edward followed her gaze and noticed that the Rosalie's lips rose in a smile indicating that she was listening to their conversation.
"Understandable, I am quite protective of Alice as well. Though I can't imagine what I would do if she saw murders like the one from a night ago and there was nothing I could do about it." Edward was thoughtful for a moment, having been scared for that one time that he saw what Alice saw and wondering what he would do if that happened more than once.
"Yes, I am sorry that she had to see that. I don't understand how she did or how Miranda did as well, since what I saw wasn't a precognition." Bella's voice hinted at confusion and she looked down at Edward's hand that was resting on the seat next to her where he had placed it after touching her knee. The shock had surprised her, but what surprised her more was the calmness she felt from his touch and his voice afterwards. It was like when Jasper forced her to calm, but better and warmer.
"I'm sorry she did too, it was gruesome. I have seen many things while working at the hospital, but that was hard for me." Edward thought back to what he'd seen through Alice and visibly shuddered.
"What? You saw it to? Oh I'm sorry, I'm very sorry." Bella whispered the apologies in a rush and grabbed his hand that was on the seat. The shock of was there but she didn't pull away and Edward used that moment to search again for the voices of her thoughts. He turned and looked from her hand clasped around his up to her.
"Don't apologize for what you can't control. I saw it because I happened to be in the next room from Alice when it happened. I'm telepathic and when I'm close to Alice I see her vision play out in her thoughts." He smiled at her and twisted his hand to give hers a squeeze before replacing his to his lap. He didn't question the odd sense of loss he felt from letting her hand go just like he didn't question any of the other strange things he felt from touching her hand.
"But I can control it! It's not a vision for me, it's a projection of my mind or soul or consciousness or whatever you want to call it. Well I can mostly control it, for some reason I cannot control connecting to him. It happens mostly when I'm sleeping too and I'm not actively trying to project." Bella looked from him out the window as they pulled up to the house that was obviously the scene of the crime from the yellow tape around it.
As they piled out of the SUV, Bishop went over to speak with the officer that was in charge of the scene. He was a large man with short cropped dark hair; he seemed out of place as a detective for the NYPD, looking much more like some special ops army guy. He turned and strode over to the three of them and smiled, "I'm Officer Emmett McCarty, and I'm in charge of this case."
"Edward Cullen, and this is Bella Swan and Rosalie Hale." Edward offered his hand out to the towering man, knowing immediately from his thoughts that this was someone they could trust.
Nothing was out of place until they walked into the bedroom and immediately Bella, Edward and Bishop recognized it from what they had seen. They all watched as Bella followed the same path she did in her projection but she stopped to look out the window.
"The blinds were drawn not open, who opened them?" She stepped forward and reached up to tug on the line and watched as they fell. When they did everyone in the room sucked in a breath and Rosalie immediately pulled Bella to her side. The closed blinds were not clean as they had been in the projection; there they stood with dried dripping blood in a very crude drawing of a Swan. Bella was visibly shaking and Rosalie whipped around to glare at Bishop.
"We shouldn't have left Jasper to go with Alice and Agent Bishop to the precinct. He needs to be here to calm her." At that statement, Bella pushed lightly from Rosalie and squared her shoulders.
"No, I'm fine; I can do this without Jasper's help." She stepped from Rosalie and continued her path around the room to come to the side of the bed that was dark with the dried blood. Everyone stood back and watched as she stared down at the bed obviously reliving the projection. "This is the first time I've ever been to a place he has been that I projected to. It feels so familiar, more familiar than I thought it would." She looked up at Bishop who stood on the other side of the bed and a pained smirk crossed her face. "He looked at me, standing just as you are Agent Bishop and looked at me. I don't know how it's possible but he did. I've tested it so many times but there is nothing to see when I project." Her gaze dropped to the bed again and that's when everything went wrong.
The room shifted to another I looked around madly to see where I was. Everything was dark, darker than it ever had been before and I could make out the thick stench of death in the air. I spun around in the dark looking for anything that I could see when a light flickered on and my eyes fell upon the naked form a young man on the floor. He was spread out and obviously dead, but this time there was more carved into him. This time it said two words:
Samson and Izz
"Who the fuck is Samson?" Edward's voice was hoarse in a near shout when his sight came back to the room. "Bishop what is the Samson Neurological Institute?" Bishop's thoughts were racing and Edward tried hard to keep up with the story of Bella, Jasper and Rosalie at this institute for years. "Well then what is Izz?"
"Me, I'm Izz. " Bella whispered from her spot next to the bed and Edward watched as her knees buckled and he rushed forward to catch her before she hit the ground. In an instant Rosalie was at his side touching her and cursing the fact that Jasper wasn't there.
"Edward, take her to the SUV, you guys go too, I'll be there in a second," Bishop strode off in another direction to speak to a large man standing off by some trees while Edward walked with Bella cradled in his arms to the SUV. He was able to get in to the back seat where he sat with her across his lap while Rosalie stood in the open door by Bella's head brushing her hair out of her face and whispering calming words to her.
"She's never passed out like this after a projection, but she's never been forced into one while awake either. I don't know what happened, how this happened. He must know her last name too, if that's what the swan was. Oh God how does he know so much about her?" Rosalie was near tears in front of Bella, rambling on about things she didn't understand.
"Hey Miss Hale, why don't you sit so we can get moving, Mr. Cullen has her." Emmett placed his large hand on Rosalie's shoulder and she stiffened and snapped her head back to look at him. For a moment her pupils dilated before focusing again and she nodded and sat in the front seat just as Bishop got in the car.
"Officer McCarty, we'll be heading back to the precinct, I trust we will see you there?" The large officer nodded at Bishop's words and set off back to the crime scene.
The car ride was silent with the exception of Rosalie's sniffles and Bishop on the phone to various people. Edward looked down at the girl in his arms and pulled her closer to him. She was breathing and had a steady pulse, but even with her this close to him where he could breathe in the faint strawberry scent that she had, he still could read nothing of her thoughts. She didn't begin to stir until they were pulling into the precinct lot nearly forty minutes later, but Edward sighed lightly when her eyes opened to look directly at his stomach. Her head turned sharply and she moved to get up but wavered slightly.
"You're fine, I've got you. We're just pulling into the precinct, Jasper will be right out. Bishop already called them." Edward spoke in a whisper and he couldn't help when his hand ran through her hair while she nodded.
"Jesus, Izz are you alright? Alice said you were, but what happened? Did you try and project to him?" Jasper yanked the door open to the SUV shouting this as Bella struggled to get up out of my lap.
"Jazz I told you she was going to be fine." Alice was right behind him trying to look into the tinted windows of the car. Bella's head snapped to Jazz with narrowed eyes.
"Yea Jazz I'm fine." She glared at him slightly much to the confusion of everyone else. Rosalie was the only one with a smirk on her face. "I just need to lie down more, I'm exhausted and my head is killing me." She scooted out of the SUV where Jasper wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him while Rosalie touched his arm. Bella visibly sagged against him but managed to turn her head. "Thank you Edward."
"Bella, I…it's no problem." He had a pained expression on his face, he didn't like the feeling when she left his arms and he didn't like watching her step into Jasper's. He watched as Jasper and Rosalie escorted her into the precinct and away from him.
"He's not your competition." Alice spoke quietly while slipping her hand into Edwards. "But she is mine."
"I don't know what you're talking about Alice."
"You will soon enough."
A/N: Please review!
