Chapter 4 : H-o-l-y-C-r-a-p It is Holy water!

~No bad deed goes unpunished~

During the free period Monday afternoon, I was sitting in the corner booth of Bloomsbury, Newport's coffee bar. I flipped through the pages of my Economics textbookand took a sip of coffee. It was a perfect afternoon. Tiffany blue sky, no humidity, the smell of dry leaves and clean air all around. It was the first week of September, and it had been two weeks since school started and a slight cool breeze tickled my face.

I was waiting for Charlotte and Rosalie to show up, they were caught up with their Maths teacher. I hoped they weren't in trouble or something. When I and Rosalie told Charlotte that Ethan was murdered, she threw up. Literally. But she assured that it was only a side effect of the medicines that she was taking for her stomach pain.

As I waited, I scrolled through my Sidekick. I had it programmed to keep messages until manually erased, so all my Ethan text conversations were still stored right in my inbox. It was so sad to go through them and I mostly avoided the messages. I found one from nine days ago, the night Ethan was murdered.

E : I am sry, Bella. I wanted to tell you earlier but I didn't get the chance and I was too much of a coward. Hope we can sort things out.

B : It's too late.

E : I am on my way to your house, don't lock the door, plz.

B : I will!

E : I feel like someone is watching me. Aren't you worried for me? Jst keep your window open in case that someone kid[boy]naps me.

I stared at the glossy screen and without a second thought, I deleted the last message. Of course, Ethan was coming to my house when he was murdered and I didn't tell that to the cops. Won't they turn suspicious if I did? It was too late anyway.

The last message was supposed to be a joke, he wanted to make me laugh. At the time, I'd probably laughed. But now I looked at the old texts with a fresh eye. Was that the someone who Ethan mentioned was the one who killed him?

All of a sudden, I recalled a memory I hadn't thought of in a long time:

"I have a lot of enemies, Bella." Ethan had said, while I had waited for him to finish football practice during ninth grade.

"Tell me one. All I know is that you have thousands of super girl fans." I had snorted.

"What if I told you that I had a sibling you don't know about?" Had been his reply.

"Yeah, right." I had not believed him.

He clearly mentioned Edward and I had ignored him. Did he just leave a hint? I froze and stared the table. Did Edward kill Ethan? I shook my head mentally, feeling stupid. Edward had spent his entire life locked up in a hospital because of health issues. If he had been in Ransleigh during that night, the hospital would have reported that, right?

"Hey, Bel," Just then Charlotte and Rosalie slid into the seat next to me, breaking me out of my thoughts.

Rosalie threw her charcoal gray Louis Vuitton bag over her chair and smiled sadly at me. "Anything good?"

"Nope," I sighed, dropping the Sidekick in my handbag. Charlotte looked sick, her skin a deadly pale and she dabbed at her forehead with her scarf.

"You okay?" I asked, leaning forward towards her.

"The grand stomach flu continues." Charlotte said, whipping her Chanel compact out and reapplied her pink lipstick.

Rosalie's Blackberry let out a bleat, when she took it out and read the screen, she let out a a little too loud shriek. Everyone in three mile radius turned to look at us and I groaned.

"Look! It's Emmett." She shoved her cell up my nose, bouncing up and down in her seat.

"Rose, calm the hell down." I said as I took the cell from her and read it aloud for Charlotte.

"Would you like to go to the movies this Sunday, like a date? - Emmett." I smiled, feeling happy for her.

" I am abso-bloody-lutely going!" Rosalie cried, flipping her blonde mane back.

"Hello, guys." A shy voice said above us. We all looked up to see Maggie standing with a tentative smile on her face.

"Can I join you? If you all don't mind, of course." She continued, her amber eyes sparkling.

"We don't mind." I spoke for the others and gestured to the empty chair opposite to me.

Maggie sat down gracefully, her dark hair bouncing behind her.

"You guys, this is Maggie Rosen, she's in my History class." I introduced her to the others. They all exchanged mystified smiles.

"I heard that Lauren is coming back from Wyoming." Rosalie said.

"Lauren?" I gulped. All I could think about was the horrible, mean thing I had done to her.

To distract myself, I took a small green velvet covered diary out of my Jimmy Choos bag and placed it on the table with a soft thud. Rosalie and Charlotte nodded approvingly.

"Maggie, my sweet seventeen birthday party is on 13th. Would you help us organize it?" I asked, flipping through the pages.

"Of course, I would love too!" She replied, leaning to look at it eagerly.

"I am thinking of hosting it in my house and we can add dancers to entertain the guests, is it okay?" I demanded, scribbling the idea on an empty page when they nodded.

"I can take care of the music." Charlotte volunteered weakly, massaging her stomach.

"I can take care of the liquor needs." Rosalie said, grinning wickedly.

"I can take care of the invites." Maggie said, giving thumbs up to Rosalie.

I nodded gratefully. "It will be more like a get together for everyone after summer."

All began to fill out of the coffee bar, signaling the end of free period. I threw the coffee cup in the trash and followed them out. Somehow, I managed to block Lauren from my mind throughout the day.

I pulled in the St Martin's driveway, my knees moving up and down in anticipation. Today, I was supposed to sing with them and choose what song they should sing for the competition. I had gone through the internet and had a list of songs with their respective music notes in my leather folder.

I opened the grand wooden door and walked inside, passing the reception where the same redhead nodded at me with a small smile. When I reached the music room, I found that the entire choir group-that consisted of 20 members- were seated together on a big table, and no one was talking. Was it a bad sign?

I glanced at my watch, it read 5:01. I was a minute late. I strode inside and all looked up, and I realized that they weren't alone. The school principal, Sister Annette, was seated in the center.

"Miss Bella! We were just waiting for you." She cried, taking my hand in a warm shake.

"Hope you didn't wait for long, Sister." I said, smiling. Inside, I felt like I was going to spit my heart out.

"I heard that you are very talented, Bella. We have moved the baby piano here for you to practice." She nodded towards the black piano. "I'll leave you alone, practice well."

Sister Annette turned and muttered something to the others and quickly walked out of the room. I looked at her retreating figure then turned back to them.

"I brought music notes of some songs, you can help me choose." I announced, pulling the folder out of my tote bag and placed it on the table.

I passed the papers to Jessica as she was the nearest to me and she started passing it around the table. I pulled out a chair and sat down, next to a grinning Jasper.

"Anything good?" He murmured only to me, drumming his long fingers on the table.

"Why don't you find it out yourself?" I asked, shooting him a saucy grin.

I heard a quick intake of breath and I was shocked to find that Edward was seated on the left to me. Why hadn't I noticed him before? I was certain that a blonde girl was seated there.

"Oh hey, Edward." I said pleasantly, showing him that I was going to behave. Edward's uniform tie was carelessly knotted and he looked slightly frazzled.

He turned his head a fraction toward me without meeting my eyes, nodded once, and then looked the other way. I stared at him for another baffled second then towards the center. After Jasper looked at the papers and everyone nodded approvingly, I spoke.

"The majority votes win."

"Cool," Jasper said loudly and all wrote their choice in a small piece of paper. I looked at Edward in the corner of my eye and saw him write in a beautiful cursive handwriting and looked away before he could catch me staring.

I collected the notes from everyone and read it, smiling warily.

"Stronger by Kelly Clarkson." I proclaimed, biting my bottom lip thoughtfully as they all hooted.

The lights in the room had flickered and gone down to half power.

"Oh, no," Angela said, exasperated. The lights flickered again, went out, and returned dimly once more.

"I can't read a thing." I said, staring at what now seemed to be a featureless piece of white paper.

"Something must be wrong with the emergency generator," Jasper muttered.

"Why don't we go to the garden at the back of the school? There are benches and enough light." Jessica suggested.

I stood up, gathering the papers and stacked it into the folder. I slung my bag over my elbow and followed everyone to the back of the school. I could sense Edward walking behind me, and could almost feel his breath against my bare neck.

The school's back garden was well trimmed with beautiful flowers growing everywhere. A grand fountain stood on the center, the water had stopped flowing because of the electricity cut but its surface was filled with water.

"Now, who is going to bring the piano here?" I arched an eyebrow, placing my hand on my waist.

"Ha-ho, didn't think about that." Jessica said, scratching her head.

"Then why don't you all start singing the song?" I asked, twisting my hair into a pony tail.

No one said anything as they kept shuffling feet and kept glancing at the fountain.

"Guys? Is...something wrong?" I looked at them puzzled.

"Why don't you start Bella?" Jasper insisted, sliding his muscled arm around my waist. Then I realized what he was doing and what they all had decided.

"No!" I squealed a little too late as Jasper had already thrown me over his shoulder.

He ran quickly and threw me in the fountain water. A moment later, the water hugged my body. It was pleasantly warm, not cold and clean like Rose's pool. The excess of water splashed on Edward, who stood near the fountain quietly.

No one had touched him, but he was on the grass writhing in obvious agony, while everyone stared in horror. I quickly climbed out of the water and ran to his side.

"Edward! What's wrong?" I asked as he thrashed wildly, his angel face twisted in pain.

No sound escaped Edward's lips as he cringed against the grass. It felt like my head would explode from the pain of watching this.

"Do you have your cell? Jasper demanded, inspecting Edward without touching. "Call 911,"

I realized that I was the only one who had a cell and shakily reached for my phone.

"911, what's your emergency?" A female voice said.

I tossed the cell to Jasper and he began barking into the phone. I quickly took a dry scarf from my bag and started wiping Edward's neck gently and carefully. Another girl removed her scarf and began wiping his arms.

The wind abruptly stopped and the trees stood like statues. Sirens wailed in the distance. Students who stayed back after school and teachers working late came out of the building, confused why the ambulance was here.

I moved behind as they loaded an unconscious Edward into the ambulance. I was breathing very hard and my heart rate was high enough to have a cardiac arrest. I took my bag and walked towards the fountain, wondering what was on earth would have made the water so dangerous that Edward had a mini epileptic fit.

Suddenly, I saw something floating on the water. I took it out and stared at the object blankly. It was a Rosary. So, that made the water holy. But why did Holy water affect Edward?

One disturbing question hung in my mind:

Was Edward what he seems or something else?

Review and tell me what you think Edward is!