There're a few warnings I have to dish out before letting you read this chapter, for the following possibly disturbing or offensive content: suicidal thoughts/behavior, some very brief macabre imagery, and general depressiveness. So, now that I've warned you, don't blame me for bumming you out. You don't HAVE to read it, after all (but if you do then review please)!
Chapter 7: Intervention
At 6:47 AM, while the sun was still in the process of clearing the horizon and Peter Petrelli and Bella Swan were making their way from New York to Washington, not as fast as they could have traveled but still considerably faster than the average person, six out of the seven members of the Cullen family were also flying – in an airplane, as their various talents regrettably did not include self-propelled flight. Their destination was South Africa, and as for the reason they were traveling there on extremely short notice: it had all started a half-hour ago, during a beach volleyball game of all things.
Flashback – Isle Esme
Shortly before dawn, the Cullens had swam back to their vacation spot on Esme's private island after hunting on the mainland and divided into teams – Alice, Jasper, and Esme vs. Emmett, Carlisle, and Rosalie – for a volleyball match on the beach. Midway through the game something very unusual happened: Alice froze up, her wide eyes glazed over as she stared at something none of the others could see, her body stiffened to a statue, and didn't even notice when the ball sailed over the net and bounced off her head. Very unusual indeed.
Her vision was gone as quickly as it had come, but the horror in her face remained. Jasper was at her side immediately, holding her as he asked, "Alice, what is it? What did you see?"
She turned huge, panic-filled eyes up to his concerned ones, letting him calm her as much as he was able to in the wake of her latest precognitive glimpse. "Edward," she whispered. Her voice trembled; she cleared her throat and tried again. "It's Edward," she said more clearly. "He's somewhere in Africa, and he's in trouble. We have to go right now."
End Flashback
By the time the Cullens landed in South Africa's largest international airport, it was obvious exactly where in Africa Edward was – they caught his scent in the same second that they disembarked from their plane, so fresh that they knew he must be in the building. "Whatever trouble he found here, it can't have been that bad," Rosalie observed. "But what's he doing here?"
Alice found the answer in Edward's immediate future. "He's here to catch a flight to Italy…and it begins boarding in fifteen minutes! Carlisle, we have to stop him from getting on that plane!" She set off at a fast walk with the other five right behind her.
"Italy? Why the hell would Edward wanna go there?" Emmett wondered.
Flashback – last night, just after sunset
Edward & Victoria
"No…please no… Oh, Bella…"
Watching Edward crumple to the ground as if all the life had been drained from him the same way all the blood had drained from Bella's mutilated corpse, Victoria let out a low laugh – her revenge had worked better than she'd ever dreamed. "I can see hunting down your mate instead of you was the right choice," she gloated. "Now you know how I felt when you and your coven killed James over that worthless little human!"
Edward looked up, roused by the sound of Victoria's high, girlish voice. His own was cracked and rough with tears that he was no longer capable of shedding as he said, "Kill me. Without Bella I have no reason for existing anymore. Please, just end it!"
Victoria paced slowly in a circle around him, chin in one hand and fingers tapping on her cheek as she pretended to consider his request. "Want me to end it, hmm? Well, I could… I could probably kill you even if you didn't want me to – honestly, have you seen the shape you're in?" Her nose wrinkled as she eyeballed Edward's uncombed hair and his clothes, which had once been nice but had gotten dirty and wrinkled from weeks in the African wilderness despite the fact that vampires never produced sweat. "You look like a bum! I believe I'd actually be doing you a favor…and why would I want to do that? You murdered James! Now I have to live without him forever, so why shouldn't I make you live without your human?"
"It isn't the same thing at all! James never loved you," Edward hissed. "He kept you around because your instincts, your uncanny knack for escaping were useful, but you were never more than a convenience to him – I would know. Bella and I loved each other."
A slender white hand flicked out, slapping Edward across the face soap opera style. "You liar!" Victoria stood there fuming for several minutes until she reined in her fury, then continued in a calmer tone. "If you loved the human so much you should have changed her into one of us. Then she would be with you now instead of in a box under six feet of dirt, being eaten by worms…"
Snarling wordlessly, Edward jumped to his feet and launched himself at Victoria – but as he'd said, she was a talented escape artist. The redhead leapt nimbly out of his reach, her unruly hair dancing like fire around her face. Edward lunged at her again, growling, teeth bared; Victoria knew then that she'd gone too far in taunting him with the image of his lost love's body decaying in her coffin. For that, he wouldn't stop until Victoria joined the girl in the afterlife. "Until next time then, Cullen," she decided and fled, orange hair streaming behind her like a banner, with an infuriated Edward in hot pursuit.
He chased her over seventy miles in eighteen minutes before realizing that even if he caught her, prolonged lack of blood had made him too weak to finish her. If it came to a fight, the most probable outcome would be his death – he would welcome that, but then he wouldn't be able to avenge Bella. So he reluctantly abandoned the chase in favor of hunting, although his current surroundings presented fairly unexciting options for prey. There were no mountain lions in this part of Africa, and bush pigs were a poor substitute. Still, blood was blood, and he needed it.
Once he'd fed he tried catching Victoria's scent again, only to discover that she'd pulled yet another successful Houdini act; her trail led him on a wild goose chase of some few miles and then stopped cold, leaving him no clue where to go next. Now what? I suppose I can start my hunt for her over again, except…
Except learning of Bella's demise had sapped what little drive he'd had left. Even the idea of wreaking revenge on Victoria failed to stir anything in Edward – whatever he did to the redhead, Bella would still be dead, gone, lost to him forever… So why bother when nothing could bring her back?
All Edward wanted now was to join her in death, although he couldn't say he expected to be reunited with her in the hereafter. Bella would of course be in heaven, while he would go straight to hell after drawing his last breath. If he hadn't already been damned for being a soulless monster and a murderer, he had certainly earned eternal punishment by dragging Bella into his world, fully aware that it was far too dangerous for her and putting his own selfish desires above her safety anyway, and then leaving her unprotected. If I hadn't been so selfish, so stupid, she would be alive now. She's dead because of me… I might as well have killed her myself!
He wasn't sure how he was going to live through the next minute with that knowledge; living with it forever was out of the question. Edward knew what he had to do now – what he should have done sooner, before he'd had a chance to destroy an innocent girl's life: he had to end his. A year ago, when Bella's death had seemed imminent, he'd planned for just such a contingency; now the time to put that plan into action had arrived.
I still have my passport and money – I'll run to the nearest international airport and catch the next flight to Italy – the Volturi will end it for me. If they won't do it as a favor to me I can force their hand, I can… I'll figure that out later. As long as it gets me out of this hellish mockery of life, I don't care what I have to do!
End Flashback
So now Edward sat in an uncomfortable plastic seat of the butt-numbing variety commonly found in airports, waiting with several other passengers while the plane that would carry them to Italy fuelled up. Although the waiting area was crowded, both of the seats on either side of Edward were unoccupied; an almost tangible aura of abject misery permeated the air around him, holding the crush of humans at bay, which suited the vampire perfectly. Everything was going along fine until, from the crowd's meaningless babble, Edward's sensitive ears happened to pick out a single sentence: "Italy? Why the hell would Edward wanna go there?" uttered in a deep voice he would recognize anywhere.
Emmett! If he's here it must mean Alice… Oh, hellfire and damnation! He jumped up, wondering whether he could evade Alice by randomly choosing one of two possible ways to run – his gold eyes swept the terminal – and he realized there was no way of escaping his family. All six of them were there and they had all the exits covered, unless Edward revised his plan to crashing through the large bulletproof plate-glass window, and never mind that the sun was up…
No sooner had the idea flitted across his mind than Alice's sharp thought-speak sliced the psychic ether: Edward, I know what you're trying to do and I won't let you! We won't let you. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way…
Edward tracked Alice's mental 'voice' – so much more potent to him here than her scent – to its source and, once he was in sight of her, raised his hands to chest height to signal that he would come quietly.
"I already knew you would," she said as he reached her.
"Edward, you look just awful," Esme fussed, plucking at the tattered sleeve of her son's jacket. "What have you been doing for the last eight months?"
"Tracking Victoria," he replied tersely. "Last night I found her."
"And did you…?" …Kill her?
"No. She escaped, again."
Carlisle gripped Edward's shoulder so tight it was almost painful, even to him. "It's just as well. It's time for you to come home, son. Come back to us. Please."
Yes, come home, Edward, Alice told him privately. I'm keeping an eye on you, so you can just put that other thing out of your mind. I'll never let you get away with it, you know.
###
"Why, Edward?"
The minute the Cullens had arrived 'home' – it wasn't their mansion in Forks, but that place wouldn't feel like home anyhow without Bella – Edward had retreated to his room and had stayed there ever since. He would have preferred to be left alone there, except now Alice had seen fit to inflict her unwanted company on him.
She slid through the doorway, shut the door behind her, and repeated in a voice so low no one else could overhear, "Why? You've never been suicidal before, so why did I see you going to the Volturi and asking to…to die?"
For a moment he considered ignoring her; she killed that notion by saying, "I'm not leaving till I get an answer, Edward."
"Didn't you see it?" he snapped.
"That's not how it works – I only foresee the outcomes of someone's choices, not what leads them to make those choices."
"You know I finally found Victoria."
"Yes, that's what you said."
"Will you do something for me, Alice? Will you try to see Bella's future, please?"
Alice's forehead puckered in a perplexed frown. "But when we left Forks you told me not to look for her future anymore. You said we weren't going to interfere in her life again-"
"I don't plan on interfering; I only need…to see her."
Alice shrugged, and looked…at nothing. Two more fruitless attempts later, she reluctantly admitted defeat. "I'm sorry Edward, I can't see anything. It's like her whole future's disappeared."
"So it's true," he whispered. "I had hoped perhaps Victoria simply had an incredibly vivid imagination, but deep down I knew…"
"Knew what? Does this have something to do with why you tried to go to Italy?"
"It has everything to do with that." And then he told her everything, or at least most of it – Alice had loved Bella too, so Edward spared her the gory details. No reason for anyone else to have the horror of Bella's last moments burned into their mind as well… Edward would keep that to himself for as long as he was forced to go on existing; the memory would be his own personal hell.
So, there's my take on Edward! Question: do I lay it on too thick when I write him? He's a pretty angsty character, but sometimes when writing Edward-angst I think 'wow this is over the top'. Opinions/comments/advice, anyone?
