Hey everyone,

I have to start off by sincerely apologizing for the update delay... ugh, I've only had this chapter done since December. I was very unsure about how this turned out though, so I wanted to make sure my editor, Alex, read it before I published. Needless to say, she has not exactly been on the ball about editing. -_- So, I was sick of waiting and making you wait, so I simply read it over myself and posted it for you. Therefore, I'm very nervous for this... feedback is greatly, greatly appreciated on this one especially. Thanks for any help you can give

On a more positive note, you will not have to wait nearly as long for the next chapter, I can assure you. I've had that one done for a while as well, and if Alex decides not to edit it before next Sunday, I'll read it over myself. No worries ^_^ So we're getting to turning points here! (Yay! *Squeals*)

PLEASE tell me what you guys think! I apologize again for the very loooong wait

-TG

Chapter 6- Seventeen Hours

Alice POV

"No!" I screamed. "He can't! He wouldn't! He couldn't!" Though I had just seen the vision as clear as day, I couldn't believe it. I summoned the vision of Emmett over and over again in my mind, trying to comprehend how someone with the brain of a super-computer and the wisdom of an 80 year old man could be so incredibly stupid. I growled in frustration, wishing he was faster than even he thought he was so he'd be here and I could give him a piece of my mind.

In the back of my mind, though, I was almost glad Emmett had yet to return. If he were here right now, there would have been a good possibility that I would have done something I would have regretted later; that I would have killed him… well, I may have tried. I was sure that if a fight had ensued, I would have been grossly inferior to Emmett's strength and fighting skills. That time I had spent in the vampire army had done absolutely nothing for my fighting skills, seeing as I hadn't actually been around the army long enough to absorb any knowledge. Jasper, on the other hand, had been around the army for over a hundred years, rendering his fighting skills far superior to Emmett's, even with his amazing strength. I had no doubt in my mind that if Emmett and I would have had a serious confrontation, then Jasper would have taken the situation over quickly to save my butt and no doubt would have killed our brother. Yes, I was glad Emmett wasn't here yet, because that would have been bad… but this. What Emmett had done was so much worse! I yelled in anger at my stupid, idiotic older brother. How could he? What gave him the audacity to do what he had done: to not only dissuade my sister from returning home like I told her she should, but to practically invite her straight to our home. How could he be so dense as to think that had been a good idea?

I resisted the urge to grab the nearest thing to me and break it in half, for Esme would not be very happy if her things were destroyed when she came home (other than the hole I had worn in her nice wooden floor from all my pacing…). I wrung my hands to give them something to do, but it could not distill my anger. I heard Jasper approaching me, probably to find out what had made me so suddenly furious and disbelieving, but I ran. I wouldn't let him calm me down, because I needed to get angry. After the pure stupidity of what my brother did, I needed an angry moment—no, I deserved an angry moment. This, as Emmett's and Edward's sister, and Jasper's fiancée, was my prerogative. With boys as frustrating as those three in the family, I was allowed my crazy moment. And, oh boy, did I go crazy.

I stormed as well as you can while running at multiple miles per hour to the garage, where I knew Rosalie was. She had been there for the past couple hours with her car, either oblivious of or not caring enough to see what the chaos inside was about. When I had manipulated Emmett into delivering the message for me, she hadn't come inside wondering why I felt the need to trick her only too susceptible husband into doing me favor. When she had realized what was going on in the house without her, she had most likely chuckled briefly about how gullible her husband was and then went back to working on her car. Then, when I had just screamed and growled in frustration, I hadn't heard her react at all, not even a flinch. Rosalie was so naturally bored and unimpressed that it was humorous, but right then I wasn't laughing.

I slammed open the door to the garage, a large crack appearing in the wood. I didn't worry so much about the door, and more about how I was going to murder my sister's husband.

"Rosalie!" I appeared before the body lying on the ground under the BMW. "Rosalie!"

No response. I heard her tinkering away with the inner workings of the car, but she did not appear from beneath the vehicle. I glared at her form, reaching down and grabbing the leg of her jeans. Pulling hard on the material (not hard enough to rip the jeans though, because that would be a crime), I yanked her from beneath the car. The rest of her body followed her leg until I could see her grease-stained face appear from under the car. She was glaring back at me, staring up from the ground. Her hair was in disarray around her face from being dragged across the garage floor, and her face was covered in black smudges, yet somehow she remained undeniably gorgeous. I almost laughed at our situation; me, holding the leg of her jeans in my hand, and she, dragged across the garage floor and glaring up at me from the ground. I almost laughed.

"What do you want, Alice?" She sneered, but then smirked. "Or more specifically, what did my husband do now that has you freaking out and wasting my valuable time?"

I was about to explode. I was about to tell Rosalie how her husband was the huge idiot who was leading my sister to her death, but then I realized that Rosalie didn't know I had a sister to begin with… and I really didn't feel like telling her, especially with her jealous tendencies. My mind cleared very briefly in time for me to realize that this would be a very bad idea. Yes, that was certain. Telling her now, when she was already annoyed, wouldn't be a good idea. If I did tell her…Who knows? If Emmett didn't lead Bella to her death, Rosalie might kill her out of jealousy.

Bella and I had our whole childhood together and a genetic connection, while Rosalie just had two years and a similar situation in common with me. Rosalie was my sister, and she thought she was one of a kind that way. And, if there was one thing about this life that Rosalie loved, it was that she pretty much was one of a kind. Not only that, but Bella had the one thing Rosalie would literally kill for: humanity. Rosalie wanted to be human again more than anything else in the world. She was stunningly beautiful, more so than a human could ever be, and she had the love of her life in Emmett… but she would trade it all for the mortality she once had. It was sad really; that she'd be willing to trade everything she had for that.

I had had to trade all of that for Jasper and the life I would have with him, but in the end it hadn't really been a thought-out choice. When Nettie had attacked me over two years ago, I hadn't been able to make a decision on whether or not I wanted to be a vampire. But even so, I wasn't sure if I would go back and change things if I could. If I had been told how hard my life as a vampire would be but how wonderful a life with Jasper could be, I didn't know which path I would take. It was too hard to have to choose between true love and family.

Thinking of such sobering thoughts, I was calmed a bit. I dropped her leg, and she let it fall to the ground with a thud. I tried to recover a bit without raising too many questions. "It's—It's nothing. I just—you're husband is just an idiot. That's all. I'm just angry."

She raised a perfect blonde eyebrow and scoffed at me. "Angry at my husband for being an idiot… not an unusual occurrence, I must say, but do you have any cause to be angry at my husband really? What has he done now?"

I shook my head and growled under my breath. Of course, now would be the moment where Rosalie gets curious. Up until this point, she had been absolutely uninterested in anything that happened with me besides online shopping sprees. I sighed, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep this from everyone for much longer anymore. "I… ugh, you'll know soon enough. I'm sure that as soon as your husband gets home, I'll have no choice in the matter anyway… oh, when he get's home… I hope you don't love him too much." I started mumbling towards the end

She scoffed at my statement, and asked, "Why?" Finally, sitting up from where she had been lying on the garage floor, she acknowledged the conversation with only the slightest interest. I didn't often threaten Emmett, yet she seemed so nonchalant about the situation that it might seem to another like this was an every day occurrence in the Cullen family.

I sighed, not really caring to repeat myself but doing so anyway for some reason. "I hope you don't love your husband too much. Because when he gets home, I'm going to kill him." My anger reignited a little bit, and I continued. "I'm going to shred him to pieces and burn them. And then I'm going to put back together those little burnt pieces again, reincarnate him, and kill him again! That ignorant, idiotic, empty-headed, pain in the—"

"Alice!" She interrupted my next derogatory term. "Alice, what in the world did he do?" She was using her no-nonsense tone of voice now, and I knew she would no longer be entertained by this little game any more unless she got the information she wanted without any further stalling. Still, I wasn't ready to tell Rosalie. When I told my family about my other, very human family, I would tell as many of them at once. I stalled just a bit longer, hoping that Rosalie would just play along.

"So, is that a no? You won't mind me murdering your husband?" I asked, hoping that the tone of my voice didn't seem as furious to Rosalie as it did to me. I wanted to sound as sarcastic and witty as I usually was with my siblings, but for some reason I couldn't portray something so completely polar opposite of what I was actually feeling. This was odd, considering I had become an expert at shielding my true feelings. Two years ago, back in my first weeks of vampirism, I had had to mask my emotions from Jasper to hide the horrible pain I was in during my starvation. I had had to protect him from my pain, because I knew it would only bring him pain as well. I had done so successfully for as long as I had needed to. Even now I was shocked that I had been strong enough to shield my emotions from him while in such a vulnerable and crazed state; strong enough to keep him from the pain, even though I couldn't protect myself. And now as part of the Cullen family, it wasn't just Jasper I had to be able to shield emotions from—I also had Edward's annoyingly convenient power to deal with as well.

It was fairly easy to hide your emotions—I just had to think of something happy or sad or whatever emotion I needed to show. But now that Edward was around, I couldn't think of my sister to make me sad anymore. I couldn't ever think of my sister except for those rare, opportunistic moments like these where Edward was off hunting or in Alaska visiting the only other vegetarian vampires, the Denali Coven. However difficult it had been, I had found a way. Over the past two years, in my vast amount of free time, I had discovered that photographic memory was immensely helpful in learning new languages. Which means, of course, that learning French, Spanish, and Latin had been a piece of cake. I was currently working on German and Portuguese, but I had found that three languages were sufficient for distracting my mind for long enough. All I had to do to block Edward was recite things- the Gettysburg address, the national anthem, an entire Broadway musical- and translate each into various languages. The worked fine and dandy with Edward's gift.

But with Rosalie it was a different story. Now I could shield my emotions or thoughts perfectly, but it wouldn't matter—Rosalie couldn't sense those things like Jasper and Edward could. Even though she didn't have any special vampire power other than her miraculously impossible beauty, she wasn't, by any definition, dumb as her hair color would stereotypically suggest. She could see what I had so stupidly and blatantly revealed to her. Not only that, but Rosalie wasn't one to let things go automatically. So I was stuck. As if confirming my thoughts, she spoke. "Um… let me think about that…Would I mind if you murdered my husband?" She pretended to play along for a total of one seventh of a second, before letting the annoyed expression show again. "Uh, yeah, Alice, I think I probably would. But, you know, maybe, just maybe, if you would tell me what the hell is up I could help you figure this thing out with him. I mean, what's wrong? He's not even here is he? Where did he go?"

Rosalie stood up now, and she was much more intimidating now that she wasn't on the floor. I might have been in heels, but so was she. And she, along with her heels, was close to a foot taller than me. This was definitely much more convincing than it had been when she was dragged across the floor, or sitting a few feet below me. I stammered a little, afraid of just how far Rosalie would go to get her answers. "Um… well, ok, just hold on for a minute Rosalie." My eyes went out of focus for a minute as I looked to the future. "Your husband is going to be home in exactly thirty-two minutes and 27 seconds. Can you wait that long for an explanation?"

Snatching a rag from the hood of her car and wiping the grease off her face and hands, she didn't look like she would agree with me. Yet, she did. "Fine." She said, though she didn't look like it was fine at all. "You have thirty three minutes to tell me what's going on."

When she said I had thirty three minutes, I had no doubt that that was all the time I had—not one second more or one second less. On that note, I nodded in relief, and sped out of the garage as quick as vampirely possible. To my dismay, I heard Rosalie trail after me, keeping up to my pace easily as I ran towards the living room to wait. I positioned myself so that I was standing directly in front of the window where Emmett would jump into the house in thirty one minutes and 6 seconds. Rosalie pushed up the window in preparation for Emmett's arrival and, probably realizing what I was doing by watching the window intently, took a position on the couch closest to that window, as if she may need to come between Emmett and me once he made his appearance… which I can't exactly say was a bad idea. I didn't take my gaze away from the open window as I heard Jasper join us in the room. He had most definitely heard my run-in with Rosalie in the garage and had joined me in the living room to wait for Emmett's arrival as well… maybe even to hold me back should I get out of control. Though, now that I thought about it, he probably didn't know why I was so freaked out about Emmett's return.

I realized I was right in my assumption as he voiced the question. "What's going on?" The way he said it told me that he knew I wasn't going to turn around and look him in the eye to respond. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were cut off.

It turns out I didn't have to answer him at all, for Rosalie did it for me. "Apparently we're waiting for Emmett to get home before we get an answer."

"How long do we have until he arrives?" He asked, still speaking towards my general direction, though he was aware of my lack of response. Rosalie was the one responding.

"As of now: Twenty-three minutes and forty-four seconds." With that statement, there was silence. We were silent for twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds. At that mark, Rosalie spoke again, counting down the last moments until I knew Emmett would appear through the window. "Three…Two…One…"

With every second she counted, I could feel the anger boiling up in me again. Then, finally, when the time was up, he appeared. He rested his hand on the open window sill and vaulted his huge form through the window. It was impressive that he could get his huge body through that window without shattering the frame, but he did it. As soon as he stepped forward into the room, he froze. He became absolutely paralyzed under the gaze of Rosalie, Jasper, and me. Laughing nervously, he broke the silence, "Hey, Guys… What's up?"

Hearing his voice and unable to control my anger any longer, I growled. I felt the creeping effect of Jasper's calming power come over me, but- before it affected me too much- I lunged for Emmett and finally let the blood-thirsty snarl escape my chest. Rosalie and Jasper were acting as soon as I was. Rosalie was in front of Emmett in a crouch; as if she could protect him better than he could protect himself. Jasper latched onto my arms from behind so that I was unable to advance towards my brother even an inch further. He had a firm grip on my arms so that I couldn't move, though he wasn't hurting me at all. He just held me long enough so that his power could fully affect me. Soon enough, I was calmed down to a level where I wouldn't lunge at Emmett's throat as soon as Jasper let go of me.

I shifted a little out of Jasper's arms, to signal him to let go of me. He seemed reluctant to, and I wasn't sure if it was because he didn't trust me or he just didn't want to let me go… I wanted to think it was the latter, of course, but I couldn't be sure. I stepped up until I was a foot away from Emmett. His face wasn't shocked, so I assumed he understood why I was angry—well, had been angry, because it was impossible to feel angry with Jasper around making you feel all warm and fuzzy when you didn't want to… the jerk. In my close proximity, Rosalie growled, as if daring me to move an inch closer to her and her husband. Emmett placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing her to the side. "Rose, it's fine. It's just Alice, for Christ's sake!" Disdainfully, Rosalie moved away from him, and Emmett looked towards me. "So, sis, I believe you have some 'splaining to do. What's all this I hear about a—"

"How could you?" I hissed, not bothering to hear his next taunting remark. "How dare you? Where do you get the audacity to do what you did? How could you think that was a good idea? Do you even understand the severity of what you've done to me? And- more importantly- to my sister?"

"Well, I understand that you lied to all of us and especially me." Emmett responded, the sarcastic smirk gone from his face. He seemed sincerely hurt, which was a rare occasion for him. He was always so happy and so sarcastic—always willing to smile and make things better. But I was glad that he wasn't happy today. After what he did to me, he didn't deserve to be happy at this moment.

"Ok, yeah, so I tricked you into delivering the letter for me. Big deal! I'm asking you this one more time—do you understand how serious this is? What this will do to my sister?" I really tried to comprehend his train of thought; how he could have thought this was a good idea. I genuinely wanted to know his thoughts just then. But it wasn't Emmett's thoughts I got.

Rosalie spoke in place of someone else again. "Alice! What is going on?! I don't understand: what's the problem? I'm fine. Emmett hasn't done anything wrong to me." After Rosalie spoke, there was a loaded silence. Everyone but Rosalie realized simultaneously that she was the only one who didn't know about my secret. Rosalie was unaware that I had a sister other than her. This was the moment where I had to tell her the truth, even though I sincerely didn't want to. Thanks to Emmett I didn't have to.

"She isn't talking about you, Rose." He said it slowly and seriously, as if explaining to a child. Rosalie looked at Emmett in confusion, then to Jasper who stood quietly behind me in observation, then to me. When her eyes rested on me, they narrowed into a scrutinizing glare. It pierced right through me and terrified me even more than I already was.

"Alice?" She asked; the blatant accusation present in her voice. She didn't just say my name by her statement. She had asked me- no, commanded me- to confirm Emmett's allegation for her.

I closed my eyes, and pressed my lips together trying to shut out the world around me. Finally, I whispered, "It's true." The words were barely above a whisper, but I had no doubt that Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper could here me. "I have a sister… A human sister. One who now knows of my existence in the world still."

"What?!" She hissed. "How could you—Why would you—do you understand what you've done Alice? By not telling us, by not giving us any warning, you have risked our entire family! What if she goes looking for you? What if she happens to find you? How could you be so irrespons—"

"Rosalie." Jasper warned.

But I knew every word she was saying was correct. In my effort to protect myself and my sister, I had neglected to protect my family. That was irresponsible and inexcusable. "No," I told him. "She's right. This is my fault. I didn't think about how this would affect everyone around me. It was so selfish of me."

Jasper growled and began to speak in protest, but I interrupted him. I opened my eyes, looking straight into Rosalie's. "As a human, there was no one in the world more important to me than my sister. Her name is Bella. She was fourteen when I vanished. I left the house to go shopping one day in Houston, but I never went home. I had this same power as a human, though it was much less advanced and much more uncontrollable at the time, and I had seen what I hadn't known to be vampires in a vision. I saw them killing my sister. I didn't allow her to go with me, but I knew that I had to go. I met Jasper that day. He saved me from being killed by Nettie, but I was changed. Bella was everything to me before I met Jasper, and I was everything to her. What you need to understand is that I have Jasper now—he shares that place in my heart with my sister, but I don't love one more than the other. And- while I am still missing a huge part of me without my sister- I still have Jasper to fill that void. But Bella? Bella has no one. When I left Houston, I wrote Bella a note saying that I was alive and happy, but we couldn't be together anymore… I just couldn't bear it. Knowing that she was suffering? Knowing that she thought I was gone when I was somewhat alive and happy felt like it would kill me, had I not already been dead. I had to reassure her that she wasn't alone in this world, so I fought to protect her—and that was my mistake. Now she's trying to find me. She's only sixteen years old and she's out in the world alone. I thought that if I told her to go home, she might listen. I foolishly thought, once again, that I could fix this without having to bring all of you into it. Knowing that I couldn't see her myself without risking her life, I sent Emmett to deliver a message to her under the notion that it was a bet. And now?" I closed my eyes, the familiar aching sob building in my chest as I found myself unable to speak anymore.

Emmett, as if finally realizing what was happening, spoke in a grim voice. "Now she's coming here. She's coming because I told her where we were."

Rosalie glanced back and forth between Emmett and me again, as if not believing that she had missed so much that Emmett and I had understood. Finally, she settled her glare back on me. "I thought you said you didn't remember much about your human life?" Her tone of voice was spiteful and mocking, but I tried not to let it sting me as much as it could have.

"I don't." My voice was still smooth as always, but it was a bit more high-pitched than normal with all the emotion finally letting itself out. "The only thing I remember is Bella and the day I was changed. I can only remember the one part of my life that I think mattered to me most: my sister. I think that means that she was more important to me than I can even remember. Rosalie, don't you understand?"

She didn't look at me as she spoke, but started to retreat from the room. "No, Alice, I don't think that I do understand. I don't have a human family, and I don't lie to the only family that I've got."

She left me staring after her as she disappeared from sight. Emmett remained for a few seconds, looking up apologetically from where he stood. "I'm sorry, sis—"

"Don't." I said, and closed my eyes against the pain of hurting my family again. When Emmett left the room, I turned to Jasper and let him envelop me in his arms. I whimpered a little pitifully, and welcomed the calm feeling he washed through me. "Jasper… what am I going to do? That went horribly… and soon I'll have to explain this all again for Esme and Edward and Carlisle. How do I explain this to the people who took us in without a second thought? How do I explain to our brother and to our parents that I was lying all this time? I just can't do it to them."

He wiped my hair away from my forehead and kissed it. "Alice, my love, it's going to be ok. I promise you. Edward will get over it probably faster than anyone else. Esme and Carlisle are the two most compassionate people I've encountered in all of my one hundred and fifty years. They are not going to kick you out onto the street because you wanted to protect someone you love dearly. I have no doubt they would only be proud of you for it, no matter how unfortunate the result is turning out to be. Rosalie is a different case entirely. All she can see right now is that you lied to her, not that you lied to your whole family to protect Bella. Emmett is genuinely sorry for what he did, and he realizes the severity of his actions. And, even though he made a critical mistake, the world is not going to crumble. We don't have to leave the one place where we can feel at home just because you think you're weaker than you actually are. If there's any lie at all here, it's not that you kept your sister a secret from them, it's that you think you're too weak to handle these things. I know that absolutely because you are the strongest and most selfless person that I think has ever lived or existed." He paused, probably testing my emotions to see if I was truly calmed. "Now, I need you to look to the future for me. Find out when Bella will get here and when Esme, Edward, and Carlisle will return."

I nodded, sniffled for a second, and then looked to the future, focusing on both my sister and the absent members of my family. I was relieved that my first vision wasn't of my sister, bloody and dead on the ground. All I saw was the Porsche pulling past the entrance sign to our town. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that she would make it safely, but I couldn't bring myself to do so when I knew that I'd only be miles away from her in only… man, she was driving fast. I frowned, concerned at how short of a time it would take her to arrive.

I summoned a vision of Esme, Edward, and Carlisle and- when I realized when they were getting here- I cursed my dumb luck.

"So?" Jasper asked me. "When is everyone coming home?"

I looked up at him, sincerely hoping that he was right. I prayed that he was right; that everything would be ok despite how much the universe was plotting against me. "Carlisle, Esme, and Edward decided to get home early. They'll be here in seventeen hours."

"And Bella? How long until she gets to Forks?"

I shook my head at how sickeningly convenient this had worked out. My mouth was pressed into a hard, annoyed line until I muttered his answer.

"Seventeen hours."