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Chapter 7- Planning

~Alice POV~

I couldn't believe it. While we were gone, Victoria had come back to get revenge for her mate's death, and since we all had left, Bella became her target. We left Bella in the worst possible danger.

What I didn't understand was why I didn't see any of this beforehand.

We all were silent in Bella's hospital room after Jasper had announced that Victoria was the reason that Bella was in the hospital, fighting for her life.

Esme was the first to regain the use of her voice. "Are you certain that it was her?" Esme asked.

"No doubt. We were able to follow Bella's scent backwards, and we picked up Victoria's scent. She was certainly the one that attacked Bella." Jasper said.

"We also think that this started in town. We followed the trail back into town." "Emmett added.

"It explains why the attack happened as it did. Victoria could not have attacked Bella in town without revealing what she was to the entire town." Carlisle said.

"Then why did Bella run into the woods instead of running into town if she was confronted by Victoria?" Rosalie asked.

"Because it's Bella." Edward said his voice strained from worry and anger.

We all turned to look at Edward.

"What do you mean?" Esme asked.

"Bella's a selfless person. She always puts others before herself. Bella knows better than any other human how dangerous vampires are. She knew that Victoria might attack other people in town, so Bella ran into the woods to lead Victoria away from town, to protect the people in town." Edward said.

"Bella ran quite a ways before Victoria attacked her. There is no way that Bella could have outrun Victoria." Jasper said.

"Victoria either waited until there was no way that anyone in town could have heard anything, or she was just toying with Bella." Rosalie said.

We all grimaced at that thought.

"Probably the second option. Victoria wouldn't have let Bella run as far as she did if Victoria just didn't want anyone to hear. She had to be toying with Bella." Jasper said.

"I am glad that Bella is alive, but is doesn't make sense why she is. If Victoria had wanted Bella dead, she would have been." Carlisle said.

Edward grimaced at that thought.

"Probably because of me." Jasper said.

"Why you, Jazz?" I asked.

"Vampires getting their revenge take time. When I picked up the scent of Bella's blood, I headed right for where she was. I was too focused on Bella's scent to pick up any other scents then. If Victoria picked up my scent heading for her, then she might have run off, not wanting to be caught." Jasper explained.

"What now?" Rosalie asked.

We all knew that we had to do something.

Once Victoria realizes that Bella is alive, she'll start coming after her again, and we had to make sure that nothing happened to Bella again.

Carlisle turned to Edward. "You're not planning on leaving Bella, right?" Carlisle asked.

"No." Edward said firmly.

We all knew that there was no way Edward would leave Bella's side now. It would take a miracle to get him to ever leave her side again.

"Do you think that Victoria would come back here to the hospital to get revenge?" Emmett asked.

"I don't know, and we're not going to take any chances." Carlisle said.

"Alice, have you seen anything?" Jasper asked.

"No. It's possible that Victoria hasn't decided what she's going to do yet. She may not even know that Bella is still alive." I replied. Then I frowned. "Of course, I didn't see Victoria attacking Bella, either." I said.

"We'll figure out why later, Alice. For now, just look for Victoria's and Bella's future." Carlisle said.

"I will." I assured him.

"What do we do about Victoria? There's no doubt that she'll come after Bella again once she realizes that Bella is still alive." Rosalie said.

None of us really wanted to think about Victoria coming after Bella again. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"I say we hunt her down and make her pay for attacking a member of this family." Emmett stated.

Edward, Rosalie, Jasper, and I all agreed with Emmett on that point, but it was easy to see that Carlisle and Esme weren't thrilled with the idea of a fight.

"Going after Victoria is far too dangerous. She may have gotten some help while we've been gone." Esme said, worried for our safety.

"We'll be fine, Esme. We can take down anyone that she has with her. There's no way that Victoria can be allowed to get away with what she's done to Bella." Emmett protested.

"Emmett, she won't get away with what she's done. We need to think practically. Victoria could easily have help, and she might be planning to find a way to get us away from Bella so that she can strike." Carlisle said.


~Edward POV~

I hated to admit it, but Carlisle had made a good point. We couldn't overlook the fact that Victoria had gone after Bella once, and we couldn't let that happen again.

Victoria was cunning and elusive. She could easily plot a way to get us separated from Bella so that she could go after Bella again.

"Then what are we going to do?" Emmett asked. He was itching for a good fight.

"I think that the first thing we need to do is consider all the possibilities that Victoria might try to pull off." Jasper said, going into his militaristic strategist mode.

"If Victoria does have allies, then she could get them to try to attack Bella. We would naturally fight them off to protect Bella. While we were busy fighting with her allies, Victoria would try to sneak up on Bella before we realized what she was doing and attack Bella." Alice said.

"There's also the chance that Victoria is working alone. She could have been watching Bella for a while before she made her first attack on Bella. She might just be watching and waiting to see if we ever drop our guard." Rosalie said.

"She could try a direct attack." Emmett suggested.

"Possible, but not likely. Victoria knows that it's seven to one. She's not going to try it because she knows that it's suicide. Plus, she knows that she's less likely to get to Bella because she'd be lucky to get through one of us." Jasper said.

"She might also wait to get Bella alone." Carlisle said.

"That won't happen." I said. There was no way that I was going to leave Bella alone ever again, much less with Victoria still prowling around, hunting for Bella.

"I'll say." Alice muttered.

I shot her a glare, which Alice pointedly ignored.

Carlisle turned to look at Jasper. "Jasper, what do you think we should do right now?" Carlisle asked.

Since Jasper had been in the military when he was human and handled battles when the newborn wars of the South went on, we all turned to Jasper for help and advice when it came to battle and strategy.

"Well, it depends on how you want to handle the situation. Do you want to hunt her down and kill her, or do you just want us to be ready for when Victoria makes her move?" Jasper asked.

With Carlisle as the head of the family and making the decision in this matter, we all knew which course he would take.

"I just want us to be ready." Carlisle said.

"In that case, we'll need to run patrol. We should patrol the forest and city. We'll know when Victoria gets close and can intercept her before she gets into the town." Jasper said. He then looked over at me. "I'm guessing that you plan on staying with Bella at all times." Jasper said.

"Of course." I answered.

"We'll have Bella protected with a bodyguard then. To be ready, that's the best we can do other than training for a fight." Jasper said. He looked over at Carlisle. "Sorry, but a fight is inevitable." Jasper said.

Carlisle nodded. He didn't like it, but he understood.

"How should we patrol?" Esme asked.

"We can do it in pairs and have three shifts, or we can do it in groups of three and have two shifts." Jasper answered.

"The group of three sounds best. Three would be better than two if they were attacked while out on patrol." I said.

"All right. We can switch up the groups. Jasper, Emmett, and Esme can go now. Rosalie, Alice, and I can go in twelve hours." Carlisle said.

We all agreed on that.

Esme, Emmett, and Jasper left to start their shift.

Alice turned to us. "What do we do?" Alice asked.

"There is very little that we can do now. Just keep your eyes open for anything odd or out-of-place. We can't afford any lapse in our guard." Carlisle said, glancing at Bella.

We all knew that losing a member of this family was Carlisle's biggest fear. To him, we couldn't afford to lose even one member of this family, and that included Bella.

"In any case, I'd better get back to work. Stay out of trouble." Carlisle said before walking out of the room.

"What does he think we're going to do? Go out and get drunk?" Rosalie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

I sighed. "Rose, Carlisle knows that the three of us want nothing more than to hunt Victoria down and make her pay for what she did to Bella. Carlisle doesn't want us to go off and do just that." I said.

"Well, we'll just head back to the house. We'll come back if there's any change in Bella's condition." Alice said.

I nodded, knowing that Alice would most likely know before anyone else when something would change.

Alice and Rosalie left.

I turned my gaze back to Bella. I was so worried about her, and I just wanted her to wake up so I would know that she would be all right. That's all I wanted.


~Rosalie POV~

It has been three days since Jasper first found Bella out in the woods, and Bella still hasn't woken up. It's driving me crazy that Bella hasn't woken up yet!

In fact, we're all a little crazy over the fact that Bella hasn't woken up yet.

Edward hasn't left Bella at all. He stays with Bella 24/7, feigning sleep and pretending to eat so people won't suspect anything.

Our shifts on patrol haven't changed. We've come across Victoria a few times, but she's always able to elude us before we can get to her. She hasn't made it close to town yet, but we're not about to drop our guard. We value Bella's safety too much to let our guard down.

Esme, Emmett, and Jasper are out on their shift of patrol right now.

We still don't know here Charlie is at the moment.

So, Alice and I are at the town's library right now, trying to find out where he is.

"What are we even looking for?" I asked, sitting in front of a computer.

"Anything that will give us an answer to where Charlie is. He's not a man that would just leave his daughter, so we need to find out why he hasn't been around lately. We've got to tell him that Bella's in the hospital." Alice said as she looked at the local newspapers since we left, hoping to find an answer.

I started to look on the Internet, hoping to find something.

It became quiet for a while.

I was starting to become impatient with the fact that we weren't finding any answer to our questions.

Alice released an audible gasp that I easily heard, but that any human wouldn't have been able to hear.

I turned to where Alice was and saw the look of horror that was on Alice's face. Worried, I said, "Alice, what's wrong? What did you find?" I got up and walked over to her.

Alice didn't answer me verbally. Instead, she pointed put an article to me that was in one of the newspapers that she had been looking through.

The first thing I noticed was that the paper was dated a little over a month ago. Then I saw the article that Alice had pointed out to me. I understood her reaction then, and I gasped in horror as well.

The headline read: FORKS POLICE CHIEF FOUND BRUTALLY MURDERED, NO SUSPECTS!

Now it all made sense. Charlie's scent was stale because he had not been in the house for over a month.

The realization that Bella had lost and grieved over the loss of her father alone without anyone there to comfort her was a painful reality.

Alice and I looked at each other for a long moment. Neither of us were sure what we should say.

Finally, I said, "Who tells Edward?"

"I'm more concerned with who killed Charlie." Alice said, frowning.

"Do you think that it might have been Victoria?" I asked.

"It's possible, but who knows?" Alice said.

"We have one answer at least." I said.

"And a new problem." Alice added.

Alice was right.

Bella would still be grieving over her father, and we had to be there for her.


~Edward POV~

I have been sitting her with Bella for what seems like forever, although it has only been a total of three days.

I am worried about Bella, and I just want her to wake up so that I will know that Bella is all right. That would make me feel a lot better.

Then I would have to tell Bella the truth about why I left. I am afraid of what Bella will tell me. I'm not sure that she will forgive me for what I've done.

I heard footsteps and heard the nurse's thoughts that she was coming to check on Bella, so I let go of Bella's hand, slumped down in the chair, and feigned sleep.

The nurse walked in. 'That boy never leaves." the nurse thought.

Of course I don't leave. I'm not setting foot out of this hospital until Bella does.

The nurse then started to check over Bella's vital signs. 'Well, she's stable now at least. That's good. Now, if she would just wake up.' the nurse thought as she gave Bella more painkillers.

I wanted that, too. More than anything, but I knew that I would have to be patient.

'Poor dear. With all that she's been through lately, she certainly doesn't need this. At least the Cullens are here and seem to care a great deal about her still. Bella will need them to help her get through this. They'll take care of her.' the nurse thought.

That bothered me. What all had happened to Bella while I was gone? What do we need to help her get through?

This was something that really bothered me.

The nurse wrote some things on Bella's chart before she left.

Once I heard the door close, I opened my eyes and took Bella's hand back in mine.

"What happened while we were gone, Bella?" I asked.

I sat there for a while, thinking about what the nurse had been thinking.

Then I heard it.

A low groan that would have been imperceptible to human ears, but that was easily heard by mine.

My eyes instantly flew to Bella's face, hoping that Bella would wake up.

Bella moved her head slightly and her face scrunched up.

"Bella?" I said gently.

"Edward." Bella mumbled, still out.

"Bella, love. Wake up. I'm right here." I said.

It took a few more moments.

Then Bella opened her eyes.


Hope you like it.

Next: Bella's waking up and her reaction to Edward.

R&R.