Hey so here's the next chapter.
A lot of you wanted an age skip and I apologize. Bella needs an identity outside of the Cullens. She needs a life. There will be a few years in between but I won't take too much time because I want to get the Cullens back in too.
Previously
Emmett's POV
"Please," Rose begged. "Bella needs us. With her power now more than ever. The ghosts scare her."
Carlisle's brow furrowed in confusion. "What power?"
"Bella sees ghosts," it was Edward that begged this time. I had never in all the years of knowing Edward, seen such pain in his eyes. "Please, we need to see her."
He shook his head. "It's for her own safety that you stay away from her. The rangers pronounced you all dead by bear attack and missing. It's better for her if it stays that way."
Bella POV
Two Months Later
I trudged dismally down the hallway, dragging my white knit Uggs against the tiled floor, listening to the soft squeaking noise they made. On either side of me people passed, chattering excitedly, laughing and joking maniacally about the presentation we had just watched. Something about internet safety. I hadn't paid any attention. It was unimportant. None of it mattered any more.
The only thing that mattered was my pain. My pain of loss.
My brother, my best friend, my protector. Emmy had been everything in my life. He cared for me when I was a baby. He rocked me to sleep when I cried. He fed me when I was hungry. Even as we grew older, we were first priority. I would call him every night and we would just talk.
Most little children talk to their parents when they're scared. I talked to Emmy. Most little children crawl into bed with their parents when they have a bad dream. I would bring my teddy bear he had given me when I was little and I would crawl in next to him. He would hold me tight and whisper to me how everything would be alright. How everything was going to get better. How everything would work out in the end.
Emmy was like my other half. He always knew how to make me feel better. But now I had no one. Emmy was gone. Everything was gone.
I grabbed my lunch box and sat down at one of the tables with a silent sigh. I poked my sandwich with a detached heir.
Emmy always made good food for me. I thought mournfully, allowing a solitary tear to roll down my cheek, leaving a wet salty trail behind. But I wouldn't cry. I couldn't cry. I had no tears left in me. I had already cried them all away.
"Dear it will be okay," Theodora Masen soothed me. Her ghostly hand smoothed my hair gently. Her dead green eyes were sad. "I know it's hard. I lost my Robert when we were young. I thought I would die. I wanted to die. I had nothing left to live for. But I had so much to live for. There were so many people that loved me and I couldn't leave them all behind. But things will get better. Things got better for me and I know they will for you too. Trust me."
"Thanks Thea," I whispered to Edward's grandmother.
After she had saved Edward and I from that fateful fall down the staircase, she had become like my guardian angel. She was there for me all the time. She told me stories at night. She sang in her beautiful, ghostly voice when I cried. When people teased me about cruel things like loosing Emmy, she caused things to happen.
Once a bully in fifth grade had teased me about Emmy. Thea had protected me. She caused a rock to fly across the room and hit him, hard.
Another time one of the fourth grade bullies pulled my braid and hissed that I was such an awful sister Emmy had killed himself. Thea had been furious with him. She did a great many things to him. During a flag ceremony, a good-sized tree fell, nearly crushing him. Of course it didn't but it scared the crap out of him. Then she caused a pack of dogs to chase him. He had returned to school with his clothes in tatters. Cuts and scratches marred his face and arms.
It had been the closest I had ever come to laughing or even smiling since I lost Emmy. But I couldn't laugh. Because when I opened my mouth to, his words came back to me. Was I a bad sister? Was I the reason Emmy had died? Maybe he was right. Maybe Emmy did hate me.
"I miss him so much Thea," I murmured. In my fingers I traced the lines of a picture. It had been taken when our family was whole. When there were no problems. When everything was so perfect. When Mommy and Daddy loved each other. Emmy was holding me. He was perched on Daddy's leg smiling so widely it looked as if his face might crack. Daddy's free arm was around Mommy's waist. She was smiling happily at the camera, her head leaning against Daddy's shoulder.
I shifted my arm slightly. My elbow hit my open water bottle, knocking it off the table. It fell to the ground.
A hand, pale as snow, flashed out to catch it. Eyes, so dark they looked red, gazed at me, a small, sad smile in them.
"You must be Bella Swan," he said, handing me my water bottle. None of the water had splashed out, net even a drop.
I nodded, flicking my eyes down to trace the lines of the picture again.
"I'm Peter," he continued, pretending, for my sake, that I was normal, that I was alive. "I'm the guest speaker at your safety seminar this afternoon."
I nodded again, at a loss for what to say. No one really spoke to me anymore, not even Renee.
"Why are you talking to me?" I rasped, finally deciding to look at him.
"I'd like to think everyone wants a friend and it seems to me you need one," he smiled kindly at me. "What are you looking at?"
Hesitantly, I held the picture out for him to see. "It's… my… my brother," I stuttered over the words, feeling the tears sting at the back of my eyes as I did.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," he sighed, handing the picture back.
"That's what they all say," I murmured, curling into a tight little ball on my seat. "None of them really mean it. They don't care." The cold I had been accustomed to over the past few months seemed harder than ever, colder than ever. I was alone. I was so alone. I had no one. I lost everyone when I lost my family. I lost the closest thing to a father I had when I lost Emmett, I lost my mom in the truest sense when I lost Rose, I lost a perky, happy sister and a calm level-headed brother when I lost Alice and Jasper. But when I lost Edward, I lost my best friend, my closest ally in this harsh world.
"I do," Peter said gently, leaning down so he was the same height as me. The kindness in his voice was so sincere, I gazed straight into his liquid eyes. "I know how much it hurts to loose what means the most to you… But there is always salvation. I've done so much wrong. I lost my humanity. " He dropped his face into his hands, his shoulders shaking the slightest of bits.
He was so over-raught with distress, I couldn't help but take one of his hands, so much larger than mine. "We're both in the same boat then aren't we?"
He looked at me, confused. "I know what you did after that. I can see it," I sighed sadly, almost tiredly. It was tiring, seeing so much of people. I didn't want to see their most prominent moments of life, but it was what happened to me. Every time I took someone's hand, I could see it all.
"I know what you are too," I continued. It didn't surprise me. If something as against nature as I could exist in secret, why not others?
"And I you, so I guess your knowledge shouldn't surprise me," Peter acknowledged.
After School
"So what's it like?" I questioned quietly, both of my arms extended on either side of me. I placed one foot gently in front of the other, walking lightly along the short wall of the fountain. "Wanting blood all the time, I mean."
Peter walked beside me, gazing down at his feet. "It's… hard. It's always there. It would be like you going for long periods of time with no sleep. You always want it and you want it really badly. Sometimes it hurts you want to feed so badly."
"Do you want to kill me?" I asked almost solemnly. I wasn't frightened, or even angry. It would not be Peter's fault if he wanted to drain my blood. It was part of his nature and he couldn't help it, the same way I couldn't help but invade people's most precious memories, or speak to ghosts.
"Like I said, it's always there, but Charlotte, my wife, and I, we don't do that. We try not to take good people. Only those who deserve it."
"The bad guys," I added, trying to understand.
"Something like that," he smiled mournfully at me, as if willing me to believe that he wasn't a bad person.
"Won't your parents wonder where you are?" he asked suddenly, gazing at the sun, drooping in the sky overhead. "It's nearly time for dinner." He smiled slightly at his small joke.
I grinned a little, my first real sign of emotion since Emmett died. It was a slightly bitter look though. "My parents are divorced. I live with my mom and her husband. He works late and my mom, well she's… scatter-brained. She probably doesn't even realize I'm not home yet."
Peter shook his head, his blonde curls bouncing as he did. "That's not very safe. What if something happened to you?"
I shrugged. "My brother already died, what's one more kid?"
He shook his head again. "Children, anyone, is sacred. She should care more."
"Renee loves me, she just loves her life and doesn't know what to do with me," I lifted my shoulders against the wind. I felt no sadness, not even pain mentioning my mother's free-spiritedness. "She fell apart when my brother was…" I cleared my throat carefully before continuing. "Gone."
"For a while I had my brother. He always took care of me," I forced a pained smile. I wished beyond anything he was still here. I wish he would pick me up from school, swing me around, take me home, and make me dinner and then I could go play with Eddie.
"Who takes care of you?" Peter asked worriedly. His eyes narrowed infinitesimally, his mouth set in a disapproving line.
"I do," I looked up at him, curious. "Who else do I need?"
"What if you were sick or hurt?"
"I would make my food and go back to bed. I have to go now," I sighed, checking my watch. It read 4:30. "I have to finish my homework and I haven't gotten anything for dinner yet."
"Good luck Bella," Peter smiled warmly, though his eyes still seemed troubled.
"Thanks." I stepped lightly off the fountain, giving Peter one last smile before beginning my walk home.
Three Days Later
Peter POV
"Lottie, love," I called barely above a whisper. Charlotte materialized at my shoulder in less than a second, her eyes, black as pitch, gazing at me lovingly. I longed to touch her thick, curly red hair bouncing around her waist, to feel the silky smoothness of it.
Lottie had met Bella the day after I had and she had taken an immediate liking to her, as had I. But Lottie worried for Bella as well. She had such a burden to carry, with her power, her gift and her curse, looming over her, dragging down and stealing away her childhood innocence. Bella was matured well beyond her years, having to hold all of the ghosts haunting people, in their minds and the real ghosts around them. But that wasn't the entirety of it. She was alone in the greater sense of the word. She was surrounded by people but she was alone. She had no one to cradle her, no one to hold her, no one to cook for her, or care for her. She lived alone.
"You're worrying about Bella aren't you?" Lottie inquired gently. Her look was understanding and sympathetic.
I grimaced at her angelic face, nodding.
"I'm sure nothing will happen to her at this hour," Lottie said comfortingly, gesturing to the clock. It was nearly eleven o'clock.
"We should hunt." My fingers brushed, as light as feathers, at the bags gathering under her eyes. "You're right. She should be fine for now." I took her hand, feeling the glossy softness of her skin against my palm.
We ran in silence, enjoying each other's company without words. Charlotte and I were not a couple that expressed our love for each other through noise, rather emotions so strong it was tangible. Just a gentle touch, a whispered word, a loving embrace, it was enough.
Charlotte waved a hand to a man, running down the street. Charlotte had long since been good at reading people, at knowing the good and bad in them. Clearly this one was the latter.
She took him down without making a sound, breaking his neck swiftly. She took her time draining him, in which I had found myself an attempted murderer of his wife and kids.
I felt a savage satisfaction, killing a man who would have killed his wife, whom he should have treasured, and his children, who were more precious than anything else in the world. Being a vampire, not being able to have children, made me appreciate the beauty in childhood, in children, in their innocence, and their blind, naïve love for anything and everything.
I met back with Charlotte as she cleaned her hands, drying them on the dead man's shirt.
We turned, about to head home.
"Get your filthy hand off of me," a voice snapped.
"Bella," Lottie gasped, horrified. In a flash I had taken off, following the sound of her voice.
I could hear Bella quarreling with what must have been just one man. But Bella, little Bella, was no match for a full-grown man.
I had nearly reached the place at which they were, when I heard the whistle of blade and Bella's scream.
Okay I know I haven't updated in a really, really, really long time. I'm not going to go into excuses because I know they don't really matter. I'm trying to update more. I'm making rounds and I'm updating all of my stories for Christmas. I'll try to get another chapter up for New Year. I think once it gets to February I can update a lot more. The Christmas rush and the after Christmas thank-you's and everything else that must be dealt with may carry me away, so February seems accurate.
Thank you all for sticking with me, if you review this chapter, I will give you a preview of the coming chapter.
Love to you all,
Sea
