Alrighty. Though you guys were very helpful in your decision-helping-me-making-ness, we ended up with a tie. Which sucks. Now, I could put it up to another poll and see what happened, with a longer preview, but I decided I owed you guys more than that. So, I'm doing something I swore I would never do-I'm writing the chapter from both Edward and Bella's.
The things I do for you guys.
Two other things I want to say:
Firstly, I simply cannot believe how much I love you guys! I never would've believed that you all would still care after I totally abandoned you for like six months, and yet you're still here!! It gets me all teary eyed thinking about my fans, if I can even call you that. This is why I'm giving you a gift-so to speak. I'm going to be (at least trying to be) updating this story at least every three days during the summer. I'm going to try my hardest and you have my permission to send death threats should I break this promise.
Secondly, (dang, this author's note is long), I have a poll on my profile as to what I should title my newest story, that hasn't been posted yet. I mainly did it because of my sister, but I figured it would be entertaining. So please, after you read this, take thirty seconds and go over there and vote on it!
I know you don't know the plot of it yet (unless you read Revelation), but just go ahead and vote for which title sounds most appealing.
Thank you all so much and I'm sorry this is so long. To my fans who actually sit there and read these infinitely long author's notes-I love you even more!!
This chapter will be Bella's POV; the next will be Edward's.
Last thing-I just want you all to know that all of the towns mentioned and all times it takes to get there or from there is 100 true. I did tons of research and calculating. Just so you know.
Sorry this is so long-read read read!
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Bella's POV
I ate for the first time last night.
Alice brought me the meal that she always managed to find, somehow, on this deserted highway, and I didn't think about it, just…dug in, so to speak.
It was delicious, whatever it was. But that may just have been the fact that I was starved out of my mind and dirt would've probably tasted delicious.
Part of it was that I, for some unknown reason, trusted the Cullens' just a bit more than I had before. Maybe it had something to do with Edward saving me. Maybe it didn't.
We'd been driving for another…six hours or so, so we were probably close to Alaska.
I shook my head thinking about it. Alaska.
I'd only lived in Forks a single day, and the next thing I knew, I was being trucked off to Alaska.
Alaska Alaska Alaska.
No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not keep that word out of my head.
Alaska.
And Charlie. Charlie had absolutely no idea where I was, I was presumed dead to the town of Forks, or at least kidnapped, probably never to be seen again. Of course, I was kidnapped, but that was really beside the point.
We had recently driven straight through a little town called Fort Nelson. Of course there had been no stops, Edward just kind of…blazed through it, barely giving any time to look around, to even see what the town looked like.
It was smaller than Forks though, if that was even possible.
The landscape outside was incredibly…white. Snow covered everything. And I don't think I'd seen a tree since we'd actually left Forks. I found myself missing those trees, oddly. I preferred the trees to the cold, wet stuff. I'd never actually seen snow before, but it definitely wasn't as amazingly majestic as they made it out to be. More like amazingly blinding. It reflected the bright sun so well that you couldn't look out the windows for more than half a second.
And it was cold. I guess the others couldn't feel the temperature or something, because there was practically no heat on in the car, but I was freezing. I had on a thin jacket, that had been preparation for a rainy day in Forks, that didn't hold heat in at all, but I still stuffed my hands inside of it as best I could, trying to keep my fingers from falling off.
Maybe that was an exaggeration, but I was used to heat. And I could actually see my breath inside the car. And I have absolutely no idea why nobody seemed to notice it. Maybe they didn't care.
That seemed rather likely.
Alice, sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly tilted her head up, her eyes alert. She leaned over toward Edward, talking to him in a quiet tone, too fast for me to understand.
He paused for a moment after she stopped talking, then nodded.
Alice leaned back behind the seat then, whispering something to Jasper, who sat on my right side. Then she handed him a small, nondescript black shape.
Then she turned back around, making no other movements.
Well, that was odd.
It was another one of those weird secret exchanges they had on an extremely regular basis. I guess being in the dark shouldn't bother me so much, but it did.
Extremely.
Especially when the plans they were discussing could involve my life or death.
"Bella?"
Jasper was speaking to me, holding out the black object that I now could see was a cell phone.
"We need you to call your father. He needs to know…well, not where you are, but that you're okay. Tell him whatever works."
I took the phone, hesitating.
I had the power in my hand, in that moment, to fix everything. Right then and there, I could dial the police station number and tell them what had happened. My kidnappers would be punished and I would be saved. I easily could.
But something was stopping me.
It wasn't so much the stares from every person in the car except Edward, though that added a bit more pressure.
It was this weird loyalty I felt to them. For an instant, I convinced myself to go along with their plan and tell Charlie some lie that would calm him down, so they could drag me off wherever they were planning to and do whatever they were planning to do with me.
In that instant, I chose to, potentially, ruin my own life.
I opened the phone, staring for a moment at the blank screen. It had no background, only white, with no words on the screen except a battery power notification and a symbol stating that the phone was on silent.
I paused again, then dialed the number for the Forks Police Station with one hand.
I lifted the phone to my ear, trembling.
"Forks Police Station. How may I help you?"
A female voice answered.
"Um…is Chief Swan there?"
I stuttered on the first word.
"Please hold."
The line went silent, buzzing gently. I silently prayed he wouldn't come to the phone.
"Chief Swan here."
"Um…Dad. It's me."
I swear the pause that followed lasted an hour.
"Bella?"
I nodded, then, realizing that he couldn't hear me, managed to squeak out a "yes".
"Bella!" He cycled through probably forty different question starters-when, where, how, what-before he finally decided what to say.
"Where are you?" Are you okay?"
My throat was thick. I swallowed, deliberating in my mind what to say next. This was, quite literally, either the end or the beginning of the rest of my life. And I had no idea which choice would mean which.
I closed my eyes, then spoke, keeping them closed. I had no idea why I was doing this.
"I'm fine, Dad. I…Mom came and got me before Biology. She said…"
What was I doing?
"She said she hadn't had enough time to say goodbye to me. I'm with her. In Jacksonville."
Precisely the opposite of what was going on. I was smack in the middle of the Yukon Territory with a coven of vampires.
Why was I trying to protect them?
"You're with...Renee?" He seemed to be having an issue grasping my lie. Which I could hardly blame him for.
"Yes."
I heard him sigh, not so much a sigh of relief as much as a sigh of anger and frustration.
"Bella, do you know that we're all going crazy up here? You've been missing for over a week! Why did you just now think to call me? Let me talk to Renee."
Too many questions at once.
"Yes. I'm sorry. Look, Dad, I need to go. I'll call you later."
I snapped the phone shut against my one and only chance to be free.
-
It took me awhile to realize that I was crying.
The cold wetness that was running down my face, to me, felt like the snow that was falling had simply gotten into the car somehow, not that it was coming from my own eyes.
I was hunched over, in a position I had found myself in a lot recently, one hand cupped over my mouth, an arrangement that I didn't remember placing myself into.
More deliberations were going on between the vampire family, but I didn't seem to care this time.
Edward swung the car around, not as violently as he usually did, in an illegal u-turn on the highway, traveling in the opposite direction that we had been going before.
I should have been confused, should've cared where we were going, but I didn't.
And, of course, the one time I didn't care, they felt the need to inform me of what was going on.
"We're going to stop back at Fort Nelson, take a rest. We'll be back on the road by morning tomorrow."
I didn't look up to see who was speaking.
It took us only about fifteen minutes to get back to the small town. The sign that marked our entrance showed a black bear with a large sentence underneath-
"Fort Nelson. Home to many kinds of Canadian wildlife."
It went on to list over forty different species of animals that apparently resided right in the town.
Well that would explain a lot about their choice to stop for awhile.
There was a small inn on the opposite side of the town, this one we stayed in. Alice was the one who rented the room, insisting on the largest suite, with six double beds.
Like they would need any of them.
The suite was on the top floor, the third, which seemed to be a pretty short top floor to me, and was extremely spacious. It had a huge kitchen, one so big it couldn't possibly be called a kitchenette, and the six double beds that Alice had payed so richly for.
I immediately sunk down onto one of the beds, facedown, the floral pattern engulfing me. I didn't care that they were staring-I was simply exhausted. I could hear quiet sounds of the four talking before I drifted off.
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Whew. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I pretty much forced it out. But, there's a chapter.
Two things you need to remember to do-
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And
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I appreciate it so much! The next chapter might be out sometime today, if we're lucky!
Thank you all so much for your support!
