One quick note before we start this chapter.... Keep in mind that Edward is... well, he's a stubborn ass. Although a big part of him knows that his family would not lie to him, the melodramatic, brooding side of him wants to be left alone if he can't have Bella. And being the stubborn ass that he is, he is not going to listen to reason or logic. He will make a brief appearance in this chapter, but it's not the end. Unfortunately, as Emmett will say, he needs to be smacked over the head a few times. But don't worry! We're getting much closer to the resolution!

Sadly, I still don't own anything :(

Haunted Memories

Chapter 9

I rested my head against the wall behind the couch as I pretended to wait patiently for Alice's verdict. Jasper kept eyeing me suspiciously and I knew it was fairly useless to try to disguise my myriad of emotions, but I tried to look calm anyway. I'm sure my fidgeting alerted the rest of my family to my anxiousness.

Alice was concentrating, two fingers pressed against her temples with her eyes closed, attempting to locate Edward. She had tried to locate him shortly after Christmas, but he'd been running with no destination. It was now February and we were ready to try again.

With every furrow of her eyebrow or twitch of her lips, I'd get excited or nervous, depending on how deep her furrow or whether the corners of her lips turned up or down. Emmett and Rose were out hunting, but Carlisle and Esme were here with us, and I could see at least Esme seemed as anxious as I felt. They were sitting on the other couch next to each other and he had his arm around her shoulders while she rested her head on his chest. Every movement Alice made had her lifting her head expectantly. Carlisle was reading a book, although I could see his eyes dart to Alice every few minutes.

I closed my eyes and really tried to calm down. I didn't want to get my hopes up every time a ghost of a smile flitted across Alice's lips, but it was useless to try not to. Instead, I decided to not look at her. Think of something else.

After what felt like an eternity - it was probably only a few seconds - I heard Alice's finger tap the map she was looking at. Her breath was coming excitedly. This was it... she found him.

I leapt off the couch and was at her side in less than a fraction of a second.

"Chile?" I asked. Somehow I just couldn't picture Edward in Chile with all the sunshine.

Alice nodded and kissed Jasper.

When Rosalie and Emmett came back, we met in the living room of the cottage to discuss our next plan of attack.

Edward was headed to Tortel, a little town in the southern region of Chile. According to Alice's vision, Edward had decided he was going to stay for a while. That could, of course, change at any moment, but I didn't care. I'm sure no one else cared either.

Alice and I were going together this time in hopes that, if he ran, she would be able to catch a glimpse of any destination he had in mind. It may have been useless, but it was all we had at the moment. He was going to arrive in Tortel within the next seven hours and we would get there shortly after. We were just going on foot, not bothering with the airlines or cars. It would be much faster running anyway.

Alice and I arrived in Chile an hour after the sun set. I was excited, but I was also trying not to get my hopes up.

"Do you think we will get him this time?" I asked, looking at her expectantly.

She sighed and looked at me as we walked down the dark road toward Tortel. "You know I don't know that. If he doesn't hear us coming, probably. I just don't know, Bella," she said sadly.

"I know. I miss him," I said, looking down.

"We all do, sweetie," she put her hand in mine and we began running.

We stopped about ten miles outside of Tortel to hopefully prevent Edward from hearing Alice's thoughts. She figured this would have a better chance of working.

"If this doesn't work, then next time everyone has to come so we can surround him," I said.

Alice laughed. "That wouldn't work. Well, it might work if you were the one he saw. Otherwise, he's just too fast for the rest of us. And, in some ways, more stubborn and obstinate than even Rosalie. He'd find a way around us even if we got the Denali clan involved."

I thought about that; getting the Denali clan involved might help. They could help surround him in an even tighter circle and...

"Bella, no. They're our friends and all, but they would not help track Edward if they know he doesn't want to be found. They respect us, and Edward, enough to leave him to his privacy," Alice said.

I sighed and pulled the little cell phone out of my pocket.

"He's hunting now and will probably begin heading this way shortly. I'm going to move back a few miles so he doesn't hear me. Just keep going straight, you should be fine," she said as she hugged me quickly and took off.

I took a deep, calming breath and began moving in the direction Alice had showed me. I was nervous. What if he saw me and told me to leave him alone? What if he didn't want me? The rational side of me scoffed and told me that was just a crazy fear.

I used my senses to guide me, listening intently for footsteps or some other noise that would signal a body moving through the trees. I swept my gaze all around me, searching with intense scrutiny for his familiar bronze hair or something that would signify he was near. I smelled the air around me, hoping to find some small trace of his scent. I moved slowly – for a vampire – hoping the speed would help me to not miss something.

And then I saw him.

Well, I saw the streak of him as he moved quickly through the town. He was at least three miles away, but these eyes did not lie to me anymore. The copper hair and pale skin that was just as luminescent and perfect as the rest of his family gave him away and if my heart still beat, it would be pounding out of my chest right now. I moved a little faster in his direction, hoping that he would see me and stop running.

I kept my senses peaked and heard the whisper of his feet on the ground as he ran in the opposite direction of me, chasing the thud of a guanaco's hooves against the ground. I sped up, moving as fast as I could toward him.

He must have heard me approaching, because he turned around with a sneer on his face and instantly stopped in his tracks. I stopped running as well, afraid that his instincts would cause him to attack me for interrupting his hunt. We were still four hundred yards apart and the hope in my chest swelled to an almost incapacitating need to touch him. I gazed at him, knowing that he had seen me and I could have him back now. When my eyes met his, I almost dropped to my knees.

The disbelieving and angry look on his face told me that he either didn't know who I was or didn't believe it was me. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, a loud growl came from him and he bolted in the opposite direction, running away from me.

I stared in the direction he went for a long moment, not sure if I wanted to believe that it actually happened.

I heard and smelled Alice approaching and I sunk to the ground.

"Bella!" she cried.

I didn't bother to look up. The devastation and humiliation coursing through me was ripping me apart. My worst fear had just been realized and I pulled my knees up, hugging them to my chest.

"What happened?" she asked.

I couldn't speak. Instead, I nodded my head in the direction that he left.

"Well, I know he ran off. I saw that, but why? Didn't he see you?" she asked.

He had stared at me for a whole two seconds before running. I just nodded my head as a single sob escaped.

Alice gazed in the direction that he had gone for a few moments before turning back to me. I sorely wished that Jasper had come with us this time so he could tell me what Edward was feeling.

"Come on, Bella. Let's get home. There's no destination in his future right now. We'll look again in a few months."

I stood up and despondently followed her back to our home in Pennsylvania.

When we got back, we called everyone into the meeting. Alice had already called to let them know what happened and I think Jasper must have felt me coming from a few miles away. He didn't try to stay away from me, but I could see the slight grimace on his face and I tried hard to push at least a little of the despair aside for him. As usual, it didn't work.

Emmett tried to cheer me up with his crazy antics, but even he couldn't make me smile. I was doomed.

I rolled my eyes at myself and sat down on the couch, expecting everyone to decide that we would go about our usual lifestyle for a few months before checking into Edward again.

"You're sure he saw you, Bella?" Carlisle asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," I said, nodding my head.

"I really don't think that he would have run off if he believed it was her. There must have been something going on; maybe he thought he was hallucinating, I don't know," Jasper said, rubbing the back of his neck. Alice nodded in agreement.

"I don't think he thought it was her," she said.

"But he saw me. Who else would I be?" I asked.

No one had any answers for that one. We were silent for a moment before Emmett spoke up.

"I think, maybe, we should give him a bit more space this time," he said. "Edward has always been… pigheaded and stubborn. I doubt he'd give in. He probably needs to be smacked over the head multiple times before it gets through."

"How much time are you thinking, Emmett," Carlisle asked.

I was suddenly afraid. Alice came and sat next to me, putting her hand on my shoulder. I'm not sure if it was a way to comfort me or if she saw me overreacting to their suggestion.

Emmett shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure. A few years, maybe?"

Alice's hand restrained me from jumping out of my seat.

"A few years?!" I demanded angrily. "How many years? I know I'm not the only one in this family who misses him and wants him back!"

"Of course you're not, Bella," Alice said softly, probably trying to soothe me. Jasper's calm came over me and I tried to retain any semblance of the anger so I could keep ranting. Jasper's face was apologetic and serious at the same time. He probably didn't want me attacking Alice. There was no fighting his calm and I found myself listening objectively to the rest of the conversation, unwilling to comment if I couldn't do it irately.

"I think Emmett's got something here," Jasper said, beginning to pace the room. "Edward will probably get fed up at some point if we continue this and do something stupid. We want to avoid that. If we give him a few years to calm down, he will be more likely to stop running and listen to one of us."

"I agree," Rosalie piped in.

"I do, too. So who here is in agreement to give him a few years?" Carlisle asked.

Everyone but me agreed. Thank god Jasper didn't make me like that idea. Because I probably would have had to hurt him later, and I didn't want to do that.

"Okay," Carlisle began, "We have decided to give Edward a few years' space before we begin looking for him again. In the meantime, we should go somewhere where we can start over. Once you go through another round of high school, we can look again. Does everyone like that plan?"

No!

Everyone nodded their heads, mumbling their acceptance. Jasper's calm hadn't lifted one inch, but I could still think about my rebellion.

"I want to go back to Alaska," Rosalie said. "It was better there – less hiding."

Alice, Jasper and Esme agreed.

"I would prefer it not be with Tanya's clan, though," Emmett said. Rosalie gave him a dark look. "What? I know you don't like the way the girls there look at me and I'd rather just avoid that whole catfight before it begins."

"Okay, so we want Alaska but no Tanya. I propose we go back to Barrow," Carlisle suggested.

"I liked it there," Rosalie said. "We haven't been there since I had Emmett, and I think he'd really like it." She looked at him with affection.

Everyone else agreed. Barrow it is.

"We'll leave tomorrow and get everything set up," Carlisle said.

The meeting was finally over and Jasper's calm was taken away. My own anger and confusion hit me hard and I stood up. Without a word to anyone, I walked out of the house.

I kept to the trees, of course, wishing I had something that I could take my anger out on. The only thing I saw was trees. Suddenly it felt like a great target. I pulled my fist back and hit the tree in front of me. I'm not entirely sure what I had expected, but I was rather surprised when it began to split where I hit it and broke, toppling over and crashing into the other trees.

As it went down, I began to panic. My eyes widened and I put my hands over my mouth. I had not intended to bring it down; I just needed something to vent a bit. I really hoped nothing important was in the way of the tree. I began walking the line that the tree fell, searching for any bodies or crushed houses.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the top of the tree with no sign of property or bodily damage. I was kind of disappointed because my panic over the tree thing washed away my anger and I was just left with despair. I sat on the tree and rested my arms on my knees, wishing I could cry again. I didn't realize that it was such a release. I sobbed tearlessly, putting my face in my hands and wishing I could take it all back. Everything. I wished I would have stayed with my mother and Phil and never met Edward or any of the Cullens.

"You don't really wish that, do you?" I heard Jasper say.

I hadn't realized I'd said it out loud.

"I'm sorry, by the way," he said quietly as he took a seat next to me.

It took me a moment to realize that he was talking about forcing my serenity during the meeting. I shrugged my shoulders. His hand patted my back a few times before he drew back and stood up again.

"Do you really wish you hadn't met any of us?" he asked again.

"No, Jasper," I said weakly. "I don't wish that. I just wish that this," I gestured around me, "didn't have to happen." I looked around. "Didn't anyone come with you?"

"No, we decided I would talk to you to try to calm you down naturally. Do you regret your decision to change?" he asked curiously.

"I don't regret it. It's just… when I saw him in Chile I was so sure that this was over. I don't even know what I was expecting, but I know it wasn't that he would run off," I stood up and began pacing in front of Jasper, who just stood there watching me. "Maybe that he would see me and stop. He was supposed to stop running and talk to me or something. Not run."

Jasper didn't try to stop me as I continued my rant.

"What does it mean that he did run? Does it mean he doesn't want me anymore?" I looked at Jasper pleadingly, begging him to have an answer.

Jasper lifted his shoulders. "I don't know, Bella. I like to think that Alice is right and he didn't think that you were really you."

"That's ridiculous!" I scoffed as I threw my hands in the air. "How could he not know who I was?"

Jasper sighed and went to the newly fallen tree again and grabbed my shoulders, making me sit down beside him.

"Bella, how long has it been since he last saw you?" he asked.

"Are you going to try to tell me that he doesn't remember what I look like?" I asked dully.

He laughed out loud and shook his head. "Of course not. You know as well as everyone else that the vampire brain doesn't forget things. I still remember things that happened in the late 1800's. Everything. There's no doubt in my mind that he remembers what you looked like… as a human."

"I don't look that different, do I?" I asked.

"Well, no, but you're missing my point. Edward does not know that you are a vampire. He probably thinks that after his little charade he pulled on you, that you would put as much distance as possible between yourself and the vampires. I would bet he'd have the vampire equivalent of a heart attack if he knew what you've done."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Didn't you ever talk to him about getting yourself changed?"

"I think, maybe, once. But he blew it off and neither one of us brought it up again."

"Okay, so you didn't know how badly Edward would have disagreed with the option to change you," he mused as he looked around the forest.

"He didn't want me to be changed? You mean, before the day he left?" I clarified.

"He was adamantly against it. Emmett, Alice and I pushed him to change you, but he refused wholeheartedly. He said over and over again how you would remain human, if it killed him."

I thought about what Jasper said.

"So Edward really doesn't want me…" I whispered.

"Oh, Bella. Don't be like that. I'm certain that he wants you and loves you just as much as ever. Did he ever explain to you his beliefs about vampires? That he believes we have no souls?" he asked.

I wasn't sure what he was getting at, but I nodded my head. I remembered we had discussed it a few times and I had been sure I made some headway in changing those beliefs of his.

"Imagine that your positions were different; you are the vampire and he is the human. Would you risk his soul to have him forever?" he asked.

Would I? I asked myself. Jasper gave me a moment to mull it over. I would risk my own soul without question or hesitation, but Edward's? I couldn't make that decision; either way seemed like the wrong way to go.

"Exactly," Jasper said. "He wouldn't make the decision because either way he chose felt like the wrong one. Either way, he was hurting you. In the end, I think he decided it was far too selfish of him to subject you to eternal damnation for his own happiness."

I nodded. Would I have made the same choice? Now that I was a vampire, I had a bit more perspective on my beliefs about a soul. I was fairly sure that I still had mine, but how could anyone really know for sure? I felt remorse, love, anger, despair… surely I had one.

"Back to the topic at hand, I really don't think Edward believes that you would change yourself to be with him after what he did to you. In that respect, I can understand why he wouldn't believe what he saw," he said, looking at me.

I sighed, not wanting to admit that Jasper really had a point there. Maybe it was like beating a dog; after so many times, the dog is going to cower or attack. You don't expect the dog to hand you a bat and ask you to take a swing. I cringed at the thought.

I looked up at Jasper, who was just waiting patiently for me to come to this realization. He smiled at me and I gave a resigned smile back. We both stood up in silence and made our way back to the cottage.

Please don't hate me? I promise that you do not have to wait another few years of Bella's life before they find him. The next chapter will have some resolution and we will find out how Bella and the family is going to finally catch him!