Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

AN: Not to set your expectations up, but this was my favorite chapter to write so far. Hopefully, it's an exciting read as well.

Last time on Edge of Truth:

Bella gave Edward doubt and played a game where she told him three different stories. Two of them were lies and one was the truth. There was the Lipstick Thief, the member of Caged Bee Cafe (an underground rock group), and something more than human. To get more clues to figure out who Bella is, Edward snuck into her house at night. But Bella confronted him and he eventually revealed that he was a vampire. Bella wanted proof and cut into her skin with a pair of scissors, sending Edward into a frenzy. Alice and Jasper have decided to come home.

Edge of Truth

Chapter 10: Ashes

The door slammed opened and Edward dragged himself inside. "Carlisle!" He cried out, powered only by panic and grief. "Carlisle!"

-I'm here. Edward what happened- "Oh god." Carlisle breathed.

Edward dripped into the living room. Wet hair fell over his forehead, almost obscuring his crimson colored eyes. He was shaking with his hands balled up into fists. "Carlisle." He whispered, pleadingly. His face contorted in agony.

"Edward. What happened?" Carlisle grabbed Edward's shoulders.

"I-I. . ." Edward couldn't form the words.

"Is it Bella?" Carlisle guessed.

Edward fell to his knees drawing in ragged breaths. "Bella." He crooned.

Carlisle straightened up, after taking in the evidence. Everyone looked to him and depended on him. It was his duty to protect his family. "We'll handle this."

"Handle this?" Edward bit back suddenly lucid.

Rosalie rolled her eyes thinking Edward was being too dramatic. "It's really a blessing in disguise, Edward. If you think about it, this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's better that you just got it over with and killed the girl. I mean she was so annoying. I would have killed her myself if-"

Edward roared something horrible and inhuman. He power jumped into the air and tackled Rosalie. She yelped as he twisted her arm and smashed her shoulder down into the floor. She tried to kick Edward off but he dodged her knees. He bared his teeth, so close to just ripping in, somewhere, anyway. It didn't matter as long as she felt pain. However, Emmett's large powerful hands wrenched Edward away and flung him across the room. He landed with a crash next to the fireplace, caving in the wall. Bits of dry wall crumbled to the floor around him.

"What the hell, Edward? That's my girl. You don't fucking hurt her." -You don't know what it's like.-

Edward stood to his feet and stared at Emmett with cold dead eyes. Red eyes. "I don't know? I don't know what it's like? I held her in my hands, Emmett. I know what it's like to see the one you love feel panic, and pain, and to see them. . . to see her. . ." He couldn't finish. He kept seeing it, the way her body fell back onto the bed. The gash in her neck. The blood weakly trickling out. He winced and tried to shake out the offending images. The only sound he possessed was a guttural heart wrenching wail.

Then he felt a familiar loosening of emotions, like a tight cord had been given slack. Jasper.

-I'm so sorry Edward.- A lofty high voice he hadn't heard in a while. It was Alice. She was home. Her light footsteps were on the porch.

Edward heard Jasper's reaction to the emotional climate. Jasper didn't react. He didn't try to manipulate emotions. He only observed. The room varied all over the map. It only grew more complex with their arrival.

They were two figures standing under the front porch light. The door was still left open from when Edward came in.

"Alice. Jasper." Esme cried out in relief. "Oh, this is a bad time for a homecoming."

Quickly, Alice kissed Esme's cheek and then turned to Carlisle. "What's the plan?" They thoughts were all action.

"Rose and I will make sure that her body gets discovered in a-"

"No. Don't touch her!" Edward yelled furiously. "Don't you dare touch her!"

"We must, Edward. We have to cover our tracks." Carlisle said reasonably. "You've been seen hanging out with her. We can't arouse suspicion."

"No one touches her." Edward growled again.

Alice shook her head and rubbed her temple. "Edward," She started.

Edward turned sharply. Daring her. "Don't." He barred his teeth into a harsh grimace. "This is your fault. If you hadn't made me think. . . . If you didn't given me hope."

"I'm sorry, Edward." Alice pleaded. "I don't expect an apology. I don't want one. I know. Hate me forever. You have every right too, but know that I lost a friend too." Alice looked deeply troubled. "I'll go with Carlisle and deal with the body." -May have to burn her, or make it look like animals. . .-

"No. No! Don't touch her. Don't FUCKING touch her." Edward lashed out. Emmett narrowed his eyes.

Carlisle looked at Emmett meaningfully. -. . . restrain him. . .-

Edward crouched down defensively, with his hands shaped into claws. He looked like a crazed man on the edge of destruction.

"Let's go now." Alice insisted.

"No!" Edward lunged towards the door, but Emmett bulldozed him and locked him into a steel clad grip. "No!" He kept screaming and struggling to be set free.

"Emmett, Jasper," Carlisle nodded solemnly. "Keep Edward here. Rosalie stay out of the house for now, don't antagonize him."

Edward kicked and pushed and tried to bite out of Emmett's grasp as Carlisle and Alice ran into the black of night. When they got out of his mind reading radius, Edward stopped. He slumped forward, which was a difficult thing to do being restrained by one of the world's strongest vampires.

Edward felt Jasper try to pour a sense of calm over him. "I don't want to be calm." He spat, but already he could feel the sharp edges of his rage dim and weaken. He started to realize how physically uncomfortable he felt. "Let me go." He hissed.

Jasper nodded at Emmett.

Instead of letting Edward go, Emmett walked towards the staircase.

"Oh, this is ridiculous." Edward rolled his eyes. However, Emmett didn't stop until he was standing inside Edward's room. He released him then, letting his arms unlock and melt away back into regular arms instead of prison bars. Jasper once again used his ability to calm Edward down.

Edward didn't even get a chance to feel annoyed that he was being emotionally manipulated. Jasper's ability had been a lot stronger than what Edward thought he was capable of. Despite himself, Edward was mildly impressed.

-Stay. You're too emotionally unstable. We're keeping you here to protect you.- Jasper thought as he closed the door and leaned against the wall outside. - . . . haven't felt this emotion since Anna's mate was killed. . . She destroyed herself afterwards. Have to keep him from harming himself or the rest of the family.-

But Edward didn't care. He didn't care what his needs were or his family's needs were. He didn't care about anyone's safety. All he could think about was Bella.

Now that his vision wasn't red with anger, he could properly think about what had happened. Her reckless lunge towards the scissors. How as fast as he was, he wasn't fast enough to stop her from spilling her blood. The next part was a blur. Like looking through the eyes of someone else but there was no real connection. He snapped back into reality as if the monster had recoiled back into its cage on its own. He realized what he had done. He had bitten and drank from her. Anguish overwhelmed him and he ran.

Bella's dead.

Bella's dead. I killed her. He repeated this over and over, letting the pain of the words grow like fire until they had no more room to hurt. Then he began to feel numb. He wasn't sure how much time had passed. It could have been seconds or hours. It didn't matter anymore.

He would never see her smirk again. He would never get to see the blush she tried to hide under her hair. He would never know who Bella was.

Just then he felt the object under his jacket. He had forgotten about it - the folder Bella had given him as a trade for the locket.

Carefully, almost reluctantly, Edward pulled it out and flipped the cover open. There was a mix of pages and photos stacked on top of each other. On the first page, small words were scribbled in black pen. Like the note in the locket, it was undeniably Bella's handwriting.

If you're reading this, then I'm probably dead.

Edward's eyes widened. If he wasn't sitting down he would have fallen over.

If you found this notebook on your own, then you will find nothing inside worthy of your time. Bury this or you will be cursed for the rest of your days.

If I gave you this notebook freely, then you need to destroy it immediately. There is nothing that can be done.

If I traded the notebook to you for something of my own, then I need you to follow the map. Don't delay. Hurry, there is still time.

-Bella

A thousand questions flooded Edward's thoughts and just for a moment he forgot his pain. Like always, Bella confused him, even now after he had murdered her. He read the last line three times. There is still time. He wasn't sure what that meant and he tried to squash the little pin prick of light in his darkness. But "hope" was like a flower on a concrete sidewalk, determined to see the sun and survive. He had been burned by hope before, but he didn't learn his lesson.

Edward flipped to the next page.

There was a crude hastily made drawing in pencil. Dozens of square boxes lined up on some invisible grid. A large rectangle on the right hand side. A line was drawn around the perimeter of the whole thing, with large gaps in between certain sections of the line. A heavy handed "x" was pressed upon the square box two rows down and five columns to the right. X marks the spot. Whatever he needed to find was there. But where was there?

There was nothing else on this page to indicate where this could be, what those boxes were, or how to figure it out. But Edward saw some words bleeding through on the other side of the page.

Man's greatest equalizer.

The first two of the middle, the second of the first, the penultimate of love, and the beginning of end.

Another riddle. Edward would have rolled his eyes under different circumstances. Still, he couldn't believe that she was still playing games. If he needed to hurry, why go through the trouble of stalling the process. Why was nothing straightforward?

This was all one big clue to figure out where the map was, so that he could get to the x. If he found x he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. First he had to figure out how to get there at all.

Man's greatest equalizer appears to be X of the riddle that he needs to solve for. If he can figure out the second line, then he'll know what man's greatest equalizer is. And that will point him towards where he can find the row of boxes.

But he was more confused by the second line than anything. He could guess what man's greatest equalizer was. It was death. Right? All men must die.

But that didn't make sense with the second line.

"The first two of the middle." Edward pondered. Could "first two" mean letters? The first two letters of the middle. "Mi?" The second of the "first." Another "i."

Mii.

That wasn't a word or could turn into a word with added letters.

Edward shook his head. This wasn't the right path. He went on. "The penultimate of love." Not the ultimate of love. But next one to it. Edward thought of different kinds of relationships, parents to a child's, a romantic love, a friendship, but what did that have to do with the clues surrounding it. Edward moved on, hoping that maybe with enough foresight he could put the puzzle together. The grammar on the last phrase was different than the first two. "The beginning of end." Not the beginning of "the" end. Just the beginning of end.

"E?" Edward couldn't help going back to the letters thing.

It was firming up in his mind. E had to be the last letter. The riddle spelled a word. Obviously, this wasn't "death." It couldn't be "die" because it didn't have enough letters. There were five letters.

What if the first phrase was about the sentence above? "The first two of the middle." The middle word of "Man's greatest equalizer" was "greatest." The first two of that word- "Gr."

Gr_e.

Edward nodded. This was the right track.

Then that meant that the "second of the first," meant the second letter in "man's." A.

Gra_e.

And the penultimate of love, meant the second to the last letter of love. "V."

Grave.

Man's greatest equalizer.

The grave.

Edward flipped to the map again. The boxes on a grid. This was a graveyard. The boxes were headstones. Bella needed him to go to a graveyard.

Now that he knew what he was looking at, Edward knew of a graveyard this size with a broken down fence with gaps. He had been there only a few nights before. The forgotten graveyard in the woods. It was close.

Edward jumped to his feet and ran out the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Jasper caught his arm.

"I have something I need to do." Edward yanked his arm away. He had forgotten about his house arrest.

"You're not supposed to leave."

"I'm fine." Edward said through his teeth. "Check me out. I'm fine."

He heard Jasper taste his emotions. -Confusion. Passion. Irritation. . .-

"I'm not depressed and I'm not angry." Edward skipped forward impatiently. "Listen, Jasper, I'm in a hurry. I have to go."

"I can't let you leave." Jasper widened his stance. "Doctor's orders." His mind was going over different tactics to tackle and corale him. Hearing the commotion, Emmett jumped up onto the banister and blocked it in case Edward meant to escape that way.

"You don't understand." Edward sighed. "I have to."

"You don't have to do anything." Emmett flexed his chest and arms. "Just go back to your room."

An idea occurred. "Fine." Edward straightened up. "I'll go back into my room. No problem here."

-Did we close the security wall?- Jasper thought, confused by Edward's sudden confidence.

They stared at each other as if about to draw weapons like in an old western. Edward smiled slyly.

Quickly, Jasper pulled out his phone and opened the app to close the security wall.

But Edward was too fast. With the force of a speeding train, Edward crashed into the glass wall of his room and plummeted to the backyard. Shards of thick glass were caught around the collar of his shirt and jacket but they didn't bother him. His feet hit the ground running. In three seconds he was in the forest and out of sight. His brothers would follow him, but he would worry about that later. Bella needed him. This was the only thing he could do now.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Alice and Carlisle arrived at Charlie Swan's house. The front door was still opened from when Edward ran away hastily. The storm door was closed, thank goodness, keeping the rain out of the foyer.

Just one set of heartbeats, coming from the downstairs bedroom. Charlie was still asleep and unaware of the terror that had befallen his household.

"Stay down here, and make sure there's no evidence one this floor." Carlisle whispered at a frequency too low for humans to hear. But Alice was frozen in the living room. When she returned from her vision, she looked up at Carlisle with a mix of awe and confusion. She disobeyed his orders and flitted up the stairs in front of Carlisle. She wanted to see it for herself.

Gently, she cracked the door open to Bella's room. Her vision confirmed. Alice turned back to Carlisle who waited on the steps.

"Bella's gone."

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Edward skirted to a halt at the broken gate of the cemetery. His brothers were 5 minutes behind him. He didn't have a second to lose. Two rows down and five columns across, but at what orientation? Depending on which way he viewed the "top", there could be four different answers. But there was a big rectangle on the right hand side of the map. This was different than the headstones. Edward looked up to see a decrepit mausoleum. A small infrastructure with overgrown weeds intwined around it's columned and broken down roof. If that was the large rectangle, and really, it couldn't be anything else, that means the map is facing west.

Two rows down, 5 columns across.

Edward stopped in front of the headstone that the x marked. Moss covered the stone. Edward wiped it off to reveal the name: Marie Isabella Higginbotham.

Briefly, Edward wondered if this was the woman in the locket. The woman Bella was named after perhaps. A crow cawed up above, and Edward focused once more on the task.

He didn't know what else to do other than dig.

Edward believed in heaven and hell. He believed there are certain things a person can do that bars them from heaven. Being a vampire with blood on your hands was one of those things. If there was an afterlife waiting for Edward, exhuming a grave would be just a drop in the bucket of sins against him.

He felt like Dr. Frankenstein, who dug up bodies, in the wilds of Scotland. This wasn't Scotland, but there was something very "Mary Shelley" about digging up an old grave in the middle of a terrible storm. Lightening and thunder crashed above him. The wind blew so viciously that more of the fence bobbed and began to be ripped out from the ground.

Edward clawed his way six feet into the earth. The dirt he kicked up turned to mud instantly. He peeled away layer after layer of sludge until he scratched wood.

He pulled the coffin out and hefted it up overhead. He broke the rusted hinge off and opened it up. Whoever Marie was, she wasn't in her coffin. Instead there was a robe with something bundled up inside of it. Edward wiped his muddy hands off on the grass before pulling the robe aside. A mask clattered to the side from the hood of the robe. A mask like the ones worn by the Caged Bee Cafe. Not like it, Edward realized. It was a mask from the Caged Bee Cafe.

Edward reached inside the robe and grabbed something cold and hard. He pulled it out to examine a beautiful diamond necklace. The same one worn by the English diplomat in the article about the Lipstick Thief.

Confused, Edward dug deeper and felt a stack of paper. He pulled out a bank counted stack of money. He realized there were more stacks still under the robe. A small metal tube rolled out from the robe's folds. Edward grabbed it and pulled the top off. Used red lipstick.

The cemetery was lit up with lightening for a fraction of a second. Edward could clearly see the items in front of him, in that time. Like a flash of intuition.

Edward sat back onto his heels, feeling overwhelmed. If this meant what Edward thought it meant. . . then Bella was the lipstick thief. . . and the underground rockstar.

Bella said that she would tell him one truth and two lies. Not two truths and one lie. This destroyed the rules of the game she set up.

If those two stories were true. . . then. . . then what about the third story?

Edward then remembered the purpose of the game. Edward played to find out the truth. But that wasn't the game Bella was playing.

I could give you doubt.

That was her game. Bella didn't care about truth or lies. Doubt was what she dealt him.

Edward shook his head. But this wasn't a game anymore.

Don't delay. Hurry, there's still time.

Time for what?

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Billy hung up the phone on the wall, deeply troubled. He picked it up again and dialed Sam. While the phone rang he rubbed his left hand together nervously. It went to voicemail. Billy called Sam again. He couldn't leave a message. He had to tell Sam now. After calling three times, Billy gave up and rolled himself into Jacob's room.

"Jacob." Billy yelled. "Jacob, wake up."

"Hmm." Jacob rolled over and put a pillow over his head.

"Jacob Black! Wake up!" Billy yelled with as much gusto as his lungs could give.

"Five more minutes." Jake murmured drowsily.

"Get up now. It's an emergency."

Jacob blinked away the crusts in his eyes. "Wha? What time is it?"

"It's almost 3 o'clock."

"In the morning?" Jacob yawned, then turned over again and nestled back into the covers.

"No. Get up. You have to get Sam."

"Why?"

"Because I told you." Billy would have liked to walk out his chair and strangle Jacob for his laziness. Couldn't he hear how desperate he was? "You have to get Sam and tell him that Bella is missing."

Jacob sat up then. "Missing?"

"Yes, Charlie just called. Tell Sam that she's missing and that there was blood on the floor."

"Wait, what? Blood?"

Thunder rolled overhead.

"Do it now, boy."

Jacob trudged out of bed, pulled on a jacket, and ran to Sam's house.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Edward reached into the robe once more and felt a picture frame in his hand. He pulled it out. There was ripped off glue on the bottom of it. The picture was another photo of the woman in the locket. The same exact features, only her hair was down. He had been right about the blue eyes that the black and white picture couldn't quite capture. He blinked. Wait.

Charlie had his arms wrapped around her. A younger Charlie. Perhaps 19 or 20. A small mustache just beginning to grow for the first time on his upper lip. In the woman's arms was a baby. Bella.

This was Bella's mother. But the woman in the locket. . . that picture was nearly 100 years old. They were the same person. How? How could that be possible?

Tentatively, Edward flicked the locks of the back of the frame out. He pulled the picture from the frame and flipped it over. On the back of the photo in elegant hand writing:

Bella, one day you will return to the land of your father's.

There is magic in the blood. Do what you must to reveal it.

This will be your test.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

"Go back to your house." Sam ordered Jacob as they both walked outside into the storm.

"But, I want to help." Jacob pleaded.

"You cannot understand." Sam shook his head. "Go home, Jacob."

"If Bells is in trouble, then I want to look for her."

Sam shrugged out of his shirt.

"And why are you always going shirtless now?" Jacob made a face.

"In time you will know, I'm afraid." Sam suppressed a smile. Now was not the time for levity. "I have to do this alone. Bella is in grave danger and I must act quickly. I'm already too late." Lightning hit a tree nearby, setting it ablaze. Thunder roared so loudly, it felt like the ground shook.

"That's not fair, that's not-" Jacob stopped short. His eyes grew larger and his skin blanched. Jacob almost fell over, but Sam gripped him. Sam followed his gaze. He positioned himself to shift at any moment.

A figure emerged from the burning tree. Her feet were bare and muddy. Her arms were stained with dirt and blood. Her T-shirt and shorts were smoking slightly as if they had just been on fire.

"Looks like you've seen a ghost." Bella laughed playfully. "Don't worry. I'm very much alive."

AN:

I KNOW!

Thanks for reading and reviewing guys!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. :) :) :)

xoxo

Rosalie