AN: I don't own twilight!
Bella woke cocooned in warmth, her body light and languid as she rolled over onto her back. The sun poured through her bedroom window, lighting up her room and tracing beautiful splashes of yellow along her bare skin… her bare skin? Come to think of it, Bella thought, looking around the room: this isn't my room, and that isn't my window.
Sitting up abruptly, Bella grasped the thin cover to her bare chest and looked down at the sprawled blonde beside her, who was just beginning to wake up from Bella's jolting movements and was deliciously, sinfully naked. Bella bit her lip, watching with a mix of excited anticipation and dread as Kate became fully conscious and took in her surroundings.
The beautiful blonde rolled onto her back, the covers pulling with her and clinging to her bare breasts just enough to cover her modesty. "Morning Bella," she whispered, her throat thick from sleep and her lashes sweeping softly against her cheeks.
Bella's heart kicked a beat and her stomach burned with renewed desire. This woman, and Kate was a woman, was stunning. Blonde hair warmed from the sun spilling over pale shoulders and full lips puffy and pink from the previous night's kissing and… indulgences. Bella couldn't believe that such a gorgeous woman would ever look at her twice, let alone sleep with her.
She had called Bella beautiful, Bella remembered as she softly touched her lower lip, while Kate's sleepy eyes fluttered with indecision as to stay awake or go back to sleep. Kate had touched, caressed and loved Bella's plain, pale body and gazed into her muddy brown eyes with tenderness and desire. She had stroked her thin limbs and kissed her flat chest.
Kate, the blonde goddess had worshipped Bella, the average girl with a damaged heart and a bitter past. Kate had brought her to life last night with full lips and long fingers, with tender touches and heated words, with gasped pleas and broken cries of pleasure. She brought Bella to life, and she killed her with the look of horror that swept over her face two seconds after.
"Bella!" Kate screeched suddenly, now fully awake and mouth open with disbelief, and realization.
She regretted it, Bella knew it, could see it and felt her heart twist painfully. Of course she regretted it, Bella thought bitterly. Kate was other worldly stunning, too beautiful to be held in Bella's inexperienced and clumsy grasp, bound by Bella's plain looks and plain performance in bed. Kate could have any woman, any woman that was as equally stunning.
"Was it that bad?" Bella whispered hoarsely, fighting tears of humiliation and feeling her cheeks burn with a thousand suns worth of heat.
"No, Bella!" Kate gasped, sitting up and holding the covers to her chest in a mirror image of Bella. "It's not that, not at all!" She promised, holding the covers with one hand and reaching out the other to grab Bella's.
Bella pulled away because she was humiliated and insecure. She didn't want Kate's pity, but she regretted the look of hurt that swept along Kate's pretty face at the blatant rejection. "You were… amazing," Kate whispered fiercely, as if it was one of the most important admissions on the earth.
"Then why-?" Bella whispered back, still feeling embarrassed and unsure if she should believe Kate.
"We could get into so much trouble, Bella…"
"I wasn't going to tell anyone," Bella muttered, now desperate to get out of the bed and dressed while wishing she could rewind time and go back to the first glorious moment she had woken in warmth and happiness believing that a beautiful girl could want her.
Bella breathed harshly when Kate didn't reply and prepared to exit the bed, dreading the tension and silences that were to come between her and Kate. That was until the door knocked and then swung open not a millisecond later with no approval from Kate. Bella gasped and flung herself under the cover, curling into a tight ball around Kate's body.
The moment her head was lay on Kate's chest, Bella heard Irina's chirpy voice saying, "Kate! Guess what?"
Kate grasped a load of pillows and piled them over Bella's body and then leaned back on them as if she was getting comfy as to obscure Bella's lump as she scolded Irina. "I've told you not to come in like that!"
There was silence and Bella imagined that Irina was rolling her eyes. "Yeah, when you have a woman over, but I know no one was here last night, so it's fine."
If only you knew, Bella thought, trying to calm her breathing beneath the heat of the covers, pillows and Kate's body.
Kate answered with a mumbled, "whatever," and then spoke louder as she asked, "so what did you burst in here for?"
"I'm expanding!"
"The club?"
"Yeah! It's great, isn't it?"
"Yeah, congratulations. Where are you expanding to?"
"London."
"What!?"
Bella rolled her eyes beneath the covers. She felt the mattress move and then Irina's bum by her foot. Kate angled her body as if getting comfy, proceeding to tuck in Bella's foot and elbow her in the side of the head at the same time. Bella suppressed the 'oomph' of pain and tried to breathe through the oppressing heat swaddling her. Hurry up, she thought.
"That's mental, Irina! Are you going to move out and leave us?"
Bella got the impression from the slightly hurt note in Kate's voice that it would be the first time Irina had left the 'nest' or the first time that any of the Denali girls had.
"No," Irina scoffed. "But I'll go and check out the club once or twice a month. I am thinking about moving out soon though. I mean, we live in a big house Kate, but I just want my own space where mom doesn't complain about the amount of guys I bring home every night."
The conversed for a few minutes after that, debating the pros and cons of Irina moving out and where to move to, about any of them moving out and what their parents would do with the large space. Bella couldn't believe that Kate was letting the conversation go on for so long. She was suffocated under here!
Finally, after an eternity, Irina left and closed the door behind her upon Kate's request. Bella popped up immediately and gasped dramatically for breath.
"Christ, you okay?" Kate giggled.
"Two more minutes and I wouldn't be," Bella replied, only half joking.
They lapsed back into awkward silence after that where they silently agreed to shower and dress. It was semi awkward but otherwise Bella enjoyed the process of showering while Kate hunted for her work clothes and then brushing her teeth as Kate showered to then dressing as Kate sang in the shower. She did her hair while Kate dressed and brushed her teeth.
After that Bella made Kate's bed and put her dirty clothes in Kate's hamper while Kate put her hair in a professional and simple bun, slinging on her sheriff jacket as Bella put on her shoes and leather jacket she had retrieved from her room along with her clothes and toothbrush after her shower.
It was a small thrill to see her dirty clothes in Kate's hamper, her brush on Kate's dressing table, her tooth brush on Kate's sink and smell her shampoo in Kate's private bathroom. To then make the bed they had shared together and get ready around each other's small schedule. Bella enjoyed it. It was comforting, routine and peaceful. She wanted to do it again.
Around thirty minutes late they were both walking out the door and stopped on the front step before parting ways. Kate looked fresh and professional in her uniform: tight shirt, work trousers that molded to her curves and shiny hair in a simple bun. Bella looked like a typical teenage: jeans, converse and leather jacket.
They didn't make a match, or even look good together. Kate carried the whole thing with her womanly appearance, her professional outlook and her gorgeous facial features. How could they ever be in a relationship? Bella thought and then thought: is Kate asking herself the same question? Or am I reading too much into last night? Was it just sex?
Kate broke the silence by asking: "Where are you off to?"
"Friends..."
Kate nodded. "Well, I have a case east of town. So it should be a busy day."
Bella nodded back, feeling young and awkward. "I'll see you when you get home then."
Kate nodded, chewed on her full bottom lip and then whispered, "come to my room again tonight."
Bella's heart kicked against her rib in excitement but she only managed a small, "okay."
Bella watched Kate smile her goodbye and turn with her thermal flask in hand and bag slung over her shoulder towards her car. She climbed in, started the engine, gave Bella one last smile out of the window and pulled out and away from the house, down the dirt road that would lead her into town, and to work.
Bella sight softly and began to make her way to the forest. As she did, she thought about the training she would be enduring today and talking to Cali about Lisa. Thinking about Lisa then reminded her that her sister had told everyone she would be around for breakfast this morning. Although Bella wasn't complaining, she wondered why Lisa hadn't showed.
However, speak of the devil, and she shall appear. "Hi, Bells!"
Bella scowled at the upbeat and chipper greeting. It was exactly like the one she would hear at lunch when they met up after their lessons in school. It was a greeting and voice from another world, another lifetime. Bella hated hearing it and felt a punch in the gut at all she had lost in that one greeting. The sister she loved, the lies she lived.
"What do you want?" Bella growled, trying not to have a breakdown.
Lisa giggled. "Well that's no way to greet your baby sis, is it?"
"You're older than me."
Lisa rolled her eyes, keeping up pace with Bella's long strides. "I wanted to see if you'd accompany me somewhere," Lisa continued.
Bella shook her head, not wanting to waste breath on the shadow of her sister. "Aw, why not?" Lisa pouted. "It's going to be so fun! Pretty please?"
"Not a chance."
"Come onnnnn," she whined.
"Lisa, fuck off!" Bella shouted, finally coming to a stop.
Lisa's face twisted from the Lisa Bella had known to the Lisa Bella now knew as she dropped her false face and tone of voice. "Bella," she growled low and dangerous. A warning. A threat. With just her name.
Bella growled back, undeterred, neither scared nor threatened. "What do you want from me?" She spat. "You want me to cower? You want me to cry?"
Lisa narrowed her eyes, her pretty green eyes that stared up blankly at Bella with a bullet embedded between them. The image made Bella's heart shatter and then she felt the fragments gather in her chest and whirl inside the tsunami of hurt and rage inside her until they gathered into a hard ball and violently exited her chest in a whirlwind of honesty and anger.
"What do you want from me! You turn up here, and you turn my life upside down. You admit that you killed everyone I loved! Everyone! Why? Why? Why?" Bella chanted like a broken toy, like the broken soul she was. "So you could have me to yourself!?"
Lisa opened her mouth and Bella growled her warning: she wasn't finished. "I watched you die. I buried you. I grieved. I agonized. I tore myself into a thousand pieces and I cried. I cried so god damn much. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I didn't move. I slept with my eyes open and if they slid shut I saw nothing but your dead body, your eyes looking into mine with betrayal. I saw the bullet in your brain, the one that you couldn't survive. The bullet that killed the Lisa I knew and loved. The one that loved me and was beautiful and honest and young. The one that was scared by her fighting parents and hugged me and loved me. And I saw the murderer you had become. The killer of innocents. The monster. I grieved and I agonized and then guess what? You were there again, trying to ruin my life. So try your god damn best!" Bella screamed the 'god damn best part,' continuing the screeching volume with, "you can't hurt me anymore!" and then surprised herself as silence fell, as the ball inside fell quiet, as Lisa's wide green eyes, brimming with tears -fake or real? - Narrowed once more. The world hushed and Bella's voice hushed as she whispered, "I don't love you anymore. You walk, and talk. But you're dead to me."
For just a millisecond, a tiny, breath stopping moment, Bella thought that she had broken something inside Lisa. Had conquered something, had broken open something that was damaged, broken it so that she could see inside and fix the problem. Just a millisecond that lasted for a thousand years. Lisa was there. She was right there. She was coming back.
Then she was gone. The slim gap, the micro space of opportunity vanished and Bella was left staring at the closed door, at the blocks of concrete surrounding that tiny space she'd had the briefest look into. Lisa hardened all over, perhaps more so than she had before, as if she had to compensate for that microsecond of weakness.
Bella let out a deep breath full of sadness and disappointment. Lisa crossed her arms, now bored of the conversation, of Bella's outburst. "I don't care how you dealt with your guilt for letting your slapper of a girlfriend kill me."
Bella stayed as calm as she could and told herself the same thing she had told Lisa, "you're dead to me."
Lisa turned and left without comment when Bella didn't reply to her insult. For a moment Bella debated following her. She could hurt someone in rage, or go to the police with the bullet. But then Bella thought better of it. Lisa was playing with her and Kate. She had something planned and whatever it was, she needed Kate and Bella willing to play her games.
Instead Bella took off for the village. It was a little harder to travel today due to heavy wind and rain but the village had a languid feel to it when she entered, as if it were a peaceful sunny day. Some people even seemed to be lying in the rain as if they were sun bathing. Bella thought it was strange but didn't comment as she searched for Cali.
She found her speaking to an armed man who looked equal mixtures alert and anxious. They were speaking in a language Bella couldn't name. As she approached them, the man left looking stressed on top of his other two emotions. Bella smiled at Cali as the older woman noticed her.
Cali smiled back, although she looked stressed from the conversation too. "Bella. It's nice of you to drop by. Are you here for some more training?"
Bella nodded her head. "I have a few questions too."
Cali nodded rather solemnly and led Bella without comment to the hut that seemed to be hers. Once inside, Bella was surprised at how warm and dry it was inside, considering it was attached into a cave that Bella expected to be damp and cool. It did wonders for her skin as she was soaked through.
Cali led her to the dining room table where they had spoken before and where Cali seemed to speak with anyone in the hut. "What are your questions, Bella?" She asked when they were seated.
Bella flushed, hating the fact that she was under Cali's intense stare. "I have a sister… Lisa. It's a long story, but she's the one who bit me. I need help, with her."
Cali nodded thoughtfully, looking nether surprised or outraged at the information previously kept from her. "You want us to help, is that it? Because we'd be happy too, Bella, if she is a threat."
Bella took a deep breath and nodded, answering softly, "she is, Cali. She's… bad. So bad. She's a part of the other pack, the one that you've been fighting. I have seen the things she's done, and she was gleeful when she confessed killing and eating…" Bella whispered, her voice cracking with the sheer horror of it all.
Cali didn't need her to clarify on what Lisa had been eating. Her mouth became pinched and her eyes tight as she nodded once more, keeping her intense stare on Bella to continue. "The thing is… she was trying to hurt me again, and my… um… friend… shot her with a silver bullet, in the head. We thought she was dead. We buried her. Kept it a secret. But then she was just there again! And now she's trying to ruin our lives and she's hurting good people. She needs to be stopped!" Bella shouted, now impassioned and breathing heavy.
She cleared her throat in embarrassment and settled back into her chair, looking to Cali with confusion and pleading. "I know why she didn't die," Cali answered simply.
Bella waited for her to elaborate, which she didn't, so she finally asked, "how?"
Cali instead answered with a question: "was it the first time your friend had seen Lisa?"
Bella nodded, slightly impatient. What did this have to do with anything? Finally, Cali elaborated. She spoke with the tone and air of someone ancient and wise, filled to the brim with wisdom passed down through the years as if imparting a great and beautiful secret about superior beings to the less superior.
"The only way for a werewolf, not to be confused with a shapeshifter Bella, but a werewolf, to die, is through a bond. It can be done by a mate, or an enemy. Love or hate. We are creatures bound by the moon, Bella. The moon is soft, light and cool. Like love. A deep pond of infinite love and caring. The sun is like hate. Hot, fiery and can kill when too close. We are bound by the moon, but the sun is our savior too. We are free if we can master the sun, and from there the moon. Our downfall is these ties we carry in our genes. Love, and hate."
Bella gaped in astonishment. This was real life, but Bella still thought of werewolves in the terms of myths and legends. Of stories and folklore. She thought of silver bullets and knifes, of full moons and hideous transformations. She would never have thought of love and hate. Of the connection to the sun and the moon. It was tragically beautiful.
Cali continued, "for your sister to die, it has to be through that bond. Our pack does not hate Lisa. We hate what her pack represents and that is why we can kill wolves of that pack, and they can kill wolves of ours. But sometimes the bond is not strong enough. We fight for power, and freedom, not hate. Some come back to life, because the intent wasn't there. That is why the pack war is long, and ongoing. Because deep down, we do not feel it as intently as is needed."
Bella raised her eyebrows in surprise. Another thing she hadn't thought of, or realized. It made perfect sense. Why the pack war never stopped. Why it was ongoing, and there seemed to be no point. No end. No winner. But that meant if hate couldn't kill Lisa, then it was down to Bella. But what did she really feel for Lisa? Love or hate? Was it strong enough to kill her?
Cali seemed to realize what she was thinking and whispered, "you love and hate her, Bella. I see it in your eyes. You question yourself, because you hate who she is but love who you thought she was."
"How did you know? I haven't even told you everyth-"
"It does not matter," Cali interrupted. "I felt it in your will to remove her. She's a threat. To you, to society. Dangerous, and untamed. You love her enough to save her. To forgive her sins. To put her to rest."
Bella's head was thumping in time with her heart. It was down to her. What a cosmic joke. What irony. What karma. Lisa had taken everything. Had snatched it up in her evil grasp and ground it to dusk, laughing at Bella's ignorance, pretending to wipe Bella's tears, to love her and provide safety when she was the danger. Now Bella would kill her. For her sins; for Bella's family.
The hut door burst open and the pounding of feet ricocheted across the cave walls. Two boys burst into the dining room, shouting, "red eyes in the forest, ma'am!"
Cali looked at the boys, nodded, ordered them to stay put and then ordered Bella to follow her. Bella did as she was told and followed Bella through the hut door and into the village. Everyone was on high alert and there was a swarm of activity. The rain was getting worse, which didn't seem to help anyone's panic.
Bella stood silently beside Cali, waiting for some sort of order as she watched little rivers of mud begin to form from the rain. Cali addressed everyone after silently assessing their panic. "Everyone on the lookout! Children are priority, keep them safe! We will deal with this. I want my five guards with me. Others, you know the drill!"
Three men and two women seemed to emerge from nowhere out of the crowd. Cali indicated with a nod of her head for Bella to follow her and the five guards. Bella did, blinking the rain from her eyelashes. "What's going on? What's 'red eye'?" Bella asked over the harsh rain.
Cali grimaced and very seriously answered, "vampires," without looking at Bella.
Bella felt her eyes pop. Vampires? What did they want? Bella jogged to keep up with Cali and her guards pace, and also not slip in the mud with her ungraceful feet. Cali suddenly turned and faced Bella, saying briskly, "I need you here, with us. Can you change?" At Bella's quick shake of the head, Cali said, "just focus on me."
Without any further instructions, Cali stripped down right there in front of everyone, in the pouring rain, staring intently at Bella and discarding her clothes on the muddy floor where they were trampled on immediately by passing people. She gave a short wail before she seemed to burst out of her skin, leaving a wolf in her place.
From there, Cali was in Bella's head again: Follow me, Bella. The others have broken up into groups of two, and three. We have to catch up, and fight.
Bella nodded her head in both understanding and to accept the connection. She envisioned not Cali's naked body, but Kate's. She thought of how willing and submissive Kate had been last night. Of her golden hair and soft skin. Her body changed faster than it had before, and then she was racing side by side with Cali in wolf form.
Within seconds her fur was soaked and mud stained her paws and hind legs. Bella hopped over a fallen tree and then whined low at Cali when a strange smell invaded her nose. It was nothing she had ever smelt before and she couldn't distinguish if it was a horrible smell or a plain one. If it bothered her or not.
Cali answer: Vampire. Caution, Bella.
Cali then took a sharp right up the hill and Bella carried on straight, knowing that Cali had wanted them to split up. She followed the vampires scent and it took her into the forest ahead. Within moment of breaking through the tree line Bella spotted the pale man who was running faster than Bella had even see Cali run with her powerful hind legs.
At first Bella couldn't determine what the fuss was about. He was a vampire, so what? He was like them: supernatural, and different. He ran fast. He killed to survive. Yes, it was probably humans, but who was Bella to judge a being that had probably been forced into being a vampire just as much as she had been forced into being a werewolf?
She was just about to turn back and explain to Cali that she wanted no part in this particular chase, and possibly killing, when the man turned back, caught sight of Bella and hissed. The sound seemed to splinter and multiple, resounding in Bella's skin for an eternity. Like a hiss of a flame, it invoked a fire inside Bella she had only ever felt the first night of being a wolf.
Something ancient, something primal and… other opened inside her, and Bella was gone. Her conscious was there, watching the wolf body, but the reaction was all wolf. Like the previous fighting, Bella wasn't bothered by the wolfs reaction. She respected the wolf, and its body, like the wolf respected her. There was an understanding, a melding between them.
This feeling, this hunt, was as old as time. Older than human beings and society and dates and sundials. It was ancient, and so very primal. The wolf sped up and so did the vampire. He shoved down a tree, trying to send Bella askew but Bella wasn't in control, the wolf was, and the wolf knew how to fight vampires.
Bella was over the fallen tree, listening to it roll behind her faster than the vampire had taken it down. She spied Cali coming up on her right and watched her gain purchase on the vampire. Cali's large paws knocked the vampire tumbling down the hill. Bella thought it was over but then watched the vampire regain purchase and dart off to the left.
Bella dug her claws deep into the earth, pushed off her back legs and sprang towards the vampire. She missed him by inches with her teeth. Lucky for her, Cali anticipated the vampire saving his face and jumped in front of his path as he tried to calculate a new one. She therefore managed to throw her weight into his shoulder.
The push sent the vampire into Bella who bent her large head and bit down on the vampire's head and ripped it clean off his shoulders. She spat it from her large jaw somewhere away from her and watched with satisfactory glee as the vampire's headless body fell to floor, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Well done, Bella. But there's more. Come.
Bella followed closely behind Cali, the wolf in complete control and Bella the observer, and they found themselves in a section of woods covered in scattered pieces of several vampires. Cali marched up to her five wolves, who all bowed their head. Bella wondered if it was to accept connection or show respect, or both.
Either way, Cali's voice was in her head soon after: Well done. I'm very impressed by your efforts. I think th-
Cali paused mid-thought, interrupted by the whimpering of a wolf that was out loud and heard with Bella's ears, not her mind. It took Bella a moment to realize that the wolf whimpering was actually Cali herself.
Village. Now!
The five wolves questioned nothing, and instead raced away. Bella didn't know if she was meant to go too, but thought that she should stay if Cali was injured.
What's wrong? Bella asked.
The village is under attack. Come on!
Once again they were running. Both pushing their bodies as fast as they could. Screaming, crying, blood, sweat, fear. The words used to identify the sounds and scents that Bella could make out. Trees splintering, grass tearing from the roots and bones breaking. Bella and Cali kept running. Right into the blood.
It was everywhere. Bella felt disgusted, horrified, scared. The wolf was calm, assessing and calculated. It thought of the next move, tried to identify the injured, the numbers, the weak points. Even as it stepped into the river of blood on the ground. Bella and Cali walked at a slower pace now, trying to assess the damage.
Huts on fire. Injured people. Dead people, mostly children. Blood. Grieving brothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, and the like. Crying and screaming over lifeless, broken bodies. At the site, Bella's consciousness seemed to fight for dominance over the wolfs. Not on purpose, and not to fight.
But because Bella could see the damage. These people needed love, compassion, to grieve and cry and scream. They didn't need war, or tactics or fighting or blood. They didn't need the wolf, but they needed Bella. She could give them compassion; she could sympathize with their pain. She could help, but the wolf couldn't.
Inside, her and the wolf began to tussle for control until finally they seemed to merge as one. Taking different aspects of both personalities and melding them until they became the perfect consciousness that counteracted and complemented the positives and negatives of each personality.
Bella now looked at the villagers with new eyes. Eyes of the wolf. Her own eyes. The wolf strategy, and her compassion. The villagers were in a state of shock. When they looked at Cali and Bella passing, Bella knew she needed to look regal and in control as both the wolf and Bella. As Bella she wanted to hug and cry with them. As the wolf she wanted to simply walk on.
A man suddenly appeared before them, his face badly torn and coming away from his skull. He seemed more bothered with telling Cali what had happened than his own injuries, or his nudeness for that matter. "Cali, I am sorry. There was too many! They came in all directions. We tried to keep them back, but they got through our defenses."
The guard hung his head in shame. Cali didn't seem to want to be in wolf form anymore and instead shifted into human form. Bella followed her lead, feeling her consciousness snap like a rubber band pulled too tight until it fit back into 'Bella' and not the merging of Bella and the wolf, or the wolf on its own.
Cali hung her head as she shifted back and whispered, "this wasn't an attack. This was a sickening display of hatred, and cruelty. I want everyone, and everything ready. We must prepare. We have to retaliate."
The guard nodded his head and Bella cringed as his torn skin flapped away from his skull before settling back on his cheek bone. "I thought we could heal?" Bella asked him, pointing at the awful tear.
Cali answered for the man. "We do. But if we're attacked in human form, we do not heal."
Bella was about to tell Cali about the time she had fallen over and ripped the skin from her knee and then watched it heal itself, just before she found Lisa eating human flesh. But Cali was bothered by more pressing matters and said, "I have no right to ask… but will you stick around some more with me, Bella?"
Bella took a deep breath. She knew what Cali was asking. She wanted Bella to follow her into battle one more time. Bella barely knew Cali, or her pack, let alone had the care and respect needed to fight and die for them. But it wasn't Bella that Cali was asking, not really. It was the wolf inside, the other, and he, or she, or it, was willing. Always willing.
Bella finally nodded and simply asked, "when?"
Cali's face was nothing but grateful. "When we have the others. I will contact you. Give me three days."
"What others?" Bella asked.
"There are more of us," Cali answered. "When they hear of the attack, especially the children, they will join us."
Cali gave Bella some clothes to travel home in, which startled Bella when Cali asked her to come to the hut so she could provide them, as she had forgotten that she was naked, and that Cali was too. It seemed a petty thing to be embarrassed about. Her and these people shared a secret, a pack, a wolf, and a bond that was far more intimate than the human flesh.
As Bella neared home, desperate to see Kate and shower and get back to a tiny slice of normal, she spotted Lisa sitting on the stone wall outside. Covered in red. Blood. In her hair, on her skin, staining her clothes. On her mouth. Bella's stomach rolled with disbelief, with horror, with de ja vu, with revulsion.
Before Bella knew it she was running, and it was with the intent to kill. When she reached Lisa, her sister was ready and she swung a punch straight into Bella's shoulder, throwing her off her course and onto her ass on the ground. The punch had struck some of her chest, and Bella was taking large gulps of air from the surprise attack.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Lisa sing-songed.
Bella growled, bringing herself to her feet. "It was your idea wasn't it! Your idea just to target the kids."
Lisa smiled and her teeth were red. Bella thought she was going to be sick. Lisa giggled at the ashen skin tone that must have decorated Bella's face and taunted, "well I was feeling rather peckish, and they were quite yummy."
"You're one sick fuck!" Bella screeched, and hoped that no one in the house had heard her.
"Anyway, before I had lunch, I spent some bonding time with your bitch, Karol? Kat? Wait, was it Katie?"
Bella's heart kicked her ribs and her stomach tightened so hard she thought she was going to be sick. When she finally got the question out, it was desperate and winded: "what did you do?"
"Well I do hate to ruin a good game but I suppose you deserve a clue. Okay," she paused and pretended to debate before looking at Bella again and grinning. "I'd say you have… fifteen? Ten minutes, maybe? To save her life?" She ended the sentence with a giggle.
The world seemed to swim black and white for a moment and then it seemed to swim with just Kate's face, terrified as she bled to death or screamed for Bella's help. Oh God, I can't pass out! Bella bit her tongue to try and pull herself together, ignoring Lisa's giggles of delight.
"Where is she!?"
"In town. Near the library. Big, old looking place next to it. I think she found a wild animal there…" she trailed off, dragging out the agonizing torture. "Might have cut her up really bad." Lisa smirked. "Oh! I almost forgot," she giggled again like she was a ditzy blonde while Bella felt like her insides were coming out. "There may be faulty electrics. Perhaps a fire?"
Lisa laughed full throttle as Bella swung a punch at her smirking face. "Oh, Bella," she sighed dramatically, still smirking, still covered in the blood of children, holding Kate's life in her murderous hands. "You're just wasting time, aren't you? What's that now, twelve minutes to save her?"
With that, Lisa was gone.
AN: Thanks to LeighJ11 for being my beta.