The drive to the airport was silent, aside from Jacob and I's quiet breathing. The adults - and when I say adults I mean everyone excluding Jake and myself - made small talk as we went through the long, tedious metal detector lines and bag check.
Jacob kept giving me these worried looks as we waited. The expression looked strange on his usually carefree face. I suppressed a sigh as I took off my shoes and pulled my locket from around my neck to go through the metal detector. We continued to go through the procedures that follow while attempting to get on a plane.
After what seemed like a millennia we were about to bored. Mom, Dad, and Jacob (Jacob more or less) said our farewells to the rest of our family. It wasn't a sad goodbye. No, not sad, but very tense.
We walked up the ramp to the plane. I stopped at the top of the ramp and turned to see my extended family's faces, but they were gone. I let out one heavy breath and took the last step to getting on the plane.
Our first stop was Rio de Janeiro. From there we would take a bush plane a little south to the border of Paraguay where Alice saw Zafrina, Sienna, and Kachiri.
The plane ride was quiet as well. I sat by the window and Jake was to my left. We each had an earphone from my mp3 in. On the other side of the walkway - we were in first class and there are only two seats per row - Mom and Dad sat holding hands. Mom had a fat book in her lap and her legs were crossed indian style, her head bent over the book so that her thick brown hair spilled over the pages.
"What is that?" I asked Dad in my thoughts, knowing he would hear me.
He smiled. "Spanish," he said.
Beneath Mom's seat was another smaller book.
"Guarani," Dad said anticipating my next question.
Ah. Mom must have been annoyed at being out done in Italy. She's funny about stuff like that...
I sighed out of boredom. It had felt like hours and we were only almost over the Gulf of Alaska.
I stared out the window at the landscape flying by beneath us. The water was a brilliant blue, with stretching patches of ice covering it. I half listened to Beau Soir as it played softly on the mp3. I stretched my arms up above the white seat. I didn't like sitting still for to long.
I turned the beauty of the scenery over in my mind. It bewildered me. The mountains were as sire and graceful as my vampire family. I smiled to myself. We really could make it through another war. I had only been alive for one war - but, of course that's the wrong word, confrontation would be a better one - but I've heard the stories from before I was born. Oh, how I wished I was alive for some of the escapades they had overcome!
I marveled at what part I would have played in the war against the wild red haired woman's army... A decoy maybe?
Dad growled under his breath to quietly for the flight attendant who was up the hall to hear.. I rolled my eyes.
"Huh?" Mom asked. Jacob perked up a bit as if to listen in better.
"Nessie was just thinking about -" he paused looking at her expression to determine if he should tell her or not. "She was thinking about one of the stories Seth told her."
"And why would that make you angry?" Mom pressed.
"Just the situation. She was contemplating what role she she'd have played if she was alive when Victoria was. Renesmee though she might have been a decoy for..." he trailed off leaving his sentence unfinished.
Mom snarled loudly. We all turned our heads to see if the flight attendant had heard us. She had her head turned slightly toward us and she was peering at us inconspicuously through the corner of her bright blue eyes. She looked down when she felt our eyes on her.
"The reason I don't tell her these kind of things," Dad said gesturing to my mom. Mom's eyes narrowed. Jake laughed.
"You're right, it is annoying," I whispered to Jacob, alluding to Dad's ability to read minds.
Jacob chuckled again and I returned my attention back to the land below us. We were over some mountain range. I spent the remainder of the fourteen hour plus plane ride staring out the window. As one could expect, I couldn't possibly sleep. I had slept for the majority of the past week.
It was as if our lives had flipped upside down within a matter of months and I now felt as if I had been dropped into one of Lewis Caroll's novels, like I was some twisted version of Alice wondering around in Wonderland.
I had always been used to this madness, or at least I thought I had.
No, an annoying voice said in my head. No, You were never used to this. It's just that last time you weren't old enough to fully understand what was happening. Last time, there was hope for there not to be a fight at all, I thought to myself. This time there will be a fight. There must be...
My cogitations have been getting out of hand lately. I sat there in my seat trying to be as still as my parents without reason, just for something to do.
I went back to my musings, replayed every event that had happened since that night where I got irrationally pissed off.
*~*~*
I was sitting on the back porch of our big house in Portland. I stared at the stars and wondered arbitrarily how something so small could be so big when it was close up.
We had just been in a fight, my family and I. It was just a tiny spat, but it bothered me persistently. I had merely thought about Jacob. My Dad had read my mind, and well, I guess you know how he is.
So there I was lonely on the porch with a family of nine - ten if you count Jake, and I do. It was hard to be lonely with that large of a kin, but in some way I found a way to be just that.
"Are - uh you okay, Ness?" Jacob said from behind me. I hadn't even realized he had came outside.
"Perfect," I said sarcastically and squared my shoulders to see his face.
He walked over to me and kneeled down so he was closer to my height. It goes without saying that he still towered over me, but nevertheless he was closer to my current stature.
He placed his warm hand on my cheek. It was cooler then my skin, but it was warmer than I was used to - not that I wasn't used to his presence. I ground my teeth together to keep the horrific profanities through my head from coming out of my mouth. Besides, it wasn't his fault.
"You know, I'll always be here for you. Even when they're not," he said to me in a cooing voice, the same way you would say something to an infant.
I narrowed my eyes slightly. I was resentful toward the way he spoke of my family... Like they would disappear at any time. He meant no harm though so I didn't press the point.
Without warning I felt a breeze whip the side of my face.
"What are you implying, you god damned dog?!" Dad said. His face was inches away from Jacob's and Dad glared at him menacingly.
The rest of my family stood behind Dad, all of their beautiful faces hostile - apart from my mother's. Her manner was perturbed by the current situation. No one made a move to intervene, thank the lord.
"I was just... I mean... I..." Jacob stuttered repeatedly. He was taking steps backward and Dad matched his speed. They were already halfway to the woods that grew in our backyard. I groaned and ran to the spot they were at. I stopped between the two of them.
"Cut it out. Now," I said in my best adult voice.
They both ignored me. 'Figures.
"Who was it that wanted to kill her when she was first born?" Dad said in a cruel voice.
Jacob cringed. I winced as well. "You did too," he whispered.
"'Throw it out the window?' Right Jake, sure," Dad said in that same callous voice.
"I didn't - It was different then- " Jacob broke off. He threw me an apologetic look.
Dad yelled a stream of unspeakalbe profanities. My eyes widened.
I felt a sudden rush of calmness. Jasper. I mouthed a thank you to him. He nodded once in reply.
All had grown quiet. I huffed a breath and stormed back into the house. I gave my Mom one frantic look before I blew past her. I grabbed my sweatshirt off the side table and raced out the front door.
*~*~*
They must've got over they're differences, I thought to myself. Dad made a face.
"Was I really that terrible?" he whispered.
"Yeah," I whispered back.
I stared out the window again. We were almost there. I could feel it.
*~*~*
When we got off the plane it was night. I fel jet lagged and woozy and Jake supported most of my weight as we stepped down the plane's stairs.
Mom stole a car and we drove to a fancy hotel. All of Rio smelled of sun and salt water - evenat night when there was no sun at all.
The hotel was huge more then eight stories high. The building was white and had a regal esque. It was called Copacabana Palace. A hokey name, sure, but the hotel was marvelous.
We had the penthouse suite. Me and Jacob spent the night exploring the halls and the suite. The penthouse had it's own terrace that faced the blue ocean - darkened with the night. The terrace had a table and five chairs that surrounded it. On the table was a bottle of wine. The lounge area had a huge plasma screen tv and antique looking chairs around it. The carpet was a rich red. Behind one of the chairs was a little end table that had a wall behind it.
In the next room there was a bedroom that was yellow with a white molding in the middle that had been intricately cut. Below the molding the wall was white. The bed in the center white. The carpet was shag and a pretty gray, a clean gray. There was a second room exactly like it, just everything was flipped.
The penthouse level had it's own wet bar and pool. Everything was gorgeous, but it better be if we were paying $310 a night.
I fell asleep in the hotel room that night infront of the tv. Jacob did too. When we woke up we had to get moving again. We woke at seven to get dressed. We were out of the hotel by eight. Dad drove our stolen car to what looked like a private airport.
"Where are we?" Jacob asked before I could.
"The Cullen's airport," Mom said.
Jacob mumbled something about rich bloodsuckers, but didn't say anything besides that in reply.
Aparrently, Dad knew how to fly a plane... Interesting.