AN – Hello again, loves. Thank you all so much for the great reviews, you seriously make my day. And I'm getting some great feedback on how to make this better, which is always great. This was another chapter that had a LOT added to it. My roommate is currently reading this, too, and she's never read Twilight, so I'm getting some great plot/character developing type things that I took for granted when I first wrote. Although she has my working manuscript, typos and all, so who knows how that may affect her reading. Plus, she is slightly put off by the age difference, which is a whole other story I won't get into because she's crazy.
Also, I am feeling lots better, almost 100. This week was a bit of a tough one, adjusting to my new schedule and other crazy stressors, but I'm doing lots better, for those who want to know. My homework, on the other hand…grin
Lastly, many many thanks to my beta, choosetodream, for her great work and for the original Stephenie Meyer for her amazing characters and story, which I should probably mention more often. Now on to the story!
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Chapter 12
I returned home quickly and instantly sought out Bella, to see how she was coping. She was sitting in the living room with Esme. It looked like they had been talking seriously, and Esme had that motherly expression that showed how much she already cared for this new daughter thrown into our lives. And I knew that was how Esme saw her – as a daughter. Esme had lost her own baby and could have no more of her own in the body of a vampire, but she thought of me as her son, and if Bella was going to be involved with us, she was as good as a daughter.
They looked up at my entrance, and Bella's face fell into instant relief as she saw me. I, too, suddenly felt at ease, as if I when I was apart from her I was…incomplete somehow. I was anxious, worried about her, when I was away. Inexplicably so. I had a right to be worried, but not to this degree, did I?
She held out her hands. They were covered in white lace gloves fastened with a pearl button just below her wrist. "Esme gave these to me," she explained, "So I don't overload anyone accidentally." A good idea, I had to admit. But what if I needed to touch her again? What if I simply wanted to?
I mentally shook my head. Not the time, not the time, I had to tell myself over and over again. When this was all over…
Abruptly I said, "They've called off the search," and began to recap the past few hours. "They think you were killed by a wild bear in the woods near Angela's house. James was the one to find your dress."
Her eyes flashed angrily at his name. Rightfully so. I wanted to tear him apart for what he did to her, so I couldn't imagine how she felt herself. Would she want revenge as badly as I did?
Did I dare involve her?
She inadvertently answered my unspoken questions. "So no one suspects him? He's going to go free?" Her voice was colder than I'd ever heard it, colder than I thought possible from someone as innocent as her, laden with hate and anger.
"No one suspects him," I said stiffly, "but he's not going to go free."
Esme looked from my face to Bella's. She saw what I was planning, and she knew what I was capable of, but she wasn't going to stop me. I knew she'd let me make my own choices. She hated James as much as I did.
So she excused herself to find Carlisle and update him, leaving me alone with Bella.
"He's not going to go free." I repeated when Bella didn't say anything and just sat there, stewing over this new information.
The air was tense as Bella looked sharply at me. "I want to help. I want him to pay for what he did. I want him to suffer like I did."
Her voice cut through the room like a sword. It surprised me how deep the hate had already taken root, but I couldn't blame her, and I hated James all the more for corrupting this angel, for the suffering she had to endure – both the physical pain and the emotional turmoil.
"So what are you planning to do?"
"I'm planning to make him suffer. I'm planning to steal everything away from him, like everything was stolen from you."
She nodded, satisfied with my response. "How will we do it?"
I cringed just the slightest at her use of "we." She wasn't going to do anything. I wasn't going to put her in any more danger, even if as a vampire she was virtually indestructible. Physically, he could never hurt her again, but mentally, emotionally – that was a different story. I wanted to avenge her for her, involving her as little as possible.
"You will do very little," I broke it to her. "You are still too new to this life. You aren't used to abstaining from human blood. I don't want you to loose control."
She looked angry, as if about to defy me, but then her face softened just slightly into a look of disgust. "I don't want any of him inside of me, even if it's his blood."
"Exactly."
"But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do anything. You can't just tell me to step aside. This was my life he ruined and stole from me. I want to be the one to return the favor."
I flinched inwardly at her words. Her life had been ruined. She'd had everything – a life, a family that loved her, and a fiancé that would care for her. But now? Now she was a bloodthirsty vampire, confined to a sunless and lonely half-life, betrayed by that despicable fiancé, and left with me. How could I ever forget how far she had fallen? I had begun to think that she could be content – maybe even happy someday – with us. With me.
I was a bigger fool than James. She deserved so much more.
I eyed her deceptively frail frame and sadly replied, "We will see."
She conceded for the moment, not knowing how to respond to my sudden dejection, but I knew that she was not giving in. "So what will you do?" she asked, trying to lift me from my sudden depression.
"We'll take all of those men out, one by one. He will be the last to go, and he'll know I'm coming for him," I said grimly. "Well, he'll know someone is coming for him."
She nodded in approval and motioned for me to go on. I sat beside her on the sofa, carefully keeping my distance.
"And while we're taking his friends out, we'll slowly be taking everything he owns out, too."
"How?"
"I haven't figured that part out yet. But I have ideas, outlines. We'll need to see how he reacts to the others' deaths before we can make any secure plans."
"He won't run away. He has this city in the palm of his hand."
"I'm counting on that. He's so sure of himself that he won't know what to do when someone dares oppose him."
"You're not going to oppose him outright are you?" Something that sounded like worry tinged her words. Worry for what? It couldn't be for me.
"No, he won't see me as an enemy. This has to come out of nowhere. After all," I watched her through anxious eyes, "you didn't see this coming did you?"
Her eyes grew hard, "No. He was my fiancé. I didn't love him, but I trusted him."
My dead heart stirred at the mention that she didn't love him. I didn't press the fact then, but I filed it away. Why didn't she love the man she was going to marry? Was she that desperate for a safe life and to appease her parents? My admiration for her selflessness grew, as did my amazement at her choice to marry.
But still, she did trust him. So we would have to gain this monster's trust. I would have to gain his trust, I corrected myself, silently. She wasn't going anywhere near him. Not if I had anything to say about it.
"What about my father?"
I took a deep breath and anxiously looked at the girl seated in front of me. How do you tell a girl such as this that her father thinks she's dead, and has no hope of ever seeing her again? That she'd never see him again, never talk with him, never take care of him? Another million things she'd lost raced through my mind and I couldn't answer her at first, overcome with anger at the monster who'd done this to her.
"Edward," she prompted, an edge to her voice, warning me that she was already displeased with my refusal to let her help and that one more wrong move could make her temper boil over.
I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to gently brace her as I spoke. "He has closure," I said vaguely, not quite meeting her eyes, but carefully watched her reaction.
But she wasn't having any of that. "What do you mean?" she demanded, shifting away from my grasp and stared at me, drawing my gaze to meet her own.
I tried to shove the feeling of rejection to the side as my hand fell to the sofa. Did I dare burden her with the truth? Did I dare refuse?
Her eyes bore into mine, bright, red, and ferocious. She would not rest until she knew the truth, that much was undeniable.
"He thinks you were killed by a bear…after trying to follow me through the woods," I finally confessed. She had been part of the planning process, after all, I rationed to myself in a pathetic attempt to ease my guilty conscience. "He's taking it as well as can be expected."
"I have to see him," she said instantly and stood to walk towards the door, but I jumped up and grabbed her wrist and spun her around to face me, careful not to come in contact with her skin.
"Absolutely not," I said firmly.
"And why not?" she demanded, clearly growing angry with me as she yanked her wrist away.
"He thinks you're dead, Bella," I said, trying to be gentle and placate her, but failing miserably. "If he sees you…the consequences could be disastrous."
"What's the worst that could happen?"
"The worst? The worst is that he could see you, think you're a ghost or some supernatural creature, and have a heart attack and die of fright." She grew very still. "Or he could spread the word that you were still alive, forcing James to take some sort of action to silence your father and clear his own name. Because he would inevitably be linked back to you that night you disappeared. Our set-up was not just to give closure to those who knew you; it was to give the town an excuse not to persecute the real killer. Your father is safer this way."
I grew as still as she did and watched her digest this. Then in a very quiet voice I said, "But the absolute worst thing that could happen? You could lose control of your bloodlust and kill him."
She gasped and looked at me harshly. "I would never kill my own father," she whispered defiantly and ran up the stairs. A few seconds later I heard her bedroom door snap shut and I was left alone, standing in the middle of the room.
But I had seen the glimmer of a doubt in her frightened eyes.
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Sorry for how short this ended up being, but everything after the asking about Charlie is new. So just think about how much shorter it could have been.
Please leave me a review and let me know what you think!
