Merry Christmas everybody! Here's your present!

Bad News

Jasper

Claude and I collapsed into a massive. Dirt-covered heap just outside the stairwell—that had also collapsed—and gasped for air. I struggled to sit up, then stared into the seemingly bottomless hole in horror. There was no way we could dig Bella out in time. She was a mile underground! I tried, in vain, not to think about how increasingly small Bella's chances at survival were getting with each passing second. By now, they were microscopic. We needed to get help. And a shitload of shovels.

My mental tirade was cut off by Claude's voice. I glanced over and saw that he hadn't moved much. He was lying on his back, talking on on his cellphone.

"Get to the tenth floor. Now! Someone planted a bomb in Bella's obstacle course!" He winced and grabbed his leg.

My attention was quickly drawn again by the massive hole. The door and its frame had fallen in, along with bricks and debris that had once made up the walls of the tunnel. It wasn't until the tunnel reached ground level that it was made of just dirt. The bricks and debris nearly knocked us out while we were scrambling up the steps.

"What the hell do you mean: 'Are you sure?' It fucking exploded already!" I must've been in shock because Claude's dropping of the F Bomb—poor choice of words—didn't even register in my brain. My thoughts were consumed in images of Bella buried alive a mile underground.

"Bella is trapped down there! Dammit! I don't care about the building's stability right now," Claude snapped. Who the hell is he talking to? Not Phil. He would've rushed straight here.

I forced my eyes away from the gaping hole in the wall and back onto Claude. He was sitting against the wall, next to the hole, rubbing his left leg. "Just get your sorry ass down here." Claude snapped the phone shut, but didn't look away from his leg. His hair, caked with dirt, hid his face. It had been almost five minutes since the explosion. Could she already be dead? The glass walls probably shattered because of the explosion. All of that glass could've done her in minutes ago.

"Who was that?" I finally asked.

"Aro." He shifted, flinched, and slammed his fist onto the hard, tiled floor. "He just happened to be at Phil's desk."

"Then where was Phil?" Phil never leaves his desk.

Bella's words began playing through my brain: "My instincts have been warning me that something bad is going to happen... I'd say we have less than a week." It didn't make sense. How could anyone get past Ghost's security? With a bomb? It had to be someone from the inside. Bella said that her past was coming back to haunt her, but who here was a part of Bella's life before? Through the fog in my mind, I heard two voices.

"Oh my! How terrible!"

"No shit, Sherlock. What is that?"

"It detects... Body heat. Using this will make our search much easier... Is he okay?"

"In shock, I'm guessing. Aren't there other people downstairs? How are you going to find her with a heat detector when we're on the tenth floor of a building and she's a mile underground?"

"This is a special heat detector."

"Why haven't I seen that in the lab before? I should have been informed about it."

"No more questions! I'm trying to work." Footsteps echoed as the person paced throughout the room.

"Nothing." he declared.

"I told you it couldn't work from this far away."

"No! There's nothing down there!" A long silence permeated the air. Everything that was left—the wall's gaping mouth—began to fade, and soon there was nothing.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The search for Bella ended before it even started. Because Aro's "body heat detector" didn't pick up on anything a mile underground, he deemed her dead on the spot. That, of course, didn't sit well with me. This was Bella we were talking about! She wasn't an easy kill either. She might have had a chance. Aro only needed a bad reading from a faulty machine to give up. Needless to say, we shared words. Our conversation ended when he brushed off everything I'd said and walked away.

"Enough of your unsavory language, boy," Aro spat.

"Bella was one of—your best agent. Do you even care about that?" I spat back. "You haven't even looked, and you've already given up! Some assistant director you turned out to be!" By then his face had flushed red in rage. I was too furious to flinch away.

"If you weren't the ghost's pet, you would have learned in real training that you should never let yourself become attached," he countered, looking smug.

"Who does the training?" I shot back. Though most of the agents knew Bella merely as their director's kick-ass adoptive daughter, they respected her as one of their superiors. Out of everyone that conducted the training, Bella was, by far, the favorite among the agents. They didn't even know about her high-status position; they just assumed she was incredibly streetwise. Special Agent B, they sometimes call her.

"We can find someone else to train the agents." With a dismissive wave of his hand, he turned on his heel and walked hastily down the hall to his office.

Phil returned to Ghost the following night. He had been sent on a 24 hour wild goose chase all over Washington. When we asked about it, all he told us was that he was given a fake anonymous tip.

Several of the agents had become antsy, sensing that something was wrong. Bella had trained them well.

Later that night, a handful of them went to the 10th floor, having heard that training would be happening there. The hole hadn't been sealed yet, and I was the one to find them gaping at it some time later. They were about to spout off all their questions when they finally got a good look at me. Sure, people had seen me; they just hadn't seen me. I had been trying to look as normal as possible, going to school and work, but that was about as "normal" as I was going to get. I was a wreck.

I must've looked at least a fraction of how bad I felt because their mouths immediately snapped shut. Quietly, they followed me to where Claude was conducting training for the night.

On the way back to the office area—I'd spent most of the night hiding at my desk with the lights off—I walked into Phil. He took one look at my disheveled appearance then said, "Come with me." I didn't bother questioning him.

Phil led me to the parking lot. After a couple minutes of looking around, Phil gave me a sheepish smile. He couldn't find his car.

With an exasperated sigh, I stepped into the dark parking lot. Something about the dim light seemed almost soothing. None of the streetlights were working, and the clouds smothered the already faint moonlight.

I gave Phil's arm a tug and he followed blindly behind me. Though finding my way through a pitch-black parking lot had become nothing more than a cakewalk to me, Phil couldn't see well with the lack of light.

Seconds later I had located Phil's car, unlocked it, and shoved the keys into the ignition. Phil slid into the driver's seat and flicked on the headlights before turning to face me. I tried to ignore the sudden anxiety bubbling in my chest and looked carefully at Phil. I could see his face clearly in the dim lighting. Stress and worry radiated from his features.

"What happened while I was gone?" he asked quietly. "Aro said there was a bombing." That was all he knew? How could Aro leave out the fact that Phil's daughter was buried alive in that bombing?

I swallowed and looked out the windshield at the piercing headlights before briefing Phil on the previous night's events.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

After I had filled him in on everything, Phil decided that I should stay at his place to "take care of Valentyne" while Bella was "on vacation in the mountains." That was the cover story he came up with. Phil also insisted that I take a few sick days from school and work. I didn't argue. He seemed to be taking things much better than I was.

By the fourth night, I was all but dead to the world. The only times I would go upstairs were when Valentyne was hungry. I'd get him his fruit bowl, then go right back to Bella's room.

Phil and Emmett were beyond stressed and I knew it. The agents had to have noticed Bella's absence by then. They would be wondering about that strange hole in the wall as well. Phil, Emmett, Claude, Jasmine, and possibly Carlisle were probably being bombarded with questions they couldn't answer. Where did Bella go? Is she alright? How did that hole get there? Had the agents made the connection yet? I had no idea what was going on. To be honest, I didn't care anymore.

It had been almost a hundred hours since the explosion. I hadn't slept an hour in that entire time. Whenever I began to nod off, an ear shattering explosion echoed through my mind. Glass would rain over me and the ground would disappear beneath my feet. Each time, I woke up wondering, Is that what she felt?

After the first few dreams, I began paying closer attention to the details. I realized that I never saw the glass slicing into my skin or the ground vanish beneath my feet. I felt those things. Somehow, that made me feel better. To suddenly loose her sight, buried in the dirt and the glass, would have made the experience even more frightening for her.

The days and nights had meshed together since I began staying in Bella's room. I only knew it was morning, almost sunrise, because Valentyne had settled upside down on his perch above Bella's bed. Lying back against the pillows, I waited patiently for the few minutes of sleep that always came before the nightmare. Maybe this time I wouldn't wake up right away.

Just before I fell asleep, the door shifted. I couldn't see, but I knew I hadn't imagined it. Ty flapped his wings a few times before settling down. Someone was in the room with us. Carefully, I sat up and squinted in the darkness. There was absolutely no light. Who would come down here without a flashlight? Excluding me, obviously. When had I become so well-acquainted with the dark?

"Bella?" I tried hopefully. I knew it was stupid, but I figured it was worth a shot. Maybe her ghost came back to see Ty or something.

Suddenly, I felt another shift. This time it was at the end of the bed. Goosebumps shot up my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I tried again. "Bella?" I whispered a little louder this time.

"Jasper?" Her voice came from right beside the bed. I jumped in shock and fell off the opposite side of the bed. Holy crap! Ghost's ghost's ghost!

"Bella! What happened?"

She flinched. "Keep it down! No one can know I'm here."

"What? Why?" I practically whined. I was so surprised that I didn't know what to do with myself. I jumped to my feet and walked around the bed. Bella scrambled backwards when I reached toward her.

"Don't touch me," she said quickly. My shoulders slumped as I stepped back. What did I say?

She sighed. "I'm covered in glass. I don't want you getting cut up." The blood drained from my face as what she said sank in. So Bella was caught up in that mess. But she was also alive.

"How did you escape?" I asked in awe.

"I'll answer all your questions in a few minutes." Bella turned away and started toward the door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" What the hell! Was she going to leave?

"Calm down, Jazz. I'm gonna take a shower." Oh. "I've been covered in dried blood, dirt, and glass for... I'll be back in five."

"Okay," I said to an empty room. Bella is alive! And here! And showering in the next room! Ignoring that last comment, Bella was safe and she was going to explain everything. Maybe she knew who did all this. As promised, Bella was back about five minutes later.

"You asked why no one can know I'm here, right?" I heard her shuffling around in her drawers.

"Yeah. Shouldn't at least Phil, Emmett, Jasmine and them know?"

"No. Have you figured out who the insider is yet?" The shuffling had stopped, and she was closing her drawers when I finally asked.

"What are you doing?"

"I forgot to grab clothes before my shower. Anyway, I don't want the insider knowing I'm alive. You guys could be targeted if he thinks you know anything." Her logic was punctuated with a muffled thump. What was that? Then the beginning of her explanation finally sank in. She forgot her clothes! Oh.

"Bella!" I whisper-yelled. "Really?" Did the near-death experience make her grow an even bigger pair or what?

She snickered. "You really have adjusted, haven't you?" I heard her turn to face me. "I'm impressed, but kind of sad about it too," she sighed.

"Why?" I asked, dumbfounded.

She turned back to face her dresser and picked up her clothes. "Stay," she said. I stayed. Bella padded over to the end of the bed and laid her clothes out.

"What are you doing now?" I asked suspiciously.

"I'm making sure I don't put my clothes on backwards." There was more shuffling, then she started putting everything on.

"Oh. I never thought about that." Huh.

"Okay. Now that I have my clothes on, there shouldn't be as many distractions." It irked me how amused she sounded.

"Oh. You're so funny," I said sarcastically. I swear, I must've been riding some type of my-best-friend-isn't-dead-anymore high.

Bella was suddenly beside me on the bed. She rested her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around my waist. "I'm sorry," she said after a minute of silence. My stomach dropped.

"Why?" I asked for the millionth time tonight.

"I'll start from the beginning. You already know that I'm the Isabella." She scoffed and I nodded. The entire nation had been captivated for years by the blind runaway that had "vanished into thin air." I can only imagine how annoying that must be. "You know lived in a forest with a pack of wolves after I ran away," she continued with a sigh. I nodded again and gave her shoulders a squeeze, vaguely wondering how my arm had gotten there.

"You don't know that I was a tube baby raised isolation as an experiment by my "parents" and their coworkers," Bella stated rather bluntly. My eyes bugged out.

"What?" I stammered.

"They grew me in a tube. You know, like those sci-fi movies Emmett loves so much. He told me about them." I didn't know what to say. That's horrible!

Bella rubbed my side. "That's nothing," she said. "Don't sweat it. Yet." Great. It gets worse.

"Most of the time, I was locked in what they called The Observation Room. They had basic things like a bed in there, along with a bunch of little kid toys. The lab guys would watch me to see if I could figure them out. And I could. Until I was six, my intelligence was the only thing keeping me alive in there.

"Not long after I turned six, things started to get weird. I didn't know much English since I was rarely spoken to directly, but they kept repeating these words over and over. 'Unknown chemical.' 'Tests.' Those words quickly gained meaning when I was taken out of my room. They held me down on a table and shoved IVs into my arms. They did all kinds of blood tests and 'important surgeries.' It wasn't until some time later—maybe a couple years—that I figured out what they were doing.

"My 'father' had done some genetic engineering on me while I was developing in my little tube. He wanted the perfect child. That plan was ruined the second he found out he wasn't having a boy." Bella paused and I could picture her angry sneer in my mind. Male dominance was a touchy subject with Bella.

"He kept me around anyway," she continued wryly. "Turns out it was worth while when he realized he'd created something beyond human. There was an unknown chemical in my blood. That chemical enhanced everything from my physical state to my intelligence. It would have made me perfect if I were a boy with sight." I scowled into the darkness. Talk about inhumane.

"When I was about... Eight. That's when the lab rats started to feel threatened, I think." If Bella hadn't been rubbing my arm, I would've thought she forgot I was even here. Her voice sounded so dazed. "They were becoming more violent, making more threats. I didn't understand them all, but I knew the threats were bad. Instinct took over and I began lashing back.

"The rats were surprised, to say the least. They hadn't known how sharp my nails were or how strong my jaws were until I started biting and scratching. 'Monster' is what I was then. I wasn't easily manipulated. I could fight off most of the lab rats and go a week without food and still function. They were getting scared. I could sense it.

"Finally, they decided that this new chemical they'd discovered wasn't worth it anymore. They planned to kill me and take what they could, but try as they might, they couldn't pull it off. Poison, shocks, high temperatures, freezing temperatures. They tried everything short of burning or burying me alive. Their last attempt to kill me—excluding the bomb—was with a gun. Lots of them, actually. That was when I escaped. I still have flashbacks, but you know that already." The breakdowns. The pieces were coming together and forming a frightening puzzle. I didn't like where this was going.

"I'm being targeted," she repeated. "And I'm not going to risk losing anyone else by letting them know I'm alive. Having to carry this around with you is going to suck, but you needed to know what you'll be dealing with later." Bella pulled her arms from around my waist and shifted so that she was facing me.

"I still have things to do," she stated vaguely.

"As in..." I trailed off. What kind of things?

"You don't want to know," Bella replied. Now I really wanted to know.

"You know that just makes me more curious, right?" I asked, exasperated.

"They have another one," she announced. And that means...?

"Who has another what?"

"The lab rats have another..." Bella trailed off, not sure what to call herself.

"Kid?" I tried. "And you know this how?"

"I've been doing some extracurricular ghosting these past few years."

"Why are you being so cryptic?"

"It's for your own good. Trust me?" The second part was more of a question than a suggestion.

"Yes, I trust you. What are you planning to do now?" I asked. Did I really want to know the answer?

"I'm going to disappear again." She put her hand to my mouth before I could protest. "Wait," she insisted. Why do I taste blood? "I won't be gone long. In a few days, there will be something on the news about a building being burned down. I should be back a couple days after that." Oh dear Lord. She was going to burn a building down. "I have to make sure I get that kid out though. That may be tricky," she said quietly to herself. Panic began bubbling in the pit of my stomach as I took that last part in. Bella planned on going into the burning building. I thought she was supposed to be smart!

"You can't do that!" I exclaimed, utterly horrified. Bella jumped, then clamped her hand back over my mouth. There was that blood taste again.

"I can and I will," she assured me. I licked her hand and she quickly released my mouth. The blood on my tongue clearly came from her hand. In the back of my mind, I thought of how sweet it tasted. Weird.

"Can't it wait?" I grabbed her wrist and turned her hand palm up. "You shouldn't be running through a burning building when you already have injuries." You should be running through a burning building at all.

"I'm a fast healer. It's only been a couple nights, hasn't it?" She nodded to her palm. "This cut was a huge gash a couple nights ago."

"It's been four nights, Bella. Not two." The panic was quickly bubbling over. Was Bella not healing like she was supposed to?

"Four?" she asked. She didn't believe me.

"I'm serious. If you want to do something, can you at least wait a few more nights?" I would have begged if she wanted me to. I don't know about Bella's instincts, but mine were telling me that this was a bad idea.

Bella sat quietly, thinking it over. "I'll stay here until tomorrow night if you go back to school," she decided. Where did that come from?

"How did you know I'm not going to school?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"Why would you?" Bella countered.

"Then why are you making me?" It didn't make sense.

"I have a feeling that you need to be there."

"Is this feeling coming from the same place as the one telling you to light a building on fire, then run through it?" I had to ask.

"Of course not. I'm burning down the building because I don't like the organization, and I'm going in to get the kid that doesn't deserve to burn to death." Well, there you have it.

"Fine. But can I have today off? I haven't slept in days."

"Alright. It's tomorrow that matters anyway." Bella gave me a little push, so I leaned back against the pillows. Once I'd settled, Bella curled into my side. I quickly fell a peaceful sleep. The bed remained solid against my back, and there wasn't a shard of glass to be felt.

Any comments on Bella's plans? I can't wait!

As far as that contest goes, I'm in the finals for the 'Best Emotional Breakdown' and 'Best Story In Progress.' I need one more nomination to get into the finals for the 'Best All Human Story' and two more nominations for 'Best OC Story." I'll keep you guys informed.