"Shit!"
Flinging back the covers, he jumps out of bed and rushes to the window. The roof above the kitchen is right below it, and when Edward was a teenager he used to sneak out of the house at night with its help. He doesn't doubt that Isabella noticed how little of a drop it is to the ground, and sure enough, when Edward peers into the backyard, he sees the vague, shadowy outline of a woman running around the corner of the house.
Shit. Shit, shit, and fuck.
He scrambles to get his shoes, shoving his feet in without bothering to tie the laces, and heads back to the window. As an afterthought, he rips open his bag and grabs the handcuffs.
Crawling through the window and onto the roof isn't as easy as he remembers. It's been years since he's had to do this, and he nearly loses his balance twice, scrapes his palms open on the rough shingles, and bangs his knee on the side of the house as he eases down. He can't help the automatic grunt he makes as he lands hard on the ground, and he just prays his family stays asleep.
This would be much harder to explain than Isabella sleeping on the floor.
He runs to the front of the house, scanning the streets for any sign of Isabella, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees her. Isabella is walking briskly in the direction of town, hands in her pockets, head ducked, as if she's trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She obviously doesn't know Edward's noticed her gone, or else she'd be running.
They passed a gas station on the way here, and it looks to Edward as if that's where Isabella's heading. Probably to use the phone. Maybe call the police.
Edward feels his throat close up at the thought.
He ducks behind the neighbor's house, running from backyard to backyard in an attempt to catch up without Isabella noticing. The easiest way to get to the gas station is through the neighborhood park, and Edward knows the short cut.
He catches up to Isabella just as she is jogging past the swing sets. Edward speeds up, jumping over the corner of the sandbox and into the center of the park. Isabella has just enough time to turn at the sound—her dropped jaw and wide eyes hardly visible from the streetlights across the park—before Edward leaps at her, tackling her to the ground.
Thank God he played football as well as soccer in high school.
They land hard on the grass. Isabella flails a little at an attempt to break her fall, and Edward grunts as one elbow knocks him in his stomach, hard. He doesn't take a moment to get his breath back though, immediately pulling up and shoving Isabella onto her stomach, straddling her backside.
"Jesus!" Isabella gasps out. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy? Get off me!" She struggles against Edward's hold, trying to buck him off, but Edward grabs both her arms and leans his weight on them, pinning them to the ground.
Huh. Maybe he should have done wrestling in high school as well.
"Get off!" Isabella yells again. She twists her shoulders and kicks out her legs, one arm coming free to elbow Edward in the collarbone.
"Ow, shit!" Edward squeezes his thighs in a tighter bracket around Isabella's small frame, making her squirm and grunt. He manages to grab the arm, pulling it up and back against Isabella lower back. "Be quiet," he snaps. "Do you want to wake up the whole town?"
"Yes! Yes, actually I do!" Isabella growls. Her face is pressed into the grass, and she angles her head over her shoulder to try to glare at Edward. "I want the whole fucking town to wake up and see what a crazy, psychotic, pathetic kidnapper you are."
"Crazy and psychotic are the same thing," Edward tells her, digging into the pocket of his sweatpants for the handcuffs. Isabella just growls again and fights him even more. "Besides," he says over Isabella's increasingly vicious curses, "I grew up here. Everyone in the neighborhood knows me and trusts me. They'll believe anything I tell them. Even Waylon."
He feels like shit just for saying the words. Low. Lower than Jake, even. But he's desperate, which seems to be the running theme this Christmas.
"Who the fuck is Waylon?"
"The guy who owns the gas station down the street. He's the only one who works it this late."
Isabella stops fighting at that, going limp against Edward's hold and sinking into the ground. Edward eases up a little, lets her catch her breath. "Fuck," Isabella mumbles into the grass.
Yes, Edward thinks. Exactly.
He grabs hold of one of Isabella's wrists and—using his knee to keep the other one pinned—snaps the cuff on it. He considers handcuffing Isabella's other wrist as well, behind her back like in the cop shows, but then he imagines what that would look like to anyone awake and curious enough to go to their windows at this time of night. So, instead, he slaps the cuff on his own wrist, linking them together. If they walk close enough, it'll just look like they're holding hands.
He doubts, somehow, that Isabella will appreciate that thought.
With Isabella safely cuffed to him, Edward rolls off, flopping down onto his back and trying to catch his breath. The cuffs jingle as he moves, and he has to stretch his arm out over Isabella's back so she can lie down.
"Get your arm off me," Isabella grumbles.
"You'll have to roll over for me to do that."
Isabella huffs in irritation, then groans as she rolls over. Their linked arms fall to the ground, resting between them.
"I hate you."
Edward sighs. "I know you do." He pauses, staring up at the sky and the yellow rails of the swing set above them. "I don't blame you."
Beside him, Isabella just grunts in answer.