EPOV
My sanity was gripping the darkest corners of my mind with the ends of its tentacles. Too close to some forsaken part of my head, slipping and falling and hiding, it seemed to me that it was giving territory to the gory side of me on purpose. And I laughed. I laughed, because the monster's mouth was dripping with blood and his unlit brown eyes stared up at me in their wide horror and absolute disbelief. The side of his neck was tainted by the crimson liquid that didn't cease to pour out from the hideous wound, caused by a downward and meticulous movement of my arm which had succeeded in the puncture of both his right common carotid artery and his windpipe. His limbs spread out like fallen tree branches, he lay in an awkward position, completely unmoving.
The monster had been brought to the ground at last.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a sorrowful voice whimpered in self-disgust, as the pale skin of my hand was now covered in blood. It was Carlisle, or maybe the Pope, or maybe me, who found reasons to believe that I could have thought of some other way to clear the obscurity of this dilemma. Because this was wrong; something about it was wrong, because it was written somewhere that taking life was a condemnable action and that it was a sin and that it was immoral. Wrong, wrong, right.
Right.
Because he touched me, stripped me away of my dignity, shoved his fucking cock in me, despite my cries and pleas. He stared into my horrified eyes while the last bit of self-esteem I possessed was taken away and he didn't for a second consider what was going through my head or what the dark smudges that he left on my skin would remind me of. But that was what he wanted – to make sure that I was aware that it was him whom I belonged to. And for months, he played with my family's sense, nearly brought them to the point of madness with his sick tricks and shadowed power. I took away that power, caught him after I'd perceived how fallible he was and understood how idiotic of me it was to wait for this moron, this monstrous, life-wrecking moron to destroy my son's life. Time and again, I told myself that he was not worth the panic attacks, the nightmares, the fear of being touched, the feeling of having dirt inside me; time and again, I vowed to my wounded soul that he would pay for it.
Oh, Jacob would love to see it, the creature that he'd abominated for so long bleeding to death at my hands. He should be here with me to see with his own hazelnut eyes what I'd done, the blood that travelled down my hands in broad rivers of dark red, leaving scarlet dots on the dry grass beneath my feet, caressing the piece of earth where the monster had become a victim of his own trap. His helpers had had their end, too, so consumed in overconfidence and false hope. Hope that they'd get it bright and blue, while I was left alone to be feasted upon. Idiots. They were all a bunch of idiots, idiots, idiots. What right did they have to put Thomas' life at stake, to take me from Jacob? What fucking right did they have to push me over the edge and turn me into a killer again?
No, Jacob wouldn't be proud of me. My hands were tainted, my soul was fading, my touch was filthy.
The monster's eyes glued their darkness to my surely horrified face, as he turned his disfigured neck to me with a sickening crack.
Blood leaked from his mouth as he spoke. "He hates you." His voice was no more than a laughing whisper. "With all his being. He'll never forgive you for what you've done."
"No." The sky was moving in a back-and-forth dance, its dark hue wildly clashing with the amused white of the stars. "N-no…" I breathed, feeling the ground trembling beneath my unstable feet and closing the distance between us until my back finally collided with straw and grass. And blood. It was everywhere. On the russet skin under my chin. Near my lips. Reaching for my tongue. Creeping as languidly as the slow ping-ping of rationality breaking free from the confines of my skull. Cool, guarded sanity being stored away in the tips of my pale fingers, hanging off the edges of my broken nails, screeching and pleading and almost gone, but it cannot be gone, it cannot, because… It's gone.
"You're mine, Anthony, only mine." He smiled under the crimson lake that idly spread over his amused countenance. "You know why?" he said quietly. "Because we're both monsters."
Somewhere within me, a child cried in despair, shrilling wails ringing in my ears like sirens. The creature's eyes gleamed, mirroring the image of my back arching off the stained ground and the green of my own eyes freezing in horror, as the skin of my stomach was ripped open. The child's screams overcame any other sound in my head, any thought I could possibly have, and my lungs were scrunched up until I could no longer cry out in pain. All I could do was gasp, watch the face of a monster contorting in agony in the reflection of Ephraim's amused eyes.
The young pale face of a monster. Me. No one but me.
"Monsieur, est-ce que vous êtes bien?"
Bien was the last word I'd use to describe how I was feeling at the moment, no matter how romantic it sounded.
"Oui, merci," I replied as strongly as I could, even if the back of my throat ached when stretched, constricted with emotion and dry as a desert. The sound of the next train approaching caused the woman who'd been kind enough to ask me if I was alright to turn her head in the direction of the railways and wave distractedly at me before taking off.
I reckoned that she hadn't been the only one who'd taken notice of the immense discomfort that a mere daydream was causing the dark-clothed teenager sitting on a sheltered bench near the station entry. My fingers wouldn't cease to tremble; my heart wouldn't slow down. Only the chatter of Swiss citizens and the commotion that accompanied it assured me that I was safe now, reminded me that it'd been three days since I'd left Rome in his car, intent on getting away from the crime scene as soon as possible. My eyelids were on fire, having been kept open for far too long, and my teeth chattered violently as the cold air of Fribourg enveloped my weakened body in its frigid grasp.
At times like these, I constantly questioned myself why I deserved to be so badly punished.
At times like these, everything that had happened to me retreated inside my head like a movie. Its images were scars in my heart – haunting reminders of my lonely existence and the loss of my happy innocence. Right when I thought everything would change – when my life became full of vivid colors and expectations – my vigor was taken away by someone I barely knew. Pictures of a life that had long been forgotten (of a green-eyed woman who loved me unconditionally and a bright future ahead of me) ran through my head, filling me with peace and taming my emotional torment. Back then, nothing seemed to be out of place, like the world's defects and qualities were puzzle pieces, fitting perfectly in spite of what many people said. Everything moved but nothing changed, and I often thanked God for giving me such an unobscured life. It had never occurred to me that one day my happy reality would be shattered and my dreams would forever be just that: mere dreams.
Why had it all changed so suddenly? Why had my life become hell without warning me first? And why didn't it give me a chance to move on?
Really, it never took too long to figure out why I had to go through this shit, why I deserved to have bruises on my arms and crescent shaped marks on my palms from when my nails had broken my pale skin. I'd lose all the precious stones in my life (the ones that I had devotedly searched for), because of my insatiable desire for revenge. And to think that I'd been able to laugh before the evidence that I truly was a monster, to be filled by such overpowering joy, was sickening and painful and most of all, maddening, because the memory of my mistake would not quit its pestering. For a fleeting period of time, I'd been able to lie to myself and think that I had done nothing wrong and that Ephraim had deserved it.
He had, but I could have thought of some other way to break free from his terrorizing grasp. I have absolutely no idea what else I could have done… I don't know, Damnit, I don't know, but I just…could have…not added one more murder to my endless list of sins.
Dragging my hands through my hair, I heavily breathed out the frigid autumn air, my lungs becoming void of fuel for a couple of seconds. I needed this from time to time, to allow my mind to go into a state of near unconsciousness, so that when it reawakened, I could think clearly, no black mist enlaced with self-destructive thoughts clouding my judgment and consequently, preventing me from doing so much as moving an inch. Ever since I'd left his car in Milan and caught the train that would lead me to relative safety, I'd been attempting to free myself of my recent memories and the occasional dreams that went together with them. And the insistent, nearly unbearable, self-reprimand eventually turning into a chaotic crisis of values that I struggled to solve. It would all get me nowhere, I was very much aware of that; I felt as if I no longer could rely on instinct or emotions, for they were fleeing in every direction, returning with no purpose and causing a knot to build up in my throat.
I'd love to be a ghost now.
But someone was waiting for me, and I missed, I needed, I couldn't live without that someone; without his heavenly warmth, or his intoxicating pinewood scent, or his smoldering hazel eyes burning into mine with the comforting promise that I was home; without him shooting great evidence of his sense of humor in the most unlikely situations, the lingering taste of his scalding mouth on my lips, his freeing whispers lulling me to sleep after an unexpected nightmare, the blissful feeling of his rough thumbs on my cheeks and his chin resting on top of my head, or even his outbursts of anger. I missed him, from his playful smile to his strong chest, along with everything in between and everything beyond all that. And I hurt because of that. It was a most distinguishable kind of hurt, even amidst the maelstrom of feelings wearing me down. I knew I didn't deserve it, not after what I'd done to his great-grandfather, regardless of my beliefs concerning his hatred for him, but right now I just wanted him here (so, so much) and I longed to have his sturdy arms around me and his assurance that I could sleep at last.
At the same time, I quietly fretted, all but oblivious to the commotion around me; for, I wasn't quite certain that he really was alright, if his head had yet to heal completely, if it had begun to heal at all, or if he lay unconscious in a remote part of the forest, where he couldn't be found. There was only one way to know and the means of making sure that Jacob wasn't hurt was dependent on the silver cell phone inside the pocket of the dark hoodie I was wearing. I couldn't hold over this life-deciding call for much longer, because not only was I intent on returning to Forks as soon as possible, but I was also aware that I wasn't the only one concerned in this situation. Even if Ethan had been sincere with me while affirming that physically Jacob was in no danger, I was desperate to soothe my wolf's surely immense worry. Also, the last three days had blurred past me, my exhausted mind, my nearly empty stomach, and my poor, poor Thomas. No matter how sick I felt at the thought of digesting anything right now, it was my duty to take care of my son.
I worriedly prayed that his health wouldn't be affected by the unkind circumstances.
I headed for the station's restrooms, relieved when I found them void of curious ears. The likelihood of someone understanding English was not exactly low, so I had to be cautious. Besides, talking on the phone in a bathroom full of people seemed kind of awkward.
I leaned against the tile wall nearest to the back of the room and nervously fingered a thin piece of paper as my pale reflection appeared in my line of vision, under the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.
If vampires didn't possess inhuman beauty, I could affirm that I looked like one right now.
Running my gaze through the list of Ephraim's contacts, I swallowed the bile that inevitably rose up in my throat and quickly searched for Ethan's number. I was afraid, terribly so. There was so much I could deduce about someone only having heard their voice and words; Ethan was Ephraim's right hand, which meant that they'd shared a bond of loyalty that I wasn't able to measure. When he found out what I'd done, I was likely to be buried in an impressively big pile of trouble, friendliness be damned. Also, I wasn't so much of an idiot that I actually believed that Ethan wasn't getting anything out of his affability towards me, or even his faithfulness to Ephraim, if it existed in the first place. Frankly, I was completely clueless regarding his intentions. I'd thought for some time that I should trust him, convinced that he would give me access to freedom, but now I was wary of innocent passers-by, of flashes of designer suits, and even the mere hiss of the wind. I trusted no one – not even myself.
My hand shook as I held the phone to my ear. When the beeping sound that signaled that we weren't yet connected stopped, I held my breath, my lip caught in my teeth, and I nervously waited for some kind of hint that Ethan and I really could talk now, but I couldn't hear a thing and that honestly scared me somewhat. "H-hello?" I stuttered slightly, almost unable to hear my own voice. I cursed my nerves for causing me to sound so pathetic, until I remembered that playing the victim card now wasn't that bad of an idea. I just had to evaluate his tone, his words, register them with the spine-chilling feeling that they would decide my fate, and then I could choose which role it would be advisable to fit in.
"What did you do?"
Not angry or threatening, the manner in which he spoke comforted me somewhat, as he sounded only fearful and concerned. There was also doubt beneath his question – had it been me who killed his boss? Had I fled for a different reason, under the pressure of another kind of threat? It also came to mind the fact that he knew about Ephraim's death without me ever coming across him. Had they planned something? It was probable that when we'd stopped near the warehouse, Ephraim was only waiting for him to arrive. In that case, hell, it took Ethan a good while to do so. I wondered with an involuntarily brusque inhale if he had followed my scent and was now closer than I thought, or if he had remained in Rome.
"Edward, what did you do?" he questioned again.
No, he was definitely certain that it'd been me who had murdered Ephraim.
Murdered – the word made me flinch.
"I need your help," I whispered. The scared green eyes of the boy in the mirror offered me only the realization that there was no need to try to sound weak, or broken, or lost. The truth was that I was baring myself to a practically unknown entity through the phone and the tremors that rocked my frame, the much too fast thump-thump of my heart and the burning in my lungs proved that there was no other strategy I could use to get him to come to my aid. "I…I'm…I'm sorry."
"It's alright." He quickly took on a soothing tone. "Just tell me what happened."
"Y-you can't imagine it." I struggled to gulp down the lump that clogged my gullet. Somehow, the words spilled out of my mouth as if it was technically impossible to be silent – I couldn't hold it inside anymore. My shoulders heaved, despite my attempts to muffle my emotions. "I saw it all, I-I remembered everything I went through because of him and I…I couldn't… I'm sorry," I sobbed. Tugging my hair so hard it hurt, I began pacing. The mental turmoil that I'd blocked for the sake of movement returned with a vengeance. This time, there were no rational thoughts anchoring me to normalcy or reasonable tranquility. I was alone and scared and I wanted Jacob and Dad and I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to do. "I know, maybe, maybe I shouldn't have, but every time I looked at him I imagined how lovely it would be to snap his neck. I mean, you don't know, you have no idea…" I gasped. "What it feels like to be…to feel like absolute shit, violated and broken and pathetic. A-and I'm sorry if it's my fault that I felt that way and for…for ending his life."
There was still a lot I felt the need to get off my chest, but it had all been divided into a series of distorted fragments, loose calls for help, insults that I couldn't direct at anyone but myself. For now, I was unable to do much besides sliding down the door of the bathroom stall, watch the figure of the pristine white toilet in front of me become nothing but a smudge, blurred by the scalding tears that continuously streamed down my face, and hold my stomach as I sobbed. This was one of those days – frankly, not at all unlike many others of my first, second, third lives – when I was vaguely conscious of how strange it was that I couldn't decide what had pushed me towards this point, or what the droplets that descended my contorting face were for, or most importantly what event had caused me to break down, how it had worked to compromise my sanity so tacitly. I didn't know. I didn't know why I was crying, even if only a couple of minutes ago I could have made a list.
And the worst part was that I couldn't bring myself to stand up to confront a faceless enemy, or even to try to discover the root of my pandemonic mental state.
"Edward, please, calm down."
I looked up for a moment, and through wet eyes, I imagined that the flaming white lights in the ceiling, flickering without a rhythm, would soon diminish in intensity, until artificial dimness was the only source of illumination I had, until even that weak font died down and I was left in the darkness, completely alone. In the middle of this suffocating reflection, I wondered, as well, how I could feel so cold, when my clothing was so warm, when my face blazed so naturally behind slight paths of salty water. As I violently shuddered, my hand once again came up to grab my hair and I pulled it with a growl of impatience. Just stop, I told myself, and Ethan's words rang in my ears like sirens. Put yourself together, you pathetic loser. But I couldn't, because somehow, busy days went by with me foolishly believing that everything would be alright, and I easily forgot the thousands of people I'd murdered, the wreckage that was left behind when I parted from Bella, when I'd endangered her and my family, the thoughts I'd picked from angry minds, holding hatred for me, hatred that I understood with complete effortlessness.
I couldn't get rid of it. I shouldn't, really, because I probably deserved it.
"Shit," I chuckled into the phone as I used my sleeve to wipe my face. "Can you believe this, Ethan? I killed your boss, your friend, and now I'm demonstrating how much of an idiot I am."
"You're not—"
"But, you know, some people are idiots," I cut him off. "Save your kindness for someone who deserves it, Ethan, because I don't. And you can say whatever you want about me being a poor rape victim who's too young to vote, give all kinds of excuses for what I've done, but in the end, nothing can bring your friend back to life. Have you found him yet? It's disgusting; you can only see the handle of the screwdriver and there's blood all around his neck. H-his eyes," I swallowed, "are wide open. So, Ethan, I'm going to be honest – I called you, because I need your help to return to the U.S.. How do you feel about that?"
For a minute, the hum of the ceiling lights was the only sound I could hear.
"Where are you?"
"Hell – I mean, Fribourg, Switzerland."
He sighed heavily. "Have you found accommodation?"
My lips curled up under the weight of the absurdity of this conversation, of this sequence of events, of this stupid, stupid life. "I haven't."
"Where are you at exactly?"
"At the train station, inside a nice little stall – much better than American public toilets, that is for sure," I mumbled, leaning my head against the cold wall, while a persistent lightheadedness took hold of my senses. The paper holder in front of me was blurred around the edges.
"I will try to get there as soon as possible. I'd say, within three hours."
My eyelids slid shut, pushed down by the exhaustion I could no longer battle, and I could swear that for the most fleeting of moments, I was fit to be loved, not whole, but free of the spinning chaos of thoughts weighing on my chest, imprisoning my mind. I didn't care that when I woke up, this soft mental state would vanish, taken by the memories of my mistakes, and that I'd go back to questioning the life Jacob and I had built for ourselves, our hopes, our expectations. For now, I was unable to scold myself for giving in to a need I didn't deserve to have satisfied, to trust Jacob to appear out of nowhere and say that what I'd done was completely justifiable, and to believe that everything would work out.
Eventually.
«-»
JPOV
"Mr. Black?"
The number of students in this school barely brushed the one-hundred mark and yet, teachers treated us as if we didn't bump into them more than a dozen times a day. The distance that they put between us and them was long, as long as the path we still had to follow before we found Edward. So long was that path (or at least it seemed to be) that Dad had had the gayest of ideas and decided that while the Cullens ran back and forth, or in circles, without ever stopping, desperately attempting to track scents and the simplest of clues concerning their relative's whereabouts, I should give my body a rest and try to keep my mind off the worry that tainted my every thought. His plan was ridiculous, to say the least, and I could barely suppress my rage at the idea of Edward suffering at the hands of a psychopath while I was practically forced to attend Mr. Harris' useless classes.
Of course, Ed's saintly father had agreed, promising me that he would do everything in his power to find Edward as soon as possible. Now, no one could say I had no reason to doubt him; I certainly hadn't forgotten what the Cullens had done to my ex-leech when they found out he was pregnant. No matter how much time I'd spent with them and how familiar they'd become to me, I still wouldn't put it past them to betray us again, so that was why I kept asking for more updates regarding their investigation. Alice had a list of places where the blond vampire who had attacked me could be at the moment. Finding Ephraim depended on another long list of flights, too, which Emmett had made when he arrived in Portland. According to him, there was another vampire scent mingled with his and as expected, Edward's permeated the air, as well. He'd brought his Volvo back home and noticed that everything his brother usually kept in the car trunk had vanished.
Had Ephraim had the decency of taking something that belonged to his imprint with them so that it could serve as some kind of comfort?
I didn't know what to think of it, honestly.
"Pst, Jake?" Paul hissed next to me. Throwing him a brief a glance, I became aware of the amount of expectant gazes focusing on my hunching figure. I made an uninterested effort to remember what our History teacher had asked, but I came up blank and ultimately decided that there was no point in trying to answer him.
With a frown, Mr. Harris tuned back to the class and picked a more attentive student.
"Jake," Paul called quietly. "You want to skip the next class and go somewhere?"
In any other circumstances, I would have been tempted, since I always found much better things to do at home than being at school and registering no information, but if I went somewhere, like Paul suggested, I still wouldn't get rid of my explainable sulkiness and I was likely to visit the Cullens against their protests. They'd told me to stay away, since there was a certain vampire who wasn't quite stable at the moment – Bella, obviously. Yesterday, her heart had stopped beating. To a certain extent, I could understand their wariness: if newborns were frighteningly dangerous after they'd been around for a few months at least, a vampire that had woken up only a few hours before was bound to do some damage, following their instincts like an animal would. I was her enemy and I was almost certain that she would see me as such if I suddenly showed up. To be honest, I really wanted to see how she was doing, regardless of the danger that it would put me in. By now Jasper was probably with her, in case she suddenly snapped, and Carlisle was likely to be there, too, teaching her how to hunt animals, while I was left to wonder if she really had accepted her fate.
If she didn't, there was always someone to blame – the vampire who'd appeared out of nowhere to fuck up our lives beyond explanation. To say that this sequence of events was confusing was stating that water was wet. I was anxious to know who the hell had hurt my best friend, anxious to have Edward in my arms and make sure he was okay and anxious to get out of this classroom. Basically, I felt like my boiling blood would suddenly tear open my skin, for even sitting still seemed like an incredibly hard task. Dad's command rang in my ears while I tried to block out the urge to bolt out of the room, until I realized with a start that it was possible that I would never actually see the face of the fucker who had bitten Bella and found myself unable to keep up this pathetic charade.
"Mr. Black, where do you think you're going?" I heard my teacher ask behind me.
But I didn't answer and I didn't spend any more of time listening to a shitload of information I would never use. As I ran across the school's parking lot with only my backpack in my hand, I fought my anger with everything had, waiting until I reached the forest to change into my wolf form. I was seething – the reason why I'd never find out who had done this to Bells was because no one in the Cullen family had remembered to follow the vampire's scent. I was told that she was found in a remote part of Alaska, so I couldn't think of any obstacles that could prevent them from completing that simple task. I'd completely lost my faith in the Cullens. Why the fuck were they so stupid, really? They failed Edward; they failed Bella. Fucking failures. I was sick of their incompetence.
'Damn, Jake, you could have warned me first,' Paul complained as he, too, ran through the dense forest of La Push as swiftly as the wind. The sound of my heartbeat was almost as loud as my shallow breathing, my large paws thudding against the earth and the wind rushing past my jaws, and the greener my surroundings seemed to me, the faster I tried to escape them and reach my destination. I no longer cared if the Cullens were okay with someone from my pack being in wolf form in their lands or not, and I honestly appreciated Paul's company and silent support, despite my awfully immense rage and impatience. I swear even the wildlife's almost frightened noises incited me to close my jaws around something, someone, and destroy, destroy, destroy.
And it was with this thought that I felt my ribs cracking as a solid body collided with my flank.
"Bella, stop!" I heard Jasper scream with an authoritarian tone.
My huge body rolled across the thankfully foiled ground, and when I came to my senses, I cursed so loudly in my head that Paul howled in protest. Through our mental bond I thanked him sarcastically, and he apologized with a tone of concern, seeing as the image of me shaking on my side and growling softly had him rightly assuming that I was hurt. My left side burned with searing pain and I tried to control my breathing and stifle any complaining sound in order to allow my wolf genes to heal my injured ribs. Meanwhile, with my eyes closed, I listened to someone else's growls, which were not the kind that a human could produce, but they weren't so feral that they belonged to an animal. I saw through Paul's astounded mind a brown-haired vampire attempting to fight off Edward's blonde brother, but clearly he had the upper hand, even if he seemed to be struggling. It was Bella, I acknowledged sorrowfully, my no longer clumsy, harmless best friend.
The healing of my ribs and Bella's abandonment of her vampire instincts took about the same time. I refused to phase back to human, not only afraid to lose my composure, but also decided to appear as angry as I felt. I got up on all four paws and casted a glance at the red-eyed vampire at Jasper's side, repeating to myself that this was beyond messed up. Of course, she was still Bella, the girl with the heart-shaped face and doe eyes, but her beauty was far superior now; her features were a trifle sharper and her body appeared to be more womanly than before. Yes, she was still Bella, but I couldn't help but freak out a little in my head as I stared into her blood-red eyes and took notice of her dangerous aura. She had on a blue dress, which during her hunting session had lost a few pieces of fabric. While I observed her new appearance, my wrath was gradually softened by an exterior force. Clearly, Jasper had sensed my disorderly emotions and was attempting to figure out why I was so upset. Glancing at my now crimson-eyed friend, I phased abruptly and fell on my knees with a loud thud, before I quickly stood up and approached Jasper with three long strides.
"Don't you think it's enough?" I snarled as I seized the front of his shirt. "Don't you think it's time to start thinking?"
Jasper lost his manners. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"
"I'm talking about none of you idiotic people going after the shithead who changed Bella."
"Jake, man, I think you should calm down," Paul stepped in.
I didn't spare him a glance. "Shut the fuck up," I told him simply.
Jasper grasped my wrist in his cold hand. "Ya need to let go of me, or I swear, dog, I'm goin' to lose it."
Indeed, he seemed ready to carry out his promise, eyeing me with narrowed eyes and a warning sneer, so I loosened my grip on his shirt and let my hand fall as soon as his released my wrist.
"Why wasn't he told?" Bella asked quietly. We both turned to her, me with a raised eyebrow.
"Told what?"
"Listen here, mutt." Jasper shielded her from me. "I couldn't care less what you mean to Edward. You two being boyfriends certainly doesn't give you the right to act like a sanctimonious prick and forget that Ed is my brother and our top priority at the moment, which means that we're doing everything in our power to find him. But we ain't no superheroes, dog. More than one person at a time has to stay here with Bella, while the remaining members of this family try as hard as they can to rescue Edward. Only three days have passed and we're already considering going overseas. None of us has stopped yet."
Giving him a more attentive look, I realized that his eyes were pitch-black, staring up at me above purple bags. It came to mind the possibility of all the other Cullens bearing the same hungry and despairing look, due to all the trips that they were making, which left them no time to feed, and I felt guilty for being angry at them for not being able to do two things at once. They were vampires, yes, but as Jasper said, they weren't superheroes and this tantrum of mine hadn't been helpful at all. In fact, I could have demoralized Edward's brother were he not such a seemingly focused guy. I groaned internally.
"Jake," Bella called softly – her voice sounded incredibly more musical. I raised my eyes to hers. "Just so you know, even if Edward wasn't missing, following the vampire's scent would be of no use. We know who it was. Trust me, it's better not to cause conflicts with his coven."
"Coven?" I groaned.
"Royal family, that's more like it," Jasper said. "It was Demetri, a member of the Volturi. I suppose he was sent to either kill or change Bella, since Aro is intolerant to the existence of non-oblivious humans."
"Don't worry, Jake." Bella smiled, and I fought the urge to shudder – her teeth were much sharper now. "My time was up."
Her theories didn't comfort me in the least, but I forced myself to smile back, even if another matter weighed on my mind like a ton of bricks. If the Cullens were considering going overseas, it was probable that the list of flights to other parts of the country was completely useless, and I found it difficult to swallow the lump in my throat as I imagined my boyfriend, carrying my son, unable to fight off the psycho who had hurt and traumatized him, so many miles away from me and the place he called home.
Please, ex-leech, be safe.