Seth Ch 21

The great thing about Bella… one of the many great things, is that she's a low maintenance chick. Her bags were packed in about ten minutes. All her toiletries and shoes and everything fit in one medium-sized duffel bag, and within 30 minutes we were in a cab headed back to the airport. That girl is efficient and then some. And she decided to spring for first class which I had half joked about, but now that I knew that she had all that money I guess she figured why not? And boy was it niiiiiiccce. I drank orange juice out of real crystal and sat back and stretched my legs. Like really stretched. And that ain't easy when you're as big as I am.

From there it was more simple than I had imagined. Landing in the Phoenix airport, renting a truck (I didn't realize you could rent a truck. I thought it was all Ford Tauruses and Dodge Stratuses.) And of course we needed to get one of those trailers to hitch out on the back, but really it was easy to find the storage unit and load up all the stuff Bella wanted out of the space and get on the road. All those small details seemed to come together flawlessly under Bella's lead. She was unbelievable. I could see how independent and capable she was and it made me love her all the more. But what I really wanted… what I was really finally getting was Bella and time. Time on the road to spend doing whatever we wanted without having to worry about our parents or the pack. And for once in my freakish supernaturally affected life I was getting exactly what I wanted.

We got on the highway and were both feeling the buzz of excitement; the promise of the unknown, the thrill of the open road. Grinning and jittery Bella glanced over at me from the driver's seat, " so what's the plan, Stan? How do you want to handle this? What's your road trip style? Are you a "map-reader" planning out your stops and hotels or are you more of a "drive till you feel like stopping, do what comes to you" kind of guy?"

"Well actually, I've never been on a road trip" I offered, lamely.

"What?" Bella screeched.

"I've never been on a road trip. I've always sorta been stuck in the area around the Rez and maybe up to Seattle and stuff." I clarified. Honestly it was a little embarrassing. I mean, Bella had travelled to Washington from Arizona on a plane by herself numerous times as a kid. Here I was just having my first airplane flight as an 18 year old. I glanced over at Bella in her seat behind the wheel only to find her turning her gaze quickly away from me and back toward the road.

"Well… that's awesome, then. I get to be your first, then," Bella said. Then , suddenly embarrassed, she looked at me. "You know what I mean, with you for your first… oh shit." She blushed. I loved to see her blush and fumble. I loved to see her fumble over me even more, but I knew her and I let it go. Damn, who was I kidding? I was blushing right along with her and I'm a damned werewolf.

"Well I've been on tons of road trips. My mom dragged me all over the dessert on 'spiritual retreats' and yoga workshops and sculpture clinics and whatever other crackpot idea popped into her head. Of course it was all very spontaneous and unplanned and spur of the moment, so we would miss our last chance to buy snacks for 100 miles or end up sleeping in the car because there was no hotel in sight. Basically, I'm pretty flexible. But food on the road is a priority, I know so let's stop at the next gas station to fill up on gas and food and whatever else we need."

I couldn't argue with food. Or a map which was the other thing Bella decided to buy. Yeah, we had a GPS, but those things don't always work when you need them to, and they're not exactly easy to use if you're not positive where you're headed. Amazingly, though, once we got into the truck we just drove. And drove and drove. I had no idea how long some of these dessert highways were or how empty. Bella drove with a look of fondness as she gazed out over the barely changing landscape. I wondered at how she could find beauty in so much desolation and began to mimic her, searching out the source of Bella's affection. As I stared, I noticed that what had seemed monotonous was just changing more subtly. Rather than the stark contrasts of old forests that I was accustomed to, with changing planes and rolling hills, Bella's dessert landscape was all about subtle changes of light, the gradual rise or fall of the earth across the horizon as we sped past with the sun finally setting toward the west. And then, breaking into my view and my cheesy musings was a run-down building in the distance that Bella confirmed was probably the only hotel we'd come across for the next 7 hours. Of course I agreed that it was probably a good idea for us to stop there. And then I spent the next 30 minutes with a knot in my stomach at the prospect of spending the night in a motel with Bella. Stupid, I know. I'd spent the night with her before, hell, I'd shared a bed with her before. A motel seemed different somehow. Uncertain; maybe a little…risky.

Bella headed in with her magical credit card and reserved us a room. I grabbed up the bags and made sure Bella's stuff was tied down to the trailer well enough that it didn't look worth the effort of trying to steal it. Really, it was old stuff and we were in the middle of nowhere. No one was going to steal this crap, but it's better to be thorough.

Bella came out of the office with a big grin and held up a keychain and jangled it at me. "Lucky number seven, Baby!"

I just shook my head and laughed. Bella was a woman of many moods.

The hotel room looked…. Like a cheap hotel room. It was decently clean but so badly in need of renovations that it still felt grimy. The comforter was one of those shiny, scratchy things that looks like it was sewn with fishing line. And yeah, there was one comforter; for one bed; to be shared by one giant werewolf and his unknowing imprint/soon-to-be stepsister. Crap. I had to tell her soon. Things were just going to get weirder.

"So I'm going to shower," I called out and headed to the bathroom. To escape. Because I am a coward. But I'm not a liar, so I turn on the water and get myself cleaned up. When I come out, Bella has just returned from the check in area where she has micro-waved us some kind of giant bowls of ramen noodles. Thank the spirits, because I was fungry.

So… soup and grainy HBO in a motel bed was an odd way to spend a Tuesday night with Bella but it could have been worse. By the time our movie ended, Bella was snoring softly and I managed to pull the sheet up over us both. I guess the flight and furniture moving and hours of driving had worn her out. I was pretty exhausted myself, so I laid my head on the pillow partially covered by Bella's hair and fell asleep almost instantly with the smell of honeysuckle and sunshine in my nostrils.

And then what felt like five minutes later I woke up covered in sweat to the sound of a terrified Bella yelling for me to wake up. You could say I was disoriented. The clock was glaring a number that started with a 2, but Bella's voice had me in panic mode as did the fact that she was yelling from the farthest corner of the room.

"Wake up, Seth! You have to get out! Get outside now!" She yelled.

"What?"

"Seth, you're shaking! Shaking bad! I think you're gonna phase and this room is too small, you've got to get out of here now!"

And of course she was right. Bella had been with the pack long enough to know the signs which included shaking. But really it was the kind of shaking that was the signature; the full body, fever-like shakes that loosened our joints and heated our cores, preparing our human form for the shift. That's what I was feeling, so I did what Bella said. With my hand shaking so bad it took three tries for me to grip the door knob in order to turn it. I barely made it outside in time.

As the final, flesh-shredding tremors racked through my body, my back leg kicked against the door, rattling it in its hinges. I scanned the area quickly, searching for any observer or innocent passerby that might spot me. There was no one, but I figured it would be better to head toward the back of the motel just in case the owner of the motel decided to look out the window. My mind was racing, enjoying quiet it had never had before while in wolf form. The shared mind must have a limit based on physical distance. That would be good to remember. Meanwhile I was freaking out a bit. I had never ever phased or nearly phased in my sleep before. Then again, I'd never gone 3 days without phasing, either. Maybe our bodies are compelled to phase. Like maybe there's an imperative or something that no one had ever discovered because once you start phasing you just do it all the time. Now it was all bottled up and bursting out. Like a shaken bottle of coke. Like the friggin Incredible Hulk or something. I felt jittery, ultra-alert…so why was I so caught off-guard when I saw Edward Cullen standing next to the dumpster?

The wolf in me snarled, bared teeth, crouched low. My human mind was racing through questions so fast they weren't fully formed before the next one began. Like water boiling, pop, pop, pop. Edward stood, with the complete stillness that marks his kind, and watched. Or maybe listened, I had forgotten that part for a minute.

"She had disappeared," he said in a voice that my wolf ears registered as too bell like to be human. He was picking questions right out of my head and answering. "Or rather, her future had disappeared. Four days ago. Saturday. One of my family has a talent, an ability. She has used this ability to keep tabs on Bella off and on since our departure. Where her vision had once been clear it became less so. We had assumed it was due to Bella no longer being so tied into our futures, yet she would catch glimpses seemingly at random. Bella at college, Bella in her truck." On the word "truck" the masklike face shifted almost imperceptibly. I didn't understand the connection there and wondered if it had something to do with Jacob and the way he had been so connected to Bella through that truck.

"You are not Jacob." Edward's voice was curiously measured. The slight inflection gave away his surprise and I couldn't help the laughing yelp that escaped my muzzle. People don't generally think their own names I suppose. "I knew what Jacob was- is. I knew that they were friends. I didn't realize there were more of you, that she knew all of you." I watched his face as he scanned my mind, my memories. "Alice has seen none of this. None of it. I wonder…." I cocked my head to the side waiting for him to finish. "I wonder if she cannot see the wolves. If something about you blocks her powers. It would be an interesting defense mechanism." All of this was interesting, but it didn't answer my fundamental question. Why was he here? "I needed to be sure Bella was alright. She is so accident prone, and I worry about her safety." Her safety? Why the hell would he worry about her safety? He left her. In the woods. With that psychopathic red head vamp after her. She shut down completely, lost herself, was spoon fed back to safety by that ass-hat Jacob until… until…. Shit. I thought it. Imprint. Aw hell.

I had been watching his face as he listened to my mind, as he watched my memory flit from image to image as I had lived it, both through my own eyes and the eyes of other pack members. What I saw in his expression was shock, surprise, shame. Well, what did he expect after what he told her. My mind replayed overhearing Edward and Bella's last conversation as she recounted it to Victoria: bloodied and crying, utterly broken. Edward gasped. He visibly gulped and doubled over. If he were human… and he was so not a human, I would have thought he was going to puke. As it was, he was pretty much dry-heaving. I guess this was what happened when vamps cried. It was sort of… pathetic.

"I am pathetic. I am a pathetic wretched creature. I loved Bella. I loved her and I couldn't bear the thought of turning her. I didn't want her to lose her chances, her humanity. Her scent. Yes, that was part of it. I figured she would just move past this and forget, like humans are wont to do." Of course. Human feelings couldn't possibly be strong or lasting or important like vampire feelings. Way to discount Bella. Why did everyone seem to do that?

"You don't do that, do you, Seth?"

No. Bella's feelings are pretty much what make me tick. She makes me tick.

"Imprint. You thought the word before, but I hadn't understood the context. Now it's becoming clear. Yes. Now I see it completely. And do you make Bella tick as well? Oh. I see. Bella isn't aware of the imprint. Now who is discounting her feelings?" Edward asked with a smile that seemed sinister to me, but then again he is my mortal enemy as well as my imprint's ex-boyfriend. Sinister is just par for the course.

I was trying to figure out if he was deciding whether or not to try and eat me when he made a disgusted face. I couldn't figure out where the conversation was going, whether he was planning to leave, to talk to Bella (At this thought Edward flinched), but of course that was when Bella decided to walk around the corner of the building. Shit.