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21. THE CALL
(PHONE CALL)
I jerked upright in bed, my heartbeat hammering in my ears. My eyes searched the shadows in the corners of the darkened room as I struggled for breath. Where was I? What was happening to me? A bead of cold sweat slid down between my shoulder blades as I tried to remember. Phoenix. I was in the bedroom of the hotel suite in Phoenix.
It had only been a dream.
Letting out a ragged breath, I ran my hands over my face, but I couldn't rub away the images of the nightmare. Every time I blinked, I could still see James in the darkness, hiding just behind my eyelids as he reached out toward me with blood dripping from his fingertips. The screams still echoed in my ears. Not my screams. Bella's.
I shuddered and turned toward the nightstand. The glowing numbers on the hotel alarm clock told me that it was just past two-thirty in the morning, but I knew there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, not with the nightmare so fresh in my mind. Throwing back the sweat-dampened covers, I crawled out of bed and shuffled into the living room. Alice and Chief Swan glanced up at me from their place on the sofa.
"Can't sleep," I muttered as I limped past them. My eyes fell on the piece of paper lying on the coffee table—a new sketch drawn on a piece of hotel stationary. Alice's latest vision, I assumed.
"You saw something else?" I asked, leaning in. Alice nodded and turned the paper around to face me.
This, I somehow knew, was the dark room, the room where James was waiting, but whatever uncertainty had been blocking Alice's vision before was gone. There was a bookcase along one wall and a door leading out into a hallway. A large screen television was backed up against another wall, facing a sofa that sat in the center of the room. Behind the sofa was a large window, the drapes pulled open to reveal the night-lit city below. The bookcase, the television, the sofa—none of it was even slightly familiar . . . nothing except the view out through the glass . . .
My mind went numb as the memory snapped into place. There was no denying what was right in front of me.
"What is it?" Alice asked, her eyes registering the shock that must have shown in my expression. "Do you know where this is?"
I tried to nod, but I couldn't seem to move.
"It's my father's condo," I answered. My voice sounded faint, distant, as though it were coming from some far off place.
Vaguely, I registered the flutter of a breeze to my left and the sound of Alice's soft murmurs coming from across the room, but the majority of my attention was glued to the drawing. Some small part of my brain wondered when my father had redecorated.
"Edward?" I lifted my head to see Alice standing beside me, the phone in her hand. I stared at her numbly.
"Edward, they're coming to Phoenix to get you. Bella, Carlisle, Jasper, Emmett—they're all coming. They're going to take you somewhere safe."
"Bella's coming here?" I asked dully, her words slowly seeping into my brain. There was a screaming sound inside my head—the memory of Bella's screams from my nightmare—and then something snapped inside of me.
"No! She can't! The tracker's here! He'll-"
"Edward, nothing is going to happen to Bella. They're going to catch the first flight out of Seattle. We'll meet them at the airport, and she and Carlisle will take you somewhere safe."
"But . . . what if my father comes home? What if the tracker goes back to Forks to Mom? What if he goes after Meg? Or someone at my father's office?" Suddenly, the list of people that James could use to get to me seemed endless.
Alice gave me a reassuring smile, but something about it didn't quite touch her eyes.
"Your mother has Rose and Esme looking after her, and Jasper and Emmett are staying here in Phoenix with Charlie and me. We're not going to let him hurt anyone."
"What if he gets away again? What if he finds out where Bella and Carlisle take me?"
"He won't get the chance," Bella's father answered. His voice was cold. Determined. Deadly. "We know where he's going to be, and once you're safely on that plane, we're going after him. There are four of us and one of him. The odds are not in his favor."
. . . . .
There was no way I was ever going to get back to sleep.
I tried taking a warm shower, but while the water washed away the sweat from my dream, it did nothing to cleanse the fear from my mind. I dressed and took up a position behind the sofa, pacing back and forth as Alice and Chief Swan sat waiting for . . . I didn't know what, exactly.
Bella and the others were coming to Phoenix, and as much as I wanted to see her, I was terrified by the thought of her and the rest of her family coming here. I tried to remember that Bella and I would be somewhere safe, somewhere away from this place. I reminded myself of the odds—four vampires, some of them gifted, against one—but somehow that didn't help. The tracker had already escaped from them once, and he was no fool. He had to have known that targeting me would bring the whole Cullen family down on his head, but he had done it anyway. Was there something more, something that we didn't know about James that would tip the scales in his favor? I shook the thought from my head. No. I was just being paranoid. The others surely knew more about this than I did, and they were confident about their plan to keep me safe and dispose of James. What reason did I have to doubt them?
Tired of pacing the same seven foot section of carpet, I headed back to the bedroom to start packing, but I had so little to pack that I was done in five minutes. I sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall until the ringing of Alice's phone jarred me back to the present.
The first thing I noticed as I returned to the living room was that Chief Swan was gone. Alice stood beside the sofa, speaking rapidly into the phone, her words coming too fast for me to understand them. I glanced back through the bedroom door toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty.
"They're just boarding their plane," Alice explained as she lowered the phone. "They'll land at nine-forty-five."
I nodded and tried to tell myself that everything would be all right.
"Where did Chief Swan go?" I asked.
"He went to check out."
"You aren't staying?"
Alice shook her head. "We're relocating closer to your father's condo."
Of course. Let the hunt begin . . .
I nodded and glanced toward the sofa. There was too much time left between now and nine-forty-five, and if I started pacing again, I was going to go crazy. I stepped around the end of the coffee table and reached down for the remote—
The phone in Alice's hand rang again. I turned toward her just in time to see a flash of something—surprise?—cross her features as she lifted it to her ear.
"Hello?" She paused, listening to the person on the other end of the line. "No, he's right here." She held out the phone toward me. Your father, she mouthed.
My father? If he had gotten Alice's number, then he must have called the office. Fear pooled in the pit of my stomach. Had he just been calling to check his messages? Or did this mean he was planning to come home? I took a deep breath, reminding myself that if my father was calling, then he had to be okay. I reached out to take the phone from Alice's hand.
"Dad?"
"Edward?" came the voice on the other end of the line. It was slightly muffled, a bad connection, I assumed, but I'd know my father's voice anywhere. I offered Alice a one-sided smile and a thumbs-up. "Would you tell me what in the hell is going on?"
Of course. Just like my father. No inquiries about whether or not I was okay. No questions about whose phone he had just called. Just straight to the yelling, and if he'd called at five-thirty in the morning to yell at me, then I was probably about to get the lecture of my life. I turned toward the bedroom. I knew Alice would still be able to hear my end of the conversation, but somehow I didn't want her to be able to hear the reprimand I was about to receive from my father.
"Dad? Where are you? Are you coming home?"
A shuffling sound came through the phone, and then my father's voice, farther away, yelling, "Edward, who is this man? What is going on?" I barely had time to register the words before another voice came on the line.
"Don't say a word until I tell you to."
I froze just inside the bedroom door. It was a soft voice, an almost pleasant voice, a voice that I had never heard before, but I knew exactly who it belonged to.
"Now, I don't need to hurt your father, so do exactly as I say, and he'll be fine." James paused, letting his instructions sink in. "Good," he said, sounding pleased. "Now repeat after me, and do try to sound natural. Say, 'No, Dad, everything's okay.'"
I took a shaky breath, forcing air past the knot that was twisting in my chest. I tried to remember what "natural" sounded like. "No, Dad, everything's okay."
"I think you can do a little better than that." He sounded a bit amused. In the background, I could hear my father demanding to be untied.
"Why don't you go into another room and close the door? We don't want your friends to know what's happening, do we? I know your father doesn't. That wouldn't turn out well for him. Now say, 'No, Dad, you don't have to come home.'"
"No, Dad, you don't have to come home," I repeated as I closed the bedroom door behind me.
"Now, are you alone? Just answer yes or no."
"Yes."
"But I'm sure they can still hear you."
"Yes."
"Now say, 'Don't worry, Dad.'"
"Don't worry, Dad," I repeated. The knot in my chest tightened. There had to be some way to save my father.
"This worked out rather well for me. I was prepared to wait, but your father came home sooner than I had expected. His secretary called and left your number for him so that he'd get it if he got home early and checked his messages before calling in to the office. She's very efficient, don't you agree? Too bad he decided to wait until he got home to call. I bet you were going to warn him not to come home, weren't you?"
I didn't answer. I didn't think he wanted me to. My head was spinning. My fault. This was all my fault.
"Now I want you to listen very carefully. I'm going to need you to get away from your friends. Do you think you can do that? Answer yes or no."
I hesitated. How could I get away from Alice and Chief Swan? If I made any sort of decision, Alice would see it. If I tried to escape they could outrun me, and even if I did it in public, where they couldn't show the world how fast they could move, Bella's father could still keep me from getting away.
"Your father's waiting, Edward. Yes or no?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully.
"That wasn't one of your options. Should I ask your father if you can?" He paused, letting the threat sink in. "Now, I'll ask again. Do you think you can get away from your friends?"
"Yes," I answered, knowing it was the only answer he would accept. I didn't know how, but I had to find a way . . . unless . . . maybe there was another option. Maybe I could just tell them the truth, warn them that the tracker had my father. Surely one of the Cullens would know what to do. The tightness in my chest eased.
"That's better. Now this is what you have to do. I want you to go to your father's condo. Don't worry if you don't have a key. The door will be unlocked. Next to the phone, there will be a number. Call it, and I'll tell you where to go from there."
I already knew what he would tell me, of course, where he wanted this all to end. Would that knowledge give us the upper hand?
"Can you do that? Answer yes or no."
"Yes," I answered, planning it all out in my head. Alice and Chief Swan knew where James would be. Could they sneak into Dinosaur Dan's and rescue my father while James was still waiting for me to call him from the condo?
"Before noon, please," he added politely. "I haven't got all day."
Noon. Maybe this would work. The plane was landing at nine-forty-five. Six against one was even better odds.
"Now you sound like a smart young man, so I shouldn't have to tell you this, but if I get the slightest hint that you have any company, well, that would be very bad for your father. You must know enough about us by now to realize how quickly I would know if you tried to bring anyone along with you. And how little time I would need to deal with your father if that was the case. Do you understand? Yes or no."
The knot was back in my chest, tighter now than it had been before. "Yes."
"Now make sure that you don't make your friends suspicious when you go back to them. Tell them that your father called, but that you told him you were okay, and that he shouldn't come back to Phoenix. Now repeat after me, 'Thank you, Dad.'"
"Thank you, Dad."
"Say, 'I'll see you soon.'"
"I'll see you soon."
"Goodbye, Edward. I'll be waiting." And then the line went dead.
The phone fell out of my hand and onto the bed. I stared down at it as I tried to decide what to do.
Part of me still wanted to walk out into the living room and tell Alice everything. To explain to her that the tracker was holding my father hostage and offering to exchange my life for his, but there was a cold terror seeping into my blood and a voice that whispered that James was right. If I told Alice or Chief Swan anything, James would find out. If anyone tried to shadow me to Dinosaur Dan's, he would know. Maybe the Cullens would get there before he escaped. Maybe they could kill him before he got away, but all he needed was a second, the length of one heartbeat between realizing that they were coming for him and his death . . . and that second would be more than enough time for him to kill my father. I sat down on the edge of the bed and dropped my head into my hands.
So what options did I have left? Only one. I had to do as James had said. I had to walk willingly to my own death. But first, I had to find a way to get away from Alice and Chief Swan, and I had to find it fast.
The airport. That had to be it. It was a public place, a place with witnesses, and we would be there as the sun came up. Maybe I could just get away from them for a moment. Maybe I could get outside in the sunlight where it would be impossible for them to follow without tipping off the world that something wasn't right about them, and then, somehow, I just might stand a chance.
But Bella . . . I would never see Bella again. I would never have the chance to explain. The knot of terror in my chest turned to pain as I remembered what Alice and Chief Swan had said. For the first time in her life, Bella was happy. She had found a reason to start living again, to hope, and I was about to take it away . . . but I didn't have a choice. I had to find a way to tell her goodbye, a way to explain it all and tell her that I loved her one more time.
I took a deep breath and reached down for the phone. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to school my features into a normal expression, then stood and walked out of the room.
"He's not coming home," I told Alice as I set the phone down on the coffee table. I kept my eyes on the carpet, on the sofa, anywhere but on her face. I wasn't ready to look her in the eye and lie just yet. "His secretary called and gave him the message. He was just calling to see if everything was okay." My gaze fell on Alice's drawing, on the pad of hotel stationary beneath it.
"I don't know . . . how long all of this is going to take. If I don't come home at the end of the week, my mother is going to worry. If I write a letter explaining to her that I'm safe and that I'll be home when I can, can you see that she gets it if I'm not home on time?"
"Of course," Alice answered. I wasn't looking at her, but I could hear it in her voice. She knew I was acting strangely, and she wondered why.
I reached down for the paper, forcing my expression to stay blank as I turned toward her. "Thanks." I kept the eye contact brief, less than a second, then turned and walked back into the bedroom.
So much to say, I realized as I sat the pad down on the nightstand. So much to say and too little time. I stared at the paper, trying to find a way to say everything I needed to say without breaking Bella's heart. But that was impossible, wasn't it? I reached for the pen.
"Bella," I began, and suddenly the words wouldn't stop.
I love you. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love another person, and I'm so sorry. I never wanted to leave you, and I can't stand the thought of hurting you, but I don't have another choice.
He has my father. He'll kill him if I don't go. Maybe he'll kill us both in the end, but I have to try.
Please don't blame Alice or your father. It wasn't their fault. And please don't try to come after him. This is all a game for him, a challenge, and I think that's what he wants. He had to have known that your family would try to protect me if he made me his target, and he has to know that you'll want to kill him. I think he wants you to try. But please don't. I can face my own death, but I cannot bear the thought of yours.
I love you. I'm sorry.
Edward
I stared at the letter for five minutes before I managed to fold it up and seal it in the envelope. I wondered how long it would take for them to think of it, to realize what it was. And I prayed that Bella would understand.
. . . . .
Hello to everyone still reading and reviewing this story! Thanks for hanging in there with me!
Just one note on this chapter - in the original story, James tricks Bella with a recording of her mother's voice from an old home movie, and maybe some of you were expecting him to do something like that again, but let me assure you (as I'm sure you are already suspecting) that Edward is NOT listening to a recording of his father's voice. I told you there would be a few changes to the original story along the way . . . and here is the biggest one of them. (I have to switch things up on you when you think you know what to expect, now don't I?)
And, to the unsigned reviewer who assumed that Nessie would be impossible in this universe - I love Nessie! Do you honestly think that I could even start this story without working that little detail out first? ;) Of course I have something up my sleeve . . .
Willa