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Chapter author: karenec

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Chapter 21

It's in this moment, hold on
When everything has come apart
It's in this moment, right now
When it can come together
"Fall in the Light" - Lori Carson

"We'll all go. It is the safest option as far as I am concerned." Carlisle's voice was kind but firm. "Given the lack of information we have about this phone number, there's no telling what we'll find there, if anything."

I shook my head stubbornly, trying to control my frustration. "Someone needs to make sure Bella gets back to Washington safely. All I'm asking is that one of you follow her for the drive."

"You're completely overreacting, Edward," Rosalie said as she rummaged through the clothes in my duffel bag. "You know that girl is more than capable of making the trip on her own."

"Actually, I don't know if Bella is capable, Rose, because I can't talk to her," I bit out angrily. "I'm not sure how she is or what she's feeling. I don't know if she's even remotely okay after last night. I am so screwed up right now that I'm afraid to hear her voice because it may make me want to kill her."

"Easy, Edward," Jasper murmured and I rolled my eyes when I felt him pushing waves of serenity over me.

"But it's true, Jasper," I argued more quietly. "You all may have forgotten that Bella is a human girl who went through something extraordinarily stressful last night. She doesn't trust her mother or her father, so she's going through whatever emotions have cropped up by herself. And the only creatures in the world that do know what she went through can't or won't discuss it with her."

"I'll make the trip," Esme said. She watched me calmly from her seat on the sofa while everyone's eyes turned on her. "No one has forgotten Bella's humanity, Edward; of that I am sure. Bella is certainly able to make the trip, just as Rosalie has said. But you're right, too. The girl has been through a great deal and may be more exhausted than she realizes. Keeping an eye on her as she travels is simple enough and seems like a good idea."

"Thank you," I said softly. The warmth in Esme's eyes made me feel, for just a moment, lighter and less frantic.

"The rest of you should travel with Edward," she said briskly. "I know flying would save time, but it's pretty obvious that he can't be on a plane right now. I'm afraid you'll have to drive.

"I'll wait her until Bella is ready to leave for Washington and I'll follow her. Once she's back home, I can meet you near Uncertain or somewhere on the road. Once we know more, of course..."

After a long pause, Carlisle nodded, giving Esme and then me an encouraging smile. I rubbed a hand over my head and tried to return it as best I could.

"Do you know when Bella is planning to leave, Edward?" Esme's voice was soft, and I knew she was trying to avoid stressing me further.

"She mentioned leaving Saturday morning," I replied.

"Which means you'd better get over there today to keep an eye on her" Emmett said blithely. "When it comes to our boy here, Bella seems to enjoy jumping the gun."

I rolled my eyes at my brother. "Please, never use that idiom again with regard to Bella Swan."

In a flash, everyone was in motion, moving around the room as we prepared to leave. A cotton shirt hit me full in the face while I was packing my laptop and I glanced up to meet my sister's wry gaze. I shook my head when her mouth turned up on one side in a grin.

"There are four bullet holes in that shirt, Edward. You'd best change before some concerned citizen spots you and calls 911."

aDc

Esme crossed town toward the Dwyer's home while the rest of us drove south. Carlisle and I traveled in my car with my siblings following behind us. The morning lengthened as we moved through California, cutting a path southeast through the desert.

My phone chimed with the occasional message from Esme, confirming that Bella was still with her mother and stepfather. But there was no word from Bella herself. Grimly, I forced myself to acknowledge that it was less likely I would hear from her with each mile that slipped by. The pull in my chest toward her was as strong as ever, aching and raw, but for once, I was able to think past it. Thoughts of Alice made it easy to ignore the pull and everything else. I didn't let myself think about my sire.

"Has anything unusual come out in the media with regard to James Chase's death?" Carlisle asked as we crossed into Arizona.

"Only that witnesses heard shouting coming from Chase's house shortly before the sound of gunshots." I chewed my lip for a moment before continuing.

"Bella left behind a pair of sunglasses. But she was wearing gloves, which would have smudged any fingerprints, and the gloves and gun were destroyed.

"None of us will have left any prints," I said, gesturing to myself with one hand. "And that leaves the police with very little physical evidence to go on."

Carlisle was quiet for a moment before making his next observation. "They're starting to call the girl by her name."

"Some of them," I allowed. I could feel his eyes on me as I drove. "It started with Emmett and I've noticed it with Esme, too."

"This leaves Jasper, Rosalie, and me."

"I suspect Rosalie will be calling Bella 'the girl' well into the future."

Carlisle chuckled in agreement but said nothing else. My stomach knotted at his uncharacteristic silence. I was certain he had much to say about Bella, as well as the events in Vallejo and my loss of control. Though tempted, I couldn't bring myself to eavesdrop on his thoughts, and the words I could have used to broach the topic stuck in my throat.

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that when Carlisle did speak, his quiet voice was like a shout.

"Where do you see your friendship with the Swan girl going, Edward?"

"I haven't any idea. I wasn't exaggerating earlier when I said that I haven't spoken to her since leaving Vallejo last night. My control has been too fragile."

"That should improve," Carlisle said reassuringly.

I blew out a long breath. "She told Emmett that she was sorry for the way things happened with Chase. Part of me is still so angry... but I understand why she needed to act once she knew Chase was in her grasp.

"That girl, as you call her... Bella," I murmured, "has turned everything that I know upside down, Carlisle. She dropped into my life and went off like a bomb. I'm not sure I could put it all back together again, or if I want to. Even if I never see her again.

"Now with this news about Alice... I don't know what to think. I'm concerned for Bella; don't misunderstand me, but... I can't think about anything but Alice right now." I swallowed as my voice cracked on my sister's name.

"That's understandable, of course," Carlisle said gently. "I can only imagine how shocked you must still feel coming upon this information so suddenly, and from such an unexpected source."

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road as a means of controlling my emotions. Desperately, I tried not to get ahead of myself. We still knew so little. We had a hurried and disjointed story about journal entries and chat room friendships. A phone number that we now knew was attached to a rural mailbox. Satellite maps showing a vague shape that might be a dwelling near the mailbox. There was no telling what we would find near Uncertain, if we found anything at all.

"Edward, I have to ask you to consider your ability to control yourself around humans right now." Carlisle's tone caught my attention. "Depending on what or who we encounter in Texas, you'll need to have your wits about you. That's particularly true if you don't feel confident about your level of control."

You know what he's asking. I ground my teeth and considered the meaning behind Carlisle's words. Given my frame of mind, how sure was I that I wouldn't kill my own sister?

aDc

We sped southeast, following dry stretches of highway through Arizona and New Mexico as the day wore on, stopping when the cars ran low on fuel. Though they did not speak of it, I knew that Jasper and Emmett had been trying the number in Uncertain without result.

We were stopped outside Amarillo when my phone chimed with a message from Bella. Though I had been waiting all day for word from her, I hesitated to read it. I realized then that everything in me was waiting for her to walk away from our friendship. I expected nothing less, now that she knew what I really was. And I could almost hear Rosalie rolling her eyes at me as I pulled up the message.

I hope you find her, Edward.

My fingers moved swiftly in response and I felt my face turn down in a frown. We have a possible address. We're on our way now.

We were climbing back in the cars when my phone chimed again. I expected a message from Bella asking about where we were headed or if we had managed to reach anyone using the phone number. The words I read instead made me go quite still in surprise.

I wouldn't change anything. But for what it's worth, I'm sorry.

I let out a long sigh and ran my thumb over the screen. "I'm sorry too, Bella."

aDc

The terrain changed as we traveled southeast, becoming greener and wetter. It was fully dark when we neared Caddo Lake and the tiny city of Uncertain. Using the maps I had created, we rolled slowly along a narrow road that wound into a bayou. It took about thirty minutes to find the mailbox in the tall weeds. From there, we hiked on foot through a long, overgrown grove that would have been impenetrable to most humans.

We were quiet as we moved, communicating in low murmurs when necessary. A deep hush hung over the grove, broken by the sounds of animals and insects, and the gentle lap of lake water against the shore.

All around us was the rich, earthy smell of vegetation and water, and the trails of animals along the ground. The unmistakable scent of a vampire was laced throughout. I dropped into a hunting stance with a low growl, the scent of clove and green oak filling my nose. My sire had walked there.

Steeling myself, I opened my mind, listening hard for the thoughts of any creature concealed from us in the darkness. I felt relief and a burning disappointment when I heard only my family's watchful, listening thoughts.

"There," I breathed, nodding at spaces and shapes emerging from the gloom.

A clearing, distinct though overgrown, was perched on the lakeshore. A small building that was half-hidden underneath a massive cypress tree and veils of hanging moss. The dwelling was dark and quiet, seemingly uninhabited. But a buzz of electrical current was audible from a small transformer to the left of the structure, and the faint smell of rotting food stained the air. Appearances aside, someone had been there recently.

My sire's scent grew thicker as we neared the house, older trails crossing and overlapping with newer ones. We were two hundred meters from the low porch when a new smell sank into all of us. It was delicate and deliciously salty, like violets and caramel, and it stilled our steps as we breathed it in.

Alice.

"Is that…?" Jasper murmured on my left and his eyes were wide when we looked at one another.

I could only nod in answer and swallow over the lump in my throat. The scent was fairly fresh, perhaps only a week or two old. If it could have, my heart would have burst under the emotions storming through me.

She's been here.

My excitement wavered abruptly when my ears told me that it was too quiet. It dawned on me that one very important sound was missing, a sound I had been listening for without even realizing it: Alice's heartbeat. Its absence meant that she had been moved or, perhaps, that she had left on her own. Or that she was dead.

"No," I whispered. Before anyone could react, I threw myself forward, racing toward the little house. The sound of my Rosalie's gasp was in my ears as I stepped on to the porch, followed by a rush of movement as I wrenched the door off its hinges. It fell heavily onto the floor, rattling with the sound of broken deadbolts and chains.

I paused then, the others gathering around me as Alice's rich scent poured over us. It mixed with the clove and green oak notes of my sire and became something new. A luscious and bright scent that was unmistakably vampiric. It was Alice, amplified a hundredfold.

"Oh, God," Rosalie said as the thoughts of the others crowded into my head. They smelled it too.

I stared down at the door lying uselessly at my feet. My eyes flicked up and took in the heavily shuttered windows, and the thick, insulated walls. A low growl rolled through as a start realization hit me: the little house was a prison.

"Easy," Carlisle said softly, one hand on my shoulder, reminding me of our purpose. "Go easy, Edward."

I bit back a snarl as I stepped into the house, my eyes moving rapidly in the dark to see a little room with a kitchenette off to the right. My sister's smell was everywhere, embedded in the fabrics and surfaces of the furniture and appliances. There was a bed in one corner, and a sofa and chair in another. My hand rose to cover my mouth when I saw the sketchpads on the kitchen table, and the neat lines of charcoal pencils. My eyes moved over the sketches pinned to the walls and the books piled in corners.

The room spoke of overwhelming loneliness.

Five years. Had she been there all that time? Hidden in the middle of a swamp, with my sire for company? The thought of my incredibly social sister locked away from the world like a secret treasure was painful. Had there been no one with whom she could speak? No one to share in her secrets and laughter? No one to hold her hand or brush the dark hair out of her eyes?

"Oh, Alice," I said, and my voice was barely a sigh. "What did he do to you?"

And then I remembered: Bella. Alice had somehow found a way to communicate online, and she had crossed paths with Bella. My eyes darted around the room, looking for a computer or jacks, any kind of equipment to facilitate an internet connection. A flash of green by the sofa caught my eye and I was across the room in an instant. I stared down at the wireless router and its blinking service indicators but looked in vain for a computer.

Thirsty.

The whispered thought was so quiet; I might have missed it had the room not been so deadly silent. I froze, straining to hear more, the seconds spinning out around me. The others approached me soundlessly, their bodies strung tight with tension like mine, their eyes hard as they listened.

You can do it.

All at once, images hit me, each flashing for less than a second, blazing in my mind's eye like fireworks.

A white bathtub.

The robe hanging on a hook.

A shuttered window set high in the wall.

The door in the floor with a thick, rusted ring set in the center of one edge.

I was a blur of motion as I strode across the room toward the kitchen, the others following hastily behind me.

"What is it?" Carlisle murmured. "What are we looking for?"

"There's space underneath us," I replied, my jaw tight with agitation and fear. "There's someone here, maybe in that space. I can hear them."

We found the bathroom door next to the kitchen, and I recoiled slightly when it fell open. My sire's scent was thick in the little room, as was the Alice's. I heard a strange, whining noise of distress and realized too late that it coming from me.

Pushing ahead, I found the door in the floor by the toilet and pulled it open hastily, exposing a ladder that led down into the earth. I was down the ladder in a flash, the others following like shadows one after the other. We stood and looked down a long room that had been roughly carved out of the earth, lit with a single lamp at the far end.

She was sitting on a cot, a laptop at her side, her legs tucked under her as I had seen her do a million times growing up. Dimly, I registered her simple, dark clothing, and that her long hair was cropped short. It fell like a sleek little cap against her head, exaggerating her long eyes. Eyes that I knew so well, shining bright crimson and widening as they moved over my face.

The young girl I had known was still in the lines of a face that had slimmed and grown more mature. I realized with a pang that she was older now than I had been when I was changed – I had been frozen at twenty-one, but she had gone on to top that age by several years.

"Alice," I breathed. Her bewildered thoughts were loud in my head, and my dead heart broke when I realized she wasn't sure that I was real.

Jasper's hand was on my arm then, cautioning me to use care and I felt calming waves pouring off him. I knew well the intense strength and unpredictable moods of newborn vampires, and my sister was no exception. She was more than a little dangerous in her current state, even if she didn't mean to be.

She was so still. My sister sat impossibly frozen and graceful, the lines of her body unmoved by fidgeting or breaths. Immovable, pale, and beautiful, like marble.

I moved so slowly and carefully, my eyes never leaving hers as they stared redly at me. My lips trembled when I smiled, and my voice was barely a croak when I spoke again. "Alice, sweetheart. I'm going to sit down on the cot."

She watched me silently as I moved, and the astonishment in her eyes grew when the mattress dipped under my weight. The wonder in her thoughts made me ache.

"Yes, I'm real," I reassured her, reaching out carefully with one hand to brush the hair off her forehead. "Bella gave me the phone number early this morning. We got here as soon as we could."

"Bella. I… I wasn't sure she was telling the truth," my sister whispered, in a silvery voice like bells in winter air. "About knowing you, I mean. I didn't know what to think.

"I hoped so much that you he hadn't killed you, back in Chicago. I had so many dreams over the years. Dreams where you were alive... and they were so real. It was like seeing you, seeing inside of you. I hoped that you were out there and okay."

I nodded, smiling at her as she struggled to find the words.

"I can't sleep anymore. But the dreams keep happening, though I'm awake. I thought maybe I was going crazy. Then when Bella told me that she thought that you were the boy in the bookstore, that her friend was my Edward... I had no idea what to do. I was afraid to call the number she gave me... afraid to pick up the phone when it rang."

Alice's face fell. "I'm sorry. I was afraid that if you did come… that I would hurt you."

I shook my head with a breathless chuckle. "You don't have to be afraid. I'm like you, Alice. We all are. You could hurt me because right now you're very strong. But never enough to keep me away."

Alice's hands crept up to cover her mouth as her face crumpled with emotion. Forgetting myself, I put my arms around her, moving far too quickly. I held my breath when she stiffened against me and saw Jasper take another step close as he worked to calm both Alice and me. And I didn't let go of my sister. I murmured quietly into her hair until she relaxed. When her hands crept around my waist, she squeezed hard enough to hurt me, but I didn't really feel it. Instead, I felt the weight of the last five years fall away.

aDc

"Is there anything you want to take with you?" I asked.

Alice looked around the little room, her face empty of expression before she shook her head. "The only thing I want is the laptop."

"Jasper's got it," I reminded her, inclining my head toward the door. "He carried it outside when we came upstairs."

Alice looked from the door to my face and her brows pulled together as she frowned. "They don't mind? About me, I mean? You have a new family, now-"

I returned her frown and gripped her hand tightly in both of mine. "They're here for you, Alice. They're as much family to you as I am."

One side of her mouth pulled up in a smile and she nodded slowly.

"Are you very thirsty?" I asked, and then huffed at my own stupidity. "What am I saying; of course you are. It's always like that during the first year."

"Yes. The last time I fed was two days ago. I can't go any longer than that," she said, and this time her eyes dropped to the floor.

"What's wrong?"

Alice took a long time to answer. When she did, her voice was pitched very low. "I've… I've been finding prey around the lake. I go out after dark and find them in their houses. I've been hiding them in the swamp after I've finished with them."

I swallowed, saddened by my sister's confession but not entirely surprised. My anger flared when I thought of Alice, abandoned as I had been, but without anyone to step in. "Where is he? Our sire?"

"Gone," she said hollowly, though her eyes gleamed with fierce gladness. She grew agitated and trembled with emotion. "He left me burning on the floor, just like he did you. I've been alone. I... I didn't know what to do, Edward."

"It's okay," I said, trying to soothe her. "Is that why you stayed here in the house? Even though you could have run off once he'd gone?"

"I didn't know where else to go. I didn't know where you were and I knew I couldn't go to Bella." She winced and I tried not to cringe at the images in her head. Bella as prey. Bella dead. "I didn't want to hurt her."

I nodded and nudged her toward the open door. "You did the right thing. We can explain everything we know to you, and show you how to hunt other prey. The thirst will lessen with time, I promise."

We walked outside to meet Jasper and Emmett on the porch, and walked with them back through the grove while the others went ahead. Alice and I kept our arms around each other while I tried to field her murmured questions.

Carlisle slid behind the wheel of my car and Jasper took the passenger seat, while Alice and I climbed into the backseat. Alice curled against my side, threading her arms around my waist when I pulled her close. Her head fell on my shoulder when I grunted at her force, but I smiled against her hair, closing my eyes as if in rest.

A soft creak of movement caught my ear, telling me that Jasper had turned in his seat to check on us. His voice was gentle, and held just the right amount of teasing. "You up for hunting some game, Mary Alice?"

"That sounds good," my sister replied, pausing a moment before she spoke again. "It's just Alice, by the way."

"You're not just anything, sweetheart," I told her, and smiled again as her quiet laughter filled the car.

A/N

*peeks out from behind hands* Still with us? :)

Thank you so much for reading and your fabulous reviews. And for bearing with us during our mini delay this week - Edward and Alice were being a bit bratty this week.

The next chapter will be Bella's.

We are contributing an outtake from A Dove's Cry to the Fandom For No Kid Hungry cause. As little as $10 will get you a compilation of contributions from over one hundred authors - whoa! Link to the Fandom 4NKH website on my profile.