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21. Chaos

Charlie decided to leave for Seattle that afternoon.

"I've managed to snag some time off," he said. "It means doing extra when I get back but at least I'll have a home to go to."

"Why are you even going to Seattle?" I asked.

"I know a friend who can do the building work for me," he said. "It'll be cheaper than anything I can get round here."

"We'd happily do the building work, Chief Swan," Jasper offered, appearing beside me. I flinched and he apologized, calling me 'ma'am' and cocking his head to the side. I shied away from him, something about Jasper unnerved me. The three of us stood in the foyer, the open door blowing in a warm spring breeze. Still the streets were dead outside.

"Thank you for the offer," Charlie said, sounding genuinely touched. "But this friend of mine really needs the work. I think we could help each other out here."

Jasper nodded. "Very well."

"But why do you have to go to Seattle?" I asked. "Why couldn't your friend just come here?"

Charlie looked me in the eyes and placed a hand on my cheek. "I need to get away from it all, Bella," he said. "Just for a few days. You're welcome to come if you'd like. I think a few days away would do you good."

I seriously considered it but decided to stay – for Edward. I couldn't bare the pain of being apart from him for nearly a week. "No, I think I'll stay," I said.

"I thought you would," Charlie side, smiling. He looked in the direction of the stairs and I saw Edward stood there, watching me. I knew from the look on his face that he thought I would agree with my dad and leave him. I gave him a reassuring smile.

"You look after my daughter, sir," he said, ever the respectful human.

"I promise, Chief," Edward said, ever the respectful Vampire. He joined us by the door and held out his hand. Charlie shook it, the promise thick in the air around them.

"See you soon, Bella," he said. I gave him a hug and he picked up his bags, thanked Jasper and Edward for their hospitality – he'd already thanked the others many times – and left.

The door closing behind him echoed in the foyer, a final whisper.

(*)

The next day I woke up next to Edward again. This time we were both fully clothed though Edward seemed to be on a mission to change that. I smiled lazily as he kissed up and down my neck, rubbing my side and making the shirt Alice had saved from Charlie's house ride up slightly.

"Edward," I complained. "Let me sleep."

"You've been sleeping for hours," he replied, his breath hot on my neck. "You're driving me crazy."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, because I'm really channeling Marilyn Monroe in this get-up," I retorted, smiling genuinely and feeling so light.

Edward ignored me, turning me over so he could kiss along my neck. I froze.

"Don't worry," he murmured. "I could never hurt you for your blood – not after nearly losing you."

I pushed his head away and he complied so we were both looking into each other's eyes. I saw the worry in them then, the fear he had felt on Friday night that he had kept hidden from me.

"Don't worry," I said, throwing his words back at him. "You're not going to lose me."

"I will," he muttered. "One day. Humans have a life span."

My breath caught and I pulled him to me, cradling his head against my chest. "As long as I'm in control," I told him. "You will never lose me."

But what he had said threw me. If we survived the Volturi then I would eventually grow old and leave him. Still, there was nothing I could do about it. The last thing we needed was for me to be turned and for the Volturi to have even more reason to hunt us down.

"I want to go to the Angels meeting today," I said. Edward's head shot up.

"No," he said.

"Why not?" I asked. "You don't know for sure that they knew about Mrs. Cope. At least this way I can find some answers."

"It's dangerous, Bella."

"They can't hurt me," I told him. "It'll be okay."

Still Edward was hesitant. "Let me follow you."

"Too risky," I said. "They'll already know I'm Mated by now. If they see you then they'll just look you up in their massive database that they've made up. They'll find out about you and Tanya."

"Bella, please," he said. "Let me do it for me then. I'll take the risk just to give me some peace of mind."

I hesitated. "Fine," I sighed. "But Alice can always just look and see what happens you know."

"She can't," Edward said. "She's already watching the Volturi's decisions over Tanya. We'll be on our own."

"How exciting," I said. "We'll finally be oblivious as to what the future holds."

Edward rolled his eyes – a habit he'd gotten from me. "Sometimes I think that you think danger is fun, Bella," he said.

"No, I don't," I told him. "It's just that it makes me feel human." Upon saying this, I realized something. "You need to be far away not to read their minds," I said. "I don't want you interfering if you hear something you don't like and then lying to me later about what it was."

"Dammit," Edward cursed. I'd obviously figure out his plan.

"How does this mind-reading work anyway?" I asked. "Which is stronger; your real ears or your mind's ears?"

"My real ones," he said. "I'll be able to hear what they're saying but I won't be able to read their minds."

I thought about that for a second. "Okay, fair enough. So is Aro's Gift like yours then?"

"It's nothing like mine," he protested, angry I had drawn similarities between them. "He knows everything about a person through physical contact."

"So we really would be screwed if Aro wanted to see Tanya wouldn't we?"

He didn't answer. His silence was answer enough.

(*)

I walked to the church through the streets of Forks. Edward took the way through the forest so as not to be seen. The others had protested at me going at first, especially with Alice's temporary blindness but they seemed more accepting when they realized Edward was going too. Either they wanted to protect me for Edward's sake and felt Edward was fine with taking responsibility for my safety, or they actually liked me. I was starting to find the latter easier to believe.

There was nobody to greet me in the foyer. It was what I should have been expecting but my heart still beat widely as I walked up the path. Silly thoughts flitted through my head, pecking at my brain like angry birds. What if Mrs. Cope had survived? What if she was telling the others right now what had happened? If that happened then it would be like a domino effect; Jacob would be caught, Tanya would bring Edward down who in turn would probably bring me down too. Whether the Volturi actually killed me for being with a 'Mated' Vampire or not, my life would still end so long as Edward wasn't there.

I hurried through the empty foyer and down the cold, drafty hallways of the church until I found the room I was looking for; the meeting room. To say they were surprised to see me enter was an understatement.

"Bella!" The pastor was the first to recover from shock, his voice a couple of octaves too high as he tried to compose himself. "What a surprise! We weren't expecting you here today."

I strode confidently towards the circle. There was no chair for me to sit down on. It was like they'd washed their hands of me. Angela wouldn't look at me but she was the only one. The others faced me with burning anger, especially James.

And then it fell into place.

"Oh God," I breathed. "Mrs. Cope was your grandmother." I stared at him, my mouth agape. "But, surely, you must have known what she was."

A heavy silence filled the room. Another piece of the puzzle.

"You all knew," I realized. "How come I was never told? A little warning would have been nice."

"You were a victim of a werewolf attack," the pastor explained to me. "You wouldn't have understood."

"Understood what?" I asked.

"What we were doing," Eric took over the reins. "Bella, the first time you were here we told you that werewolves could kill Vamps."

"Yes," I said, nodding slowly.

"Well that's what we were doing," the pastor said, taking over with a sharp glance at Eric. "We were training a werewolf to rid Forks of Vamps."

It was exactly the same idea Edward and I had talked about weeks earlier. The madness of it all made me laugh out loud. "Are you stupid?" I asked. "You can't train werewolves – they're uncontrollable at full moon! I'm from Arizona, I could have told you that!"

"They're not completely wild!" Eric said defensively. It was obvious how he was the mastermind behind all this. "We were using James to get through to her. We worked out that a blood relative might be able to control them."

"So who came first?" I asked, scanning the group. I noticed Harry looking at me as though I was dirt. "Mrs. Cope or James?"

"Mrs. Cope," the pastor said, confused. He glanced at James who was still glaring at me. "James only joined us a few months before you."

I looked at James. "Mrs. Cope was scratched by the werewolf that killed her husband wasn't she?" I asked. James narrowed his eyes then nodded slowly.

"Excuse me, Bella," Bernard, the frail old man, spoke for the first time. "But what exactly are you doing here. I'm sure you could have worked out for yourself that we don't accept sluts of demons."

I shot a panicked glance to the only window in the room, praying that Edward would let the comment drop. I wasn't done yet.

"Fair enough," I said. "But why is James here then?"

"Shut up," James growled almost as soon as I'd gotten my words out.

"What are you talking about?" the pastor asked, casting confused glances between James and me. Even Angela was looking at us both now, trying to work out what I had meant.

"Oh, you didn't know?" I feigned surprise. "James is Mated to a lovely Vampire by the name of Victoria."

"She's lying!" James yelled, spit flying from his mouth. His eyes were crazed, panicked. He stood up so fast he sent his chair flying over backwards.

"No I'm not!" I screamed back. I lowered my voice, "Please, James, calm down," I said. "I just want to know why you're still here if you can have a better life with her."

The room fell silent again. James was visibly shaking.

"A better life?" he asked through gritted teeth. He looked at me, his eyes so full of hatred I had to fight the urge to step back. "See what they've done to you?" he asked. "Before you Mated I bet you hated them as much as I did; they're nothing but controlling monsters."

He stopped, waiting for me to answer. The rest of the Angels seemed to wait with baited breath. I nodded, showing I knew what he was talking about.

"But then you met them didn't you? That one person who Fate decides you're going to be perfect with and you have no control over it."

I nodded again, feeling my anger melt away from me. I'd never expected this, never expected to understand James' turmoil so greatly.

"She wouldn't leave me alone," he said, his voice fading to a whimper. "And I didn't like being without her. But I don't want to be one of them."

"That's why you're still here isn't it?" I asked.

James nodded. "If I could make her human then I would but I can't. I…was hoping that if I stayed away long enough…"

"The pain would fade," I finished for him. I placed a hand over my heart, feeling Edward close by.

James nodded, and then – just like that – his vulnerability faded away. He gritted his teeth again, his eyes ablaze as he took a step towards me.

"And then she found you and she told you about us," he hissed. "Everything would have been fine if you hadn't have found out!"

"No it wouldn't," I said, my voice so quiet. "It's not something you can run from James." I smiled slightly, realizing I had quoted Edward without consciously knowing about it.

"Yes it is!" he said. "Humans soon get over it!" I opened my mouth to argue but he continued, "So I had to get rid of you."

My stomach dropped along with the final penny. "It was you," I realized. "You sent Mrs. Cope round to my house on full moon."

"She was really mad," he said. "She couldn't understand how I could love one of them but she was willing to help me."

The pastor stood up then, reminding me that James and I weren't the only two people in the room.

"You sinner!" he cried, pointing at James. "Not only have you betrayed us but you endangered the town!"

"I only sent her after Bella," James argued.

"You know as much as I do that if the demon's slut hadn't led it into the forest, that werewolf would have killed the whole neighborhood and more!"

"I had to take that risk!" James yelled back.

"You were in denial," I muttered but my voice was unheard as they continued to yell. He'd flirted with me, carried on shouting hate about Vampires because he couldn't accept what had happened to him. I realized that, like James, I had been very much in denial about everything with me and Edward. It was a shock to the system to realize that had I not come round to it then I would have ended up like him, crazed and living a lie. Amongst all this I found myself feeling sorry for Victoria. I couldn't imagine rejecting Edward the same way James had rejected her.

Suddenly the door to the room flew off its hinges and there stood Edward, glaring at the group with his lip pulled back over his teeth.

I stared at him in shock as did the rest of the Angels.

"Edward," I said, slowly approaching him. "Edward, what are you…"

I didn't get to finish. Before I could even take another breath, Edward leapt from the doorway at James.

There was no shouting like we had been doing before. Shouting was a very human thing to do. It meant that we needed to be heard. Vampires don't need to be heard. Edward got his point across easily just by sinking his teeth into James' neck. I looked away, unable to take in the horror of it all, unable to admit to myself that that was my Mate.

We lie to ourselves every day. We tell ourselves that the only way the Vampires are monsters is because they control us, they treat us like second-class citizens. But we deny the fact that it could be a lot worse. We hide from the reality that the Vampires are so much stronger than us; that in the Dark Ages before the Volturi enforced laws we were hunted almost to extinction by them.

And hearing the wet snap of James' neck suddenly brought all that reality down on me.

There was a beat of silence. And then the screaming started.

I ran from the room, desperate to get away from it all. The screams followed me down the corridors and into the fresh air. Outside they were dulled by the thick walls of the church and the trees around the building would swallow up any more sound before it reach the neighborhood but still they echoed in my head. They were something I could not escape from nor was the fact that I loved the…Vampire causing this.

Edward had killed James. He was a murderer.

"Bella." His voice cut through me like a knife. I gasped, stumbling away from him with my hands raised high in an attempt to protect myself. "Bella, look at me. I'm sorry."

I choked on a sob that had stuck in my throat. I couldn't face him. Not now. Not yet.

"Stay away from me!" I cried, my voice so morphed with tears that he wouldn't have understood me had he not been a Vampire. Had he not been a monster.

"Bella, I had to do it," he said, pleading. "He tried to kill you – that's what Mates do, they protect each other."

"That's not protecting!" I screamed, finally facing him. He stood there, James' blood drying on his mouth, staining his T-shirt. I fell to my knees, retching on the concrete. I heard him take a step towards me. "Don't come near me!" I cried, my voice a mumbling mess again.

"Bella, please…."

"Stay away from me!" I cried. And then I got up and ran, ran as fast as my legs could take me.

Who said I couldn't run away from it all? I could try at least. I could run until my legs gave way beneath me and then I would use my hands to grip soil and drag my useless body along. Always keeping going, putting distance between us. I had been kidding myself to think I could cope with this. Just an hour ago, thinking of the intimacy we had shared the other night would make me blush and tingle, now it made me gag to the point where I wanted to scratch my own skin off. I hit a clearing in the woods when the pain caught up to me, crippling me to my knees. I sobbed louder, unaware of the dark forms slowly surrounding me.