Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.
"Yes, let's go home," I said pulling him toward the car.
To say the drive was long was a damn understatement. We were driving to the airport to go home, but the airport was still quite a few hours away. I was very eager to get back home and see the rest of the family but patience has never been my strong point. This damn traffic wasn't helping.
"Urgh, how long is this going to take?" I shouted grumpily.
Edward's lips twitched, "Actually quite a while."
I frowned unhappily; for once I was more impatient than Emmett who is usually the one to get tired of long car rides. In our haste to leave we had neglected to check the free roads and now found ourselves suck in the morning rush hour traffic; at least I think that this was it. There was a long line of traffic which extended far past our eyesight.
This was going to take a while.
It didn't help that it seemed like today was going to be a hot one. Out of our stay in Goodville, we had managed luckily enough to not encounter any sunny days, but today seemed like the exception. The heat was rising steadily against the morning hours. Vampires didn't feel hot or get sweaty, but the heat did make the air heavy and dry and that did irritate me.
I was getting really agitated which didn't help my predicament with the three other children in the car, two of which were newborn babies. They were able to nap a few hours but were awake now and weren't liking our current location very much.
I agreed very much with them.
"Are we there yet?" wailed Renesmee.
"No sweetie, not yet," I answered truthfully.
Emmett and Nessie seemed to be taking turns between nagging us about out arrival to the airport. This didn't improve my mood to be reminded that there still was another long flight to still get through before we could get home. Honestly, the way we were driving, running would get us faster home.
I stared out the window trying to distract myself from the impending journey but the view wasn't that distracting. It looked like it hadn't rained in a while; the grass and bush surrounding the road were dry and yellowing.
With this heat, a forest fire might be likely. That wouldn't be good for the three vampires and three half-vampires sitting in the car. I glowered at the sky willing it to rain but the sky was still blue with a scattering of fluffy white clouds covering the sun. It was a beautiful day, it was, and there was no denying it. I was just in a foul mood.
I ached to open the window the feel the breeze against my face, to breath in clean fresh air, air that I didn't need, but liked. It was too risky though; a ray of sunlight might catch against my skin and throw a rainbow of sparkling diamonds. If the humans saw it there would be trouble with the Volturi and nobody wants another visit from the redcoats.
I tried to ignore an annoying tune coming from one of the nearby car's radio. Sometimes super hearing wasn't at all as it was cracked up to be. It vaguely reminded me of an ice cream van and I started to wonder how much money an ice cream man might make if he went up and down selling ice cream to this line of traffic.
I started giggling at the idea of a man on a bicycle cycling on the road and ringing his bell trying to get everyone's attention. Edward raised his eyebrow at me wondering what changed my mood so suddenly, I was too overcome with giggles to answer him properly.
By lunch time it was obvious it wasn't the morning traffic and there was something else. But after driving awhile and only moving a few inches each time we finally found the cause of the traffic. There was a road block ahead with about a dozen policemen who seemed to be checking cars. I groaned internally, this was the last thing we needed.
"Edward, what's going on?" I asked curiously. The police were checking each car methodically and not a handful like usually. This didn't look like they were checking licences or speed limits. There was something else going on here.
Edward face was set in a frown. Oh no, this didn't seem good.
"They're checking each car for signs of Darcy. She's still missing," Edward answered. His eyes had a faraway look, obviously looking through the minds of the policemen.
Darcy? As in Darcy Malan, the mayor of Goodville's wife. They hadn't found her yet? If I had my way I would have found her by now and chucked her into the nearest psychiatric hospital where she belongs. For what she did to me, we should have gone to the police and told them.
Darcy needs to be found and punished for what she did to me. I sighed remembering my conversation with Edward about it, Darcy's punishment would mean bringing attention to ourselves and our names put through the news. However now that Esther wasn't looking for us, maybe we could…
I shook my head trying to get rid of that thought. I should focus on the fact that we were going home and I was going to see the rest of the family again. Revenge would get me no-where. I kept repeating that over and over in my head trying to make it sound true.
"The police think Darcy has been kidnapped," Edward said catching my attention.
Emmett burst out laughing, "Kidnapped? In this small town? Kidnappings don't happen here."
I had to agree with Emmett with that one. It was highly unlikely anyone could ever be kidnapped from here. Why would they anyway? This was going to be a huge scandal in this small town. Edward thinks that Darcy probably ran off when she didn't find me back in that hole.
He thinks that she panicked and thought I'd go to the police and report what she had done to me. But now the police were looking for her and now she looked like the innocent victim and not the treacherous evil woman she was. I took a deep breath trying to calm myself, I had to let this go. I shouldn't live in the past, I needed to move on. Darcy only just forced me into a hole and nearly harmed my babies….
My anger sky rocketed. Edward sensed my anger and placed his hand leg to try and calm me down. It worked, it was like his touch evaporated all, well most of my anger toward Darcy Malan.
"We're getting closer," Edward said referring to the police in front of us.
Nessie shouted from the back seat, "We're at the airport! Yay!"
We all smiled at her innocence, I wished we were at the airport by now. "No darling, we're not there yet," Edward said.
Renesmee's face fell and I couldn't help but feel a pang against my heat. My poor baby, she was sad, I wanted to wipe away her frown and hold her tight. I'm still not used to these motherly instincts that hit me so strongly every now and then. It reminded me of what I am now and I loved it.
We watched as the car in front of us was searched. The passengers weren't asked to get out but I saw one of the police searching a handbag. Oh this wasn't going to look good. We still had some luggage with us and it might seem suspicious about how we were leaving. It was the middle of the week and we were up and going. Yeah, the bottles of blood in the bag for the children weren't going to look that good either.
Soon enough it was our turn and I tried to ignore the wave of fear course through me. I didn't actually have anything to worry about, we hadn't done anything. All the police were doing now is delaying our trip home, it wasn't like they were only searching us, it was everyone.
Edward rolled down the window and for a second I panicked and looked up. Thankfully the sun was still behind the clouds, although it still was hot.
"Good day officer," Edward replied politely to the very sweaty policeman. I cringed at his scent, it was disgusting and it was no right in front of us.
"Hello, sorry to bother you folks but we have to check your car," the policeman said gruffly.
"Can I ask what this is about," Edward asked feigning curiosity. Of course he already knew it was about Darcy.
The policeman hardly blinked, he was probably getting this all day. "We are conducting a missing person's search."
"Have you got any leads?" Edward asked inquiringly.
The policeman narrowed his eyes, "We not at the liberty to disclose information like that." Oh it was fine, Edward probably knows what you have by going through your head.
"So where are y'all off to?" asked the policeman.
I let Edward do all of the talking, he was better at this than I was. "Oh, we're just heading back home from our little visit." Edward said.
The policeman called over another man to come search our car and do you know who it turned out to be?
"Detective Wilbur?" I blurted out suddenly.
He recognized me easily and immediately started grinning. Right now I wanted to put my head in my hands and scream. Really? Why was all of this happening? It was like even though we left Goodville the town was still trying to get to us. All I wanted to do was go home, was that so hard?
Edward suddenly went stiff and started glaring at Detective Wilbur. Edward clenched his hands around the steering wheel and I immediately got worried. Without a steering wheel it would be harder to get home. I turned back to Detective Wilbur who looked like he was undressing me with his eyes.
No wonder Edward was so mad. Well that's my Edward and I loved him for that. I placed my palm against his fist trying to calm him down, Edward's face softened and it looked like my touch affected him the same way his did to me.
"Hiya Bella," Detective Wilbur said completely ignoring the other people in the car. The policeman who stopped us was still standing there, watching our whole exchange take place.
"Do you know these people Alex?" asked the gruff policeman.
"Yeah, they're from Goodville too," Detective Wilbur answered.
The gruff policeman raised his eyebrow at us, "You guys are from the town the same town the woman was kidnapped?"
Oh this was not looking good at all.
"Oh are you looking for Darcy Malan?" I asked innocently trying to act dumb. Emmett snorted, unimpressed by my act. I tried fluttering my eyelashes at them too, but the policemen started looking at me like I was stupid.
The policeman peered through the window of the car and noticed the luggage for the first time. We looked very suspicious now. It looked like we were running away from a crime we committed.
The policeman stared at me frowning before saying, "I'm going to have to ask you all to step out of the car please."
I started to panic I turned to Edward for help but he just looked warily at me. He turned to the policeman and said calmly, "Sir is that really necessary? You see we have babies in the car and it would be an inconvenience to them-"
The policeman cut Edward off by saying, "Out of the car, now!" Edward narrowed his eyes at him for the tone he was using. Edward didn't like being ordered around anymore than I do.
I took my time getting out of the car, carefully picking up the twins out of their car seat and guiding Nessie out the car. They were making me get out, and I sure as hell wanted to inconvenience them like they were doing to me.
"Alex, check their car," ordered the gruff policeman. We were powerless to stop them. Edward quickly tried reasoning with them, but not even that worked. It seemed that if we wanted out of here, we were going to have to let them search the car.
I was mad that they were going through our things, but not fuming as I was earlier thinking about what Darcy did to me. That was until they came across the baby bag for the twins. That was when I got scared, and when I mean scared I mean it. That was where the bottles of blood were.
I stopped breathing, if I were human I would have been sweating bullets by now. Edward was frozen too, he also knew what was in there. Damn! We should have taken more time to try and hide them! Urgh, we didn't know that the police would be checking cars!
I started imaging how my heart would have been racing if I were not a vampire. Time felt like it was going in slow motion, or maybe it was because I was seeing it through a vampire's eyes. My focus was one red alert as I watched Detective Alex Wilbur open the zipper to the bag. I grabbed Edward hand and started squeezing it like my life depended on it.
Detective Wilbur's eyes went wide when he saw what was inside. He pulled out the bottle of clear red blood and said, "What on earth is this?"