Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters.

Chapter Twenty-five: Hope

Victoria reached the house before James even realized his error. Bella's father was in the room, fluttering over his unconscious daughter, not knowing what had happened or what the roar had been. It had sounded like a mother Bear after one of her cubs had been taken. It was a crazy sound to be heard in a house.

When Victoria entered the window Chief Swan looked up, wide-eyed. The window was on the second floor and no one should have been able to easily get to it without the help of a ladder. Before he could even open his mouth, Victoria crossed the room and snapped his neck. He was dead before she sunk her teeth into his neck, enjoying the warmth and sweetness of his blood.

Dropping the corpse, Victoria turned her attention back onto Bella. The human was still unconscious, but it was obvious she was injured. Her body lay at such an odd angle. Victoria felt momentarily sorry for this girl. She knew it wasn't the girl's fault that James had never loved her and, therefore, decided she did not need to prolong the girl's torture.

Victoria bit into the girl's throat and venom immediately pushed its way into the wound. The blood was sweeter than any Victoria had tasted and she finally understood why James had originally wanted to use the girl in his game.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, Victoria was ripped from the girl's lifeless body. She looked up into the strangely orange eyes of her ex-lover, before he tore her head from her body.

James finished dismembering Victoria's body and turned back to Bella. Although she remained unconscious, she was twitching in pain. The venom from Victoria was burning through her veins and slowly changing her into one of them.

Suddenly, James saw hope. He had not thought of this way to save her. He had not even thought of it as a future option. To have Bella as a vampire, to be able to live with her forever was an idea that made his heart swell. Scooping her up carefully, James hopped out her window and laid Bella on the soft grass.

Knowing he needed to get rid of the evidence, James entered the Swan's shed. He found a spare jug of gasoline and sped back to the house. Bella had regained consciousness, her eyes wide with pain, but she did not make any noises.

After emptying the 5 gallon tub throughout the house, he set it on fire. The house that had been Charlie Swan's home for almost twenty years went up in flame ridiculously fast. Bella was screaming by the time he had returned to her side. He wasn't sure whether it was the shock of her house being burnt down or if it was the pain setting in, but James knew he needed to get her away before the neighbors came to investigate.

James carried his broken love into the forest. She still could not use her limbs to thrash because of her broken back, but the shrieking did not stop.

Eventually they reached a clearing, miles away from anyone. James knew no one would be able to hear her or find her, so he set out to hunt. Seeing her in such pain hurt James, and the smell of her blood was getting to him.

Now that the idea had come to him, he wanted Bella to be with him for eternity more than anything else. That meant he could not kill her during her change.

-x-

Edward left Bella's house feeling on top of the world. He had admitted his existence to the girl he loved and she had accepted him for who he was. He knew from Jasper that she cared for him, even if she didn't show it. But tonight he was able to see some of her mask falling away. He was able to see Bella.

Alice was dancing around him as soon as he walked through the door, chanting in her head.

She knew, she knew, she knew. She knows! And she doesn't care! Oh Edward, I'm so happy! I can see you together!

Alice continued to bounce as the rest of the family came into view. Edward wasn't quite sure how to explain that the human girl he had been telling them about knew of their existence. He decided quicker was better, seeing as they were all already berating him with questions in their minds.

"She knows." A mostly collective gasp went through the group before Rosalie turned on him.

"She knows? She knows?! What do you mean she knows?! You told her?! How could you, you selfish idiotic –"

Edward cut her off before she could get her rhythm going. "No Rosalie. I didn't tell her. She knew. She put it together and figured it out."

"What do you mean, 'put it together'?" Carlisle asked, worried about his family.

"She's very observant, she saw the differences we have from humans, the eye color changes, the missing days, the lack of food, and all our other vampire attributes. She knows another vampire as well, so I think that helped her believe her idea too."

"Well if it was just an idea then what do you mean she knows? You could just deny the whole thing, call her crazy." Rosalie, of course, refused to accept the idea that a human would hold knowledge about their existence.

"Rose, she noticed more than just that. She knew about me reading minds." Another collective gasp was taken. "She's very smart and we already know she's associated with another vampire. She won't tell anyone, she didn't when I saved her from that van and who would believe her if she did anyways?" Edward tried to remain convincing without getting into details just how much he cared for the girl and how much he wanted her to know.

"I don't care! She's human! She shouldn't know!"

"Well she does Rosalie. It's too late to do anything about that." Edward growled quite loudly to punctuate his point when Rosalie's thoughts drifted to different ways they could 'fix it'. "I need to go hunting, would any of you care to join?" The car ride with Bella had taken its toll on Edward's thirst and if he wanted to not eat Bella Swan the next day, then he needed to hunt.

Rosalie's new point of useless argument was shut down by a look from Carlisle. His thoughts were warm and trusting.

If you think we can trust her Edward, we will. Just be careful.

Alice and Jasper offered to go hunting with him. Edward's thirst was starting to affect Jasper and Alice just wanted to bug him on the way there and back through her thoughts. She was already begging him to take Bella to the house so they could all get to know her.

-x-

Edward Cullen drove in his silver Volvo towards the Swan's residence. He spent most of the night hunting in order to do this and hoped it would work for the better.

Edward planned to pick Bella up in the morning, just as any other boy in love would.

What waited for him was not something he had expected. As Edward got closer to the house he noticed that there were many more thoughts than normal in the area. Listening closely, he could tell that they were emergency crews, salvaging the ruins of a burned house. He sympathized with the people who lost their home.

Then a name stuck out, making him drive even faster. Chief Swan. Pulling around the last corner, Edward felt his heart squeeze in fear. Where the beautiful home of Isabella Swan stood yesterday, was a pile of ash and timber. Edward drove past, taking in all he could with his vampire senses, before heading to the hospital. He needed to talk to Carlisle and find out if either Bella or her father were admitted to the hospital.

Once there, Edward raced slightly faster than he should have to his father's office. Carlisle was there, just getting ready to leave and check on a patient when Edward barged in.

"Edward. What's wrong?" Carlisle was immediately concerned. He knew his son had been planning on picking up the girl they all hoped might show him love this morning and was afraid something had gone wrong.

"It's Bella." Carlisle's heart sunk, fearing the worst. "Her house was burned down when I went to pick her up. I don't know where she is. Can you see if she's here?"

Immediately going into professional mode, Carlisle assured Edward that he would check and see. Ten minutes later it was confirmed that neither Bella nor Charlie were at the hospital. The panic Edward had been holding in threatened to consume him. Only two possibilities existed if Bella was not in the hospital, that she was staying at a family friends, or that she was…dead.

Carlisle insisted Edward go to school like normal. There was no need to arouse any unneeded suspicion. Besides, he could get Alice to look into the girl's immediate future and maybe discover where she was.

Edward held onto that little bit of hope with a death grip. He drove to the school like normal, carefully keeping his face neutral and bored, although he was anything but that inside.

He was planning to race to Alice's classroom and ask her to join him outside so he could ask her what it was he really wanted her to do. But before he could even get inside the building of her classroom, Alice was there knowing what it was he wanted for her to do.

The walked quickly to one of the picnic benches outside to sit down so Alice could concentrate. Jasper was right behind them, throwing questions at Edward through his mind, demanding why both he and Alice were so panicked. Edward ignored him.

After a few moments of flickering images that Edward could not really see in Alice's mind, her face reanimated with a gasp. She looked at Edward, pained, apologizing in her thoughts.

"I don't know where she is Edward. But she's changing. All I can see is woods, and another vampire with her." Alice conjured up the image she had seen in her mind for Edward to see himself.

Bella was lying on the ground in the middle of a small clearing. She thrashed and screamed, obviously in enormous amounts of pain.

The male vampire next to her watched with a torn expression. It looked as though her pain caused him pain.

Edward's panic increased as well as his fury and jealousy. The vampire looked as Edward might have if he were in that situation, as though he loved Bella.

Was it possible that this was the vampire that had been around Bella? Was it possible that she had wanted this change? And that the house burning down was done in order to cover up her mysterious disappearance?

But what then of her father? Edward couldn't believe it was possible for Bella to sacrifice and kill her father just so she could escape. She wasn't that kind of person. Edward refused to believe it.

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness filled Edward as he walked through his day. At lunch, Angela Weber spoke with him, wondering about whether he knew where Bella was. He assured her that he didn't and was sorry that couldn't help her.

By the time Edward was home, he was in a daze. He didn't know what to believe. The one person he actually believed he could love and would love him back – even if he was a demon and she was a perfect angel – was gone, changing into a monster just like he was. Why she was changing he did not know. Whether it was something she wanted or something that was forced upon her, he did not know.

Edward shut himself in his room. The music he put on did nothing to ease his swirling thoughts, it only helped to keep the rest of his family away.

He stayed like that, trapped in the circle of questions that he could not answer, for two and a half days. He refused to go to school or even acknowledge those that came into his room to either gloat or console.

Edward couldn't even bring himself to tell Rosalie to shut up when she had come into his room, ranting about how it was better this way, that now Bella would either die or no longer be human and they didn't have to worry anymore. Emmett finally dragged her out of the room, telling her that their brother did not need that.

On the day he expected Bella to complete her change, Alice barged into his room. Her eyes and thoughts were both panicked. Edward immediately sat up, demanding to know what she had seen, what was the matter.

But Alice couldn't speak. She was so worried, so desperate, that all she could do was show Edward what she had seen. He paused long enough to give her a horrified look and then took off.

Alice immediately collapsed to the ground, worry and horror overriding her ability to move or speak. It was a distinct possibility that in a short amount of time, she would loose her closest brother.

...

A/N: I know...another cliffie...but it just felt so RIGHT so end it here. :) I hope everyone liked the explanation as to "where the hell Charlie was" and my reason for not having him in the story much (I knew he was gonna' die, and I didn't want it to be a HUGE impact...yeah...). ANYWAY...I hope I haven't disappointed.