Why I haven't updated in so long (which I'm mentioning in the hope that you'll be more inclined to not kill me if I can provide a good reason): I got distracted playing nurse to a horse with hoof problems who won't eat his supplements unless they're mixed up with apple wafers and syrup, and refused to finish his evening feed until I hand-fed it to him. Turns out nursing isn't as cool as it looked when Peter did it.

Chapter 28: The Interlopers

"Bella, are you all right? What'd he do to you?" Charlie yelled. "Talk to me, Bella!"

He shook my shoulders, but all I could do was gape stupidly up at him, my mouth falling open. It sounded as if Charlie thought Peter had hurt me somehow, and the suggestion floored me because it was like gravity pulling up or fish swimming through the air – a breach of the laws of physics that could never happen.

"I haven't done anything to her!" Peter snapped.

Charlie rounded on him. "The hell you haven't!" he bellowed. "You had her pinned to the car! I trusted you with her!" His hand clenched into a fist.

I jumped in front of Peter and grabbed Charlie's wrist, catching his arm mid-swing. "No! Dad, stop it!" Charlie did stop, but more out of surprise than anything else; he looked at me as if I'd dumped a load of bricks on his head. I gulped, realizing the moment for truth had come. "Dad… Peter wasn't doing anything I didn't want him to."

The silence that followed was so deep I could have heard a pin drop. Charlie actually staggered back a step, staring from me to Peter like he'd never seen us before. "You…and him?" His voice was a strangled whisper.

"I'm sorry, Chief," Peter said, sounding subdued. "This isn't how I wanted you to find out."

Charlie's face began reddening and I, guessing he would regain the power of speech soon, turned to Peter and spoke quickly. "I'm so, so sorry. You tried to tell me keeping this from him was a bad idea but I wouldn't listen… I'm so sorry, Peter!"

"Shh, it's okay. You are too damn stubborn, but that's just part of what I love about you." He touched my cheek, and his fingertips came away wet; it was only then that I noticed I was crying.

"That's enough! Get your hands off her!" Charlie shouted, pulling me away. "Get in the car, now!" He shoved me inside with one hand on top of my head, like I was under arrest, and slammed the door behind me.

"You and me are gonna have a long talk tomorrow," he barked at Peter, "after I deal with my daughter." Then he marched around to the driver's side, banged the door loudly as he got in, and drove out of the parking lot much faster than usual.

I cowered as far from Charlie as I could get inside the cruiser's confines, making myself as small as possible and hoping my father's vision was based on movement.

"You're grounded, effective the minute you step out of this vehicle. I want you to go straight to your room and don't come out until I say so, understand?"

"Okay," I squeaked in a tiny voice. A phrase from a Monopoly card – 'go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars' – ran through my mind although I hadn't played Monopoly in over a year.

"Well?" Charlie demanded.

I blinked, realizing he must have asked a question that I'd missed. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Charlie's nostrils flared. "I said, what in blazes do you think you're doing with Peter Petrelli? He's way too old for you-"

"That's your opinion," I muttered sulkily.

It was the wrong thing to say. "Yeah? Well unfortunately for you, Isabella Marie Swan, I'm your father and right now my opinion is that you won't see the outside of the house till you're in your thirties! He had better stay the hell away from you!"

"You can't do that! You may be my father, but I happen to be an adult – meaning I can date whoever I want to! I'm in love with Peter and there's nothing you can do about it!"

Charlie did a slight double take when I told him I was in love, yet recovered quickly. "And you think he loves you too, do you?" he asked with what I considered overuse of sarcasm.

"I know he does!"

It was too dark to be certain, but Charlie's face appeared purple; I definitely saw a vein throbbing at his temple. His hands twitched on the wheel, then relaxed as he took a deep breath and tried a different tack. "How can you know that?"

I attempted to match his even, rational tone. "Because there's no logical reason for him to pretend to love me if he really doesn't and if he was pretending, which he's not, I think I would have noticed by now."

Charlie seized on my last words. "By now?" he repeated. "Just how long has this gone on?"

Oh crap! You just had to dig yourself in deeper, didn't you? Peter told you this would happen but did you listen to him? Oh no, you had to have your own way – dumb, Bella, dumb! Well, I'd made my bed; now it was time for me to lie in it.

"Umm…" When exactly had Peter and I become more than friends anyway? So much had happened both before and after that my sense of time was distorted; sometimes it was hard to believe we hadn't known each other all our lives. Now that's ridiculous. I wasn't even alive for the first ten years of his life!

"Well," I began slowly, while racking my brain, "It's not like I've been counting… Since the end of February, maybe?"

"That long?" Charlie inhaled sharply. "You hid this from me for three months?"

"From everyone. Peter wasn't happy about that, but I made him do it because…I knew what people would say and I didn't think I could handle them all talking about me while I still had to go to school," I admitted.

Charlie hmphed, reluctantly conceding that particular point, then fell silent. Just when I thought I might be off the hook for the night he blurted out, "Are you sleeping with him?"

A hot, prickly wave of embarrassment crashed over me. "Aw Dad…" I groaned. "Please don't tell me I'm about to get 'the talk'! Mom already gave it to me eight years ago."

"Eight years ago you weren't dating someone old enough to…well…expect certain things-"

"Dad!" Now it was anger making me hot under the collar. "You know Peter better than that! He would never try pushing me into anything I wasn't ready for!"

"Oh I'm sure he wouldn't push you, but at your age there're all kinds of… Teenage hormones can make even smart people act crazy, and pushing may not be necessary. Believe me, if there was any way we could skip this conversation…but I am your father, I have responsibilities, and I have to know. Now, can we get this over with or do I have to repeat the question?" he asked gruffly.

"No! I mean, please don't; that's one question I'd rather you never ask me again. And the answer is…" I sucked in a nervous breath and took the plunge. "I did once."

Despite having braced himself for the worst, hearing me say it out loud caused Charlie to jerk the steering wheel so hard we nearly swerved off the road. The cruiser floundered momentarily before he pulled it straight, cursing under his breath.

Once it was clear that we weren't going to crash he picked up where he'd left off. "Just tell me you were being safe," he pleaded.

"We were," I assured him. "It was back during spring break anyway, and I've been fine since then."

"And that was the only time you…?"

"Yes," I said emphatically.

Charlie heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, that's something. But you're still grounded."

###

True to his word, Charlie sent me to my room the moment my feet hit the driveway; I couldn't even use making dinner as an excuse to suspend my sentence since we'd already eaten. I was allowed out to brush my teeth, but Charlie stood outside the bathroom to make sure I didn't take an unduly long time. When I emerged, he simply jerked his thumb at my room, shut the door as soon as I trudged inside, and told me in a tone that would make a prison guard proud that he wanted my light out in ten minutes.

I obediently switched it off but didn't get in bed; instead I tiptoed to the closet. Digging through it as quietly as possible, I located my purse and took out my necklace. As a rule I never wore it to bed – it would be just my luck if the chain twisted around my neck as I slept and strangled me – but I thought tonight should be an exception. I felt Charlie's disapproval like a lead weight pressing down on me in the dark, and if his mood didn't improve I might have a long, lonely summer ahead.

There was no telling whether he would or could make good on his threat to keep me in the house and away from Peter all summer, at least not yet. I hoped some fraction of his anger would wear off by morning but if it didn't… If I was really in for three months alone with an irate Charlie, with no reprieve outside of Saturday shifts at Newton's…

Faced with this uninviting prospect, I took longer than usual to drift off and slept fitfully when I did.

###

I stayed in bed until almost lunchtime just to avoid Charlie and pass the time, only getting up when my stomach's rumbling told me dejection wasn't the sole reason I felt empty inside. After dragging myself into a sitting position I took another minute to seriously consider whether it was worth leaving my room for food.

On the one hand, Charlie had expressly forbidden me to come out before he said I could; on the other, he hadn't meant for me to sit up here and starve. Maybe he'd forgotten all about saying that. I stood still, listening hard and, upon hearing nothing to indicate that there was anyone in the house besides me, decided it was safe to venture forth.

Charlie was gone, but to my surprise he'd left a note – an abnormally long one. I picked it up and read:

Bella-

I've done a lot of thinking about last night and I see that you have a point. You're over eighteen now so even if I don't agree with what you're doing, and I don't, you weren't all the way wrong when you said there's not much I can do about it, and when you said I was being a little hard on Peter. He really is a pretty decent guy.

So, I'm meeting him for lunch, and to hear his side of things. Still can't say I'm happy about whatever it is between you two but I'm trying to be fair here. Don't know when I'll be back. This might take a while. Love you.

-Dad

"Love you too, Dad," I whispered past a lump that wasn't in my throat a moment ago. Charlie had put all this in a note because it was the kind of stuff he'd be embarrassed telling me face to face as well as to let me know where he was; I folded it and slipped it into my pocket instead of trashing it as I would have done if it'd simply said 'gone out to lunch'.

###

Feeling an upsurge of affection for my father, I decided to do some housecleaning after I ate. I was halfway done with the living room when the sound of a car outside made me pause. No more than an hour, if that, had passed since I'd gotten up; surely Charlie couldn't be back already. I turned the vacuum off so I could hear better, cocking my head toward the front door.

The car I'd heard was now silent, replaced by a pair of low male voices. Charlie brought Peter with him? Does that mean I'm in less trouble, or we're both in more trouble? I peeked around the corner just in time to see the door explode in a burst of blue fire.

Instinct propelled me out of the living room and up the stairs before the smoke cleared while my conscious mind scrambled to catch up. Pyrokinesis was one of Peter's abilities, I knew, and the flames he produced were always that odd shade of blue, but how likely was he to blast my door off? Duh, not likely at all, especially in front of Charlie. Someone else then, but who, and why? What reason existed for a firestarter to break into my house?

None that I knew of; it wasn't important. Getting out alive was all that mattered now. I slammed and locked the door of my room behind me, not knowing why I bothered – it wasn't as if a lock would stop someone who could take the whole door off its hinges.

So block him, idiot! Then unshield your mind and call Peter! I did the first but not the second; Peter might still be with Charlie, and I couldn't risk him teleporting to me if there was any chance Charlie might see. I didn't need him anyway, having already rendered the firestarter's power useless. There's nothing he can do now…

I put my ear to the crack under the door, listening as the two men moved through the downstairs rooms. "Damn! She ain't here!" The voice held a drawl so pronounced it even came through as the man yelled.

"Yeah she is," came a calmer second voice, this one drawl-less.

"How you know that? You ain't no mind reader."

The second man sounded impatient when he answered. "I know she's here 'cause we'd have seen if she left! That's why we sat in a car all night and all morning watchin' the house, waitin' for the cop to leave her alone."

"So why didn't we nab 'er soon as he left then?"

"Because bustin' in was gonna make noise any way we did it; we had to wait for the lady down the street to go out in case she coulda heard anything through these trees. The boss wants this done quiet, remember? Let's check upstairs."

Crap! My room offered only two options for hiding places: in the closet or under the bed. I chose the bed since it was closer, hoping as I slithered under the dust ruffle that Claire never found out. Bad enough that I was retreating from a man who couldn't even use his power on me where she would probably have tasered him, but actually hiding under the bed like this was a game of hide-and-seek… She'll give me a break; it's not like I have a taser or anything.

Now I wished I did, something I'd never wished before. I wished I'd picked up Charlie's gun while I was in the kitchen although I had no idea how to fire it. I wished I had Peter's abilities so I could shoot fire or lightning at these men, freeze time and run, fly out the window – anything other than lie here helpless, feeling my heart thundering in my chest and the floor vibrating beneath my palms as heavy footsteps tramped down the hall, their owners checking each door as they went.

At long last, just as I was sure my heart would burst or simply give out, they reached mine and tried the knob. "Locked," declared the second man. "Bingo."

"Want me-?"

"Nah, I got it."

There was a loud bang and the door swung open so forcefully it bounced off the wall. He's shot the lock off! Suddenly my so-called shield felt more useless than ever; it might protect me from the firestarter, but not a bullet. I shrank back as they entered, watching their feet.

One man looked inside my closet, while the other checked behind my rocking chair and under my desk. Like I could hide under the desk with the chair there! How dumb can you get?

The man who'd checked the closet seemed to share my sentiment. "Flint! Why you looking under the desk? No way could she get under it without movin' the chair! Which means…only one place left she could be…" He slowly crossed the room, his shoes moving closer until they poked through the dust ruffle; then it flew up and I found myself looking into a face darker than any of the pack's, both in skin tone and expression – none of the wolves had ever seemed so deadly. "Boo."

I jerked away from his hand, but he never reached for me. Instead he took hold of the bed frame and lifted, hurling my bed across the room literally singlehandedly. Then he grabbed me by the back of the neck and lifted me too, as effortlessly as if I were a paper doll. My body and mind both froze up, paralyzed by terror as my eyes met the man's and then flicked down to the gun in his other hand. Part of me realized I'd miscalculated when I merely blocked the firestarter without bothering to feel out his companion as well. That no longer mattered anyway – the sight of this one's gun had blown my concentration to smithereens, and I couldn't use my ability if I couldn't concentrate.

The man followed my gaze down to his gun, then raised it in front of my face. "Scary, isn't it? I know it scares you – I can smell it all over you." He leaned closer, inhaling deeply. "Nothin' like it."

"Wh-Who are you?"

"Besides your worst nightmare? Call me Knox. He's Flint Gordon, and you're coming with us. Whether you come the easy way or the hard way's up to you, but if I was you I'd take the easy way."

I glanced involuntarily at Knox's gun, wondering if either way involved using it on me.

Knox gave a cold chuckle. "This isn't for you, don't worry. We do this the easy way, you walk out with us now, no fuss. The hard way just means we wait'll your boyfriend shows up again, in which case this-" he tapped his gun on my cheek "-is for him. One shot through the back of the head – no coming back from that. So what'll it be?"

I stared in disbelief, Knox's face blurring as my tears welled up. The 'choice' he offered me was no choice at all. "Do whatever you want with me, just don't hurt Peter. Please."

Flint snorted. "You're breakin' my heart here." Addressing Knox, he went on, "Boss said it don't matter about him long as we get the girl, right?"

"That's right. C'mon, I wanna get out of here before we have to deal with him again."

Notes on characterization:

Charlie – I realize he wasn't quite so touchy-feely in the books, but took some creative license with him because I feel like he really does have Bella's best interests at heart and wanted her to see that. Blame my mom and dad – I'm sure it'd be easy for me to write parents as the perpetual bad guys if they weren't so great.

Knox – I just wasn't sure how to do him, not knowing much about him except that he used to be a gangbanger. If anyone would like to give me pointers, please do.

Flint – he really isn't the brightest bulb in the box, end of story.