Title: You Found Me

Full Summary: Edward Masen has lived the life of a nomadic vampire, travelling with James and Victoria since he awoke as an immortal. His ability to read minds has had the unusual side effect of making him a vampire with a conscience. Despite the ridicule from his coven mates, he's confident he's making the best of his existence and doing what's morally right... until he stumbles upon a brown-eyed girl reading in a meadow in Forks. As he attempts to befriend her and learns more about the sleepy town of Forks, Edward finds there's a lot more to being a vampire than he ever thought possible.

Pairings: Canon

Rating: M, for language and sexing.

Chapter: Thirty-five; Desolate

POV: Bella

AN: So, not too bad on the update time this time around. Summer's over, so that means I'm going to try to be better. We're getting very close to the end. I've offered varying estimates to some of you in the past, but this is truly the final stretch.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it :) Though I think some of you are going to be a little shocked, based on the reactions to the last chapter. (I'd appreciate it if wait until I finish the story to kill me, though…)

xx

Alice was eerily calm and rational. Her all-business voice was the polar opposite of her usual exuberant speaking voice.

"Stay where you are. I'll be there in two minutes."

I nodded, still trembling, before I remembered she couldn't see me. "Okay," I whispered, but the phone-line was dead before the word left my lips.

I pulled on a sweater, hugging it tightly around myself, even though I was well aware my shivering had little to do with the cool air that crept through the old windows. Unable to stay there, in sight of the bed Edward had laid with me in last night when I didn't know where he was or if he was okay, my feet carried me downstairs.

The main floor of the house was empty. Peeking out the front window, I confirmed that Charlie's police cruiser was gone. I was alone in the house.

I considered getting myself a bowl of cereal and pretending like it was any other morning but my stomach was too twisted with apprehension to entertain the idea of eating. I didn't think I could keep it down even if I could force my body into the mundane routine. Suddenly, I really missed Edward's eggs.

Thinking the fresh air might help, I let myself out the front door. The crisp November wind whipped through my loose knit of my sweater, but I hardly felt the chill. I sat on second of the two rickety wooden steps that led the house to wait for Alice. She would be here any second now.

I tried not to let my thoughts wander too deeply into where Edward could be but it was a wasted effort. It was the only thing on my mind. I was positive he wouldn't have just up and left without telling me.

Up until yesterday we had been making plans for the future and they had always involved us, together. He had promised to take me to visit his house. As he had said last night, he was a man of his word. I refused to think he had chosen to leave. If he had made such a rash decision, wouldn't Alice have seen anyway? Was that why she had felt she had to rush over here? Why hadn't she said anything on the phone?

I pushed those thoughts out of my head. They weren't true. I knew Edward hadn't left me. I was his mate and the bond between us was unbreakable… it was mythological, beyond rational explanation.

But that left other possibilities I wanted to think about even less. Edward was nearly indestructible, but he wasn't the only one of his kind. Vampires were hardly known for their scruples. What if he had run into a nomad while hunting? Someone vicious and territorial who would have no qualms ripping him to pieces if he so much as…

I nearly jumped when I felt a hand on my back. Startled from my hunched position, I looked up into Alice's concerned eyes.

"Bella? Are you okay?"

Emmett flanked my other side, the picture of solemnity. Gone was his cheerful grin. The lilac half circles that typically ringed his eyes were a dark violet. With his joy extinguished, he looked to have aged a decade in the few hours since I had seen him last. It terrified me.

"I'm fine," I told Alice quietly. But I didn't want to talk about me. "Did you find Edward? Did you see what happened to him? Where is he?" The questions poured from my mouth in a continuous stream, before I could even consider pretending I wasn't a frayed ball of nerves.

I looked between the two of them attempting to gauge the situation. There was really no need. I had known they had nothing I wanted to hear the moment I had spotted their matching solemn faces.

Alice's guilty eyes settled on the scuffed patio stones under our feet. "Bella..."

"Please, just tell me what you know," I entreated, not in the mood for sympathy or winding explanations. I wanted to know what was wrong so we could fix it and get Edward back where he belonged: with me.

"She deserves to know, Al," Emmett added at Alice's hesitance. "She's his mate. You can't protect her from this. God knows I wish I could. Like in one of those damn video games. But this is real."

There was no worse confirmation. The knot that had been growing in my chest since the moment I had discovered Edward missing threatened to burst me. I held on to my tears, stubbornly refusing to let myself cry.

"James and Victoria got to him while he was outside. Hunting, probably," Alice admitted softly. "There was a scuffle in your backyard. The grass was pretty torn up near the tree line. He put up a good struggle, but it wasn't a fair fight. He didn't stand a chance."

Something resembling fury burned a path up my throat. I didn't like to throw around the word hate – it was a strong word – but in that moment I absolutely hated James and Victoria. How dare they dangle a life of freedom in front of him, only to yank it back again? Hadn't they hurt him enough over the years?

"But James hates Edward!" I countered, verging on hysterical. "He promised Edward they would leave him alone! Why would they want to take him?"

"James and Victoria aren't very honorable, B. Even for vampires," Emmett pointed out. "I highly doubt James cares what he promised Edward if he thought there was something to gain by taking him."

"From what we can tell, they took him alive, so chances are they're reclaiming him," Alice explained. "Which means they probably don't want him dead."

I refused to process the "probably" in that sentence. The hope that Edward was out there, somewhere, needing us, lit a fire in me. All I wanted to know was what we were going to do to get him back.

Emmett's expression twitched at the sight of my determined face. "We'll find him, Bella," he vowed, correctly reading my intention. "If it's the last thing any of us do, we'll find Edward. They won't get away with this."

"Jasper, Esme and Rosalie are following the scent they left as we speak." Alice's all-business voice had returned with a vengeance. "It appears to be leading to the coast. If they take him through a large body of water, following the scent further could prove difficult."

"Which is why those assholes did it," Emmett grumbled under his breath.

"But not impossible," I pressed. They nodded.

"We'll scour possible exit points down shore to see if we can recapture the scent, if it comes to that," Alice explained.

"Which it will," Emmett mumbled. At Alice's glare, he added, "What? It will, Al. They're planning on dragging him through the Pacific and you know it. They think they'll be able to pull him out from under us while you're blind."

Alice's glowering stare intensified. "Emmett!"

"Blind?" I questioned numbly.

My understanding had been that Alice saw James and Victoria with much lesser accuracy than average thanks to Victoria's gift for self-protection. Somehow Victoria had managed to perfect her ability to block Alice from seeing her, knitting her protective blanket to eliminate the sporadic gaps in coverage that had once existed. I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

Alice wrung her hands together in her lap. "I'm so sorry Bella. Last night I was trying to give you guys your privacy. And then this morning when you didn't show up at school, I just assumed you two got caught up fooling around and tried to stay out of it. I should have been paying better attention. Now he's been gone for hours. Victoria has thrown her invisibility cloak over him and locked him off my map. I can't see him at all. Not even a glimpse." She bit her lip, the weight of her guilt clear. "I let him down. I should have been paying attention. We wouldn't have lost nearly seven hours if I had been paying attention to when he disappeared from my visions."

"Seven hours," I repeated, emotionless. Edward had disappeared at three in the morning and I'd slept soundly through his abduction. My own guilt prickled.

Emmett wrapped a beefy arm around me gently. He looked at Alice for guidance, trying his best not to make the situation worse. She looked just as stricken as I felt. Gingerly, Emmett extended his arm to hold her too.

"Maybe you guys should go help the others," I suggested, desperate. "If there's more of you, you can cover more ground. You can find him faster."

Emmett shook his head firmly. "Someone has to stay with you. We can't rule out the possibility that they might be using you to keep Edward compliant. If they are, there's a chance they may return to try to take you for added leverage. Can you imagine the power they would have over him if they had you too? We can't take that risk."

He wasn't intending to be hurtful, but the words stung.

I could be causing Edward pain. Edward was a little jagged around the edges at times, but he was selfless when it came to putting me first. He would take grueling beatings and cruelly barbed taunts if he thought he was saving me from the same.

In seven hours, they could have whisked him to the other end the world, and tucked themselves into some dingy little town – just like Forks – where no one in their right mind would dare think to look. He could be trapped in a life that gave new meaning to the phrase "vicious circle."

If James and Victoria managed to get Edward past the Cullens now and go into hiding, there would be no way of finding them other than sheer luck. It was terrifying to think about the size of the world in the face of such an event… there were millions upon millions of places where they could disappear into the earth. If Victoria's protection held steady it could be weeks or months or years before even a tiny fraction of the possibilities could be covered.

Years.

Maybe never.

My body seemed to melt out from underneath me. Alice and Emmett and the grey skies of Forks all seemed to wash together before my eyes.

Vaguely I was aware that Emmett was trying to get my attention, but my body refused to submit to any command I was making of it. It felt like my entire being was trapped in my head with the awful thoughts that had overtaken it.

Maybe James and Victoria were torturing him. They tortured their "food," right? Why not Edward? He'd only be another innocent victim in a string of thousands.

Maybe Alice was wrong and they really did want him dead. Maybe they had taken him away to kill him, for some crimes they felt he had committed in their distorted minds. They couldn't very well kill him on the Cullens' doorstep without inciting a war. They would need to be discreet.

The possibility of never struck home again, worse than before.

Forcibly, I evicted the thought. Rosalie, Jasper and Esme were looking for him now. They would find him. My panic would be wasted. They would bring him home to me, safe and sound. Tomorrow this would all be some cruel twist of fate we could bury beneath better memories.

The world around me began to turn again, slowly, like creaky old cogs learning to find a rhythm after years of disuse. The beginnings of a headache pounding in the back of my skull made it hard to focus but I pushed through the fog, disliking the hazy feeling it forced on me.

Emerging past the fog, it registered that I was sitting in a small white-washed room.

Emmett and Alice still flanked me, wearing the same matching concerned faces I had seen on them last. Only now, Dr. Cullen added a third, completing the trifecta.

They all stared at me unblinkingly, waiting for something. I stared back, unsure what they wanted. I got the feeling I was supposed to provide it.

Confused, I touched the padded table below me. I recognized the worn green pleather from previous visits.

"I'm in the hospital?" I stated after a minute of gathering my bearings. I knew what I was saying was true. I just didn't know how I had gotten here. Last I recalled, I had been sitting on the stoop outside my father's house.

Dr. Cullen shot me a compassionate smile. "It seems you went into shock. Do you remember what happened?"

I was pretty sure the memory Dr. Cullen was asking for was one I would never forget.

I nodded, wincing as the movement jolted the pick axe wedged in the back of my head. "Edward is gone. James and Victoria took him. The others are looking for him," I recited. Repeating the issue at hand brought on a different kind of pain. "Did they find him?"

Any hope that might have lingered was squashed by Alice's earnest face. The other two remained carefully neutral for my sake but Alice was an open book.

I waved my hand at her. "It's okay," I whispered. "I won't go mental again, I promise. I just... panicked. Please. Tell me the truth."

She griped my hand, offering her support.

"Not yet. Emmett was right, the trail went cold at the Pacific. They're scanning the coast now, looking for signs, but there was a thunderstorm down in northern California a couple hours ago…" she trailed off uncertainly.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to remain calm, at least outwardly. I squeezed the hell out of Alice's hand. "Okay."

It wasn't okay at all.

I needed to do something. As wonderful as it was that the Cullens had banded together immediately, no questions asked, to help find Edward, I couldn't sit by idly. I needed to know I was doing everything I could.

"What can I do to help?"

Alice's concerned look morphed into a pitying one. "Bella, I wish we could give you something to do but truthfully, right now, making sure you stay safe is the best thing you can do."

"That isn't doing anything!" I countered. "That's doing nothing! And who knows where Edward is or... or what they're doing to him!" The tears I had promised myself I would hold back streamed down my cheeks unchecked.

Carlisle sat on the table next to me wrapping an arm around me paternally, abandoning his professional bedside manner. "We all want to bring him home. However, at this moment in time, keeping you safe and healthy should be your number one priority, as it is ours. You're still recovering from shock. We're in this together and we need to be strong together."

Emmett knelt in front of me. Even so, he was just barely shorter than me. He stared at me intently, as serious as I'd ever seen him. "We will find Edward, B. We will. And when we do, we'll make sure James and Victoria never touch him again."

"We can phone the others and see how they're doing. See if they've found anything new?" Alice suggested, holding up a sleek black phone. "It's been a while since they've checked in."

"Okay," I agreed, though part of me dreaded hearing further bad news.

Alice punched in a number on the phone. Jasper answered on the first ring.

"Hey, babe," his drawl echoed through the speakerphone. "It's not looking good. The fuckers must have taken advantage of the storm. Everything has been washed away. How's Bella holding up?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Alice suggested. "She's listening. You're on speaker."

Jasper cursed again. "Thanks for the warning," he grumbled at his wife. "Bella, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just blurt it out like that. But there's no delicate way to put it. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I mumbled, repeating my new least favourite word. "You did everything you could."

"This is far from over," Emmett pointed out. "Alice said she might be able to get a read on Edward if he manages to get away from them, even just for a few seconds. Or there's always the good old-fashioned news-media… they can't keep hidden forever. Not the way they hunt."

I smiled weakly, though I'm sure it was a pointless endeavor. "What do we do until then?"

The responding silence hung in the air.

It was Carlisle who finally answered. "We wait."

xx

Carlisle thought it best if I continued with my schedule uninterrupted. He argued that going to school would give my mind something to focus on other than Edward. I doubted that logic but I didn't challenge him on it. Anything was better than sitting at home staring at the wall, waiting for news that only seemed to get worse and worse.

So the next morning, at 8:59 sharp, I found myself sitting in my desk in homeroom, staring at the chalkboard.

Alice was in the class with me. Both Jasper and Rosalie were in the school as well, in their respective classrooms down the hall. It had been reasoned that it would seem suspicious if they all bailed at the same time Edward disappeared but I knew they were remaining close to keep an eye on me.

Keeping me from becoming target number two had become priority number one.

I appreciated the concern, but it felt like a wasted effort. Other than a mild case of shock, I was fine. It was Edward who needed their concern.

Emmett and Esme were at home scouring newspapers from across the country, looking for any leads that might indicate James and Victoria had passed through. I didn't want to be ungrateful, but it seemed ridiculous that I had three bodyguards whose considerable abilities could be better used to aid in the search.

"Bella?" Jess nudged me from the seat behind mine.

I purposefully turned to face her on the left side, where Alice was sitting, so I wouldn't have to see Edward's empty desk on my right.

"Where's Edward? You guys are always attached at the hip. Why's he skipping without you?"

Of course Jessica's natural inquisitiveness had her pinpointing the one topic I wanted to avoid more than anything. I sighed, making a pathetic attempt to appear less miserable than I felt.

"He went to visit family. A cousin of his lives in Boston and she was hoping he would come live with her and her husband and go to university there in the fall. They own a small apartment and a room opened up… so he's taking some time to explore the city and consider his options," I recited the speech that we had devised to explain Edward's disappearance, should it become long-term. The story tasted wrong on my tongue. I couldn't help it if I wasn't a very good actress.

I didn't know how we were going to explain it if we couldn't find Edward in the next few weeks. I didn't know what I would do if that turned out to be a reality. I shoved the thought aside before it could fully form. One panic attack was enough.

Jessica frowned, glancing at Alice suspiciously. "Aren't you his cousin, too? How come you didn't go with him?"

Alice smiled sweetly. "On his mother's side. Victoria is his cousin is on his father's side. We don't really know one another. The Brandons and the Masens don't get along so well."

"Oh, yeah," Jessica nodded along, launching into a story about how her aunt's husband didn't get along with her father and how she knew exactly what Alice was talking about. It didn't take long for her voice to meld into the background noise.

The stack of worksheets Mr. Varner assigned gave me an excuse to be anti-social. I buried myself in the numbers and equations, refusing to let my mind wander beyond the digits on the page. I wasn't sure I could keep my emotions in check if I had to interact with my classmates and I wasn't going to cry in the middle of calculus if I could help it.

The minute hand on the clock on the far wall seemed to be weighted. Decades later, Alice nudged my shoe underneath my desk. I glanced up from my worksheet to see the rest of the class shuffling and putting their papers away.

Hastily, I shoved my own pencils and worksheets into my backpack, eager to get out of here and end the day. Only six more periods to go.

"You okay?" Jessica asked me as we filed out of the classroom. "You seemed weird in class today. You were looking at your notebook like it stole your puppy. Is it 'cause Edward is in Boston?"

I nodded. I didn't have the energy to come up with something more complicated. I had hardly slept the night before… my first without Edward in weeks. I was tired and cranky and I really did miss Edward. More than Jessica would be able to comprehend.

"Oh, well… he'll be back before you know it. Maybe this will be good for you guys. If it's this hard to be apart now, you'll know the long-distance thing won't work for you guys in college."

I wanted to punch her. There was nothing good about this situation. Of course, she had no way of knowing that, so I forced a polite smile. "Yeah, I don't think it will."

Jessica ignored my monotone voice, brushing past the topic. "So, anyway… did you hear about what happened to Connor at–"

Irrational irritation flared. Was it really so difficult to take a hint? "Jess, as much as I want to hear about Connor… I actually don't, because I really don't care."

At Jessica's wounded face, Alice pulled on my arm, sparing an apologetic glance at Jessica. "Sorry Jess, but Bella really has to get to class. She already has two tardies from Mr. Mason and you know what a stickler he is for punctuality…"

"Thanks," I muttered, following Alice down the hall. She yanked me into a corner, away from the streams of students scurrying to their next class.

She stared at me intently. "I know this is hard for you, trust me, I do. I can't imagine how difficult it would be for me if it was Jasper." She paused, considering how to continue. "My father suggested you go about your routine as usual because he thought it might help you to have the distraction, but if you hate being here, just say the words. We'll come up with something to get you out. Is that what you want?"

I crossed my arms defensively. To tell the truth, I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted Edward back but it had become abundantly clear that wasn't an immediate possibility.

With Alice's intense eyes burning into me, honesty prevailed. "I don't know… I just want him back," I muttered.

I stared at the floor, embarrassed by my inability to function without Edward. I should be stronger. He was the one in danger. The others shouldn't have to coddle me when their efforts should be focused on him.

"How about this: we get through today and we'll see how you feel tonight?" she offered optimistically. "Maybe it won't even be an issue. Carlisle, Esme and Emmett are doing everything they can to find him."

I shrugged. As much as I wanted to share her hope, my more prevalent cynical side said it wasn't going to happen. "I just want things to be normal again."

Had it really only been two days ago that Edward and I had stood in these very halls, laughing and teasing one another? It seemed like an old, dusty memory now.

Tears stung, for what felt like the millionth time in the last twenty four hours. I blinked them back, loathing how pathetic I felt. I much preferred the numbness.

"I hate seeing you like this." Alice stood on her toes to wrap her arms around me.

I let her hug me, allowing myself to soak up the small comfort. She was just as cold as Edward. She even smelled like him… kind of. Except a little sweeter. It just made me miss him more.

xx

The afternoon passed just as the morning had… in a tedious haze of schoolwork. I was a good student and I enjoyed being at school, but when it was the only alternate to thinking of Edward, it became a chore.

As it turned out, trying not to think about Edward was just as hard as thinking about him. It was amazing how in the few months I had known him, he had managed to incorporate himself into every aspect of my life. There were few things that didn't remind me of his absence.

When Mr. Mason had called on me to read out a passage from A Midsummer Night's Dream, I had nearly burst into tears on the spot. Edward preferred Shakespeare's comedies to his tragedies. Last week he had read a passage from the very same play to me, trying to convince me of its superiority. I had persisted with the belief that the tragedies were the true classics. Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet… those were the tales that had thrust Shakespeare's name into immortality. That debate had ended in a stalemate, topped off with a make out session. So really, everyone had won.

It was in thousands of little ways that he permeated my every day life. It was impossible to avoid everything I associated with Edward, because, simply put, it was everything. Little things added up to one hell of a big thing very quickly.

Lunch had offered a shred of hope which was torn away almost immediately thereafter. Jasper had had a flash of genius, recalling James had used a cellphone to call Edward weeks ago.

We had called Emmett to have him dig into the records for any recent activity. His return phone call, minutes later, indicated another dead end. The phone had been inactive since James had last called Edward.

By the time I slid into my seat next to Angela in last period government, I was exhausted.

Her sympathetic face was almost too much to bear after the loaded day I'd had. "Jess told me you've been taking Edward leaving pretty hard. She said you snapped at her."

I made a mental note to apologize tomorrow. As big a gossip as Jessica was, she was harmless and usually a good friend. It wasn't her fault Edward's disappearance had twisted my mood into something foul.

"There's not much I can do about it," I responded blandly.

I didn't need to fill in any blanks; the fake story about Edward visiting Boston had been circulating since lunch. Rumours – true or not – spread like wildfire through the halls. In a school with a small close knit population, such as Forks High, everyone knew everyone's business within the hour. The fact that Edward was the school's newest golden boy only fueled the fire.

Angela scrutinized my dull demeanor. "It seems to go deeper than just you missing him. Do you want to talk about it?"

I glanced up from my textbook, surprised by her astuteness. No one else had bothered to question my feelings on the matter. Everyone had chalked up my crappy mood to missing Edward and left it at that.

"What if he doesn't come back?" The question spilled out of my mouth, before I could consider the potential consequences of continuing the conversation.

"He'll be back." It was a pure and simple statement of fact. "You'd have to be blind not to see how much that boy loves you. He'd be an idiot to give that up. I've gotten to know Edward pretty well over the last few weeks… and he's a fighter. If there's something he believes in, he'll fight for it. He believes his future is with you, Bella. Trust me on this. Things have a way of working themselves out."

It was surprising how pertinent Angela's response was given the significant gap in context. She was right about Edward. He wasn't the kind of person who gave up easily. James and Victoria couldn't keep him pinned down forever. Even if I couldn't believe in my myself, I could believe in him. If I couldn't find him, there was always the possibility he would find his way back to me.

Curling up in my bed that night, I felt more positive than I had since I had woken up and found my bed empty.

Carlisle had offered me a sleeping space in their house amidst their protection, but it felt strange being there without Edward.

We had compromised on a guard detail of sorts. I could sleep in my own home, so long as Emmett and Jasper could lurk in the shadows of the backyard, at the ready, should a need arise.

I didn't think it would come to that. To James and Victoria I would be an added responsibility and a liability. There was no way they would take the risk of getting caught just to take on a worthless human as a prisoner.

Pulling the covers up to my chin, I struggled to keep Angela's words in mind as I fought for sleep for the second night in a row.

xx

Thanks for reading :)

I hope my attempt at angst wasn't totally off the mark. As always, I love hearing what you think.