Chapter 51 - Realization

I felt hollow. I wanted Edward so badly. It felt so wrong to run away from him, to leave him to face the oncoming death squad. I hoped that Alice had foreseen that they would live if I left, it was the only hope I had.

I pulled out my phone, but just as I held it out and hit the speed dial Jasper turned round from the front seat and grabbed it off me.

"We can't use them Bella, they will track phones as well, they are good with human technology when they have to be."

He crushed my phone in his hand and threw it out of the car window. I felt devastated that I couldn't even talk to Edward one last time.

Jasper's phone rang. He answered simply, "I will love you always, Alice," and then he crushed his phone as well sending its remnants to the undergrowth by the side of the road. I felt a huge shot of guilt radiate from him. He reigned it in, forcing calm out of himself, this time for his own benefit. I knew he was hurting every bit as much as I was, but for him it was guilt not sorrow. I thought that he must so want to protect Alice, but couldn't.

Suddenly the voice was back in my head.

You are doing so well, Bella, Charlie again. That's right, let him feel he is in charge, don't let him realize that you know, and above all keep him calm.

That I know what? I thought to myself, but I got no response from my voices. Then I realized that the voices, although inside my head, never read my mind and only reacted to my actions or words. Was that good or bad? I didn't even know if I could trust my voices.

But this is a really difficult situation, he knows what he's doing. He's dangerous to both you and Nessie and we don't know what he really wants yet, well, apart from the obvious, I hope that's all, as I say in 68% of cases it is.

Now I was really confused. The Volturi were coming but Charlie was suggesting ...what? That for some reason Jasper would leave Alice to be slaughtered by the Volturi? I had nothing to offer Jasper. He didn't need me, not in the way that Fred did. And Jasper loved Alice. I knew he thought he loved me but we both knew it was just a mind trick and it wasn't real and he and Alice were dealing with that.

Jasper's response was immediate. "Why do you feel guilty? Bella, you haven't done anything."

"Jasper I have... I've made you run with me instead of staying with Alice, and you could have stayed, couldn't you? Did Edward send you at all?"

There was a pause. I felt his rush of emotions again – there was anger, guilt and longing and many more I just couldn't put a name to – a pulse of mood that enveloped me and was then banished.

No Bella, keep him calm, talk about something else to keep him occupied.

I broke the silence, "Where shall we head first?"

"They will be watching all the usual airports. We are going to have to stay hidden. And you are going to have to keep that shield up or they will track us."

And there we have it, what we needed to know, your shield. He needs to hide from the others, but why? Charlie's voice again.

But the Volturi, I thought, and then remembered I couldn't communicate with my voices.

"How are we going to find out what happened in the clearing? Did you and Alice come up with a plan for that? We have no phones now."

"Bella, we can't find out, we just have to run. We can't communicate with them."

I was at a loss. Surely we would have to find out somehow, or what was the point? Did he really have no hope at all?

"So you have no hope?" It came out before I could stop it.

A wave of sorrow and grief came over him again.

"No, I will not see Alice ever again. But I can deal with that to be with you and Nessie."

It was such weird thing to say. I didn't realize that the urge to protect Nessie was so strong in him.

Nessie stirred and I held her tight to me. She showed me again the scene in the forest of Jasper standing over Fred. She was clearly very upset about it. She showed me lots of happy moments she'd had with Fred, games that they had played, and times when he had been teaching her things.

"I know love," I soothed. "Sometimes adults do stupid things for all sorts of reasons. We can't trust him. He was trying to do a wicked thing to us. But I don't want him hurt either. I hope he has put himself back together and run. He needs to go and have a good life somewhere else far away from us."

Again she put her hand on my face. This time I saw a picture of myself with Fred, a happy me, smiling and joking. "Yes we all thought he was a good man, it just turned out that that wasn't who he really was at all."

The next pictures were of Edward and the rest of the family, of Jacob and the wolves in the clearing. Tears ran down both of our faces.

Jasper let us cry for a while and then forced calm back into our emotions. I'd not kept track of the length of time since we left Forks, but we were already approaching Olympia.

"Bella, we need to change cars. I'll dump this one in a parking lot somewhere and we can get a new one. We need tints if we are going south."

Jasper knew exactly what to do. The parking lot he chose was suitably anonymous. We parked next to the car we were going to take to lessen our scent trail. It only took a few seconds before we were out of the car park and on our way again. The new car was a high spec executive BMW, very fast and very comfortable, the windows almost blacked out the tint was so dark. The odd thing was it had almost no human scent. No one had driven this car to the lot that day or any day for a least a couple of weeks. But that was the least of my worries – it was very clear that Jasper knew what he was doing.

He chuckled as he got in. "This one has even been washed! I was planning to drive to Portland and lie low over night. It's the time they will be searching hard for us because they will be trying to keep out of the light. We can hide somewhere and let Nessie rest and get some food."

"Jasper we have no money. How are we going to cope? We only have these." I indicated to our team hoodies and pants that we were still wearing over our match clothes.

"Bella, this is an emergency, you need to stop thinking about the niceties. We will have to take what we need. There is no other way. We'll find a deserted house rather than use a hotel, it will leave less trace."

I didn't like this. It wasn't the way I was brought up and wasn't how I wanted to raise my daughter, but this was a desperate time that called for desperate measures. I would have to get use to law breaking. This was life on the run.

All three of us sat in the front of the car as we left Olympia. This allowed me to keep the other two covered with my shield more easily as they were in close proximity. But I wanted to keep my strength up as much as I could, shielding for ever was a daunting prospect.

"Jasper, forgive the intrusion into your personal space, but if I hold you it is easier for me to shield."

He looked at me and smiled and offered me his hand. As I took it not only was my shield easier to bear but feelings of friendship and brotherly love pumped their way into me.

"We can do this, together, Bella."

I managed to force a smile back on to my face. I was so grateful to this man. He had left his wife to save me and my daughter.

We journeyed in silence, all three of us trapped in our sadness. The miles rolled past and I tried to focus on being strong and keeping all of us safe. I had to keep my shield up.

As we neared Portland Jasper explained, "I'll tour a few of the residential areas. There may be a 'for rent' sign on a house and then we can check for scent."

After 15 minutes of driving through comfortable middle class housing we came upon one with a for rent sign. Jasper got out of the car, I shield him as he walked up the driveway to the front door.

He walked to the garage and pulled open the door.

"We're in luck. There hasn't been anyone here for well over a week. We'll hide the car away and then break in round the back."

In the end we found a spare key under a plant pot. Keys have an obvious scent, a mix of metal and light grease – it is unmistakable to our kind.

It was a nice middle class home, rather bigger and more luxurious than Charlie or Renee could have afforded, but still very homely, though none of the grandeur of the Cullen's main house.

We explored the house together. I had to be able to see them both at all times so that I could shield them. It was clear there had been no one there for some time. The lingering scent of humans still clung to the soft furnishings but didn't dominate the rooms. The house was still furnished and didn't look as if it had been completely cleared ready for letting, which was a little puzzling yet useful. In the kitchen we found tins of food for Nessie to eat and the beds upstairs were still made up. There were clothes in the wardrobes. Although the clothes were too big and were really boys clothes I picked out a couple of outfits for Nessie and some night wear. At least she could be fairly comfortable if not stylish.

There were adult clothes too so Jasper and I took the opportunity to get out of the soccer kits. I found jeans and a T-shirt that were a little big but with a belt did the job just fine. We needed to look as anonymous as possible to blend in as best we could, and being out of the kits was much better.

Jasper struck lucky and found clothes of the right size that actually looked good on him.

After I got Nessie some dinner I bathed her, Jasper making sure he gave her privacy by sitting on the floor outside the bathroom door.

I even found a still-packaged toothbrush for her. It was all working out very conveniently.

I tucked her into the bed in the main bedroom and lay down with her. Jasper sat on the chair next to the bed.

"Don't let me sleep," I whispered to him.

I watched Nessie's thoughts, from replaying the day's events to more bizarre dreams of Jasper and the two of us on a horse riding off into the sunset. I found the image heartbreaking. I took her hand away from my face. Jasper was again pumping calm into the room.

"What did she show you?"

"Just a dream, the three of us on a horse riding away into the distance, being chased by the bad guys."

Jasper sat on the edge of the bed, his hand on my shoulder pumping more calm into me. He looked over at Nessie. She was tossing and turning. He lay down on the bed next to me and put his arm over me and on to Nessie.

"She deserves calm dreams."

After an hour or so I realized that I not only felt calm but also another emotion, a total peace, a type of ecstasy. I couldn't understand this. I knew it wasn't my emotion, I hadn't a thought in my head that would make me feel this way. Why would Jasper feel like this, here in the house that we'd stolen, on the run from the Volturi, not knowing the fate of the rest of our family?

My voice, which seemed to have settled on Charlie, was no real help. It offered little advice, just a constant stream of reassurance that I was doing very well and that help was sure to come soon. As if there was going to be any help for us in this situation. It had even growled when Jasper lay on the bed next to us.

My voice seemed confident, almost cheerful, that Demetri would follow Nessie. How could it be so callous? How could my subconscious want us found by the Volturi?

By the morning however my voice had become confused and questioning as to where the help was, why it hadn't arrived yet. I ignored it the best that I could but it was becoming almost a constant monologue now. The one useful thing it did suggest was to check the TV news for articles about Forks.

I flipped the channels whilst preparing some breakfast for Nessie. There was nothing from Forks or the surrounding area that sounded remotely to do with vampires. No sudden disappearances or deaths, no unexplained break-ins. I found this a relief, the Volturi hadn't hunted in the area or at least if they had they'd covered their tracks.

Jasper was staring out of the kitchen window at the woods behind the house.

"Jasper," I said. He looked round. "There is no news. That has to be good, right? At least the Volturi haven't slaughtered the whole town."

That's right Bella, make him think you still believe that the Volturi were coming, Charlie's voice interjected.

"Yeah Bella, that is good news. We will get away!" The last part Jasper said more to himself than to me. But I wasn't thinking about what Jasper said, I was thinking about what the voice had said.

"Make him think you still believe that the Volturi were coming." But Jasper had said that was what Alice had foreseen. That was why we were on the run.

"It was a lie?" I said it out loud before I could stop myself.

No Bella, don't! He needs to think that you still believe! Charlie's voice groaned at me.

Jasper swung round to stare at me, "The news report, Jasper, do you think it's a lie? Could the Volturi do that?"

Charlie's voice, I hope he takes that. You have to keep your emotions in check. He will read them.

I realized it was a lie! All of it! The Volturi hadn't come, they were still in Italy. I had taken Jasper's word that they were coming but there was nothing to back his story up.

Why else would he have crushed our phones so quickly? We ran straight to a car – a waiting car? A car he had planted in Forks? And the one in Olympia that was so convenient? He probably planted that one as well, which would explain why it didn't have it's owners scent. And this house? Was this set up too?

I tried hard not to be emotional, to keep my breathing regular, to hold everything together, but it was a hard battle.

Did you think this was true? Can't you spot a lie when it hits you in the face? Hmm, I guess I have myself to blame for that one.

"I suppose the Volturi could manipulate the reports." Jasper looked at me then turned back to the window.

Anger beamed out of me. I tried to keep it under control but I couldn't. How could I hide my emotions now? This was the worst blasphemy he could have said, that my family were all going to be slaughtered and that we had to run to save my daughter, but it was a lie! I could see his plan now, it was to get us to run away from the family and never be found. All this time he had been hiding this from Alice by using the wolves to blind her. And where did Nessie fit in? Did she fit in? What was he going to do to her?

Then anger gave way to guilt, my thoughts turning to the part I had played - I had made him love me, it was not his own thoughts, I put them in his mind, I created this situation.

Bella, don't confront him! Charlie ordered. Try not to feel, your emotions will give you away. Let help come to you.

"Bella, what's wrong?" Jasper was at my side in a flash, "I can feel your anger."

Lie Bella.

"Well, I am angry, how could Demetri do this to us. And we don't even know how the others are – how can you expect me not to be angry?"

Jasper wrapped his arms round me and sent calming emotions through me. I tried to relax, I allowed him to do this without the struggle I wanted to put up. I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me but that would have to wait, for now I needed the calm and the clarity of thought that came with it.

After a minute or so I was back in control and Jasper let me go.

"We should hunt. We need to keep our strength up," Jasper suggested. He looked into my eyes – I guessed that they would be coal black; the last of the gold would have gone with this latest emotional battering.

"It's a bit public here isn't it? We might run into humans?" But I wasn't really thinking about the words that I said or Jasper's reply

"We have to take what we can get. I'd be happy for the extra boost of energy given the current circumstances but we can try to find something vegetarian out there. I daresay there will be deer."

I walked to the window and looked out. I thought of my family in the field playing happily, not in conflict with Aro. When would they have noticed that we were missing? Would they have found Fred? I didn't know. What must they have thought? Did they think that I had gone with Jasper knowingly, through my own free will? Did Edward and Alice think I'd run off to be with Jasper? Would they come looking for us at all? Would they just be brokenhearted and unable to do anything?

Maybe if they had found Fred, maybe he would tell them what Jasper had said, but why would he want to help me? I had turned him down flat and he'd been nearly killed for his efforts, why would he help me?

I was going to have to send a signal to Demetri. Would he register it as a distress call? Me crying help to the Volturi guard – the irony was not lost on me.

I couldn't risk taking my shield off Nessie because she might say it had gone – then what would Jasper do?

I had my back turned so Jasper wouldn't see the concentration on my face. I tried to pull the shield away from me but leave it over the other two. I felt it falter over Jasper. I knew it was no good, I couldn't unshield just myself. I'd have to wait for Nessie to sleep again then remove my shield from her. Could I cover and uncover her in a kind of Morse code SOS?

My voice started up again, this time a woman's voice with an odd European accent. I couldn't place who it was but it felt familiar. Bella, are you shielding both of them? Of course you are, that's why Demetri can't find you, and Alice can't see you because of Nessie. Oh he has this all worked out. Can't you take your own shield off?

I shook my head very slightly, just enough to be detected by my voice.

Huff, OK Bella. The woman's voice again. I'll get them to chase me, I think Demetri will follow. He still sees me as your shadow. And I'll come to help too or things are going to end up nasty. But you can sort this by yourself if you just have a little more confidence in your own abilities.

Go to the door and let me out or they will notice the breeze I create.

Then it dawned on me. The wind and the voice were one and the same. The shadow and the voice were one and the same. But who was the voice? And why did Demetri say it felt like Renée?

I took a couple of steps into the garden as if taking in the view and the air.

Bye honey, see you soon, stay safe, help will come.

The wind swirled around my face, blowing my hair, and then around my legs and off around the corner of the house, ruffling leaves as it went.

In my head there was silence. I felt alone. Any faith that I had that this would end well drained from me.

Jasper came into the garden. Again he put his arms around me and tried to push some positive emotion into me. I didn't even know which one it was. We stood there for a minute. I had to get away from him.

I fixed a small smile on my face and looked up at him, "Come on then, let's go find some deer to hunt."