Playlist:
Brave Enough by Lindsey Stirling, Christina Perry
Still Falling For You by Ellie Goulding
My Love by Sia
A/N: Shit's going down folks. Loved writing this chapter and the last. Rose is one of the least developed characters in most of the fan-fictions I read. It's awesome getting to flesh her out a little bit. As usual, thank you so much for the comments and criticisms. Helps me make sure I'm on the right track. Enjoy xx
Chapter 44
BPOV
We were to have dinner at Charlie's house the following day, but on account of Alice's vision, she said they were going to be late due to an unexpected visit from a family friend. I didn't ask who it was nor did I press for further information when Alice said that I shouldn't come.
Honestly, the less social I had to be at the moment, the better. I wasn't too keen on divulging to anybody who I was or what place I hailed from. The thought of explaining to someone why we were looking for Edward wasn't my idea of a fun Saturday night.
I prepped for the potluck style dinner by making a variety of Charlie's favourite foods. I marinated steaks and chopped up some dollar potatoes. Before leaving I made sure to grab my raincoat. The sky called for rain and I wasn't looking forward to sporting a head of wet hair.
By the time I arrived, it was absolutely pouring — but that didn't deter the turn out at all.
Despite the rift between Jacob and I, I was extremely eager to see Billy, Sue, Seth, and of course Leah. It had been a while since we all got together like this. Leah and I spoke on the phone sometimes, but something unidentifiable hung over our conversations that made it slightly awkward. Sue and Leah and I ran around the kitchen setting up the table while dad and Seth put the remainder of meats on the awning-sheltered BBQ outside.
Charlie absolutely loved it. He so enjoyed bantering with Seth over the rarity of the steaks, telling him that it was far too cooked for someone like me and the Cullens to thoroughly enjoy. Seth, however, remembering all the backyard days we spent together, insisted that I liked my meat medium-well — I was surprised that he remembered.
When all the food was set out and we waited for the Cullens, Leah giggled at the row of school photos on the living room wall.
"Why're you laughing?" I asked her.
"It's 'cos you look like a dummy, in this one Bells."
"I look awful in every single one of them, Leah. Which one are you talking about?"
"What the hell are you even wearing? Is this senior year?"
"I ran out of clothes and forgot it was picture day."
"Right," she raised her brows. "Because the Cheeto dust on your chin is because you ran out of clothes."
She never stopped pointing out the orange smudge. When my homeroom was called for pictures I was sitting at my desk happily munching on the chips. At least it truthfully depicted me in all my nutritional glory.
I threw a roll of paper towel at her head and told her to quit it. She stuck her middle finger out and adjusted the blue frame so that it was crooked.
I had to roll my eyes at that as I walked towards Sue. She was bent over the turkey in the oven, smothering it in juice.
I had never made one so large before so I needed to put two heads together in order to figure out how long to cook it for and how much of everything I needed. She briefly wondered why I needed such a big bird, but then she recalled that we had Seth and Leah and Emmett dining with us tonight.
God, it felt so damn good to be at home with Charlie. I felt myself swinging into my old self almost immediately, laughing at his jokes, cracking some of my own.
Pretty soon after Billy and dad delved into a gossip session about who's pregnant and who's getting married, the Cullens, thankfully, arrived.
They filed in through the front door, and set their soggy coats on the standing rack by the stairs. Emmett moved towards the kitchen and appraised the numerous plates all ready for the taking. Rose shook her head at him and Alice smirked. Out of all of us, he was the one most satisfied by human food. He wiggled his fingertips in front of his face like a mantis.
Charlie came out of the living room and greeted the newcomers, hugging each and every one of the present Cullens with enthusiasm. When he noted Emmett's absence, he leaned into the kitchen archway and reached over to smack him over the head.
"Not yet," he said. "Humans first."
Em narrowed his eyes and followed Charlie back over to where everyone else was standing.
After dinner, Leah corralled all the young people into my bedroom since the bottom floor was brimming from floor to ceiling with occupants. Seth tossed a couple of cans of beer around and took command of my laptop, playing funny videos off of Youtube.
He and Em got along splendidly over their mutual love of FailArmy and their collection of silly clips. Rose, Alice, Leah, and I occupied the bed and reminisced about times past. No one dared to breach the Jacob subject, and for that I was thankful.
Jasper sat at my desk and fiddled around with the clunky computer, attempting to close the various virus laden screens as it booted up. Eventually he revealed the flat purple desktop background and opened up Internet Explorer.
The computer's insides sung a horrid symphony of clicks and grinding before the screen turned white and the address bar finally revealed itself. Em instantly perked up at the mention of searching through my hopefully sordid browser history. Aside from a collection of porn sites that James visited, I wasn't sure what else they'd find.
God, I was deeply uncomfortable with them rummaging through my files and saved pictures.
He and Jas laughed maniacally, hoping to uncover some juicy tidbit of my past curiosities.
I groaned, not really sure what embarrassing searches they'd find there.
I tuned back into the conversation happening between Leah and Alice regarding a few of our fellow students.
"So Eric and Lauren actually…did it? I can't imagine them in any sort of relationship," Alice cringed. "I mean, I'm really happy that they're happy together married and baby on the way and all that, but the whole thing is so unexpected. I always thought she had a thing for Tyler."
"Everybody knew she had a thing for him," Rose snorted. "I'm just glad that everyone's more or less settled down. It's nice knowing that Jessica's out of Forks though, good for her."
"Yeah. One day I'll be out of here," Seth said. "I'd love to live somewhere blissfully warm and humid. Get as far away from here as possible."
"You and me both," Leah nodded. "Out of Forks is like, the only thing I'm looking forward to in the coming years."
"You guys aren't part of a pack anymore, right? So you can just leave?" Em queried.
"Yep," Seth grinned. "We're free wolves now. They've got enough wolves to last 'em."
There was a small lull in the conversation as Seth trailed off, thinking about sunny California or Miami. Alice resumed telling Leah all about Lauren. Though nobody in our grade was as nice as Angela Webber had been, I still felt uncomfortable ragging on who slept with who and who was going nowhere fast.
I tuned out and sat on the edge of the bed so I could see the mess Jasper was getting himself into. He downloaded a couple of anti-virus software and was running a painfully slow diagnostic tool.
"You've really done a number on this poor thing. You and all your saucy pornos," he wiggled his brows.
I held my hands up in defence. "Don't look at me. Some, I admit, I may have been a little curious about — but all the downloading stuff was James."
"Sure," he grinned. After a beat he winked. "Naw, I believe you. The guy was messed up in the head."
"Big time," I nodded. "So, you're gonna save this piece of crap, or what?"
"Eh, I'll see what I can do. No promises. Though it's so old I wonder if it's even worth it anymore."
"Charlie has his own laptop and I got one a little bit before second semester senior year. This thing hasn't been used in eons so it's fine if it's a gonner."
"How did you even get anything done on it?"
"With patience and the sheer will to graduate with enough scholarships to leave this place."
"And yet you're still nearby," Jasper stated.
"And probably will be for a while. I'm gonna spend the rest of my life making things right with him. With Edward, I mean. If he'll let me, that is."
Jasper nodded slowly. "I can't guarantee that it'll be easy. He's a little more difficult to talk out of a bad mood."
A screen with a list of various files on it popped up.
"You don't mind if I delete some of the viruses it found do you?"
"Nope, not at all. As long as the pictures stay in tact then I'm good."
"Oh, I transferred those to a USB just in case I fucked up."
I looked at him, surprised. "How thoughtful, thanks Jas," I smiled.
"Always back shit up Bella. Always back it up. And save. And then back it up again."
"He's right you know," Seth interjected. "Every time I work on something important it's like the computer gods hate me and my whole laptop crashes. Sad, really."
"Then you should stop torrenting illegal shit, Seth," Leah chastised.
"Not illegal, Leah. Just foreign," he grinned.
"Ew, I did not want to know that. You're gross."
"No!" he yelled, quickly defending himself. "I meant like cartoons. You know, anime? Like Sword Art Online and sometimes old reruns of Naruto."
Leah seemed to believe him and shrugged a whatever.
I turned back to Jasper who seemed to be staring at the screen intently. He was looking a webpage that looked more like an encyclopedia entry than anything else. The page was text-heavy, even as he scrolled down there were very few pictures. He scrolled back up and the screen was then dominated by a photo of a dusty fortification wall.
Jasper's shoulders drooped and his left hand raised to sit under his nose as he cycled through my webpage history once more. He kept going back and forth between the pages, scrutinizing them.
He then stood up from the desk chair and excused himself. Since Charlie and everyone else in the house was pretty lax about us using our "abilities" Jasper was back within a moment with Carlisle and Esme. I moved over so the three of them could look at the computer screen together.
Alice and Rose perked up and stopped talking as they moved to sit beside me.
Their demeanour changed the instant they looked over my shoulder at the screen.
Carlisle and Jasper turned to look at me and then at each other. Esme covered her mouth with a fist.
"Bella," Jasper asked. "Why did you do a search on Volterra before you were changed? How did you know about it?"
All at once, at the sound of the place, at the sight of the map of the tiny city, my mind flooded with cloudy memories from my human life.
I explained it to them as I saw it in my head. I didn't think it mattered. Not until now, not until I learned of its connection to the vampire world.
"This," James pointed at the screen as he grasped my hand in his. It was the same screen Alice and Rose now stared at. "This is where we're going to live one day. Me, you, and my friend Victoria. She's going to bring us with her to this castle where we'll live happily ever after, the three of us. There are a few others of course, but we'll get to know them later. It's going to be wonderful. She lives there right now…it's going to be wonderful."
"You're sure this is where James said Victoria was taking you?" Carlisle questioned.
"Yes," I nodded. "Yes."
"This is too much of a coincidence to be wrong," Jasper said. "We need to go. This isn't good."
"Leah, Seth, will you please excuse us?" Esme asked quietly. She extended an arm to Seth and helped him off the floor. Leah shut the door softly behind her as she and Seth left the room. We waited until they were downstairs before we began to speak again.
"What do you mean a coincidence?" I asked.
"Well, the reason we were late," Jasper explained, "is because we — Alice — saw that Edward was staying in a hotel in Seattle. In the vision he left just before dusk yesterday."
I looked at Alice who smiled tightly at me. "I didn't want you to be disappointed if we got there and he wasn't."
"I want to be involved next time. If you're leaving to find him, I want to come too. Please."
"Of course," Esme smiled. "You're as much a part of this as we are."
I nodded. Hopefully Esme could vouch for me should someone not want me to come.
"As I was saying, Edward left for a flight out of SeaTac an hour after Alice's vision. That was yesterday. We went through some security footage this afternoon, thanks to Jenks, and saw that he boarded for a flight to Paris. From there we managed to catch him waiting at a terminal headed for—"
"Florence," I finished.
"…yes. Florence. Because Florence is—"
"The only place close enough to Volterra that receives international flights," I finished again.
"James told you a lot," Jasper noted. "That's unsettling."
"Very," Carlisle agreed. "Victoria should have known better than to tell a human."
"That's where the Volturi is, right?" I asked.
"Yes," Carlisle nodded, frowning.
"This means that…well… I remember Victoria saying to me that she was interested in me and James for the same reason Edward and Alice was interesting… because of their abilities. She called James her…tracker."
"Victoria is a collector, a headhunter!" Emmett exclaimed. "Jesus. No wonder she wanted you. She knew you'd be interesting, that you'd be a shield or extra human or something."
I nodded, deep in thought, simply speaking my thoughts as they came to me. "So when she had to turn James after I shot him, she knew she couldn't transport more than one newborn at a time back to Volterra without getting in trouble. That's why she said she'd be back, but she hasn't…yet."
Carlisle let loose a long breath. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned his head against Esme's.
"That means Aro, Marcus, and Caius and the entire Volturi guard know of your capabilities Isabella. I fear…I fear that maybe Edward has joined them in your place — that he appeased Aro by giving himself willingly."
"Aro has wanted Edward for a very long time," Jasper explained quietly. "It makes sense now that they haven't searched for you. They tend to stick with a promise of returning, but if Edward offered himself as long as they released you from their grasp…"
I nodded, understanding creeping into my mind so heavily that it pressed into my throat.
"They'd never give him back," I noted. "Not if Aro wanted him for so long. They already have a shield and they already have impeccable self-control. I'm of less worth to Aro than Edward is."
The silence that followed was one of collective agreement.
But I could't help but break it to ask something of Alice.
"Why, after so long Alice, were you finally able to see him?"
She shrugged, staring gloomily at a spot on the hardwood floor.
"What exactly did you see?" I asked.
"Well…Jacob texted him saying sorry," she muttered. "Also mentioned the divorce. Said to go get you and be happy together and stuff."
"So why now? After months and months of nothing. Why were you able to see him?" I pressed.
Rose just about shot up to the ceiling as she got up from the bed. "Because he made a choice, Bella! Alice had a vision because after months of following his routine back and forth from Volterra and here he had a choice — to either stay or go. And he chose to go. He chose to leave and go back to the Volturi instead." She stomped over to the other side of the room, trying her best to contain her sobs.
"He, he went back. I can't believe he went back," she kept saying.
The lump in my throat grew, constricting my breathing. Watching Rosalie cry made it nearly impossible to hold back. My bottom lip trembled.
I fucked up so completely.
"There's nothing we can say for certain girls, please calm down," Carlisle said. Rose shot Carlisle a death glare so powerful it chilled me to my very core when she transferred that look onto me. I nodded, and broke into tears myself.
"If there's one thing the Volturi don't do it's let people come and go as they please," he said. "They operate in extremes. Stay or go. Not both."
"Maybe he got a special exemption," Emmett suggested. Rose kicked him in the shin and whipped the door open. The handle lodged into the drywall and shook the entire room.
We could all hear her stomp down the stairs, and open and shut the front door. Charlie called after her and stepped into his boots, following her out into the driveway.
I crumbled into myself, totally believing that there was absolutely nothing that could be done to fix this. Even if I offered Aro an exchange between Edward and myself — I was still worth far less. There'd be no way in hell he'd be allowed to leave.
They had Edward.
A/N: DUN DUN DUN. How many of you think Edward is with the Volturi? What are your other theories?
