"Edward, I'm sorry! We dropped Bella off right at the hotel and watched her go inside. I thought she was going to be with her mom," Alice's blurts out in a frenzy as soon as Edward answers the call. "She isn't picking up her phone. I don't know how much time we have."
"What?" Edward can barely understand what she's saying. "Alice, slow down. What happened?"
"I got another vision and Bella's in trouble!" Her voice rises in pitch impatiently, sounding fuzzy and distorted over the car's sound system. "Jasper and I dropped her off maybe fifteen minutes ago. I didn't know. I thought she would be—"
"Okay, I'm almost there. Stay where you are," Edward orders, speeding up and glancing over at his phone's screen. His car, which Alice drove back from Whistler, is now parked on the south side of town in the industrial district according to the blinking dot on his navigation app.
"You are?!" she says surprisedly.
"Yeah, I borrowed Carlisle's car and we left maybe a half-hour after you did. I couldn't stay up there after Bella left. I was going to try to talk with her."
"Oh. We're near the water on First and—"
"I know, I'm tracking my car's GPS signal. I'm almost there. See you soon," he says, hanging up.
He dials Bella's number and, like Alice said, it goes straight to voicemail. The urgency of the situation makes his stress and anxiety jump.
He can't lose her too.
Edward zips through the streets of downtown, running a red-light in the process.
"Woo! Finally some excitement around here! Time to kick some ass!" Emmett shouts from the passenger seat, pumping his fist in the air.
Edward regrets bringing him. He should have been dropped off with the others. "Shut up, I'm concentrating," he demands.
"I'm just saying! I wanna wreck this Jamie dude. Who does he think he is going around messing with Alice and Bella?" his friend shouts energetically.
They pull onto First Street and Edward spots Jasper's tall frame and overgrown blond hair standing on the sidewalk a few blocks away. It takes him a moment to make out Alice's small, shadowy figure in her black coat and jeans. She waves him over and Edward parks behind his black Tesla that he loaned her.
"I think she's in there," the petite psychic says immediately, pointing at an unassuming grey building nearby. It looks like rented office space, though the windows are blacked out. She turns and looks at the hotel across the street. "At least that's the view the security camera had inside."
"How do we get in?" asks Emmett, starting toward the building.
"We don't even know if she's here yet," Edward frets. "Are you sure she's here now, Alice?"
"A window maybe?" Alice suggests, ignoring the redhead's question to answer Emmett's instead. "He'll see us if we go through either of the doors. Unless there's a third..."
Emmett picks up a rock off the ground, walks around the side of the building into the alleyway, and throws it through the window without much pretense. The glass shatters with a loud smash.
"Emmett!" Edward hisses, smacking his friend's arm. "Don't just do stupid shit like that!"
"Alice said go through the window!"
"Shh, we want the element of surprise," Alice chides, stepping over the shards of broken glass. "After you, Edward."
"Why do I have to go first?"
"Because it's your girlfriend, duh," says Emmett.
"I don't want to get in trouble, I—"
"Fine, I'll go first, but that means I get to kiss Bella when we save her," Emmett teases with a guffaw.
"No, I'll go!" Edward shoves past him and climbs through the window, avoiding the jagged points of glass sticking out along the edges.
Inside, there's a poorly lit hallway crowded with shelves of miscellaneous knick-knacks, boxes, and a variety of electronics and hardware tools. It looks like a dump.
Emmett hops through the open window frame after him. Alice, with Jasper's help, is quick to follow.
It's difficult to know where to step because there's hardly any walking space. Edward has to turn to the side to get though some of the narrower parts of the hall.
Bella needs him. She's in danger. He has to be brave.
"What is this?" asks Emmett, looking around at the piles of junk and following after the redhead with all the grace of a bull in a china shop. "It's like an episode of Hoarders in here."
"Does any of this look familiar, Alice?" asks Edward as they hesitantly wander through the hall, looking this way and that.
"No, I haven't seen this before. I only ever saw the one room..." she murmurs, trailing at the back of the group as they walk through the winding hallway to a large room with several doors and some stairs leading both up and down. "Jasper and I can check upstairs if you two want to start on this floor."
"This isn't going to be like a Saw movie where things try to jump out and kill us, is it?" Emmett questions. "I don't want to get my head stuck in a bear trap."
"I'm not sure," Alice murmurs, evidently unable to see any additional visions for the time being. "We'll have to find out."
...
"Bella? Bella?"
The brunette walks down the stairs into the basement of the building she was told to go to, following the sound of her mom's voice. A door at the end of the hallway waits for her, slightly ajar with red light washing out from behind it.
"Bella? Where are you?" her mother calls out.
The voice sounds oddly mechanical. Unnatural. Like it's been prerecorded.
She pushes open the door and sees James, standing with a laptop beside him, watching a home movie of Bella when she was in grade school.
"There you are! What were you doing in there?" Renée says happily in the video clip.
On the screen, Bella's sitting in a pink tutu, pouting over how horrible she is at dance, while her mom smiles and hugs her. She had hidden in one of the supply closets to get out of a recital she didn't want to perform in.
"Where's my mom?" she demands.
James laughs. "You haven't figured it out yet? And here I thought you were smart."
Bella's stomach drops. "She's not here."
"Nope, she's still in Arizona. I found this cute clip on your laptop the other night, though."
The brunette turns to run, but the sandy-haired man is faster. He grabs her arm and yanks her back into the room, shutting the door.
She struggles against his grip as he effortlessly drags her to a steel post in the center of the room. He binds her hands together above her head, securing her to the fixture. She tries to kick, but he quickly moves out of range.
"Why are you doing this?" she shouts.
"It's fun. I have a passion for media and film, as you may know," He smiles, grabbing a camera up from his desk and flicking off the lens cap. "To be honest with you, I was hoping to get my hands on that delicious little dancer with the bad leg, but you'll do."
Bella gasps. "Alice?"
"That's the one. I've been studying her for a while. She's so popular, and yet no one's talking about all that tragedy she left behind in her hometown. She was apparently homeschooled nearly her entire life, with her only window to the outside world being the countless hours she spent dancing in a studio. When I first saw her just over a year ago wandering through Pike's Place, she looked so bewildered and in awe of everything it was as if she'd never been out in public before. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you two knew each other!"
He sighs wistfully and continues speaking, the lines sounding rehearsed. "If she were killed, her story would circulate the news for years," he enthuses. "Unfortunately, I'm getting a bit impatient, and she's always surrounded by people. That's the problem with it girls. They're difficult to get alone. She's the one that got away, you could say..."
James goes over to a table on the other side of the room and picks up a series of tools—a handsaw, a drill, a hammer—before deciding on a long, serrated knife.
"But you, Bella, you're quiet and reserved. Understated, but dating the Mason boy," he pivots the conversation back to his present victim. "You'll finally get the recognition you deserve! Edward's parents' deaths dominated the media like a wildfire a few years back. Just imagine how much commotion the untimely murder of his girlfriend will generate."
Bella begins to hyperventilate.
She's going to die.
"How cinematic," he says as he sets the camera up on a tripod facing them and walks towards her with the glinting blade.
She tries to kick him again and he steps down hard on her thigh.
"Aaah!" she screams out, her leg searing in pain.
He takes the opportunity to dig the knife across her bicep. Warm blood runs down her arm to her shoulder. She feels woozy and sick. She doesn't dare look or she'll faint.
"Gorgeous. Just look at how beautiful that blood looks against your skin."
His hand smears the blood from her cut around and she lets out an involuntary whimper.
"Please, don't do this."
"Bella, Bella...even if you beg, you're not getting out of this in one piece. It's too bad your boyfriend isn't here to watch. I'll make sure to send him a tape."
He brushes a thumb against her cheek and moves to slice her arm again. She cries out in protest. "Don't!"
The door to the room slams open and Edward runs in heroically, like her knight in shining armor. Only, instead of armor, he's wearing a navy pullover and jeans.
The sudden intrusion causes James to startle and he drives his knife into the pale girl's palm. She yelps.
"Bella!" Edward shouts, intense concern in his eyes. He looks at James holding the knife over her and runs at him.
"I thought I explicitly said no plus ones!" James growls, shoving Edward to the ground without much effort.
The redhead struggles against the bulkier, stronger man. James slashes him with his knife but it looks like the only thing cut is his clothes.
Bella pulls against her restraints, but can't get free. Her wrists rub raw against the plastic zip-ties keeping her from moving freely.
James stands up, kicking Edward hard in the side. He hurries over to his work table and opens a metal box. Inside is a shiny, loaded pistol.
"Shit," Edward flinches at the sight.
"Move and I shoot," James shouts.
This is exactly what Bella was trying to avoid. They're both going to die here.
"This does add some artistic drama, though. Did you know your girlfriend's been writing about how insecure you make her feel all quarter?" James aims the gun at Edward's head, his hands steady with practice. "This story will go viral. The wealthy, orphaned son of Seattle's best lawyer and his new girlfriend found dead."
"What?" Edward looks at Bella, alarmed.
"Come on now, there's no need to be so shocked. I'd have thought you to be a bit more perceptive," James says humorlessly. "After all, you're a straight-A student and your father's the one who put my father in jail."
Before either of them can say anymore, as if by a miracle, Emmett comes charging into the room and tackles James head-on.
Bang!
The gun fires, a bullet going through the wall but missing them. Bella screams.
Jasper runs in behind Emmett, disarming the gunman with a hard hit to the grad student's arm and shoulder. He unloads the gun and steps on James' hand when he tries to grab at his ankle.
"Are you okay, bud?" Emmett calls out to Edward, who's still rubbing his side and wincing on the ground. James writhes, trying to get free, and the curly-haired football player shoves him to the ground harder.
"Yeah, thanks," the redhead says, sitting upright.
"Bella?" Jasper asks, looking to her.
She nods but feels like she's going to throw up from the pain in her leg and the blood she feels trickling down her arm.
"Edward, there's a knife over to your left. You can cut her loose with it," Jasper says nodding in its direction. "Alice is calling the police. They should get here soon."
...
Jasper walks past a pair of stern police investigators talking in the hallway as he goes looking for Alice.
She'd wandered off while he was answering questions for law enforcement, disappearing back into the basement without a word.
He finds her in a room that looks like it was serving as a bedroom. There's a mattress in the center with unmade sheets. A pile of clothing sits off to the side.
There are photos of girls plastering the walls in various states of undress and liveliness. Accompanying the photos are newspaper clippings, essays, and printed-out web articles covering their lives, disappearances, and deaths.
Alice stands in front of one of the walls, studying a series of photos of herself. Jasper walks up next to her, stopping when he's stood behind her shoulder.
"It's funny. I don't even remember some of these photos," she says, tilting her head.
Some of the pictures look recent and candid as if they had been taken weeks or months ago without her knowing. Others look like professionally staged ballet portraits, but—based off her long hair and younger-looking features—they were taken a while ago.
There are a few fliers for fashion shows she's been featured in taped to the wall as well, and a print-out of what looks like her resume. There's also a missing person flyer with the name Mary Alice Brandon printed in bold letters across the page. The photo shows a smiling Alice, with glossy pink lips and straight, black hair falling past her shoulders.
The thought of James following her around and preying on her makes him equal parts disgusted and angry. While he's glad nothing happened to her, he wishes she would have told him.
"How long did you know this was happening?" he asks.
"What do you mean?"
"In the car, it sounded like you've seen this before. It wasn't just something you saw tonight, was it?"
She pulls a photo of herself and another girl posing and wearing matching pink tutus and pointe shoes off the wall and shoves it into her coat pocket. "I see things all the time. It's hard to say how much is related to this specifically...but a few weeks or months, maybe?"
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I don't know. It didn't come up, I guess," she shrugs. The pixie-haired brunette pauses for a moment, seemingly thinking something over. "I didn't want to worry you, sorry. Scary visions freak some people out."
"You can tell me if something like that happens. I'd like to know."
"Okay, I will," she says airily. "Well, I think that's enough excitement for one night, don't you? Shall we head back?"
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"Mhm. I'm just tired," she sighs, looping her arm through his and leaning against his elbow. "Thanks for helping out."
They walk out to the street and the blue and red glow of the police cars flash brightly in the darkness. He sees Bella sitting in the back of the nearby ambulance, getting checked out by a paramedic.
"Edward and Emmett can take Carlisle's car back, so I can drop you off," she says. "Or you can tag along for the ride over to Bellevue with me."
"You want me to stay the night?" he asks.
"I was looking forward to spending all weekend with you. I'm kind of bummed," she pouts, climbing into the passenger side of the Tesla.
If she wants him to go with her, then he's going to go with her. He doesn't need convincing.
"Okay, I'll go with to Bellevue. Am I driving?" he asks hesitantly, confused by her choice of seats.
She yawns and nods. "I saw it happening."
"You did not!" he objects with a laugh, calling her bluff.
"I did! And on the way we're going to stop at a drive-thru to get nuggets and fries," she says with feigned confidence. "Then we're going home and going to sleep."
That plan doesn't sound half bad. He gets into the driver's side without a second thought.
...
"Can I get you something?" asks Edward. "Do you want coffee?"
"How many times do I have to tell you I'm fine?" Bella complains.
"With cream and sugar?" he adds.
"Fine."
Her very handsome, but very distressed boyfriend leaves the room. He returns a few minutes later with two cups of coffee, stacked like a tower so he can carry them single-handedly.
"I got you decaf since it's late," he says, motioning for her to take the top cup.
"Thank you."
"Are you in pain? Is the medication they gave you working? You still look so pale."
"I always look pale."
"But more than usual," he insists.
After being questioned by police, a wildly unnecessary ride in the back of an ambulance, and nineteen stitches, Bella is thoroughly exhausted and mortified at the level of attention she's received in one night.
Luckily nothing was broken, but she's badly bruised.
She nods. "How are you feeling?"
"I won't be playing piano for a while," he sighs. "My arm is killing me."
Bella takes a sip of her warm drink, careful not to spill or burn herself.
"Was James why you suddenly had to leave the trip?" the redhead asks.
"Yeah, he said my mom came to town and he was going to hurt her if I didn't. And that he would hurt you too if I said anything," she explains, gesturing at him demonstratively. "You still managed to get hurt, though."
"Better than the alternative," Edward states firmly. "I thought I was going to lose you. I...don't know what I would have done if I was too late."
A nurse comes in to check on Bella briefly before hurrying on to the next room with the promise that she could go home soon.
"I didn't mean what I said about not wanting you to meet my mom, by the way," Bella tells him. "I texted her about you a couple weeks ago. She said you're cute."
"I'm...cute?" he says incredulously, the tips of his ears turning a bright shade of red that clashes with his hair.
"I'd agree. You're pretty cute," she says under her breath, chewing her lip nervously.
He sits down on the edge of the cot she's resting on and gives her a dangerously sizzling smolder. "I'd say you're the cute one. Dare I say beautiful."
She rolls her eyes and shoves him lightly, wincing when she realizes how sore she is. "Ouch."
"Careful, Bella."
"I know."
He takes a sip of coffee and sighs. "I've been thinking about what you said. The stuff about how I don't listen and keep asking you to try sports and outdoorsy things."
"Edward, I didn't really mean—"
"No, you're right. I've been asking a lot of you. We should do more things that you like to do," he insists.
"It's not that big of a deal."
"It is. I want you to be happy," he says determinedly, kissing her forehead. "I love you."
"I am happy!" she asserts. "And I love you, too."
"So you haven't been writing about your dissatisfaction with our relationship?" he asks.
Her heart grows heavy. She regrets ever pouring out her thoughts and emotions into her writing.
"No! No, that's not it! I was just being stupid," she says shaking her head. "This...dating you...has been the best thing to ever happen to me. I wish...I wish I was...more."
"More?" he asks, confused.
"I've met your friends and I've seen the world you live in, and I'm so utterly plain," she admits. "Everyone, including you, is so extraordinarily accomplished...it's like you have it all figured out. Then there's awkward, clumsy, accident-prone me."
"Really? Even Emmett?" Edward says skeptically. "I feel like you're glazing over some people. Jasper's also a horrible example."
"One's a football player and the other has that Southern cowboy thing going on. That's something."
Edward rolls his eyes. "You aren't plain, Bella. You're beautiful and kind and smart. I haven't met a more fascinating person in my life. I promise you that you're far more than extraordinary."