Note at the bottom.
I do not own Twilight.
E.P.O.V.
I haven't been here in years. Coming back to this city stirs memories that I hadn't ever thought would breach the surface of my mind again.
None of them however, compare to the perfect recall of my conversation with Jasper.
She has a human family.
They're here.
Jenks did a thorough job getting us everything we needed on the Swan family, and it was right there in black and white, just between the lines. Through the years she has been there in the corner of their lives, keeping watch.
More than anything, I marvel at her sheer nerve. There is no paper trail, no actual evidence that she has contact with them, just small traces that she had a hand in finances, land and ownership deeds, scholarships. A progression of distinctly good fortune has graced their lives time and again, that's all she leaves them, but it's enough.
The car around me slows to a stop, and I know we're here. This brownstone is listed under one Marie Swan. It's nothing that stands out, if anything it looks like every other little home on this block. The file in my hands tells me that Marie and her four year old daughter live here, she's divorced, sole custody, a good steady income with a small check from her inheritance that leaves them living comfortably. Jenks' research also tells me that one 'Mr. Swan', presumably Marie's father, made wise investments and left a nice bit of money for his daughter.
The rest of his history tells me that the wise investing Mr. Swan is really a Miss.
In the middle of all of this, my answers leave me with more questions, and a tense truce with my brother.
Jasper told their story, expect one thing, something she revealed to him that he keeps guarded behind layer upon layer of bad western movie scripts. His only words on this last piece of her is that it is something that she has to choose to tell me herself.
I have a new respect for Alice and her ability to worm information out of him.
Not that she was any help. She is currently reciting Beowulf while looking up everything we'll need while we're here in the back seat.
"You two go on ahead, I'm still looking through all the history Jenks found on Charles Swan."
I catch Jasper's nod and smile to his mate in the rearview and a small hand squeezes my shoulder after he opens his door to get out.
"I know this is hard Edward, but after everything Jasper told you and all these years doing this alone, I can understand why she didn't say anything. We lose all traditional sense of time in this life, we lose everything we ever knew. I think it's sort of like your family safe, the one you've kept all these years, it's all you have left of them but you treasure it. It keeps you connected."
Her hand slips away, back into the shadows of the backseat.
"Go find her."
At first, I was sure my travel companions came along to make sure I didn't destroy anything, like a few buildings or perhaps a whole town. The mere idea of the danger my mate could be in set off a chain reaction, panic led to rage, which lead to the deepest pits of my being, where the baser instincts of a vampire were locked away. I couldn't seem to control my own reactions, my own feelings, all because of her.
But the more of the file I read, the more of my control I regained. I could see her, I could see the silent guardian through the decades, watching over her family, watching them grow, protecting them. The ex-husband was so far out of the picture it was as if he were never there, and it was obvious from the few police reports Jenks found that he was never coming back. Further back, less interactions were found, but still, she was there on the edge of each page. By the end I admired the woman whom I knew so little of but knew plenty about, family was everything to her, and not even the threat of the Volturi was enough to keep her away.
The question has become, what is?
I follow Jasper's footsteps around to the back of the house, where he is crouched over fresh prints, one scent, fainter than it should be to match the slight indents on the ground is hers. Bella.
The other catches me off guard completely.
"Garrett?"
Jasper nods his agreement and stands with me at the backdoor of the home. Why would she actually step foot here?
"There are layers of two scents, human females, at the front I caught a third scent though, male and it's not someone who lives here. Those are the freshest, and they're at least two days old."
Two days.
That lines up with Bella's sudden disappearance in Forks, whatever it was she received sent her straight back here, and with someone else. Ignoring the growing rage at another male keeping her company, another thought anchored itself in my mind, one far more worrisome.
What did she think she'd find that would drive her to bring another capable fighter?
Typically, vampires are not social creatures, and we don't trust one another as freely as Carlisle and Esme do, so whatever she is running from, or towards, is dangerous.
That thought hastens my steps towards the door, we have spent enough time outside to know that no one is there, and the trail leads in through the back, a small kitchen with rotting food, and complete darkness greet me.
They left in a hurry, a child's plate is sitting at the table, no more than half eaten.
As we comb the house I find bits and pieces of a life here, this woman is comfortable here wit her daughter, a girl who colors a lot and has more books than most children her age. The living room is quaint, a busily decorated Christmas tree stands by the front window, and ash from a fire litters the old fireplace on the other side of the room. Jasper begins his inspection of the finer details, while I follow Bella's scent. It brings me to a cluttered office, this woman works from home, her desk is immaculate while the shelves are stuffed with books, binders, files, though neat it is almost overwhelming. By the side of the room I find the carpet has sunken more in two identically rounded spots, Bella's scent is the strongest here.
What was she doing in this room so long?
Nothing has been left out, a quick glance tells me nothing moved off the shelves, that only leaves something they obviously took with them.
A dead end.
The frustration mounts in my chest.
For a moment I sink onto the floor with the ghost of her, staring blankly around the room. She was here, her scent makes her feel so close, and yet, nothing. It is a cruel trick. It's as if I'm standing back in that clearing, catching glimpse of the face that haunted me for years, blurred ever so slightly by the fog of my human memories and the rage of the fever. I had been so sure she hadn't been real, until she was, perfectly frozen in time, standing in front of me, watching me with those dark eyes. She had just fed and they still looked dark, endless, captivating.
Then I feel it.
The tug.
My chest thrums with an echo of life, something it has not done in over a century, this feeling however never accompanied my human years, no, this is a recent development.
The mating bond.
The ache is still there, but less somehow. She's not here, but she's close.
"Edward."
Jasper stops at the doorframe, his eyes scan the room as well, taking in any details he can use, then he sinks down on his knee beside me and holds up the charred edge of a paper.
A familiar paper.
"That's the enlistment paper Jenks pulled for the first Charles Swan."
Jasper nodded. "It looks like someone had been looking into Chief Swan. You know I don't believe in coincidence, I think Marie may have been searching for him, for Bella."
I shake my head. It's a knee jerk reaction, because that would mean one thing.
"That would mean she made contact with Marie."
Jasper nods, and I don't need to read his thoughts to know that's exactly the conclusion he's arrived at. It propels me to my feet, drives me into pacing around the room.
"That would mean her death should she ever be caught. You know the laws as well as I do Jasper, no one would be that stupid."
Jasper huffed out a laugh.
"Stupid, no. Stubborn enough? The Bella I knew would be, and the woman that those files show certainly is, stubborn, clever, and meticulous."
I can't contain the growl at his casual mention of knowing her, it's not something I can also claim, and that bothers me now that the tugging is back. I should be beside her, even as she drives me mad. He shrugs off my annoyance, with Jasper it is always a shrug, very little bothers the man, less so when he is on the hunt.
"Then we assume she was here. Involved with them. It would explain why they were taken, but that theory falls flat without another vampire's scent present. Which leaves us with nothing."
"Except that family is everything to Bella."
Alice steps into the room, holding one piece of paper in her hands from the file. She lifts it up with a look of certainty that she generally carries ninety percent of the time.
The paper is the registration of a family tomb, under the name Swan, and it isn't far at all.
B.P.O.V
We spend the day holed up in the hotel, combing through my years of travel, any brush I may have had with a potential threat, it takes time to push past the memory that engulfed my senses at Marie's house, but like all things it fades away, back into the recesses of my mind while I focus on sifting through faces of people from the past.
It amounts to nothing.
No single encounter strikes me as motive, and those that could be are long dead.
My early years of naivety left me with a price to pay as I came into my own, in the beginning I didn't understand the alure of my gifts, or the nature of vampires. The same does not hold true these days.
"You've been a bit more ruthless than you let on little Belle."
As if it were any other conversation, Garrett grins his wolfish grin at me after I finish accounting for those who are dead, and therefore no threat.
"I prefer to think of it as thorough."
It goes unsaid between us that my need to tie up any lose ends in my personal dealings has everything to do with the two people currently missing.
Two people who are in danger solely because of me. I grit my teeth and stand, sitting the entire day does nothing to my body physically, but mentally I feel stagnant. Cloud cover veils the sunset, but with it's descent into the horizon I find my need to move swell.
"We know I am the target, we don't know who it is that is coming after me, or where my family is. One of those problems can be remedied by more digging." I turn back towards Garrett and he sighs in acknowledgement of what I have left unsaid, but nods once. "Thank you."
"What will you do?"
In truth, only one word passes through my mind when he asks.
Run.
Whoever is after me would follow, and if nothing else, a predatory species tends to give to chase when tempted.
"Find out who is threatening my family."
It's all I offer on the subject, likewise, he says nothing of where he will start to look for something more to use in his search of the girls.
We spend the last few moments of daylight quietly putting ourselves together, before slipping away from room and out onto the streets.
"You let me know when you need me Belle, and don't go doing anything stupid."
I raise a single brow and let a small smile creep onto my face, the ease of Garrett's company is a welcome reprieve from the reality of my visit.
"Stupidity is more your area of expertise."
He grins and leans into a dramatic bow before departing, leaving me to my own devices.
The memory of my last night swarms forward in my mind, washing over my worry and determination, threatening to pull me back to that night. Back to the edge of my humanity and the eternity I toppled into.
I find myself on an edge once more, this time with more to lose.
My feet carry me to my destination while my mind wanders, that night never truly left me, not like so many others. Remembering human memories is like looking through an obscured lens, the emotion tied to those images feel as though they belonged to someone else. In many ways I've found that part of transformation to be a blessing I was not given. More than anything I wish to forget the feral look of that monster's face, the unfiltered delight he wore when Maggie screamed, the satisfied hum of his throat against my own as I slipped further into the endless depths of nothing.
Or the very last moment, the one I wish more than anything to forget.
The feeling of cold earth under me and lose dirt on top of me.
I will never know how Maggie got home, though in the days that followed I could have wailed in relief that I found her alive. It was much a night like this that I sat and watched from just far enough off, the snow crunches under my boots now as it did back then, oddly enough, I once again am looking to find her.
The cemetery is empty of visitors, and I don't worry about any care takers further back on the grounds, so I allow my speed to assist me.
I remind myself that while I need clarity to move forward, I have little time of my own to spare for those who I cannot save.
My flowers sit on her grave still, though frozen mid-wilting, I know that at some point in the spring Marie visits briefly before moving onto her mother's plot in the family tomb, where Maggie was supposed to be buried. When I had learned she insisted on being buried next to my empty grave it burned me, worse than any ache of hunger ever could. Part of her never returned home that night, something always clung to me, even if I wasn't there to hold onto any longer.
I run my hands over her name, grief never truly leaves, but where it was once overflowing, there is now a simmer.
Maybe because I knew it could be some time before I came back to this spot, or perhaps, because the fear that I would come back to two new additions drove me here, either way, I felt the need to say hello again.
"I miss you sister."
So lost in my own thoughts, I made the fatal mistake that only a newborn makes.
I didn't listen.
"Hello love."
In the brisk air of the evening Maggie clung to my arms as we reached the last stretch of road that led us home. In the moonlight it felt like a surreal landscape before us, but while Maggie felt uneasy, I found it mesmerizing.
"Come on Isa, let's hurry, Mother hates when we are not back before dark."
I laughed a little before patting her hand that was wrapped around my forearm in a vice like grip.
"Mother should not insist we walk if she does not care for how long it takes."
My words work to coax a laugh from Maggie and her hand relaxes ever so slightly while we walk through fresh snow.
We never hear him approach, but suddenly, pale in the bright light of the big moon I'd been admiring, he's there, watching us both before moving his gaze to me. Pale skin to match pale blonde hair that is tied back, away from a sharp face and dark, disturbing eyes. In an instant my heart clenches, my breath catches like Maggie's in fear, he wasn't there a moment ago.
"Hello love."
My nightmares come to life, the demon on the edge of my death doesn't dissipate with the memory.
He stands before me, and now I see what I had missed that night so long ago.
Brilliant ruby colored eyes.
I'm back!
I left for so long, and I apologize for that, but hopefully there are still a few of you who enjoyed the story enough to keep reading! I will be going back and editing the first chapters, since I've been looking through them and found a few mistakes to correct, and there are some details I need to adjust, nothing major changes at all though so I will let you all know when I do actually get around to editing those. This story has changed quite a bit from my original plot for it, but I really enjoyed the new direction and I hope you do too.
I have it mostly fleshed out now and am down to figuring out details and keeping it flowing, please bear with me! I am planning to post new chapters weekly, potentially twice a week for parts of the story that read better together. I am editing and prereading on my own at the moment so please excuse any mistakes you find, as most of my time to do this is after my toddler is in bed for the night.
Lastly, any guesses who turned Bella?