Bella jumped, terrified as she stared out the window at the immediate looming dark shape. She was sure, vulnerable as she was emotionally, that Victoria had come to kill her. She choked back a building scream, thinking immediately of how to keep Charlie out of this.
"BELLA! Ouch! Open the window, damn it!"
A moment after registering the familiar voice, Bella rushed to the window and pushed the glass to the side.
"What are you DOING?" Bella gasped. The large, hulking boy was clinging to the top part of a spruce that was growing some space away from her window.
"Trying to keep...my promise!"
"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?"
Jacob snorted. "Get out of the way."
"What?!"
As she watched her friend swing his legs backwards again, she realized what he was planning to do. "No, Jake!"
Ignoring his crush's horror, the boy swung his way into her room with ridiculous, unnatural grace, landing on the balls of his feet.
Both hulking boy and small girl whipped their heads towards the door, silently waiting to see if they had disturbed Charlie. When they both heard the continuation of the man's muffled snore, a wide grin broke out across Jacob's face. Not the familiar smile Bella knew-this smile had none of the previous warmth the boy normally had.
Honestly, this was too much for her. It had been too much, which had led to her decision to leave the area for a vacation. Chalk that up with the fact it was past her bed-time, she was both groggy and crabby. In short, she was fully done with this supernatural, odd secret shit the people around her seemed to have.
"Get out!"
The venom in her voice startled the grin right off Jacob Black's smug face.
"What? I came to apologize-
"I sure as hell don't accept. Get out!"
This was clearly not what the gigantic boy had in mind-looking down at Bella's small determined form, pushing against him with all her might in obvious rage. If he hadn't turned, he would have absolutely been shoved right back out the second story window. As it was, Bella's small hands barely found purchase-more so her feet were sliding out under her as she continued to try with gritted teeth. As though the difference in strength hardly phased her.
The girl noticed the higher than usual temperature of his body-of course the lunatic wouldn't be wearing a shirt. None of the crazy Uley gang members did. They may as well be considered half nudists.
Overly stressed out from yet another stress, Bella swayed, face suddenly pale.
"Bella, are you alright?" the larger boy asked, guiding her to her bed (rather forcefully-she didn't want to move).
"Why the hell would I be alright?" She snapped, holding two fingers to a temple as she sat on the bed. Jacob crumpled, not quite mature enough for his larger body type.
"Oh-right. Crap. I'm so sorry."
"I don't care about your apologies, Jake. Why did you come here?"
Biting his lip uncharacteristically, the boy replied.
"I couldn't leave things like they were this afternoon. That was bad. I'm so sorry."
"Then you shouldn't have behaved like an asshole," Bella replied snarkily. Weariness then wracked her small form. "I don't understand anything."
Jacob Black crinkled his nose, anxious.
"I know. I'm sorry Bella-I can't."
"Can't what?" she asked tiredly. Honestly, she just wanted to go to bed.
"Have you ever had a secret you couldn't tell anyone?"
The question pulled her out of her weariness for a moment. "What?"
Jacob Black continued as though he hadn't heard her.
"The part that kills me-is you already know everything. I've already told you!"
Now she was even more confused. "What?"
"My secret! I can't tell you-but if you guessed it, I would be off the hook. Please, Bella, think!"
She was irritated. "Why can't you just tell me what's going on?!"
"Because I can't!" the boy was shaking, trembling in anger. He took in a deep breath, calming the shudders.
"Think Bella-back to the stories I told you on the beach."
The girl groaned. "Can't this wait until morning? It's late."
Jacob Black paused, then nodded. "By the way-I brought your bike back. It's in the bushes behind the house. It would probably be best if you-
"Seriously? You're going to pop in in the middle of the night, keep me from sleeping, and then tell you not to contact you in the morning?!"
This time, it was Jacob Black who groaned. "No. Figure out what I said-if you figure out my secret come to La Push on the bike in the morning. It'll be harder to spot you than if you were in your truck."
With a whoosh, Jacob Black launched himself back out the window, leaving Bella Swan very confused. Sighing, she turned off her light and tucked herself into bed.
"I'm so done with this shit."
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"BELLA!"
Bella woke up, startled, hardly a couple hours after Jacob had left. Charlie was shaking her.
"We have to get out. The Carbon Monoxide Detector is going off."
She blinked blearily, still overly sleepy, but Charlie shook her again. It was then she became aware of the blaring alarm going off in the house.
"Up, Bella!" The chief of police tried to heave his daughter over his shoulder, and the adrenaline set in her system, waking her up, but as she realized, not as much as it should have. In the middle of her panic, she was still sluggish.
"Ok, I'm up." She said, forming the words forcefully through heavy lips. There was a haze over her room, and the surrealness of the situation set in as Charlie ushered her downstairs, through the kitchen, and to the door. But when they got to the door, it wouldn't open. Charlie fiddled with the locks.
"What?" He mumbled, and Bella could hear the panic poorly hidden in his voice. Her father ordered her to step back, and she watched him attempt to kick in the door. It was ridiculous. The old, creaky, thin door that was practically a thousand years old wouldn't give.
"Charlie, let me help."
Eyes furrowed, biting his lip grimly, he nodded. They both reeled back and kicked at that door with all their weight, and the damn thing still wouldn't give.
They didn't have much time. Everything was starting to spin.
Charlie inspected the sides of the door, and swore.
"This is on purpose. Someone bolted it shut. How the hell did we not wake up from the sound?"
Bella dully moved her gaze over-sure enough, shiny new bolts rung around the door. The door had even splintered from where they had kicked it, and it was clear that there was a plate of solid metal on the other side. There was one other way out in this old house, and that door usually didn't open on a good day.
"I have an axe and an ice pick in the basement. At the very least, we can break a window and get out. Bella, use the landline and call for help. And stay awake."
Bella wished they hadn't left the extra phone in the truck for tomorrow. Go figure-she herself had lost her cell phone, and her dad just chose not to have one except at work as a rule. She fumbled around to the kitchen-her mind was really getting hazy and it was hard to remember where the landline phone was. Before she even picked up the receiver, she could see that the line leading to the plug in was cut-in not just one place, but many. There was no hope of 'jolly rigging' it, and it was very clear this whole thing was foul play.
Charlie had come back up-face expression grim. He didn't have to say it-the lack of tools in his hands was obvious. Someone had already been in the house and had taken the axe and the ice pick from the basement. Casting an eye around the house, the chief could see that the door hadn't been the only thing bolted shut-the windows and the other door had been as well now that he was looking for it. Bella noticed that too, and tears welled up in her eyes as she realized the situation. There would certainly be a fire coming shortly, but they would both pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning before the fire started.
"Charlie, I was able to open my window earlier tonight-maybe-
Charlie nodded, and ushered with haste. "Let's go."
Both parent and child had to try hard not to stumble and fall as they climbed the staircase the second time. "Breathe as shallowly as you can."
Bella could only nod.
As they reached Bella's room, Bella could feel her knees starting to give out, her feet feeling like lead weights. But there was something odd-Charlie stopped next to her. She blinked, incredulous, as she saw the scene before her. A red haired woman, no, vampire, bared her teeth at her in a smile next to her bed.
"Thought you would like to know who your killer was. Although neither of you have much time at this point, this one is for my beloved, James."
Her voice was so calm, so soothing, so…. deadly.
"You did this?" Charlie asked angrily, but even his speech was slurred. Everything was happening too quickly.
"Yes I did," the vampire said gleefully. "And I so enjoyed watching that pretty little girl panic and try to stay calm, just as I will enjoy watching her last moments as this house lights up shortly."
"Bella," Charlie whispered, not understanding the situation fully, trying to gesture towards the window as he moved in front of her.
"Now, now," the vampire chided like she would a child. "That's not allowed."
It was then that Bella saw the empty gasoline cans everywhere, and the box of matches that had suddenly just appeared in the vampire's hands. Charlie practically roared and charged, but the matches were lit and dropped with inhumane speed. Blistering heat sweltered as Bella had never felt before, and fire rolled across the room as though it were water. It was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. Giggling, the vampiress grabbed a gasoline can, dancing out of the way of Charlie's drugged, lumbaring charge. Bella could hear the liquid swish in the can among the crackling and roaring of the fire.
"Catch, now, darling."
Bella blinked blearily as the can of gasoline was tossed at her, barely registering the lit match that was pelted after it like a dart. Charlie's face suddenly came into view. Her back hit the hot floor, her ears rang, and everything went black.
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Jacob couldn't sleep. It was just as well-night was the only time that he could get any privacy from the pack's constant stream of connected thoughts. He was able to think as he sat on the porch of the Black residence, watching the moon and starry sky. The guilty knot that was in the boy's stomach was one that he kept trying to push down-it wasn't HIS fault he turned into a wolf. His duty was now to the pack-and they didn't welcome outsiders often. But Bella had been his friend and crush since way before the pack. Things had just….they had gotten too complicated, and the more he tried to simplify them, the worse off they seemed.
The wind changed, blowing into his hair and clothes from his position on the porch hammock. Smoke. But not smoke from a bonfire-smoke riddled with the smell of gasoline. Curious, he sat up, trying to distinguish the direction. Did a gas station catch on fire? Not something you hear about happening in Forks. Realizing the direction it was coming from and understanding not many houses were built that far out, reason left the Were. His pupils dilated, and as new to shifting as he was, the wolf in him responded to his panic and worry for his friend and forced its way out. In a matter of seconds, a six foot tall red wolf was running at a blurring speed towards the smell. Sam and Jared awoke, but their presence in his mind did little to persuade him to return-and the red wolf in Jake's mind agreed.
Even Jacob the wolf skidded to a stop. The heat blasting from Fork's Chief of Police's house threatened to set his fur alight before he came within fifteen meters of it. Thick black, acrid smoke billowed out of the windows, and the crackling from within the house was impressively audible. He whined.
Bella. The thought coming from his subconscious was small, disbelieving of the scene in front of him. There was no way his best friend had been in there, right?
The instincts of the wolf COWERED at the fire raging, urging him to retreat to the safety of the forest. Even it knew it couldn't fight fire. But Bella might be in there.
Jake. Co-
No! Jacob put his wolf's brain under the table, so to speak, and looked back up into the flames, where Bella's room was. She's still in there. Her scent...never left the house.
Sympathy covered his pack leader's voice.
I'm sorry, Jake. They're long gone by now. Even our kind can't survive that, and she was just a human.
Still, feeling foolishly stubborn the young wolf defied the heat and began to trot towards the house, blistering heat ignored. He would find his best friend.
A black wolf appeared in front of the flames and blocked his way, and he had to quench the urge to immediately roll onto his belly with the look his alpha was giving him.
Don't be stupid. Isabella and Charlie Swan are dead.
Jake snarled, a taboo act towards the alpha. For once, Sam seemed to let it slide, although his black tail twitched in irritation.
Instead of pointlessly trying to dig up a dead body in a raging inferno, help the pack track down the one that did this.
That caught his attention-the snarl wiped itself off of Jake's wolf face instantly.
Jared caught sight of a red haired cold one leaving the site right before you came here. If you hadn't arrived in such a panic, you may have noticed her. He is tracking her now.
Jake tucked his tail and ears reluctantly in a sign of rare submission.
Thank you.
The black wolf regarded him for a moment, head held high, waiting for a further sign of submission-probably a chin lick. Jake of course...offered no such nonsense. The moment passed, Sam nodded in wolf form, resigning to work on it later. Let's go.
Jacob looked back, one more time at Bella's room, then at the spot where he had brought her bike over earlier that same night a few hours earlier.
"Would you just tell me what's going on?" she had ranted.
The red wolf threw his head into the sky and wailed alongside the raging flames.
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Bella woke up feeling like she could barely breathe. She coughed and coughed, and gagged and coughed and gasped. She couldn't sit up-something was holding her down. She didn't know where she was, but it smelled strange.
Slowly, the world around her made sense to her. And yet didn't make sense. There was some kind of dummy holding its arms around her, and everything around her was burnt.
Then Bella remembered. She realized not what was holding her, but whom.
And she screamed. And cried, and then screamed some more. Charlie had shielded her completely from the explosion and any debris, holding her tightly as he had died.
The numbing shock and horror that ran through her was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Still uncontrollably sobbing and outright wailing and confused, Bella slowly wiggled out of Charlie's corpse's grasp. There was no question-it was very, very clear that Charlie Swan was dead.
She cried and screamed until her voice gave out. There was no sense of time to this type of grief and fear. It clawed and tore away at her very soul and every inch of her being.
When the first wave of it was over, Bella finally realized that the fire was still partially burning around her. The room around her was black; her clothes in her closet completely burned up, her mirror had melted, the remains of her bed weren't even enough to recognize as such. And still, the room burned. The window that Jacob and Edward had come in through many times was open, and unbolted, bringing a deep sense of anger forward.
Why was she alive? It wasn't a blessing right now. It was ridiculous and the sense of new reality settling on her was hellish.
She dared not look back at Charlie, or the sight would paralyze her again. The realization that the vampire was still out there was setting in-and she knew she had to escape before it came back again. That thought alone, or perhaps the fear that the thought brought, surged her forward. Blatantly, she halted-the fire had burned her clothes off. Bella fumbled for a moment, bewildered for many reasons as the questions that couldn't be answered ran through her head. She remembered haltingly that her problem could be solved simply-her and Charlie had packed her suitcase/backpack convertor and put it in her truck. Attempting to not cry for the second time that night, Bella moved surreally towards the window, flames and embers glowing and spinning all around her. At this point, she had bigger worries than a momentary lack of clothing. The steps towards and out the window were shaky and vivid, the orange flames and black smoke forever burning a picture and smell into her mind.
But once she was out, she was out like a shot. Adrenaline had seized her with the taste of fresh air, giving her strength to jump she never knew she had. The bark of the tree branch hit her bare stomach-HARD. Once she caught her breath, Bella found she was able to scale down the tree without too much issue-her bare feet and skin found far more purchase against the bark. Regardless of the awkwardness of it, she was grateful, and headed straight for the truck, wondering faintly why the firefighters hadn't been called yet. Charlie's house was still burning, existing utterly as an inferno in the middle of the night. Looking at it with a sinking feeling in her gut, she noticed even the tree she had just climbed down had been lit on fire from being in sheer proximity from it. How had the fire department not been called yet? They were a couple miles out, sure, but not that far out.
The tires on the truck were slashed. Bella supposed she should have figured as much, but still. Feeling very….vulnerable, she dashed to the truck anyways, grabbing her suitcase and a batch of clothes from the backseat. Once dressed, she found for a moment she was able to think somewhat more clearly. She was outside of the house that was in the midst of burning down, and the night was otherwise….normal. The moon was full and bright, the sky was almost clear and full of stars. It helped a little, though she realized her cheeks were still wet with tears..
Bella's breathing slowed to its normal rhythm. Methodically, she switched her suitcase over to it's backpack option and shouldered it. All of the important things-her ID, money, map, extra phone, were in it-she had checked. Keeping an eye out, she moved around the side of the burning house, trying to stay fairly close to it so the smoke would hide her. For now, she was choosing not to wonder why the heat and smoke didn't seem to affect her.
Finally, nerves wracking, her searching eyes found her quandary. The motorcycle Jake had left her and had hidden in the tall weeds was still there, untouched, along with her helmet, oversized leather pants and jacket. Quickly, she threw the gear on over her current clothes and pushed the helmet over her head.
For now, her identity would be protected. At least, until she could reach her mom, Bella thought as she rolled the motorcycle over to the driveway. She realized with some frantic, surreal humor that the driveway to Charlie' house was literally melting from the heat.
What a stupidly, horrendously quick night.
She debated going to La Push for safety, but it had been obvious from the way Jacob had spoken that even if she did turn up, she wasn't really welcome there. Bella shuddered, feeling very much alone.
Bella took one long, last look at Charlie's house going up in flames behind her. Choking back a sob, she revved the engine.
"I love you, Dad."
