Witch Hunt
Chapter 13
Saturday comes with tumbling storm clouds so dark, that I don't immediately recognize that it's morning when I wake up. I see the darkness outside and roll over, burying further into my pillow with the intent of getting a few more hours of sleep.
Then a soft tapping irritates my consciousness, and I glare toward the door. Only, the tapping isn't coming from the door. I sit up quickly and spin toward the window where a pair of yellow eyes glow like a cat's.
I scramble out of bed toward the window and throw it open. Alice wears a blinding white, professional looking baseball uniform, and an enormous grin as the branch she crouches on sways heavily in the wind.
"Alice!" I hiss, having to shuffle out of the way as she immediately starts clambering into my room. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw that you would be waking up right about now, and I was terribly bored."
"It's the middle of the night," I scold, but can't find it in me to truly be angry when she looks so cute, completely invading my privacy with her wild wind-swept hair. She immediately starts shuffling through the clothes in my closet, taking inventory.
"It's eight o'clock," she corrects, pulling out several shirts to inspect before discarding them to the back of the closet. I glance at the clock and am surprised to find that it is, in fact, morning.
"Then," I rub a hand harshly down my face in an attempt to wake up more, "why didn't you come through the front door?"
"And let myself in? Don't be silly; that would be rude." She pulls out another shirt, seems satisfied with it, and tosses it onto my messy bed. She then starts rifling through my drawers.
"Or you could have rung the bell. Or knocked. You know, like a normal person."
She turns to me with a pair of black jeans clutched in her hand. She discards them next to the approved shirt and finally turns to me, two hands landing on my shoulders as she looks up at me solemnly.
I swallow thickly under her gaze.
"You should know by now, my dear Bell, that you did not marry me for being a normal person." Then she turns and continues rifling through my drawers as an odd, surreal, feeling washes over me.
"We aren't married," I retort. It's too early to be dealing with this. Did I sleep for a decade and wake up in the future? You never know with magic- I'm still figuring it out. "Hey- don't go through those!" I leap forward as Alice starts thumbing through my underwear drawer.
She laughs, a light-hearted sound that almost distracts me from my mission, and she dances out of the way with her prize dangling from a finger.
"Really? Boxer briefs? Somehow I'm not surprised."
Face burning, I manage to snatch them away (only because she let me), and bunch them up in my fist.
"Really, Alice? Rifling through my underwear drawer? If you wanted a peek, all you had to do was ask," I say, trying to get my feet back under me. This is a bizarre morning.
She flops onto my bed with the casualness of comfortable familiarity.
"Can I have a peek?" she asks with mischievous grin. My pulse rockets and thumps in my throat as I fluster even further.
"Alice!" I protest with an embarrassed laugh, not knowing what else to say or do other than burry my face in my hands (one of which still has my bunched undergarment).
"I adore you," Alice says with a light sigh and tilts sideways until she's looking up at me from her back. Her hair is still chaotic and messy, splayed out on the bed in a rare show of carelessness.
In this moment, looking down at her, all I want to do is touch her. So, I step closer and let just the tips of my fingers rest over her knee.
"You're in a good mood today," I observe, the heat in my face gradually cooling as I'm finally given time to collect myself. This tender sincerity, over blatant, salacious, flirting, brings about its own difficulties, though. Like containing this warmth in my chest.
"Yeah," she hums, eyes lidded and almost lazy. "I don't know, I guess I just like the idea of not having to hide anything from you anymore."
I wince slightly at the nugget of guilt that wiggles past my blind affection.
"I don't know, it was kind of amusing watching you come up with excuses and getting all smug when you thought I bought it," I tease, grinning when a pout appears on lips.
"Just get dressed," she huffs, flicking the clothes she laid out for me in my direction
"Yes ma'am," I laugh, hurrying into the clothes under my observer's watchful eye. As I pull the turtleneck over my head, I notice that she's dressing me for warmth, which I appreciate greatly even if it's not very often that Alice forgets my human vulnerabilities.
I don't think it's often she's not thinking about them.
If I can create a spell that could turn her human, would she even want it? The thought actually gives me pause, because I can't say for sure either way.
"Ready?" Alice asks, still lounging in my bed in the picture of lazy sleepiness (even though I know she doesn't sleep).
"Yeah," I say, snapping out of my thoughts and quickly finish tying my shoes.
Alice immediately springs from my bed with all the agility and grace of a feline. She leads the way out of my room and down the stairs.
"Good morning, Chief!" I hear her cheerful greeting, and hurry faster into the kitchen as Charlie looks from her to the front door in confusion.
"Good morning, Alice. I didn't hear you come in," he says over his coffee.
"Oh, I climbed the tree and crawled in through Bella's window," she shrugs, making her way to the fridge. Charlie blinks. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. His brow furrows and he looks to me in question.
I sigh heavily, falling into the chair across from him as Alice pulls out some eggs.
"That sounds like something a girlfriend might do," Charlie comments raising an eyebrow at me, and I can feel the probing question in both his words and expression.
"Bella said no to being my girlfriend, so I'm going on strike and doing all the girlfriend things anyway until she gives in and realizes that I'm superb girlfriend material."
Is that what she's doing? I think she's just teasing me now. "You know it has nothing to do with you being girlfriend material or not."
Alice flips the stove on, and I'm on my feet, again, the next second, turning the heat down so it's not all the way on high. She hums appreciatively as she cracks an egg over the pan.
I flick her in the side of the head, and she blows a kiss to me without taking her eyes off the egg she's enthusiastically scrambling.
Charlie sighs heavily, downing the last of his coffee. "I'm going back to bed," he grunts, setting his mug in the sink. "Bella, get your head out of your ass and date the girl. She's even making you breakfast."
She's burning my breakfast. I absently flip the stove all the way off and guide the pan to an unheated burner as I glower after my father's retreating back.
"It's complicated!" I shout after him.
"It always is," he calls back apathetically.
I turn a reproachful gaze to my friend as she scoops the lightly crispy eggs onto a plate.
"You're on strike, are you?" I ask dryly.
She pushes the plate into my hands with a grin, stands up on her toes, and pecks me on my cheek before retreating back a step.
Keeping the scolding glare is a losing battle as a reluctant but inevitable smile pulls at my lips.
Damn it, Alice.
When I finish my very well-cooked eggs, she hurries me out into the dark grey morning. It's not raining yet, but I can feel it in the air, so humid that it feels like I'm moving through molasses. The only relief is the harsh wind that gusts at intervals and randomly changes directions. Alice is the only thing keeping me on my feet all the way to the massive jeep sitting in the drive way. It makes me very thankful that I moved my bike into the shed in anticipation of the bad weather Alice predicted.
"It really is getting ready to storm, isn't it?" I say as Alice crawls into the drivers' seat (and doesn't she look adorable in the high seat that allows her to see over the wheel). The clouds roll quick and ominously as I duck forward to watch them out the front window.
"I said it would," she says simply, pulling out onto the street.
"Yeah, well, so did the weather channel, but half the time they get it wrong."
"But I can see the future," she says, glancing over at me. "I'm never wrong, Bella."
"Um," I blink. "You can what?"
Alice lights up in delight. "Oh, did I finally surprise you? I can see a person's future based on their current decisions. Weather is much more predictable, because it doesn't have a mind to change."
"Can… can you see my future?" I ask, morbidly curious. Does she see me standing over a bubbling pot? Does she see me curing them? Or will she only see that when I decide on the correct ingredients that would make the cure work, the right words?
"You're a little strange," she says, her brow furrowing as she glances over at me. She's driving down a windy, deserted, road now.
"Strange how?" I ask. Does she see pig spleens and frog eyes?
"Well, sometimes your future just goes completely black. I can't figure out why- sometimes you're there, and then you just disappear. It scared the hell out of me the first time it happened."
"When was the first time?" I ask, intrigued.
"The first time we went shopping together. After we split up."
When I went to the occult shop. Where it's heavily warded with layers upon layers of protections against mental powers, physical powers, and beings with bad intentions. And then there are my own protections that I've put up in the basement and around the house. I suppose that kind of magic would confuse her powers.
She pulls over to the side of the road, under an overhang of pine heavy tree limbs.
"You're going to make us walk, aren't you," I sigh, stepping down from the vehicle. I blink, stunned, when Alice is suddenly in front of me faster than I can track.
"Or I can carry you," she says, grinning widely as she hefts me into her arms with little effort on her part.
"Alice, I swear to god-" the air is sucked from my lungs in what feels like a vacuumed as she takes off. The world becomes one huge green blur and I only process that we are moving through the swooping of my stomach- and then we come to a stop, and I'm being set on my feet- and I double over, vomiting.
"Oh god, I hate you~" I gasp between retching.
"Oh!" Cold hands sweep my ponytail from around my shoulders, holding it back as I spit at the ground. "I'm sorry, I really didn't expect you to react like this. I thought it's be fun!"
"Not," I gasp, "fun."
"Sorry," she pleads again, patting my back.
A booming laugh cackles across the field, and I groan at the growing humiliation.
"Bella Bear threw up from running? What a wuss!"
"Screw you, Emmett." I flick him the bird for added effect as I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and straighten up, but that only seems to delight him even more. He comes skipping up, wearing full baseball getup, just like Alice.
"Hey Pixy-Sticks," he says, cheerfully slapping a ballcap on her head.
"Emmett," she acknowledges, still hovering at my side as if she anticipates me vomiting again any second.
He turns his attention back to me, punching a ball into his hand. "You ready to watch how vampires play ball?"
"I hope the actual thing lives up to all the hype," I say.
"Oh, it will," he says confidently.
"Ugh, what's that smell?" Rosalie appears out of thin air, nose wrinkling in disgust.
"Belly Button upchucked," Emmett says gleefully at the same time I respond with, "Alice's eggs."
Alice pouts at my dig, but for her first time cooking, they really weren't that bad. At least, they could have been worse. Like, they could have tasted better coming up than going down. That's definitely not the case here.
I bump up against my friend's shoulder and offer a small, teasing, smile to lighten my rebuff.
"Alice, did you run full speed with her?" Carlisle asks, concerned as he, too appears with the rest of the family in tow.
"No!" she denies. "Well, maybe, but how was I supposed to know she'd throw up?"
"Can we please talk about anything else?" I ask the churning sky. It responds with brilliant flash of light and a low rumble.
"I agree," Rosalie grimaces. "Let's play some ball."
The teams quickly split up from there, and I watch as Alice dances toward the pitcher's mound just as the first raindrops come streaking down from the sky.
I tug my hood up over my head and stuff my hands into my pockets in anticipation of the inevitable downpour. It doesn't end up dumping, though. The field we're in seems to be nestled between two mountains, and the worst of the rain jumps right over us.
Watching vampires play baseball is a lot like not watching vampires play baseball. My inferior eyesight can hardly keep up as I watch them all standing around, tense in preparation, and then they are all white, blurry, shapes darting around the field. My entertainment ends up coming from trying to anticipate where someone will be going, before they even move. And the little smirk Alice directs at me before each pitch, before lifting her leg, toe pointed, in a completely unnecessary windup.
The need for the storm, at least, is self-evident after the first crack of the bat. Each collision, with each other, with the ball, sends a reverberating boom like thunder echoing off the two mountains we're sandwiched between.
There comes one point in the game, where the entire world seems to pause and hold its breath as Alice freezes, eyes wide.
Edward is the first to move, suddenly at my side and pulling on my arm. It's completely bewildering because I haven't had a single, direct, interaction with this brother since the first day we met.
"You need to go- now-"
Alice appears on my other side, wrenching me away from him so hard that pain lances up my shoulder like fire. The guttural sound vibrating from Alice is nothing short of animalistic, her eyes demonic.
"Alice!" I protest loudly, trying to tug away, but her hand is like a steel trap round my wrist. Her energy is chaotic and feral, buzzing angrily over my skin and almost stinging me with its intensity.
"Go," Edward says quickly, unsurprised and unconcerned with the snarl aimed at him. "Quickly-"
"Too late," Alice hisses lowly, voice just a growl as movement distorts the tree line and three figures emerge.
My heart thunders as the situation slowly dawns on me. Some buried instinct slides over my skin, stilling my movements completely as the newcomers approach. Alice smoothly takes a half step closer until she's positioned protectively just in front of me.
The other Cullens move too, automatically falling into a tense formation. Carlisle steps forward, taking point and drawing the attention to himself.
"Hello," he says cautiously.
A/N: I'm excited about the next chapter. Are you?
Please review!
~Silver~