Chapter 12
New

(Charlie)

The release from the fire was absolutely incredible. There wasn't an inch of my body that didn't feel amazing, but still when looking at my reflection I scared the snot out of myself. It was just after midnight and pitch black outside, so the windows of the Cullens' house served as mirrors. The eyes, the angles of everything; this body looked dangerous. Alice must had dressed me, since the last thing I remembered wearing was my old waders and some dirty old tee shirt. Now I was dressed in a pair of tan slacks, expertly tailored to me. I always had a weird size, so buying clothes off the rack was a little tricky; getting the inseam right was always the issue. These were the perfect length so that none of my socks showed but they weren't too long. For a shirt, she put me in a salmon colored polo with a little fish logo on it. I couldn't help but appreciate the irony. And then there was the pair of black wingtip shoes that I was in, perfectly shined to a high polish.

It was so easy to move now. Anything I wanted this body to do, it did instantly; from minor movements like shaking my head to walking at speeds faster than Usain Bolt could even dream of. Forget a sprinter, this body was faster than a drag car.

After Alice was satisfied that I had looked at myself for enough time, Bella took my hand and led me to the north wall of the second story of the house. She slid open a huge pane of glass with absolutely no effort at all. I mean the thing had to weigh at least half a ton and she slid it open like it was nothing. "Come on," she whispered as she nodded her head towards the open window. What she did next surprised the hell out of me. Bella grabbed my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and then let go as she jumped from the window.

At first I thought that she was going to hurt herself until I saw her do three full backflips in the air and then landing on her feet with perfect grace. I was completely in awe of her and my jaw fell wide. Bella had always been kind of a klutz but here she was jumping from twenty feet or so off the ground and landed better than the best gymnasts in the world. "Wow!" I gasped.

"Come on," she whispered again. "You can do it dad; just jump. It's really easy."

I put one foot over the ledge and stood there for a fraction of a second, then stepped off the ledge. The fall was a huge adrenaline rush, but it seemed to last for way too long. The ground came at me much too slowly. I should have been moving much faster than this. It seemed like nothing to set my feet at just the right angle to absorb the impact form landing on the rock covered grass. And then… I landed with as much grace as she did on the balls of my feet. "That's so cool!" I shouted in the exhilaration from jumping from the window.

"You're incredible dad," Bella whispered into my right ear as she hugged me, which I returned too tightly again. She groaned from it and I instantly released her and recoiled from her more than 100 yards in less than a second. Bella followed me closing the distance even quicker than I had. "It takes some getting used to, but don't worry dad. You can't hurt me." She smiled and then she kissed me on the right cheek.

I grinned again as I took in her sweet citrusy smell. It was intoxicating at least until that other one hit my consciousness.

As Bella pulled away and started to turn to head north, I caught another scent. This one was slightly sour and I realized at once what it was from the sound that accompanied it. There was a car idling on the other side of the house. That's when another scent nearly overtook my mind.

It was delicious, making my mouth nearly salivate and the burn in my throat to increase. This smell was the most divine scent that I had ever smelled before. Instinctively, I started to head to see what could be so tempting but Bella grabbed my hand again and tried to pull me away to the north.

"We've gotta get out of here," Bella said sounding completely worried about what I would do to whatever was making this smell. She pulled me, but I wasn't going to go with her until I saw what it was.

I saw a bright yellow Volkswagen and recognized the driver. It was someone I hadn't seen since Bella and Edward's wedding but I knew instantly who it was. It was Angela Weber. Immediately, I realized what was happening. Carlisle had warned that at the beginning the instinct to hunt, especially humans, could overtake almost every other but I was able to stop myself before I ever started. I knew why Bella was trying to pull me away. She knew that it was a human at least, and maybe even that it was one of her friends. I breathed in the scent one more time in order to store it as one of those that I could not allow the hunting instinct to take over for and then I turned north with Bella, grabbing her hand and heading deep into the woods to get as far away from any people that could possibly be around.

The run was absolutely exhilarating; we ran north the twenty miles or so to the Strait of Juan de Fuca which only took about three minutes. The trees flew past us with such speed that if any one of them were to hit us it would have caused a huge explosion sound, but it was only to easy to dart around them. The forest seemed strange; I never noticed anything all that different about the Cullens until Alice and Esme told me their secret. But it seemed that all of the animals of the forest knew to hide as we past. They were terrorized by us. That night the run they took me for to the Pacific coast onto the La Push beach had shown me something I had never expected. But they never scared me even as they showed me the whole truth about themselves.

"Where we gonna go Bells?" I asked after we stopped at the shoreline. I knew that the strait was about 15 miles or so wide here. Jumping couldn't be an option. But still I wasn't ready for what she had said.

"Well, either we can swim it, or run on it," she said with all seriousness.

Bella wore a bight blue, tightly fitting cocktail type dress that had the side seams right to just above her mid thigh. I still had no reason why she's wear that to go hunting deer or whatever we were going after, but I knew one thing more than anything else. If anything happened to the dress, Alice wouldn't forgive me. I laughed as I started thinking more about her dress than her own safety. "Run… on it?" I asked completely stunned by the possibility of walking on water.

"It's easy," she whispered as she backed up about twenty feet or so and began sprinting again. She took two long strides and then she was running on top of the water. I barely even saw any splashes from where her feet touched the surface. Yet again, I was in awe of her with my jaw nearly on the ground.

Man this was so weird; I could see her on the other shore in less than a minute and she was waving at me and laughing. Not to be outdone, I did exactly what she had done; backing up about twice the distance she had and then sprinting. I was nowhere near as graceful as she was as water splashed more than twenty feet from me on my footfalls. She resembled a ballerina, while I was more like a bulldozer. But still less than ninety seconds later I was on the other shore holding on to her from excitement.

Bella started laughing at me and it took me a second to figure out why. While the air was in the mid fifties, the water was closer to forty degrees. I only noticed from the sound of the water dripping off of me and onto the rocky sand that I was completely drenched from head to tow from my run across. When I did realize it, I joined her in laughter; her sounding like a bell chiming, while mine more like a deep guffaw.

We ran north some more until we were more than ten miles from the last town we saw. Bella took two deep sniffs and then said, "I don't smell anything human. Dad take a deep sniff."

I did and started listening closely. Quickly I heard a loud thudding and smelled a small stream somewhere to the east of where we were. Slowly I began salivating from this new scent. "What is that?" I asked as the instincts to hunt began to overtake me.

Bella sniffed one more time and answered me in only half a second. "Mountain lion," she said not sounding concerned at all.

"Lion?" I asked looking right at her and she nodded in reply. I had assumed that my first hunt would be something easy like deer or elk, but to hunt something like that on my first time; my daughter had to out of her damned mind.

"Predators satiate the thirst better than herbivores."

Now it made sense. I didn't need any more instructions as I simply let the instincts take over. Quickly I moved through to top of tree branches as I stalked my prey. It was only too easy to jump from limb to limb to position myself just right for my strike, even when those limbs were more than fifty feet apart. The big cat was lying on a patch of prairie grass lounging underneath a huge oak tree. I positioned myself directly above him, allowing the scent of the cat to completely overcome me, and then…

I leapt from the tree landing directly on the lion's back. He snarled and bucked trying to throw me off of him but it was futile. My iron like grasp wasn't letting go as my mouth opened wide exposing rows of razor sharp teeth. It was only too easy allowing my mouth to close right over his jugular and began to drink the liquid that flowed from the wound. Slowly the animal lost the will or ability to fight, but not before his claws tried to score hits to my body. The massive paws and claws only served to tickle me, and I had to suppress chuckles from his strikes. The blood, while not the most delicious thing I had ever tasted was hot and tangy as it soothed the gentle burn that had crept back into my throat. It seemed to take a really long time, but in reality from the time I landed on the lion to when he was completely empty was only a minute or so. But the thirst wasn't gone, it was only lessened.

Bella chuckled at me looking at me after my first wild vampiric meal. "You're better than I was," she joked with me. "I still have the evidence from my first hunt."

"Evidence?" I asked wondering what she was talking about.

"Alice still hasn't forgiven me for ruining a dress just like this one," she answered as she pointed at the dress she wore. "It ended up in complete tatters."

About five minutes after the first lion, Bella started after something. It didn't smell as good as the lion, but it was large; that much I could tell from the heavily thudding heart and large hooves. Two minutes later, the two of us came across a small herd of elk, two bucks and three does. I watched her go after the smaller stag first. Her movements were even more graceful than Alice and Esme that night three years ago. Yet again I stood in awe of her before my thirst started to bother me again. I went after the other stag. Hunting herbivores was so much easier than the lion, but it didn't taste quite as good. It didn't matter, since the warm blood was just as filling as the lion's. Bella ended up drinking one doe in addition to her stag, while I had both the remaining ones.

After that my stomach felt kind of sloshy, similar to how I felt after drinking too much of anything. But I didn't feel sick at all. The thirst, though quieted for the moment, would not go completely away. We started to walk back to the south and I thought of something, but before I could ask about it Bella beat me to it.

"I wonder what Angela wanted," she said sounding worried about why Angela had come to the Cullens'.

No one knew exactly where I was, since I had all but abandoned my old house. I assumed that she simply wanted to find Bella about something, and figured that I would be the first place she should start. And then when she found nothing in my old house except a 'for sale' sign, the next likely place was the Cullens'. One thing worried me about Ang; she was just too perceptive for her own good. I knew that she would notice that I looked younger than when she last saw me, and that Edward and Bella hadn't aged at all. But I still couldn't bear the thought of hurting her.

(Edward)

Bella's and Charlie's thoughts had become muted about two minutes before I headed outside to see who was invading our home. Instantly I recognized the old yellow Jetta as being Angela's. Of all of Bella's old human friends, she was always the nicest to her, even when I forced her into that hell when I left her. It had taken two minutes of fishing in her mind before she finally uttered in her thoughts the reason she had come her. Naturally she was looking for Bella.

While walking down the front steps I cleared my throat which seamed to startle her as she had just gotten out of the car. I looked at her appearance and it had changed slightly in the last four years; she had gained another inch and had become slightly curvier than I last remembered her. But those weren't the only things that had changed about her. She sported something on the third finger on her left hand.

It was a simple gold band with a small diamond inlaid in it. She had been engaged to Ben Cheney in the last few weeks and was beginning the planning for her wedding.

"Edward!" She shrieked excited to see me again, since she obviously knew that Bella wouldn't be far away. "I've been looking for you." She was smiling from seeing me, but slowly the realization hit her; I hadn't changed at all in the last few years. "You still look amazing."

"Thanks," I allowed my humany voice to say while displaying a gentle smile. I knew I needed to be careful since, thanks to Aro's most recent rule, no longer was changing her an option, even thought I would never do that to her. "And congratulations," I added.

"For what?" She asked as I gave her my answer by simply pointing at her left hand. She realized that it wasn't the hard to decipher since she wore the ring, and face-palmed smacking her nose a littler harder than necessary which caused her to think about the pain she had just inflicted on her self.

There was the slightest trickle of blood from her nose, but in the past three years I had learned to control myself even better than before. I did stop breathing to allow the scent not to over power me, but it stopped quickly enough.

"Is Bella in?" She asked, and I knew why.

I shook my head. "She's out of town right now for work, but she should be back soon enough."

Angela frowned. I knew what she wanted to ask her, but this wasn't the time to inquire more about it. In any case, it should be Bella's decision how much of her old life she felt comfortable with bringing into her new.

"How 'bout your sister?"

"Alice?" I asked and no sooner than I had said her name had she appeared on the porch. She had know just as well as I had who was out here and also what she wanted. Alice walked down the steps slightly faster than a human walk, but still nowhere near anything that would have given away what we really were. She was by us in less than thirty seconds and I decided to let them be in peace, even though I could hear perfectly what they would be discussing from anywhere on our property.