Despite the decision to head straight toward the ballet studio, the route they followed took them past Bella's house anyways. It was as they were driving by that they cracked the windows and were bombarded with Bella's scent.
And when that happened, Jasper was right on Edward's tail as he opened the door of the speeding car and took off after the human's trail.
But as they sped toward the ballet studio, two flashes of light, barely comprehensible to human eyesight, Jasper couldn't shake the sinking feeling that while they might find Bella, Alice would still be nowhere in sight. Although Bella's scent was potent—less than an hour old—he couldn't detect even a hint of Alice's.
He pushed his legs hard, trying to keep up with Edward, and his chest ached.
They flew into the studio—the doors unlocked and dance hall lights on—to two scents.
Bella.
And Victoria.
"No," Edward had paused at a closet, standing in the doorway as he stared inside. When he fell to his knees, Jasper only watched, approaching slowly, Edward's fear seeping into his own psyche.
But Jasper didn't smell any blood. And as he walked up behind Edward, he didn't see any body.
Just an overturned, shattered television screen. Behind it, on the far side of the closet, a note pinned to a shelf. The handwriting was neat and elegant. A woman's writing.
You lose.
Jasper could only stare at the note in shock, even as he heard Emmett and Carlisle make their entrance.
Edward pressed his forehead to the ground and screamed.
With nothing else she could do, Alice simply watched the future flicker and morph around them. It was the only thing she could do—if James wanted to, he could rip her head clean off with the way he was holding her. Sure, she could move her arms and legs around, but there was no way she'd be able to fight her way out of this one. Not yet. She would have to wait and see if he'd release her from his grip anytime soon. As long as his arm was braced around her throat the only thing she could do was wait.
It was more than a handful of hours before he changed course. Even still, he only shifted South and continued running as fast as his feet could carry him.
Laurent had warned them not to underestimate him. But they'd been so worried about keeping Bella—the breakable human among them, the actual target—safe that Alice hadn't even considered the fact that James might use a different approach.
And now she was bait.
Awesome.
For the first hour Alice watched carefully as the odds of Jasper finding her diminished greatly. With every mile travelled the pit in her chest grew heavier and heavier. And with her sights set so closely on her immediate future, she knew that when James made any decision that could benefit her at all, she'd have to act.
James may have set the board, but she was more than prepared to play the game.
Added with the bonus that he wasn't aware of her visions, she wasn't entirely at a disadvantage here. Physically, maybe. He was possibly faster, and certainly stronger. And even if she could run from him, hiding would be another thing. But now that she'd spent several hours as his captive, his future came to her as quick and easy as her own.
Unfortunately, those two paths were entirely intertwined now.
Alice was currently putting a lot of weight on the fact that she could see his every move. Once he put her down, and once his hands were off of her—an event that couldn't happen soon enough (she hadn't seen anything yet)—she was confident in her ability to get away. With enough effort, and a touch of luck, she could best him. But everything was still so uncertain now. Even the direction they were heading seemed purposeless. They'd turned a few times here and there, but they seemed to be heading straight into the Sonoran desert.
At this rate, they'd cross the Mexican border by sunset.
Alice kept her mind's eye open, trying to figure out whether that was a good or bad thing.
