Chapter 10: Nothing Burns Like Truth

Edward let her go.

He would give her anything her heart desired, even if it meant letting her go. With her gone, the pain in the back of his throat was nothing compared to the pain blossoming in his chest. He moaned and sank to his knees, one hand grasping at his chest, the other covering his mouth in horror.

He never should have called that night. He never should have agreed to stay. He never should have stayed once he realized the threat to Bella in this house. He never should have left to pilfer blood from the hospital stores. He never should have left her unguarded.

He never should have, but he did.

A delicate hand peeled his fist from his mouth.

"It's going to be okay, Edward." Esme reassured softly, kneeling down on the floor next to him.

"You don't know that."

"She just needs some time."

"She's never run from me before."

"Let her calm down. Give her time."

"She can have anything she wants."

Edward could see in Esme's thoughts Carlisle and Alice trying to calm Jasper down. His agony was dulled with rage.

"I should kill him."

"Let Carlisle handle it."

"Carlisle won't kill him."

"Which is why you should let Carlisle handle it."

He thought of that battle scarred, self righteous, sack of shit lunging across the table at Bella. She had no idea of how vulnerable she was against one of his kind...How breakable. How quickly it would be over if someone like Jasper got his hands on her neck.

There was no plan in place when he stood up. He'd never had such clarity in his whole life. Jasper was a seasoned fighter. Edward had minimal experience beyond self-defense. Yet. He never needed a plan less than right now.

"Edward, don't!" Esme reached for him, but he was already running to the place in the woods, where Alice was begging for calm and forgiveness. Which was probably why she never saw him coming.

There was a split second where the three vampires registered Edward's arrival. Alice and Carlisle were caught off guard, only Jasper was quick to understand what was about to happen.

Edward's fist sunk viciously into Jasper's abdomen, sending the vampire flying. The tree that stopped Jasper's trajectory toppled sideways. Edward launched himself through the air, but Jasper was quick to recover. He spun sideways and Edward caught a glimpse of himself through Jasper's eyes. He narrowly avoided the kick aimed at his face and grabbed Jasper's ankle with both hands. He threw the offending vampire into another tree; the tree cracked in half.

"Edward, stop!" Carlisle yelled, making a leap for his wayward son, but Edward dodged the grasp. "You're family!"

"He's no family of mine!"

Jasper grabbed the broken tree and swung; Edward leapt over it, his foot catching a branch and he fell to the ground. He rolled sideways just as Jasper's fist landed in the dirt where his head had been. He was back on his feet; Jasper feinted sideways, but Edward could read every strategy as fast as Jasper could think of it and managed to get a fistful of dirty-blonde hair. He brought his body in close contact with Jasper; Jasper was stronger, Edward was sure, but Jasper couldn't crush him if he had no head.

Jasper's arms wrapped around Edward and began to squeeze, even as Edward's teeth sought Jasper's neck.

Survival instinct froze Edward in an instant. It wasn't Jasper's crushing arms, but tiny little Alice clinging to his back with her teeth at his spine. As she decided to kill him to defend her mate, a vision danced through her head.

A raging inferno. Flames mercilessly burned through the layers of Alice's skin as she screamed. A forest fire so hot it could ravage the wettest place on continental US, swallowing up a town, vampires, terrified people and all. After, a smoke blackened world as far as the eye could see. Volturi, standing in a smoking lot where the Cullen house once stood.

"Jasper, let him go," she whispered.

Jasper released Edward.

Edward thought very carefully. It would be so easy to finish it.

"Please, Edward," she pleaded. "Don't."

He thought about the pain he'd have to endure if Bella were dead.

"She's the reason I exist," he whispered. "He could have taken her away."

"I know."

Edward wanted to finish it. It would be easy. What wouldn't be easy was the world of torment he'd unleash on Alice's eternity. The truth was, Alice did know. At this very moment, she knew what he knew; eternity could always get longer.

He let go of Jasper.

Alice climbed off his back.

"What happened?" Jasper asked Alice as she reached out to hug him.

"Destruction. If Bella dies. If Edward dies. Something has been set in motion, Jasper. Something that can't be stopped."

Bella was back where the nightmare started. Back in the grungy motel where Edward had announced he had a family. She curled up in a ball on the musty bed and cried.

She regretted leaving Edward almost instantly, but she couldn't make herself turn the bike around. Every mile she put between herself and him made the air harder to breathe. She got to the outskirts of town before she felt like she was suffocating. She stopped the bike rather than crash it.

Not for the first time, Bella thought about the night she'd met Edward. The ferocious beauty on his face. The way he moved with feline agility. The primal sounds from the alleyway as he fought for his life. Sounds she'd heard again in his house today, as he fought for her life.

Except for their brief passing in the park, there was never a time where Bella hadn't known Edward wasn't human. It wasn't the mind reading, it was everything. His beauty and his ugliness. The way he moved, the way he spoke. The sounds he made when he was angry. The skin of his hand never gave to hers when she held it. In sunlight, he glittered.

He protected the weak. He punished the wicked.

He'd always insisted he was a monster. In her mind, he was an avenging angel.

She'd never seen him eat. His family's kitchen was absolutely empty. She'd seen Esme eat, hadn't she? At the only diner in town, the diner Esme had never visited before, where everyone had watched them eat.

Whatever Edward was, they were all the same thing.

They don't eat.

Whatever Edward was, she wished he was here.

There was a knock at the door. Bella moved so fast, she tripped over her own feet getting off the bed. She hit the floor. The knock sounded again.

"Coming."

Bella felt relief wash over her. It vanished when she opened the door.

Even in the dark and in the rain, she knew the hulking figure, and it wasn't Edward.

"Can I come in?"

"If I said no, would it stop you?"

He shuffled uneasily from one foot to the next.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I could get in if I wanted to come in… But I think things are awkward enough without me breaking the door down, don't you?"

Bella stepped back from the door and gestured for Emmett to come in. Emmett stepped inside and put his back to Bella to examine the room. It gave her time to examine him, which part of her realized, may have been his intention. He was the family member most like Edward.

Carlisle, Esme, and Alice desperately wanted to be seen as normal. Jasper and Rosalie could never be mistaken for normal, they barely tried, and mostly resented the idea that they should. Emmett seemed...unashamed. Unashamed to be whatever it was that he was. He didn't draw attention to himself, but he didn't try to hide.

He turned to appraise her when he was done with her accommodations.

"You look like hell."

"What do you want, Emmett?"

"You should come back."

"Your brother tried to kill me. Why would I come back?"

"Why didn't you just keep running then?"

Bella didn't answer, even though Edward's name was on the tip of her tongue.

"I want to ask you a question, Bella, and I know you don't trust me right now, but I want you to know the answer doesn't have to leave this room."

"Ok?"

"You know about special abilities, right?"

When she didn't answer, he continued, "You know Edward can read minds?"

She nodded, once.

"He's not the only one in our family who's special. Alice has a gift, too. What if I told you Alice had the ability to see the future? And ever since you arrived in town, all Alice can see is fire and brimstone? Can you tell me why the world ends in fire, every time someone looks at you or Edward the wrong way?"

Bella felt sick. The room was suddenly too small.

"What do you mean, the world ends in fire?"

Emmett studied her face carefully as he spoke.

"I guess, the world keeps turning. But Forks and the greater majority of the Olympic Peninsula seem to be wiped off the face of the map. Along with everyone in it."

"I can't do that." Bella was quick to deny. There was a big difference between burning a house or two, and incinerating a rainforest. "That's not… Why are you asking me?"

"Everyone is worried: Are you important, or are you a threat?"

"I'm neither. I'm nobody, Emmett. I just want to go. I just want to disappear. I don't want the town off the map, or your family... I just want me off the map."

"I think it might be both. You are important to our family. And you're a threat to it."

His voice was non-threatening and he turned his back on her as he spoke, but Bella felt more afraid the less he paid attention to her. It was an illusion, she was sure. Bella knew the door was closer to her than him, but judging by his size, he could still move faster. If he caught her, he'd be stronger.

She took a step away, slow and casual. Her eyes glanced about the room, looking for a weapon. She wished Edward had been standing in the rain when she'd opened the door, instead of this brute. She wished Edward would come to her rescue now. She wished they could just go, go together and never look back.

The wastebasket by the bed table looked too light. The table lamps wouldn't fit in her hand. There was a novelty umbrella stand by the door, in the shape of an umbrella, complete with handle. If it was real iron, it would be heavy enough to be a weapon, if it was fake it would fall apart on impact. If it was real, she probably couldn't run with it. If Emmett moved towards her, she'd only get one chance to land a blow that mattered.

Or.

She could burn him. She'd been willing to do it to Jasper.

"You should come back," Emmett said, softer now. Apparently unaware of the fight or flight response growing inside Bella's head. "He won't try it again."

"Try it again!" Bella repeated, side tracked. "Fine phrase for attempted murder."

He chuckled. "Nobody's perfect."

"It would be better if we left," Bella whispered, taking another step back toward the door. "What's Alice see if we just leave?"

"She can't see that unless you two decide to leave. Right now you're moping in a motel and he's afraid you never want to see him again."

The notion offended Bella so much, she forgot fight or flight.

"How can he think that?" Her voice rose to an accusatory shout. "After everything we've been through?"

Emmett shrugged.

"I don't know… Maybe you should ask him yourself?"

He turned back around to look at her. His eyes flicked between Bella and the door.

"You don't have to run if you want me to leave, Bella. You just have to ask me to leave…" His golden eyes shifted back and forth again, this time between Bella and the umbrella stand. He cocked his head and grinned at her. "Or are you planning something else?"

Bella didn't answer.

Emmett closed the distance between them; Bella flinched at his closeness.

"My parents would love it if you reconsidered, but I'll tell Edward you're waiting on his sorry ass."

Emmett stepped beyond her, out the door, and out into the rain.

Bella was quick to lock the door. The click set her pacing like a caged animal. Anxiety fueled her with energy. She didn't want any more visitors tonight.

Visions danced before her eyes. Edward's face in the park, the first day she'd met him. Jasper's face as he lunged across the table. Edward's face in sunlight. The empty pantries in a household of six. Quick tempered, Rosalie, confrontational from the start. The painting in Carlisle's office.

The thought of that painting sent a chill down her spine. It was too coincidental. It was too old. It was too dangerous.

She pulled the blankets off the bed and retreated to the bathroom. She stepped behind the shower curtain and climbed into the tub. She curled up under the blankets and tried to let the smell of bleach and cheap laundry detergent comfort her.

It didn't work.

She thought about Edward. His uncanny ability to find her, whenever she was in trouble. He could read minds. She hadn't known there was anyone else out there like her. Alice could see into the future. Now there were two.

Alice was seeing fire.

Alice couldn't see anything unless someone decided a course of action.

I'm sleeping in a bathtub because I think Edward's family might try to kill me, Bella thought to herself.

Bella made the decision. I'm leaving, first thing in the morning. Whether Edward showed or not, Bella was leaving. He could probably find her, if he wanted to. If he didn't want to… Bella redirected her thoughts away from that painful possibility back to Alice. She wondered if leaving had put the fire out.

Bella woke up in the bathtub, cold and crooked. Her muscles were stiff and she struggled to sit up right.

A soft knock at the bathroom door made her yelp with surprise.

"It's me."

She bit back a cry of relief as she heard Edward's soft voice on the other side of the door.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes."

She saw his silhouette through the curtain. He hesitated on the other side before pushing the veil aside. His face looked sad, as if someone had died. He sat down on the floor beside the tub.

"You're leaving," he said.

"Are you coming with me?" She asked.

She considered the possibility that he might love his family more.

"Do you want me to?"

"How can you ask that?"

Surprise replaced the look of sadness and then his face grew somber again.

"Bella, yesterday you came very close… You would be better off without me in your life. It would be safer for you. All this time, I've been selfish. You don't know what could have happened yesterday, if I hadn't come back when I did…"

"Yes, I do… He wanted to kill me. I was going to kill him first."

Edward laughed the kind of laugh that wasn't very funny.

"They're like you, aren't they?"

At this, her companion froze. He always looked like a statue when he did that. The only signs of life came from his eyes, which were fixed on her face.

"You aren't human." Fact.

"You've suspected this for a while," Edward spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "You've known that for a while."

"Emmett says Alice sees the future. She sees the world end in fire. Did her vision change when I decided to leave?"

"Alice's visions are subjective. The world ends in fire when you or I die. You leaving isn't related. It's also why my family has made keeping us alive from here on out, a high priority."

"That's why Emmett was so sure I'd be safe if I came back."

"Do you want to go back?"

"I think that decision should be made together, Edward. They're not human, either, are they?"

"No."

"You've never told me what you are and I never really asked. But if I guessed correctly, would you deny it?"

"I can't deny you anything, Bella."

"You don't eat. You're too strong and too fast. You can't be seen in the sunlight."

He hunts the wicked.

The word was there, on her tongue, but she couldn't make herself say it. It seemed too ridiculous. He'd always insisted he was a monster.

"It's why your family freaked out when I picked that book, isn't it?"

"'Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot…'" Edward quoted Bram Stoker; with his voice, words from the horror novel sounded as seductive as a love poem.

"You're a vampire."

"Yes."

"That's why you kill people. You aren't just taking the lives of criminals. You're feeding off of them."

"Are you afraid?"

"Not of you… Maybe of them."

Edward laughed his angry laugh again.

"It should be the other way around." He saw she didn't understand. "They don't kill people. I do."

"What do they eat?"

"Animals, from the preserve. It's why their eyes are different."

"Do you think we should go or stay?"

He looked surprised again. "You still want me with you? Even now?"

"You're still the same person you've always been."

"That's not smart, Bella." He reached up and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Why did you leave, Edward? Why leave?"

"They don't kill people. I do," he repeated. "Carlisle's not just a good doctor, he's a good Catholic. You can't murder and go to Heaven."

"Oh...You can die then?"

"Only by violence. Murder or suicide. Not of old age. We don't age."

Bella laid back in the tub and stared up at Edward. Everything started to make sense when the lies were peeled away.

"If we stay, there is no hunting ground here. I have no food source. You're in more danger if we stay. They'd never purposely harm you, they're all done with that, but I think the risk of an accident is too high. If we stay…" You'd have a roof over your head for once.

Edward thought about what Bella's life had been. Born into a family that hated her for being different, abused her for it, as if she could help it. Force fed psychiatric drugs in a prison for troubled teens, abused some more by fellow inmates. The Volturi stole her away to manipulate her, and had she not run from that house where they sent her, she'd probably have been made a member of their guard when the time was right.

Since running from the Volturi, she'd been forced to eat from dumpsters, sleep on park benches, beg for money. She'd been inside more pay-by-the-hour motels than a prostitute. He'd never asked, but he did wonder: had she ever had to prostitute?

She deserved more than that. She deserved more than two sets of clothes and sleeping in the cold. She deserved people around her who understood how special she was… She didn't deserve to be manipulated and used.

"You want to go then?"

"Bella, what if we stayed?"

"You just said…"

"I know what I said... I ran a century ago because I was sick of living a lie. I can't pretend I'm human. I'm not. But life remained empty and dark. Changing my diet didn't make me less alone." You made me less alone, he thought. "I've hunted the worst of humankind, heard thoughts so filthy I've made a cesspool of my soul."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm sick of running. Aren't you sick of running? What if we just stopped running? Together."

"That sounds like the kind of idealistic thing I would say, Edward. Then you'd insult me for it."

Author's Note:

This chapter involved a direct quote from Bram Stoker's Dracula: "Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot..." These are his beautiful words, not mine.

If you or someone you know has run away, is homeless, and/or at risk, please call the National Runaway Safeline 1-800-RUNAWAY (1-800-786-2929), or visit their website to speak to someone online or via text. Because it is my firm belief, that everyone deserves to have a roof over their head.

Thank you for all your comments, reccs, and continued support!