CHAPTER 13: Terror and Territory
A man sat on a fishing boat, a bottle of whisky in one hand while the other reached down to scratch himself. As he shifted his weight the boat wobbled, igniting the primal fear of tipping into rain darkened waters before he remembered it was parked safely in his driveway. His eyes fluttered shut and when they reopened, he believed he'd become a religious man.
An angel with red hair was perched on the bow.
"Well, hell-oh!"
She smiled over his shoulder.
A God appeared on the stern.
The fisherman tried to get up from his chair for a better look, but a surprising growl from the redhead sent him back down to his seat. He began to feel afraid as his instincts to survive started to cut through his drunken stupor.
"Who- Who are you?"
"It's always the same question," an angry voice cut off any answer that might come.
The fisherman peed himself as the Devil arrived.
Alice groaned at the same time Edward hissed.
"What's wrong?" Jasper asked, moving to her side.
"Nomads," Alice answered. "Hunting."
"Where?"
"Here." Edward answered for Alice. "Can we stop that from happening?"
"No, it's happening now."
Her eyes glazed as she pushed her mind outward to explore a seemingly endless list of possibilities; people the nomads might kill, people they might not, some scenarios where they met the Cullens, others where they fought against the Cullens, some where the nomads simply passed by. The visions flipped rapidly through her mind's eye like the changing of channels on a television, each possibility as real as the ones before and after it.
"How do you keep track of it all?"
"I don't. I just try to focus on the most likely, or most preferable outcome."
"Preferable…"Edward repeated, but he could see it in her head.
Alice lived permanently in a word where all things were possible and impossible at the same time. Everything she could ever dream was based on every decision everyone made or didn't make at every second of the day. Even with the intellectual flexibility inside a vampire's mind, she would never be able to track all of it. No one could.
Like a Goddess of ancient times, she preferred to influence the world around her, mold it to her will. She would not be led by Fate blindly, unless she liked what Fate had to offer. She could guess what outcomes were most likely based on what she knew of any given person or situation and act to influence that future. Or she could pick the outcome most preferable and act to eliminate all others.
In this case, Alice viewed all scenarios in which the Nomads passed through Forks without discovering the Cullens to be most preferable and Edward agreed.
"They'll know we're here, Alice," Edward whispered, watching her mind sort through strategy.
"Yes, all seven of us. That's to our advantage."
He could see it was true; the newcomers wouldn't want to risk an encounter with a coven so large in unfamiliar territory.
Carlisle won't go to work. She saw herself asking him to stay home and subsequently saw the trio grabbing a nurse off the sidewalk as she went out for her smoke break. Carlisle must continue to work. They'd smell the hospital, the scent of sick and dying and blood and antiseptic would be a siren's call, but they'd smell Carlisle's trail. The nurse lived, but they'd be curious about the vampire who worked there. Esme will follow him. The sight of Esme turned them away from the hospital, but that still left anywhere else in town.
They'd find the school which would reek of vampires. They wouldn't be bothered with any location where the scent was concentrated, including the house.
Edward is going to take up jogging. Edward saw himself in her head, out for a run, leaving scent trails all over town, to make it look like they were spending more time in town than they were.
"I already jog."
The vision shimmered and Edward of the future vanished from the sidewalk… The town remained, but the world became a nightmare. Suddenly the people who lived there had no faces, blobs of sightless skin pretending to peer out of car windows and storefronts, like possessed mannequins. The buildings and houses looked like bricks of melting candle wax, identifying features oozing away even as Alice tried fruitlessly to grasp at details.
"What the f-"
"You're going jogging and leaving her at home!" Alice snapped.
That was Bella? He understood why they wanted so badly to know what Bella could do, what she was to him. Alice's life of infinite possibilities and almost absolute control had been stolen… At full strength, a control freak with premonition, she would provide this family more defense than her husband ever could. When Edward had brought Bella to their doorstep, he'd destroyed their security system.
I'm going jogging tonight. Edward saw himself once again out on the streets in Forks at a time of night where no one would see or care how fast he could run. A cruiser idled in an alley, the deputy behind the wheel too busy eating french fries to notice the speeding vampire. I could cover every street in town, thrice over.
The smell of Edward, alone, brought the Nomads in. Edward, safe in his family home, tried to read the street signs where Edward was being cornered by three strange vampires and found it was impossible. He looked at landmarks and found the more he wanted to view them, the harder it was to see.
"Are your visions always so vague?"
"No… That's because of her."
"What should we do?" Jasper asked.
"No one is to go anywhere alone. We need to travel in pairs. We need to start moving at night, we'll take turns. We need to make it look like we are utilizing more territory than we are."
"Will it work?" Edward asked.
"It's unlikely they'll risk a direct confrontation with us in pairs, rather than on our own. They'll be too afraid of retribution for trespassing."
"So they'll just go?" He wanted a yes or no answer.
"That hasn't been decided yet." I'm sorry, Edward, but it is their decision to make. "I think this gives us our best shot. They won't want to stay in a place where a coven larger than their own is out prowling. I could see a little clearer if…" ...Bella wasn't here. Alice stopped short, not wanting to give Edward the wrong impression, but he heard it anyway. He took no offense. He could see Alice, who had the most reason to begrudge Bella's presence, held the least animosity.
"I can start my running now," Edward volunteered.
Bella was asleep, she wouldn't miss him and she wouldn't wake for hours.
"In pairs, Edward."
"I'll go with him tonight." Jasper volunteered.
Outwardly, Edward revealed no surprise, but he was sure Jasper could feel it.
He looked at Jasper, whose skin was covered in a plethora of scars that would warn even the newest newborn that here was a danger to be avoided. Vampires were attractive to the human eye - like a fishing lure the prey sought the hook - but their bodies were extreme enhancements of their mortal selves and sometimes, if Edward looked closely, he could almost imagine the human before the vampire. But here in Jasper's wrecked face, he couldn't see a ghost of humanity left. Edward could easily believe Jasper had always existed to kill, if his mind hadn't betrayed him.
He looked at Jasper, the monster Alice loved, and wondered what Bella saw when she belligerently gazed upon the same face. Could her eyes really be so weak that she couldn't see him? As thoughts of Bella crept in, Edward looked at Jasper and tried not to hate him, tried not to hate him and ultimately failed.
Jasper blinked at Edward as he felt the animosity, but said nothing. He knew the mind reader was likely rooting around in his thoughts, so really what was there to say? No apology would be large enough to cover the hurt caused by his attempt on the girl's life, and any apology he gave would be undermined by its insincerity.
"What are you going to do about, Bella?" Jasper asked. What if she wakes while you're gone? Do you want her to be told the truth?
"I'll leave her a note in case…"
A note? How domestic.
Edward did not dignify the jibe with a response. He left Alice and Jasper for the bedroom that his parents thought of as his, that he now thought of as hers.
The first note he'd ever left her, had been written in a panic. He had pushed the boundaries of his strength to flee with her: to run with temptation and not be tempted was a Herculean effort on his part. He'd come close to failing. Then, when he couldn't take the screaming of his thirst another minute, he'd forced himself to wait just a little longer.
She couldn't exactly come hunting, could she?
He had pushed the boundaries of his endurance to the point of madness. He had no pen and he had no paper, but desperation forced innovation. He used a fingernail to scratch a message into a cinder block near Bella's sleeping head.
Please wait for me here. -E
As he fled into the night he had no way of knowing if she'd find the message, or know it had been him that left it. She'd been on her own for so long, maybe the knowledge of who left it wouldn't matter. Maybe when she woke, she'd simply be glad to be rid of the abomination that he was, and just go back to running, this time from him.
That was the first night in years that Edward had killed someone who didn't deserve it. He threw himself on the first person he met, so ravenous he didn't see a face, or hear a thought… He remembered a scream cut short as he slapped his hand over her mouth. He refused to let himself look at the body as he left it in a dumpster. It was cowardice on his part. He was going to have to live with the shame of innocent blood forever, he didn't want to remember her face. He didn't want to see a missing person's flier and know it was his fault she was never going home.
He was a terror in the city that night, furious that he'd killed an innocent, and furious that he needed more. Satiating the thirst that Bella's scent had stoked was only half the battle, he wanted to glut himself to ensure her survival. He couldn't imagine a more deplorable creature than himself and, as he picked up on the thoughts of a local gangster, he considered leaving her.
But that note stopped him from trying to run. It was like a contract. What if she found it, understood it, and waited? What would happen if she waited and he didn't return?
The gangster was loading a handgun, checking to make sure the serial number was unidentifiable, although he had no plans on leaving the gun behind. He was waiting for a friend, the soon to be getaway driver in a drive-by shooting. Edward, too, waited for the friend. An ambush for two, was a good start to his night.
Tonight, the note would be much different. It would be written in ink on neon block paper and stuck to the inside of her bedroom door. No one would die after penning it.
Bella, I'm running an errand with Jasper. I won't be gone long. -E
He hesitated before closing the door. He listened to the steady thump of her heart, the sound of her breath. He admired the dark hair fanned out around the pillow. She was curled up on her side, her face frowning as she slept. Even in sleep, she never seemed to relax.
Edward wondered if the habit of being ready to react would ever fade from her psyche. He couldn't erase her past, but he would work to ensure her a better future.
He closed the door softly and rejoined Alice and Jasper.
"You ready?" He asked Jasper, dreading the quality time they were about to spend.
"Wait," Alice reached out and touched his arm. "What do I tell her if she asks?"
"If she asks, tell her the truth."
"If she doesn't ask?"
"I will talk to her about it when I get back."
Jasper led the way out into the drizzle, in his mind's eye he held a street map of Forks, and combined it with what he knew of local footpaths and trails through the conservation. Edward saw on the map that Jasper memorized, portions were crossed off with a pen.
"What's the area with the X's?"
"Tribal lands. Off limits. We can never go there for any reason. They have permission to execute us if we do. Carlisle says they're very capable." Werewolves…The thought whispered through Jasper's mind as he refocused on the map. "Do you see?"
And then Edward did see. Jasper was planning the best route. The fastest way to cover the maximum amount of ground.
"Let's go."
They broke to a run, Edward being careful to keep pace with Jasper, which was still a bit easier than matching Bella's pace. Jasper's mind was vigilant; he took note of every detail in town, the things that changed and the things that hadn't. He was careful about avoiding areas equipped with traffic and security cameras and Edward was impressed that he'd been able to discover so much about the surveillance capabilities in Forks.
A vision entered Edward's head, of Bella reading in the dining room. Her dark hair just about matched the color of the hardwood table, and it hung around her bowed head like a shield. The book, that book, was in her hands again. How long would it take before she figured it out? How could Carlisle be so stupid as to let her walk out of his office with that cursed book? How could Esme have been so careless as to have been seen out in public with her?
Edward's anger grew, as he realized he was reliving a memory with Jasper. He tried to lock down the anger, but found he couldn't. It wasn't solely his anger he was feeling, it was merging with Jasper's memory of self-righteous rage.
The memory of Bella rising from her chair, slowly, and then the challenging look she gave Jasper, her eyes hardening, her body rigid and fearless.
"Stop thinking about it!" Edward shouted.
I don't like you in my head, Edward, but I know you can't stop from hearing me think, anymore than I can stop myself from feeling you hate me.
"We're going to a lot of trouble to protect her."
Then Bella's voice with crystal clarity, "You listen… You think you're tough shit? You think you know? You don't know anything..." Followed by a blast of rage that made Edward see red and his thirst burn white hot in his throat. That's not my anger, that's hers.
"She's right, isn't she? We don't know anything. She knows everything and we know nothing. We're risking everything to keep her, to keep you. Don't you think we deserve to know something? Why are we predestined to die for her?"
Edward said nothing, but he couldn't silence his emotions. The strength of Bella's anger had rivaled Jasper's, and it broke Edward's heart to know she probably carried that anger everyday just the same as Jasper. He felt ashamed about lying to his family, but he felt a step toward the truth was a step toward betrayal.
He heard himself crash through a pane of glass en route to intercept Jasper just before Bella closed her eyes. She didn't see him lunge, or Edward grabbing his brother-in-law and hurling him across the room like a ragdoll. He felt Jasper's rage, he felt Bella's trust warming the space between them, and he felt his own terror at how close he'd come to losing her.
She wasn't afraid, Edward. I'm not so sure she needed or wanted your protection. What have you brought into our home?
Edward turned to shove Jasper, but Jasper caught him by the wrist and spun, increasing Edward's momentum, sending him flying into the street. His body skidded across the slick asphalt, colliding with a parked car. He froze on the ground, his mind and ears listening for witnesses.
"You're good, you're quick. You got the jump on me twice in one day. But you'll have to do better if you want to get me a third time." Jasper's tone was light and teasing, but Edward could see the truth in his head. It unsettled Jasper, how easy it had been for Edward to catch him off guard, and the second time, he'd even managed to surprise Alice.
Edward glanced at the dent in the car.
"Relax. It will look like a hit and run."
Jasper's face was somber as another question flitted through his head.
Why is she so angry?
"Because, Jasper, I suspect she's just like you."
Jasper's eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected answer, a tremor of his shock touched Edward where he sat on the pavement.
Edward chose his words carefully. "She learned that if she wanted to survive, she had to do what needed to be done. She had to commit to living or commit to dying and here she is, in your home, because she learned how to survive. You know better than I do, the toll a lesson like that takes on a student."
Jasper thought of his first days as a newborn, panic stricken, propelled to the head of a battlefield to die for a war he never knew existed. It made the Civil War to the north look like a child's pissing contest; at least those men knew why they fought and died. Those armies in the deep south, they fought to the death over nothing. It was all for nothing.
"Then I'm sorry."
It was Edward's turn to be surprised.
"It's no way to live."
Edward shook his head with frustration.
"Come on," he urged Jasper. "We can get this done in a couple of hours."
Bella was just sitting up in bed, when Edward walked into the room. His auburn hair was plastered to the sides of his face and forehead, his shirt clung to his chest and shoulders even as the hemline sagged down under the weight of water. His jeans hung heavily off his hips as he moved, the bottoms of them leaving wet trails across the floor.
"I was trying to get back before you woke."
"Back from where? The public pool?"
Edward chuckled, ran a hand up his face and slicked his hair backwards over his scalp.
"I went out running with Jasper."
Bella tried to think of a snarky comment, but found nothing. What was there to say about Edward going for a run with a vampire that had tried to kill her? The reality was by choosing to stay they had to try and move beyond it.
"Oh."
He sat down on the edge of the bed, water from his clothes soaking into the comforter. He studied her face for a moment, wishing he could hear her thinking. Her face was impassive, locking him out of her head not bad enough, she now barred him from her heart.
"I hate when you make that face."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I need to ask you to do something. I need to ask you to stop running. Just for a little while. Don't go out after dark unless one of us is with you. Don't go out into the woods alone."
Impassivity faded to impudence.
"I'm serious, I-"
"I know you're serious. Are you going to tell me why?"
"There are strangers passing through town. They're dangerous. It's why we went running. We wanted to mark the territory."
Bella wrinkled her face in disgust. "Like, you and Jasper peed on shit?"
The comment was so unexpected, Edward started to laugh. After so much tension, it felt good. When he heard Emmet and Alice laughing too, he suddenly couldn't stop the laughter.
What on earth have you been telling her? Jasper asked with a rare touch of humor.
Bella wasn't laughing and the irritated look on her face brought him back to the conversation.
"No, we didn't… Our sense of smell is a little more sophisticated than that. Our bodies left a scent trail everywhere we traveled. It's on the ground our feet were running on and in the air and on everything we touched..." Edward couldn't stop the smile from gracing his lips as he added playfully, "We don't pee."
Bella thought about it and was troubled by how much she didn't know, and mostly because she hadn't wanted to know. She'd spent a significant amount of time thinking about all the possible ways to exit this house in an emergency, all the ways to exit town. She was pretty sure no matter how fast she ran, any one of Edward's family could catch her, which didn't make a traditional escape particularly appealing.
She had known Edward wasn't human for a long time, but since most of her own species made her uncomfortable she hadn't complained. She only had a name for what he was for a short while, but now that she knew, it seemed glaringly obvious. She made a study of the personalities in this household, but never had she thought it worth the time to study their biology.
"How is that possible? Edward, you eat."
What goes in, must come out, she thought to herself.
His smile turned from playful to wistful.
"I keep telling you, I'm unnatural," he answered. "Carlise thinks we absorb all of what we eat, which might be why we don't make any waste. We can throw up if we eat something we shouldn't. We don't need to breathe since we are clinically dead, but we usually do because it looks human. We don't need to rest because we don't get tired, and even if we wanted to, we can't fall asleep."
No sleep? Bella thought about how many nights she lay down next to Edward. Had he lay next to her awake, all that time? As she thought about their time spent here, she realized that he was usually gone from bed by the time she woke up. She'd blatantly ignored that his whole family was awake before she was, and her five thirty wake up call was early for anyone not working a full time job which most of them weren't.
"You were awake? All those nights?"
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
He was sorry. Sorry he'd lied to her, but more sorry he couldn't join her in sleep. He could never tell her how he'd longed for oblivion. Just a few hours where he didn't have to think.
Her lips turned downward.
"Why are you sad?"
"You shouldn't have to apologize to me for not being able to sleep."
"I'm apologizing for lying."
That made her face fall further.
"People shouldn't have to hide who they are."
Edward didn't know how to respond.
Her face brightened a bit and she reached out a hand to his face. Her warm fingertips brushed his forehead, sank into his wet hair and reshaped it. He was sure he looked ridiculous, but he didnt make her stop. When she pulled away, he could still feel the echo of her touch on his scalp.
"I'm guessing you don't get sick or cold either?"
"No, although I'm not sorry about that." Another echo, this one in his mind not on his skin.
The hospital bed where he'd spent his last days. Listening to the chorus of retching and coughing, as his own body added to the symphony of the dying. He remembered feeling the heat of the fever and the cold sweat saturating cheap linens.
"Seems like a good deal."
Edward stiffened as she brought his conversation with Esme to mind.
"How so?"
"You never get sick, you'll never grow old, and you don't have to waste eight to ten hours of your life unconscious."
"Sure, what's not to love? You can never make connections because they'll all die, you can never have a home because people will notice you're not aging, and you just have to suck the life out of other living things or experience excruciating pain until you petrify." Edward looked down at his lap and then back to Bella. "I envy you for sleeping."
"You want to sleep?"
"I want to dream," he admitted.
"I mostly just have nightmares," she whispered.
He nodded. He suspected as much.
"The strangers…"
"We don't think they'll stay once they realize we're here, but we don't know… Alice saw them kill someone, here in town. It's already happened."
"Shit," she exhaled the word.
"Promise me, you won't go anywhere alone."
She looked at his eyes, they were in transition from red to gold; the color change was not altering their intensity. He was not trying to hide his emotions, he was truly worried she would refuse him.
"I promise. I'll stay out of the woods and I won't travel alone."
His face remained worried.
"What?" She asked. "You think I'm lying?"
"No… It's just… The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. Don't let yourself believe, not even for a minute, your life will be easier by being more like me. Don't be like me. Be you. My family, we are not natural, and this is not a good way to be."
"Like I'm natural?"
What does that mean? Jasper enquired.
"You are. I know it doesn't feel like it to you, but you are. Trust me, I'm older and wiser."
I don't know about wiser, that's a stretch, Rosalie thought.
She looked away from his face then, up at the mohawk she'd molded into his wet hair. As it dried, it started to collapse. She giggled. He could feel his hair shifting, and he bowed his head and shook it as hard as he could in her direction. She gasped as the motion became a blur and water droplets splattered her face.
He stopped and arched an eyebrow. "Is this a better look?"
She put a hand over her mouth to hold in the laughter. She nodded her head yes, even though the answer was no. He looked like a deranged scientist.
The laughter abruptly died.
"How much older?"
"What?"
"How old are you?"
He was hoping she wouldn't ask. The truth was horrifying. The truth was made worse by knowing she wasn't going to be horrified by it.
"Seventeen. I stopped aging at seventeen."
"When did you stop aging?"
"Nineteen Eighteen."
"That would make you… over a hundred."
You just celebrated the big 1-2-0 if memory serves me right, Esme offered.
Edward watches Bella react. Her face is stunned. He'd never managed to surprise her so thoroughly before.
"Sounds about right."
"Are you the oldest in your family?"
"No… Carlisle is the oldest. He's-"
Three fifty seven, Esme offered.
"-three hundred and fifty seven."
Bella got quiet again. The silence started to make Edward anxious, but before he could demand that she speak, she spoke.
"He looks good for a guy approaching four hundred."
A memory intruded upon Edward's awareness, of Carlise stepping out of the shower. She's not wrong.
"Esme agrees."
Author's Note:
The following line: "Like, you and Jasper peed on shit?" gave me overwhelming deja vu. Not sure if it's from proof-reading this chapter too many times, or if it appeared in someone else's FF first... In the event that the sentence isn't authentically mine, I apologize. If you recognize who's line it is, pm me the Story/Author/Chapter info, I'd like to credit it here in my chapter notes, so it doesn't look like I jacked someone else's punchline.