Chapter 15: The Games We Play

Her new name was Bella Marie Masen. She received a CVID Diagnosis at 10 years old. Her parents were generically named Robert and Kathy Masen. Robert worked in IT and was an expert in avoiding digital footprints. Kathy was a homemaker. They'd both felt very safe about sending Bella to live with a doctor. Why wouldn't they? They didn't exist.

"This is how you guys live? Always?"

Emmett shrugged. "Is it really that different from what you've already been doing?"

Bella thought about it. She always moved around, but she'd always moved as herself.

"The more stories we tell, the longer we can stay put."

If anyone ever asked, she was supposed to tell them she met Edward at the hospital where she was receiving a hemoglobin transfusion to correct her blood count. He was studying at a private school nearby and was volunteering at the hospital for extra credit.

"Hey, just be glad Rose didn't have her way. She wanted you and Ed to have met in a long term mental health care facility, where you were both being treated for your various retardations."

"Spectacular."

He laughed at her and Bella couldn't understand how someone so happy, wound up with someone so miserable.

"Why are you with her?"

The question sobered him up.

"Because she can love as she fights. With her whole heart."

"Why does she hate me?"

Emmett looked at Bella for so long, she had time to decide no answer was coming. She went back to reading her paperwork.

"She doesn't."

Bella looked back up at him.

"You have something she wants… A pulse." Emmett answered. "She wants you to be afraid of her, so you'll keep it." He reached a hand out to her face with a clawing motion and stopped short of touching her skin. "I think it's a wasted effort. I'm not sure you can feel fear."

Edward sat down with Bella as she ate dinner. A new ritual being established. On the street she'd always eaten alone, as had he. Esme insisted as matriarch of the family she should learn to cook for her only food-dependent daughter. Edward, unable to think of anywhere better to be, began a study of Bella and her meals. It hadn't escaped his notice that Esme was becoming increasingly creative in the kitchen, nor how much of the meals Bella could eat if she were offered it.

He felt guilty about that… That she'd never had enough to eat and he had never noticed.

"Tonight's menu!" Esme announced. Drumroll, dear.

Edward rolled his eyes, but began tapping the table for dramatic affect.

"Rigatoni zingara, served with a side of cheesy garlic bread, a garden salad topped with fresh mozzarella and a homemade italian vinaigrette!"

Bella laughed and then said seriously, "You made your own Italian dressing?"

"It's quite easy as it turns out, they sell all the ingredients at the grocery store. I also made the bread and not just by melting cheese over it."

"This is a lot of food."

She poured Bella a ginger ale and the foam expanded too quickly, spilling over the glass. A dishtowel emerged from nowhere and she announced, "Well, that's a ridiculous drink."

She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

"You went to too much effort," Bella told her, sticking a fork into the pasta.

"Did you know when I was human, I was a terrible homemaker?"

"No?" Bella hadn't known and couldn't imagine why Esme would have thought otherwise.

"I think, in hindsight, it was because I hated my husband."

Bella inhaled a piece of sausage in surprise and began to cough.

"Is she choking?"

Edward leapt over the table to aid Bella, setting a hand on her back, but she was already coughing the food back up.

"I apologize," Bella reached for the drink, although she wasn't sure why she was apologizing for choking.

"Not at all, dear."

Edward sat down in a chair next to Bella to resume his study.

"You were married before?"

"Charles. Back then if you married a man who beat you, you had to pretend like it wasn't happening. Mustn't upset the neighbors, you know. I wanted to poison him, but the pharmacist wouldn't sell me the cyanide."

Bella felt the cheesy garlic bread turn to sand in her mouth.

"I think I put so little effort into meals because I was secretly hoping he'd get food poisoning and die."

"Esme, I think this might be the wrong story to tell with dinner," Edward interrupted.

"Oh?" She looked at Bella's face and grinned sheepishly. "Oh! I just meant, I enjoy it now." She stood up from the table. "I'll leave you two in privacy."

"Was that awkward for you, too?" Edward joked.

"Seriously, though… You'd tell me if she poisoned the food, right?" She whispered.

He laughed quietly and nodded his head, yes.

Bella studied his face as he studied hers. His eyes were closer to gold now, than the red. They were still his, though. Hawklike in intensity with a warmth that made her feel home. The smile on his face was something she wasn't used to seeing and she decided she liked the gentle curve of his lips more than his frown.

"She's not going to poison you. She loves you."

Bella didn't know what to say to that.

"I think she just wants you to feel at home here." He sighed as he caught the sounds of an eavesdropper. "Us." He corrected himself. "She wants us to feel at home here." He shrugged.

Curiosity got the better of him. "Do you?"

"I don't know." She admitted. "For a long time, home was wherever you were." She looked away from his face, afraid to see a reaction. "I don't know what a place should feel like. Things here move fast. I'm eating at a dinner table where your brother tried to kill me. A few weeks ago, Esme didn't know what cheesy garlic bread was, nevermind how to make it. Rosalie is running a website in my name and she doesn't even like me."

"Yeah… That's just because vampires have a lot of free time."

She laughed at that and put a hand up to her face. He reached out and caught her wrist to stop her from hiding her laughter. Her skin was so hot, he didn't know how she could bear it. Then he realized how cold and inhuman his touch must feel to her, and yet, she never tried to pull away. Had she just called him, her home?

His hand slid down to her hand and he held it. He was aware of her fingers and just how breakable they were, and how often he'd held the same hand to guide her away from danger. He'd never been so bold as to hold her hand, simply because he might enjoy the sensation. He was surprised when she squeezed his hand tighter.

Speaking of free time, Alice intruded on Edward, Tell her to hurry up and eat!

"There's another storm coming!" He heard her holler.

He saw the plan in her head and laughed.

"Bella, how do you feel about baseball?"

Her eyebrows pinched together as she thought about it. In all their time together, he'd never mentioned enjoying sports. But he never mentioned a piano either and he owned one.

"I don't know. I've never played and I don't know the rules. Is there a good game tonight?"

"Apparently."

"I don't think she liked my Jeep." Emmet mused as Bella kneeled on the ground looking gray.

"The Jeep is fine," she gasped. "The driver was a little fucked up."

Emmett chuckled. "I'll meet you guys at the field."

Her stomach was in a tight knot. Edward knelt next to her, holding her hair back in case she puked. She never saw Emmett leave. Apparently, if you drive an off-road vehicle up a mountain at a hundred miles an hour, less than thirty minutes after eating, it induces motion sickness.

"I'm sorry," Edward whispered. "I didn't think. We thought you'd prefer not having to get wet."

"Here," Rosalie chucked a baseball cap onto the ground. "I know she doesn't own one and I had an extra." Nobody likes the Mariners anyways.

"Real nice, Rosalie."

She shrugged and took off after Emmett.

"That was oddly nice of her," Bella added.

"No, it wasn't."

"It wasn't?"

"You wear my hat, I'll wear that one."

"What difference does it make?"

"They've never won a World Series."

"You guys have had too much time to think about baseball."

"Like I said."

Bella's color was returning to normal and she was sitting up straighter. He set his hat on her head and picked up the discarded one.

"You might not like this next bit, either," he said.

"What?"

"I'm going to have to carry you to the field… And we'll be going a bit faster than the Jeep." He held out his arms. "May I?"

She nodded and he slid an arm under her knees and wrapped the other around her back. She turned her face and buried it into his neck. Edward took this as permission to run.

As he ran, he thought of all those mornings he accompanied her while she ran. All those excruciating, snail pace jogs, where he wished he could show her what running truly was. Now there were no secrets; here she was cradled in his arms, the heat of her body searing his skin, and her eyes were closed.

As he ran, he concentrated on trying to give her a smoother trip than the bouncing truck. He concentrated on protecting the fragile bones his arms were now tasked with supporting. As he ran, his frustration at her closed eyes turned to reverence as he realized, here they were finally at a place of no secrets. She knew what he was and she trusted him to carry her safely through a dark, gloomy night.

When he arrived at the field, Carlisle was waiting.

"Rose said she got sick?"

Reluctantly, Edward set her down in the grass and she opened her eyes.

"Emmett drives like a jerk," she groaned. "But I didn't throw up."

"How do you feel now?"

"Better. I just need… more air."

"Breathe slowly, deeply," he instructed. "It will pass."

"I'm pitching first," Alice declared.

"Fine, but I get Jasper on my team," Rosalie announced.

"Fine, but I'm taking Edward and Carlisle."

"Jesus, tell me I didn't just get picked last by my wife," Emmett groaned.

"I'm the umpire and catcher," Esme declared.

"Aren't there supposed to be people on all the corners?" Bella asked.

"Bases," Carlisle corrected. "We don't have enough people, and we've learned to improvise. Esme always keeps us honest."

Rosalie took the bat from Emmett and stepped up to the plate while Alice assumed her position on the mound.

"Edward, Carlisle. Bella will breathe whether you watch her or not," Alice called.

Edward shrugged apologetically, and ran out to the backfield, while Carlisle took a position between first and second base. As they found their locations, lightning flickered across the sky. Alice pitched; Bella saw the motion of her arm, but never saw the ball. She heard it collide with Rosalie's bat at the same time thunder cracked.

The game continued in a blur of motion and gratuitous noise. A fly ball disappeared into the trees and Edward after it. A split second later the ball came sailing back to Esme who brought it down on Rosalie's leg. Another swing of the bat sent Edward and Jasper on a collision course; Bella flinched at the sound of the crash.

Jasper stepped up to the pitcher's mound next. "You know, I'm kind of glad the kid is here. You can't see the ball coming."

Alice grinned and gave a curtsey. "I don't need to see the ball coming, Jasper. You throw like a girl."

He grinned right back at her.

As Bella watched she realized how happy they all seemed. She hadn't considered how much time they actually had to spend pretending to be human. Here in their makeshift ballfield, they didn't have to be anything other than vampires.

Alice made it to second base and Jasper threw a pitch to Edward who missed his first swing.

"Swing and a miss, man," Emmett heckled. "Maybe your girl would have better luck?"

"This from a guy whose wife didn't want him on the team!" Edward called back.

Jasper pitched again, Edward hit the ball and sent it back out over the treetops. He took a single step toward first base before he froze. He could see Alice standing still as stone, her eyes out of focus. The vision in her head: three vampires striding through the mountains.

"Alice, where is that?" He demanded.

"I'm not sure. They were headed away from us, but I'm not sure…"

And then he could hear them.

Maybe they'll let us play…

This is a bad idea, we should keep moving…

There are so many of them in one location...

"I can hear them, they want to play." He looked at Bella and realized she needed to be far away from the field by the time the ferals arrived.

He moved to her side and picked her up, but Carlisle followed and grabbed his arm.

"Put her down," he ordered. "If they smell her and chase, you'll be alone."

Edward put her down. Carlisle was right, of course. It was already too late.

"Which direction are they coming from?"

Edward pointed in the direction the ball had sailed.

Carlisle moved to put himself between Edward and Bella and the incoming threat. His family moved from the field of play to do the same. Edward stepped away from Bella, so as not to draw extra attention to her.

They came out of the woods, approaching slowly. The two males were bare chested, the female being the only one in possession of a full set of clothes, and all three barefoot. Leaves were stuck in the flame red hair of the woman, the blonde male was covered in dirt, and the dark skinned man who led the triad, seemed to be the only member who possessed a sense of hygiene.

At fifteen feet away they stopped.

"I am Laurent," the male in front introduced. "These are my companions, James and Victoria."

Edward could hear the dishonesty. Laurent was to speak as if he were the leader, but James controlled the coven. The woman was afraid, she didn't want to play. She wanted to keep going. James' curiosity to know more about the large coven that stalked the streets of Forks combined with Laurent's boredom had overridden her sense of self preservation.

Laurent held up the baseball, he'd pulled from the air. Edward resisted growling with frustration. How could Alice have thought a game would be appropriate if they had been that close by? But he could hear her too, berating herself for not having seen their proximity. She'd seen them leaving town and had chosen to air on the side of optimism instead of agonizing over the inconsistencies.

I really did think it was safe, he heard her aim the thought.

He knew it was true. Bella did something to all of them, whether she wanted to or not.

"I'm Carlisle," Carlisle introduced himself calmly. "This is my family."

He was offended at the intrusion, at the smell of human death that clung to the vampires. He didn't need to pretend he wasn't the head of his family, nor did he feel the need to introduce them. Let them draw their own conclusions, he was thinking.

At the word 'family', they were indeed drawing conclusions. They assumed that Carlisle had made them all. The tenor of James' thoughts were becoming increasingly antagonistic. He could clearly smell prey he could not see, and that was making his thirst grow. His curiosity was waning, transforming into resentment. How had Carlisle managed to organize a coven so large without drawing attention? How had the coven managed to achieve a permanent territory?

"You've created a bit of trouble for us, hunting so close to our home."

Victoria spoke with more bravado than she felt. "We were leaving. We let the dogs track us east. You should be safe."

Carlisle was surprised, but it didn't show on his face. Dogs? What dogs?

Edward paid closer to attention to the memory. Game wardens and a couple of deputies, following a pair of labs through the woods. James left a footprint leading away from town for the deputies to find. Edward knew what the nomads had wanted the footprint to look like, but he also knew it held the potential to cast doubt on a cougar attack.

"Thank our blessings," he said kindly, and not for the first time, Edward admired his father's restraint. Carlisle was seething, but the nomads would not be allowed to know it.

Laurent tossed the ball to Carlisle.

"So can we join you for a game?"

Carlisle was weighing his options, Bella's face in his mind. He needed to choose the path that offered her safety and he couldn't ask Alice for advice.

"That would be convenient," he lied smoothly. "As two of mine were just leaving." Edward, take her home, we'll keep them distracted.

Edward turned his back on the strangers, as his family walked forward toward the field of play. Then James spotted his prey.

It happened fast. One moment the Cullens and the nomads were heading for a friendly game of baseball and then the breeze shifted.

James lunged, Victoria and Laurent reacted with snarls. Laurent grabbed the back of James' coat to stop him. Edward and his family put themselves between Bella and the threat in the same instant. Edward's hand slipped behind his back, probing for Bella's warm fingers. She grabbed his hand, but kept her eyes on the threat.

"You brought a snack."

Alice hissed a furious sound. Gone was the bubbly fashionista; her lips curled from her teeth and she shifted her weight.

"Get lost." The harsh command came from Carlisle. Bella glanced at his face; if Edward resembled an avenging angel, then Carlisle looked like a wrathful God. While the others shifted to combat poses, he stood perfectly straight at the center of the formation; like a scalpel, his authority was unquestionable, his eyes sharp and shining, his arm outstretched daring them to flinch. Something told Bella, despite Edward's promise otherwise, that Carlisle knew exactly how to be bad.

"Edward," she whispered, "should I…?"

"Shh…" He knew what she was asking.

He was trying to concentrate on nine different minds. His family may not have been in love with Bella, but they all seemed willing enough to defend her. This was their territory after all and instincts ran strong. You couldn't just take what belonged to someone else.

James was hardly deterred. James wasn't just a hunter, he was a tracker. He lived for the chase and he was already planning his next hunt.

Alice's mind was full of broken premonitions - most of the skirmishes weren't being fought here. Every strategy James went over, produced a different outcome in her head, but try as she might, the details of each moment melted and twisted away. It just wasn't possible for her to grasp the details of a future where Bella lived, not when Bella was so very close.

Despite the lack of foresight, or maybe because of it, Alice was reaching the same conclusion as Edward. The nomads could not be allowed to escape.

"I don't think my friends and I want to leave just yet… We like it here..." James purred, not removing his eyes from Bella's face.

It wasn't bad enough that they'd threatened the family. Or that they'd infringed on territory. It was that now that James had a target, he wouldn't let it go. Where he hunted, his friends would follow. The only way to solve the problem would be to eliminate them.

"You are outnumbered. You will leave or you will die." Carlisle responded.

As Edward and Alice decided to kill the threat before them, her visions became more violent, the fight happening here on the baseball field. People died, but she couldn't see who. In some versions of it Bella wound up dead, and that led right back to Alice's doomsday vision. It was the only vision that Alice could get with blindingly beautiful detail. Edward realized another variable was needed to sway the outcome. Bella hadn't made a decision yet.

"Edward…?" she asked again.

Her decision hadn't come because she was waiting on him.

He prompted her. "Soon."

Alice's visions shifted again as Bella dedicated herself to what was to come. Alice tried to hide her horror as she was blinded by fire… So strange she couldn't see Bella, but she could always see the fire. Edward could hear the sounds of screaming yet to come and was emboldened.

"He's a tracker," Edward said aloud. "He'll never stop."

Carlisle needed to know. Negotiations weren't happening today. Jasper was ready; he knew the damage a tracker could do. He didn't need to be told that the transgressors couldn't be allowed to walk away. He was making decisions now that were causing the flames to shift as if on a changing wind, and Edward in turn became desperate to secure the future he wanted most… A future bathed in flame.

The three vampires were backing away now. They couldn't be allowed to reach the treeline.

"Bella, now!"

Emmett looked at Edward like he was crazy, so did James for that matter. Bella reached for the energy. It was there, of course it was, it was always there. The air around James began to crackle.

He let out a bloodcurdling scream as he burst into flames. Bella recoiled, horrified by the sound of a dying vampire. The Cullens leapt away from James as he flailed his arms, but Victoria started running. Laurent hesitated and then took off in a different direction.

"Stop them," Alice screamed, running for Victoria with Edward right behind.

"Bella!" Edward shouted as he ran after Victoria.

Jasper was on Laurent, the two rolling across the ground.

Bella tried to lock down her emotions. She focused on Victoria's flame red hair, so far away… She focused on what she needed to do. Alice leapt through the air - Victoria screamed as she ignited head first - Edward reached up and snatched Alice out of the air before she could collide with the flaming vampire.

Laurent was holding his own against Jasper, but it was a losing battle. His last hope lay in reaching the treeline and getting out of sight. He tried to get up and run, but his legs were catching fire.

That's when it went wrong. It wasn't just Laurent who was burning; as the fire had crept up his legs, Jasper had put his hands on the vampire and the flame was making no distinction between friend and foe. Jasper screamed, moving away from Laurent too late as fire crept up his arm. He spun about, ripping his jacket off, then his shirt, then trying to roll on the ground.

He was terrified and his gift was pouring that terror into everyone else. The Cullens fell to their knees, except for Alice who was running towards her mate. Bella couldn't stop herself from crying, couldn't be bothered with being embarrassed about peeing herself. If this was what dying felt like… She didn't want it.

She watched Alice beating Jasper with her coat, trying to smother the flames, and Bella had a moment of clarity. She took that fear and harnessed it, reaching out for the oxygen feeding the flames. She felt it pull, deep inside her soul, like sin, like murder, like something wrong with the natural world. Instead of exciting the energy, she smothered it. The flames turned back to smoke and Jasper lay panting, half naked on the field. Bella stood alone, unaware that everyone was staring at her, unaware of anything except that Jasper would survive.

Then there was nothing at all.