Chapter 16: The Secrets We Keep

It started to rain. Large droplets came down in a torrent that matted Bella's dark hair around her face. Her expression was vacant as she swayed on her feet. Her eyes appeared to stare into some distant horizon, right up until her knees buckled.

A wordless cry escaped from Edward's throat as Bella crumpled to the ground. He had never seen her look so vulnerable, so lifeless; even as her heartbeat reassured him that she lived, she looked dead. The instinct to defend and protect her, left him feeling gutted with incomprehensible rage.

He scooped her off the ground before anyone could stop him and began running. As he ran, he pushed himself faster, and faster, fueled by panic and need. Did she need a hospital? He knew she wouldn't want to wake up in one. The Jeep loomed in the darkness; he slammed his foot on the bumper as he leapt it. It was a dry option, but he was the faster one.

Home. He just needed to get her home. Safety. He needed safety.

He slowed a little. Was home safe enough?

He could hear the others still. Alice was carrying Jasper, the same as he carried Bella. Her only concern was getting Jasper to safety. The others were thinking of Bella and their thoughts were tinged with fear.

He considered maybe home wasn't safe.

But there in Esme and Carlisle's heads there was also compassion for the girl they already loved as a daughter. If he took her anywhere other than home and she needed medical attention, she would not be able to get it. Her life was literally in his hands.

He ran faster, knowing he had a headstart on five vampires who couldn't run as fast as he could. At least one would have to drive the truck home.

Their bedroom on the top floor was a defensible position, should home prove not to be safe. It was also an escapable one.

He hated to admit, but he might need Carlisle.


He kicked the door open and leapt up the stairs. When he found himself at the door of his own room, he moved slow enough to leave the door intact. He stood with her in his arms, listening to the reassuring sound of her heartbeat. He didn't think he should undress her, but he knew dry and warm was a key element in recovery.

"I need you to wake up," he whispered.

He wanted to cry when she didn't hear him.

He set her on the leather couch and peeled her wet t-shirt off, trying not to look directly at her as he did so. He took her wet jeans off next, and keeping his eyes averted, he picked her back up. He held her to his chest, wishing he could share body heat with hers, and managed to put her in the bed.

He darted across the hall to get another blanket from the pantry. He added it over her body. Distressed by her unwilling nudity, he pulled dry clothes out of a drawer and set them on the edge of the bed.

Carlisle arrived then, with Alice and Jasper, and didn't seem fussed by the missing front door. Alice set Jasper down on the couch. Edward flinched as heard Jasper's pain.

"I'll be fine, Alice. I've had worse," he lied.

Esme came in from the rain a few seconds later, her eyes remained on Jasper's burnt flesh, as her mind drifted to the heartbeat she could hear drumming overhead. She was worried about Bella, but she didn't dare intrude uninvited. The scene from the baseball field was fresh in her mind. She didn't know what was more distressing: the sounds of James' screaming as he incinerated or the sight of Bella collapsing or the sound Edward made when she fell.

Rosalie and Emmett came home with the Jeep twenty minutes later. They were both thinking about Jasper. Emmett was trapped in the absolute wrongness of his brother's arm on fire by a human matchstick. Rosalie was worried about aiding his recovery.

"Carlisle, Alice," she said. "What can I do?"

"Nothing," Jasper answered for them as they tried to clean his wounds. "You can do nothing. It needs time and I need blood."

"I can get blood," she purred.

"Babe, call me overly cautious, but people might notice if you start herding the deer down the road and into the house."

"It'll heal faster with human anyways," she answered.

"No," Jasper moaned. "No human."

Rosalie's attention drifted to Esme, who was still guarding the stairs. Then her eyes flicked up toward the ceiling imagining where the closest human lay.

"This is her fault!" she snapped.

"No," Alice moaned. "It's mine."

"It is no one's fault," Esme said with conviction.

"Edward, is she awake?" Carlisle asked, out of the blue.

Edward stared down at her, wishing the answer was yes.

"No," Edward answered and a hush fell over the living room.

Carlisle stood up from Jasper, realizing he could do no more for his son, and turned his attention to the living.

"Does she need medical attention?"

On this, Edward was unsure. Her heart sounded fine. He was pretty sure she was just in shock. He aired on the side of caution.

"No."

Carlisle was frustrated with Edward. He'd been a doctor for over two hundred years. Edward couldn't possibly think he'd harm the girl.

"Can you come talk to us?" He asked.

Edward thought about it. He wasn't really leaving her undefended, as long as everyone he wished to defend her from, stayed in one location. He left the bedroom, listening to the chaos of their minds. Fire and compassion and terror and his footsteps coming down the corridor.

He stopped at the top of the stairs and came no closer. He could see Esme and Rosalie, he could hear Alice and Jasper on the couch. Emmett was standing just out of sight, nervously flexing his muscles.

Carlisle stepped into view.

"Is she okay?" He asked.

"Heart's fine," Edward mumbled. "She just exhausted herself, I think."

Carlisle nodded his head, the thoughts churning faster and faster. He was trying to figure out what needed addressing first. They needed a food supply for Jasper. An alibi for why he was missing school. The girl needed care. What had the nomads meant about dogs? The girl's ability to set fires with the blink of an eye. How had she known Marcus Volturi?

"The dogs," Edward interrupted. "They belonged to Game Wardens trying to find a sick cat. The nomads are out of touch. They didn't see a difference between them and the police. They led those dogs East, but they left a footprint in the mud. It now looks like a person killed Waylon Forge before running barefoot through the forest."

Carlisle hissed. They'd have to clean that up somehow.

The girl, he thought. "Edward, how could you keep something so dangerous from us?"

It was easy. "It wasn't your business."

Bella stood with her back to Carlisle, her head cocked sideways as she considered a painting on the wall. Her back and shoulders tightened, sharp shoulder blades straining against the material of her shirt. Her heart rhythm changed, to one of distress.

"Do you know this man?" Bella jabbed a finger toward the image of Marcus Volturi.

"Marcus? He was a friend I made in Italy. I was studying abroad. I met them all there." How the hell does she know him?

"Marcus." Bella repeated the name slowly, as if experimenting with the way it sounded.

"Do you know him?" He asked, quite sure that she did.

"I met him once. A few years ago. He was very kind." She thought her words through as she spoke them. She seemed as uncomfortable with the conversation as Carlisle.

Marcus Volturi had many adjectives that described him. Carlisle would have chosen sullen and apathetic. He would have chosen the words pompous and disdainful. On a bad day, Marcus Volturi, was the absolute definition of broken. 'Kind' was a stretch of imagination. If he didn't take the time to be cruel it was often because he lacked the necessary energy.

"Was he?" He asked.

"Yes." Bella's tone of voice gave away the lie. She left the room without a backwards glance.

"Are you aware that the girl has a connection to the Volturi?"

If Edward thought their minds were chaos already, it had nothing on the explosion of noise when Carlisle dropped the V-word. Fear and confusion amplified, combining with anger and distrust.

"That's not relevant." To Edward, it wasn't. He didn't care if she once had a vacation home with the Easter Bunny. It didn't change who she was or what they'd gone through together.

"Not relevant!" Rosalie shrieked. "You asshole! Someone could come looking for her!"

Rosalie wanted retribution while Emmett wanted to flee.

"Hey, I like the girl, but we had a right to know that we were in danger." He wasn't usually one to run from a fight, but what he'd seen in the clearing had left him rattled. "Dude, forget the Volturi. We're flammable! How did that not seem relevant?"

"It was okay for you to menace her though," Edward snapped. "It was okay for you to threaten and harass… It was okay to try and kill her." He took a step down the stairs furious at the double standard. "Is it okay for you to be bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, just as long as you know she can't defend herself?"

Emmett didn't respond, but his mind gave him away. Well, yeah! That's how it should be.

"You like the girl, but only if she's weak. Only if there's a possibility that you can kill her." Edward looked to Esme. "A few hours ago, you loved her. Even though she knows you could kill her, she trusts you. Has it changed so much, knowing she can defend herself?"

"Absolutely!" Emmett yelled.

"Edward," Carlisle said. "Bella's ability isn't the only problem. Alice has been seeing visions of death by fire and you claimed to have no clue why. So that was a lie. We were breaking rules by living with a human and you neglected to mention that the very people who would punish us are affiliated with her."

"What will we do if they come looking?" Esme asked, quietly.

Edward was surprised and encouraged to see, Esme was unwilling to give Bella up.

"Give her back!" Rosalie snapped. "For fuck's sake, I say we put her in a box while she's unconscious and mail her back to Italy."

"We will do no such thing." Jasper's voice was barely audible. "If she's on the run, she's no friend of theirs."

"We don't know-"

"Exactly!" With effort, he raised his voice over Rosalie. "We don't know. She's still asleep. When she wakes up, we can ask. We will ask her… because Edward's just as blind as Alice." Isn't that right, mind-reader?

"Worse," Edward admitted. "Alice can see a little. I can't see a damn thing."

Alice twisted away from Jasper to look at Edward.

"What? You can't see her thoughts?"

"No. I never can. It's as if no thought exists at all."

He could hear everyone else's and it was Jasper that was thinking the loudest. He, of all people, had the most reason to object to Bella. She had actually lit him on fire.

He was back in Mexico with Maria and her army and they were killing people for fun. The newborns were full of bloodlust, but for the mature ones, it was just a good time. The humans screamed as they were ripped apart. He remembered being given the order to dispatch the vampires approaching their first birthday. The slaughter was meant to be a distraction. The people weren't food, they were a means to an end.

Maria was judge and jury. Jasper the executioner.

You think if someone like Bella existed sooner, it would have stopped? Edward could hear Jasper's guilt in the question. He'd continued the killing long after he began to understand that Maria was evil and what they were doing was wrong.

"I think there will always be people who want to do the wrong thing." Edward answered. "You can't kill them all. I've already tried." The admission filled him with hopelessness.

The others were confused by the change in conversation, but Jasper's mind just kept moving.

"Why is she so angry?"

"Because, Jasper, I suspect she's just like you."

Jasper could see it clearer now. Bella had lived a life of raw survival. Being reborn with an ability was hard enough on its own. She would have been singled out, feared and hated. Too different to find acceptance with her own kind. Used and abused by those who would assume control of her. God only knows what she would have had to have done to keep herself breathing one more day.

Edward stood in stolen clothes with blood red eyes and windblown hair. He was stressed by the meeting, not warmed by Esme's embrace in the slightest. If anything her affection had made him more anxious. Jasper found him offensive, walking in with his pet like he owned the place, when he didn't even have the good grace to hug a woman who claimed to be his mother.

He tried to keep the girl out of sight, but she would not be shielded. She was nervous and curious in equal doses, her dark eyes darting around the room, never resting. She possessed anger, but lacked hatred, she felt self-assured. She was too stupid to run from a room full of vampires and too dangerous to exist.

It was one thing to eat people, it was another to keep people.

She met Jasper's eyes and raised her chin in defiance. Her anger turned to fury as she locked her sight on him. She dared him to make a move. Her hostility was funny. She was a slight, sickly waif, who looked as if the wind might blow her away. Her anger boosted her confidence, but it didn't make her scarier.

He hadn't understood the anger then, but now he could see. She would have been a child with a terrifying ability, growing up alone in a world that was made of monsters. She would have had to become one.

"It's no way to live," he said again.

"No," Edward agreed. "It's not."

"What did we miss?" Carlisle asked, becoming increasingly frustrated at having been pushed out of the conversation.

"We need to take another vote," Jasper said.

"Is Bella still a part of this family?" Edward whispered.

"I vote yes," Jasper answered.

"Yes," Alice cast her vote without hesitation.

"I don't know what will happen to us," Esme whispered. "But we can't give her back. She's not property to barter."

Carlisle would not vote against Esme. "Yes."

Emmett wasn't worried about the Volturi. He thought it was unlikely they'd find her even if they were looking. He regarded Bella with the same respect a human would give a spider. Size was no indicator of lethality. He was worried about Rosalie. He would not vote against his wife.

"Rosalie," Jasper spoke.

She looked at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"No one is asking you to like her. Just consider what you would've wanted done...For you."

Edward saw Rosalie's dilemma. She had an inescapable need to protect her family, her mate, from any perceived threat. Even as she viewed Bella as a threat, she'd also wanted to protect the girl from Edward and from others like Edward. Her need to protect those she loved had been beaten into her bones the night she had died.

Jasper may have been a soldier baptized in blood, but Rosalie was the guardian born from betrayal.

She looked away from Jasper, knowing Edward was the one listening. He could see himself through her eyes, and she largely viewed him as pathetic. Who is she to you? And what are you to me? Her tone was largely accusatory. Edward meant little to Rosalie.

He could see the war in her head. In this case, she couldn't protect everyone. She didn't usually let herself dwell on the difference between right and wrong, just concentrated on what she viewed as right for her.

She considered sending Bella back and realized it wouldn't help. Even if the Volturi received the human, that didn't necessarily stop them from coming here. The Cullens would be loose ends. She considered killing Bella and Alice gasped on the couch as she watched the world end. She considered sending Bella back to the streets to run...and that's when she considered Jasper's words, in spite of herself. She pictured Bella alone on the street at the mercy of those who had none.

"I'm not a monster," she told Edward.

It sounded like a denial to herself.

"You have power over her life," he told her. "What will you do with it?"

"You're a manipulative asshole," she told him. "Fine. Yes."

"You shouldn't have lied," Emmett said. "But we'll keep her."