*BPOV*
I could feel the fine mist of sea spray on my face as it departed the water, white and frothy with bubbles churned up by the boat's rapidly beating propellers. The frigid San Francisco Bay felt almost warm on my icy skin. It tasted salty on my lips. The taste matched the unpleasant brininess that tainted the air.
I tried to concentrate on these sensations. The water on my face, the malodorous wind coming off the choppy waves. This was the cleanest air on the boat. Most of the humans chose to remain inside the warm cabin, sheltered by the windy evening air.
Following my upward gaze as I surveyed the gloomy June sky from the back of an Alcatraz-bound ferry, Edward cheerfully quoted, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." He was holding two steaming cups of hot chocolate.
He handed me one of the props and leaned casually against the deck railing, resting the elbows of his grey wool coat on the top rail. I cupped the styrofoam cup between my hands, clutching it to my chest as a shivering human girl would have. Though I wasn't cold, the heat radiating through the thin paper cup felt nice against my hands.
Ever the gentleman, Edward slipped out of his coat and draped it around my shoulders. The small fact that I wasn't human and couldn't feel the cold would never stop Edward from treating me like a lady. It also added authenticity to the human charade, though I knew that wasn't his primary motivation.
"Mark Twain never said that you know," Jasper added, holding the cabin door open for Alice to join us outside. He followed after her, tightly shutting the door behind him.
History aficionado that he was, when Jasper heard about our planned trip to the historical maximum security prison located on tiny Alcatraz Island, just one mile offshore from Fisherman's Wharf, he'd asked if he and Alice could tag along.
"Did you know that before it was turned into a civilian prison, Alcatraz was a fort used to confine military prisoners and Confederate sympathizers?" Jasper asked no one in particular.
"I hope you didn't pay extra for the self-guided audio tour," Alice quipped. "I think we brought our own tour guide with us," she teased, nudging Jasper playfully in the ribs with her elbow.
Jasper grinned as he watched the lighthouse on the island get larger as the ferry approached the dock. "And did you know that Al Capone played the banjo in the prison band?"
Alice shook her head, an amused smile playing on her lips. Then she took a long look at me and frowned a little with what looked like concern. "Doin' okay over there, Bella?" she asked in a kind, sympathetic tone.
Edward did that thing where he subtly glanced at the sky, answering in the affirmative to whatever silent question he'd been asked.
"I'm fine. I just...have a bit of a headache," I said quietly. It was the best way I could put it. There were so many heartbeats thumping inside the ship's cabin, glowing yellow against the dull gray twilight sky.
Even the slightly sewage-scented bay water couldn't camouflage their tempting scents. The roar of the water churning around the propeller blades couldn't cover up the delicious pulsing of wetly-beating hearts that lured my body towards the warm little cabin like a siren song. I planted my feet into the deck of the boat, fighting the pull of their blood.
My throat bobbed as I swallowed the excess venom that pooled in my mouth, though the numbing fluid did nothing to soothe the dry, aching burn that flared painfully with every breath.
I silently kicked myself for not taking up Edward's offer to hunt before this little outing. I'd hunted less than a week ago and the few experiences I'd had with the humans I'd been exposed to had made me cocky.
I felt Edward's lips on my hair as he leaned over and kissed my head. "I know it's hard. You're doing so well, love," he whispered.
Jasper smiled at me sympathetically. "I wish there was something I could do for thirst," he lamented regretfully. "If there was, trust me, I would have figured out how by now. Unfortunately, vampire thirst isn't any more of an emotion than human thirst is," he explained.
"It's ok, Jazz. I'm fine," I lied. He arched one dirty blonde eyebrow at me. His dubious expression seemed to wordlessly ask, "Who do you think you're talking to?"
Just then the boat lurched to a stop as it docked on the island where I could see the silhouette of the ominous-looking prison standing tall on a hilltop against the darkening sky.
A line of brown pelicans stood guard on top of a crumbling concrete seawall just a few feet above where the swells crashed into the barnacle-covered wall.
We deboarded the boat, lagging behind all the humans to put some space between them and me. Directly in front of us was a large, multi-story, beige brick building labeled on the map as Building 64. It was fortified on the bottom with thick concrete walls and little square windows that I half-heard Jasper explain were cannon-ports.
The upper floors were lined with identical little rectangular windows all the way across. For eighty years before this island was ever used as a federal prison, the building served as military barracks, then later used to house the correctional officers that worked in the nearby prison.
I was surprised to learn that sometimes the families of the guards lived there, too. It was hard to imagine little children playing jacks and hopscotch mere feet from the barbed wire fences of the facility used to house some of the country's most nefarious criminals.
This was where the convicts were sent when they couldn't behave themselves in more conventional maximum security prisons. To "The Rock."
"Prison," snorted Jasper. "This ain't a prison. It's a waterfront resort," he drawled.
"Andersonville wasn't a prison, Jazz, it was a crime against humanity," Alice chided.
Jasper shrugged impassively. "War crimes weren't really a thing until the early 20th century. Back then, it was 'all is fair in love and war.'"
Alice harrumphed. Politics was one of the few areas in which Jasper and Alice didn't always (or often) agree. Jasper believed in law and order, crime and punishment. Alice, who had been something of a prisoner herself, though she didn't remember her human life, didn't think it was quite so black and white.
"What a bunch of malarkey! You don't need your government to tell you that it's wrong to starve men to death. To make them stand around in their own filth in the Georgia summer heat until they are skeletons wearing skin."
Jasper raised his hands in surrender, "I was stationed in Texas. I was never anywhere near Andersonville!"
"Of course not! Even when you were human you wouldn't have been able to stand being within five miles of the suffering that went on in that place," Alice muttered under her breath.
"This is what I get for watching a documentary on notorious prisons with the missus last night," Jasper stage whispered over his shoulder to Edward and me as we walked two by two up the zigzagging path toward the cell house.
Edward stifled a laugh as Alice turned to smack Jasper on the arm. Jasper reflexively caught her wrist and brushed a quick kiss to the back of her hand before giving it back with a wink and a smile, effortlessly charming. Alice made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a purr and skipped on.
We walked past clustered groups of tourists who were red in the face from the exertion of climbing up the moderately steep hill. Watching them, I could see why Edward always seemed so partial to my blushing skin.
The concentrated pooling of blood in their faces, shiny with perspiration, made them look and smell extra tasty. Sort of like how the golden-brown hue of a perfectly roasted turkey makes everyone ooh and ahh at Thanksgiving dinner.
I swallowed again, wincing at the burn. Snap out if, Swan, I mentally castigated myself for likening tourists to delicious, succulent, mouth-watering turkey like a famished cartoon character and referring to myself by my maiden name out of habit.
I unwillingly tore my gaze away from the humans, needing to look anywhere else for a distraction. To the southeast, peeking up out of the lush thatch of evergreen trees that grew around its base, I could see the top of Coit Tower illuminated against the cloudy night sky.
Racy memories of our nighttime encounter breaking and entering into the tourist attraction filled my mind. My head may have been closed off to Edward, but not to Jasper.
Jazz glanced at me over his shoulder with an incredulous expression. "Here? Really?" was all he said, but Edward could hear the thoughts behind Jasper's amused smirk.
"Something you care to share with the class, Mrs. Cullen?" Edward murmured into my ear, a teasing glint in his pale gold eyes.
"Would you look at that! The gift shop! Bella, let's go see if they have our names on souvenir keychains," Alice cheerfully interjected and linked her arm through mine. She tugged me away from our obnoxiously cackling husbands before I could lunge at either one of their throats in a newborn temper tantrum.
"They should be ashamed of themselves for provoking you when you're having a hard enough time as it is. Are they trying to create an incident?" Alice lambasted in a low voice, easily heard by vampire ears over the gusty wind whistling through the trees.
"I don't know what's more annoying, having Jasper rat out my feelings, or you having you rat out my schemes," I smirked and stepped through the front door of the shop that Alice courteously held open for me. When I said that second part, she let the heavy glass door shut in my face.
I threw a hand out in front of my face, stopping the door before it could crash into me. Then I turned my head over my shoulder to take one last lungful of fresh air and stepped inside the stuffy little shop.
With most of the other humans excitedly touring the grounds, it was only populated by a lone store employee and a single customer in the back corner browsing t-shirts.
Alice spun around a display of souvenir keychains personalized with names. She spotted her name under the A's and plucked one from the rack.
"All out of Bellas. Never any Jaspers," she sighed as she looked over the J-names.
"Oh, you were serious," I pinched my lips together to keep from laughing. Alice raised a thin eyebrow at me.
"I buy one at every new landmark and tourist destination we visit. You can find them just about everywhere. They don't take up a lot of space, and they hold up well over time. The same cannot be said for t-shirts and shot glasses."
"Sorry, not judging. I just didn't figure you for someone who collected tchotchkes."
"My generation tends to collect things like that. Decorative plates, spoons, stamps, coins, records. Your generation collects toys and other bits of nostalgia," she shrugged.
I could hardly argue with that. After all, the only thing I could really say I collected, besides books, was Christmas ornaments depicting special moments in my life, particularly after I met Edward. It didn't get much more nostalgic than that.
I glanced around the small shop looking for a new addition to my collection. I found a small assortment of ornaments next to the refrigerator magnet display. I cupped my hand behind a small snow globe hanging from a loop of golden thread.
Inside the globe was a miniature version of the prison and the nearby lighthouse. But instead of the little white granules usually used to depict snow, the water inside was suspended with ultra-fine gray particles that when shaken up looked like fog.
I palmed the snowglobe as gently as if it were a hummingbird and went to stand behind Alice at the register to pay for my souvenir. She stood behind a chatty tourist with a thick southern accent who was going on and on about how overpriced everything in the city was compared to where she lived in Blue Ridge, Georgia.
This woman evidently had never before left her hometown, and here she was in "San Fran Cisco," pronounced as three separate words, for her son's wedding.
He moved out here two years ago for some hoity-toity job in the big city. Beau, that was his name, was about to marry some big city trollop. But it wasn't any of her nevermind if the mother of her future grandchildren didn't come from good stock.
And would you believe the price of parking around here! Her hotel stay cost the same as her mortgage. And for cryin' out loud, why doesn't anybody out here know what sweet tea is?
I was holding my breath at that point so I could no longer smell her blood, sweet as molasses. No, I mentally amended. Sweet as a Georgia peach, pumping beneath the delicate membrane of her skin.
The artificially flowery scent of Chanel No. 5 had been freshly applied behind her thin earlobes stretched even thinner by the weight of her clunky clip-on earrings.
I tapped my foot impatiently on the floor matching the steady rhythm of the chatty tourist's heartbeat. Alice turned and smiled sympathetically at me. Gently prying the ornament from my grasp, she murmured, "I got this. Why don't you go find the guys?"
"Thanks," I breathed, my voice thick with gratitude, and headed for the exit. The wind blew the door forcefully shut behind me making the cowbell mounted on the inside clang noisily.
It was only then that I wondered if Alice had acted out of kindness or if maybe that had been a subtle intervention. How close had I just come to snapping? I felt under control. A little irritable, maybe, but certainly not a danger to anybody...Or was I? It wasn't as if I'd seen the edge the last time I went over it.
*EPOV*
Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Agitation. Better go check on your girl, Edward. I'm going to go see what's keeping Alice.
As he walked past Bella on his way into the gift shop, I heard him mentally conjure a wave of contrition that he aimed at my wife, regretful for embarrassing her.
"It's fine, Jazz," she smiled weakly at his silent apology.
Jasper placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as he passed her. I knew the gesture wasn't merely one of reassurance. His physical touch also amplified his abilities, sending a jolt of whatever he wanted her to feel. In Bella's case, solace.
Not wanting to seem like I was hovering over Bella too much, lest I reinforce the self-doubt she was already feeling, I pretended to be absorbed in the informational plaque mounted outside the Warden's House.
"Jasper may have been more right than he knew about this place being an oceanside resort," I chuckled as Bella quietly came to stand beside me.
"Fearing prison riots, the warden offered better than average food because he believed that most trouble in prisons started with bad food," I read off the plaque. "Smart fellow," I added with a nod of appreciation.
After all, I mused, "bad food" had been the source of my own rebellion, hadn't it?
"Can we talk about literally anything else besides 'better-than-average food," Bella grimaced and tucked herself between my arms, hiding her face against my chest.
"I'm sorry, love. It gets easier, I promise," I frowned guiltily at her obvious discomfort and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
This had been my idea. And as much as I could barely tolerate seeing Bella in pain, she needed the practice if she was going to be successful when classes resumed in less than six weeks' time. She would be devastated if she wasn't ready to attend, thus I would do everything in my power to make sure that she was.
Being on a boat or on this island in the open air with fifty or so other humans was child's play compared to being in a stuffy classroom where escape wasn't quite as easy or discreet as simply diving overboard.
I stroked my hand from the crown of her head to the center of her back, feeling her silky auburn locks glide between my fingers. It was clumped in places with moisture from the ferry ride.
The ocean water in her hair gave her naturally floral scent a beachy quality. It reminded me of how she smelled on Isle Esme, minus the searing burn. I grinned at the flood of memories. If Jasper were here just now, he'd be giving me an even harder time about my impure thoughts.
Typical newlyweds. It would seem that even in the darkest, dankest of places, the intense desire we felt toward each other would pervade into our thoughts and bodily responses. But unlike Bella, I would never be embarrassed or ashamed of it.
If it weren't for the fact that Bella couldn't afford to lose control around so many humans, I'd be absconding with her to a quiet corner of this rock to satisfy the insatiable urges right then and there.
She surprised me then when she chuckled a little ruefully. "Poor Marathy," she explained without my having to ask. "She'll never find her name on one of those souvenir keychains."
I laughed in earnest at that, a deep laugh that ruffled the top of her hair before it was swallowed up by the wind. "No, I don't imagine she will," I agreed, laughter still evident in my voice. "But there's something to be said for being one of a kind."
Bella hadn't said out loud (or otherwise) so much as one word about her mother or sister since she broke down in my arms last week. It came as a relief to hear her mention her estranged sister in such a lighthearted manner. It could only mean that she was healing.
I wrapped my arms around Bella's waist and squeezed her to my chest, lifting her a few inches off the ground as I did so. Though I barely noticed her negligible weight in my arms, she had an inner strength and resilience that belied her waifish frame.
Bella was so brave, so good at surviving. Much, much better than I. She stoically worked through her own pain and loss with single-minded defiance. It was impressive. Even Jasper thought so.
Just then, we turned our heads toward the jingle of cowbell as Jasper and Alice exited the gift shop. "Thanks, sweetie. If you hadn't made that woman feel shy, I'd still be standing there," Alice rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"It's a wonder that the Baby Boomers were the offspring of the Silent Generation, because they sure got a lot to say, don't they?" Jasper chuckled amusedly.
With her cheek still against my chest, Bella softly interjected, "I think the one thing that is universal among the different generations is that everybody eventually grows up thinking that their parents screwed up in some fundamental way. So they do their best to do better by their own children and then overcorrect."
Jasper, Alice, and I gaped at her incredulously.
"What?" Bella asked, self-consciously tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear as she looked from Jasper to Alice to me.
"Nothing, love. It's just... there are nearly 400 years between the four of us," I began in a lowered voice. "You're not even twenty and that might be the wisest thing any of us has ever said," I marveled.
Feelings of intense pride mingled with sadness and regret. She was far too young to be so sage; a byproduct of having to grow up much too fast. It was bitterly unfair that Renee got to try to right her parents' wrongs but that Bella never would.
"Honestly, even if Em and Rose were here with us, that'd probably still be true. It's not like either one of them spends a whole lot of time philosophizing," Jasper chuckled in agreement.
Bella ducked her head and laughed uncomfortably at the praise, then scrambled to change the subject.
Looking back out toward the city lights of the San Francisco skyline, she mused, "It's hard to imagine a bunch of hardened criminals being so frail that a mile-long swim in frigid water
was the main thing keeping them prisoner here."
In the thirty years that the prison operated, 36 men tried 14 separate escape attempts. Nearly all were caught or didn't survive. One prisoner made it across and was subsequently found and captured on the beach suffering from hypothermic shock.
In 1962, three men (the subjects of several Hollywood films since then) managed to escape the island. Bits of rubber inner tube, paddle-like pieces, and homemade life vests were found, but neither the prisoners nor their bodies were ever recovered. Their fates remain a mystery to this day.
"No," Alice fumed through gritted teeth as she saw her plans for the evening start to flicker through varying possibilities. "No, no, no, no. We are not swimming back to the city! These are Jimmy Choos, dammit!" she exclaimed, stomping one of her strappy high heels in protest.
She stomped just a bit too hard because the thin spiky heel snapped clean in half under the pressure. She gasped in horror at her damaged shoe and then looked furiously between Bella and Jasper who had been toying with the idea of a race, messing with Alice's visions.
Kicking off her undamaged shoe, Alice growled, "I'll give you two a five-second head start," she spat, fixing her husband and my wife with a menacing glare. As menacing as a 4 '10 vampire with a pixie cut could muster.
"Five…"
"Is she serious?" Bella asked, not taking her eyes off of Alice who kicked off the other shoe.
"As a heart attack," I smiled and took back my coat so that she'd be less encumbered in the water. "Better dive now, love. Jasper's a cheater," I grinned. Jasper grinned even wider.
"Four…" Alice glowered.
Jasper and Bella exchanged a heated look, and before Alice could say "three," they took to the water, gracefully diving in a broad arc over the rocky shoreline.
"Hold this for me, will you? I don't have pockets," Alice thrust a small plastic shopping bag into my hand containing her and Bella's souvenir trinkets.
As graceful and as deadly as a Peregrine Falcon diving through the air to capture its prey, but with twice the speed, Alice dove over the edge in rapid pursuit.
Unhurriedly, I draped my coat over the back of a nearby bench for someone else to find. I never did much like that coat anyway. Then I tied the handles of the shopping bag into a tight knot, making the interior as watertight as possible. I then secured the ends to my belt loop.
I counted down from three. By now they had to be at least halfway across. A worthwhile challenge. I surveyed the area one last time making sure there were no witnesses. All the humans were thankfully still wandering around the cell house, snapping pictures of Al Capone's old cell.
Making barely a splash, I cut into the wintry water of the San Francisco Bay at blinding speed. A school of fish panickedly scattered out of my path in every direction.
The water was dark and murky but my enhanced vision remained unaffected. I could see everything. Every blade of kelp, grain of sand, and microscopic organism for miles. Though I couldn't use my sense of smell underwater, it was all too easy to follow the wide trail of air bubbles my family had created in their wake.
I ghosted past sharks and sea lions that instinctively fled from the presence of a greater predator. In a matter of seconds, I could see the furiously kicking feet of Alice in hot pursuit of Bella and Jasper a few feet ahead. In a matter of seconds, they would be reaching the sandy shore of the beach at Crissy Field.
I picked up the pace, accelerating to near-supersonic speeds, a wide grin stretching across my face. Turbocharged by her newborn strength, Bella was in the lead, but only just. All three of them heard my approach at the same time and swam faster but to no avail.
When I burst out of the water onto the sandy beach, I was ahead of Bella by a full half-second. I raised my fists into the air, laughing victoriously as my sodden wife and siblings emerged, cursing with dismay to see me standing there.
How does he DO that? Jasper mentally complained with grudging admiration.
"Do what? Not suck?" I ribbed and cuffed him on the shoulder.
Jasper snarled, then nodded infinitesimally at Bella. A fraction of a second later, Alice and Jasper's individual streams of thought went silent to me. And then with the thunderous sound of boulder on boulder, I was being dogpiled on by Jasper and two smaller, scrappier accomplices.
I shook with silent laughter as Jasper tightened the inside of his elbow around my throat in a vise-like grip. He was downright giddy that after all these years he finally had the advantage on me, and his glee was rubbing off. Imagine being unwillingly happy while being choked out.
As we wrestled around in the sand, horsing around like children, our movements were halted by the sound of a muted crunch. Out of habit, my eyes flew to Bella, to make sure she was uninjured. I wondered when I'd ever stop doing that.
Alice quickly ascertained the source of the sound and reached for the forgotten souvenir bag that was still tied to my belt loop. Gently tearing open the thin plastic, she retrieved her keychain which remained intact. Bella's snow globe ornament, on the other hand, was in pieces.
"What did I tell you? These babies last forever," Alice smirked, holding up her keychain like a prize.
Without another word, she spun on her heel and haughtily marched down the beach in the far-off direction of the Volvo as gracefully as one could while looking like a drowned rat in designer clothing.
*A/N* I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I really struggled for inspiration on this...and the electrical fire that occurred in my home office (where I do my writing) leaving it reeking like burnt plastic for days certainly did not aid in the creative process!
Thankfully, it was quickly extinguished and the damage was minor. But isn't it just my luck that the very first day that my children are both in school at the same time, leaving me kid-free for the first time in AGES...and my freaking house catches fire?!
On another note, I've been hearing that a lot of people are still having issues getting chapter alert emails. I've heard that using a gmail address will remedy this problem. Hotmail and Yahoo email addresses haven't been working correctly. Alrighty folks, til next time! And thank you so much for writing and reviewing! Nothing motivates me to write faster! And if I don't get to update before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! I am so thankful for each and every one of you! Enjoy the feast!
