Prologue - Fate is Pulling You Miles Away

Present Day

"You're wrong."

Five sets of burnished gold eyes were locked on her stricken face, almost daring her to argue further. Alice didn't want to, she truly didn't, but the horrifying truth had quite literally just flashed across her mind. Her best friend, her sweet little human sister…

"I wish I was," she choked in anguish, venom burning behind her lids with tears she could never shed, "but-"

"No," Emmett pressed again. "You're wrong on this one, Alice. Bella was clumsy as hell and Edward was a dumbass for leaving the way he did, but she knew better than to be anywhere near a cliff. Don't you remember how Eddie's running scared her to death?"

"I agree, Bella certainly never showed any signs of being a daredevil," Carlisle soothed but while his voice was calm, he couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. "Perhaps you should, just this once, look again?"

"I can't! I can't see her like… no. No, no. I can't see that again."

Jasper pulled her into his chest as she trembled with the sickening vision replaying itself over and her in her memory with exact precision and even his soothing scent did nothing to calm the chaos she was drowning in. If having an actual breakdown was an option, Alice was sure she would be heaving and sobbing on the floor.

There was no coming back from this. Not for her. Not for any of them.

Oh, God. Edward.

Esme, always the peacemaker, knelt down beside them and rested a hand gently on her shaking shoulder, "Sweetheart, I know you're upset by what you saw, but… we have to be certain. Before we call Edward, we have to know if Bella is alright."

"She's not," Alice whispered, the words tasting like poison as she admitted the truth.

The silence in the room was deafening, the tension so thick it felt like a living thing.

"Alice, you said she jumped from a cliff..." Esme's voice was wavering now, no doubt her own human memories coming to the forefront. "What was at the bottom?"

"The ocean."

Carlisle's murmur was directed at her siblings, "The Reservation, then."

"Alice," Esme prompted once more with now trembling fingers that matched her voice, "did someone pull her from the water?"

Her tiny fingers gripped Jasper's shirt, dry sobs now ripping from her chest as she forced herself to relive the vision that had assaulted her completely by surprise only a few moments before. How the hell had everything gone so wrong? She had seen everything so clearly - Bella being her best friend, Bella becoming a vampire, Bella and Edward together for centuries that weren't even linear. How the fuck had this even happened at all?

"It doesn't make any sense!" She wailed against her husband and pounding her fists against his chest. "I've seen her with us! I've seen her and Edward for centuries- I've seen her with golden eyes! The decisions were solid, I swear. They were the clearest visions I have ever had, completely unwavering and unchanging since the day we met her. How the fuck did this happen?" Alice turned her furious gaze on her father, on the man who she trusted above all others when it came to her often unwanted 'gift'. "Tell me how my visions were so monumentally fucking wrong!"

Each of her family members stared in horror, realization dawning on each of them at what she was really saying.

Rosalie was the only one capable of speech in that moment, "They didn't get to her time, did they?"

Alice slumped to the floor, "She wasn't breathing on the beach. CPR wasn't working. Her… her lips were b-blue."

Esme gasped, hands flying to her mouth and stumbling back just far enough for Emmett to steady her. Carlisle was already moving, lunging for the square cell phone on the coffee table, "No one move from this spot until we confirm," he hissed. "We won't make any decisions without all the information."

He quickly dialed the number of the Swan residence they had all memorized for Edward's sake what seemed like a lifetime ago. They could all hear it ring and ring and ring. Alice curled into herself as if it could protect her from what she knew was coming - the paramedic's watch in her vision confirmed that they were too late from the start. By the time Alice had seen Bella lying dead on the beach, she had already stopped breathing for at least half an hour.

Finally, on the 12th ring of the phone, there was an answer.

The voice was gruff and thick, "Swan residence."

"Yes, this is Dr. Carlisle Cullen and I was looking to speak with-"

"You…" The voice was trembling with great emotion and it was obvious the boy was doing his best to keep his composure as he hissed into the phone. "...You bloodsuckers have some fucking nerve calling this house. How fucking dare you?"

Her father's fingers tightened around the cell phone, "I apologize for the inconvenience, but I need to speak with Chief Swan urgently."

"Oh, you need to talk to Charlie?" The boy snarled. "Well I'll tell you what- leave me your number and once he gets back from identifying his daughter's body at the morgue, you two can have a lovely chat. I'm sure he has plenty of things to say to you."

"Clearly you know about us," Carlisle was pacing now, everyone else watching him and listening with rapt attention except for Alice, who already knew, "and I can only assume you are from the Quileute reservation so I understand that we aren't on the best of terms, but… Isabella is important to us. All of us. So if you are making some sort of crude, distasteful joke in an attempt to get us to leave her alone-"

"A joke?" He scoffed. "You think I would lie about this just to get rid of you bloodsucking demons? I loved Bella and she loved you guys- if you had showed up again and snatched her from right under my nose, I would have been pissed but I wouldn't have fought it because you were the ones that made her happy. I wish… I wish you would have. I wish you would have come back." There was a long moment of silence broken only by the boy sniffing on the other end. "Why didn't you come back for her? Didn't your little crystal ball over there see what would happen to Bella when you left?"

Alice wailed in despair, pulling at her short-cropped hair as Carlisle lost all strength and collapsed to the couch, running a hand over his mouth, "So, she did jump."

"Didn't wait for me like she was supposed to. Stupid girl," the boy managed through his tears. "She became an adrenaline junkie once you left; something about feeling closer to that bastard that broke up with her. Said she could hear his voice in her head when she did reckless shit, like he was right next to her. Fuck." They could all hear him punch something and glass shatter in the Swan's kitchen. "Fuck! Why couldn't she just fucking wait for me?!"

"Did she… make it out of the water?"

Everyone in the posh living room waited with bated breath as the boy let out a humorless laugh full of anguish, "Yeah, I dragged her out. Thought she was gonna be okay for a minute when I managed to bring her back but…"

"But?"

"She gave up," he said quietly. "I begged her to stay with me but she just… she just said his name and closed her eyes. That was it."

"Son, I am so sorry," Carlisle choked into the phone, fingers tugging at his own hair in distress. He, too, would be crying if it had been possible. "We never meant for this. If there is anything we can do-"

"There is," the boy cut in, steel in his voice. "You can tell Edward what happened. You can tell him that she wanted to go cliff-jumping because she wanted to feel something again. You can tell him that doing dumb, dangerous shit made her hear his voice in her head. You can tell him that she couldn't listen to music anymore and that she broke into your old house and smashed his fucking piano in a drunken rage and then felt so guilty about it, that she planned to save enough money to replace it. You can also tell him that, apparently, even a pack of teenage werewolves wasn't enough to keep her safe from her own fucking recklessness."

Carlisle's fist was pressed into his teeth, Esme was shaking and buried in a frozen Emmett's chest, and Jasper silently slid to the floor to hold Alice in comfort as she rocked back and forth. Rosalie snatched the phone from their father's hand and lifted it to her ear, "I promise you, I will tell Edward myself. And leave the smashed piano, if you please."

"Gladly."

With nothing left to say, the boy hung up the phone and the line went dead.

When no one moved, Rosalie turned the phone over in her hands a few times before breaking the silence, "Who wants to do the honors?"

"Rose," Emmett managed, though it sounded strangled. "Don't."

"Why not? I may not have liked the girl but we all knew good and god damn well that Bella was Edward's mate. You're telling me none of you could see it? You couldn't feel it?"

"Rose."

"No! No, I held my tongue when everyone let Edward strongarm us all into moving and leaving her behind without even a half decent reason but I just… I can't believe that no one thought this might happen. Who can tell me what happens when half of a mated pair disappears? Come on, don't be shy now!" Rosalie kicked the coffee table and it shattered against the wall in a violent array of splintered wood. "Mates aren't meant to be separated this way! Edward should have fucking known better; you all should have known better!"

Carlisle dropped his head into his hands, "He'd made up his mind. What choice did we have?"

"We could have fought him!" Rosalie was screaming now, her beautiful face contorted in fury. "He listens to you above everyone else - why didn't you tell him what would happen if he left her?!"

Esme cut in softly, "We always thought he would change his mind quickly. That perhaps the distance from Bella would make him realize the depth of their bond."

"Bullshit. You didn't fight his decision to leave or tell him what would happen because you didn't want to deal with the fallout. Edward can be a pain in the ass when he doesn't get what he wants and look where coddling him has gotten us."

Carlisle seemed to be shrinking in his agony, "Rose…"

"No! No, you're going to listen to me damn it! Bella was annoying but she was his mate, she made him happy. Instead of manning up and telling him the truth, you placated him and Bella jumped off a fucking cliff. Didn't you hear what that kid said? She wanted to feel something again. She became an adrenaline junkie to hear his voice, which I'm sure was always nagging her to stop being reckless and keep herself safe. Bella and Edward were a mated pair, just like all of us. How the fuck could you just let him leave her like that? Any of us, all of us, would deteriorate without our mates. That is just the way this shit works. Now Bella is gone and Edward is going to fall apart."

Jasper pulled Alice closer, his accent thick with emotion, "Perhaps it's best if we wait to tell him…"

"Are you kidding me?" Rosalie scoffed, arms crossed tightly over her chest. "Wait for what, time travel to be invented? Because I can promise you, unless there's some way to undo this-"

"Just call him. It doesn't matter." Alice murmured. "We all messed up and what's done is done."

No one argued further, not even their parents, so, with no small amount of resentment for the cowardice of the others, Rosalie dialed the number they were forbidden to use in anything but an emergency.

He didn't answer, of course, but she left a simple voicemail, "Edward, it's Rose. I need you to come home… it's an emergency. Please."

Unlike the others, Rosalie had never asked Edward for anything in all the time they had been a family, so they all knew that it was only a short matter of time before he would race home to make sure everything was alright.

True to form, only an hour later Rosalie's phone pinged with an incoming text message from her missing brother:

03/16/2006, 3:53pm - Be there soon. Stay safe.