A/N: A little bit of a filler chapter until we get to the creme-de-la-creme.
"Are you going to shoot me?"
The words came out of Isabella's mouth quicker than a cry for help ever could– and in retrospect, it was great comedic timing. Though standing in the dark innards of the family cellar, anything but amusement came to mind.
Eddie Cullen clicked the safety off and aimed the barrel a little higher.
"He' home?" Eddie asked, the accent not able to disguise the rage below.
"Paul left." Isabella stammered, her palms now raised like a true victim– a civilian caught in the mouth of a hungry animal. The animal across from her narrowed his eyes now, as if seeing through the blinding red haze of fury.
"You're the girl from the other day." He acknowledged. "What are you… Who lives here?"
"Charlie Swan."
The realization trickled like rain down his face, his grip only tightening on the gun.
"Your daddy' Charlie?"
Isabella nodded once, too scared to move.
"I'm not lookin' for no Paul. I'm lookin' for ya' dad."
"He's at the police station."
Eddie Cullen bared his teeth and hissed through them, lowering the gun altogether.
"I'll wait then."
Isabella frowned, trying to scrape together what remained of both her moral and sane thoughts– one of the most obvious trails being the safety of her family, and little Seth sleeping upstairs.
"He didn't burn down your land."
"Don't talk." Eddie said, though the gun felt threatening no longer. Now, it was just a prop to vent what was inside. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"You're holding my fathers' gun and you're in my house. I think I have some room to talk."
Eddie tossed the gun and the metal clattered on the floor, landing near the shelves that Honey had organized, and the slim basement window – now broken, leaving a puddle of shattered glass and an unwelcome breeze. How he had broken in, and how he possibly thought about escaping.
The air came in now, rustling the hair on Eddie's head and the button-white shirt that was ripped and torn. The smooth panels of his chest were heavily tattooed, bloodied and dirty, as if he'd been wrangling
in a puddle, or fighting something off.
Isabella's eyes dawdled there, and she felt a lump rising in her throat. "What happened…?"
He looked down and then regretted it– as if seeing for the first time, the pain itself having timewarped him from trauma to reality. Isabella could see it… she could see the dawn of his actions reach his face.
Just like that, he spoke.
"Carlisle died."
"What?" Isabella's heart stilled. "How? When…?"
Eddie gave her one very poignant look. "Trying to get people out of the fire."
Now she understood.
Now she felt the heat of his temper, as his father succcame to the heat of his death.
A thump sounded upstairs, and the radio dialed down– the rustle of shopping bags and the click of Honey Swan's heels. Paul's voice came second and Isabella's heart sank.
He was going to kill them all - an eye for an eye, a death for a death.
The cellar door squeaked open and a shadow appeared at the top, grenting Isabella enough of a distraction to run out of firing sight. Eddie went for the gun, though she was already two steps high, walloping straight into Paul's chest and knocking him into the kitchen.
"A man with a gun! A man with a gun!" Isabella screamed, her adrenaline soaring.
A gunshot sounded downstairs and Honey wailed in fear– reaching for her daughter as Paul reached for the basement stairs. Trying to use his big-boy muscle to strife off any enemy. Isabella only heard a tangle of groans, though knew this Eddie Cullen would get the best of him– the odds rarely in her brother's favor.
She fled from her mama's coddling arms and picked up the phone, dialing the police station.
Another shot went off downstairs, and this time, a voice followed it.
"He hit me!" Paul screamed, and now Honey was beside herself, fleeing after him and into the basement.
"God, damn it." Isabella hissed and dropped the phone, going after her.
They tackled down the stairs and found Paul in a heap by the shelves, holding his leg. There was no blood, and no sign of the gun – though Isabella saw the broken window and no Eddie.
He had gotten out.
"Where is he?" Honey seethed, coming in a circle with her tiny fist clenched. "I'll knock his teeth out!"
"Mama, he's gone." Isabella said, crouching beside her brother. "Are you sure he hit you?"
"I'm wounded!" Paul cried, beside himself. Honey let go of her rage and leveled to her knees, fluttering her hands over his leg. Isabella thought he had probably broken it in a fall, and saw no means for panic. She ran upstairs and slid through the house, her feet barely touching the ground as she raced for the front door– Carlisle Cullen's burnt body etched into her brain.
Her hand was on the handle, though it opened before she managed to turn it - Charlie stepping through the door. Instinctively, she flung into him with open arms, though a small part of her shuddered – seeing the scratches and bruises on his hands as they curled around her.
The police had come and gone, as interested in the basement lurker as Seth was.
"I'll just have cereal." He had said, when asked by Honey if he wanted to talk to someone about today's traumatic events. The boy hadn't even known what was happening.
Charlie Swan had been interviewed relentlessly, though got out with a plastic-strong alibi. Hard to penetrate, though flimsy under a little heat. Thankfully, the boys down at the station in Forks didn't care for hot-lamp interrogations and good-cop-bad-cop motives, so Charlie left before lunch time.
Relieved, until coming home.
Until finding his home-surveillance system was faulty, and Isabella was the only thing that kept him from a bullet to the brain.
The red and blue lights of the Forks Sheriff department had come along with turkey and mayo subs down their uniforms, writing notes on their little pads and inspecting the basement with flashlights and querying brows.
They put the 'Cullen kid's' anger down to an act of retaliation, and would be compiling together a file to rid the family from Forks altogether.
"No worry there." An officer said, clapping Charlie on the shoulder. "We'll have someone stationed outside your house until this whole thing blows over and those damn gypsies get thrown out."
Honey looked relieved, offering sweet tea and a sweeter smile. Paul was given a handshake for acting bravely for the sake of his family.
Isabella wasn't even spoken to.
Come the evening, when the police had gone, they sat down as a unit to have dinner– a little something special that was picked up at the grocery store today, and dropped a few times in the heat of the incident. Lopsided meatloaf and mashed vegetables. Honey had tried to disguise it below gravy and pleasant conversation.
"Did you get to ride in the police car, daddy?" Seth asked, knife and fork in hand but no manners in sight.
Charlie chuckled and nodded, as if the whole thing was comical.
Isabella only stared, trying to shun the image of the cocked gun as it weighed between her eyes– one wrong move, or maybe one wrong person, and she was gone. After all, what would have happened if another son or daughter of Carlisle had come down to pay a debt?
Would they have been as merciful?
Would little Isabella Swan have been let off so easily?
She shivered at the idea of her swinging fate.
"I might have to email those folks in Wildetown." Paul moaned as he adjusted his 'wounded leg', enjoying every ounce of attention that came. "I might be a little rusty my first few weeks in."
"I agree." Charlie said. "They should be understanding, given the heroic circumstances. Right, Honey?"
"Right, Charl."
Isabella kept her head down and ate to refrain from commenting, scarcely listening as Charlie spoke about work over pudding; already planning his use of the land, come the removal of the Cullen family.
"Has anyone actually been to see them?" Isabella asked, as Honey refilled Charlie's glass of mult whiskey and Paul's dessert bowl. "Their father died. Whether you like them or not, it's a tragedy. Imagine if it was any one of us."
Seth nodded glumly, though was silenced with a glare from his older brother. "Don't be stupid," Paul scoffed, "they're practically ruffians. He wasn't even their biological family."
Isabella glared. "Yes, he was."
"No, he wasn't." Honey pitched in. "I heard from a few women over the road that he took in wayward kids and put them to work at that dreadful circus. Practically snatching them from their parents, he was. An evil looking man."
"And you believe everything that's said in this neighborhood?"
"Young lady! After everything I've endured today–"
"Did you do it?" Isabella turned, slamming a sure-enough stare in her daddy's direction. "Did you burn down the Cullen land?"
She couldn't help herself any longer, needing to ask.
Silence ensued, and butterfly wings could have been heard if they soared close enough.
"Out." Charlie ordered.
Everyone stilled, though Isabella was already standing, her eyes full of betrayal and question.
"You're hiding something." She argued, her voice now shaking. "You've hated that family ever since they arrived and they've done nothing but try to fit in. It's no surprise that you were dragged into the police station."
"OUT!" Charlie roared.
Isabella jumped so hard she felt her pulse quicken, and made a beeline out of the dining room, swiping the keys off the wall as she did. She kicked open the door to her grandaddy's truck and boosted the engine with a foot on the gas, tearing up the curb and veering out of sight, and hopefully out of mind.
There was one place in town that she wanted to go, though for all the right reasons, she didn't venture.
Forks was a rocky foundation of trees, suburban porches and gossipy street corners. Though between the heavy clouds of a summer thunderstorm, and the hill-peaks that overlooked town, Isabella could see the smoggy aftermath of the fairground fire; her heart dulling at the thought.
The air was thick with all the smell of smoke and salt– the kind of smell that you would associate with October, Halloween, and flaming pumpkins on a porch with not enough candy. Too sweet a memory to now be remembered with death and tragedy, especially for the Cullen family.
Eddie had been nice to her that day on the fairground. A little bit too nice, giving her all the right attention at the wrong time. To see him standing in too much darkness, without the shadow of a doubt on his brow or on the finger that played with the trigger, seemed scary.
A bit too wild, even for Forks.
Maybe too wild for Wildetown.
That flier still sat as a folded piece of nothing in the glove-compartment, promising free land and a million possibilities. A stupid idea– a stupid dream. Though one she found herself thinking of every now and then, a cat that couldn't leave the yarn alone.
Isabella reared the truck into an empty spot and parked it, leaning her elbows on the wheel– sighing.
All the drama of the world aside, what was she doing here?
Why was she still in Forks?
Why didn't she have enough courage to leave?
Her eyes glistened with tears of frustration, looking out into the carpark, and specifically what existed beyond it. The Westcrow River had been fenced off and guarded by an overgrowth of moss and weeds– once the main watering hole in the south, though now an eye-sore of yellow police-tape and dead wildlife.
A place that has been left to rot after the horror that happened here.
Isabella hit the wheel and the horn sounded by accident, making her jump, and sobering up a few tears. She laughed at herself, shook her head and leant back, not even locking the door as she curled up and drifted off to sleep.
Little did she know across town Eddie Cullen was doing the same thing.