Ch. 18 Eyes of Death

"Isabella Marie Swan, what did I teach you about bullies?" Charlie was using his cop voice again. How to answer this? He could be wanting one of two answers...

"Give 'em hell?" I smiled angelically. Doe eyes. They're your best asset here, Iris. Ham it up.

He paused with a stern look, before breaking out in huge grin. "Exactly. You made me proud, but did you have to get sent to the office, and make me have to go to a meeting with Tim? I hated that guy in school..." Huh. Damn Charlie was a cool dad.

It was almost 2:30P.M. The school called Charlie in for a meeting to discuss my abhorrent behavior, and he had just arrived back home. The nomads should be at the Cullen house around now Alice said...

"You mean, you're not mad?" I blinked, wide-eyed with amazement. Although, Bella never caused problems, so Charlie had no reason to not believe me about the cause of the fight with Lauren, but still, my parents back in the other world would have flipped. God forbid their reputation be destroyed by someone other than themselves...

"No, you tried to ignore her, and when she didn't stop, you stopped it." He shrugged and turned back to his game.

Well, if this is what discipline was like under Charlie's roof, then Bella was one lucky girl growing up.

"Hey dad?"

"Hmph." I took that grunt as an ok to continue.

"What was you favorite memory of me from when I was younger?"

"Why?" He seemed confused by the direction my thoughts had taken.

"Just wondering...a lot of it's fuzzy to me. You know, since I hit my head all the time." I laughed.

"Hmm..." He took a moment to think about it. "There was this one time when you were about five or six—no it was five because that was the summer I got my promotion...anyway, you were about 5 when I took you fishing one day." Of course it would involve fishing...I smiled fondly at my father figure, fishing aficionado. I loved him.

"I wanted to take you out on the boat, but you were scared. Your mom hadn't put you in swim lessons yet. She hadn't gone through her extreme water sports stage yet. She didn't meet the surfer until the next year..."He made a disparaging face, obviously making fun of whatever man had captured Renee's interest that time. I could only laugh. I saw this side of Charlie so rarely.

"Let me guess, his name was something insane like Rambo?" I giggled.

"Worse...Todd." Charlie chuckled.

"Todd? Bleh. I'm glad she chose Phil."

"But anyhow, you were scared, so it took a little bit of convincing—"

"And a lot of manipulation and bribing if I had to guess..." I sighed.

He only smiled, and kept talking. "No, it was Jacob."

"Jacob?"

"He was smaller than you...maybe three at the time, but he was scared of the boat too. You saw his face when he looked out into the water, and your little jaw set and you decided right then that you were going to help him get over his fear, despite your own. You took his hand and pulled him to the boat and said, 'see. It's not scary. Let's go. I wanna catch some fish.' And he hung on to every word you said..." Aww sweet little Jakey Poo.

"Bella, you've never been one to take risks. You think things through. You're careful, fearful to the extreme even sometimes, but if there's someone else in trouble, you've always put their needs first. You've always wanted to make sure that we all get on that boat together." I stared blankly at Charlie...Wow. I was not expecting to get a hidden life lesson out of this. I just wanted a cute story of little Bella, and here came Charlie with all this wisdom. Such a dad, a real Danny Tanner, except without the bad sweaters.

I needed to keep him safe. The longer I was here, the more I was understanding about Bella Swan. "Thanks Dad. Didn't you make plans with Billy tonight?" He needed to be close to Sam. He could keep him safer than I could.

"Well, yeah, but I didn't want to leave you alone..."

"No, I'm going to go study with Angela, remember?" I wasn't going to study with Angela. I was going to go upstairs and hide under my bed while I waited for the nomads to leave the area, but there's no reason that Charlie should have to worry about that.

"If you don't think it's a problem..." Charlie hesitantly stood.

"No, go. Get out of here!" I playfully ushered him toward the door. "Love you, Dad."

"Love you, Bells." He grabbed his coat and keys and was out to his car.

Well, now what? More time to waste...What did I do before I had vampires infiltrating and occupying every crevice of my brain?

I turned to go up the stairs when I heard the front door open and shut quickly.

"Dad? Did you forge—" I was cut off by a very frenzied Edward.

"I'm so sorry, Iris, we have to go, NOW." He was dragging me toward the stairs.

"What? Why? What's going on?!" I screeched.

"James—" Oh God, it's happening.

"Shit! How?"

"He caught your scent on your things in Rosalie's room. There's no time. You're coming with me to the airport. Where's your passport?"

"Upstairs in my room, second drawer on the top right! What about Charlie?!" Well, I guess Edward knows where your underwear are now. God, shut up! Not important, Iris. Focus!

Edward disappeared and reappeared in less than a second. "He'll be fine. Emmett and Rose are staying with him. Here, write a note quickly, something vague." He shoved a pen and notebook into my hands. I scribbled some nonsense excuse about needing to help a friend. I wasn't sure how this would go, and I needed some excuse if it worked out in my favor for when I returned. If I didn't come back from this, it needed to be ambiguous enough that Charlie wouldn't get caught up in this mess.

"Let's go!" Edward growled and didn't even wait for a response before sweeping me up and into his arms and running me to his car.

"Where are we going?" Edward was racing down the road, headed toward the 101.

"Shh." Edward pointed toward the woods and then toward his temple. He could hear someone. Most likely James was here. Shit shit shitity shit shit.

"I REALLY HOPE HE DOESN'T FIND US IN PHOENIX!" I called out in a terrible acting voice. Maybe I could distract him. No way was Edward going to take me to Phoenix anyway.

Edward rolled his eyes at my improvisation and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, but I guess he decided it was too late to not play along and answered in a normal, more convincing, level voice with a snarl, "He wouldn't be stupid enough to follow us to Phoenix." Oh yeah, vampires can usually hear without the yelling. Edward's phone rang, he answered in that rushed, sub-human tone so I couldn't hear, and hung up.

All of a sudden the car came to a halt. Edward stiffened for the briefest of seconds, whispering, "Stay here," before disappearing out of the car. Stay here? STAY HERE?! Sure, Edward, I'll just stay right here in the Volvo while you run off into the woods. It's not like there's a psychotic team of vampires out there looking for me! What the hell? Where was he going? Where was James? What was the plan?!

I stared out the window, straining to see anything through the blackened silhouette of trees. Was that him? No, just a tree...Where'd he go? Come on, come on, come on...

WHACK!

"SHIT!" I cried when Edward was thrown into the side of the Volvo, rocking the car violently onto two wheels before it fell back onto all four. "Edward?!" Oh God, he's dead. He's dead...I wanted to cry. No, he can't! Vampires don't die like that! He's fine. He's ok. He's ok, right? Why isn't he moving?! "Edward!" I cried out again.

Just as I was about to throw my door open, my hand already on the handle, Edward jumped up onto his feet, but stayed in a low crouch. A menacing hiss escaped through his bared teeth as he stared into the trees at someone who I obviously couldn't see with my stupid, useless human eyeballs.

Then out of the trees stalked a man with light brown hair. He was plain looking in the face, aside from his creepy-ass red eyes, and moved in a freakishly feline manner. James.

I was so locked in my state of fear and shock that I almost didn't realize he had someone with him, a boy—a human boy. McDouche?!

James pulled him out of the woods by the collar of his light blue button down. I could now see that he was unconscious, slumped awkwardly away from the feral-looking vampire, and covered in...blood. Oh God, the guy was an ass, but that didn't mean he deserved this as an end to his life.

"Hello, Isabella. Or is it, Iris?" James spoke to me for the first time, and his voice was strangely polite with a bit of a lilt to it.

"Leave her out of this!" Edward growled with a sneer. I could only look between the two with strange curiosity. It was probably the shock taking over, or maybe it was all my years of practice keeping cool in the storm of the ER, but all I could focus on was counting McDouche's respirations. I couldn't know the exact rate without a watch, but it didn't seem like it was fast enough. Only one chest rise and fall every ten seconds...he was dying.

•PTaT•

"Please...please...please..." The man was bawling into the doctor's coat. His eyes met mine, and he appeared to be speaking directly to me. I had to help him. I needed to save her. She was his everything, and I didn't save her. How could I not save her? How could I not see that without her, he was nothing? I needed to save her.

•PTaT•

"Iris, this is rather boring. I thought that Edward here would at least make you harder to find. He ran right to you, so predictable..." He sighed and paused theatrically. "And now? Well, you're going to die for his mistake." His tone was offhand, matter of fact, as if discussing the weather like, "Tomorrow there's a fifty percent chance of rain..." Except it was actually more like there was a one hundred percent chance that I would die tonight. Here. Now.

Edward growled ferociously, the noise deafening. There was no denying his true species when I heard the sound. "I said leave her out of this!" He yelled again.

What the hell was going on? I needed to get to Matt. He was dying!

"Drop the kid! It's me you want? Take me!"

"Iris, No!" I rushed forward, and Edward snatched me around the waist, pulling me behind him.

"Give us the girl, and no one gets hurt...well, except the girl, and most likely her friend here, but that's to be expected isn't it?" A sickly sweet, squeaky voice came from the woods, giggling.

Then I saw it. The flaming red hair. Victoria. It was two against one.

•PTaT•

"Please, you don't want to do this. You're a good man." I spoke in an exaggerated calm voice.

"Iris..." Sandy shot a warning glance to me, but I saw no other way out of this. He had us cornered. Sitting ducks.

"It's fine. He's going to put the gun down, and take a walk. Cool down a bit and think this through, aren't you?" I stared back into the dark eyes of death.

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