Chapter 30: EPOV: Wanting

Do not follow me

Do not come after me

They will kill you

"I love you." I said to her; looking her deeply in the eyes, while putting all the pent-up emotion and desire into the words as they fell from my mouth heavily.

She was continuing to refuse us – refuse me; by not allowing herself to hear the truth.

'What are you doing!?' Jacob yelled at me.

Telling her the truth, I thought.

As she turned from Jacob to look at me skeptically, she asked "What did you say?"

It was selfish, to be doing this to her now, but she needed to know – really know, how I felt about her. Jacob had his own truth and reasoning's for being here. Everyone did.

This was mine. This was why we are here as far as I was concerned, everything else was a distant second. The truth we were all tip toeing around could no longer be hidden, just as time was no longer on our side.

"I am in love with you and I have been for eleven years." The words burned with the freedom of escape.

"Stop." Bella said to me, her voice shaking as she stood up.

"You know what love means to our kind Bella. There is no other way, there is no one else, there never was and there never will be." I stood up with her, keeping her in my focus. "I love you." I repeated the words, thankful I was able to say them to her once again.

"No." She shook her head. "You need to leave. I don't know what you're doing or why but you need to leave..."

"You loved me too." I told her fervently, my dead heart tightening with words that were true.

"No."

"You knew what I was when you were still human, you knew and you love me anyway. You knew about my whole family and you loved them too Bella."

"I know I knew about you and your family; that much I believe, but nothing else!"

"Why? Do you believe what the Volturi told you?" I could feel the anger in me starting to rise as the words flew out of my mouth. "That you were some play thing for me? That I used you and when I got bored, I threw you out?"

"That makes more sense to me than anything else." She scoffed.

"You're wrong. You were everything to me. You still are."

The spark in her eyes was one that I recognized as I braced myself for whatever she was about to say.

"Yeah?" She yelled at me. "Then why don't I remember you now? Why did it take you eight years to tell me this? Why have I just met you? I know exactly what it's like to be our kind; what love means to us, and just like I told you in the fields that first day; if it had been someone, I loved I wouldn't have waited so long to find them." She seethed. "You couldn't possible have loved me, or you wouldn't have been able to leave!"

"I left you when you were human to protect you Bella, not because I didn't love you."

"Protect me?"

"Being with me was dangerous for you, I loved you too much I couldn't bear the thought of something happening to you because of me." I explained, feeling like a louse.

"Liar." She fumed. "How could you possibly love a human, it's ridiculous."

"But I did." I admitted to her profoundly. "And I didn't know you had been turned until that day in the field, or I would have come to you."

"I don't believe you!"

"He's telling you the truth Bells." Jacob said to her, himself recognizing her stubbornness coming to light.

"I'm not your 'Bells'" She chafed as she turned on him, "And what do you have to do with all of this anyway?"

"You are my best friend; you knew what I was and you loved me too. I searched for you, the whole time you were gone – all eleven years; I never stopped looking for you. And when I found out what happened to you, or what I thought happened to you, I did what I felt like I had to, that's what lead us to the fields that day. You. I thought you were dead Bella, and when I realized you weren't...well, it's why we are here now." He told her sincerely, then reluctantly added; "And you loved him, even though it made me sick, you did love him Bella. You nearly killed yourself more than once out of love for him." He said to her sadly, then closed his eyes, before adding, "Until you finally did."

Bella was quiet for a moment as she looked at Jacob, then back over to me.

"Please Bella, you must believe us." I pleaded with her. "Trust me."

"Trust you!" She balked. "Ha! I don't trust anything you say to me! Let's pretend for one second that I believe any of this, do you really think that I could trust you? You say you loved me, and yet you left?"

"Yes, and I regret leaving you every second of every day." I told her. "If I could go back, I would Bella. I thought I was doing what was best for you."

"You were doing what was best for you!" She yelled at me, the words catching me off guard. "You don't leave someone you love because you're scared. You don't make decisions for that person as if what they want doesn't matter."

"I know." I confessed.

"No, you don't know. How could you possibly know? You thought you were protecting me, is that it? Protecting me from you?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you change me? You wouldn't have had to worry about it anymore."

I was shocked by the question, something that she had always asked me to do. Something I would have thought she would have understood now that she was a vampire. "I couldn't do that to you, I couldn't be responsible for damning you; for taking your soul. I loved you too much."

"You were a coward." The venom in her words made me flinch, but the burning truth behind them as they came out of her mouth was physically painful. I couldn't think of anything coherent to say to her, so we stood staring at each other.

"I want you both to leave. I don't know if I'll ever remember, and I don't care. You've said what you needed to say, now I want you both to go." She told us after a long thick silence.

"Bella..."

"No Edward. You've said everything you've needed to say and I have heard enough. I want you to go."

"I need you to consider this for a moment, Bella, please. They will take you and we will never see you again." I pleaded with her to understand, she couldn't after everything we had just been through, throw herself away to them.

She shrugged, unfazed and uncaring.

"Bella please..." I begged her, "I love you."

"But I don't love you."

The incomprehensible pain at the words was so overwhelming, I could not hide the devastation from my face.

The words fell from her mouth as easily as her breath, cold and absolute truth.

"Go." She told me, then looked away "And don't come back."

Moving required conscious thought as I slowly made my way to the door. I stopped in front of her, wanting to say something more, while reminding myself that she was not completely her at the moment.

Jacob followed behind me, and as I stepped out the door he stopped in front of her just as I had.

"You don't have to believe either one of us." He explained. "But even you can't deny proof Bella." He said to her, then looked over his shoulder. "And you have to believe yourself." He told her sternly.

"It's all in the box."

I watched with Alice as the vision hit her.

Bella was with the Volturi, and she was being escorted into the castle by Demitri and Felix; each of them holding her as they walked in.

It was only a moment, much shorter than the last sight Alice had had of her marking the tree.

Suddenly the vision changed, and an angry Bella looked onto the other Volturi. Instantly following, the two vampires that were holding her were thrown away, and then the vision abruptly ended.

No one had anything to say, and we didn't have anything to go on.

Alice searched frantically for her future; for any future that involved Bella – she found nothing.

Alice's only words were of loss that echoed my feeling. "She's gone."

Six months later...

I was walking the streets in Perth, Australia when my phone began to ring in my pocket. I knew who it was without having to see the name on the screen, it had been going on like this for months now.

"Jacob." I said as I answered the call.

"Edward."

"Any news?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nope. You?"

"No." I told him as I crossed Berwick St. heading over toward Victoria Park. "If she was here, she isn't now."

"And Alice?" He asked, again going over the same questions.

"No." I said to him, "No on all accounts Jacob."

Bella had been gone for about two months when we all finally accepted that she wasn't just going to show up or call. So, Alice had come up with the idea of splitting up, spreading us all out in hopes that we would stumble across her or that Bella herself would seek out the places where we would be staying.

Alice and Jasper had been in Florida for about four months watching over Bella's mother and Phil. It made since for them to be in sunny Florida rather than anyone else, Alice could more easily track the weather for them there.

Rosalie and Emmett stayed behind in Italy to keep an eye on her house and things in case she decided to come back there. Neither of them was too excited about being so close to the Volturi, but they had volunteered stating that neither of them had any discernible power or gift that would interest them, so they thought they would be the safest bet to stay behind.

Carlisle and Esme went back to New York, where we all had been living before. There was no reason for Bella to go to New York, but with all other places covered they were just waiting for any word to help.

Jacob went home to La Push to watch over Forks. He wanted to be there to help protect the people and watch over Bella's father's family in case the Volturi went to Washington in the hopes of finding her.

And I wandered the globe, following every empty lead that we were told and could find. Alice would get visions of the Volturi tracking her and tell me so I could follow. Only in the beginning when Bella first left had she left any actual trails to follow. She would pull money out of her accounts, or check into a hotel, but by the time any of us were able to get to where she had been, she was of course long gone.

Jacob sighed heavily into the phone "Right... alright then, well... call me..."

"Yes Jacob, of course I will call you." I assured him once again before hanging up. "We'll talk soon."

I wondered the streets for a few more hours before heading toward the airport. There was no pattern of movement to follow so over the last several weeks I had taken up to following my gut. It was no better than what we had all been doing thus far.

I had already been to every place Bella and I had ever talked about going, places she wanted to see, places that I had been and told her about, all the things that she had talked about doing – I'd been through them all, some of them twice.

I even went off the grid, going to parts of the world that no human would go to, or if they did, that no human would survive. And because she was a vegetarian, I'd even thought to go to places that might be palatably appealing; lush rainforests, high mountain tops, vast wilderness and open range – all to no avail.

I never knew where I was headed next, but it was usually either the first available flight available or a destination that would catch my eye and grab my attention.

Standing in Perth International Airport, I heard his approach as I scanned the flight board. Having decided that I would head back to the states, I turned to face him just as he made his approach. "Felix." I greeted him indifferently.

"Demitri told me where to find you." He said, skipping the pleasantries.

"Is he here too."

"No. It's just me."

"That's good." I told him dryly.

"I've just been to Japan, there was some activity that we thought might be Bella."

"Why didn't you call?" I demanded.

Felix had tracked me down with the help of Demitri three months ago, wanting to offer any help he could with finding Bella. Knowing I could hear his thoughts I didn't trust him, but after persistence on his part, and aid from Jasper at one point, I knew that he meant no harm to either Bella or my family.

Demitri I was assured felt the same way, but I couldn't stand to be around him, he also wanted nothing to do with me, which was just as well. He helped Felix, and Felix and I helped each other. It wasn't and ideal system, but it worked.

"It wasn't her."

"Are you sure? How do you know?"

"Yes, I'm sure, I would have called you if I wasn't."

I waited for him to continue, there's usually a good reason Felix show's up in person rather than calling to let me know anything.

"We're headed to Canada."

"We?"

"Yes, we. There was a sighting by one of our guards on assignment up there. Demitri is already on his way to see if he can pick up a trace, but we need you to look in the guy's head, to make sure it was her."

"You really think after six months she'd slip up and let herself be seen? By one of you no less?" I said this to him dismissively, while at the same time walking in the direction of Canadian Air.

Thirty-six hours later we discovered Canada to be a true lead. The sight of Bella through the mind of the guard that had seen her was a welcomed wave a relief, Demitri had also successfully picked up her trace.

We each followed her direction, and after landing in British Columbia we trailed her through Alberta and Saskatchewan before we lost her again at the tip of Manitoba and into the Hudson Bay.

It would be six more months after that before anything of Bella resurfaced.

8/29/11