A Bad Deal?
The Chariot of Hell
The screech of tires. The loud whine of the motor. The excited cries of the black Sedan's passengers as they rounded a sharp turn, with the exception of one frightened and nervous brunette.
"Come on Bells, don't be such a grump!" Alice laughed as she shoved Bella's shoulder, causing the girl to bump into Jasper. She was currently sandwiched between him and Alice in the back seat. "Rosie bought you on this little excursion. You should make the most of it. It's not everyday we have someone other than us on these trips."
"Yea, sure," Bella mumbled out, not at all in the mood for this. It was currently two in the morning and for some inexplicable reason, the cool kids of Fork high thought now would be a good idea to drive around town toilet papering people's houses. It was so juvenile and irresponsible and Bella kept fretting over what would happen to her if they got caught. Her father would hear about it and then she'd be in so much trouble!
She wanted no part in this. Why Rosalie had even dragged her out for this was beyond her. What would it accomplish? To show how cool her friend group was? Which they totally weren't if they did such childish things. Maybe Rosalie wanted to show Bella that she did do things with her friends? Apparently Bella had touched a nerve when she had accidentally blurted out that Rosalie didn't seem to hang out with her friends a lot.
Ugh, I don't know, Bella sighed to herself. She'd never understand the mind of popular kids.
"You don't sound very convincing," Alice said, poking Bella painfully in the side. "Rosie!" she called out to the front of the car, where Rosalie was seated in the passenger seat, Emmett the one who was driving the car, haphazardly swerving between lanes and disregarding stop signs and lights. "Bella's being a downer. Let's give her some paper. Maybe it'll make her get into a better mood."
"No, I don't want to-" But Bella's protests were cut off by a roll of paper hitting her in the nose. Bella fumbled to catch it before it fell to the floor.
"You're helping us do the next house," Jasper smiled at her as Alice slung an arm around the brunette's shoulders.
"No, it's fine. You guys do it, it's clearly your tradition."
"No way! Rosie invited you over, so clearly she thinks you should be doing this," Alice shot Rosalie a look that was imbued with some sort of secondary meaning, one that flew over Bella's head because she had no context to decipher it with.
It upset Rosalie because she frowned. But she didn't say anything else.
"Here. This house. Victor was being an ass, and cramping up my style as I was trying to hit on this girl at the party," Emmett braked the car in front of a nice house with a trim lawn and willow tree in front.
Victor must have been some guy on the football team, as Emmett was a football player. "Got it," Jasper nodded his head. "No one messes with your flow." They all clambered out except for Emmett who had to stay in the car in case they needed to make a quick get away.
Bella's mouth felt dry as she followed after them. They were all dressed in black, and sneaking across the lawn, giggling quietly to themselves. "Jasper, Alice and I will get the house. You do the tree," Rosalie instructed.
"Sure," Bella nodded her head, sort of glad she didn't have to do the house. Still, she really didn't want to disrespect someone's property so it was with shaking arms that she threw the roll of toilet paper over the tree branches, looping it around. It was a hard job, her aim pretty much sucking and leaving her to have to redo it multiple times in order to get some sort of mess going.
"Go go," came Jasper's urged whisper as he and his friends retreated from the house to go back into the car. Bella followed after them, grabbing the remains of her roll. Jasper and Alice dove into the back seat first, Bella barely managing to make it in as Emmett's wheels were already spinning.
Bella closed the car door as he speed off, leaving tire tracks on the road.
"That was fun. Now it's time for house number five. Whose is it?" Rosalie asked.
"I think it's Meg's house," Jasper answered.
"That whore?" Alice wrinkled up her nose. "The one who tried to spread the rumor that she and Eddy had something going on?"
"Yea, her," Emmett confirmed. He tapped his thumbs on the car wheel. "Too bad Eddy's out sick though. He would have loved to do her house. Maybe we should skip it out of courtesy for him?"
"Hmm, maybe," Alice tapped her chin with a slender finger.
"We have a couple more houses left so I'm sure that we can put Meg's house off," Jasper suggested.
"Skipping Meg's house it is then," Emmett affirmed.
There's more? Bella internally whined. I thought doing four houses would be enough. How many more do they intend to do? Well, at least it explained why the houses in Fork's would suddenly seem to be toilet papered over night. She wondered if anyone knew it was them.
"You know Bella, you can't tell anyone about this," Alice chimed in, interrupting Bella's thoughts.
"Oh, I wouldn't think of doing that," Bella assured, serious on all accounts. She knew from experience to keep her mouth shut about such things.
"Really?" Alice raised a disbelieving brow.
Bella didn't like the dark look in Alice's eyes. Bella unconsciously slunk closer to the car door, letting her back lean on it. "Yes," she breathed out as Alice peered closer to her.
"Because if you did even entertain thoughts of doing such a thing-" Alice leaned in and pressed something behind Bella's back and suddenly the brunette was aware that she was falling backwards.
"Shit!" She cried out as her hands scrabbled to make purchase on something, the edge of the car door, anything. Alice's hand snaked out and grabbed the front of her shirt, catching her before she fell out the car.
The wind whipped around Bella's head, her brown locks spreading out around her as her breath came in gasped breaths. She was painfully aware of how close the cement was to her face and how it blurred past her.
"Ah, ah," she uttered out, the only thing she was capable of in this moment, fear pumping through her veins.
"-we'd hurt you. Bad." Alice smiled down at Bella, yelling over the wind. "So don't think about it. Do you hear me?" Alice shook Bella by the front of her shirt and Bella felt herself slip even further down. She flailed her hands around to try and pull herself up but she couldn't.
"I promise. I promise I won't tell anyone!" Bella shrieked out.
"Good girl," Alice smiled and pulled Bella back up inch by slow inch. When Bella was finally back in her seat, Alice closed the door. Bella immediately clicked her seat belt into place, not willing to take another chance.
Alice chuckled at this. "Remember to keep your promise. If you don't people will know how involved in this you were. Then what would daddy say?" Alice hummed, patting down some stray hairs from Bella's face in a show of gentle care.
"Alice," Rosalie growled from the front seat. Her eyes looked black in the rear view mirror reflection. "If you break my toy-"
"I won't. We're best friends now, aren't we Bella?" Alice tugged Bella close to her, cheek to cheek. Alice was smiling innocently while Bella couldn't even say anything, still too shook by what had happened. She was vaguely aware she was shaking uncontrollably.
Rosalie scoffed but turned to looking out the window.
"Next stop, coming up," Emmett announced as he rounded the car up a street sidewalk.
This pattern continued for the next four houses they hit up. They'd sneak out, toilet paper the house, the garden, even the cars if there were some out on the driveway, and then rush back into the car. Bella made sure to always click in her seat-belt each time, not wanting to risk Alice going psycho on her again. Who knew that the delicate looking girl could be scary.
One time, as a joke, they had moved the car forward each time Bella had reached for the door handle. It was hilarious to them but annoying to her. Especially when they made her run a full block just to catch up to them, the car staying a tantalizingly couple of feet away. When she had finally clambered into the car, sweaty and out of breath, she had been greeted to a chorus of laughs which only made her fume harder, but which she could do nothing about.
When five in the morning hit, Rosalie told Bella that it was ultimately time to return her home. Bella couldn't be happier. Finally this stupid night would be over and she could get some much needed sleep. But imagine to her surprise that when she got out of the car so did everyone else, hands holding rolls of the white gauzy paper.
"Last house, Bells," Alice tossed Bella the paper roll.
"What?" Bella swallowed hard, looking at the paper in her hands like it was something strange and foreign.
"She's a bit slow," Rosalie explained to Alice. "She'll need you to spell it all out."
"We're toilet papering your house. And you're helping us," Emmett told Bella and watched as the girl's face took on a horrified expression. Bella took a step back, then two.
"You can't be serious."
"Oh, we are," Jasper smiled cruelly. "Now do it. Before daddy dearest wakes up."
Bella closed her eyes as she gathered the resolve to go through with this absurdity. Like ripping off a bandage. The sooner I do this, the sooner it'll be over.
Bella opened her eyes and strode forward, taking the initiative and being the first one to throw the paper roll over her house.
"Ooo," Emmett said in happy surprise. "Looks like someone is beginning to like this." He clasped Rosalie on her shoulder hard. "You don't think you'll let me borrow her sometime? I got some things I could use help with."
"She's not yours," Rosalie brusquely stated, brushing his hand off and striding forwards to join Bella in throwing paper.
Emmett smiled before whispering to himself. "How cute. It seems Rosalie is getting a bit territorial."
The teens all managed to completely cover Bella's house. Bella found it slightly ironic. A form of karma. This was her payback for ruining other people's property. "Alright. I'm done," Bella said through gritted teeth, tossing the cardboard roll to the ground. "I'm going to bed now." Then she entered the house and closed the door on the horrible night, hoping that when she woke up it would all be over.
A/N: For some reason I'm always inclined to making Alice a bitch in Rosella stories. Don't know why; its just the flow of how the story goes. Additionally I think there's only a handful of chapters left of Rose being a bitch before she and Bella start getting along.
