A/N: I have a bit of good news for you. I have already finished the next two chapters and working on the third—at least procrastination is good for something! This means you'll get a new chapter every week, at least for the next three weeks. (If I forget to update, please remind me. I'm ridiculously forgetful at the moment!) I really, really, really want to finish this story before I get too busy with exams.

I am a in a bit of a dilemma where the next few chapters are concerned. Things are going to get ugly really soon and I am not sure I'll be able to keep within the T rating Lifelines currently has. I'd rather not change it, but having said that, I also really don't want to change what I have already written. What I could do is write a T version and upload the M version as a new story. What do you think? Should I just change the rating and leave the chapter as it is or try to write a second T-rated version? I will do the latter if you want me to, but I can't promise that it will be any good.

I have received so many lovely reviews for the last chapter. Thank you all so much! It makes my day every time I see one in my inbox. I want to especially thank pnkats, who went back and reviewed every chapter. Also, thank you everyone who added Lifelines to your favourites/alert lists and me to your favourite author/author alert lists. This means as much to me as getting reviews!

A very special thank you to KayMarieXW, who is the best beta you could possibly have!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga is property of Stephenie Meyer. I'm only borrowing.

38. SHOWTIME, PART 1

BELLA

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

Ambrose Redmoon

-oOo-

As I strode towards the exit, it was hard to resist the urge to glance over my shoulder at where Edward was standing. If I'd spread my shield over him, an exercise that had become surprisingly easy in the last few days, I'd have been able to feel his comforting presence inside my mind and listen to his thoughts, but I fought the temptation.

I needed to focus.

I felt very self-conscious as I headed for the cab stand where Alice had seen me get ambushed. I didn't like feeling this way. I was a vampire—I was fast and strong and nearly invincible and nothing should frighten me. But I was frightened now, scared even and my fear mixed with a strong feeling of apprehension. Knowing what was going to happen didn't help; it only made it worse because of the inevitability of it all. Although I kept telling myself that I was the one in control, that I was here on purpose, it did nothing to ease my anxiety. I was glad that my body could no longer betray my feelings. My heart should have been pounding in my chest, giving me away. But it was mercifully silent and for that I was grateful.

So far everything had gone according to plan—well, except for Edward's little intervention—and that should have been comforting, but I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and I was pretty certain that I wouldn't like it much when it did. Victoria had repeatedly proven that she was just as good a strategist as Jasper, probably even more cunning as there no lengths she wouldn't go to in order to get what she wanted. The only thing stronger than her desire for revenge seemed to be her sense of self-preservation. Considering her actions in the past and her need for self-preservation, we counted on her to run should she figure out what was going on and not confront us directly, with the bulk of her army to support her. And then go on a killing spree later that put everything she'd thrown at us so far to shame. So, really, there was nothing to worry about.

Oh, who was I kidding? Helena was, for all intents and purposes, Victoria's home base and probably crawling with vampires. Unless she wanted to kill me with her own hands, which was what we were all hoping for, sick as that sounded, there was absolutely no reason for her to be here. She could easily have them dispose of Edward and me, maybe even have them tape it so that she could enjoy our demise over and over again.

Now wasn't that thought disturbing?

But surely Alice would know if something like that was going to happen. In fact, Jasper had even allowed for it in his planning; he was nothing if not thorough. In the hopefully unlikely event that our plan went south, their mission objective would change from 'Kill Victoria!' to 'Get Bella—and Edward—out in one piece!'.

Since Alice hadn't called or texted I assumed that everything was fine. Worrying was absolutely pointless, but I couldn't help it. So much for my optimism.

At least the weather was exactly as Alice had predicted. The sky was practically black and I sensed the change in the air that heralded the approaching thunderstorm; the skin on my neck prickled.

I had almost reached the line of waiting cabs. Just a few more steps and then Alice's vision would come true. My mouth went dry. At least you're not alone, I reminded myself. At that thought, some of the lingering disappointment I felt over Edward's decision faded. I was grateful for his presence, even knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to help me if something went wrong. Alice, who'd finally calmed down enough to form coherent sentences again, had made it clear that under no circumstances was Edward to follow me and my 'escort' to the abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the woods where they'd take me.

Edward had promised to meet up with them at the rendezvous instead, but after his admission on the plane I had my doubts. His honesty had surprised me, and it had been painfully obvious how much admitting that he didn't know if he could ever change had cost him. Also, he'd given me a way out and I knew that, at least for a moment, he'd been convinced I would take it. There was still so much darkness in his mind, so much pain and self-loathing and regret. He was broken inside, scarred, and I felt so sad for him, even though he was the one who'd left, not the other way around. I was the only thing that stood between him and the darkness—losing me would mean losing himself and he was prepared to do everything in his power to keep that from happening. Even if that meant sentencing innocent people to die.

I didn't believe for a second that Edward didn't care about the human lives Victoria would take, no matter what he'd said; he wasn't that kind of person. Their deaths would haunt him for the rest of eternity. But he wasn't thinking straight, that much was clear. His thoughts were terribly muddled. He didn't know what to do, what was the right thing to do. At the moment, he seemed to be governed by concern and fear, not reason.

I didn't blame him. How could I blame him for loving me? But I was acutely aware of how much more complicated things would get if Edward didn't do as Alice had said. Please, I thought, wishing I could somehow open my mind to him. Please don't follow me, Edward. It would be better for both of us.

Two seconds had passed. The cluster of trees on the other side of the street shook violently in the wind. One more step and I could reach for the door handle of a waiting cab. Its driver had already noticed me. His eyebrows were raised expectantly; he was waiting for me to hurry up and get in. Suddenly the air swirling around me, fresh and clear up until a heartbeat ago, carried the sweet scent of a vampire directly to me.

I stiffened and turned in the direction I thought it was coming from; the wind was blowing so strongly that it was hard to tell. Only a few people stood on the sidewalk, most of them carrying opened umbrellas although it hadn't started raining yet. My eyes swept over them as I searched for the source of the scent.

Scarlet eyes stared back at me.

My breath caught in my throat. I didn't move as I met his gaze, taking in his appearance: he was slightly taller than me, with a square face and short-cropped blond hair. He looked like he had been in his mid-twenties when he was changed. His lips were curved into an excited smile and a shiver ran down my spine; the smile was unsettling.

A woman stepped in my line of sight, madly swinging a black umbrella. When she was gone, the vampire had vanished. Behind me the air stirred, barely noticeable because of the wind, and if I hadn't been expecting it, I would never have noticed. Although I'd been waiting for it, I still flinched. Tendrils of fear invaded my mind. For one terrible moment, no longer than a fraction of a second, I was sure that I was in over my head, that this was insane and suicidal and that I should never have come. What on earth was I thinking?

But then I drew a deep breath. Everything was going according to plan. Things were happening exactly as Alice had seen. No reason to worry. The fear receded, but it was still there, waiting for a moment of weakness. Remember what Jasper said, I told myself. Fear is a good thing. It makes you more careful, more alert. This is good!

The vampire behind me was standing so close that his chest touched my back when he inhaled. He clearly had absolutely no respect for personal space. Slowly, I turned around, elbows tucked in so that I wouldn't accidentally touch him. The thought made my skin crawl. I found myself facing a chest as wide as a barrel, the muscles underneath the black t-shirt he wore perfectly sculptured. My eyes travelled up to meet his. And up.

He was huge.

Alice's vision hadn't done him justice. He was taller than Jake and twice as broad as Emmett, with the physique of a professional boxer. Next to him I instantly felt tiny and insignificant. He towered over me, regarding me thoughtfully with black eyes; he hadn't fed in a while. His thick, black eyebrows were the dominating features in his round and not unkind face. His head was bald. He reminded me of Michael Chiklis, who'd played The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies.

Seth, aside from his devotion to Stargate and basically any TV series slash movie that had a 'star' in its name, also had a thing for comic books and their movie adaptations.

I gaped at him, my mouth open. Talk about overkill. Victoria really wasn't taking any chances.

I gave myself a little shake to snap out of it.

"Excuse me?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. I hoped he didn't notice how nervous I was. "Do I know you?" As I wasn't supposed to know that Victoria had set up camp in Helena, I had to act surprised—and annoyed. The former wasn't feigned; I was still stunned by how huge this guy was. He looked like he could crush Emmett with his pinky finger. What if Victoria had more vampires like him? We'd never stand a chance.

Too late to worry about that now.

The vampire didn't answer. His thoughtful expression turned into a frown and his eyes flicked briefly at something behind me. Before I had time to react, let alone turn around, an arm was wrapped around my stomach, capturing my arms, and pulled me back. I stumbled backwards, crashing into what felt like a brick wall. A second arm closed around my neck, crushing my windpipe. Reflexively, I gasped for air—but nothing happened. The second vampire started dragging me away from the cabs. I dug the heels of my boots into the pavement. If I didn't resist, they'd know something was wrong.

Realising I was leaving drag marks that were anything but inconspicuous, the vampire gave an irritated grunt and lifted me up, somehow managing to stay clear of my swinging legs when I tried to kick him in the shin. We were heading towards a black SUV with tinted windows that was parked a little distance away.

"Hey!" I heard a male voice called out tentatively. The cab driver had stuck his head out the door, eyes wide, and was already holding his cell phone in his head. Then the vampire giant half turned, a low growl rumbling in his chest, and the man slipped quickly back into the car.

By now we were alone. The wind was howling through the trees with so much force that branches snapped like twigs. Fallen leaves, grit and all sorts of debris were lifted up into the air and hurled every which way. Everyone had taken shelter inside and it was too dark to see what was going on outside despite the street lamps that had flashed to life a few minutes ago.

The first vampire tossed my bag, which he'd picked up after I'd dropped it, into the trunk, then held the rear door of the SUV open while the second vampire wrestled me inside by diving headfirst into the backseat, with me still pinned firmly to his body. He pressed me into the leather upholstery face-down, using his entire weight to keep me restrained, and he was heavy. I heard the door slam shut. An instant later the driver's door opened. The metal frame of the car groaned audibly as the vampire climbed in. From the corner of my eyes, I saw him peer around the headrest.

"You sure that's her?" he asked after a moment, sounding dubious. "She's so… skinny." The look he gave me clearly said that sending him to pick me up was a waste of his time.

For a moment I forgot to fight back. Skinny?

I felt the second vampire shrug. "Fits the description," he said indifferently. "Besides, you know how paranoid the Old Lady is." He snorted. "Or desperate would be more accurate, I guess. She wants her badly."

Old Lady? Victoria? Did she know they were calling her that? Probably not because I was pretty sure that if she did, she'd make them stop. Forcibly.

"Craig's going to love her, in any case," the vampire continued. He sounded like he didn't care much about this Craig guy or whether Victoria got what she wanted.

The vampire in the driver's seat looked like he wanted to say something, the crease in his forehead as deep as the Grand Canyon, but then he only shrugged, turned around and started the car.

Craig? The vampire who'd created Austin to ensure Lambert's cooperation? Edward had mentioned him once, after the disturbing realisation that Victoria had successfully manipulated the Cullens into moving to Anchorage. I knew nothing about him, other than that he was obviously just as crazy as Victoria, maybe even more so, as he'd practically given his protégé Lambert's daughter as a toy to play with. And from what Edward had said later that day, I had deduced that Austin had had a masochistic, maybe even sociopathic, streak himself.

I already knew how suspect Victoria's taste in men was. She had been mated to James after all. There was a chance that this Craig was as bad as him or maybe even worse. The possibility was chilling and it made me wonder if maybe killing human women who looked like me and little girls who shared parts of my name hadn't been Victoria's idea after all. Victoria was driven by revenge and full of hatred, but until Anchorage her strategy had always been very straightforward—she had confronted me more or less head-on, either by coming after me herself or by sending vampire after vampire to Forks, hoping I'd show up there and she'd get lucky. It was probably safe to assume that she'd picked up a thing or two about mind games from James during their time together, but what had happened in Anchorage had been very… elaborate, for lack of a better word, and coming up with these things required a truly twisted mind. Going after my friends and family to draw me out seemed more like something Victoria would do—it was much more direct, and more painful, than killing strangers.

So maybe it was Craig who'd really come up with the idea of the murders and Victoria had just gone along. At least one of the women she'd killed herself. Her idea? Or Craig's? And whose idea had it been, then, to make the Cullens move to Anchorage? Because by reuniting us, she'd made me an even more difficult target and that couldn't be what she wanted. Or was it? Did she want to kill Edward as well? First kill me and then, probably after making him watch the whole thing, destroy him like he'd destroyed James?

Possibly. Killing us would require far less effort when we were more or less in the same place instead of a thousand miles apart. If that was true, then both of us here might be enough temptation for Victoria to throw safety overboard, provided she was certain it wasn't a trap.

But what about the army she had supposedly created? Surely they'd be ample protection. Unless… unless… I felt like I was missing something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Why create so many vampires and then send them after us three or four at the time? That made no sense and was also a waste of resources. Sure, there were always more where they'd come from, but still.

On the other hand, since Austin's destruction, there hadn't been another vampire in Anchorage—aside from us, of course. It was possible that Victoria had changed tactics. Then again, she probably didn't even know that he was dead yet.

I scowled into the leather seat. God, trying to figure out Victoria was like entangling a ball of yarn—frustrating and time-consuming.

What did she need an entire army for if not for coming after me? Or us? Having them sit idly for longer than was absolutely necessary was idiotic, not to mention suicidal, because they were bound to attract attention sooner or later. Unless Victoria didn't care about that. She probably thought she'd be off the hook if the Volturi came to investigate because she'd be able to escape unscathed. Running for the rest of eternity certainly wasn't desirable, but at least she'd have her revenge.

I suddenly felt vaguely sick. Was that her plan? Create an overwhelming number of vampires and send them to Anchorage to slaughter us? But why hadn't she done it yet? Because she didn't have the necessary numbers? Victoria was careful—she wouldn't want to take any chances.

This had to end today. Before her army came to Anchorage, looking for us.

While we drove, they were silent aside from the occasional remark about the weather; they didn't seem to be friends or have anything in common. The vampire driving glanced over his shoulder to look at me every time we stopped at a red light and from what I saw, with my face half-pressed into the seat, he didn't seem to be too happy about the situation. But he didn't say anything.

The vampire holding me down hadn't moved an inch and I was stuck. I struggled, but without neither legs nor arm free to move, the effort was pointless. Hopefully, it would be enough to convince them that I wasn't coming along voluntarily. Then again, I wasn't acting. I couldn't have freed myself if my life depended on it; he had me completely immobilised.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his voice laced with suspicion, as the car did a sharp turn to the right. The smooth asphalt turned into uneven gravel. The SUV bounced up and down as the driver steered it down the winding road. The noise of traffic faded quickly. It was silent, the kind of eerie, charged silence before a large storm.

"Taking a short cut," the driver muttered, sounding irritated. There sure was no love lost between these two.

"Really?" The vampire holding me still seemed suspicious. "I've been in this part of the woods and this road leads nowhere. It ends in a couple of miles."

The driver growled. The sound, like the deep rumble of thunder, only with a menacing edge, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Then we'll walk the rest of the way," he grated. "Jesus, Craig told us to get her home as fast as possible. Last time I checked, I could outrun a damn Ferrari!" The last sentence was delivered in a deafening roar.

"What the hell is your problem?" my captor snarled, pushing himself up on his knees, as if expecting his accomplice to jump him any second and not wanting to be totally defenceless. The weight on my legs vanished.

For a moment that felt like hours instead of less than a second, I didn't know what to do. In her vision, Alice hadn't seen me managing—or even trying—to escape, but neither had she seen the two of them argue. Obviously, whatever was going on between them had changed the future Alice had predicted, although it seemed to be a rather minor change. If I didn't at least try to run now that, they'd probably start wondering what was wrong with me because anyone who'd been taken against their will would use the first chance they got to escape. And if they figured out that I had allowed myself to be taken…

Though if they had caught you completely by surprise like they think they did, I reflected sardonically, you'd probably still have ended up on the backseat of this car, with a two hundred pound vampire on top of you.

Said vampire's attention was still focused on the driver. If I waited any longer, he'd probably remember that he was supposed to keep me immobilised. Hopefully, I wouldn't screw up Alice's other visions too much—though I doubted they could get any worse—if I ran. Or at least tried to.

Here goes nothing.

Excitement swept through my body at the thought. Up until this moment I had only been in control in theory; now I'd make them see that I wasn't the easy prey they thought I was. It was a shame that I would have to let them catch me again.

Twisting my hip in a motion that should have been impossible, I swung my legs around. The driver's seat was in the way. My feet crashed through it as easily as a knife cut through butter. The driver squawked, startled. As he stomped on the brakes, we were flung back against the seat, the vampire on top of me struggling to keep his arms wrapped around my torso. The car lurched forward once more, skidding across the crunching gravel. Then it stood still.

The arm around my throat suddenly disappeared, until I saw it reach past me for my legs. Air streamed down my throat and I inhaled greedily—being cut off from my sense of smell had been beyond unpleasant. Turning my head, I bit the vampire hard as I could, just below his shoulder, my teeth slicing easily through his jacket and the shirt underneath.

He grunted in pain—Jasper had told me that the venom stung—and his grip around my waist loosened. Finally my arms were free. Pushing his arm aside, I dove for the door. The driver twisted out of the destroyed seat and lunged at me, but I was faster. His hands closed around air. The rear door popped away as I slammed into it and crashed against a tree, glass exploding everywhere. Slowly, it slid down.

I was on my feet and in motion before it hit the ground.

I didn't look back.

A/N: So? What do you think? Please, please, please review!