Nine chapters...Nearly hit the tenth! :D So how about another little competition? :) I'm going to rename all of my chapters with actual names and not just Chapter One, Two, etc. YOU GUYS can chose the names - if you want - but I'm going to name them by Saturday (9th April). Best and most fitting chapter names will be used.

Enjoy!;D

Chapter Nine

Bella

April had refused to explain or mention her new 'power' in any way, annoying Bella. Eventually, she gave up, and focussed on the matter at hand.

"So what do we do now?" she asked. She sat on the bed, hugging her knees close to her. Jasper and April were also in the small hotel room, sitting at opposite sides. Jasper was toying with a pen at the desk and April was sitting on top of a high chest of drawers. Her feet weren't touching the ground, but swinging slightly.

"Hmm?" April murmured. "Oh, right. We wait." That was all she said before looking away and continuing his almost silent humming.

"We wait? For how long?" Bella demanded. "I'm not going to stay in this room all day!"

"Oh, I don't mean waiting in hours. Bella, Celeste might not leave Forks for a long time. We won't stay in Spokane for long - she could find us." April explained nonchalantly.

"What?" Bella exclaimed, quickly bolting upright out of her lounging. "But...I have to go back to Forks!"

"Bella," Jasper said in a composed tone. "We can't go back to Forks - Celeste and her followers want me dead; and that means they will do anything to achieve that. They'll kill my family, friends, anyone I know to try and get to me."

"Yes but, no offense intended, why would they go after me? We're not exactly that close!" Bella insisted.

"It doesn't matter. Does Celeste know that? No. She just knows your relationship with our family." Jasper said slowly, looking away at the last part.

"But then...Couldn't she hurt my friends too? And Charlie? You never said -" Bella was cut off by Jasper again.

"We don't know that. It's..." he paused, sending calming thoughts to Bella. "Possible."

Bella went into panic mode, the faces of her family and friend flashing through her mind. Charlie, Renee, Jacob, Angela, Jessica, Mike, Alice...Alice.

"Wait - where's Alice?" Bella demanded.

"Alice, oh - she wasn't there." April answered quietly, stretching her arms out in front of her.

"'she wasn't there'?" Bella quoted her. "That's it? You're not the least bit worried about her? Where was she in the midst of all this chaos?" She made melodramatic gestures.

"She had left earlier in the day; and wasn't around for anything that happened. She'll probably come back; but we won't be there. We'll find a way to contact her." April said.

"But like you said, Celeste may still be in Forks! What if she finds Alice?" Bella cried, incredibly frustrated. How could Jasper and April not be as worried about Alice as she was?

"Alice has her visions to warn her and a brief knowledge of the Aeternas. She'll be fine." April said, trying to use a soothing tone.

"You don't know that!" Bella cried, earning a calming mental sensation from Jasper. "Stop that!" she snapped at him.

"No, we don't." he said. "That's what Rosalie's doing. She's risking her life to find Alice before Celeste does."

Alice

Alice hummed along with the radio as she came up to the final bend in the winding road up to her house. She could see it in her mind already: A perfect, large white house with certain walls made of glass, and some of pale timber. A wide garage took up a lot of space and was filled with a lot of vehicles and other means of transportation, such as Jasper's new motorcycle and Esme's bicycle.

Where the road cut off there would be a mass of trees, the forest, and neatly trimmed grass surrounding the house. Directly in front of the house by the stairs up to the door were a few flower beds filled with exotic and simple flowers. The stairs up to the door were tucked away neatly and were quite dark, contrasting white double doors. As she approached, Alice expected that she would see her family through the windows; probably talking to Rosalie.

On any other day, Alice would have been overjoyed to see her sister Rosalie, and would have stayed that entire day to talk with her - but there were other issues she had to deal with. Arina had wanted to meet with her to discuss something, but the girl hadn't even shown up!

She'd left Alice with a brief and suspicious text saying: "Can't make it; will talk to you later".

Annoyed, Alice had replied: "Could have given me a warning. See ya".

Nothing came after that - and that was unusual for Arina. She loved to text. Shrugging, Alice concentrated on the road. Those thoughts had passed through her mind in a fraction of a second, and so she was just turning the corner at that moment.

What she saw was nothing like she'd expected. Hell, what she saw was nothing.

Where her family's beautiful, tall house should have been was a burned down remnant of some sort of structure that she barely recognised as the house. Everything was covered in a thick layer of ash, and somewhere Alice still heard the crackling fire. The floor of the second storey of the house had been entirely burned away, and on the lower floor she could see the inside, burned and ruined. Smoke was everywhere, blocking her vision of the area behind the house.

The walls had been destroyed as well, and she could see inside that her favourite wide ice blue couch was burned and lay in ruins. A painful noise erupted from her lips - not because of the couch, but because of what had obviously happened to her house. The garage sat untouched, however, aside from ashes and burn marks at the top where it was attached to the rest of the house.

If the fire had reached the cars, they would have exploded...Alice was surprised that a forest fire hadn't started yet. She also noticed how many vehicles were missing. Edward's old silver Mercedes, Emmett's old black and blue tinted pickup truck, Rosalie's crimson convertible, and Jasper's new black motorcycle. The remaining cars were only Carlisle's silver Ford and Esme's Volkswagen Beetle.

Her bicycle seemed to be crushed by another car and lay in the driveway. Alice leapt out of her brand new yellow Porsche and sprinted up to the house. As she hurried up the stairs and skipped the door, jumping over the remnant of a wall, she saw that behind the house was where the fire continued. A few bushes and a tall tree had caught fire, and as Alice's gaze followed the blaze she saw that the small gardening shed was on fire as well.

How could this have happened? She thought. She knew that vampires weren't careless - it was impossible for them to accidently start a fire, much less let it spread. And they had to have been at home. They had no reason to all leave. But most of the cars are missing.

She began to relax a little, thinking that everyone had probably left beforehand. A chill was sent down her spine as she noticed something in the living room, discarded behind some burned furniture. Alice choked on a gasp and slowly turned, a quiet sob escaping her lips. She hurried over to the large table, easily sending it flying through the air and crashing somewhere outside of the house.

What she saw strewn across the ground made her stomach lurch and her hand shot up to cover her mouth as she cried out. Alice staggered back and sank to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. Those pale; horrifying objects were distinctly body parts. Hands, arms, legs... Alice counted enough for one whole person, and she was sure who that person was. The limbs were small and feminine, but the legs were short and so it couldn't be Rosalie or April.

Shaking, Alice realised that this was Esme. She saw brownish-red curls of hair sticking out from behind an object that was too burned to distinguish. Alice backed up, sobbing tearlessly. In her retreat, she crashed into something that definitely wasn't furniture. She spun around to face another horror - a frozen, ash-covered corpse with an unchanging expression of horrific pain. Gasping, she held back a scream as she barely recognised the blackened face. This person was definitely dead, and missing a few limbs. Alice shook violently and sank to the ground, sobbing and screaming in rage.

It was Carlisle.

Jasper

Finally, they got a call from Alice.

As soon as he saw the caller ID, Jasper put his cell phone on speaker, shushing April and Bella.

"Alice?" he said.

"Oh, God, Jasper," Alice sobbed. "You...Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, April and Bella are with me." Jasper reassured her. "What's wrong?"
"Jasper, oh...Esme and – and..." Alice cut off, her loud breaths hard.

"Alice, just calm down, okay?" Jasper soothed. "It's okay. Now where are you?" Alice calmed her breathing and took a loud, deep breath before continuing.

"Okay," she murmured. "Okay, okay. I'm driving, heading out of Forks. I don't know where to go."

"Alright, Alice, we're in...Spokane." Jasper said slowly. "I can explain everything to you when you get here -"

"Explain?" Alice shrieked, whatever control she had slipping abruptly. "They're dead, Jasper! Carlisle and Esme! They were killed!"

"What?" Bella and April cried simultaneously.

"What happened, Alice?" Jasper demanded. Even his calm voice shook slightly.

"I – I went home and – and the house – oh Jasper, it's burned to the ground. Esme, and – and Carlisle, they're dead. I don't know wh-who did it but..." Alice stopped, weeping again.

"I know who did." Jasper said gravely. "Alice, you need to hurry."

"Who was it? Who did it?" Alice demanded, her voice shaking. "I'll kill them."

"Alice, for now you need to concentrate on -" Jasper was cut off by the sound of screeching tires. "Alice?" he said, alarmed. She didn't respond, but her panting breaths were audible. "Alice! What happened?" There was more screeching tire noises and a few honks. A huge crash alarmed them.

"I'm okay!" Alice shouted over the noise. Static was building over the line. "Someone – jumped in front – of the car -" She sounded as if she was trying to do something else whilst speaking.

"I'll call – you back!" she panted.

"Okay – And Alice, please hurry." Jasper said, hanging up the phone.

Alice

As Alice had been on the phone with Jasper, someone had jumped in front of her car. She knew at once that they weren't human, but didn't tell Jasper that as she didn't want to worry him. Alice knew that this was a vampire because of the way they moved, swiftly and unhesitatingly sprinting to get in front of Alice's Porsche. She'd seen the vampire before it had made its move, but she hadn't expected it to do this.

Alice had swerved desperately to avoid it – it's not like she'd kill the vampire but firstly: If people were watching they'd think it strange that someone actually survived. And secondly: Alice really didn't want to mess up her new car.

She pulled to the side of the road – but it wasn't there. Instead, her car slipped and slid down into a ditch, jerking and bumping Alice around inside. Quickly, she tried to move the car, to drive it uphill. As grimly expected, it didn't work, and she got out. A few people had gathered to watch the action; all had gotten out of one car. They watched in amazement as Alice got out of the ditch completely unharmed.

"I'm okay," she assured them quietly, seeing their astonished faces. Alice didn't stick around to see what they said; instead she looked around for the vampire that had cost her to drive her car into a ditch. When she didn't see them, Alice decided she'd have to go by foot the rest of the way to Spokane – which wasn't difficult with her speed.

She quickly cut through at a human pace to the trees on either side of the highway – luckily there weren't many cars – and once she was hidden by the thick plants she set off. Alice ran as fast as she could, not because she felt she was being pursued – and she did – but because Jasper had said to hurry, meaning there was probably something important waiting for her.

April

There was a knock at the door.

Naturally, April stood to get it, but Jasper was already up, signalling for her to stay. Bella had been sobbing for Carlisle and Esme quietly, and April and Jasper hadn't tried to comfort her – if you didn't count his soothing thoughts towards her.

Jasper opened the door slowly, but when he saw the person outside he opened it fully and let her in. It was Rosalie, his sister. But isn't she supposed to be finding Alice...? April thought. Before Alice's call they sent Rose out to find her.

"Did you go back to Forks?" Jasper asked quietly. Rosalie closed the door behind her and walked inside, leaning against the far wall.

"No. I've been here." By 'here' she probably meant Spokane.

"Doing what? We told you to go find Alice!" Jasper said. Rosalie's expression darkened slightly.

"I'm not going back to Forks – not for now at least." She paused, looking at everyone individually. "I looked around the city a little bit and I couldn't find any other vampires. Not surprising, the murders this year have been pretty low." She smiled.

"It's actually a pretty great city. But the woods are tiny – I don't think the space is big enough for us to..." –her eyes trailed to Bella for a second before darting away– "Hunt."

"Well I wasn't really planning on us staying here for long." Jasper murmured.

"When will we go back, then? This Celeste person won't stick around for too long – Forks really isn't that interesting." Rosalie said.

"Rosalie," Jasper said quietly. "We were just on the phone with Alice. She told us about Carlisle, and Es-Esme."

"What is it?" Rose said seriously. "What happened to them?" No one replied, but they all looked apologetic. Bella had stopped crying, but tears still streamed down her face. She sat up at looked at Rosalie.

"We can't go back. Not for a while. Alice, she-she said that C-Carlisle and Es-Es-Esme were dead." She finally managed. Jasper and April looked down solemnly.

"What?" Rosalie cried. "No! No! Who killed them? Who?"

"Celeste." Bella answered quietly, keeping calm with no help from Jasper. "I think she's waiting for us – trying to lure us back into Forks. Well," she paused. "She only wants Jasper."

"Jasper?" Rose asked, confused. "Why Jasper?"

"Because he's part of the Hostium. That's what he's been hiding from us – I guess he hasn't told you yet. He's the leader of some weird group against what Celeste is. I bet she just loves Jasper." Bella said sarcastically.

"Jasper?" Rose repeated. "So..." the pain in her face disappeared for a second. "Why are we here? If Celeste is after him, there's really no reason for us to stick around." Honestly, Jasper seemed a little hurt.

"Because we're...family," Jasper swallowed. "Celeste will kill you to get to me." he turned to April and Bella. "As you know, she'll kill my friends as well. It's not worth the risk."

"Whatever." Rosalie's voice shook slightly. "Call Alice. See how close she is." She started heading towards the door.

"Where will you be?" Jasper asked.

"I'll be around."

Cut off ending...I have to go to school now! Haha hope you enjoyed!

Please review :)