chapter vi
-
The roads don't change. No matter how far or fast Edward drives, the roads remain steadfast in the paths they wind around the country, leading down to the same places over and over again. It never changes. Sometimes, though, he wishes they would, that he would reach somewhere different.
They arrive in Seattle on a rainy afternoon; hand over hand on the steering wheel, eyes watchful through the constant thump of the windshield wipers. Something, hope or fear, is chasing Edward. He can feel the end of the chase swelling up around him, like water at the high tide, and the thought curls the edges of his mind with fear. The end.
"Edward?" Jacob says from beside him, eyebrows raised.
Edward shakes his head. "It's nothing."
The ending is coming, and for the first time in his life, Edward can't avert it.
-
Seattle is a rainy, grey city, with oppressively tall skyscrapers stabbing into the sky. Six steps down the street away from the Volvo, Jacob shakes raindrops out of his thick hair, pulling a face, and Edward forgets to look away quickly enough. Jacob catches the look.
"I've forgotten how damn rainy wet it is on the coast," he complains, running a hand through his hair and making it stand upright. "We should've stayed in California."
"It rains almost as much there," Edward points out.
Rather than replying, Jacob pops up the collar of his jacket, hunching his shoulders until his face is mostly covered. "You're a regular little ray of sunshine," he grumbles. "How far away is this rental place?"
"A couple blocks."
"Cool," Jacob says, grinning. "Are you going to make me breakfast?"
"I'm going to steal blood from the butchers. You can get your own food."
Shaking his head, Jacob elbows him in the side, saying, "It's like you don't even care that I'm going to starve to death."
His eyes are dark, but when he looks up to the clouded sky they almost reflect the dull light, raindrops smattering across the sharp curve of his cheekbones, irises are almost translucent. Edward looks away again.
"Dude, you're kind of freaking me out with all the staring," Jacob says. "Something on your mind?"
Edward shakes his head, pressing the crosswalk button and looking across the street. He can't explain it, the sudden urge to study every angle of Jacob's smile, the blunt lines of his jaw and the tiny creases in the corners of his eyes. He just keeps snatching glimpses, covertly trying to piece it together in his mind. "Not really," he retorts.
"If I could read your mind, this would be so much easier on the both of us," Jacob says, sighing. "We wouldn't even have to talk."
The crosswalk figure lights up and they start across the street under the accusing glares of the waiting cars, headlights bright through the rain.
"Probably," Edward agrees. They both step onto the curb as the red hand starts to flash, and keep walking. There are only a few other people on the streets, probably because it's raining, but the streets are choked with cars, lights refracting in Edward's eyes until his blinks the raindrops away. The heavy clouds make it seem like the night has started early.
They don't talk again until they get to the condo, which is set in the corner of a small block of older buildings near the heart of the downtown, a bit off the main roads. The building itself is old and rather ugly, but still better than the majority of motels they'd been in for the past few months.
"Which one?" Jacob asks, looking around the place with interest.
"The one on the corner. Come on, the rain's getting worse."
One of the drains near the parking lot is clogged, and Edward doesn't realize he's going through the puddle until Jacob asks, "Aren't you cold?"
Edward looks at him, surprised. "No. Why would I be?"
"No reason." The bottoms of Jacob's jeans are wet and drag on the pavement, and his hair is plastered over his forehead, dripping into his eyes. "You're only wearing a shirt, though."
Edward looks down, registering his bare arms and the soaking cotton of his shirt. "Oh. I forgot."
"Obviously," Jacob replies, sighing, and starts to walk again. At the front door, Edward notices other small marks of neglect; spider webs in the corners, chipped paint, dusty windows. The door's lock is sticky, reluctant to release the key, but with enough jiggling Edward can hear the tumblers falling into place inside. He opens the door.
The room smells like fresh paint and industrial carpeting. All the furniture is new and decent, and there are a few bland landscape paintings on the walls, likely produced in bulk. Edward has an odd feeling of familiarity, the way he feels in banal rooms imitating home, like this could be a place he once knew.
Behind him, Jacob closes the door. "Nice place," he says, pulling off his jacket and tossing it on a chair.
"It's clean," Edward replies, putting the keys down on the table and plucking the wet fabric of his shirt away from his chest. "I'm going to go back for the Volvo, we can't leave it there overnight."
He's almost at the door before Jacob says, almost tentative, "Edward?"
Edward pauses, but doesn't turn around. The doorknob beneath his hand is faux-gold, and tarnished, almost black in some parts. "Yes?"
"Do you…" Jacob falters, then takes a deep breath. "If you find Bella…you'll be able to do it, right? You won't…"
Edward is silent.
The rain, when he opens the door, is loud enough to drown out anything else Jacob might have said.
-
He sees her for an instant, right before he reaches the car.
She's in the window of an apartment above the street, clearly visible despite the lack of light in her window. There is no pretense about her presence there, nothing to show that she's playing coy, like she's simply there by coincidence. Red eyes and red lips curve up in a smile. No surprise on her face, or resignation, or even fear or happiness. There's only an acceptance that wherever she goes, he will follow, driven by an unstoppable force outside his own hatred or love. Edward knows that they are both incapable of changing now.
Their gazes meet for an instant.
With a snap, she closes the blinds, and the sight of her red eyes burns against the back of his retinas when he closes his eyes and leans against the side of the Volvo, trying to breathe.
She's back.
-
By the time he returns to the condo and parks the car, Jacob has made himself at home, eating Indian takeout and listening to a classic rock channel on the radio. The air smells like curry.
"Nobody stole the hubcaps, did they?" Jacob asks absently.
Edward stares at him, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Jacob looks up, and his expression changes from joking to worried. "Shit, did they really?"
"No," Edward manages to say, closing the door behind him and leaning on it. He can feel the hinges bowing under the pressure. "I saw her, Jacob."
Jacob flinches. His muscles bunch up under his skin, Edward can see how he forces them to relax, puts on a mask of calm. "You saw Bella? Where?"
"It was near the where we parked the car," Edward says. "She was in one of the apartments. Above a clothes shop, I think. I'm not sure."
Jacob breathes out sharply, his half-full box of takeout forgotten. "Fuck."
"We have to go after her," says Edward, almost to himself.
Already getting up, Jacob is boxing up the food and putting it in the fridge, which is otherwise completely empty and unlit. "Yeah. Thanks for coming back to get me. Let's go."
Going from house to the car to the streets, they are like wraiths, never at rest for long enough to become comfortable. Edward slams the door behind them and twists the car keys in his hand, already itching to go somewhere new.
-
"I' m sorry, we can't let people up into the apartments. Company policy." The man working the desk seems anything but apologetic, though, and has a small smirk playing around his mouth underneath his moustache. "I'm sure you'll understand."
Edward and Jacob exchange a brief look. "We're undercover cops," Jacob tries.
The man's smile just gets wider. "Then I'm sure you'll have some identification."
Jacob shoots Edward and anxious glance, but Edward doesn't share it, just steps up to the desk and says, "How's this for I.D.?"
He punches the man in the face.
Jacob hoots with appreciation somewhere in the background, but Edward ignores him in favor of grabbing the man's shirtfront and yanking him forward until he's sprawled out on the desk, fingers scrabbling for purchase.
"Listen," Edward snarls. "We don't have time for this. Either you let us look at the apartments, or I'll break you into tiny pieces before I actually get around to killing you."
For all of his smugness before, the man is a mess now, blood trickling down his face. The sight of it makes Edward painfully thirsty.
"I can't," the man says, voice breaking. "You'd have to go through the tenant's doors, and I'm new here, I don't have access to the keys."
Edward doesn't let him go, but looks over at Jacob, who stares back with raised eyebrows. "Break down the doors," he orders.
Jacob's eyes flicker, but all he says is, "Whatever you want," and walks out of sight. A second later and there is a deafening crash.
"Oh, god," the man sobs, and Edward takes enough pity on him to knock him out and leave him lying face-down on the desk, going over to the hallway.
Jacob is standing on top of the door, bits of plaster clinging to his clothes, looking pleased with himself. "Always wanted to do that," he says.
There's a staircase beyond the remains of the doorframe, leading up to the apartments. Edward stares at it. It's lit by a lone florescent light that keeps flickering, making the shadows dart across the stairwell like living things. "Let's keep moving."
"You know, I've forgotten that you can be like that," Jacob muses, following Edward up the staircase.
"Like what?"
"Vicious," Jacob says, shooting him a brief smile. "It's not a bad thing. Just haven't seen it in a while."
Choosing not to reply to that, Edward hits the top of the staircase and slows down. There are five doors in the hallway, three of them facing the street, and he picks the closest one to them. He raps his knuckles against it hard enough to dent the wood. "Police!" he yells. "Open the door!"
"They're going to ask for I.D.," Jacob mutters behind him, miming holding a gun.
Sure enough, when the skinny boy opens the door a crack, the sliver of his eye showing is suspicious. "You don't look like police," he says.
Jacob and Edward exchange a look, and Edward shakes his head. "We're not. Sorry."
They move onto the next door, repeating the script. This time, a tall black woman appears in the doorway, looking bored. "What?" she says.
"Wrong door," Jacob explains, giving her his best smile. "Sorry to trouble you."
There's only one apartment left; the last one, the numbers on it peeling off. Feeling strangely light-headed, Edward knocks on the door. There's no response.
"Knock harder," Jacob instructs, flashing a smile to the people they'd disturbed before, who were looking on from their doorways.
"I think this is it," Edward says, and drawing his foot back, kicks the door off its hinges.
The painful high of hope comes crashing down after a few seconds, when they step into the main room and find it empty, save for dust, undisturbed on the scuffed linoleum floors.
Jacob's footsteps are conspicuous, especially when he slows and stops, shifting from foot to foot. The small bones in his ankles crack. "I don't think this is it," he begins, but trails off.
They both see it at the same time. Edward starts towards it, dust swirling around his feet. There's something written in red on the window, faint in the dark.
It's a crudely drawn heart, with the initials E.C + B.S.C 4EVER written inside.
"Fuck," Jacob says quietly, moving up behind Edward. "Is that in lipstick?"
It's too dark to be lipstick.
"Blood," Edward replies, licking his thumb and rubbing at the red lines. It smears, but underneath the glass is scoured, where Bella's fingers scraped across the glass. His hands are numb. "Go check the other rooms," he says to Jacob, noticing as if from a great distance how shaky his voice sounds.
He already knows what's going to be in them.
-
In total, there are three dead girls, all of them waif-thin teenagers with faces that might have once been pretty, before they had been completely smashed in and bled dry.
"Fuck," Jacob says, and then there is only the silence of the dust, settling back onto the limbs of the corpses like it had been there all along. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. They were all just children.
-
Edward can still see the girls, hours later in the condo, staring at him with their bleeding eyes. Orange from the streetlights manages to shine through the slats of the blinds, marking the curve of Jacob's shoulder, and the occasional headlights of a passing car makes the shadows flinch across the walls.
Jacob stirs beside him, hand groping for Edward's wrist. "You okay?" he asks, voice sleep-muffled.
"I'm fine," Edward says. "Go back to sleep."
If Edward was still human, he wouldn't be able to see the tiny furrows in Jacob's forehead, the slackness of sleep still lingering in his normally tense jaw. If Edward was still human, he'd have been dead for almost a century, and would've never seen Jacob's face at all. He can't decide if that's a curse or a blessing.
Instead of going back to sleep, Jacob pulls Edward down beside him, shifting until they're pressed together and then they're kissing languidly. Edward can't help the tiny noise that escapes him. Can't help the way his fingers curl over the back of Jacob's neck, keeping him from moving away.
Taking that as encouragement, Jacob kisses him deeper, wetly; he presses him back into the mattress, leaving his hands heavy on Edward's shoulders and licking into his mouth. There's no air left for urgency between them, not in a room this dark and lonely, where all they can do is try to find each other through the shadows.
They don't stop kissing. Not even, later, much later, when Jacob pushes into his body, his edges fading in the dim light. There is nothing but the moment, the infinite second, the two of them, together. Edward turns his head to the side, shuddering out a breath, and Jacob strokes across his face, big hands warm and damp against Edward's cool skin. Edward can't stop shaking.
"I love you," Jacob says, barely more than a ghost of a breath against his neck.
He starts moving, slow at first, and Edward can't help the grating moan he makes, deep in his throat. Jacob bites his neck and says, "You love me too."
Edward convulses, shakes his head.
"You love me," Jacob repeats, chest heaving; whether from emotion or from exertion, Edward can't tell. "You love me."
It's different from all the other fucks they've had, Edward begins to realize, only when it's too late to stop. Things between them have changed, again. All the times before felt almost anonymous, like they were just using each other because being broken together was better than being broken alone.
This time is different.
It's like the world is perpendicular; like it's paper warped with water, all the colors and memories running together like paint and Edward's head is spinning, he can't stop shaking and he can't stop saying Jacob's name, over and over again, and he never wants to stop feeling like this. And before he can stop himself he is telling Jacob he loves him and is coming apart in his arms as the world goes black.
-
The next morning, neither of them really knows what to say, so they don't say anything at all. Edward sucks on a blood bag while reading the paper, and Jacob sits at the other end of the table, eating the leftover takeout. The only sound is the rustle of paper and Jacob's noisy chewing.
Edward lays the paper on the table, turning it so Jacob can see. "The tenants phoned to police after we left," he says, pointing to the article and trying to ignore the faint bruises on Jacob's arms. "They managed to find the girl's families."
"Any mention of us?" Jacob asks, scanning the article.
Edward shrugs. "They said two unidentified young men discovered the bodies, and that they're currently suspects in the murder."
Snorting, Jacob returns to his tandori chicken and dips it in the curry. "Should we break out the fake mustaches?"
"Couldn't hurt," Edward says, and turns to the next page in the paper. In the pocket of his bag by the door, his phone rings.
"Better pick it up, you know it's going to be Alice," Jacob mumbles around a mouthful of chicken.
Rolling his eyes, Edward gets up and rummages around in his bag, pulling out the cell and flipping it open. "Hello?" he says.
It's not Alice. The voice is both strange and horribly familiar, and as soon as he manages to place it in his mind, he wishes he hadn't.
"Edward," Caius says, voice crackling from lack of signal strength and malice. "We need to talk."
It's like his insides freeze, a physical clenching of his middle, and his hands start to tremor. At the breakfast table, Jacob hums a line of a Rolling Stones song and pushes chickpeas around his plate with a fork, unaware of anything wrong.
"How—" Edward begins, only to be cut off.
"Don't say anything I don't tell you to say. We know where you are, and if you alert the shapeshifter to our presence, we'll kill him first and make you watch."
"What do you want?" Edward asks, careful to keep his voice neutral.
Caius laughs, short and harsh. Flashes of Italy, the fear and confinement, hits Edward with paralyzing force. "You'll find out soon enough. Relations between the Volturi and your family have been…strained, as of late. Now, here's what we wish you to do. You will tell the werewolf your sister phoned, and that she wants you to go to the downtown area. Alone. We'll find you then."
The line disconnects, leaving only a dial tone behind. Edward stares at the screen of his phone, mind reeling, and tries to think of anything at all that isn't we're all going to die.
"What did Alice say?" Jacob asks.
Closing his cell phone with shaking hands, Edward turns, and he can't even fake a smile. He stares past Jacob, focusing on the refrigerator. "She says I have to go downtown."
Jacob frowns at him. "Am I included in this?"
"She just wants me to check a place out. Look for information." The words escape from him too easy, and he bites his lip, struggling to swallow back the flow of lies. "I'll be back later. I have my phone with me."
Again there is the furrow between Jacob's eyebrows as he studies Edward, like he knows he's lying but can't pinpoint what he's lying about. "All right," he says slowly.
On impulse, Edward darts forward and kisses him on the cheek. "Love you," he mutters, and makes his escape from the condo before Jacob can react.
-
It's still raining.
Edward walks the streets aimlessly, hood up, the soles of his shoes squelching with water. Despite the rain, the sky is beautiful with light. Not very many other people are on the streets to appreciate it.
"Edward Cullen," someone says from behind him.
He barely manages to turn around. He catches a glimpse of red eyes, translucent pale skin. Something is pulled over his head. Before he can cry out or struggle, arms clamp around him and he is yanked backwards onto a ridged floor of what's probably a van. The door slams shut behind them.
"Fuck," Edward hisses, lashing out wildly. The vampire holding him hits him across the back of the head, so hard he feels his neck bones crack. Edward goes limp for a few precious seconds.
"Take off the hood," another person says by the time he recovers. "And for the love of God, don't be so rough with him."
Edward's captor merely grunts, but the hood is pulled off, and Edward finds himself kneeling on the floor of a van that is dank and cold with mud.
Fingers curl underneath his chin. He's forced to look up and meet the eyes of Aro, who is smiling down benevolently at him.
Red eyes. Like stop signs in the distance, following him through the night. His skin crawls.
"Edward Cullen," Aro says, light and friendly. "We need to talk."
-
There aren't any stars out tonight.
The night moves in increments of minutes, measured on the glowing green numbers of the microwave clock. Jacob's crashed on the couch, staring straight ahead. His eyelids keep sliding shut.
Edward has been missing for seven hours, ten minutes, and fuck knows how many seconds.
In those hours and so, Jacob has visualized every single way that Edward could have possibly died, and despite his exhaustion, the nagging sense of doom pushes his eyelids open again. Two more minutes on the clock have passed since he last looked at it.
"Where the fuck are you?" Jacob mumbles, words distorted against the sofa's cushions. Predictably, there is no response in the quiet, shadowed room.
It's only after he wakes up that he realizes he's even fallen asleep. Mild panic swamps him, like cold water, and for a second he tries to sit up. Cool hands press against his chest. The panic recedes.
"Edward?" Jacob tries to say, tongue thick with sleep.
He can see the solemn tilt of Edward's face hovering above him, hazy and distance, and makes the effort to touch his cheek. Edward grabs his hand.
"Go back to sleep," he says, voice quiet.
Jacob curls his fingers around Edward's hand, feeling the flicker of unease when he fails to feel a pulse, something he never gets used to. "Where were you?" he rasps. "I was worried. Tried to stay up."
"It's fine," Edward says. His eyelashes cast long, spiky shadows over his cheekbones, creating black hollows where his eyes should be. "I'll tell you in the morning."
Tugging on Edward's hand, Jacob tries again to sit upright, but Edward lets his arm go limp and collapses somewhere between Jacob and the couch, elbowing him in the ribs. Sleep is already pulling at Jacob. It make him tired enough to let Edward squirm around until he's comfortable.
After he finally settles into stillness, Jacob can feel Edward's fingers combing through his hair, but his eyes are closed and he's already falling back asleep, lulled by the feeling of another person beside him and the warmth from the nest of blankets. Edward's cheek brushes across his own.
"I'm sorry," Edward whispers.
For what? Jacob thinks.
He tries to say it, but Edward keeps stroking his hair, quiet and complacent, and Jacob slips back into sleep without ever asking it out loud.
-
"We want to make a deal with you."
-
There's crime tape across the doorway to the apartments, an incongruously bright yellow fluttering in the downpour. Beside him, Jacob pulls his hood farther over his face, shaking off the rainwater.
"Are you going to ever talk to me again?" he asks.
Edward looks up at the window of the apartment. Someone, probably the police, had cleaned off the bloody initials, the misshapen heart around them, but the lines scraped into the glass remain.
Jacob sighs. "I'll take that as a no. Why are we even here?"
"You shouldn't be here," Edward says, tilting his head up to the raindrops.
"I heard you the first ten fucking times. You still haven't told me why not."
Edward glances over at him, reading the slow anger in Jacob's thoughts. "You should trust me," he replies.
With a snort, Jacob jerks his head up to the apartment, indicating the window. "Why should I? You still haven't told me anything. Were you here last night?"
"No."
"Stop lying to me."
"I'm telling the truth," Edward says, stepping back to let a businesswoman march by. She barely gives them a second look. "I can't tell you where I was," he continues.
"And why not?"
Edward doesn't react to the anger in his voice, feeling too leaden to rise to the challenge. "You should go back to Forks," he says instead.
Jacob's reply is curt. "Fuck you."
"It's what best for you. For me. For all of us."
"Edward, what the hell is wrong with you?" Jacob demands, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him around. "A couple of days ago you were pretty fucking certain that we were going to make it, judging by how you were acting, and now you're ignoring me, except for when you tell me to go home because…because what? What the fuck happened to you?"
Edward pries Jacob's fingers off his arm, still not meeting his eyes. He doesn't want to see it. "You shouldn't care."
Sighing, Jacob lets go of Edward, hand dropping to his side. "Like talking to a fucking brick wall, I swear," he mutters, propping himself against the Volvo.
The rain continues to fall around them, droplets sliding off the material of Jacob's jacket and onto the slick grey pavement. Edward sees a flash of movement in the apartment windows, and his throat constricts.
"Jacob. Please go," he says, as close to begging as he can get. "Just…leave. Don't look back, just go."
He's scared, Jacob thinks, a current of unease threading through his thoughts. He's scared, and I don't know why.
"No," he says aloud. "Look, I don't know who the hell you think I am that I would just leave you now, after all this shit we've been through."
Edward looks up at the window again, and sees a flash of red. His skin shrivels back in something akin to fear. "This isn't about you," he says, hating how weak he sounds. "You have to believe that. This is for you."
For a few long moments, all he can hear is the rain falling, the splash as a car drives through a puddle. When he finally looks up, Jacob has his gaze fixed on him.
Too late to stop it. Jacob's thoughts click together, pieces falling into place, in a dizzying rush that echoes through Edward's own mind like a seismic wave.
"It's her, isn't it?" Jacob says hoarsely.
And Edward can only look away, and that's enough to damn him.
"That's why we're here. Bella's here, isn't she?"
The sky is grey, and the low clouds drape themselves around the skyscrapers. The light is dull, too, like the sun rose the morning only to see the lack of color in the world below, and instead retreated behind the clouds, waiting for another, more promising day. The apartment window is transparent into darkness. As always, Edward is aware of Jacob, of the heat radiating from him even in the dreary cold weather.
Why can't I have this one thing? Edward wonders. Why can't I have him, damn the consequences, and be happy?
"Bella's here," Jacob repeats, soft, like he can't believe it.
But Edward knows that he can't.
The three of them, Bella Jacob Edward, are still wound together, as hopelessly snarled as string, indistinguishable as radio static.
Jacob is studying him still, eyes nearly black, skin around them fracturing into tiny lines. "You're not going to kill her, are you," he says flatly.
Edward shakes his head, mute.
"I don't think you ever were going to, you know."
Like from a great height, looking down, Edward sees himself, small and hunched on the street against the partially broken-down Volvo. He keeps shaking his head. "I wanted to," he whispers, throat dry. "Believe me, I did."
"I do believe you," Jacob says ruefully, fingers alighting on the hollow spot below Edward's sternum, like he's waiting for the heartbeat to start again. "Come on. Let's just go. The Volturi can deal with her."
The name makes Edward stop.
"No," he says, a mirror of Jacob before.
Jacob's eyebrows contract, and a wrinkle forms between his brows. "No?"
The red eyes are still watching them, posed beside the window. Bella. After all these years. Truly until death did them part.
"I do love you," Edward says. It's so inadequate. "I'm sorry."
He steps away from Jacob, even as he wants to step forward and not look back, wants it with every fiber of his being. "I'm sorry for everything," he says again, voice breaking, and turns away.
If Jacob had said anything after that, it didn't matter; the world had narrowed down to the single pane of glass, Bella standing smiling behind it. Waiting for him to come to her.
And, unable to do anything but move forwards, he did.
-
Hey, you know how last chapter, I said this was probably the last chapter?
I WAS LYING. THERE'S ONE MORE. THIS IS NOT THE END.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, I have one more equally important thing to say: why are all you people suscribing to this story and not reviewing it? It makes me sad, like you're ashamed to be seen in public with this story. Also, this is your last chance to get your opinions in to me before it's over and done. Forever. I don't care if you have nothing to say, just send me a smiley face, it makes me nervous to have all of you just watching in silence. It's like you're waiting for me to fail. Plus, review count is what makes people click on the story, you guys know that. I will love you so much more if you make yourselves known to me.
For all of you who do review, thank you so much for reading and commenting, I love getting the comments. Thanks for sticking around! The ride's almost over...