Disclaimer: I own nothing.
My hands shake so bad on the steering wheel I have to put all of my concentration into not crashing as I make my way back home. When I pull to a stop in the driveway I have to take a full minute worth of deep breaths before I can manage to climb out of the cab of the truck in order to pull the garage door open. Once the truck is parked and I make my way into the house my mind kicks into overdrive weighing all of my options on what to do when dad comes home.
I pace the small hallway separating the kitchen from the living room. I've walked the hall so many times that I know that the fourth plank of the right squeaks and there is a small divot in the longest plank just before the doorway into the kitchen. I jump at every sound I hear. After almost an hour of this behavior I still have no idea what to do, but my time seems to be up as I see headlights through the front window indicating that dad is home.
I know I won't be able to hide this from him, he can read me like a book. Dad has made so many sacrifices for me I feel like keeping anything from him is an act of betrayal. I also know that if I do tell him, I'll be packing a bag and we will be in a new town with new names by sun up.
Edward told me not to leave, not to tell, but I don't know him, and I certainly don't trust him.
He is up the front steps and pulling the door open faster than I had expected, but his face shows worry and he pulls me in to for a big hug as he breaths out a 'thank god' onto the top of him head. He gives me an extra squeeze before finally letting me go and taking a step back, the worry still evident from the lines on his forehead.
"You ok?" he asks. I just nod. If I spoke he would know I was lying, and we never lie to each other. As that thought bounces around in my head I know exactly what I have to do.
"Dad?" I say to his back as he makes his way into the kitchen, turning on lights as he goes. I didn't realize I had been standing in the dark this whole time.
"Yeah?" he calls over his shoulder as he shrugs out of his coat, laying it on the back of the kitchen chair.
I follow him into the kitchen and sit at the table as he pulls out things from the fridge – butter, cheese. Next it's the cabinet above the coffee maker – bread, a can of tomato soup. Two bowls and two plates are pulled from the shelf next to the sink and flatware is pulled from the drawer of the island. He is buttering bread and setting it onto a frying pan on the stove when I finally speak again.
"Someone knows that we are here and who we are." I rush out as he places slices of cheese onto the bread.
"What?" he asks, looking straight at me with slightly wild eyes.
I fill him on the whole day; the discovery before the pep rally, Edward chasing me, hiding at Newton's, getting caught by Edward, his strange warnings and the weird phone call. I had to remind him twice about the grilled cheese he's making.
He sits across from me after heating up a can of tomato soup and slides one of the sandwiches over to me. We sit in silence for a minute digesting what I've confessed, before he moves to dip his grilled cheese into his soup. I mimic his movements as we finish our meal. He's wiping his mouth with a napkin when his eyes finally meet mine. Tossing the napkin onto the dirty dishes I stand and bring his and mine to the sink to be washed.
"Forget those for now kiddo, let's figure this out." he says as I leave the dishes on the counter and return to my seat across from him.
"Do you think he is connected to Phil?" I ask, whispering the last word.
"I can't say for sure, but if he is, why would he go to all of these lengths?" he says aloud trying to make sense of Edward's behavior. "I mean, why keep you alive?"
"My thoughts exactly." I say, shaking my head. "I mean, he is obviously from here, we know that – he went to school here, he has family here, I don't think he is going to do something to us. But at the same time, how does he know who we are, and why?"
Dad pulls out his laptop and we start digging. We Google Edward Cullen and get a brief description of his life in Forks, academic and athletic achievements that eventually led to full scholarship at Dartmouth, but after his junior year of college the trail goes cold. We can't find anything for him for the past two years – no address, drivers license, paycheck, tax record, nothing.
I sit back on the sofa next to dad, that we moved to about an hour ago, and close my eyes in frustration. We had been at the for the past two hours scouring every source and database we were connected to trying to find anything to help clue us in on who Edward is and what he wants with us.
"Maybe he's not interested is us per say. Maybe he's a NARC for the high school trying to bust pot dealers." I say.
"I don't think he's a NARC." Dad says as he turns the lap top slightly in my direction, showing me the screen. It looked like a scanned copy of an internship application for Dartmouth's undergraduates.
"What is that?" I asked, reading through the information on the form.
"It's an application filled out by Edward in 2012 for an internship. It seems that Mr. Cullen was a double major at Dartmouth studying Linguistics and Cognitive Science."
"OK," I said, not following the connection.
"This is an application for an academy at Quantico." He said, shutting the laptop. "He's FBI."
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