Author's Note: Eh, the song for this chapter doesn't really match. It's a result of being ready to bang my forehead against the keyboard because I couldn't find the proper music and the absolute need to include this song in the story.

Technically, this chapter wasn't supposed to exist. Damn thing worked its way in without my meaning it to.

Chapter Music: Dear Maria, Count Me In, All Time Low

Chapter Four: Conflict

"Maria holds no ill feelings towards your desertion all those years ago. She merely wishes that you come back and help her fight Pietro's coven. If she were to defeat him, she would become the ruler of the south." Bella said, leaning forward in the Lay-z-boy chair.

"She has always dreamed for total domination." Peter mused. Charlotte increased the pressure of her hand over his, hoping negative reinforcement would keep her mate out of the fray.

Bella had run up to visit the ex-soldiers two days ago and they had spent the entire time arguing. Maria sent her right hand woman up to gather as many once soldiers as she could in the hopes of strengthening the army to take out Pietro, the current holder of Mexico City, the last feeding ground out of Maria's control.

"No, Peter. We left, we can't go back." Charlotte murmured, as though Bella wouldn't be able to hear her. Bella watched as the couple battled each other with facial expressions and soft noises, their bodies pressed so closely on the couch that they seemed to be one.

Bella wanted that. She wanted to be so in sync with one person that words weren't needed; that they two became one.

But she couldn't. Her other half had to be Maria. Otherwise the army would fall and Bella would be alone. The coven was all she had.

Still, she could pretend.

"Have you spoken with Jasper yet?" Peter asked, an outraged look on his mate's face.

"How could you?" Charlotte cried, wrenching her hands out of Peter's grasp and leaving the couch all together. "When we all left Maria, we agreed to protect each other!"

Bella spoke before Peter and Charlotte could get into a shouting match that could last hours. Bella needed to get back south before all hell loose without her. "I wasn't told of a Jasper. He left Maria with you?"

Charlotte glared at her. "He was once what you are now. He chose to leave Maria and her vile ways, like we did. I will not go back." The fierce gaze was turned on her mate before she stormed out of the room, days of pursuing and needling snapping back on Bella. She had lost Charlotte.

Peter sighed. "I can't go without her. Tell Maria I'm sorry." He stood, "You can let yourself out."

Bella stood, dumbfounded, as Peter left the room after his mate, calling apologies at a human decibel.

Damn, she had lost them both. Maria would be livid.

Maybe she could redeem herself by retrieving this Jasper? That would be good. Returning her long lost predecessor would offset the loss of two ex-soldiers any day.

"Peter?" She called, keeping in tone with his human volume. "Do you know where Jasper lives?"

"Tell her and I'll leave you, Peter!" Charlotte hissed.

"No," He replied from upstairs, outside the closed bedroom door. "We don't know. His family moves every couple years. He always stays north though, far away from the southern wars."

"Peter!" Charlotte shrieked, and the groan of a door being ripped off its hinges rang through the house.

"Do you know how big the north is? That's all of northern America and Canada!"

"She could still figure it out! Don't you remember how imaginative Maria got when she wanted something?"

"Of course I do, but all the north? That's a hell of a lot of space for even a vampire to track in!"

"Do you know anything more specific?" Bella called to them, but the couple upstairs was done with her. They were having a relationship meltdown.

"Just because you're older doesn't mean you can disregard what I say!" Charlotte yelled.

"I always listen to what you have to say!" Peter retorted.

"Thanks, bye." Bella murmured, slamming the door behind her. She stood on their porch, first looking north to where Jasper had to be hiding, and then back to the south to where Maria and her army sat, waiting for Bella to return.

With a sigh, she turned south and started her trek back home. She really wasn't looking forward to returning home empty handed, but she missed home.

And an unwelcome return was far better then no return at all.

Author's Note: Duh duh dun! We know what she's going to go home to!

Hope y'all like the totally unplanned chapter!

-Maggie