AN: Again, sorry it took me a while to update. Enjoy!

Chapter 12 – Alice

JPOV

I was perplexed by the tiny woman's words. How the hell did she know my name? And did she just say she had been waiting for me? From her emotions, I got a suspicion that she was a crazy person. There was so much flying around in there, hope, trust, fear, even love, topped off with a giant dose of excitement, almost drowning out everything else. Her eyes shone brightly gold and that was utterly surprising. I had never heard about any other vampire feeding on animals but myself. And I only stumbled upon that by accident. She was watching my reaction to her eagerly, apparently waiting for something specific that never came, because a felt a sharp stab of disappointment through the shroud of excitement.

Meanwhile, I was so wrapped up in dissecting this person before me; I only vaguely registered Bella jumping up in my defense. My attention turned to her abruptly when I noticed her protectiveness turning into massive amounts of fear and hatred. I spun around quickly so I could look at her. She stood utterly frozen in mid-movement, staring behind the crazy woman. Her eyes were locked with the male vampire and I heard her whisper the name Edward. When he said "Hello Isabella" the burst of possessiveness I felt coming from him was overwhelming and I suppressed the urge to rip his head off. If we hadn't been around humans, I probably would have. It would reattach… eventually.

Through that whole exchange crazy-person had been practically jumping up and down in excitement. She was the only one who wasn't surprised and I was beginning to think she had foreseen this whole encounter. Her feelings towards this Edward man were full of friendship and pride, but there was a fuckload of resentment present towards Bella and I had no clue what that was about. I would have to protect Bella just as much from the female as from the male. My mind was going into overdrive trying to think of a way for us to get out of there. Again, the presence of humans was a drawback. I had no doubt in my mind I could take on both of the vampires together.

Out of the blue, I felt Bella repress her emotions and she sat back down, ignoring the new arrivals. I decided we could best try to pretend to be human and I sat down next to her, my arm draped around her shoulders to show she was mine. The male growled slightly at my possessiveness, but quickly regained his composure. Both vampires sat down in the seats across from us, now more uncertain of themselves by Bella's strange behavior.

"Talk." I ordered them harshly and the woman's excitement was finally piping down now she realized I was in charge.

"Well," she started, "I'm Alice and this is Edward."

As she spoke his name, Bella stiffened in my embrace. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, while poking at her hamburger, absently stuffing fries into her mouth. I knew her former boyfriend/abuser was called Edward, but this couldn't ever be the same person. They had been apart only a couple of months and back then he was human, otherwise she would have known. This man was far more in control of himself than any newborn I had seen in my very long life and that was saying something. His eyes were bright ruby though and kept shifting back to Bella's face. I pressed her closer to me and stared the motherfucker straight in the face. As he felt my eyes on him, his anger flared briefly, but then he focused on the crazy woman, Alice, and she started talking again.

"I'll give you the short version," she said in a voice that was lower than I expected of such a small person.

"I'm a psychic and I have visions of the future. In the forties I had a vision of us meeting here in this very diner some time in the future. I saw us becoming very happy together. But then something major happened and the vision changed and you never came. Eventually I picked up on another vision of you showing up here, but I had no idea how long it would take. So I waited. I've been waiting for almost 60 years."

The sadness she felt was sincere and for a moment I felt sorry for this person, for throwing away her life waiting for someone who might show up. The next moment her sadness was erased by her overpowering giddiness and I tried to shut her out fearing I might start bouncing in my seat myself.

"About a year ago, my visions changed," the little woman continued and again I felt resentment towards Bella.

"I saw you showing up in the diner in the very near future, but you were not alone."

She shot a meaningful glance at Bella who tried to ignore our two companions, but was listening intently to every word the female vampire spoke.

"I began searching the future for ways to make you come with me without the human tagging along," said the woman.

Bella went completely rigid by my side and her fists clenched. Her head shot up and I had to hold her back, or else she would have attacked the vampire over the table. Unaware of what her words evoked, she spoke on.

"That's where Edward comes along. I saw very clearly that if he came with me…"

"Shut the fuck up!" Bella screamed at the vampire. "Don't you fucking say another word."

Her outburst was so furious it stunned Alice into silence. Frankly, it stunned all of us into silence.

She turned to me and spoke in a strained voice: "I need to get away from this place, Jasper. Now!"

I stood up and let her pass me, positioning myself between her and the two vampires. A cold hand grabbed my wrist and prevented me from following my girl outside.

"Give her a moment," the female vampire spoke gently. "It's a lot for her to take in. She'll be fine in a minute."

I saw the reason in her statement and nodded. The touch of her hand was oddly soothing and I suddenly realized I held some sort of affection for this crazy vampire. The moment we were having vanished abruptly when I noticed the male vampire was gone. I caught a glimpse of him leaving the diner and a feeling of dread washed over me. I wanted to run after him, but couldn't risk exposing myself to so many people. The couple of yards from where I was standing to the exit seemed to last a lifetime, all the while the sensation in my gut was telling me something was terribly wrong. I cast my senses out to search for Bella, confirming my worst fear. She was gone, I couldn't feel the slightest trace of her. And the male vampire was gone too.

How could I have let this happen? She had been outside less than a minute. Why hadn't I just gone out with her? I tried to calm my frenzied thoughts and focus on what might be going on. First of all, if she had been attacked by the vampire, I would have definitely sensed her distress. But what if he had knocked her out? Or maybe she went along willingly. What if… I decided not to dwell on what ifs for now and tried to piece together what happened.

I caught her scent immediately when I left the building and started tracking it. She had walked around the corner into a deserted alley where her scent mingled with that of the vampire's. No blood, I had to be thankful for that. They had left together towards the other end of the street and there the scent vanished into thin air. He had taken her in a car.

"Fuck!" I bellowed. "Goddamned motherfucker!"

I punched the wall next to me in frustration and put my hand right through it. Luckily there wasn't a living soul around to see it. Shaking off the debris I turned around to see a very scared and confused Alice standing a few feet away from me. She was wringing her hands and looking down at the tips of her shoes.

"I'm so sorry, Jasper," she half sobbed. "I didn't think he'd go after her. He didn't make the decision until the last minute, otherwise I would have seen it in a vision. I really am very sorry."

She looked up to me with those big golden eyes rimmed with tears that would never fall and the guilt and betrayal coming from her were genuine. Still, I wasn't having any of it. I needed answers and I needed them now. In a flash I had her pressed against the wall, hand around her throat ready to rip it out.

"Who is he and why has he taken Bella?" I asked her through clenched teeth.

She was terrified now and started answering immediately.

"His name is Edward Cullen. He used to be Isabella's boyfriend, but she moved away and they broke up. I found him and made him a vampire four months ago."

"What? He's a newborn?" That wasn't possible. He had too much control. No newborn was able to be around humans without going on a killing spree. And the guy hadn't even twitched a muscle in a crowded diner.

"How is that possible?"

"Edward has exceptional control over himself. And I told him to behave or he would never see Isabella again. That seemed to work quite well."

"Motherfucker. So it is him. I knew I should have ripped his head off the moment I laid eyes on him," I muttered to myself.

"Oh please, don't hurt him. He's a nice man. He has told me about what had passed between him and Isabella and all he wanted was an opportunity to redeem himself."

Again she looked at me with those big eyes and I turned away in disgust, letting her sag to the floor.

"Obviously he has played you from the start. Now go away. I never want to hear from you ever again."

That hurt her to the core and I could almost feel her heart literally getting ripped out of her chest. The overwhelming guilt, heart ache and loneliness stopped me from running away from her. Nobody could fake that.

"Let me help you," she whispered. "Please Jasper, use my gift. Let me make this right."

There was an eagerness in her emotions that made me hesitate just a second, but when I turned back to face her and looked into her pleading eyes, I had to accept her offer. Was it that I was turning soft or that getting back Bella was more important than carrying a grudge, I don't know.

"I'll never forgive you for bringing Edward back into my girl's life," I stated as I helped her up.

"I'll never forgive myself if he hurts her," she replied. "And I think they left in a cab heading south."

"Peter, motherfucker, where the hell are you?" I growled into my cell phone.

"Sorry Jasper, Bella's still generating some white noise. I'm having some serious trouble getting her on my radar," he answered, frustration obvious in his voice.

"Can you tell me anything at all?"

"Fucker didn't harm her, at least not too badly, that's all I can tell," he said and I sighed in relief.

"Me and the misses are coming over. You're gonna need us to catch up with the asshole."

I wanted to tell him where we were, but the jackass had already hung up the phone. It was so typically him to know where we were and then not foresee Bella getting kidnapped. Sometimes I really hated his gift and the fact that we relied on it too heavily to predict shit happening to us. After the whole hunting incident I should have at least considered the fact that it might fail us completely, like it did today.

Five minutes later they pulled up in a black SUV, probably stolen. Peter got out so I could take the wheel. It was something we didn't even think about anymore. I was in charge and I drove. Alice got in the back with Charlotte and the tension between the two women was immediate, the opposite from what it had been with Bella. Mutual loathing was almost dripping off the upholstery of the car.

"Great," I muttered to myself as I drove south. Peter agreed with the direction we were headed and would become uneasy if we were going the wrong way. We had tracked people before like this and even though we didn't quite know how it worked, we always seemed to find our target.

"Who's the pixie?" Charlotte asked suddenly. "And can you please tell me what the hell is going on here? Peter didn't really have the time with the grand theft auto and all going on."

I told them what had happened in the diner and afterwards and Alice explained who she and Edward were. The air in the car seemed to freeze as she spoke; there was such a hostility coming from Charlotte even Peter felt it.

"Are you telling me you came here to steal Jasper away and brought Bella's abusive ex-boyfriend to accomplish that?" she asked, her voice as cold as the atmosphere around us.

"When you say it like that it sounds horrible. I didn't mean to steal him away. I've been waiting for him all my life. I just wanted time to get to know him. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. You have to believe me. I'm so sorry," she ranted.

Through the rearview mirror she pleaded with me and I was inclined to believe her. She was sorry. And miserable. I guess that was the main reason I had let her live and even brought her along. I had rarely seen an individual as miserable as her. She reminded me of myself a little bit before I met Bella.

"What's done is done," I said with finality. "Now we have to focus our energy on finding Bella and that's more important than assigning blame. If you can't accept that, Charlotte, you'd better get out of the car now."

I hated coming down on her like that, but it was necessary. She was nearly as frantic as I was about my girl and I needed her sane and together. She huffed and stared straight ahead, moping. Our eyes crossed briefly and we understood each other. The anguish we felt was shared and if our worst fears became reality, Alice would not get out alive. But for now, we were going to use her to get Bella back.

AN: Thanks to all of you who are still with me and this story. Work has been crazy, but I'm going to try to keep up. Big thanks to mcruscito for being my beta.