Seven. Plans
Josh had gone against all of my notions of how he would react. Every single thing I had known about him slipped out the window as I watched his face become an even worse shade of ashen.
"Josh," Gabriel whispered a terrified gleam in his eyes. "Josh?" Josh was non responsive. He sat there still as a statue, glaring at me with a malevolent black stare.
In an instant I heard Edward snarl. I shrank back behind his body, realizing what Josh was doing. He was blocking me out of his thoughts, but he hadn't contemplated Edward being a mind-reader.
"Edward?" I said in a choked voice, praying that he would hear me. He just growled menacingly in response. "Edward...no."
Before I could stop my one and only, he threw himself across the room, knocking Josh backwards, and through the living space's wall. For an odd reason, Edward wasn't attacking, he was being hurt. Josh punched him and threw my love to the floor, and Edward never fought back.
I screamed in terror, rushing over to Edward's side. Oh no...no...make this stop...please... "Alice!" I screamed. She was by my side in an instant. "Alice please." I sobbed, my whole entire body heaving with the emotional pain I was feeling.
"Bella...," she rasped. "Bella, I can't do anything...Josh he's not letting me." My sobbing stopped only to be replaced by sheer horror.
Once in my whole entire vampire existence had Josh never answered a question from me truthfully. It had been in my fourth year as a vampire, when I had drawn up all the courage in my body and asked if he had a gift. He evaded my question by kissing me for the first time, and all my previous questions had been erased. Now I knew that he had truly avoided my question. Josh had a gift and I knew all too clearly what it was.
"I will kill him Bella if you don't come with me," Josh said in a maniacal tone. I whimpered, watching Josh punch Edward's stomach. I couldn't do this without Edward...I needed him to survive.
"Stop!" I screamed, my voice sounded shrill even to my ears, and there was the trace of terror in the one word I had screamed.
Immediately Josh stopped hurting Edward. At first his face was stunned, but then in a slow creepy way he began to smile triumphantly. My body was shaking with so much despair that I thought it would cave in.
"You win!" I screamed my voice breaking. If I could have cried I would have already flooded the house.
Josh grinned.
"I thought you'd see it my way Bella," he whispered silkily. He stood up in a flash and had wrapped his arms around my waist. I shuddered involuntarily, and pulled away from the soft whispers he as making in my ear. I felt sick.
"I'll go with you...just let me say good-bye." He was reluctant to let go but in a timely manner he did. I watched Josh's retreating back before speaking, I knew he would hear my good-byes.
"Bella What-?" Alice began but I didn't respond, I was still shaking too much.
"Bella?" Edward whispered his voice shaking with astonishment and...fear. I turned to him, squeezing him as tightly as I had. I then proceeded to walk towards Alice who was sheltered in Jasper's protective grasp.
"I have to go with him, he can bend people's will so they can't fight back. Somehow it doesn't seem to work on me. I'm so sorry." I hugged Alice tightly, then Jasper.
I went around the room, whispering words of encouragement. I kissed Emmett and even Rosalie on the cheek. Gideon had been taken out back and his ashes had been buried. I nearly lost it when I kissed Carlisle and Esme good-bye.
The worst part was telling Gabriel, Arielle, and Jamie I had to leave, to keep them safe. I hugged the life out of Jamie and Arielle, who were both shamelessly sobbing into my shoulder, their dry tears.
Gabriel was staring at me in shock, as I approached him. "Bella," he began, but I silenced him with a look. I should have known he wouldn't have listened remotely to me. "Don't do this Bella, you've been too miserable for these last twenty-five years. Don't give up Edward now-."
"I'm not," I snapped, before he could finish his sentence. "Never." I gave Gabriel one of the fiercest hugs I could muster, whispering in his ear, just loud enough to that everyone in the room would hear me. "Les garder sûr. Quand le temps vient est prêt pour ce que vous devez faire. Ils vous aideront." It was the only thing I could think of saying in French.
Arielle gasped beside me, and I could see her mouth form into a wide grin. "Be good Arielle," I said in a sneaky tone. I could feel all the eyes of the Cullens watching me. I was positive that at least Carlisle knew what I had said.
I swiftly moved away from Gabriel and over to Edward. His bright topaz eyes were haunted...dead looking. It tore my soul in two to see him so hurt. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, kissing him passionately.
"I love you till death," I whispered, the hint of a sob in my voice. "Please forgive me, but for once I have to keep you safe." He kissed me back, tightening his hold around my waist. I continued, I had to tell him everything I felt at that moment, and I had to do it in a few short seconds. "At first when you came back into my life I was shocked, and I was so hurt, but I'm not hurt anymore. Trust is love and always and forever will I love you. I will always trust you." I kissed him again, pausing briefly to get my last kiss for what I knew would be along fight. "I'm going with Josh to save you and your family...never once doubt that I don't love you. I'm telling you this straight, I may have to do some things, that I don't want to." He growled loudly at this, but I silenced him with another kiss. "Just remember that all I will think about is you. I will love you till I don't have any venom in my body. I'm never his...I never was. I'm yours."
I couldn't speak anymore, but I had to. I had to if Edward was to understand. He needed to understand, for I knew that it would kill him to ripped apart from me as it was killing me. "Eternally." Our bodies were so close together that we should have been fused as one. It would have been less painful that way.
"I will come fore you," he whispered, the sorrow creeping into his tone as much as mine. "I won't rest until your mine again."
"I have a plan." I kissed him like I never had before. The feeling of heaven returned, sending me my salvation. My angel.
I moved away from him, out eyes still locked. How would I do this? How could I? And then I was all too easily reminded of how Josh had been tearing Edward to pieces.
Slowly I moved towards the door. I turned, staring all of them in turn directly in the eye. Arielle was grinning broadly, she knew what I was up to. The sneaky devil. I looked Gabriel hard in the eyes, and said in a clear voice.
"Je serai arrière." I jerked open the door, once more looking at Edward and his bleak gaze. "I promise," I whispered even more quietly. He gave a short nod to let me know he had heard me. And then, I was gone...
EPOV
As soon as my love walked through the door away from me, I launched myself trough the dividing wall. I blew a hole right through it. Hoping...praying that someone would just kill me.
I heard my family and even the other three scream my name. Panic was colored in so many of their tones. I stood up shakily, and punched another hole right through the wall. I kept up at this for an immeasurable rate. No one could catch me. I was throwing things left and right. The kitchen counter, the oven, the couch, even a piece of the stairwell.
I couldn't feel anything but loss...emptiness without my Bella. The whole that had presented itself the last time she was away fro me, had stretched over my whole entire heart, leaving a black abyss. I cared for no one. No one but Bella.
I ran through another wall, this time Emmett wrapped himself around me, and brought me down. I began punching him to, but he wouldn't let go. Alice was instantly beside me. Carlisle, Jasper, Esme, and Rosalie right behind.
"J-just let me d-die," I sobbed. My body was heaving so heavily that I never thought I would calm down. I felt broken. Dead, even more than I was already. Never did I want to breathe again. Running and music were things that couldn't be enjoyed without Bella.
"Edward no," I heard Alice whisper. I sobbed harder, wishing that tears would fall from my eyes.
"Please," I begged, punching Jasper in the stomach with every ounce of strength I has left. "The pain...let me die."
In a second I felt a sharp, cold slap across my face. I was in so much shock that my sobs were starting to die down. My family was standing around me staring, wide-eyes, their mouths agape at one person, who had her arms folded over her chest in...annoyance.
Arielle the girl who looked, but didn't act like an angel. The one Bella had been so over protective of, was staring at me with a very irritated expression on her face. I opened my mouth to speak, but I was over-whelmed by the pain stabbing at my heart with a white hot knife.
Another slap ran across my face, and this time I looked up, my eyes blackening. She stood there as smugly as I had even seen someone look before in a moment like this.
"None of uz are going to let zou die," She snapped in a strong French accent. I just stared, too shocked to speak. "Bella would zrow herzelf of a cliff before zhe would let anyzing hurt zou. Incaze zou hadn't notized Bella had a plan. Never in her right mind would zhe let anyzing happen to you, and NEVER would zhe want zou to hurt youzelf. Zo get up and ztart acting like a man!"
The room was silent for several very long moments. Then there was a suppressed giggle from somewhere in the room. Immediately I knew who it was. I snapped my head, so fast it would have looked suggesting to a human, towards Alice.
"I'm sorry Edward," she said in a voice clearly split between pain, hysteria, and amusement. I took into notice that she was rubbing Jasper's stomach, guilt roared within me. "I know how much this is killing you, and I know that it's killing all of us. But she has a point. Bella said she had a plan, and I knew that none of us are going to let anything happen to her. If not for our own personal liking of Bella then for you." She directed her comment at Rosalie, who glared at her.
"I never like Bella when she was a human because of just that. She was human! I knew she would e fine as a vampire. The only reason I gave her mean glares ow, because after all you two have been through she was giving up on your love. Both of you were being total hypocrites."
Every one was shocked by her truthful statement, even I had too double check she was telling the truth in her brain.
I'm sorry Edward. She told me. I nodded my forgiveness, then turned to look at Bella's other family.
All of them were torn apart. I knew they had never expected their only father to be killed by their brother, and then have their sister run away to try and save people they didn't even like. I felt helpless in more ways than one.
I watched them more intently. Arielle was holding the young boy...Jamie's hand, her eyes filled with an arrogant mischief I never would have expected in a time like this. The younger boys mind was frantic with statistics of how all of us...even my family, would get out of this intact. Gabriel was a hard stone, his head buried in his hands, his mind devoid of any train of thought.
"I won't let my sister die," A small voice said from out of nowhere. It shocked me out of my study of Gabriel. My head snapped towards Jamie, the handsome boy who was in my calculus class. "She may have a plan," he whispered, shivering slightly. "But I have a better one."
sentence in French:
1."Keep them safe. When the time comes be ready for what you have to do. They'll help you."
2. I'll be back.
