There was only so much fear Bella could take, and though the house was eerily still around them, she couldn't help backing her body into the deepest, darkest corner, inadvertently dragging Leah with her. It was clear that from the vice like grip she still had on her hand that wherever Bella went, at least for the immediate future, Leah was destined to be following. Pressed up against the wall, the cold thickness of the tiles seeping through the fabric of her jeans, it was easy to forget in the depth of darkness that it was actually still fairly young in the day. Bella would have sworn to anyone who asked later, that in the bleak corner of the room, night had fallen, because embedded in her mind, in Leah's too in fact, was the precarious notion that bad things didn't happen under the bright haze of sunshine.
"It's gone quiet." Leah mumbled, and it appeared that with her words filling the space around them, she realized the vulnerability of her actions, and she quickly took her hand back into her own possession.
Bella listened intently, because it seemed for the moment just as Leah had said, the world had paused around them.
"Embry said we shouldn't talk." Bella hissed, unsure whether the rules still applied and whether they were of beneficial use either way. When Leah didn't immediately respond, it didn't take Bella long to figure out that it meant they were back to being silent again.
As dreary endless minutes turned to hours, they shifted restlessly in the cool, cramped space. The only audible sound being the intake and outtake of mundane breaths, conversation and howling beasts long forgotten as they both tried to remember that they were brought here for their own protection, not to drive them to death via irritation.
Bella wasn't sure at what point Leah had fallen asleep, or when in fact she'd followed after. She woke with a start, her cheek pressed against what she first assumed to be the hard, tiled floor, but then she became conscious that the floor didn't sway, and it didn't whisper sweet melodies in her ear either.
Her first thought rushed easily to Paul, but as her eyes fluttered open, the smile that was ready on her lips to have him back again quickly died as her eyes met his. The man holding her didn't possess the vivid, lively dark tones of the wolves, the warm depths to their soul. Instead, he was deathly pale, a pallid reflection of his true nature.
In the foreign reaches of her stomach, she felt her fear combust. Her instinct pulled at her limbs to react, while her mind begged her to keep still. Her instincts won through, and as she wriggled against his touch, it only served for him to pull her tighter, his iron fingers gripping into the soft flesh of her body, leaving behind his mark on her now tainted skin.
"What're you doing here?" She asked, finding her voice finally.
He looked down at her, his familiar ochre eyes delighting in the question. "I'm here to rescue you." Succinctly put, he smiled generously, the weapons of his trade flashing with what he mistook for warmth, but showed as something closer to a threat.
Bella shivered reactively, and misunderstanding her, he pulled her tighter, offering something he really didn't have to give.
"Where's Leah?" She asked, turning her head every which way, thankful that they hadn't managed to depart the cabin yet, but confused to find them so alone.
"The other girl is asleep. She doesn't matter." He said dismissively. While his voice was cold, Bella sensed a moment of uncertainty as his eyes flirted back to the doorway through which they'd just entered the room. Desperation set in as she considered the distinct possibility that he was going to take her away, and she searched for any way to stall for time.
"Please Edward, we can't just leave her here." Bella begged, finding his eyes, eyes that had once looked at her with a silent plea of their own.
"Bella, I know what they've been telling you; I understand why you think she might be your friend. But trust me, she's not." Bella couldn't find anything other than the purest sincerity in his voice. So it was a natural reaction to narrow her eyes, to wonder what he actually thought he was protecting her from.
"Edward, just put me down, okay? I don't know what you think you're doing here, but I can't just leave Leah, not with everything going on right now." She couldn't keep the frantic edge out of her voice. In truth she didn't want to go over everything with Edward, not now that she knew what he was.
Looking deep into her eyes he found something that hadn't been there before, a certain wariness that he had feared she would never come to know. "They told you." He concluded with a sigh, closing his eyes from her silent accusations.
Bella tried to soften herself, to fight against the way her muscles wanted to naturally convulse away from his intimate touch, and as she struggled to find a gentle tone to her voice, she couldn't help her eyes from darting around, hoping to find a way out. "They told me what they are, but they had to Edward." Making a firm decision to keep Paul's name out of the conversation, she delighted when his feet stopped their progress to the cabin door, the last hope she had of saving herself.
"They told me what you are too… what you could be." Bella tried not to think of the boy she'd known only as a face she passed in the halls of her high school as a cold hearted killer, but it wasn't easy.
"I know they lied to you Bella; I know they didn't tell you the truth. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so afraid of me." Edward was firm in his assessment, and Bella feared she was losing him again to whatever misapprehension he was under.
"No, they didn't. They told me you were good, that you only kill animals." Holding back the distaste from her voice, Bella looked to his eyes, hoping he would see the blatant truth. "But right now, you need to let me go, Edward. I'm here because I want to be, I don't need rescuing, and I don't need you to save me."
For a minute, as the hard contours of his face softened to show something almost innocent in its beauty, Bella thought perhaps he was going to release her body, but as she watched his eyes flicker contemplatively around the room, she could pinpoint the moment when he made his choice.
"You need to be with me Bella. They're too immature to understand, to appreciate how easy it would be to hurt you and I can't let that happen, not if everything is going to turn out like it should." Nodding his head as though the decision were final, Bella felt the muscles in his upper body tighten, his shoulders pushing back and high with the confidence of his choice.
"But what about Leah? What about her safety? Surely she matters too Edward." Bella protested vehemently, hoping to appeal to what he obviously believed was some chivalrous act.
"Yeah fucker… what about me? You gonna leave me here, feed me to the wolves you think are gonna come knocking?"
Whipping her head around, Bella couldn't hold back a wide smile of relief to see Leah standing defiantly in the doorway, her hands held brazenly on her hips, her poise masking any fear she felt.
"You don't need protecting." Edward repeated. Leah strode towards them, a look of pure defiance on her face, while Bella contemplated his words.
"What does that mean, Edward? Why doesn't she need protecting, but I do? Is it cause I'm so fucking weak that I couldn't possibly take care of myself?" Bella felt the anger begin to bubble irrationally inside her, incapable of being subdued.
Edward seemed slightly taken aback by the way things were beginning to unfold, and as he hesitated, Bella pushed back against his chest catching him unaware. Unfortunately, his senses and his reactions were simply too fast, and just as she felt his grip fading on her skin, he had her tight against his body once again. If anything he held her even closer, the feel of his hands burning into her as they both underestimated the power of his strength.
"You need to let her go. Can't you see that you're hurting her?" Leah shouted as she stepped forward, working against every instinct in her body that was currently screaming at her to get back.
"I would never hurt her." Edward declared, rather incredulously, and even though Bella opened her mouth to tell him that he already was, Leah's anger had already beaten her to it.
"What the fuck do you call those marks on her arms then?" Leah pointed, drawing closer still.
Edward didn't hesitate is whipping her body in the air, lifting her if she'd weighed no more than a grain of sand. His frown was heavy when he pulled her down again, and while his grip lessened, he still refused to let her go.
"Seriously Edward, what the hell is going on? You don't just show up in the middle of the woods saying you're here to rescue someone. Isn't there some sort of agreement between you and the pack? Something Jacob said…." Bella fumbled for the particular words he'd used to describe it, but Leah picked up where her failings began.
"She's right; you've broken the treaty by even stepping foot here, not to mention what Paul is gonna do to your deceased ass when he finds out you've been touching his imprint." Leah raised her eyebrow, but her words seemed to just roll off him, something which left her stumbling a little, as she'd always had it on good authority from Sam that the Cullen's were very mindful of their place in Forks.
"I was invited onto the land." Edward replied calmly, and as if she meant nothing to him at all, he turned his back on Leah and headed towards the door.
"No way fucker. I don't care if you kill me; you're not taking her anywhere." Shouting out her words, Bella could hear the tremors in Leah's voice, the fire burning anger fueled with embers of fear.
"I don't need to explain myself to you, and unless you wish me to divulge exactly what I know about your involvement in the death of Miss. Young, I suggest you quiet yourself and step aside."
Bella couldn't believe the ice she felt harden all over her skin as his words sunk down into her consciousness. Even if she didn't want to believe it, even if the words had come from someone her friends had warned her was not to be trusted, she couldn't stop herself from looking to Leah's eyes. The horror she found there only confirmed her suspicions, and though Leah had run toward them, flung herself into the line of fire with selfless intention, she could see the girl shrink into herself, an attempt to disappear before her very eyes.
"Is it true, Leah?" Bella asked softly, feeling the ridiculous position she was in turn into something quite different under the circumstances.
However Leah didn't need to answer, the truth was written in the lone tear that fell gently down her beautiful cheek. Bella didn't want to see anymore, truly didn't want to face this moment and whatever further truths would follow, so she closed her eyes, turning to her captor to seek a moment of refuge.
Her actions brought a malevolent smile to Edward's ethereal face, a triumph so strong that it tore the guilt from Leah's mind, filling it with a stinging hatred instead.
"You fucker… you come here and think you know everything, but you have no fucking idea. If you had even the slightest clue…" Leah's shrieks fell silent with a dark thud, and though she was still turned the other way, instinct made Bella stiffen.
Turning her head slowly, she didn't necessarily want to open her eyes, but curiosity took over and as she looked to the place Leah had once stood, she found empty air. It was only when her eyes trailed over the room, finding a contorted body in the corner, blood pooling softly in crimson waves on the aged floor, did she open her mouth.
A sharp scream trembled across the sacred tribal land, and miles away dark crows scattered from the trees, flocking to the skies with fright. Beneath them in a dark, overgrown part of the forest, a man and his wolf turned his head to the west. An urgent terror ran through his gut and with one look down at the newly phased wolf by his feet, he rose to his full height. Intent of pushing aside the weak baby Alpha's order, Paul tried to phase back to man, impatience riling him as he pushed again and again. But it was no use, something had changed, something that had made his Alpha too powerful to ignore, something which was going to shatter the newly found solidity of his life into sharp, unforgiving pieces.
a/n: Thanks to my wonderful beta Twiticulate you rocked amazing socks with this chap's edits hun... To all you readers, I'm sorry that I missed Wednesday, it could absolutely not be helped. But we're back on track now... so I'll see you all again very soon.
xxx