The Alternative

Welcome to chapter two! Thanks to those of you who supported me, or else I probably wouldn't have continued this story. Hooray peer pressure! Anyway, please bear with me through this chapter since it's a bit boring, there'll be more action in chapter 3, I promise.

Chapter 2: Loss

"Had any sign of Edward yet?" Jasper asked me as we cruised a Seattle shopping mall.

"Not even a glimpse," I said, frustrated. "I can't see him at all, or Bella either. That means they're with the werewolves, but I have no clue what they're up to. I certainly didn't see Edward planning anything...

Except for the fact that Edward had decided to turn Bella into a vampire. I had known right away, since I'd been watching for it. I had to say I was surprised; I hadn't thought he would cave in so easily. But whatever happened, I sure couldn't see it now. What I did see was a pair of adorable designer boots in that shop window... but Jasper distracted me.

"It's been three days since they disappeared."

"Mm."

"I think tomorrow I'll skip school with Emmet and we'll start a search."

"Mm-hm..."

We were passing by a storefront full of cowering puppies. He stopped slowly, a pace later I did too, turning questioningly towards him. I saw what he would do but played along anyway.

"Aren't you usually the talkative one?" he joked, lifting my head with his finger under my chin. I grinned, then stopped grinning so he could give me a peck. We resumed walking, Jasper holding my hand, and I was vaguely aware of the people in the crowd who had seen us - the fat old man wh would go home and beat his wife because he was filled with jealousy; the 13-year-old girl who was inspired to ask out the boy she liked tomorrow, who would reject her and call her a slut; the housewife who would go home and weep for her teenage daughter, whom I reminded her of, who had died in a drunk driving accident. Seeing the lives of humans could be a curse - I woud go crazy if I hadn't learned to block it all out long ago.

Jasper and Emmet left the next morning. I saw that they wouldn't find anything, though they traced both sencts up to that meadow. Not surprising. I'd seen Edward there many times but I never told anyone about it, because I respected him and I knew how he liked to have his 'secrets'.

We had a family meeting when they returned.

"Smells like shit up there," Emmet growled.

"It's as you suspected, Alice. Their scents are strongly mixed with that of one of the werewolves, along with a smell we didn't recognize. The werewolf and the other scent lead off into the woods again, but Edward's and Bella's don't."

"You didn't follow the other scent?" I said it a little too loudly - I was getting panicky from not being able to see.

"We got distracted," Emmet muttered.

"Emmet ended up tracking a herd of deer. He killed most of them." Jasper shot Emmet a half-amused, half-annoyed glance. I saw that he helped a little bit in the end. I had wondered why I'd seen them surrounded by deer carcasses. Occasionally I wondered at how either of them stayed true to our lifestyle, Emmet especially. It was my personal opinion that he only did it for Rosalie's and Carlisle's sakes. Anyway, the other scent had to be followed.

"I'm going back up there." I left before anyone could offer to join me - they were too irritating right now to put up with.

In the meadow, I found the place where the werewolf Jacob's scent trail led off towards the higher mountains. There was another scnet, but it was very faint; the wolf must have been carrying whoever it belonged to becasue his was the only scent on the ground, the other was only in the air.

So, aware that I would at the very least pass close to werewolf territory, I began tracking the scent.

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I was thirsty. I needed blood, and there was nothing else in the world except for that fact. I glanced around depserately for something, anything, that I could kill. Nothing. No birds, no squirrels, not a deer or a frog or a lost house cat...

Ahhh, look! There's one! A human!

Isn't that Jacob?

A human! A big one, too! I'll bet it puts up a decent fight...

Jacob is a werewolf, your friend, and NOT on the menu.

Nooooo, a human! And warm, wet, sticky, delicious blood courses through its veins...

Jacob explained to me later how my eyes had flashed from black to gold, and to black again. The courage of his next action likely saved both of us.

He stepped across the distance between us and his arms were around me once more, his cheek against my hair.

Ugggh! I'm not eating that, it smells nasty!

Part of me wanted to barf. Part of me wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to run until I couldn't feel anything. Part of me still wanted to kill.

The crying part won. Come on, Bella! This was Jacob - MY Jacob! My own personal sun. How could any part of me want to destroy him? I was disgusted, furious with myself, and so I cried, clutching onto the back of his shirt and bawling into the front of it.

Later, we sat leaning back to back as the sun began to dip low behind the trees. My mind was a little bit clearer, but it was full of questions. I decided to start with an easy one.

"Jacob?"

"Hm?" he started just a littel. The sound of my voice must have pulled him from deep thought.

"Where exactly are we?"

"Umn - " it took him a second to adjust his brain to a conscious state, " - We're about a hundred miles North of the Canadian border."

I paused as it sank in. "We're in Canada? ... ... ... Was it really necessary to go that far?"

He got up and moved to sit down facing me, taking my hands in his, his head bent downwards. I leaned forwards so our foreheads were touching.

"You're a newborn vampire," he said finally. "I don't really know anything about it, but I know your leech friends have to practice being able to not kill humans. I took you far away so that if you . . . y'know . . . sort of, lost control . . . and got away from me . . . then at least you wouldn't kill anyone you really cared about."

"Oh." He had a very good point.

"And not many humans live around here, so there wasn't much chance of anyone hearing the... the screaming."

Another good point. I had to remember to thank him for thinking so clearly under pressure.

"Plus, the pack can't hear me once I'm a certain distance away."

Right, I could imagine how that would be important to him. But what he'd said, about me killing people, bothered me a bit.

"So I wouldn't kill anyone I really cared about."

he nodded.

"But . . . what about you?"

then he gave a sarcastic little laugh, which shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.

"I mean it!" I said, moving my head to look at him. I wanted him to be my Jacob now, not the embittered Jacob that Sam and I had created. My voice fell to a whisper, "I wanted to kill you . . ."

He was silent, so I tried another question. "How did you know where I was? In the meadow, I mean."

"I heard you when you started to scream. I wasn't very far away." Still sulking Jacob. I sighed, knowing 'not very far away' meant at least ten miles. I knew it would hurt him, but there was one more question I had to ask.

"Jacob?" He didn't look at me. He didn't even move except to breathe. It was like he knew what was coming.

"Where is Edward?"

He closed his eyes. It looked more like a wince, really. He started to answer more than once. "Bella, . . ." then, "I . . . . ." He sighed, frustrated, and looked into my face. I was in pain again, to see how much it hurt him to answer.

"Bella?" someone gasped. Both my head and Jacob's snapped towards the sound - neither one of us had heard anything approaching. Then it was my turn to gasp:

it was Alice.