I'm in a good mood.
Don't know why.
Don't really care why.
Xoxo
Tress
P.S. I'd love to get to 200 reviews. My two hundredth reviewer will get a badge of awesomeness from me!
Edward's POV
I didn't understand why everyone was so worked up. Well I did, but I knew that it wasn't true so it seemed silly to worry. The earthquake was the least of their problems apparently. It didn't matter that the school had almost collapsed. They were just wondering at the new coven. It was strange, I admit, to see another vegetarian clan so close to Forks but it wasn't unheard of. And just because their were some similarities between Bella, beautiful, sweet, good, human Bella, and this other vampire, did not mean they had the right to make assumptions.
What is he thinking? She was right there! RIGHT THERE AND HE JUST STARED!
Alice's thoughts annoyed me. She was piecing together the bits of evidence about this new coven and trying to fit it with her awful theory of Bella becoming a vampire. But that wasn't possible. "Alice, enough." I whispered as we walked. The humans here were easily frightened and the tremors had caused them all to evacuate the school immediately. We walked silently out the eastern door and down the grassy hill to the car park.
She just glared at me, as did, surprisingly, the rest of my family. "She was right there. Bella Swan is alive and you don't even care!" she hissed, her face looking frustrated and angry. Her eyes were darkened, her face paler. She looked for all the world, like a vampire.
I winced at her words, the deep inflections of anger and the implications. I shook my head at all of them as we reached the car, among the hordes of students. My shiny Volvo attracted strange looks, but among the dying panic, it was only the difference of style that made them look. There were no admirers or wondering theories. "Alice that was not Bella. I would know if it was." Because it wouldn't happen. She was human, I chanted. She was human. That tiny shred of knowledge was holding me together. They're thoughts were tearing me apart.
Alice groaned and I caught a small flicker of vision. The new vampires were walking towards our house…they were careful…only five of them this time…Alice closed it up before I could get the full picture. I looked at her quizzically and she shrugged petulantly. "If you're being stubborn, so can I." she replied, simply.
I rolled my eyes and opened the car for everyone. I hadn't noticed the others' thoughts until now, but they were just as loud and obnoxious as Alice. Can't believe it was her. Rose doesn't seem to be taking it well. I'll talk to her later…What is she doing here? She's just hurting us all. We should kick them out of Forks, we were here first…Edward you are such an idiot. Alice is about to blow a gasket and you're so desperate I feel like running to Australia to escape it. Face it! It was HER! I met Jasper's relentless gaze in the rear-view mirror as we sped out of the jammed car park.
"No Jasper. It wasn't." I replied, sternly. There was a collective groan in the car.
"It was so! And when you figure it out, you'll want to smack yourself for not seeing it earlier!" Alice growled with vindictive satisfaction. I yanked the car to a stop in front of the Cullen mansion and turned to glare at her.
"Alice Cullen, that vampire in that room was NOT Bella Swan!" I was fed up. All their assumptions were making it hard to think clearly.
"Face it-"
"NO YOU FACE IT!" I roared. "THAT WAS NOT HER ALICE! IT WAS NOT!"
Alice's onyx eyes narrowed to slits. "Proof?"
My eyes narrowed to match, unaware of the profound silence brewing in the back seat. "I might not be able to hear her thoughts but Jasper can't feel her mood either." I replied, smugly. It was strange that this new vampire could block her thoughts from me. I'd only ever seen, well, heard Bella do it. But there had to be other shields in the world somewhere, perhaps this was simply another private mind or maybe even a learned ability. Besides, Bella's shield had held me back but never had it stopped Jasper's ability.
"If she was a vampire, the ability would've intensified wouldn't it?" Alice countered. I rolled my eyes as we left the car and walked through the door.
"Alice, I know you want her back-"
"No you don't!" she screamed. I froze. I hadn't ever seen Alice like this. Usually she was so playful, carefree. "You have no idea." Alice continued, softer than before. "You lost her and I understand how much that hurt you. It's not easy, not pleasing, not exactly possible to lose someone you care abut like that without suffering. But I lost my sister. We all did and if there's some way that that is her," she persisted, her eyes fierce, "then I'll be damned if you're going to take her from me again!"
With that, she disappeared upstairs. Emmett let out a low chuckle. "Bad choice of words." I heard Rosalie elbow him in the gut. Jasper flitted after Alice, but not before giving me an even, disapproving look. Oh my god.
Esme's thoughts caught me off guard and I turned towards their origins in worry. But Esme didn't sound hurt. Physically at least. I caught a few brief seconds of a glossy white card in her pale white hands and then she pushed me out. "Esme?" I called. She was upstairs in an old guest room from what I could tell.
"Edward? Maybe you should look at this…" she trailed off and I sped up the steps in a vampiric blur. Esme stood facing the dresser of the room, looking, horrified, down at the card I'd seen earlier. How is this possible? We should've come back earlier. We should've helped her. Oh why did we leave? We could've protected her. Her thoughts were lamenting.
"Esme?" I called hesitantly. I moved to her side at the dresser when suddenly she whipped around, her face agonized.
"I'm so sorry Edward." She whispered, pressing the card in my hand. Her thoughts gave her away. She shouldn't have had to go through it alone. No. No. NO! I saw the card in her thoughts:
Congratulations! You made it to stage four in the Swan Mystery Hunt.
If you're reading this then it is past September 25th and the Hunt has begun. You have also broken into the White mansion.
Miss Swan spent much of her time here, as her father claimed. It appears that a certain family lived in this house which captured her attention, romantically or otherwise. There have been reports that the previous owners were quite beautiful and charming, a note that perhaps, did not escape the young Miss Bella. Some people say that she haunts this place, mourning a loved one. Who knows? Her disappearance left many bewildered. Did she leave after the family in this place?
The next area of your search is in a place where an old family friend allegedly lived…La Push Reservation. Follow the clues for-
I couldn't see anymore. Esme ran out of the room leaving me stunned with the simple white card that I reread, to make sure she hadn't misread. Part of me hoped, prayed she had. But no. It was all there in simple legible print.
My mind flew faster than it had ever done before. Vampiric minds are different from humans. Not having to breathe or worry about balance, we can disregard some basic things which take up space. We can think of many things at one time unlike humans who juggle their thoughts, only thinking about one at a time. Bella had gone missing. Around the time, Charlie was still alive. I connected the dots rapidly. She had gone. I remembered a vision Alice had had at the beginning of my self-sentence, when I was still considering it.
The same one she'd had when I'd met Bella for the first time. It was Alice and Bella talking together, flashing from Bella's human brown eyes to vampire red ones to golden eyes to Alice not being there at all. It annoyed me to no end because I knew the different paths which would lead me to these futures.
I would either cave and not leave at all, leading to the first.
Or we would go back and I would change Bella myself, thus leading to her new born eyes.
The golden eyes were disconcerting because they meant that I'd go back change her and she would live until her eyes turned amber, which didn't really differ much from the second and I didn't understand the meaning of it.
Finally, Bella would live on as a human, meaning that we did not go back and she was safe. Unfortunately this vision didn't occur much compared to the others.
Now I understood the meaning of the golden eyes. Bella was back, we would talk with her but she would be fully grown by now, living off animals, away from us. This was where the choice had lead me.
I was in heaven and hell, an interesting combination. On one side, I was agonized that she had gone through her transformation, her life alone. But she wasn't all alone, I thought, she had a coven. A terrible thought ran itself through my head.
Had she created these vampires? Had she condemned them? She'd never thought much of joining me, never seen the huge disadvantages of joining the Cullen clan but to go this far…
The other side of me was in heaven. That she was back. That she was alive. That my beautiful, lovely, sweet Bella was back with me, so close…So close and yet so far away. I understood Alice's fury now. I'd simply stared at her. Exactly like in the beginning, I'd only been curious at her shield unwilling to look past it.
And she was right.
I did want to smack myself for missing my first chance at talking to Bella for 90 years.
And they say vampires are smart creatures.
R&R
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