Chapter 10
I was sitting on the plush seats of the jet by the time it had occurred to me to ask where exactly we were heading and what I was meant to do. I hadn't had any major combat training and I was pretty sure most vampires would be able to take me out without batting an eye. I stared at Alec waiting for him to answer me; he tilted his head to the side. He folded the corner of his book before closing it and letting a wary smile grace his face.
"Forks." He said, placing a hand on my arm. "I tried to get someone else to come instead of you but there was no one, Chelsea and Heidi are in Mexico again. Jane, Demetri and Felix have gone with Marcus to visit an old friend of his and Aro insisted all the other guard stay at the castle." Alec continued. "Not that I'm not happy to be spending time with you." He added quickly as an afterthought.
Nodding, my mind was in the middle of an overload; half trying to think of a logical explanation for the feeling in the pit of my stomach and the other half doing little happy flips that Alec was back to talking to me again. When we had boarded the jet he wouldn't so much look at me, let alone talk and part of me knew it was something to do with the part but I wouldn't say anything; I didn't want to push him. He'd tell me eventually. Or so I hoped.
"We're seeing the Cullen's aren't we." I said, more of a statement than a question, the name felt foreign to my lips I hadn't said it for at least the two months I'd been at the volturi. It had been two months since Ed-…. I shook my head cutting off my thought process; now was defiantly not the time to have a fit.
"We are." Alec confirmed a sympathetic look on face as he watched me, clearly waiting for me to breakdown or scream or maybe even for me to be angry. But I wasn't angry, not that I didn't have reason to be. I was about to be forced to see the bastard who had cheated on me. There would be no point in getting angry and losing my temper, what would it prove? It wasn't like I could do anything so many thousand feet above the ground and if I was lucky the Cullen's would have moved.
"What have they done?" I questioned meekly. I didn't really want to know but I would need to if we were going to question or worse punish them for it. I didn't hate the Cullen's, or at least all of them. Memories of Emmett engulfing me in his bear like arms and Esme constantly trying to make me feel better about myself ran through my mind. It felt like someone had flicked a switch in my mind and now a projector was showing me all the things I truly did miss about being with Edward. The sad part was not a single one of these memories contained Edward; maybe, because all of those memories have been threaded with lies and deceit or maybe because I couldn't stand to remember how great they made me feel.
Sighing, Alec ran a hand through his hair.
"It's complicated." He said, "You don't really need to know, I mean you don't even have to talk to them if you don't want to, I can do all the talking."
"I want to know." I told him, looking him confidently in the eyes causing him to run a hand through his hair again.
"Edward has been breaking a few rules. We believe he might have told humans about our existence." Alec explained. "There are a few other small things that I also need to talk about but that is restricted information."
"The others aren't in trouble then?" I asked.
"No, not as far as I know." Alec answered before glancing out the window and leaning across and securing my seat belt. I looked at him quizzically, making him chuckle. "We'll be landing soon and vampires should still wear seat belts."
"You're not wearing yours." I pointed out, a small smile on my face.
He grinned back at me, "But there's a difference." He insisted.
I watched him with raised eye brows, "And what's that then?"
"I'm awesome." He said, opening up with book again, I rolled my eyes and starred out the window to see Port Angeles.
When I walked out the airport, hand in hand with Alec, the last thing I had expected to see was Alice Cullen standing with her hands on her hips and her Gucci purse handing down her side. My eyes went wide as the full force of her glare was directed at me. I moved closer to Alec. Shaking my head, I forced myself to ignore her; I hadn't done anything wrong. Edward had. Alec pulled me toward the car park only to have her cut off our path.
The deathly silent, tension rippled between us. I couldn't quite bring myself to look her in the eyes. Her big, golden eyes. Now was not the time to rethink my diet, I told myself and I mustered all of my courage.
"We're going to need to get past." I said, my voice lacking any tone or emotion the opposite of the whirl wind inside my mind. This was the girl who I'd once thought of as my sister, the girl I thought loved me and was my best friend. However, this was also the girl that left me and never bothered to say goodbye, the girl that turned her back on me. This was the girl who didn't care that her brother shattered my heart into a thousand pieces.
Alice's eyes seemed to pierce mine with a cold intensity that made me want to shrivel up and hide, the only thing that stopped me was Alec's hand in mine, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into my hand.
"Why are you here?" She hissed at us even though the look on her face seemed like she was greeting an old friend. The look on her face had given me a brief hope that she wasn't this horrible person but then I realised she just didn't want to cause a scene.
I looked up at Alec, hoping he would handle the situation for me, no matter how much she seemed to have changed I didn't want to be the one to tell her we were here for Edward.
"It's nothing to do with you, now me and Bella will be heading off now." Alec said, pulling me along and past Alice or at least he went past Alice. I cringed as she grabbed my arm.
"I cannot believe you've done this, Bella." She growled her voice too low for the humans passing to pick it up. "You just get up and leave one day, breaking Edward's heart and now you come back acting all in love with… with… that!" She exclaimed the last part with a large gesture toward Alec. She shook her head at me, like a disapproving mother looking at a naughty child, as I wretched my arm from her grip.
"I broke his heart!" I yelled, close to hysterics. My chest heaved as a flicker of pain caused me to slam my eyes shut, praying that I wouldn't go through everything again. That I wouldn't show Alice everything he'd done to me. When my chest finally returned to a normal rhythm of expanding and deflating and the few shreds of pain left my system I opened my eyes and glared at her. My eyes brimmed with venom tears. "He broke my heart, Alice." I muttered, taking a deep breath and turning back to an extremely concerned Alec. "I'm fine, really." I told him anticipating the question yet to pass from his lips.
He shook his head and pulled me closer to him.
"I should kill him for the pain he caused Bella." Alec growled, squeezing my hand. I wasn't sure if he was squeezing my hand to comfort me or to stop him losing his temper or both.
"She broke up with him!" Alice said, with an over dramatic sigh. "How is that not her fault?"
"W- What?" I said, choking on my words. "E- He broke up with me!" I screamed, not caring about the crowd that had now appeared around us. "He ruined my life, forced me to become this!"
Alec held me tightly against his side as he started pulling me toward the car park again. "Leave us alone for now, Alice. We'll be in touch." He said, and rubbed my arm gently.
I took shaky breaths as he led me over to a huge, silver, Jeep Wrangler. It towered over me, and I blinked taking in the strange black tube like thing on the wide of the window screen.
"It's a snorkel." Alec told me and opened the passenger door for me. I looked at him with raised eyes brows before getting in; I didn't have the mental capacity to worry about weird gadgets on cars at the moment. I cut all thoughts of the conversation with Alice from my mind. I didn't need to worry about that now, or ever. She'd left me, just like Edward had. She had been my best friend and she didn't know me well enough to realise I would never have left Edward.
I looked over at Alec as he placed the key in the ignition and patted the dashboard lovingly.
"Hallo das boot." He smiled a gleam in his eyes. "du bist schön." He sighed, a dreamy look taking over his expression.
"Please, tell me you're not talking to the car." I said, shaking my head at him and not understanding a word of what he said, except maybe 'hallo'. "This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, I don't speak car."
Alec chuckled, the dream like haze disappearing from his expression as he turned to me. "I was talking German not car." He grinned. "And there is nothing wrong with talking to a car." He insisted, causing me to roll my eyes. Maybe he was secretly as crazy as me.
"Cause not." I said, sarcastically. "What did you say exactly?" I asked, curious.
Still chuckling, Alec answered my question. "Hello das boot, you're beautiful." He said.
"Das boot?" I repeated.
"It means the boat, you know because he has a snorkel?" He said, "Kind of like a submarine."
"You realize this is only a car right? You didn't need to name it. It can't talk back or understand you." I said, a small smile finding its way onto may face as I tried to not laugh at him.
Alec started stroking the car again; only it was steering wheel this time. "nicht auf sie hören." He whispered, "sie weiß nicht, was sie spricht, Schätzchen." He continued, sending me a playful glare and I fell into fits of giggles. (Don't listen to her, She doesn't know what she's talking about sweetie.)
"Do I need to get you a doctor?" I questioned, stifling my laughter as he shook his head insistently.
"No, my love for das boot is perfectly normal and he is not an it, das boot is a boy." He said.
"Does that make you gay?" I asked, unable to stifle the laugh fighting its way past my lips.
"No. It does not." Alec practically growled. "Wie kann ich sein, wenn ich dich liebe?" (How can I be when I love you?)
I sighed dramatically. "You realize I don't speak German, right?" I said, causing him to grin widely reminding me somewhat of the Cheshire cat from Alice in wonderland.
"That's the whole point." He beamed as he put the car in reverse and started to head out of the car park.
I leaned back in the seat relaxing and staring out the window as the familiar pitter-patter of rain filled my ears and single droplets of water landed on the window, each one finding its own staggered pathway down the glass until it disappeared or collided with another droplet. I smiled as I watched the droplets create patterns on the window. Rain had never seemed this beautiful before; all it had ever been was cold and wet, now it was mesmerising.
Awhile later a car's horn broke me out of my trance, I blinked taking in the buildings around me. "We're not in Forks." I stated, confused. "I thought we were here to see Edward."
"We are but as we will more than likely be here for a few days and I thought you would like to have somewhere to stay. I didn't think you'd want to be around Forks with the Cullen's here." He said. His voice hardened when he mentioned the Cullen's and I was surprised at how sweet he was being. I had never really expected anyone to understand how much thinking of them, how even the memories of them, hurt me. "And I couldn't risk people recognizing you." Alec said, ruining the moment.
"You know for a moment there I thought you were being really sweet." I sighed, shaking my head.
"I am sweet but I'm also practical." He told me as he rounded a corner and pulled up in front of a hotel. He got out the car, grinning and walked over to side of the car. I opened the door before he could and slid out the car, it was raised just slightly too high for me to be able to reach the floor straight away.
I watched him, cautiously as he moved toward me still wearing his grin. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked. As if to answer my question he moved forward and lifted me into his arms, bridal style. "What the hell? Put me down." I said, wriggling in his arms.
He shook his head and headed toward the entrance. "Shush, relax." He whispered into my ear, to anyone else it would have looked like he'd whispered a secret or something sweet. I relaxed in his arms not seeing any point in arguing, it would only cause a scene and I didn't really want to draw any attention to us.
I glanced up at the receptionist as Alec stopped in front of her desk. "Hello, what can I do for you?" She smiled at us.
"We have a room reservation." Alec told her, she nodded and flicked a switch on her computer.
"Under what name is the reservation?" She inquired, glancing back up at us and I could see a hint of jealously in her eyes. I bit my lip forcing myself not to tell her we weren't together but there would be no point and I liked being this close to Alec.
"Volturi." He answered, leaning down and kissing the top of my head, I raised my eyebrows at him. What on earth was he doing? The girl tapped away on her keyboard after letting out a quiet, annoyed huff that only a vampire would have been able to hear.
"Sorry, it hasn't come up." She told Alec, looking up to meet his eyes. "We have one or two rooms available still; shall I put you in a room with two singles?" She asked, obviously hoping he would say yes. Just before I could answer Alec shook his head.
"Is there anything else available?" He asked, causing me to raise my eyebrows at him again. What was he planning?
"There's only the honey moon suit available I'm afraid." She told him and started typing again.
"The singles are-" I started to tell her we would take the singled but Alec cut me off.
"We'll take the honeymoon suit." He said, flashing a brilliant white smile at her.
The girl had huffed and made it clear she wasn't comfortable with his decision but booked the room and logged the credit card information before handing Alec the key. Alec was still grinning as he stepped out the elevator still carrying me.
"Why won't you put me down?" I asked.
"Just close your eyes and trust me." He insisted, a playful tone in his voice. I did as he asked but a thread of worry ran through me.
"This better be worth it." I told him.
"It will be. I have an amazing surprise for you." He said and I heard the door to the room open before I felt Alec's arms disappear from beneath me. I tumbled to the floor and as I landed my eyes flew open and I glared up at him.
"What the hell?" I started to yell at Alec, when suddenly I heard another voice come from inside the room.
"Damn, I missed the wedding?" The voice was familiar and my head snapped to the side to see Jasper lying across the bed, that handsome Texas smirk on his face.
I gulped, you couldn't outrun Alice even for a few hours no matter how much you wanted to, I should have known.
Authors Note: So what do you think?
Thank you jasper-emmett-lover for beta-ing this.