:) this is the chapter that makes me super happy. on top of the last one. XD

well, they both technically do, but this one does. and maybe the fact that it's almost one in the morning and i'm super pumped about other things, but...i really do love this chapter.

hopefully, you will too. :D

R&R for more. XD

24. Critical Acclaim: Avenged Sevenfold

Like he promised, he was there waiting for me when school got out.

He took me in his arms again, and just like last time, I didn't stop him, because right now, I wanted to be here. In fact, I'm pretty sure I walked into the embrace, wanting nothing more than the feeling of being close to him; the action of being close to him in general and those wonderful reactions he always gave me. I slid my arms around his waist, set my cheek against his chest, and tried to block out everything else besides how good it felt to hold him, to listen to his swift heartbeat that only grew faster as I got closer.

His hands slid over my shoulders, then down my arms, and then around to my back to lock in place. It was a very intimate, sweet moment that I wouldn't trade for anything.

He kissed my forehead tenderly, and I felt the breath rush out of my mouth in an almost silent whisper.

"I don't understand," he murmured, voice low and eyes on me, studying my every reaction. "You just accepted me back with open arms."

He kissed my temple this time, which was definitely a completely new feeling in itself. But, instead of pulling back, my hands gripped behind his back, bunching his shirt in small fists and keeping him right where he was. He smiled that gorgeous smile, flashing me those pearly white, perfectly straight teeth; tucked black strands of straightened hair behind my small ear; and then kissed my forehead. I felt my stomach flutter, felt the momentum of this moment taking us somewhere completely new.

And I loved it.

"Is that a problem?"

My face scrunched a little. I wasn't really sure what I was trying to communicate. But, when my eyes slid back to his, he shook his head slightly, his own gaze unsure, before finally letting me go.

I loved being able to look up at him while also being in his sweet embrace.

"Not a problem," he finally murmured before walking around to the other side of the Jeep and opening the door. "I just don't understand."

"Would you do the same thing for me?"

His eyebrows pulled together for a moment as I climbed up in the passenger's seat. Once I was in, he shut the door and walked around and got in himself. When he had his door shut, he looked back over to me. "I guess I would."

I nodded. "Exactly. It can't be explained, Edward, but I just . . . ." My teeth ground together. "I need you."

He looked over at me with absolutely shining eyes. "I'm yours, Mayze."

I nodded. "So, we have a lot to talk about."

He laughed. "I kind of expected that."

My bottom lip poked out. "You lost your accent."

His lip poked out too as he glanced over at me briefly. "Aw. I'm sorry. I guess we'll just have to fix that, now won't we?"

I beamed at him. "Exactly."

"So, for the rest of the day, I was thinking maybe we could go see Charlie," he explained, glancing at me with hopeful, joyous eyes. "Only for a couple of hours, though. Then, we'll go back to my place, see my family for a couple of hours, and finally, just you and me . . . go somewhere. The meadow, most likely." He smiled. "If that's okay with you, and Charlie."

"That sounds great, because the last memory I have of the meadow includes a gorgeous strawberry blonde haired vegetarian vampire," I informed him, my nose crinkling at the memory of her; her beauty.

His eyebrows furrowed. "You met Tanya?"

I shook my head, frowning when I found out she actually existed. "No. She wasn't real. It was just the only reason I could come up with as to why you left at the time."

His eyes filled with pain, out of nowhere. "Seth told me that you blamed yourself . . . ."

"I did."

"Why?" he whispered, voice choking up a little. "Mayze, that was my fault, completely."

"I thought that I didn't read you right," I admitted, shrugging. "It doesn't matter, though. That's the past."

"You're right," he agreed, taking a deep breath. "The past."

I leaned over and kissed his cheek softly. "I love you."

A soft breath gushed out of his slightly parted lips, but he stayed focused and gently spoke up. "I'll love you forever, Mayze."

"You will?" I tried, not really certain if now was the time to discuss this.

His response would be the deciding factor. We were close to Charlie's house, so most likely, no, but I decided to get the start in there.

"Yes," he murmured. "That's the problem."

"Problem?"

His eyes tightened a little as his entire body, naturally, grew rigid and still. "It's why I can't live without you, Mayze. I can't bear it any longer."

It was then I noticed we were home, at Charlie's house. In my mind, I had two homes, because part of my family lived here, and the other part lived at Edward's house.

"My room smelled like you," he informed me as he opened my door and gently pulled me out of the Jeep. "It was about a day old, I think, but it did."

"I kinda went in there yesterday," I explained. "We'll talk about this tonight, okay?"

He winced. "That bad?"

I decided it would be best not to answer him, so, instead, I went inside with Edward following behind me.

"Daddy!" I squealed when I got inside, making Edward jump in surprise behind me. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Guess what!"

"Gosh, Mayze, calm down," Charlie laughed from the living room. From the way I heard his chair creak, I guessed he was getting up and heading in here. When he did, he froze in the doorway for a minute, eyes wide.

"Bam!" I exclaimed, smirking at him. "My turn to surprise you." I stuck my tongue out at him. "He showed up today at school."

"Well, it's about time you got yourself back here," Charlie grinned, shaking Edward's hand firmly. "How have you been, son?"

Edward's eyes were widened in confusion, only for a moment, before he grinned back at him. "Of course, they would explain everything. I've been pretty terrible, Charlie."

"That's good to know," Charlie said honestly, smirking at me. "That's about like her. You knew you would be back. Why did you have to take so long?"

Edward laughed. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking."

"I appreciate the thought, but don't be so stupid about it next time," Charlie commanded, making me giggle a little.

"Yes, sir," Edward agreed, grinning. "I don't plan to do anything that stupid ever again."

"People don't usually plan to do stupid things," I reminded him. "Well, they sometimes do, but not all the time."

"They do most of the time."

I scowled. "Anyways, Dad, I was just gonna let you know he's here, and I was wondering if it was alright if we went back to his place and then out tonight."

He nodded. "Yeah. You can just stay there, if that'll make things easier. You two stop by sometime Sunday and see me."

I grinned. "Aw, Daddy, are you giving me permission to stay this entire weekend?"

He rolled his eyes but grinned back at me. "Do you have to ask?"

"Touché," I murmured, glancing up at Edward. "So, I'll just go get some stuff, and then we'll go."

"Okay," he agreed, smiling at me. "I'll wait here?"

"You'll come with me," I disagreed, shaking my head. Of course, right about that moment, Auggie would stumble down the stairs and start yelping at us. "Yes, sweetie. You can come too."

Edward laughed and bent down to pet her. "My gosh, she's gotten big—bigger anyways."

Charlie nodded. "She's definitely Mayze's dog. It's pretty wild."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded, frowning at him.

"It means the dog is nuts," Charlie said simply, shrugging. "She's the clumsiest dog I've ever seen. She's pretty curious, and she doesn't mind doing stupid things to have fun. She's just . . . ."

"Indescribable," Edward agreed, nodding. "I know the feeling."

I scowled up at him. "Thanks a lot."

So, I got my clothes packed and ready, and I even brought Auggie's own little Pookie—mine too, of course. It was pretty funny. Every other toy I had gotten her, she tore to pieces or played with forever. But, when I got her a smaller version of my Pookie, she never even tried to play with it. Instead, she sleeps with it beside her and takes it with her wherever she goes.

It's amusing.

"That's unreal," Edward laughed, rolling his eyes. "First you, and now Auggie? It's like you two can't live without your Pookies."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "That's mean. I'm telling Emmett."

"Tell him," he said carelessly before sticking his tongue right back out at me. "What's he going to do? He can't catch me."

I glared at him, but right as I started to argue back, the front door opened to reveal Bella. The instant she walked in, she rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Well, hello to you too," I snapped.

"Oh, just shut it, Mayze," she hissed. "I should've known that when you two were all over each other that he would be here too."

"Like you have any room to talk!" I exclaimed. "I'm not the one who French kisses my boyfriend in the middle of the mall! People really don't wanna see that, Bella."

"Just like no one wanted to see that."

I shrugged. "Alice told y'all to mind your own business. You chose not to listen. And that was different. You two have been together since we moved here."

"Whatever," she said arrogantly, rolling her eyes again. Then, she looked up at Edward with an icy glare. "So, when do you plan to leave my sister and break her heart all over again?"

Edward was frozen in shock, clearly not ready for that. He seemed to have been ready for just about anything.

But that.

"Bella, shut the hell up!" I screamed, shoving her back a little. "You have no idea why he left! In case you were wondering, he left to protect me! And, up until this month, I knew that. I just stopped believing it when four months had passed and there was no sign of anyone."

"He's just going to do it again," Bella sneered, giving him a cold, hard look. "Aren't you, Edward?"

"For your information, I'm not," Edward said darkly, doing his absolute best to gaze evenly at her. "I can't lose her again. Look, Bella, I'm trying to be nice to you, but please don't push me. You're making it extremely difficult."

She looked disbelievingly at him for a few seconds before rolling her eyes. "Whatever. And, Mayze, stop pretending, okay? We all know you were heartbroken over the fact that he left you. Don't even act like you weren't."

"That hurt," I said simply, shrugging. "I never said it didn't. But, you're not listening. Those first four months, he had nothing to do with what caused my depression. In case you care enough to know, I was r—" And yet, here again, I found myself crying and unable to actually say the word. Memories of that day flowed through my brain, leaving me shaking and cold.

"I'm not stupid, Mayze. I know you!" Bella yelled, making me cringe away from her fury. "You've realized that being that upset over losing him is stupid, so made up some lame cover story. I'm not stupid."

"No," I choked out, shaking my head. "I—"

"Bella, just stop it!" Edward shouted, completely outraged. I had seen him really, really, really pissed off before, but this surprised me, to the point I jumped back a little. Charlie, on the other hand, had never seen him anything but happy; not until now. "You preach about how you know Mayze, and how you know she's lying. You don't know anything. You have no idea who your sister is anymore. I don't understand how anyone could be such a bitch to someone so . . . amazing . . . but, you found a way to be. Bella, Mayze tries to fix the broken bond between you two, but you're making it impossible! If this was sincere protection and anger towards me, because I left, I wouldn't have a problem with you acting like this. But, this is purely because you can't get it out of your head what your stupid mutt has told you over and over again about how vampires are filthy, dirty, good-for-nothing monsters incapable of loving! I can guarantee that's not true! We may be monsters, but we are so much more capable of loving; a love greater than you could even begin to somewhat comprehend. That's the love I feel towards Mayze; a love greater than anything I've encountered yet. You think I'm just using her for my own personal pleasure, or something like that, but you have no idea, because, like I said, you can't even comprehend how much I love your sister.

"And, you know what? Go tell your little dog about this. I'd like to see him come do something about it. You, Bella, need to back off and leave Mayze the hell alone. I don't know what happened after we left. No one knows for sure. Emmett has a guess, and he may be . . . ." He stopped, though, eyes full of pain. Whatever it was he had in his mind, his idea as to what happened, distracted him from his rant. He realized what he had just done, in that instant, and he looked up at Charlie, eyes wide in horror. "I . . . I can't believe I just . . . I am so very sorry for that, Charlie; Bella." But, then, before either of them even had the chance to get over their shock, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out with Auggie following quietly behind us. She seemed to sense that the mood was no longer light, so she just followed silently.

Edward opened the door for me, but she jumped in before me. He wasn't looking at me, but the ground instead, and when I sat down, I turned myself towards him, grabbed his face, and fervently kissed him.

This surprised him, because I'm sure he expected me to be pissed. After all, that was my sister he just royally bitched out. But, it was very amusing, and she deserved it.

"You . . . you're not mad," he murmured, looking up at me with confused, torn eyes. "Why? She didn't deserve that."

"She did," I disagreed, shaking my head. "And no, I'm not mad. Thank you, actually. I really appreciate that. It took a lot for you to stand up to her like that, for me. I know."

"Standing up for you is one of the easiest things in the world to do," he informed me. His eyebrows suddenly pulled together. "Charlie . . . doesn't hate me . . . what?"

I laughed. "He loves you, Edward, so much that he's willing to overlook you royally bitching out my sister." I kissed him softly. "That was funny."

"What really did happen?" he asked quietly, changing the subject to a different one neither of us wanted to address.

I turned away from him and propped one foot up on the dashboard "What do you think happened, Edward?"

"Emmett had a guess, and he could be right," he whispered, looking away from me. "If he is . . . ."

"What's his guess?"

His eyes moved back over to me, and I could tell he was uncertain. It was as if he knew he had to know, but in all honesty, he didn't really wanna know. He knew, without a doubt, that whatever it was that caused so much pain was gonna kill him.

"He think you were, well, r . . . raped," he stuttered out, choking over the word himself. He wasn't even sure if this was what had happened, but it already killed him to think about how it could be what happened.

I let out a humorless laugh and looked away from him, doing my best to peak in the window. I couldn't see Bella or Charlie anymore, so maybe they went on with their lives. Now, I was trying to be casual, trying to make the situation better than it really was, simply because I knew things were gonna get ugly.

"He's good."

A violent growl erupted from his chest, making Auggie jump in the backseat. She started to bark, but once she realized it was Edward, she stopped and laid back down.

In his eyes, I could see him thinking of all the different ways to kill a person, and he was using process of elimination. Any that weren't painful at all, just a little painful, or even really painful, he was scratching them off of his list and going for the truly gruesome deaths.

He wanted this to be excruciating.

"Before you start planning murder, let me tell you who it is," I interrupted his thoughts, feeling it necessary so that he didn't plan too much only to fall short. "They require special ways to kill them."

That caught his attention, to the point he froze, completely. Everything completely shut down inside of him. He didn't appear to be thinking about anything, and he definitely wasn't breathing.

After he stared at me, waiting, for a few moments, I decided it was time to tell him, because he deserved to know. "It was Blade, Dusk's mate."