A/N I once again own nothing but my imagination. Hope you guys enjoy.

Chapter Sixteen

Frank's POV

I stepped back from Nancy because I knew that I would have to if we were to ever get home tonight. I was glad that I finally admitted my ever growing feelings for her. Granted, Nancy had to give me that extra shove that led me to opening up to her, but it was worth it.

Now, as I got into the driver's seat of the car, I couldn't help the large smile on my face. After all of the years of awkward tension between the two of us, we were finally a real couple. I finally get the chance to go out in public and hold her in my arms or kiss her without being discovered by a significant other in our lives. Everything was going to work out.

I reached over to grab her hand as she smiled at me from the passenger seat. I didn't realize how late it really was until we had started down the highway back to the Cullen's house. The clock on the dashboard was reading near midnight. Based on the little to no traffic remaining on the road right now, I figured that it was probably pretty accurate.

Nancy turned on the radio and we began listening to some popular music that seemed upbeat. We both settled back and tried to enjoy to drive.

Nancy had her head leaned back against the headrest of the seat with her eyes closed. I knew she probably wasn't asleep and was just relaxing for the time being in our comfortable silence. I glanced up in the rear view mirror and noticed a car coming up on us pretty fast with their bright lights on. Since I was on a larger highway, I merged over to the slow lane so the car would be able to pass us easily on the empty highway.

I glanced back up in the mirror and frowned. The car had switched lanes with me and was still speeding toward us.

"Nan," I said shaking her leg a little.

She opened her eyes to look up at me. "What's the matter?" she asked seeing my frown.

"The car behind us is not acting right," I said for lack of a better way to phrase it.

I saw her peer through the side mirror and then turn around enough in her seat to glance through the rear windshield.

"They're driving with their brights on," Nancy stated.

"I've already changed lanes so they could pass us, but the car switched lanes too," I told her. "They're still speeding toward us."

"Is there any way to lose them?" she asked.

I shook my head, "There isn't a street to turn off on for at least five more miles."

"Suggestions?" I asked Nancy when she stayed quiet.

"Speed up and try to find a street to turn off on?" she replied like it was a question.

I pushed my foot further down on the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb. After glancing in the mirror again, I saw that even though I was gaining speed, the other car had also sped up. It was now closing in on us and there was no where for me to go to avoid it.

"You are buckled in, right?" I asked.

Nancy gave a good yank on her seat belt to show me that she was indeed buckled into her seat.

I looked grimly back up to see if I could make out what kind of car it was or who the driver might be. Unfortunately, due to the brightness of their lights, I couldn't see the driver at all. The vehicle itself was hard to place. All I could really tell was that it was a dark colour and instead of being a sedan, it was actually a SUV of some sort.

That was all I had time to see before I felt the vehicle come close enough to bump us a little on the road. I cursed under my breath because this guy was getting way too close for comfort and we were still miles away from a place to exit.

"Can you go any faster?" Nancy asked, her eyes wide.

"I can try," I said.

I pushed my foot down more but the rental car Joe and I had picked up from the rental agency wasn't exactly made for speed.

It wasn't a minute later before the SUV rammed us again from behind. This time the impact was even harder and I had to struggle to maintain control of the vehicle. I wanted to look over to check on Nancy even though I knew she was fine, but I also realized that I couldn't lose my focus with trying to drive.

Just as I managed to fully gain control of the car, the SUV rammed us again. This time, they hit the left rear corner and there was nothing I could do. I tried to gain control of the car, but it ended up careening off the highway where we clipped a tree hard enough to start the car rolling. I just closed my eyes and hoped that everything would be okay.

When we eventually came to a standstill, I opened my eyes and looked around. My vision was a little blurry and I slowly raised my hand up to my head where I felt something wet all over my face. It didn't take me long to realize that the warm, sticky substance was blood. I groaned as I began to feel pain all over.

I tried to figure out how badly I was injured. From what I could tell, there was definitely some sort of head wound or cut based on the bleeding. I wasn't sure how bad it might really be because you always seem to bleed more with head wounds anyway. I didn't think anything else was broken, but I was definitely going to be heavily bruised for a while until I healed.

"Nancy?" I called out. It sounded more like a croak than a real word.

I didn't hear a response. I tried to turn to look at her, but the damage to the car and myself was restricting my movements. I finally managed to turn my head. I cried out in anguish at what I saw.

My poor, dear, Nancy was covered in blood from head to toe. Her eyes were closed and I couldn't even be sure if she was alive or not. I felt the tears poor down my cheeks at the thought that she might not be with me anymore. It was a pain that I wasn't sure I could suffer. I felt my eyes close of their own accord and everything fade in darkness as everything crashed into me in that one moment.

Joe's POV

I watched as Frank and Nancy came over to tell us they were leaving for the night. At first I thought it was pretty early and they probably just wanted to have some alone time. I know that all of us have looked at them wondering when they would finally figure their stuff out and become an official couple. I was hoping that tonight might be the night, so I waved them off and wished them a good night while I returned to dancing with the cute blonde I found at the club tonight.

After a couple more songs, I checked my watch. My eyes almost bugged out of my head because I couldn't believe it was that late. I'm sure the others hadn't realized the time either or they would have already said something about leaving. After all, we did have to go to work the next day.

I said a quick goodbye to the chick and walked around the place trying to find everyone. Luckily, most of them were gathered around the table we had first occupied this evening.

"Hey guys, have you checked out the time?" I asked them when I came over.

Emmett and Jasper glanced at their watches before doing a double-take.

"Crap, I didn't know it was that late," Emmett exclaimed.

"How late is it?" Bella asked groggily. I was surprised she could even fall asleep in a place this loud.

"Past midnight," Jasper stated. "Let's go."

We all quickly gathered everything and headed for the door. I thought about calling Frank to check in with him but decided against it. He was probably already home. If he wasn't working something out with Nancy, then I would imagine he was asleep.

I climbed in the back of Edward's car with Jake as Bella sat down in the passenger seat up front. The others were heading off in different directions to get back to their respective living arrangements for the evening.

We sped down the road. I'm not sure how fast Edward was driving, but it was definitely fast. The guy was a maniac, and coming from me, that was saying something. I liked speed and all, but he could blow me out of the water.

Because of how fast we were going, I was surprised when Edward quickly put on the brakes. I leaned forward a little in my seat to look out the front windshield. I could vaguely see a car that had been in a really bad accident off the side of the road. It was hard to tell anything about it due to the darkness and the fact that the vehicle had clearly rolling over several times.

As we got closer to it, I was able to get a better look at the vehicle. Even though it was severely damaged, the headlights were still on. Those lights plus the lights on Edward's car illuminated the area enough for me to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Oh God, that looks like our rental car," I spoke in barely above a whisper.

"Joe, are you sure," Edward asked seriously.

"I can't be absolutely certain with all the damage, but it does share a close resemblance," I responded. My brain was trying to disconnect because I was truly afraid of what we might see if we get closer to the car.

"Maybe this is an old accident?" Jake offered.

"I wish I could think that, but it really doesn't look like it," Edward said with a slight shake of his head.

Edward pulled his car off well to the side of the road and put it in park.

"Come on, we need to check this out just in case," Edward told me. "Bella, honey, why don't you stay in the car?"

"Okay," Bella whispered. I could tell that she was afraid of what we might discover.

I got out of the car and walked over to the vehicle with trepidation. I really wasn't sure what we would find and it scared the hell out of me. I was still sort of hoping for Jake's theory of it being an old accident, but I knew he was wrong. We would have noticed it on the way over since the headlights were still on.

I led the way to the car and peered inside. I felt my breath catch in my throat as the horror of what I was seeing seared itself into my brain.

I vaguely heard Edward in the background calling an ambulance on his cell phone. It did nothing to relieve the tension in me. I could see Frank and Nancy inside. Frank had blood all over his face from various cuts that were probably due to the windshield, which had shattered sometime during the crash. I was relieved to see that he was breathing even though he wasn't awake at the moment.

Unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to get either one of them out because the vehicle had apparently rolled over so many times that the frame was crushed. They would definitely have to be cut out of the wreckage. I wished that I could see Nancy better, but from my vantage point, all I could see was that she was in pretty bad shape. I just hoped that both of them would be okay.

Thankfully, it was only minutes before an ambulance along with the fire department and police showed up to the scene. We all moved away quickly to let the people have as much room as possible to do their jobs.

After a gruelling hour, the fire department had finally pried away enough of the vehicle that Frank and Nancy could both be retrieved from inside the wreckage. I hovered around as the paramedics worked on both of them. I wasn't paying any attention to what everyone else was doing. My sole focus was for my brother and one of our dearest friends.

"How are they?" I managed to ask one of the paramedics that had stepped away for a moment.

The guy looked at me with sombre eyes. "The man will be fine after he gets cleaned up and rests overnight in the hospital. The woman is alive. Her injuries are more severe, but I think she'll pull through. It's going to be a tenuous twenty-four hours though."

"Thank you," I told him feeling somewhat relieved.

Even though his news wasn't really good news, it still gave me enough to be hopeful that Frank and Nancy would be okay. I just needed to make it through the next twenty-four hours. After that was done, I wasn't going to stop until I found out who did this to them and make sure they pay for it.