Best reactions to cliffhanger EVER! well best reactions I have received anyway. Also I should warn you that Edward swears in this chapter because...well you'll have to read and find out won't you?
The referee was blowing the whistle all of a sudden and every watcher from Forks High flooded the field to lift Jet onto their shoulders cheering wildly. None of them noticed Alice slip around them and jog towards the Reservation team who had already turned away. "Come to gloat leech?" Embry's bitter question was ignored as she held out a hand towards Jacob. His flesh seared against hers as he shook it.
"You had a vision didn't you?" He muttered, continuing the guise of one team congratulating the other. "What's wrong?" Jacob's liquid brown eyes flickered with interest and a hint of worry.
"Bella." The single word was enough for the werewolf to release her hand and his eyes to narrow as he searched for the girl. "Edward has her. He could be hurting her." Jacob's eyes burned like twin suns when he looked back at her and she fought the flinch. "We need to go now." She pleaded with him, conscious that it was only a matter of time before someone saw she was absent from the celebration and pulled her into a group she would not be able to slink out of.
"Leah, stay here." He barked the order over his shoulder as he and Alice sprinted towards the forest as fast as they dared.
Alice had no idea which part of the forest her brother had taken Bella to but she could remember a small brook from her vision. She knew that if they could find that they could find Bella. "Any ideas?" Jacob asked, breathing heavily already as he fought to keep up with the tiny vampire; she was darting ahead easily and they'd already covered a lot of ground.
"There was a stream of some kind. A lot of trees, oak I think." She flipped over a small ditch, never slowing, never looking down or back and kept racing forwards, feet barely touching the ground. She didn't know how long Edward and Bella had been gone. She didn't know if her vision was of the future or of the present. And she didn't know if they would be in time. She did know that in time or not Edward would not live to regret what he had done.
"This way." Jacob called suddenly veering off to the right. Alice placed a foot against the nearest tree and used it to propel herself after him. "There's a small river this way. It runs through a small grove of trees." The pair moved faster as a scream of terror cut through the air. Alice couldn't stop the shiver that ran down her spine at the sound, just as she couldn't stop the rage that shuddered up her spine. It no longer mattered to her if Bella wanted Edward over her, or anyone else over her. It only mattered that the girl was safe, breathing and happy. That was all.
"You are mine Isabella!" Edward's voice roared the echoes drowned out by the crash of a splintering tree trunk. Jacob and Alice flew into the newly born clearing before the tree could even hit the ground. "Never forget that." Jacob raced to Bella and Alice launched herself at her brother, even through the crimson mist that had descended across her vision she glad that he couldn't read her mind while his own was so disorganised. She took him by surprise and forced him to the ground, pinning his arms as best she could and sitting on his legs. "You." He growled in her face. Alice growled back. "You took her from me!" Edward screamed throwing his tiny sister away from him. She slammed into a tree and if she'd been human the blow surely would have broken her back. As it was she simply slid to the ground at the tree's roots.
"Oh you did that all by yourself Edward." Alice taunted him before diving again; wrapping her thin arms around his waist and tackling him back to the ground. She straddled his hips and slammed a fist into his face. She was rewarded with a resounding crack as the once perfect nose crumpled. Edward caught the next fist in his and twisted it roughly, smirking when Alice whimpered and a muscle tore.
"Isabella is mine. And once I kill you she will have choice but to admit that." Her brother wrapped a hand around her throat and began to clench it into a fist. Alice sputtered even though she did not need air; the sudden lack of it shocked her. Using all of her strength she twisted her head to the side and bit down on Edward's wrist. He released her with a howl but she only bit harder, her mouth wrapped entirely around the wrist, until the bone snapped and the limb fell away. "Bitch." He spat in her face rearing his head back before crashing it into her face. Alice felt her jaw snap and the sound of a gunshot resounded inside her skull. A piece of her marble skin fluttered to the ground while a crack ran up the side of her face.
"You think she'll choose you after this?" Incredulity dripped from her voice as she crashed blow after blow into her brother's face.
"Humans are fickle creatures." He smirked as his own face cracked, the split running from his mouth to his left eye. "She's probably as terrified of you as she is me by now." Alice knew his words would fester in her mind and remain for a very long time but another fist to his mouth made him fall silent.
Another and his neck snapped, head rolling limply to the side.
Another and Alice began to feel better.
Another and the weight on her shoulders finally lifted.
Another and the red mist lifted from her eyes. Alice was breathing heavily, her knuckles and shirt red with her brother's dead blood but it was the best she'd felt in weeks.
"ALICE!" Jacob's yell cut through her wave of good feeling and by his voice it appeared that he'd been shouting at her for a while. She whirled to her feet and finally saw what her brain had, at first, refused to register; Bella was slumped at the foot of a tree with blood trickling sluggishly from her neck.
"No." The denial fell softly from her lips as she herself dropped to her knees beside the unmoving girl. Alice picked up one of Bella's hands carefully and breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the pulse. It was weak but it was there.
"Al…ice…" The vampire's heart leapt when she realised the human's eyes were partially open.
"I'm here Sweetheart. I'm here." She breathed, brushing her lips across Bella's knuckles.
"He knew…Edward…about us…" Jacob shifted uncomfortably on the spot.
"Shh. Bell we can talk later ok? We need to get you to Carlisle." Bella's eyes drifted closed but the girl forced them back open.
"Don't let…Edward be the…one to change…me…" Bella's breathed was laboured and it suddenly occurred to Alice that the venom on the bite may have already started its work. It wouldn't have all that much to change either, not with the older bites on the girl's back.
"Ok Sweetheart. I won't. You're going to be ok." Alice backed away, allowing Jacob to lift Bella into his arms with a gentleness that belied his size. She knew the warmth from his body would be more beneficial to the human than the iciness from hers but she couldn't help wishing that she would get to carry the girl home. Jacob began to stride back into the forest but Alice cast a glance over her shoulder before she followed him.
Edward was gone. As was his severed hand.
/
Jacob kicked the door to the Cullen house open with a single blow and strode in, out of breath, with Bella cradled to his chest. "Bring her through." Carlisle waved the werewolf through the entrance hall and into the living room. Jacob placed the unconscious human on the sofa carefully just as Alice darted into the room.
"Edward got away." She reported, topaz eyes fixed on Bella and the man knelt beside her. "Is she going to be ok?" Carlisle looked up at his daughter.
"She doesn't appear to have any broken bones or have lost too much blood." Both Alice and Jacob visibly relaxed. "But there is a certain amount of venom in her system. We have to decide whether we let the transformation go ahead or not." Again the pair had identical reactions; shaking their heads violently. Carlisle quirked an eyebrow.
"Take the venom out." Alice's voice shook slightly, knowing that taking out the venom meant taking out some blood. And blood was something that she didn't think Bella had enough of.
"I think you should do it." Carlisle stood and guided Alice closer to the sofa.
"Carlisle I don't think I'd be able to stop." She swallowed heavily; the scent of Bella's blood was intoxicating.
"Bella trusts you." Alice opened her mouth to argue but the look in Jacob's eyes told her in no uncertain terms to get on with it. Slowly, reverently, she lowered her lips to Bella's neck and began to pull bitter tasting venom from the vein Edward had broken. Soon the bitter taste was mixed with sweet blood. Alice's eyes fluttered closed as the liquid flowed down her throat but instead of sating her thirst it made it worse.
She pulled more blood from the wound and this time it was untainted y by venom. She had taken enough but she couldn't seem to tell her mouth that. Her tongue was lapping at the blood, eager to get more. "Alice." Carlisle's soft voice sounded in her ear, bringing her back to earth. "You need to stop now or you'll kill her." Kill Bella? No. She couldn't. She wouldn't. Alice stood and moved away from Bella with red tinted eyes. "Good girl." Her father murmured as he checked the human.
"Well done." Jacob shook her hand with a smile. "And thank you for taking Edward out as well. I'm glad someone did." Alice shook her head, wiping sweet blood from her mouth and licking from her fingers.
"He's still out there Jake. He's not gone for good yet." The werewolf shrugged.
"He wouldn't dare come back."
"He wouldn't admit defeat and relinquish Bella. No way." Concern finally began to be born in Jacob's eyes at the conviction behind her words.
"Maybe he'll just go to the Volturi and get himself killed." Alice sighed, turning away from him to watch Bella sleep.
"Not this time. Not while she's alive."
So what's the betting that Mr Cullen will return then? And well done Alice :)
