Chapter 3: Screams and School Stuff
Bella PoV
I sat on the front door step to the house, waiting for the new family to arrive. I glanced at my watch, five minutes to wait. I was not looking forward to this. This was a new family to Forks. Apparently they had travelled a lot and now just wanted to relax. I shook my head. Forks was not the place to relax. I had been briefed on the family after Alice volunteered us to be the welcome party. The family consisted of three teenagers. All boys. Two of them seventeen, the third's seventeenth birthday was in a week. Also there was a thirteen year old girl, a ten year old boy and an eight year old girl. I sighed as Alice danced along the drive towards me.
"Thirty-nine seconds," She sang. I rolled my eyes.
Surely enough though, exactly thirty-nine seconds later a bright yellow cab came rolling down the drive. The door opened and a tall, slender girl stepped out. She bounced over to us, an ecstatic look on her face. I took in the mocha colour skin and curly dark hair before she pounced on me.
"Hi!" she squealed. The girl actually squealed. Alice is the only person in the entire world who I've heard do that. The girl and Alice were talking to each other, really, really fast! I stared wide eyed at her as words came tumbling out of her mouth. Then suddenly it stopped. There was a hand across her mouth. I looked up at a very tall guy. He was pale skinned, like me, and had strawberry blond hair that was spiked up. He was blind.
"Sorry," He said, "She does that. This is Tiffany-Krystal by the way and I'm James."
"I'm Bella, pleased to meet you," The guy nodded and I turned to see a little girl skip towards me. She had big blue eyes and she looked almost too cute. Then she smiled and I was instantly sure this girl could get anything she wanted out of her family.
"Hi! I'm Angelica," She had a sweet little girl's voice. She was clutching a worn out teddy bear. It had a halo.
"Hey. I'm Bella. I like your teddy. What's her name?" I smiled at her. She had brightened up a lot when I mentioned her bear.
"Oh! This is Celeste, and this," Angelica motioned to the boy standing next to her, "Is my brother Jason."
"Hi." I said. He smiled at me and I saw the resemblance between the two. They were the only true relations of the group.
I looked around for the other two guys as Angelica and Jason went to talk to Alice and see the house. A tall, dark boy was paying the cab driver. Angelica ran over as he reached into the backseat.
"Careful Fang," She warned him, "You don't want to wake her."
I frowned, confused, as the boy nodded and carefully lifted a girl out of the car. So there was a girl. That certainly brightened things for Alice. The girl tensed as she was lifted out of the cab.
"It's okay, Max. It's just me," He whispered to her. She relaxed into his arms and he carried her inside.
I followed to find Alice trying to calm the kids down, but failing miserably. The moment the guy walked into the room with Max, however, they became completely silent.
"Right guys," His voice was quiet, "Pick rooms and get ready for bed. When you're ready come downstairs and Ig will make us all something to eat, alright?"
They all nodded and rushed upstairs. The arguing over rooms continued but every time someone raised their voice there would be lots of shushing and 'Max is sleeping downstairs'
I watched as the boy laid Max gently down on the couch. Angelica ran downstairs with a blanket. She hugged Max, as a small child would her mother. The boy pulled the blanket over Max and turned to me expectantly. I blinked.
"What? Oh, the keys." I pulled an envelope out of a bag and handed it over to him. "This is all the instructions. It says where to find stuff in the house and town, what to do if you need any sort of help. Oh, and it tells about school. What classes you're in and when you start. I'm Bella by the way and that's Alice."
"Nick," He nodded, "School?" His quiet question reminded me of the fact they weren't supposed to be going to school.
"Er, yeah," I bit my lip, "You see they said that school is compulsory for you and you have to start as soon as possible. That's tomorrow."
"We don't have any stuff," Nick said in that same quiet voice he had been using all the time.
"It's upstairs," Alice replied, "Come on. We'll show you." He followed Alice up the stairs after taking one quick glance at Max. Just to check that she was still sleeping soundly.
We followed Alice to a hall closet. She pulled the door open and my jaw dropped as I saw inside. It had everything you could ever want, need or imagine for school. Plus a bit more.
The rest of the family joined us. Each with different levels of enthusiasm toward the news, and the contents of the closet. Each with the same reaction; 'Did Max say we are?'
After Nick had explained for the fourth time that no, Max did not say anything and that she was still sleeping, there was a scream from downstairs.
The scream hurt my ears and my heart. It was so full of fear and pain, so loud.
Nick was gone before I could register that it was Max who screamed. By the time I made it into the living room, he was cradling Max against his chest, rubbing her back and rocking her gently. She was crying. I caught a glimpse of her eyes and wished I hadn't. She looked petrified.
"Shh. Its okay, Max. It's okay. I've got you. He won't touch you. I promise. He's not gonna hurt you," Nick was murmuring into her hair.
"He…He….He," Max tried to speak through her sobs, "He caught me and he… he took me back. They, they made me go so fast. I couldn't take it. So they said I didn't deserve them," Max started crying harder and her works became less and less understandable, "They…he…he ripped them, Fang,"
Nick looked at her in horror, as did the rest of her family.
"He ripped them out. It hurt so much. I screamed as loud as I could," Max looked up at Nick, her eyes dry now, "Are…are they still…there?" She whispered so quietly I could have been imagining it.
Nick looked into her eyes and his hands moved up and down her back, tracing some sort of shape on it, through her shirt. He nodded. Max smiled then leant against him, closing her eyes. He held her close as she fell back into a deep sleep.
We all stood watching Max sleep for ages, until there was a knock on the door.
"Oh!" Alice snapped out of it first, "That'll be our lift. Bye. We'll see you tomorrow at school," She smiled and waved. Most of them smiled back. Nick nodded, taking his eyes off Max for a second, no more. Tiffany-Krystal waved back. Angelica came with us to the door and waved to us as we got in Edward's car, before she disappeared into the house.
Edward reversed out of the drive and stared at Alice, "Really? Mike Newton will be happy that one of them is a girl. Did you hear him complaining last week?"
"Yeah," Alice grinned, "They were a really nice family, so sweet, but when Max had that nightmare she was so scared. So was everyone else. I have no idea what she meant by the ripping and things, but her family was so horrified when she said that. Also, the way Nick held Max, the way he acted around her. It reminded me of you two."
We both stared at her.
"What? It did. He even said to her that he'd keep her safe. That he'd not let 'Him' hurt her. Sound familiar?"
Edward and I looked at each other, then back at Alice.
"What do you think?" Edward asked me.
"There was something unusual about them," I said slowly, "They were all so tense and alert, as if they were ready for an attack any minute."
"Did you notice that they never let either of us out of their sights?" Alice wondered aloud, "Well, until Max woke up, then they forgot about us, understandably. Also, they were all really attractive, and like, athletic. Nick ran amazingly fast when Max screamed.
"It's probably because they travel a lot. Apparently they go camping and backpacking all the time, Jessica told me, she said maybe they could come with us," We all grinned at that. If Max's family went backpacking with the Cullens they would probably not come back, "They're supposed to be really good at sports but don't have to take part in gym, I don't know why."
"What?! That's not fair!" I complained, "They can actually play sports and don't, I however practically kill myself every time I try and am forced to take part!"
Alice and Edward grinned at my reaction.
"I got all this information from Jessica, remember. So it might not all be true," Alice pointed out.
"Yeah, but still, I'm quite interested in this family now. I'm going to listen to them," Edward said, "They sound like fun."
