AN. I had a few questions off post asking when this is based in terms of the books, and I don't want to say too much on where The Last Mile comes in because Bella's story will start coming out in the next couple of chapters (if you look at her ramblings after the gaypire quip in chapter two and the flash-WTF-back you'll see there are quite a few time gaps to be explained) - but expect her to mess with chairpire and j-emo at bit more before then... ha ha! but eclipse and breaking dawn definitely never happened. Because they were a waste of my valuable time and I like to pretend they don't exist and that Edward was not a pansyassed repressed mamma's boy with commitment and personal space issues, bella found her lost spine, kicked Edward to the curb and projected some serious lust at Jasper...


Anyways, enough with my rambling (see where my bella comes from?) and thanks for taking the time to read, I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am writing it! The morning commuters thank you for absorbing my vitriol (thank you word of the day calendar).

L x

p.s Happy is an actual town on route 27, and I tittered like chairpire at my desk when google earth blessed me with that gem! I am google's bitch, just like chairpire is mine – I won him in a stare down... but jemo is all prettyflour's, who has my permission to borrow chairpire at any time (read My Shiny Freak – it's so much fun!) Oh and floorpire would like you to review, even if it's one word stating 'WTF?' because I've turned into a review-whore like that...

p.p.s Some silly fool showed me how to work the frappe latte maker in our office, and just le sigh! beverage of heaven! I am now 90% caffeine and everything is amusing to me. They retaliated by hiding the mixer. I have declared war.

I digress again, so on with the story! And a reformed ken doll wearing rodeo gear and checking out steers would like to say howdy bitches...

JPOV

I have known peter for some 100 plus years, and when the game face goes on, you listen.

Because somehow, he knows.

Two times out of three the chances are he's fucking with you, and there have been multiple instances where I've ended up at a group meeting for the emotionally repressed, a fanpire convention (good luck explaining that one to the volturi! He better hope he never runs into aro), or decked out in rainbow colours at a Louisiana pride rally – and that's a story for another time and a stiff glass of jack... But I've also come across the diary of my human life, the wedding rings I remember on my parents fingers, and a pair of boots that no longer fit but burn something deep down inside my chest when I inhale the supple leather.

So he only gets a beat down two out of three times – and I'd take those odds all the way to Vegas!

So when Peter lopes into the kitchen he'll never use all teeth and eyes and the biggest gaudiest fucking belt buckle I've ever seen (and yeah I believe the inscription reads 'i got the magic stick'. in rhinestones. But I'm not going to eye up his crotch. I don't bat an eye, or even two. Because that's peter, and somehow life and a whore from Mexico made him my brother, and that's just how he rolls. And I'm a little traumatised that I know they are rhinestones and not Swarovski crystal, I would hand over my man card if it wasn't in the claws of a short bitch in Alaska) – and casually announces your destiny is lying on the side of the road on route 27 just shy of a place called Happy waiting for you. You listen. And know it'll be a story either way. But still have to wonder where the odds lie today, and definitely take a moment to wonder what the good folks of 'Happy' were smoking when they named it that?!?

So I saddle up in a beast that is all steel and chrome, and leather and torque, and head on out of the ranch, wondering what I'll find this time.

I've got bail money so I should be good.

He is so full of anticipation and glee that I can feel him all the way down the driveway and I'm surprised he's not tapping out some weird ass dance on the counter top. But it's Peter, and he's been cracking himself up for the last month muttering about bullshit about chairpires or some sort of fuckery, and I gave up trying to figure that son of a bitch out eight decades ago. Charlotte would probably detach something he's fond of if she catches him reworking the polished limestone surfaces of her counters again anyway...

He's only just got recently got that left pinky back. He'd been bitching for its loss for a month before she felt he'd served his time.

The roads are quiet and I can kick back with the radio and relax.

Jeff Buckley's voice arches and croons to a fender telecaster out of the speakers and into the air that rushes and tumbles like silk over my arm resting on the open window.

Eternal Life is now on my trail
Got my red glitter coffin, man, just need one last nail
While all these ugly gentlemen play out their foolish games
there's a flaming red horizon that screams our names
And as your fantasies are broken in two
Did you really think this bloody road
would pave the way for you?
You better turn around
and blow your kiss hello to life eternal, angel

Racist everyman, what have you done?
Man, you've made a killer of your unborn son...
Crown my fear your king at the point of a gun
All I want to do is love everyone...

And as your fantasies are broken in two
did you really think this bloody road
would pave the way for you?
You better turn around
and blow your kiss hello to life eternal

Oh...

There's no time for hatred, only questions
Where is love, where is happiness, what is Life,
where is peace?

When will I find the strength to bring me release?
And tell me where is the love in what your prophet has said?
Man, It sounds to me just like a prison for the walking dead
And I've got a message for you and your twisted hell
You better turn around and blow your kiss goodbye
to life eternal angel...
Angel...

Peter has been fucking with my stereo again. At least it's not high school musical this time. I should just smear him in fox piss because this no scent thing makes it goddamn hard to pin shit on him!

The road falls away under the tyres of my truck and a sign finally say I'm 5km away from Happy – I'd make a joke but it's just too easy. I snort a low chuckle and taste the air as I suck it back in through my mouth.

It tastes sweet like Georgia peaches having melted all day in the heat of the sun, but underneath that, there is a stench of death that paves a line down this road that may as well be painted black for all to see.

But there is something else... It's faint but every metre pulls a little bit more in.

The scent is unmistakable and screams in my face, and the memory of a night that changed the direction of my life barrels towards me like a runaway train. Freesia.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise in unison and if I had a pulse it would have quickened to a staccato tattoo.

Bella.

But Bella lives in Washington, in the cool woods of Forks, and doesn't tan well in the sun. Although let's be honest neither do I.

There is a the truck idling and spluttering at the side of the road and i'm out of the cab before it stops moving.

Bella.

But not Bella.

She smells wrong. And she looks empty. And she is smothered in shadows of death. And her fingers are embedded in the dirt.

And she's so pale and cold and there is no emotion whatsoever coming from her that I have to touch her neck to reassure myself that there is a pulse and she is not dead.

The air crackles and ignites. Her skin sparks. Then it is gone.

This is some weird ass shit, which always kicks my military training into gear, and in a split second I reflect on a memory that is etched in silver crescents across the skin of my throat and at my wrists, because for the second time in my life there is a woman on the side of a road in Texas, and I think she needs help. But this time I know it's for real, and there are no monsters ready to steal my life.

"Don't worry darlin', everything's going to be alright."

I think.

I hope?

But I have to wonder what her being here smelling and looking like death means. And just plain what the fuck, because she is far from Happy, and now, so am I, because this is apparently my destiny.

I can't keep my eyes off the rear-view mirror. Thank fuck for peripheral vision or I'd still be at the side of the road, because I can't take my eyes off of her.

Bella is in my truck.

And it's all wrong because she's hollow.

And what had shone out of her was bright and light and warm, and I hadn't realised I'd been crashing on the rocks, because the lighthouse hadn't existed until then.

And there is now nothing...

And Bella is in my truck.

And I'm pulling up to the house and Peter better hide more than his pinky's because Bella is in my truck and I'd once plotted to smoother her with a pillow in her sleep, and I shouldn't have been allowed to touch her earlier.

I think he knows though because as I pull up and park he's already reaching into the back and lifting her out of the cab like spun glass with both hands, so they are safe for now.

He looks me square in the face but my eyes are locked somewhere else, and then gestures downwards with his head.

"Does this come with fries?"

....

....

....

what the FUCK!

My eyes are no longer fixed on Bella. They are cataloguing the order of the pieces I will be relieving Peter of. He can't hold on to her forever... I mean he can, his arms wont get tired, and we've got nothing but time here, but Charlotte will demand some hip action and that man can't say no to that pussy.

He smiles wryly at me and I realise I'm no longer stuck on a loop of Bella and what the fuck, and shoot out some appreciation at him. Sometimes Peter just knows.