(Disclaimer- I own a spider monkey named bellaaa. that would seriously be cool..
having a spider monkey and naming it bella. hmm.)

woo. so last night .. or this morning, rather, i stayed up until four in the morning and wrote a WHOLE BUNCH
of new chapters. haha. i just couldn't seem to get myself to stop. so I'm going to give you two new ones, seeing
as I might be a little busy for a while with visiting the family. i'm leaving tonight.. for a really long road trip.
and it is going to really stink. i hope i dont get car sick. :( wish me luck.
alright. read and review! thanks for the reviews, by the way!

Fate

I stood shakily from the floor, my knees weak. More than anything, I missed him. Not Jacob or Edward this time, but Charlie. I missed him, terribly. The rush of emotion stunned me, my eyes flipping wide, feet staggering back. I collided sharply with the wall, and for a split second, I was completely unaware of my surroundings. I missed the loud roar of his snoring, the sound of his feet slapping against the wooden floor on his way to my room in the middle of the night, the sound of his angered voice as he yelled at Edward for proposing to me. I missed the odd taps he'd planted on my shoulder when I was upset, the tenacity of his will as he tried to push me into a relationship with Jacob, the crinkly-eyed smile, the curly brown of his receding hairline. It was a wonder to me how I could miss these things, these things that had once irritated me. It was strange to think that I would miss him, now, of all times. But I knew that if he were here, he would protect me. Though he wouldn't have approved of my recent actions, he would have protected me. He wouldn't have let me stay here. Or at least that's that I hoped. Maybe he would have. Maybe I was just longing for a parent that actually cared. Someone who would help me.

But then reality came back into play, and I was alone.

People were running, screaming. Not terrified, afraid screams, but hollered words of determination and order. The loud, ringing noise was still too close, ear-shattering. It echoed off of the glass wall to my left, kicking into my head and rocking me into the wall. It was so loud. Too loud. I couldn't think. I covered my ears, flinching as it continued, waiting still for them to find me like I knew they would.

But no one seemed to come.

The halls emptied quickly, the sounds of footsteps leaving me, chasing off in the wrong direction. My eyes widened, realizing what had happened. Someone had pulled the alarm. They must have found her, Carol. They weren't looking for me yet, but they would be. Soon. Very soon.

I had to react quickly. I only had a little bit of time to do what I had to.

I ran as fast as my legs would push me, using the wall to expel myself forward. I sprinted down the short hallway, looking for guards. There was one, but he was just beginning to turn down the other hallway, his back to me. He grabbed the gun off of his chair, fleeing into the hallway up ahead. I didn't reduce in speed. I ran like hell for the door, my arms reaching out ahead of me, desperation thickening my thoughts, making them sluggish. My mind was panicked, out of control. But it didn't slow me. I didn't need my head to tell me how to run. I tore to the left, so close. So close.

And there it was. My exit.

I almost stopped. I couldn't believe that it was happening. My escape was just a few feet away, I could almost touch it. My feet kept careening forward, pounding hard against the tiled floor as they dragged me quietly onward. My teeth clicked together in determination as my hands pushed against the glass door, sliding against it, feeling the cold surface beneath my palms. I shoved hard, not bothering to wait for it to completely open, and hopped through the small slit. Nighttime washed in over my face, the sky dotted with specks of light. My chest ached. I was away. I was free, but it could change so easily. So quickly. One wrong move and I'd be back there, trapped. I darted down the street.

--

I didn't slow until I reached the house. There, I crept into the shadows, dripping with sweat. My breath was hard and uneven, my legs throbbing in ways they'd never throbbed before. I'd never run this far in my entire life and the result was not pretty. I slumped forward, feeling like I was going to vomit, but having nothing to puke up. My head fell back, the stars around me spinning unnervingly. I wasn't doing well. I wasn't going to make it.

I clasped my hands together in front of my face, praying that my legs would not fail me so soon. Just get me through this last part, please, I begged them, stepping forward. My leg shook, and, for a moment, I wasn't sure I'd put my foot down all the way. I leaned my weight into it and realized that I was standing on both feet, but I still couldn't feel it. The grass flew up to my face.

"Ugh!" I huffed, my stomach meeting a hard rock in the lawn. I groaned, rolling over, and tried, with every bit of my strength, to will my body to move properly. I didn't have time for this. I couldn't handle it, though. Me, my body, we couldn't handle it. It was too much. Beating up a sort-of-old lady, running away from the hospital, having to stay hidden. Running for miles and miles. It was dizzying. I couldn't feel my fingers. My eyelids stuttered over my eyes, flipping rapidly. I could barely stay conscious.

Without realizing that I'd moved it, my hand came down across my face. The sting of the slap had me shifting back into reality, startling me. I gasped, thankful for whatever had just powered my hand to do that, and forced my legs up, crawling to the side of the house. The key was under the eave of the back door. I snatched it, standing to throw it into the keyhole, each and every one of my muscles aching in protest. The door opened quickly under my hand and a blanket of black dropped over my face.

The kitchen was dark, but that meant nothing. They could be hiding in the shadows, waiting with the nurses from the hospital, ready to capture me. And I had no where to go. No one to save me. I gripped at my chest, horrified. I didn't want to take one step inside of that house, but I really had no choice. My arms ached, my fingers searching for a hand to hold, warm or cold, I'd take anything. Even a human. I just wanted someone to care about me, to help me, to want to see me happy. Why was everyone so bent on destroying me?

It was hard to get used to, the idea of being alone. I wasn't used to it. I didn't like it. Even after that entire year in the little room, completely deserted, I still wasn't comfortable by myself. I panicked without the touch of another hand, the whisper of calming words, the remedy to my pain, the love of my beautiful men. My heart ached, forever bare. I couldn't survive without them. Not only in the dramatic sense, but in the realistic meaning of the words. I could not live. I couldn't make it. I'd wind up getting killed, one way or another. I was so hopeless. I'd never make it on my own.

What if they didn't exist? What if all this effort was for nothing? I refused to believe those things, believe that my love was simply that of my imagination. I couldn't come to terms with it. I loved them so much; I yearned to see their faces. I had to believe that they were out there, somewhere. But even as much as I loved them, I hated them, too. So much. Because my parents, the people from the hospital, they weren't the only ones doing this to me. Jacob and Edward, they were doing this to me, too. They were killing me, the images of their faces assaulting my memory day after day, second after second. I would do anything for them. I would give my life, and they may not have even known I'd had a life. They weren't here. Where were they, when I needed protecting? I'd never felt such pain. This ache…this burn was horrible, indescribable, inescapable.

I wished that I could just force a knife through my core, kill off the flood of emotions that was keeping me in this mental state, keeping me buried under all of this lunacy. I wished I could run away, that I could fly away from here, but I didn't know where to go. I had no one. And the only two that I wanted, that I should have had…they weren't here. I was still so alone.

Tears silently rolled down my face as I stared at the darkened room, empty as it seemed to be. This was my future. Dark, empty. Alone. I couldn't breathe. My figure was hurling into the dark room, lurching back. My body ached to drop to the floor, curl into a ball, let them take me. Let them do whatever they wanted with me, I didn't care. I was almost ready to give up. I couldn't deal with the pain anymore. The anger and the pain, the neglect, the betrayal. They'd all betrayed me. All of them. My parents, my Jacob, Edward. Where were they!? Where the hell were they!?

I was so ready to give up. Just give in. Surrender. I was just so tired. So very, very tired. And I was sad. I was sad and defeated and hopeless. Doomed to fail. There was so much keeping me from my happiness. I couldn't stop thinking that maybe I just didn't deserve it. Maybe it was never mine. It wasn't meant to be. I would be alone. No one loved me. Jacob hadn't ever loved me. Edward hadn't ever loved me. They weren't real. No one was real. No one cared. Not one person.

I sunk to my knees in the doorway. I couldn't see where I was anymore, not really. My eyes were fogging up with memories, swallowing me into a deep green. And then I was in the forest, sinking to the ground. Jacob was so close, but yet still so very far from me. I reached to him, saw the horrified expression on his pretty face. I felt the warmth pooling out from beneath my fingers, falling from my chest. The booming sound of the gun resonated in my head, loud and threatening. Jacob cried, coming closer. I felt my body sway, saw it sway. In real life, my body slipped forward, my face crashing into the counter. In the memory, I slipped into the grass. I watched Jacob's face with my tear-filled eyes, lingering there on the warm chocolate of his stare. Heat surrounded me, and my chest felt so much better, and still so much worse, all at once. My eyes snapped shut, death lifting me from the forest with Jacob, and it was gone.

My eyes scoured the dark kitchen around me, looking for him. I was so desperate for his face. A soft sob squeaked out from between my lips, my hands falling empty in front of my face. I wanted him so bad. I needed him. And that was all it took. Just one look at his remembered face and I had to keep going. I had to. I couldn't give up. I continued to cry as I sat up, using the door for support.

My fingers traced along the counter, searching. And then there they were, so easy to get to. The keys. Not mine, but my dad's. His little Toyota was so much quieter than mine, faster. I was going to need something like that if I wanted to get anywhere. I stuffed the keys into my palm, pressing them hard into the flesh there to keep them silent. Then I slinked out of the kitchen, closing the door behind me.

I was surprised that the police hadn't been here yet, but I didn't linger on the thought. I slithered through the darkness, weaving through the shadows that were clinging eerily to the blades of grass in my yard. My fingers curled around the handle of the car door and it opened quietly. I sat down on the leather seat, feeling drowsy. Perhaps too drowsy to drive.

No. I told myself. You can't sleep now. You have to go. You're so close.

I softly started the engine, pleased that it was quiet, and backed out into the road, grabbing my father's baseball hat from the passenger seat and flipping it on over the mess of my hair, angling it so that I wouldn't easily be seen by any passing vehicles. There weren't any as of the moment, but I wasn't taking chances. I stepped hard onto the accelerator, coaxing a high number out of the speedometer. Sooner than I would have thought, I was flying down the road at eighty miles per hour. My heart was faster.

I knew that I didn't have time to run upstairs and grab my clothes, money. That was another reason I'd taken this car. My father had a habit of leaving his wallet in the console, placing his work clothes on the backseat for the next day. I could see in the rearview mirror the button down shirt and the dress pants on the back seat, the brown leather square sitting gingerly in the console.

I smiled halfheartedly, bringing my eyes back to the road. I wouldn't be able to keep this car for long. Soon enough, it would be reported stolen, and people would be on the lookout for it. I'd have to leave it somewhere between here and Washington, take off with the wallet. I'd need to change into his work clothes first, though. The white of this uniform was just too white, too noticeable.

But what would I do when I had to flee from the car? Would I travel then on foot? Hitchhike? Maybe there was enough money in his wallet to take a train…Or would they be looking for me in places like that? I really hadn't had much experience with the whole criminal scene. I rarely even watched the types of shows that I would probably wind up on after this. Shows like America's Most Wanted and Snapped. I'd maybe seen about half an episode of each before I'd gotten bored with it and sauntered off to read. I had no idea where to go, how to hide. Where would criminals go?

Should I even be thinking that, or should I be thinking instead of where they wouldn't go? Because which would be more obvious, more likely for the cops to look? I had no idea. Not a clue. I shook my head angrily, my teeth clenched, and continued down the road. Why think it through? I'd escaped this far on pure instinct. Why mess with a good thing? This was working—for the most part. I'd just figure something out when I absolutely needed to. Though, who knew when that would be…I didn't know.

I sighed, my ears straining for the sound of sirens. I heard nothing, but that didn't really mean a lot. I had human ears. Fragile, unreliable human ears. The subtle prick of anger tightened my jaw as I realized again how much easier this would have been if I'd had one of them with me. Jacob or Edward. I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Had everything I'd 'dreamt' really just been a dream? Did they not know of me? I found that very hard to believe. But wouldn't Alice have seen something, said something, if they did know?

It took me a minute to loosen my grip on the steering wheel, my head shaking slowly, trying to deny the unreasonable anger I felt. I knew that it was stupid to be angry with them, but, in reality, I didn't think the anger was real at all anyway. I think it was just a ploy…a stupid blanket of hatred my heart had rolled itself into so it wouldn't have to feel the pain of missing them. How could I blame them when I loved them so?

Sirens blazed to the left of my stolen vehicle abruptly. My heart stopped, the car inching to a halt before the red light just ahead. My hands shook against the fabric that covered the wheel, sweat pouring too quickly from my palms. I wiped my hands against the white pants, trying to stay calm. I needed to think. I had only seconds to do that. The sirens blared closer. I gasped in terror. Flee, or stay, pretend you're just another innocent driver? My mind swirled dizzyingly. I couldn't swallow an idea, couldn't get my fingers to turn the wheel, to loop the u-turn I should have made.

Just then a black car shot out from the left, cutting across the four-way intersection like a bat out of hell. I cocked an eyebrow, mouth ajar. It sped by so quickly that my neck nearly whipped itself broken trying to keep up, but I wasn't quick enough to see more than the blur. Two cop cars flew down the street behind it, trying desperately to keep up with the speed demon. I coughed out a laugh, sounding more like a choking dog than an insanely slap-happy nineteen year old girl.

You have got to be kidding me.

It was so…unbelievable. Almost like it was destined to be. For once, fate seemed to be with me. Maybe I'd find Jacob after all. Maybe I could do this. Maybe. Just maybe.

I kicked the car into drive and sped off down the concrete path, feeling every nerve ending in my body sizzle with the heat they anticipated. Jacob.

(Author's note: haaa. can you imagine that? thank goodness for speedy black cars.)