A/N: So here's the Chase chapter. It details what Edward, Emmett, and Carlisle were doing up to when Alice has her first visions and they have to come back to Forks after losing James. I hope you like it! Read, Review, Pass it on!

-Wish

Chapter 34: The Chase

I turned to Edward as soon as Laurent was out the door. "How close?" I asked him.

Esme was moving to the security pad on the wall. Moving into the house, we had agreed a few modifications were in order. Everyone loved the glass wall, but we were honest about how well it would stand up, particularly to our kind. As Esme entered the code, the metal shutters we'd installed slid into place, locking down the glass wall. Bella stared, wide-eyed at our security measures but there was little time to explain.

"About three miles out past the river; he's circling around to meet up with the female," Edward replied to my question.

"What's the plan?" I asked. Obviously since Edward had brought Bella here, rather than running her away, he had a plan that involved the family.

"We'll lead him off," Edward explained, "and then Jasper and Alice will run her south."

"And then?" I prompted. I had a feeling I knew what was next.

Edward's expression hardened and his voice became cold. "As soon as Bella is clear, we hunt him."

Dismay settled in the pit of my stomach. "I guess there's no other choice," I replied. I knew Laurent and Edward were right. James wouldn't stop until he was killed. Bella would be in danger until he was gone.

Edward had turned to Rosalie, of all people.

"Get her upstairs and trade clothes," he ordered. Rosalie glared back at him with a mixture of defiance and disbelief. Disbelief that he would dare to ask her to do such a thing when she'd made her opinion of Bella so clear, and defiance that he had in fact, asked her.

"Why should I?" Rosalie hissed back. "What is she to me? Except a menace—a danger you've chosen to inflict on all of us."

Bella visibly flinched and I felt embarrassed that a member of my family would show such heartlessness and lack of support. Bella was family, especially now.

"Rose…" Emmett said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder. Rosalie shrugged it off.

But Edward acted as if he hadn't heard Rosalie. Perhaps he'd been expecting that reaction the moment the words were on his tongue. He turned to Esme and asked her calmly.

"Of course," Esme replied. Esme picked Bella up and rushed her upstairs.

Edward, Emmett, and Jasper began talking about the plans of attack, how they would handle James. I beckoned Rosalie to follow me to the kitchen. She begrudgingly went.

Rosalie helped me as I hurried around the kitchen, grabbing passports, currency, cell phones, things we might need to keep in touch and navigate the human world. All the while, I spoke to Rose in a calm, but firm tone.

"Rosalie, whether you like it or not, Bella is family now. Edward chose her, and he's not going to change his mind. You're going to have to accept that."

"She's a danger to us all," Rosalie protested. "If anything, this shows it! Everything would've been fine in that clearing had she not been there."

I gathered up the phones and other things. I took Rosalie's and Esme's passport out of the stack and placed them in her hand. "We protect our family," I said firmly. We returned to the living room where Edward was finalizing plans.

"Jasper, you and Alice will take Bella south. Esme and Rosalie will try to lead the woman off, west. Emmett, Carlisle," he said my name with questioning hesitation, "and I, will go after James." I nodded. I didn't relish the task, but going with Edward and Emmett would let me regulate them. They were in the most danger of taking this too far. If I went with them, I could perhaps, keep them from becoming the monsters like James.

Esme and Alice descended the stairs, carrying Bella between them. I handed a phone to Esme, and then to Alice.

"Esme and Rosalie will be taking you truck, Bella," I said. Bella looked worried. She wore Esme's clothes, which were a bit too long for her. Esme wore Bella's. The scent was muddled between the two of them. We might be able to confuse them as we leave.

"Alice, Jasper—take the Mercedes. You'll need the dark tint in the south." I didn't like parting with my car, but Alice and Jasper needed it more than I did.

They nodded.

"We're taking the Jeep," I finished. Emmett nodded. He'd slung a pack over his shoulder. It held certain supplies we might need to deal with James.

"Alice? Will they take the bait?" I asked, turning to where she stood with Jasper and Bella. The room was still as she closed her eyes, looking to the future.

"He'll track you," she answered finally. "The woman will follow the truck. We should be able to leave after that."

I nodded. She seemed certain, which meant we had a good chance of tricking the tracker and getting Bella out of Forks with Alice and Jasper tonight.

"Let's go." I began turning towards the kitchen to leave, but stopped as Edward scooped Bella up, holding her as close as he could. He kissed her, a quick and desperate action that wrenched my heart. We couldn't let Bella be killed; I couldn't bear to see the results. Edward would never be the same. Bella had to live and we had to stop James. It wasn't an option.

He turned and left, Emmett and I right behind him, moving quickly. We jumped into the Jeep, I was driving. We were heading north as far as possible. The key was to go fast, but not so fast we lost the tracker. We'd head north and then ambush him.

I maneuvered the Jeep down the driveway and out onto the freeway. It was late; there were barely any other cars on the road. I pushed the Jeep faster. 80 mph.

"Edward," I said.

"He's following us," Edward replied, knowing my question. He flicked open the telephone and hit the speed dial.

"Esme," he said. "You and Rose can leave now. Be careful, Bella's truck doesn't go very fast."

He hung up before I could hear Esme's voice answer.

Emmett was rifling through the backpack, shuffling around tanks from our camp stove "props". We'd need the kerosene to burn the pieces of James.

"What're we going to do if this doesn't work?" Emmett asked. "What if the tracker changes course?"

Edward gripped the armrests, putting dents all the way through the leather, to the frame.

"Edward," I warned. He released his grip, though he spoke through clenched teeth.

"We fly to Bella," he said. "And we take her and hide her. Alice and Jasper can come back to Forks, or they can choose to continue the hunt."

The phone buzzed in his hand and he flipped it open again. "The woman is on our trail," Esme reported. I was relieved to hear her sweet voice, even distorted as it was through the cell phone.

"Good," Edward replied. He hung up and then dialed Alice's phone. Alice must've been waiting for him because she answered before even the first ring. "Victoria is following Esme and Rose," Edward reported. "Be careful when you leave. And remember, Bella has to eat more often than we do." He shut the phone again and tucked it away.

I turned down a side road. It was paved, but it hadn't been redone in what looked like ten years or even more. The vehicle bounced around but held up to the battery. Rosalie had worked on Emmett's Jeep the most out of all of our vehicles. I was able to fly down the back road at 70 mph and the suspension held up.

The back road turned into a Jeep trail, in even worse condition than the back road. It was unpaved, scattered rocks with more craters than the surface of the moon. The trees loomed closer in the darkness. I hadn't turned on the lights. We didn't want the tracker to have an easy time, otherwise he might suspect something.

Up ahead the road narrowed, too small for Emmett's Jeep. It was time to "ditch the ride" as Emmett might say. We jumped our, taking everything with us, and took off at a hard run down the new path. It was a hikers' trail, though the human scents were old and lingering. None of them had passed by in the last week. We wouldn't have to worry.

We led him as far north as possible until we came to the end of the peninsula. Then we swam across to just north of Everett and continued up the coast of Washington. We waited long enough until Edward confirmed that James was still following us. He'd tracked us across the water and was still on our trail.

Emmett was itching to turn around and ambush James. Edward insisted we needed to lead him farther from Forks. It was lighter now; the sun had risen behind the cloud cover

"We need to give Alice and Jasper enough time to get Bella away," Edward whispered as we ran. The tracker was only a few miles behind us. We were letting him get progressively closer, drawing him in for the ambush. We hadn't been able to call Esme, Rosalie, Alice, or Jasper. We hadn't spoken in anymore than a low whisper, too low for a cell phone to pick up and we definitely hadn't said a single word about where Bella went, or even which direction. We were being cautious, not sure of the tracker's range.

"If we get him now, Bella doesn't even have to get there," Emmett replied in kind.

"Quiet, both of you!" I hissed. I was listening for James. Edward had said that he was sure James was still behind us, even though he'd been flitting on the edge of Edward's range since we'd swam across to the mainland. He had been dropping back as we neared Vancouver, across the Canadian border. It had me worried. We'd led him far from Forks, hoping that he would follow Edward and assumed that Edward didn't leave Bella. Edward had run out of Bella's scent. He'd been using a few of her clothes to lure James on. But the clothing no longer smelled as much like Bella as it smelled like the trees and forest, and us.

Edward skidded to a stop suddenly and I was reminded of James's actions the day before. Emmett and I halted too, digging into the leaves and soil beneath us.

Edward stared straight ahead, a look of horror on his face. He said nothing; I assumed he was listening to the tracker's thoughts. We were outside Vancouver. We'd been leading him on for a full day or so.

"He's gone," Edward said. "He's beyond my range." Edward turned and took off, back the way we'd come, but no matter what, Edward couldn't find the tracker and neither Emmett nor I could pick up any trace of him.

"Damn it!" Emmett swore, punching a tree trunk. The trunk splintered, leaving a depression the shape of Emmett's fist halfway through it.

"We have to go back," I said. "We have to find his scent and try to follow it. When was the last time you heard him, Edward?"

"He followed on the edge of my range, but I heard him for sure just south of Vancouver."

"We'll start there."

We back-tracked and picked up James's scent. Instead of following our wide skirt of the city, it made a few circles, and then headed northwest, into the city. Thankfully, the day was overcast and we could trace him all the way to the airport in Vancouver.

"Edward, give me the phone." Edward handed over the small, silver cell phone quickly and I dialed Esme. She picked up on the first ring.

"We lost the tracker," I told her. "He got on a flight. He might be trying to come back to Forks to start over."

"We're protecting Charlie," Esme replied. "The woman has been looking here, trying to find some clue. She searched Charlie's house while he was at the station. Rose and I are keeping an eye on her."

"We're going to return to Forks. We'll try to pick up the trail again there."

"Okay," Esme answered. "We'll keep an eye out for him."

"We should be back in town later tonight."

"Be safe," She urged. "I love you."

"I love you too," I replied. I hung up, but it was reluctantly. I was happy to know that she and Rose were safe and I wanted to learn more about what the woman was doing in Forks.

I then hit the speed dial to Alice's phone. Surprisingly, Alice picked up on the second ring. She seemed worried. "Carlisle?"

"Is Bella alright?" I asked.

"Yes," Alice replied. Edward breathed a sigh of relief.

"We lost the tracker. He followed us north for a while on foot, but we lost him just south of Vancouver. We tracked him to the airport. We think he's going to go back to Forks to start over."

"I just saw him," Alice said. "First, in a mirrored room where he's playing a tape. It's long and the floors are wooden, and there's a gold stripe around the wall. Then I saw him in another place. It was dark so I couldn't see much. He was running another VCR, but he was actually watching it then. There's another decision that has to be made still for him to be waiting in the mirror room. Whatever made him get on that plane…it was leading him to those rooms."

"We're going back to Forks. We're going to try and pick up his trail again there."

Edward signaled for the phone and I handed it to him.

"Alice. Put Bella on," he said.

"Yes," came Alice's reply.

Emmett and I stepped off a bit to give him some privacy, but we could still hear his replies.

"Bella."

He paused a moment, listening. "Bella." He sighed and I could hear the frustration in his voice. He wanted to be with her, comforting her and protecting her. "I told you not to worry about anything but yourself."

Bella was worrying. About us. Even though her fears were unsubstantiated, I still shared them. It'd been a while since we'd gone up against other vampires. While our family was strong, it only took one slip.

"We're outside Vancouver. Bella, I'm sorry—we lost him. He seems suspicious of us—he's careful to stay just far enough away that I can't hear what he's thinking. But he's gone now—it looks like he got on a plane. We think he's heading back to Forks to start over."

Edward grimaced. I could see that he felt personally responsible for this whole episode. For the conflict at the field, for putting Bella in such danger, for losing the tracker, even for Bella's fear. Edward seemed to want to take responsibility for everything bad that happened, particularly to Bella.

"You don't have to worry, though. He won't find anything to lead him to you. You just have to stay there and wait till we find him again."

I placed a hand on Emmett's shoulder and gestured for him to come with me.

Find us when you're done, I told Edward silently. He nodded and continued his conversation over the phone, turning away from the busy traffic that sped by on the street. We were outside the airport in Vancouver. As soon as Edward was finished, we'd start back to Forks.

I asked Emmett to pull out the map when we were a little ways away from Edward, against the building. Emmett shuffled through his bag and eventually produced a satellite map of the western coast of Washington and the southwestern parts of Canada.

"We can take a more direct route now," I told him. "We'll swim across to Duncan and then hike across the island southwest, crossing the Canadian border in the water, and arriving west of Port Angeles, near Clallam Bay. Then it is straight south into Forks. It shouldn't take as much time as our prior route took, though it will still take some time." I traced the route with my finger.

"How long do you think?" Emmett asked his hand on his chin, studying the map.

"My guess is three hours, maybe more if we run into stronger currents. But you have the kerosene in the backpack so unless we want to lose that, I don't think taking a flight is a good idea. And I'm not sure Edward could handle waiting."

"Yeah, he's skittish today," Emmett commented, glancing over his shoulder where Edward still spoke on the phone.

"Then I think running back is the best. We can pick up your Jeep too."

"And if that tracker has been around Forks, we might be able to pick up his scent on the way in," Emmett added. He looked back as Edward approached. "That good for you?"

"Yes," Edward replied, picking the route out of Emmett's and my thoughts.

"Good," I said. "Is Bella worried?"

Edward nodded. "About us. I told her everything will be fine. I'm glad Jasper went with her. He can calm her down."

"Let's go then," Emmett urged. He picked up the map and folded it back up, shoving it in the backpack. With memories like ours, we wouldn't need it. We made our way away from the busy airport, towards the Strait of Georgia that separated Vancouver Island from the Canadian Mainland and Washington. It was freezing and rough, but I'd swam the English Channel twice already. The Strait of Georgia would be easy, especially for a vampire.

"Just watch out for boats," I cautioned Emmett and Edward. We dived in, swimming away from Vancouver at our normal speed.