A/N: Well, here's the next chapter. I don't know why it was so hard to write at first! Especially since I ended up writing it in a few hours! Well, I guess that's the creative muse for you. I hope you enjoy and please review. And if you are looking for anything else to read, my favourites list and my other stories are good places to look.

Until next time,

-Wish

Chapter 59: Evasion

With Bella safely on a plane to Jacksonville for the weekend, we did not need to set a guard for her house, but we did so anyways. Her scent was strong there and Charlie was still at home. But it wasn't our priority. Esme remained in the area for most of that weekend while I went with Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, and Alice and swept our side of the boundary line, looking for any possible scent of Victoria, or any other vampires for that matter. We could not rule out the possibility that Victoria would have a companion with her. Alice's visions, while they were slightly clearer now that the time was drawing closer, were not completely comprehensible. It seemed Victoria was refraining from making any specific decision of what she was going to do in Forks. This worried me. If Victoria didn't make a decision w the last minute, then we would have very little time to react to it. Alice's visions could only work as long as a person was set in their plans. Any slight change may change the future.

We stayed within speaking distance as we swept the area. Speaking distance for us was a little further then it might have been for a human party, though. We were quite spread out, and constantly on the alert. Alice would occasionally pause, searching into the future again and again. At one point, she lingered longer than she had before. Jasper and Emmett were further ahead while Rosalie was bringing up the back of our group. I stopped, stepping closer to Alice.

"Alice? What are you seeing?"

"Nothing." We all froze at her declaration. Rosalie in back, Emmett and Jasper in front.

"What do you mean 'nothing'?" Rosalie demanded.

"My visions are gone," Alice replied, her tone more biting than usual. She turned back to me. "I can't see anything Carlisle. It's all just gone. Not fuzzy, gone. I think…" She trailed off, her eyes wandering once more briefly before she huffed in frustration and shook her head. "They're gone. It's the Quileutes. I can't see them."

"Ugh, the dogs get involved?" Rosalie half-growled. "This just gets better and better!"

"What was the last vision you had, Alice?" I asked, ignoring Rosalie's open disdain.

"I saw—"

"Carlisle!" Jasper called from ahead, his voice urgent. Alice and I ran to catch up to them, Rosalie with us. We found Jasper and Emmett crouched, back-to-back, their eyes scanning the trees around us.

"What is—"My thought was cut off as I caught what they had. It was unmistakable, the scent that we had been searching for, had been focused on for a long time now. "Victoria."

"Jasper just caught it," Emmett replied. "The path is confusing. It circles."

"Alice?"

"Still nothing. But can you smell that?"

I sample the air and almost gagged. I don't know how I could've missed it before. "We're close to the boundary line."

"Why would she be here?" Alice asked. "Bella's house is in town. But we didn't pick anything up there, and Esme hasn't called us."

I checked my cell phone quickly, even though I know it hadn't rung. Esme hadn't given us any warning from Bella's house. Why was that? If Victoria was here, and her target was Bella, why would she not go to her house, where her scent was strongest? "Be careful," I urged, rather unnecessarily. The others were quite obviously on edge, each on the balls of their feet, slightly crouched, their eyes wide and searching.

"This way," Jasper urged, turning towards the direction of the treaty line. "The trail leads this way."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

Jasper nodded without hesitation. "I'm positive. I can smell it."

I nodded then. "Lead on."

Jasper went first, Emmett just behind him, the rest of us bringing up the rear. With Victoria's scent circling around the area, as Emmett and Jasper had said, she could very well be anywhere. Jasper seemed confident he had found the right trail, but it was best to be careful. Victoria has tricked us in the past. I had no doubt she could do it again.

But Jasper didn't waver once as he followed the twisting trail through the trees, drawing ever closer to the Quileute boundary line. The scent became harder to detect as the werewolf scent grew stronger. It was obvious they regularly patrolled the border of their lands.

"You'd think they don't trust us or something," Emmett joked, his way of remarking on the potency of the smell. We all understood its significance. The wolf pack was vigilant. We could not afford to make mistakes.

"Be careful of the line," I warned the others.

"I have her." Jasper leapt into action, taking off after the scent. Emmett was just behind him, following close behind. Obviously Jasper had found a clear path. I checked and sure enough, there was Victoria's scent. And it was new, as in a few seconds, new. Rosalie took off after Emmett and Jasper, hurrying to catch up. Alice and I weren't too far behind the three. We caught up within a few seconds and were within sight of Jasper and Emmett. Then suddenly Jasper froze and looked around once, before turning his gaze upwards. I followed his line of sight and there it was! A brief flash of red amongst the green. Jasper and Emmett leapt at the nearest tree in pursuit. Alice, Rosalie, and I remained on the ground, in case she decided to come down. We had found Victoria, and we were not going to let her get away.

Another flash and she leapt across the expanse from one tree to the next. Jasper and Emmett were just behind her. She darted from tree to tree, as fast on the branches as she would've been on the ground. Alice, Rosalie, and I had to run to keep up with them.

Victoria led us on, even closer to the treaty line.

"We can't let her get across!" Alice said urgently. Then Victoria changed direction so that she was now running parallel to the boundary line, but still in our area. Emmett and Jasper were gaining distance on her and she abandoned the trees, opting for the easier, faster terrain. We all took off after her, Emmett and Jasper still in the lead. Jasper dived for her, but Victoria evaded him. He rolled and was back on his feet within half a second. We pursued her all the way to the boundary line. As we burst from the tree line the powerful wolf odor assaulted us, just before the owners themselves came into view. I counted at least five wolves, though there could very well be further back in the trees. They had spotted us as well, but they had also spotted Victoria. A large black wolf and a grey one led the way, followed closely by a russet wolf. Based on Bella's descriptions of the wolves she knew, I thought the black one was Sam Uley, their alpha, while the russet one may have been Jacob Black, Bella's friend and Ephraim Black's grandson. Ephraim was the original alpha, who we made the first treaty with.

Victoria had been able to escape us quite effectively in the past, but with the wolves on one side of the border, and us on the other, her chances did not look good. But somehow, she managed to evade both of us. She followed the boundary line as if she were reading it from a map, darting to our side or to the wolves side, but never staying long enough for either of us to catch her. Then she stayed just an extra second longer on our side and Emmett lunged.

He missed and the grey wolf snapped at him, teeth flashing, growling in warning, threatening. Rosalie hissed back, turning on the grey wolf, putting herself between Emmett and it. Her actions caused the entire chase to dissolve in an instant as Emmett moved Rosalie and Jasper came to his aid while the other five wolves flanked the grey one. The wolves snarled and my family answered, just as challenging.

"Stop!" I shouted, placing myself between the two factions. At this point, I may have been standing directly on the boundary line. But both groups were at the edge of their territories, within lunging distance of each other.

The black wolf, the largest, barked at the others, who didn't back off, but ceased growling.

"Rosalie," I said firmly, looking directly at my daughter. She seemed the most likely to attack right now. The others were there as back-up. Alice and Jasper were on either side of Emmett and Rosalie, alert, but not about to jump into a fight.

Rosalie glared at me, but she slowly straightened. The phrase "if looks could kill" passed through my mind. Emmett followed Rosalie, then Jasper and Alice.

"We will not break the treaty," I hissed at them.

"That grey one tried to attack Emmett!" Rosalie snapped.

"But he didn't. The treaty is intact. And our family will not be the ones to break it. Is that understood?"

Rosalie grumbled, but assented. Now for the wolves. "Jasper, I'm going to need your help. Are you under control?"

Jasper nodded. "Yes, Carlisle."

"Good," I nodded back. Only then did I turn to face the wolf pack.

Tension was still high amongst them. Their hackles were raised and although nobody growled openly, it was more than implied. I addressed the black wolf directly. "Sam, I need to speak to you."

The black wolf glanced back at the russet wolf before turning and heading back into the trees. The russet wolf stepped up into the vacated spot, keeping the line of enormous wolves intact. A few moments later, Sam returned in human form, wearing a pair of shorts only. He did not seem happy about it at all, but his expression was a wall of hard calm. It was obviously a learned trait, most likely to help him control his own emotions. The werewolves' transformations were ruled by their emotions. It would make sense that they would try to find ways to make the transformations less sensitive, less unpredictable.

"Paul says your man crossed the treaty line," Sam said gruffly.

"Emmett did not," I replied. "He was attempting to catch Victoria."

"We were handling it. But now she got away, thanks to you." His tone was confrontational. If there was any doubt of the Quileutes' regard for us, they were dashed then and there. The Quileutes didn't trust us, not one inch. I understood their tentativeness. Most of our kind had little regard for humans or their lives. The Quileutes were charged with protecting their tribe. They had had previous disastrous encounters with our kind. And to be entirely honest, I knew my family did not trust the Quileutes any more than they trusted us. Ours was a shaky agreement and that unstable foundation had been further prodded. It could fall at any moment, unless we sorted this out delicately. But it seemed Sam had no interest in sorting this out. He was content to accuse.

So I tried a different tactic. "I would like to apologize on behalf of my family," I told him. "We did not mean to make you feel threatened. It is not our wish to break the treaty we created with your ancestors."

Sam's careful calm slipped a little, showing his brief frustration. But it was such a small slip, I doubted I would have noticed it if I had been a human. I felt Jasper help my words, spreading a gentle calm over the entire group. A few of the wolves eased slightly; the grey one who'd originally confronted Emmett was among them.

After a moment, Sam nodded. "We will not break the treaty." He turned to leave, but paused and spun back to face me. "But we will be watching you and your family closely, bloodsucker. Remember, if you bite anyone, the deals off, and it's open season on all of you leeches."

I chose to ignore Sam's derogatory comments in favor of diplomacy. I'd succeeded for now. The agreement was still intact.

"If you give us permission, we will hunt Victoria," I offered.

"Don't bother. We can handle our territory just fine. You stay on your side of the line, we'll stay on ours. If the bloodsucker comes back, we'll deal with her."

"And we will handle the situation on our end," I agreed. I motioned for the others to start to leave and then backed up from the Sam and his wolf pack slowly until they were a fair distance away. Then we all turned and headed for home. I called Esme on the way back, asking her to meet us back at the house.

"Victoria is gone," Alice assured us, her visions back now that the wolves were no longer directly involved. "She won't be back."

"You are sure?" Esme asked.

Alice nodded immediately. "She doesn't have any more plans of coming back for now. It was a close call this time. She knows we're still vigilant."

"What are we going to do about the dog problem?" Rosalie asked.

"We're going to be careful from now on," I replied. "We are not going to give them a reason to believe we broke the treaty."

"Yeah, because they'd jump at it in a moment," Emmett commented. "Actually, I wouldn't mind—"

"What about Bella?" Alice asked. "The treaty is for biting, not killing. Jacob warned Edward; the wolves will attack when we change Bella."

"We'll have to face that obstacle when it comes," I told her. Unfortunately, it was coming up fast. Graduation was not very far off, and I had promised Bella I would change her afterwards, if she chose it. I do not go back on my promises. Except for one. The treaty promise would have to be broken. None of us would have anticipated these events when we'd first drawn up the treaty with Ephraim Black and his pack. While I did not like the thought of purposefully breaking the treaty, my son's happiness came first. Edward deserved to be happy with Bella. That was the reason I was offering to change her as she wished. That was the reason I would break my promise.