Chapter 11 - Compulsion to Move
We stood, locked in place, caught in limbo between two worlds.
We were the island and the mainland. Fresh and salt water.
Vampire and human.
This impasse shouldn't have been a surprise – it had been looming since that day at the Cullen's when rocks and people where thrown epic distances. Everything since then had been a dress rehearsal for today's events. I was caught in a struggle between two factions, each offering me their best, all for the promise that I would support their side in this great battle between perceived totalitarian rule and the desire for self-determination. The rub of it was that, for others to achieve their right to live as they saw fit, I had to bend to the will of a collective group. It reminded me of Garrett's verbal tirade from earlier in the day…the needs of the many versus the needs of the few. Only in this case, the few was actually one, and the cost was my life, or at least a portion of it.
Everywhere I turned there were choices to be made, decisions with radical consequences, and people pulling the strings, hoping that I would come down on their side. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of me, but no one was willing to give me all the facts to make an informed decision. My commitment to supporting a side marked the end of my mortality, maybe even my humanity, but I had no clue what the personal ramifications of that decision might mean.
Slowly, I turned to face Edward, my face wet from tears and the spray of breaking waves. They crashed against the rocks below me, soaking the legs of my pants and weighing me down. He was wet too; his hair plastered against his head, his dark gray shirt soaked through with ocean water. He was the one constant in all this, the person who had been with me since day one. In my dreams, in my home, in the background, he had always been there. He would be the one to finally give me all the missing pieces that would balance out Aro's vitriolic insistence on a greater good. He had to be.
"I want the truth, Edward," I demanded, my voice barely audible over the roar of the waves. "Who is the little one, and what did Aro mean when he called you bait? I am not leaving this beach until I hear it firsthand. All of it this time."
Edward nodded slowly, as if he'd expected my request. "Just come back to the beach with me, please, Bella. These rocks are slippery, and I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself. I've called someone. She's on the way with dry towels and clothes. She'll be able to explain everything."
When I didn't move, Edward stepped forward, one hand extended in offering. "Please, Bella. I promise that she'll tell you everything, just come away from the water. Please."
The waves were coming in harder now, turning the chunks of concrete into treacherous expanses of slick stone where the water spilled over the wall. I moved slowly, fighting for balance as the waves broke around me, the water pooling in my shoes and weighing me down. I'd moved far enough to reach out for Edward when a new wave, larger than the others, broke directly against my back. It threw me off center, down the slippery chunks of concrete towards
the dark swirling water and the jagged outcropping of rock that shot out into the ocean. I closed my eyes and gasped in a deep breath, prepared for the impact and inevitable undertow of the waves.
But they never came.
Instead, there was a painful crash against my ribs, knocking the wind out of me as I hit something hard. I was spinning around and flying through the air, and then as fast as I fell, I was sitting on my ass in the wet sand, ocean water dripping from my hair and clothes. Edward stood over me, breathing heavily. He'd caught me and hauled me back to safety. Once again, he'd been there when I needed to be saved.
"You can't make anything in my life easy, can you?" he shouted, the words coming out almost too fast to catch. "Are you intent on pulling me under? Is that it? You won't be happy until you've destroyed me completely?"
"Me?" I demanded, scooting back, away from the waves. "I didn't ask for any of this, and you were the one lurking around in the woods behind my house. You're the one that started all this!"
Edward opened his mouth, but instead of speaking he threw his hands up and made a strange, strangled noise that came out sounding like 'gah!' The nonsensical sound sent me over the edge, all my frustration, fear, and confusion pushing me to the point of no return. I grabbed a handful of wet sand from the ground and threw it at Edward.
Hard.
The clump broke apart when it hit his chest, peppering him with thousands of tiny grains of sand, which stuck to his wet clothes. Edward froze, staring down at his torso in disbelief.
"If this is the future of the vampire world," a high, clear voice called out from behind me, "then we are all screwed."
"Your humor is not appreciated, Alice," Edward said. He looked up, his eyes narrowed in fury. He made no effort to brush the sand away.
"Jasper appreciates my humor immensely. Now if you two are done with your little temper tantrums, I have towels, just like you requested." The speaker, whom Edward had called Alice, could be heard walking away, her heels clicking against the wet pavement.
I pushed myself up off the ground, angrily swiping at the sand that coated my jeans. They were soaking wet, and I was quickly getting cold. As much as I didn't want to accept anyone's hospitality, I didn't want to stand around freezing either.
Edward didn't say anything, staying behind me as I crossed the sand to the sidewalk. Across the street, parked next to my rental car was Edward's small silver sedan, a tiny woman with dark hair sitting on the hood in a royal blue rain coat. Beside her on the car was a brightly colored pile of beach towels, their cheery stripes and dots out of sync with the cold grey night. As we approached, she leaned back, her elbows propped against the hood to support her tiny frame.
"If you are done overreacting, there are some dry clothes in the back," Alice said, eyeing Edward dubiously.
He nodded and jerked the back door open.
"Oh, and while you are at it, why don't you take a long walk and cool off before you change. You're being an ass, and you need to take it down a notch or three."
The car door slammed, and I was shocked at the absolutely furious expression that Edward shot the small woman. I'd never seen this side of him, wild and out of control. Flares of anger, yes, but not like this.
The small woman raised her eyebrows at him, and inclined her head in my direction. Edward merely growled and stalked off towards the street, a pile of towels and clothes stuffed under his left arm.
"I love him like a brother, but he can be so bitchy sometimes," the woman said airily as she passed me a towel. "I'm Alice, by the way. Jasper's wife."
"Bella," I said, wiping my face on a corner of bright pink terry cloth. It had become second nature now to identify myself by my birth name. There was no Marie Geoffrey anymore. It was like she'd never existed.
Maybe she never really had.
"Oh, I know," Alice said, leaning forward to prop her chin against her hand. "I know all about you. But there is time for that. I brought you some of Esme's clothes. Rose said she was the closest of the three of us in size. You climb in back and change. Then we can talk."
She didn't move from her roost on the car, content to stare out at the breaking clouds as I struggled to change into a dry pair of cotton leggings and a giant sweatshirt. The leggings were too long, bagging out at the knees, and the sweatshirt completely enveloped me, which provided an innate sense of comfort, like being wrapped in a warm embrace. This was the type of thing I would have worn on a bad day, happily lost in the clothing equivalent of grilled cheese and warm chocolate cookies.
"I knew you'd be good for my brother," she said as I closed the car door, "but I didn't realize you'd be putting him in his place so soon. It's about time someone did that. Lord knows, Emmett has tried."
I'd leaned over to dry my hair as she made her cryptic statement, and stood up too quickly. All the blood rushed to my head, my vision filling with bright white spots.
"Mmmm, head rush," I groaned, reaching out to steady myself against the car.
"Why don't you sit down," Alice said with a laugh, "and I'll start at the beginning. You're as on edge as he is."
She slipped down off of the car, and lowered herself to the pavement, patting the spot next to her. "Come on, Bella, I won't bite. I promise."
It was her ridiculous joke that finally broke me down. I barked out a laugh, but it let loose the torrent of tears I'd reined in on the break wall. Once they started flowing, there was no way to stop.
"Shhh, honey," Alice cooed. Aro had affected the same empathetic tone earlier in the day, but his had been all saccharine and false. Nothing about Alice came off that way, her hand against my leg gentle reassurance that I would be okay. I accepted that, letting everything loose, sobbing until there wasn't anything left anymore.
"I didn't ask for this," I said when I could finally catch my breath. "I just wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted someone to love me."
"Sit down, Bella," Alice said, tugging at the end of the towel I'd wrapped around my body for warmth. "I need to explain some things to you, and I want you to see my face when I do. I need you to know that I am telling the truth."
I plunked down on the pavement, pulling my knees up to my chest to shut out the cold that chilled me inside and out. Edward's car blocked the wind as it came in off the ocean, but the sun had gone down, lowering the temperature well beyond the range where I was comfortable. The towel provided a little bit of warmth, but I wouldn't be able to handle these elements for long.
"Bella, how long have you been having the dreams?" Alice asked.
"I'm sorry?"
She sighed, and pulled her knees up to her chest to mimic my posture. "The dreams. You know, the ones where Aro chases you through the woods, and then Edward pops up to save you. How long have you been having them?"
"How did you know-" I gasped, shocked. Alice nodded, encouraging me. She knew and she understood. "The night after Jasper showed up at the bookstore," I said, taking a quick gulp of air before continuing, "and most nights since."
"And it's always the same thing, Aro chasing you, Edward saving you?"
"Yes," I responded hesitantly. I didn't fill in any of the detail. Somehow I didn't think I needed to.
"I've been seeing variations of that same dream since the summer of 1950," Alice said, rocking slowly back and forth. "Details would change, but it was always the three of you, both of them insisting that you were the vow and trying to convince you to choose them. The vision haunted me for a few months before I finally broke down and told Carlisle. Jasper and I had only been living with the family for a few months, and I could tell that my visions still kind of spooked them a bit." She laughed and leaned her head to the side. "Especially Rose. She's rather literal."
She smiled, and looked up at me, her small, heart shaped face open and incapable of deceit. Others might lie to me, but I got the sense that Alice wasn't capable - at least not with this. The last thing I should be doing is trusting first impressions now, but with her, I was incapable of doing anything but.
"I worried that Carlisle would think I was crazy. I mean, people have thought that of me before. But he understood what I didn't. He's the one that pieced it all together. The landmarks in your dreams, the forest, the ocean, it all brought us here," she held her hand up, swirling it in the night air. "And this is how it all began."
The natural, logical thing would have been to laugh at her. As Alice said, she was used to people calling her crazy. Maybe a few weeks ago I would have done exactly that, twirling my index finger around my head and humming cuckoo before climbing in my car and driving away. That was before I came to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere to meet my father and a group of vampires, and learned that the fate of the world might rest on my shoulders. Somehow, after that, precognition simply wasn't a big deal.
"I still don't understand," I said, too confused and tired to play games. "You saw my dreams, but I didn't exist. How could that be? Wouldn't I need to be alive for you to see those sorts of things?"
"I don't know, Bella," she said, her face falling. "I don't understand how this thing works, and I can't control it. Lord knows I've tried. I have visions, and then they come true, it's as simple as that. They don't always make absolute sense, and sometimes they play out differently than I expected them to, but they almost always end up happening." Alice took a long slow breath, struggling with something. "It's like seeing a snippet of a movie or hearing a conversation out of turn. I don't know why or what came before or after, only that single bit of information. It could mean anything."
We sat quietly for a long time, listening to the sound of the waves crashing down on the break wall.
"Alice, Edward said that Aro could read minds. He said that you saw me ruling by his side."
She sighed, shaking her head. "I didn't see that, although it shouldn't surprise me that Edward might have interpreted it that way. No, what I saw was you offering Aro your hand, your head bowed. That is the extent of my visions related to you and Aro."
"But why would Edward interpret something differently that you saw? He would only have your description. That wouldn't be enough to form his own impression, not unless you said something to make him think differently." I was completely lost.
Alice was quiet for a long time, rocking back and forth to some unheard music. "Some vampires have talents, Bella. I see the future, Jasper can influence people's emotions, and Aro reads minds. So does Edward. Aro sees every thought you've ever had by touching you, whereas Edward catches the here and now just by being in close proximity. He saw my visions, and formed his own interpretation of what he thought I saw. Aro is informed based on Edward's perceptions of my visions. Second hand sight, if you will."
I ground my teeth, shifting through memories of events and conversations to string all the little bits together. The dreams, Edward saving me, his ability to read Alice's mind. My lashing out at him for playing me hadn't been far from the truth. This had all been staged, put into motion long before I'd ever set foot in Forks. Edward had played his part, and I'd bought into it, bait just like Aro said. I'd been duped, and I'd fallen for it without even a second thought.
"I don't know what to believe anymore," I said, swallowing back the bile that rose in my throat. "I don't know who is telling the truth and who's feeding me what I want to hear." I leaned forward, cradling my head in my hands, eyes closed. "I want to go back to two weeks ago and start over. I won't bitch about the red towel that turned my underwear pink, and I won't oversleep for work. I don't want this."
"Edward said something similar the first time he saw one of your dreams," Alice said conspiratorially. "He went ballistic, ranting and raving about how he refused to be a pawn. I think he pouted for a few months, but deep down, he knew that you were meant to be." She paused, laughing. "Did you know he was with Jasper in Phoenix? He wanted to be the one to approach you, but when he saw you in the book store he panicked. He couldn't hear your thoughts, and he refused to go in blind. Yeah, he can talk a big game, but in the end he couldn't stay away from you if he tried. You weren't even in town twenty-four hours and he was lurking in the woods behind your house, desperate to meet you." Alice waited for a beat before calling out into the dark night, "Isn't that right, Edward?"
She climbed to her feet, gently tapping the top of my head. "You are brave, Bella. Don't let anyone manipulate you. In the end, this is all your choice to make. Just yours."
Before I could ask her what choice she meant, Alice was gone, the parking lot quiet and empty, nothing but the waves to keep me company.
I sat in the dark, thinking for a long time about Alice's version of the truth. Facets of her story rang true – her knowledge of my dreams, how Carlisle had known to come here, and how the fire had set everything in motion. Yet there were other pieces that still didn't make sense. It was all mixed up between Aro and Edward, the simplest tweaks on a concept sending me one way or another based on the turn of a phrase or the inflection of a word. I didn't know how to separate propaganda from reality anymore, and until I did that, I wouldn't be able to decide what came next.
"She's right, you know," Edward said. His voice came from behind me, and was soft, almost sheepish. "I was all set to go in and be the one to break the news to you. I had this romanticized vision of me striding in like some modern day cowboy, taking control and changing the world. I could swoop in to save the damsel before she knew she was in distress," he paused a beat before continuing, "I should have known you were perfectly capable of saving yourself when the time came."
I sighed, releasing the air and dead weight that had been building up inside of me. That's exactly what he'd done, swooped in and given me hope, something to focus on. Edward couldn't have played it any better if he'd been scripted. The sweet, innocent shy man had lured me right in, and deep down, I had to admit that there was a part of me that hoped it wasn't an act. The glimpses of temper had only fueled that, making me want to know more.
"Are you here because you want to be, or because you have to be?" I asked, prepared to release him based on his answer. "If it's the latter, then you can leave. I don't want you to be something you're not. I'll figure out a way to protect myself. It's what I do."
My mind was already in motion, playing out the options. I wouldn't want to stay at the house alone. It wasn't safe for me anymore. Maybe Charlie would let me stay with him. If not, I would check into one of the hotels in town, and then figure out things from there.
"That won't work anymore," Edward said, avoiding my question. "You are human, Bella. You can't hurt us, which means you can't protect yourself. Yes, the little flamethrower stunt might have scared someone off for a few seconds, but they would've gotten to you eventually. Crosses, holy water, none of that will work against a vampire. As long as you are alive, you'll be in danger. You need to accept that, and what happens next."
What happens next…I'd known this was coming well before the argument in the Cullen's living room over who would be the one to change me. Everything to this point had been a slow, gradual ascent, like a car climbing up a rollercoaster track, the tension and anticipation building until I hit the top of the hill, the plummeting drop inevitable. I would become one of them; I was unable to fight that. If I didn't offer it, they would take it. What came after that, well, I don't think anyone really knew.
Alice's words came back to me, unbidden. It's your choice to make, she'd said.
She was right. It was my choice. It always had been. It wasn't just about their right of self-determination; it was mine too, just in a different way.
I stood, dropping the towel and moving quickly across the parking lot with long, determined strides. Edward was in front of me in a blur of motion, arms outstretched to block my forward progress.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. I brushed passed him, moving as quickly as I could back towards the dark ocean.
"Taking control of my own destiny," I said, focused on the waves and the roar of the ocean that filled my ears. I have the courage, I chanted to myself. I am strong. I can do this. "You might want to think about trying the same, Edward. Quit being a puppet and man up."
I'd chosen the words for maximum effect, and they hit the target dead on.
"Do you think I enjoy this?" Edward demanded, the heels of his shoes echoing on the pavement behind me. "You keep going on about being manipulated. Where's my say, or does that not matter to you so long as we are here for you to command-"
He was getting angry again, my cheap shots weakening his self control. It was scary how quickly we could provoke a reaction out of each other, be it good, bad or otherwise. That visceral push and pull had existed since day one, and I hated to capitalize on it, but I didn't know of any other way and I didn't have time to figure out.
"That's laughable," I shot back. The break wall was in front of me now, the large jagged rocks blocking me from the water. I reached out to touch them, gauging the distance. I hated what I was about to do, but I honestly couldn't think of another way. I tried to focus on what needed to be done, avoiding all of the unknowns. They would scare me out of acting, and I needed the element of surprise on my side. "I have no control in this, no say. You expect me to be whatever the hell it is you want - your own personal little savior. Well, what if I don't want to be, Edward? What if I don't want any of this?"
Edward caught my wrist, spinning me around to face him. He was furious, up in my face, his eyes wide and frenzied. "You have no clue what I want, Bella. No clue at all."
"No?" I hissed, jerking my arm free. The motion knocked me off balance, and I landed against the break wall, the jagged edges rough against my palms. "I know what you want. It's all about power, about taking control. Everyone wants it, and I seem to be the only way to get it."
We were both breathing heavily, anger and frustration swirling around us. I took one last deep breath of ocean air, praying that this would work – that I wasn't committing suicide by taking fate into my own hands. It was laughable in a way - I'd been on a collision course with my own mortality since setting foot in this town. The only difference now was that I understood just what the sacrifice meant, and exactly how I would make it.
There would be no grand staging, no people arguing over who deserved the honor. It was not theirs to take, it was mine to bestow. Queens were born, not made, and I was going to enter the world in my own distinct style.
Grabbing the sleeve of the sweatshirt, I jerked it up over my elbow, my movements jerky and awkward. Edward watched me, brow furrowed as I extended my arm to the side and then slammed it back against the break wall with every ounce of strength I possessed.
"No!" He roared. But it was too late. He couldn't stop me, and the blood broke through my skin where the rocks had pierced my body. I raised my arm again, slamming it back against the rocks one more time, the pain burning its way up my arm, the flames licking at my body.
"You want me," I taunted Edward, holding my arm aloft. The blood was running free now, down my arm in slow steady drops. "Come and get me."
Before I could say anything else, I was flat on my back in the sand, the pain from my wounds nothing compared to the fire that ripped through my body. Edward held my arm to his mouth, and I could feel his tongue, lapping at the wounds I'd inflicted. With a piercing clarity, I felt his teeth sink into my arm.
The needs of the many, I reminded myself as a pain unlike anything I'd ever known tore me apart from the inside.
And then everything went blessedly black.
Swear not by the moon by hmonster