Disclaimer: Not mine.
Chapter Three- Swimming in Your Eyes
"I said it's hot outside Let me go swimming in your eyes
We've been running for a while
Why don't you lay it on and make smile
I could never ask for nothing better than this
It's just tequila and the beach, that's why its salty when we kiss"
-The Dirty Heads- "Lay Me Down"
The next day I was at the piano, just randomly pressing some keys. Just to kill the silence in the room. Everyone had gone out, either hunting or playing in the snow.
Rosalie had stayed inside, having just fed and holding no desire to play in the snow. She had been upstairs most of the morning, but now she came into the room and sat down next to me on the bench.
She stared at me in silence until I finally asked, "What is it, Rose?"
"You still think about Bella don't you?" she asked. Rose was never one to hold anything back.
"Yes," I answered honestly.
"Why?" She genuinely wanted to know.
"I still love her."
Rose stared at me. "Do you ever think about going back?"
My hands slammed down on the keys, making a jumbled sound. "I can't. She's-"
"Better off without you, you've said it a million times." She rolled her eyes. "I don't mean going back to stay, I meant maybe going back just to visit. You did leave kind of abruptly."
I heard the sarcasm in her voice and ignored it. "I couldn't do that either. Visiting means I'd have to leave her again. I can't do it twice, Rose." If I were human I'd be tearing up right now. Rosalie put her arm around me. The closest to a hug I was going to get from her. "Why do you care, Rose?" I asked her.
"Hey," she said. "I may not have liked her very much, but I can't deny she made my brother happy. You were starting to get pathetic." She teased. "I'd give anything to see you smile like that again." She stood up and went into the other room.
I smiled. You can say Rose is a bitch all you want, but it's all for a good reason. She could be the most amazing person to talk to sometimes.
My fingers tapped out a random tune. It didn't have any real rhythm, just keeping my hands busy. My smile widened at another memory.
Bella leaned against me, her eyes closing as I played. "Does this song have words?" she asked.
"It can if you want," I responded.
"I want it to then."
I smiled. I'd written this song for her, I just hadn't told her that part yet. "I call this song 'White Satin'," I told her softly.
She hummed. A small smile played on her lips. I kept playing and began to sing.
Horrifying words pulled me abruptly from my memory. "-where Forks, Washington teenager, Bella Swan is still missing. Her father, Charlie Swan is the Chief of Police in Forks."
The television cut to a shot of Bella's house. My family were all standing around me, but I hardly noticed. Bella was missing.
"There seems to be no trace of where Bella went. Her truck parked in the driveway, the house locked up tight when Charlie Swan arrived home from work. The woods surrounding Bella's home were searched, but to no avail. Bella has been missing since September fifteenth, two days after her eighteenth birthday. This is Connie Addams, reporting from Washington."
The broadcast cut back to the news anchors at the desk. I was in shock. Can a vampire even be in shock? Esme had put her hand on my arm at some point. I hadn't even noticed.
"Edward-" Carlisle started.
"I have to go find her," I cut him off. I lunged for the back door, but Emmett grabbed me and held me in place. I struggled for a moment but there's really no fighting against the brute force that is Emmett.
"No," Esme started.
I turned to Alice. "Why didn't you see this?"
"You told me not to check on her! I was doing what you asked," she said, her blue eyes were round and scared.
"Like you ever listen to me!" I yelled. "I didn't want you to spy on her, not cut her out completely."
"Is there really a difference there?" she countered. "And besides, I had to cut her out completely because I knew I wouldn't be able to stand seeing her move on with her life. I love her too, Edward. She belongs with you, I saw it. And then you made us leave because YOU were too afraid of what would happen. You were unbelievably selfish making us leave and now you're blaming me for not seeing this sooner? Fuck you!"
I was gaping. My mouth hanging open. It was all true, I knew it was. But hearing my favorite sister throw it all back in my face hurt. She stood there, seething. Jasper was at her elbow like a silent threat.
My feet suddenly became the most interesting thing in the world. For the life of me I couldn't find the words to say. "I'm sorry," I whispered but it didn't seem like enough.
Luckily, Rosalie spoke up. "Alice, can you look now? Try and see where she is?"
Alice stared at me for a moment longer, then she tried to see into Bella's future. "Just Bella huddled in a corner. And darkness. That's it," she said quietly.
Carlisle took over from there. "Okay, we're going to look into this. But we need to be smart about it. We will go back to Forks, and we'll look for Bella." I could see in his head that he didn't like the idea. Bella had been missing since September, it was December now, almost January. It was cold in Forks, she was last seen outside. She could be dead.
Because of me.
I took her out there, I left her. She tried to follow me and I just kept going. No one could tell me not to beat myself up anymore. Not one person could say this wasn't my fault, because it is. And they all know it.
We arrived in Forks the next day. Our stuff was left at the house and then we went to Bella's house. Bella's hunk of junk was parked next to Charlie's cruiser. I felt a stab in my heart at the sight of it.
Alice and I walked to the door, she knocked lightly. Charlie opened the door, red rimmed eyes widening when he saw it was us. "You…" he trailed off.
"Hi, Charlie," Alice said. "No!" she exclaimed. Charlie lunged at me, Emmett and Jasper appeared out of nowhere and pulled him back.
Charlie was blubbering incoherently. The only words I could even pick out of his head were "Bella's gone" and "All your fault." I know, Charlie, I know.
Alice hugged him and started talking quietly to him. He calmed down after a few minutes and he straightened up. "I, uh, I thought you guys left town. Carlisle's job and all."
"We did," Carlisle answered from behind me. "We heard about Bella and we wanted to come back to make sure you were okay."
Charlie's eyes cut to me and I almost winced from the thoughts he was throwing at me. He blamed me for Bella's disappearance. He thought she had ran away and left with us. Or was devastated by us leaving and ran away and now she was hurt somewhere or dead. Either way, he blamed me.
Alice and Esme convinced Charlie to go inside. Esme volunteered to cook for him while Alice entertained him. Distract him, more like. Once the three were safe inside, Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie and I went into the woods.
"Tell us what happened, Edward. Where you last saw her," Carlisle said.
"You mean where I left her alone," I corrected.
"Edward, stop it," Rosalie interjected. She gave a pleading look. I nodded once and then started to walk.
"Right here. Then I walked that way," I pointed. "I could hear her following me, but I don't know how far she went. I ran as fast as I could away so I wouldn't have to hear her calling my name."
Rosalie felt sorry for me. That was almost worse than Charlie blaming me.
"We'll all go in different directions, call out to each other every few minutes or so. If you find anything, just yell," Jasper said, taking control. He pointed out which way he wanted us to go and we all split up.
After three months of rain and snow there was no scent of her anywhere, even to our vampire senses. There was no trace of scent at all. We were looking for scraps of clothing, broken branches that would signal a fight, anything that would help.
Four hours later, there was still nothing. We'd ventured far from Charlie's house and pretty far from each other, but so far we'd found nothing.
Rosalie's voice rang out, loud and clear. A minute later we were gathered around her.
"What did you find?" Jasper asked.
She pointed a piece of cloth lying on the ground. It looked like it had been torn off a shirt. "I don't know if it's hers or not."
Jasper knelt down and picked up the piece of fabric. He sniffed it and held it out to me. "She always was the strongest to you."
As soon as it touched my hand, I just knew it would be hers. It was stained with mud, but I could tell it was the same color as the shirt she had been wearing the day I left her. Then I saw why Jasper handed it to me. There were some drops of blood.
"Edward," Rosalie said softly. I looked up to find them all looking at me. I realized I had just been staring at the piece of fabric Rose had found.
I held it under my nose and sniffed once. "It's hers."
She always smelled like strawberries after a shower. She'd shake her hair and the air around her instantly smelled of strawberries.
Edward lay in Bella's bed, she was cuddled up to him with her head on his chest. Edward thought if Heaven were real, it couldn't be much better than this.
"How was your day with Alice?" Edward asked.
Bella made a face, though Edward couldn't see it. "I tried on over a million outfits and she made me walk in heels," Bella complained.
"Well that's not so bad," Edward said with a smile.
She sat up and glared at him. "I tripped and knocked over a kid."
Edward burst out laughing.
"It's not funny. He screamed bloody murder. And then Alice told his mom I was drunk. I was so shocked all I could do was stutter, so she believed Alice and we got kicked out of the store. Apparently intoxicated shopping is frowned upon."
"Oh, Bella," Edward said fondly. She lay her head back on his chest. "Alice just likes to shake things up sometimes."
She murmured a protest, but it was half-hearted.
Edward buried his face in her hair. All he could smell were strawberries.
From the spot we were, Jasper pointed out next directions for us. And we split up again. Carlisle had called Esme to fill her in, while she reported that Charlie had been fed and was currently watching television with Alice. She noted that he wasn't as down as he had been when we had arrived. Alice had perked his mood up.
I stepped over a fallen tree. My boots crunched leaves and small twigs underfoot. Then I started hearing someone's mind. I looked around. It was just after nine. Who would be way out here in the woods this late? He was picturing some twisted things. He'd kidnapped some girls and had been torturing them. In his head he was reliving the torture of a blonde girl. He'd cut her and beat her, starved her and left her outside naked in the freezing cold.
I followed his thoughts until I saw him. Walking noisily through the woods, presumably going back to the torture shack he had. He was about medium build, about five-ten, brown hair, wearing jeans and a black button down shirt. His jeans were tucked into boots. He looked like an ordinary man, any average Joe walking the streets in any city in the world. And yet the thoughts in his head put him far outside the category of average.
He kept on trekking loudly through the woods. I heard Rosalie call out, "Check?" as she had been doing every ten minutes to make sure we didn't wander too far away from each other. I was supposed to respond and then call to Carlisle, but I couldn't reply to her without alerting this scumbag to my presence. So I remained quiet and kept following him.
Rosalie called out again, louder this time. The man heard her and stopped. He turned around, looking in all directions, then kept walking. He was thinking he might go look for the unfortunate little girl who had gotten lost out here so close to him. He hoped she was a red head. He liked red heads. Then his head filled with more thoughts of another girl he'd taken, a red head.
His shack came into view. I wasted no more time with him. In a second, I was in front of him. He gasped and yelled, "Shit!" My hands went to either side of his head and snapped his neck. He dropped dead at my feet.
I kicked his body out of the way and started toward the shed. An overwhelming scent hit my nose. I couldn't believe it. Before I knew what I was even doing, I had torn off the padlock, ripped the door off its hinges and gone inside.
There was his latest victim. Cowering in the corner like a frightened animal who had been kicked too many times.
My Bella.