Disclaimer: All the Twilight stuff belongs to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm just playing in her sandbox.

Authors Note: Thank you to all the folks that wished me well on my ride to Daytona. I FROZE! Just wanted to thank you for the reviews and encourage you to PLEASE let me know what you're thinking in these next chapters. I need to know if what I want to get across is getting there, and your responses will tell me! Thanks to all of you, and the next update may not be till Friday . . . but I will try!

Chapter 69 Queries

Sam POV

I drove into town, following the bloodsucker's directions. Sue was still on the phone to me when I pulled past the commotion in town and parked, running in to the shop where my wife was still sitting. I knelt in front of the chair she was in, my arms around her . . .

"Em, are you okay baby?" I asked softly as I held her to me. She said nothing, but continued to sob and cling to me. Tears were flowing down her face and from the look of her, she had been crying for quite awhile. Sue sat beside her, holding her hand and clutching a small bag to her, her face was covered in tears as well.

I was livid that the bloodsuckers were supposed to be protecting her and yet she had been injured. They were lucky she wasn't hurt worse or there would be some body parts burning this very minute . . . and I was still thinking about it!

The sales girl kept babbling something about how sorry she was and how she hoped they found her friend and some other shit, I paid little attention. Sue kept thanking her and telling her they would let her know when they found Bella.

"Let's get you into the car," I told her as I lifted her and walked toward the truck. Sue ran ahead of me and opened the passenger door, sliding into the backseat as I gently buckled Emily in. I hurried to crank the truck and back out into traffic, needing to get her away from all the confusion and noise. An officer had witnessed me carrying her out of the store and had moved to stop traffic so that I could leave quickly and I was grateful, thanking him with a nod.

"She is supposed to rest quietly, Sam," Sue told me, "The medic said she would be fine, but to make sure she rested comfortably."

Damn it. I would have to take her back to the leech's house. She needed to rest comfortably and not be upset and I knew my wife well enough to know that if I told her were leaving, there would be a fight. I just couldn't do that to her. As much as I wanted to just keep driving till we were far away from here, maybe even back at La Push, I knew it wasn't possible right now. My wife was hurt and she needed to rest and be comfortable, the bloodsuckers owed her that. This was their fault . . . damned vampires. Never any good came of anything to do with them . . . expose my wife to danger because some bloodsucker had it in for Bella. Whatever. Bella had chosen this life. She made her bed and she could suffer the consequences. That had nothing at all to do with my wife being subjected to this shit and now she had been hurt as a result of befriending Bella, way was I tolerating any more of this.

I realized as I fumed to myself that even though it might also benefit the Cullens, I was going to have to kill the bitch that had hurt my wife . . . nothing less was going to appease me . . . nothing. I would rip her apart and burn the pieces . . . smiling as I did it.

~oooOooo~

Emmett POV

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Nothing. We found absolutely no trace of the car they used. I felt totally useless.

I had checked every house, very door that could be reached by coming down this road from town and I wanted to move on, but someone had to stay here just to make sure nothing passed by this way. Jake was with me, but I couldn't very well leave him alone now that Sam was gone, it wasn't like he could pick up a phone and call us if he saw her, or the car.

I could make better use of Jake though, I was sure of that. There was no point in two of us just sitting here. Jake couldn't go sniffing around town in the daylight, I knew that, but he could head out through the forest to where Edward was and he could do it after making a couple of circles around town to see if he smelled anything on the outskirts! No one could fucking understand him while he was in wolf form but Edward, so if he ended up with him he could read his mind and know if he found anything.

"Jake, we don't both need to be here. I'll stay here so that I can call if I see them in a car, you circle the town just in case they decided to ditch their car and try to get away with her on foot. Circle once kind of far out in the forest and then, if you don't pick up their scent, do another circle a little closer in . . . just don't get seen if you can help it. Edward is down the road past the hospital with Carlisle. I'll tell him that you're coming. If you find anything, he can read your mind and know what the hell you found and the rest of us can't," I explained.

I had just enough time to tell him exactly where Edward was before he was out of hearing range, leaping through the woods at almost vampire speed. I was impressed . . . he was hell bent on helping, that was obvious. I should have expected that. He loved Bella, too.

I called to check on Esme. She had not seen a single car pass by and Jasper had checked out all the houses and gotten her to move up to the top of the ridge where the road just starts out from town. He had left to go and check on Alice and over by Mirror Lake, leaving Esme alone to guard escape from that side of town, as I guarded it from this side.

It just wasn't possible that they had gotten past us this way. It had been more than fifteen minutes since she was taken . . . fifteen minutes. I could drain a full grown grizzly in less than three . . .

Fifteen minutes.

Bella was just a small little thing . . .

Damn it, how did this happen? It took us so long to find her in the first place, and then that accident with the bike . . . we were so close to loosing her in the hospital that even Carlisle had resolved that we would do whatever it took to save her, including changing her. She was so good with my brother, so perfect for him. After 90 years he had finally found a mate . . . and one that I really liked. Little sister was awesome . . . kind, funny and fearless as hell! She even seemed to love it when he acted more like an animal than a man, growling and snarling at her when they were in bed together. What human would go to bed with a vampire knowingly and encourage him to play rough with her! And Eddie, man . . . I didn't know he had it in him . . .

We had been so careful, so protective of her . . . her and the baby . . .

Nobody messed with my nephew, nobody. This bitch was mine!

~oooOooo~

Jasper POV

Think, Jasper, think . . .

Alice had the West end of town covered and I had scouted the houses, no scent there.

Esme had the East side and I had scouted it as well, moving her up to the edge of town.

Emmett had the South side and had scouted with nothing found.

Alice, Esme and Emmett were all less than a half mile from each other and we had three sides of town covered and secured.

. . . eliminate possibilities . . . narrow the search area . . .

Jake was running circles to make sure there had been no escape on foot and Rose had tracked the car they were in, she believed, and found traces of it's odor on the road to Cashiers. That was the North end. When this had first happened, Edward had wisely called for Emmett and I to watch the Walhalla road since we were home and seconds away from it and sent Alice and Rose down the mountain to cover the Franklin road. Those things happened so quickly there would have been no possibility of an error, the car could not have gotten past them, I was certain of it.

Edward and Esme had covered Horseshoe Cove Road, and I had been over it myself. There had been no car to pass that way either. That left only two possibilities. Either they took one of the small turn offs that led to a subdivision like housing development on the edge of town and a few outlying houses near it, or they went down the road North, towards Cashiers.

Carlisle had been in surgery and had not been able to get out and cover that road quickly. It ran beside the hospital, so calling him to do it had been the obvious choice, not knowing he couldn't be reached. Edward was faster than any of us and when Carlisle could not be reached, he had literally flown across the valley and up the mountain to cover the road quite a few miles out of town, going well past the hospital to make up for the extra time it took to cover it. He wanted to make sure he was far enough away that he would see them pass, that they couldn't have had enough time to get there before he had.

We were going to have to focus on that road. There were several subdivisions and housing developments that were fed by that road, all of which Jake was circling right now to make sure no one left on foot, but that didn't mean they weren't in one of the many vacant vacation homes that dotted the ridges and hillsides along that road.

Twenty minutes.

Normally when a vampire took a human, there was no need to go looking for them . . . there was no point. But, this was my little sister we were talking about and she carried my nephew . . . and it wasn't just a normal vampire either, it was Victoria and she wasn't looking for a meal, she was looking for revenge. She would want Edward and the family to suffer as long as possible, perhaps even let us talk to Bella or somehow have us watch or listen to her screams as she killed her. She would certainly have it that we found the body . . .

. . . eliminate possibilities . . . narrow the search area . . .

I ran to where Carlisle and Edward were watching the Cashier's road. Edward was in a state of shock . . . Carlisle seemed to have just gotten him back to his feet. I explained what we had done to eliminate houses and area on the other three routes out of town and suggested that we start the same here, house by house. Edward stood watch on the road while I took the streets and houses on the East side of the road and Carlisle took those on the west. As we came back to the main road, Edward slowly moved his position closer down the road towards town. Jake joined us and Edward had him covering the trails and the outlying wooded areas to make sure there had been no escape on foot. We were pulling the net in tighter, house by house. It all hinged on her not having gotten past us on this road before Edward had gotten there. It was the only possible escape route, but I was becoming more and more worried that they had indeed made it out.

Twenty five minutes.

Thirty minutes.

Forty five minutes.

One hour.

We were back to town now, just a few small subdivisions off the main street left to cover and nothing, we had found absolutely nothing.

Alice seeing them in a silver Volvo and Rosalie smelling what she thought was the same car on the Cashiers road were the only shreds of clues.

. . . regroup. . . eliminate possibilities . . . narrow the search area . . .

Alice, Esme and Rosalie were left to watch the roads in and out of town as Emmett, Edward and I started rechecking the path out of town towards Cashiers. Carlisle was heading to the house to check on Emily as well as to grab my laptop. I could do most anything with the use of my particular laptop, including checking on any and all thefts of Volvos in the area as well as all of them that were registered anywhere near here. I also had a satellite feed and we could watch the roads in the surrounding areas. There was no point in not using all the technology available to us since normal ground tactics seemed to be providing no results.

We had to find her and quickly. Time was not our friend on this day.

~oooOooo~

Sam POV

I parked the truck in front of Edward's house and opened the passenger door to help Emily out. I instinctively picked her up to carry her into the house, though I was fairly certain she could walk in well enough on her own. It just felt right, carrying her. I thought about how many times the girls had laughed about Edward carrying Bella everywhere and found myself wondering for a split second if the parasite could actually care for her. I was understanding some of his actions a little more and that scared the shit out of me. I wasn't like him. I was a real flesh and blood man, and he was an abomination . . .

I didn't stop downstairs. I heard Sue mention something about making Emily some tea, but the words simply drifted by me as I headed up the stairs with my wife. I took her to the room we had been staying in and laid her on the bed, pulling a soft cover over her.

"Are you okay, Em?" I asked her quietly, kissing her on the cheek.

"I am now," she said as she put her arms around my neck and hugged me to her. I stroked her face and tears started to run down her cheeks again.

"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked, thinking she would feel better getting it out, and I really wanted to know from someone that had been there first hand. She paused for a minute and I felt her entire body shudder, ever so slightly as her grip tightened on me.

"Well, Alice had wanted Bella to try on these jeans that she had ordered. They were for after the baby so they were going to be a little tight and Alice just wanted to make sure they would fit. There was also a pink stretchy soft sweater like top that was really soft and comfy looking," Emily said softly, starting to cry in earnest.

"It's okay, baby. You're here and you're safe. It's okay . . . , " she interrupted me by sobbing.

"Bella isn't okay, Sam! The redhead! Crazy red hair and red eyes! Sam, the way she sneered at Bella!" Emily almost gasped as she told me. She was sitting upright now, holding on to my arms so tightly that I was amazed at her grip. It was borderline painful though she was a small woman.

"Okay, baby, okay," I said as I stroked her hair and down her back, "Just finish telling me what happened."

I noticed Carlisle standing in the doorway with his medical bag, poised to knock on the doorway.

"Sam, Emily, may I come in?" the bloodsucker asked. I looked at Emily for her to respond. As far as I was concerned he and the rest of his coven could go straight back to hell where they came from. He had been a surgeon at Forks Hospital though and reputedly an excellent doctor by all accounts. I suppose he could be useful, after all he had probably had centuries to perfect being a doctor and treating people. Any asshole could get it right if they had centuries of practice.

"Carlisle, I'm so sorry! Please come in," Emily responded to him. What the hell she was sorry for I had no idea. It was the bloodsuckers that should be sorry, they had said they would protect her, that she was safe with them and she had nearly been killed. Filthy lying leeches.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright, if that's okay with you," he said as he took his stethoscope from his bag. "You and I both know that I don't really need this, but it's a habit, it comforts patients and makes me look official," he said, gesturing to the instrument.

I backed away, scooting to the end of the bed to let him check on her. Maybe he was some fucking use, for this at least. He listened to her chest, her heartbeat, her blood pressure and checked her eyes, feeling the bruise on her head.

"I think you're going to be just fine," he said, clasping the latch on his bag after he put the stethoscope away and rose to stand by the bed. I moved back to where I had been sitting so that my wife could grasp my arm again.

"I heard you describe what happened, would you mind if I listened while you finish explaining what happened?" he asked her, looking at me.

"Yes, of course I'll tell you as well, Carlisle. Have they found Bella yet?" Emily asked, almost panicked.

"Not yet. Edward was quick to call us and all roads out of town were cut off within minutes. She had a small chance of making it out the road by the hospital. He called me to cover it but I was in surgery, so there was a few minutes of delay opening a small window where she could have slipped through. That may be what happened. We have been to almost every house in the area now to check for their scent and have found nothing, no trace at all," he said, somewhat dismayed.

The fucker looked so upset and somewhat guilty for his apparent part in creating a hole for her to escape through that I almost felt sorry for him . . . almost.

"You can't blame yourself, Carlisle, you were in surgery. It isn't like you were out with the boys drinking or doing anything bad that kept you from being there. You need to just let go of that, do you hear me?" my wife insisted toward the fucker," You have to find her, though. That woman, she was . . . menacing!"

"Thank you, Emily. You have been very . . . gracious towards us," he almost whispered, waiting for her to continue.

"Bella was heading to the back of the store to the dressing room to try on some clothes and she asked if I wanted to come with her," Emily said. I must have looked at her like she was nuts because she out a hand on my chest saying, "It's a girl thing, Sam."

"We went into the only dressing room they had and I handed Bella the clothes as she took hers off. I think I laid her clothes over the chair by the door, I don't really remember clearly. Anyway, we were admiring the pink sweater in the mirror and deciding if the pants were too tight and talking about Masen and if he had room in there with the waistband squeezing him when the door flung open and this woman appeared," Emily shuddered again, visibly, as she squeezed my arm.

"She was wild looking . . . long curly red hair and red eyes. I've never seen red eyes before and they're spooky. If she's a vampire, like you, why are her eyes red and yours golden? Just who is she?" Emily asked.

"Do you remember a couple of springs ago when Bella left and went to Phoenix?" he asked.

"You mean when she fell down the stairs and broke her leg and all those ribs?" Emily asked. Carlisle paused, and the corner of his mouth turned up, like he was about to smile but didn't.

"Yes. Edward had brought Bella out to a clearing in the woods to play baseball with us and three nomad vampires were making their way South through the forest from Seattle. They smelled us and stopped to see if they could play ball. One of them took exception to the fact that we had a human with us and wanted a . . . snack," he told us and Emily gasped audibly, one of her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

"Edward defended her along with the rest of us, but the vampire, James, decided he had to have her. Bella agreed to go to Phoenix till we could . . . dispose of him, James that is, but he tracked her there and tricked her into meeting him before Edward and I could reach her. He threw her across the room, breaking the ribs and then stepped on her leg to break it, filming it all the while so that we would be able to see what he had done to her before he drained her. Edward arrived first and pulled him off of her and he and I tended to her while the rest of my children tore him apart and burned the pieces," he explained.

"So these vampires, the red head as well . . . they feed off humans?" Emily asked.

"Yes. We drink only animal blood and my family's eyes are a golden color because of it, theirs is red because of their diet of human blood," he stated flatly, almost like he was apologising for his species.

"So, you took care of her and got her to a hospital in Phoenix?" I asked him.

"Yes. I placed a tourniquet on her leg, the femoral artery was severed, but James had bitten her, and the venom was in her system, killing her. It was Edward that actually saved her," he said hesitantly, clearly not wanting to discuss this further. He started to ask Emily something, probably to finish telling him what happened in the dressing room, but I wanted to hear the rest of this story.

"I know time is of the essence here, Carlisle, and you and I are both interested in what happened in the dressing room in town today, but I get the feeling that this story and the other two vampires that were in the field that day have a lot to do with what's going on right now. Please just finish the story," I asked him. He nodded his compliance as he stared at the floor.

"Once bitten, our venom will cause the human to change into a vampire. Edward didn't want that for her, so he put his mouth over the wound and sucked the venom out. I have no idea how he stopped before he drained her, but he did. He knew he loved her even then. When she recovered, several other things happened that made Edward feel that it was too dangerous for her to be around us, so we left town," Carlisle told us.

"So that's what happened. That's why she was so devastated. God, Carlisle, she nearly died herself when he left her, you know that don't you?" Emily asked him.

"Yes, we found that out when Edward decided to come back, decided that he couldn't live without her. He had been tracking this redhead, Victoria, all the way down to Rio in an effort to end her, but he never caught up to her," he told us, "Vampires mate for life, similar to imprinting, and James was Victoria's mate. Edward knew he had to end her for her to stop going after his mate."

"And the third, the other leech that was in the ball field," I asked, "What happened to him?"

"He separated himself from the other two and went to live in Alaska, embracing our diet, at least for awhile. Your wolf pack apparently killed him last fall, which is the justification Victoria used to kill Billy Black," Carlisle said quietly, "Your Chief for her friend."

"This woman that has Bella also killed Billy?" Emily gasped.

"Because we killed that leech with the dreadlocks?" I almost yelled.

"Yes," Carlisle answered. At some point Sue had come into the room and was listening intently to the conversation, the tea for Emily forgotten.

"Victoria has someone named Riley helping her now. He is the one that caused the car crash in town today, as well as the crash into the Pizza Parlor in Forks last spring," he informed us.

"Well when she came into the room, she stopped for a split second, I was between her and Bella. She sneered at Bella, smiled really and said something about how she had been looking forward to this. That's all I remember, except a vague image of Edward's face close to mine. Then the paramedics," Emily told us.

"Edward's face?" I growled, "What the fuck would Edward be doing having his face in yours?" I was irate, it was all I could do to stop the tremors from starting in my arms and chest.

"Sam, when Edward ran to the back of the shop and saw that Bella was gone he saw Emily on the floor and bent down beside her to access her injuries. He wanted to make sure she was alright," Carlisle stated knowingly.

"I wondered why Edward was scouting out back with Emily just laying there on the floor. He told me that she had been knocked out but that she was fine, but I just assumed that he was just telling me she was fine so that I would calm down," Sue told us. Carlisle smiled a genuine smile this time, the smile a father gets when he is exceptionally proud of a son.

"No, he accurately told you her condition. He had checked on her before you could even run to the back, Sue. He doesn't like to discuss it, but my son has been to medical school twice. He has degrees in medicine from Harvard as well as Yale. He is also quite a skilled surgeon. If Emily had not been fine, he would have still been tending to her, regardless of whatever else had been happening," he told us with pride, you could see it in his eyes.

Sue's mouth as well as Emily and mine hung open in surprise. Apparently there was a lot more to this family than I had ever imagined. He had tended to my wife first, in spite of knowing the danger his wife was in. Huh. Fucking leech might just have a good quality or two after all.

~oooOooo~

Victoria POV

"Yes! We nabbed the little bitch!" I exclaimed gleefully to Riley as we passed the wreck that was causing so much attention on Main Street. I saw him run back into the maternity Shop and I laughed to myself, knowing he wouldn't find her there. Stupid arrogant little shit. Did he really think he could keep her from me forever?

Moron tracked me across two continents . . . well, followed me. I led him, sometimes having to actually wait for him to catch up. He sucked at tracking. My James would have found me in the first week. I smiled remembering my James. Week . . . he would have tracked me the first day . . . I would have never gotten any kind of a head start on him, he was that good. Now I had lost him forever, and all because he wanted the human in the back for a snack. A human that Edward had apparently accepted as a mate. Who does that? A human for a mate? A meal yes, sex . . . mmmn, maybe, but a mate? Stupid little shit. Probably couldn't handle a real woman anyway . . .

I had to give it to him though, how he got her pregnant and didn't kill her was beyond me.

It didn't matter now. I had her. Hopefully I hit her hard enough for her to be out for awhile, I really didn't want to deal with her till we had her back at the house and I had some time to savor the anticipation. Riley had managed not to drain the girl that we had picked up on Saturday, hopefully he was learning some restraint. At least we had her there and he would go for her first if his will power failed . . . Edward's mate was mine.

The woman Riley had drained this morning should hold him off as well. I looked over to see him sitting there, his arm casually draped over the back of the seat and his fingers tracing patterns on my shoulder as he drove. I hated his touch. Hated it. If I had to be with him even one more time I knew I would just end up ripping him to shreds because he wasn't my James.

At least he had managed to do this right today. We had watched them as they drove into town, going to the ice cream store. I had been expecting them ever since last week when I eavesdropped on the girl in the Maternity store talking to the one they call Alice, telling her that her order would be in today. Oh we had tried to grab her before now, at the hospital yesterday and at the fireworks last Friday, three nights ago. There were just too many of them always right with her . . . till today.

We had kept our scent everywhere around town, Riley and I. We spent hours each night driving into town and parking so that our scent was only there in town. We walked up and down each and every sidewalk and touched each and every door and wall and flower pot. All the alleys smelled of us. Any and everything so that they could not track which way we went, our smell was too fresh everywhere to discern a trail. I had been very very careful never ever to leave town on foot. We had both come and gone by car, and the house we were staying in . . . we had never set foot outside of it, entering it only from the garage, and then only after the garage door closed behind us. One time Riley had gotten out to open the back door and go inside, just the initial break in and that had been weeks ago. Rain and storm had dulled any trace - I hoped.

Anyway, the house had a mile long driveway and was more than forty miles away from Highlands, past a small town called Cashiers where rich fuckers had homes they rarely ever even came to. I would have one of those homes soon and expensive cars and clothes that were designed for me, not found in someone else's closet and forced to fit me.

"Well, it worked!" he replied, startling me from my daydreams and bringing me back to searching the terrain and forest near the road as we passed by the hospital. We were not out of the woods yet, we still had to make it past them and I knew they were smart enough to head off all the roads out of town. It was just a matter of a few seconds . . . we just had to get further away than they would think to watch the road . . .

"Yes, you did well. That SUV rolled to its side almost on top of his car, did you see that! It got them all out of the shop, if only for an instant. The timing was perfect, she was right next to the rear door and none of them were with her, just another human!" I told him.

"Did you kill her?" Riley asked.

"No. I smiled at her, before I knocked her out. I want her to be able to describe me to them, as if my scent alone wouldn't tell them. I want him to know that I have her, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I may have drug her by the arm a little too hard, though, " I said looking over the seat to where she lay in a crumpled mass across the back seat. "I think I popped her shoulder out of the socket, not that I care. It won't bleed or anything, It'll just hurt like hell," I laughed.

I couldn't wait to cause them a small portion of the living hell that they had made my life. I would draw this out as long as possible, inflict as much pain as I was capable of . . . and that was considerable . . .