Chapter 39 - Foreboding
The miles crept slowly by, each foot bringing them closer to home. Sheets of rain washed over the windshield while thunder shook the blackened sky. Lights flashed ahead in the distance, warning of an accident that slowed traffic to an agonizing crawl. Bella stared dully out the window as they passed the scene.
Showers of sparks fell onto the highway from emergency flares on the side of the road. Two twisted pieces of metal, one destroyed beyond recognition. A family huddled by the side of the road, shielded from the rain under a wide umbrella. State troopers, wearing wide brimmed hats, were meticulously discerning fact from fiction while they took statements from the survivors. A white sheet, wet and stained with blood, obscured all that was left of the person underneath.
A little girl, maybe age eight, with long brown locks and a brightly flowered dress stared vacantly into the distance. A lone teddy bear dangled from her little hand. A life shattered by what had happened that day.
Bella's heart yearned to comfort her; her arms longed to mother her.
Without thinking, she rolled down the window amid Leah's angry protests. A hand reached out towards the little girl, beckoning her to come forward. Suddenly, Bella's eyes noted a crimson stain on the wet pavement. Blood dripped from the foot of the bear. Warm and red, flowing freely from an angry gash on the child's wrist.
Bella recoiled in horror, the wounds of her own flesh tingling as if to burst open once more.
Leah was shouting at her now, but the words were muffled; indistinct, as if hearing underwater.
Bella looked down at her own shoes. Brown oxfords, a child's size eight with tan stitching and Brownie laces. Tiny droplets of blood dotted the scuffed leather. The scars on her wrists bled profusely, dripping over the fur of her old, cuddly bear.
It was then Bella realized... she was the child.
Turning her head in fear, she looked at the huddled group surrounding the police officers. Two female, three male. Watchers looking back at her with sympathetic eyes. Suddenly the group transformed into something more sinister, irises turning golden at first, tinging black and then red with thirst.
Bella opened her mouth and screamed.
Edward Cullen stared back at her menacingly from beneath the wide brim of a State Trooper's hat. The mask of goodness on his face replaced with one that inspired horror.
Still able to see Leah's car creeping along the highway, she tried to run, but her feet wouldn't move. The bottoms of her shoes mired into the wet concrete like quicksand. She could feel his eyes on her, the blank stare of death boring into the back of her skull like the loaded barrel of a gun.
Next to her, the shape of a body covered by a rough gray blanket called her name, its chest rising and falling as though the person beneath struggled for breath. Slow eddies of blood flowed together with rivers of water, forming a lake of diluted crimson around her feet. Unable to control her actions, Bella pulled back the cover from the face.
It was her own. On the cold concrete of the Pacific Highway, she lay trapped, paralyzed with fear and unable to cry out for help.
The vision of the girl shifted and Bella watched in transfixed horror as the brown locks turned black, the brightly flowered dress became ragged and the scared little eyes turned a startling shade of ocean blue. Alice Brandon, as she was in life, smiled wickedly back.
"Beth..." she whispered, dropping to her knees. Edward appeared next to her, the slow, melodic voice that Bella once loved now hummed a canticle of death. Two fallen angels, beautiful in life, magnificent in immortality, monsters by her side.
God have mercy on my soul... silent tears poured down Bella's cheeks when they surrounded her, the three Nephilim posing as family. Father, mother, son... ready to welcome a new child in their midst. Ready to usher her through the burning fires of hell.
Edward's cool, sweet breath brought goose bumps to her flesh when he bent low and spoke softly in her ear. "Welcome to the family, love..."
"Bella! Bells! Wake up!"
Her eyes flew open wide, balls of cotton sheets twisted into her fists. Cold sweat poured down her back while she looked into Jacob's terrified eyes. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, her throat sore and thick from screaming in terror. "He's coming for me. They're coming for me," she choked, before collapsing into Jacob's arms.
ooo000ooo
Steam poured out of the shower as she tried to wash away all of the fear with the bubbles down the drain. Dread made Bella's blood run cold and nothing Jacob could say or do would take away the chill that permeated all the way into her bones.
"Just remember to breathe," she reminded herself, clutching the hem of the soft cotton towel tightly around her trembling body. Tiny rivulets of water condensation carved their way down the foggy mirror in erratic patterns, twisting the image of her face into a glistening monstrosity under the light.
Knuckles white with force clutched the porcelain basin tightly. Blood pounded hotly in her ears and she felt herself slipping away as her life careened wildly out of control. "It's just a dream. Just a dream." Eyes squeezed shut, she counted to ten by the clink of Máire's ring echoing loudly against the sink. When she opened them again, the glass had spiderwebbed into watery veins, shattering before her in a haze of foreboding, tipping what was left of her sanity over the precipice.
The bathroom floor rushed up to meet her and somewhere between the cool tiles and fluffy towel, the whole world turned black.
ooo000ooo
Jacob sat across from Paul staring at the gruesome scene displayed unerringly in the black and white crime scene photos. The hunter in him prickled, knowing that the ugly gashes on Lauren Mallory's ripped out throat were no mere product of a drug deal gone bad. This was something more.
"Tox report won't be back for a few more days," Paul noted, trying his best to sound detached from the situation. On most days, he could do his job without problem. This was different. The wolf in him wanted to seek out retribution by means of fire.
"I didn't like her, but she didn't deserve this. Nobody does." Closing his eyes, he recalled clearly every last word Lauren had said before he shouldered past her in a rush to get to Bella. "You gonna need me to make a statement?" he asked, hoping to God it wouldn't happen. He didn't relish having to tell Charlie about his last interaction with her, nor did he want to face the barrel of the Chief's gun when he found out Edward Cullen might possibly be hanging around. Keeping him in the dark about that little fact was one way to make sure his nuts wouldn't properly function for a week at least.
"No. As of right now, I'm not saying a word." Paul raised an eyebrow, the muscles beneath his jaw flexing tightly. "Plausible deniability. If they start nosing around, I'm not going to say a thing. Just sit tight until someone asks. There's no good way to explain any of this. Right now, I hope to fuck they find something in her system so it can go down as a drug deal gone awry. Best case scenario. No questions asked."
"Yeah, well let's just hope she liked a bump up the nose as much as she liked it between the sheets," he retorted. Jacob wiped his face with his hands wearily, realizing he sounded like a callous bastard. "Sorry, I'm just worried as fuck about Bella. Ever since she put on that damn ring, she's been having freaky dreams. Woke up screaming bloody murder last night saying HE was coming for her and then passed out on the bathroom floor."
"Shit." Everyone in the pack could remember what it was like to patrol the Swan house and hear Bella screaming in her sleep. More than once Paul had been tempted to jump through her window, but Jacob would have beaten his ass to a pulp if he'd so much as touched the tree by her bedroom. "Bad as they used to be?" he questioned.
"Worse." He didn't say anything more, but the usual square set of his shoulders bowed. Paul understood the feeling all too well. Jacob might have handpicked him to be beta because he was just as unerringly tough as him when it came to running the pack and because his own hunting skills were superb, but when it came to Rachel... there was nothing he wouldn't give to save the woman he loved from an ounce of pain in an angry world. Bella might not be Jacob Black's imprint, but everyone knew she was the love of his life- and they envied him for it.
Their love wasn't the ill-crossed fate of some tribal magic or even the duty many felt to marry within the tribe. Instead, they were friends, both as children and adults. For all their sorrows, the two found each other again, cementing a real relationship born out of the lifelong knowledge that they always had each other, no matter what. Paul loved Rachel, just as Sam and Jared loved their imprints. Yet, he always wondered if they would have found their way if it hadn't been for the wolf. Most days he tried not to dwell on it. Rachel was a good woman, perfect for him in every respect. The Spirits hadn't fucked up on that account. But would she have ever looked his way without the imprint? It wasn't a question that could be answered. Not in this lifetime.
"Everything set for tonight?" Paul asked, figuring the best thing to do was get down to business. They would all be heading into Cascadia to wait for Bella's grandmother to emerge from some magic circle of light that supposedly led to another realm. It had taken him weeks to get his head wrapped around that idea, supernatural twist of nature or not.
One corner of Jacob's lip upturned in a smirk. "She's being stubborn. I told her Embry would stay with her, but she refused."
"Can you blame her?"
"No, but I wish she'd listen to me once in awhile." Jacob got up and rooted around in the cupboard for a minute, returning to the table with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He poured out the first round and tossed back the amber liquid with a relish. The slow, easy burn felt good sliding down his throat. "Embry is going to patrol the reservation with the pups. I want the rest of us there when she comes out of that hole. I don't trust what I don't know. Family or not, if she's half as powerful as Matt, I want to be ready."
He poured himself another drink, the motion of it relaxing him enough to think straight. "We'll leave around eleven. That gives us plenty of time to be there in advance. God only knows how long we'll be waiting."
Long after Jacob left to make the necessary preparations for the evening, Paul sat staring at the photographs on the table. Pulling out the stills from the camera at the station, he tried to make the connection between the vamp in the images and Lauren Mallory's death. There had to be a clue in there somewhere. It nagged at him in sleep, eating all of his waking hours with worry.
He didn't bother to clean them up before taking off into the night. Somewhere in the middle of Cascadia, another world awaited.
ooo000ooo
This time the dream was different. Softer, noninvasive.
The evocative beauty of Rialto, sunshine warm on her face, black sand squishing between her toes.
Shading her eyes from the sun, Bella looked across the horizon. A brilliant ball of fire was slowly sinking beneath the ocean waves. Mother Nature's brush dipped in vibrant hues of pink and red painted the blue sky in an impressionistic dream.
A soft summer breeze loosed the fine tendrils of hair blowing across her cheeks. Billowy cotton clouds of white flowed around her legs while foamy waves lapped the shore.
Out of the water, Jacob rose as Adonis, tiny droplets of ocean spray clinging to sculpted muscle flexing beneath copper skin in the twilight. The first stars began to light the evening sky, hung like glittering diamonds against a backdrop of gold. The strong outline of his jaw flexed, softening into a knowing smile as he slowly made his way to the shore.
He ducked his head, capturing her lips in a tender kiss, the strength of his hands resting lovingly on the sides of her burgeoning belly. Tiny flutters, softer than angel's wings caressed her insides.
Bella smiled contentedly in sleep. Jacob lay stretched out beside her, watching her pink lips softly part in quiet sounds of unmatched bliss. Serene, unfettered by the problems which loomed large before them. It covered his soul in a warm blanket of peace, making him long to shut the outside world away and still time, keeping its quiet servitude only unto themselves.
Jacob laid protectively by her side long after the sun dipped below the horizon. Quiet moments such as these were few and far between for them, leaving him longing for the day when the wolf would quiet, returning his soul back to him the way it had once been as a happy sixteen-year-old boy on the cusp of adulthood. Life had made him a man all too quickly and Jacob Black wanted nothing more than to begin anew with Bella by his side. A journey of twisted roads stretched out long before them, each one a path waiting to be explored.
The stars and moon in the sky climbed higher until Jacob knew it was time to break the solitude and begin their trek to Pyramid Mountain.
When the two finally set out into the woods to meet with the pack, a deep sense of foreboding washed over Jacob. The air was electric, as if an impending thunderstorm were going to roll in from the coastline.
The knotted ball in the pit of his stomach told him it was not going to be a good night.