One last bit of fluff before the angst really sets in, and then a whole heaping of angst.
If Edward had just listened to Jasper in the first place, they wouldn't be in this mess. But, since they are, it's Jasper's job to get them out of it. After all, he was a good Catholic boy once. Alice might be his salvation, but keeping the Cullens safe is all on him.
Content note for violence and descriptions of injury. Please note that the next few chapters will be a little darker than usual. I'll warn for specific themes at the beginning of each one.
I did it! I updated two weeks in a row! And I have edited chapters locked and loaded for a month. Can you believe we made it this far?
Many thanks to goldengirlschildhood, who beta'd this chapter. Also to my dramaturg husband, who used the word "monophthong" multiple times while checking the Texan accent. (And if the Texan accent is too hard to read, let me know and I'll add a plain English transcript.)
Also, an FF-specific note: I can't see views anymore, and I can only see new reviews if I click the email link directly. So that's... weird?
Alice was walking on her hands again. I'd never understood why she found it so amusing. It was barely a parlor trick, for a vampire. But I loved the way it made her feel. Shades of red swept through my mind. Warm—happy—funny—proud—attention—nostalgia—
She flipped to her feet again and laughed. "Did you see?"
I smiled over my papers. "I sure did. You look just as pretty as you did the day I first saw you."
Her happiness was so bright it just about drowned me. It always was. She had no memory of darker times to drag her down.
"Tell me again!" She twirled toward me, shoving the stack of scholarship applications I was working through out of her way so there was enough room for her to sit on the desk.
I grabbed them up before they scattered. Esme handled our finances, but I was better with the people side of things. On this day, that meant reading heartfelt tales of hope in the face of hardship and doling out funds to everyone I felt deserved it. A few were denied every year—mostly those that thought hardship meant having to accept that the world was a kinder place these days. It kept the disbursed funds within the range of what most scholarship funds were able to manage.
Alice drummed her toes against my thigh as I set the paperwork safely to one side. I smiled up at her, feeling all-filled-up by her enthusiasm.
"You were the littlest thing I ever seen," I began. "All of four foot ten—" I held one hand up to the top of her head like I was measuring her, then brought it down to my waist.
She laughed and captured my wrist in her own two hands, leaning down to kiss it. My heart felt hot with joy. It always did, around Alice.
"All of four foot ten and wrapped in a coat big enough to fit Emmett. I think you might've been perched on that bench near six hours 'fore I caught sight. Soaked through, an' it h'ain't rained since mornin'."
Words always felt better in my mouth when I leaned all the way back into the familiar sounds of Texas. It wasn't something I let myself do very often. But for Alice, anything. "An' the minute I came 'round that corner, you bounced straight up like you was sittin' on a cactus. An' you said—'You!'"
She poked at my nose and I caught her finger in my teeth. Oh-so-gentle. I'd never hurt a hair on her head, and neither would anyone else as long as I had life in me.
"Well, it was you," she said, just like she always did. "I couldn't help it!"
I let go and she ran her fingers through my hair instead. I sighed. Her touch felt like heaven.
"I'd been runnin' so long I didn't know for how not to be scared," I went on. "I froze up somethin' awful. I'd killed more folk what I counld count—big men, pretty women, strangers, an'… good friends. I'd just about settled I was ready to lay down in the dirt an' die if it meant not killin' anymore. An' there you was, pointin' right at me like I were starin' out from a wanted poster. I decided right then an' there that if you was gonna kill me, you could go right ahead an' do it. I wasn't gonna lay a hand on you."
Alice shivered dramatically, but her heart shouted joyjoyjoyjoyjoyjoyjoyjoy— "And then?" she prompted. Just like she always did.
"Anyhow," I said slowly, looking up into her dark eyes and wondering for the umpteenth time how I'd gotten so lucky, "you just ran right on up to me an' wrapped your arms 'round me like I was your oldest an' dearest friend." The memory was just as clear in my mind as if it had been yesterday instead of near a century ago. "An' you said—'You're late!'"
Alice bounced with glee. "And you said?"
"An' I said, 'I'm sorry, miss,' like any good Southern boy would do when told his manners was lackin'."
"I was already in love with you, you know," she confessed, like it was a great secret instead of something I'd already known—and felt, just like it was my own love—that first day and every day since.
Early on, I'd wondered from time to time if I did love her, or if she just loved me enough for the both of us. But I'd decided pretty quick that it was both, and that it didn't matter anyway.
"I didn't ken it," I said, "but I trusted it like I ain't never trusted nothin' afore then. Nor since."
Alice's laugh was like fairy bells. "And I've loved you ever since." She leaned in to rest her forehead against mine.
We were quiet, just like that, for a long minute.
I could feel the house humming around us. Carlisle was learning something, probably reading a new journal article about surgery. Esme was concentrating very hard. A new recipe? Rosalie and Emmett were in the middle of a private moment. I politely ignored the intensity of feeling tugging along my connection to both of them. Edward—
Edward wasn't home yet. Still out with that Swan girl. My jaw tightened. That was a problem for another day. But his absence left a hole in the house. I preferred it when I had all my people where I could feel them.
No. Not a hole. There was something. Something far off and hard to get a grip on. He was—
PAIN. FEAR.
I was out of my chair before I'd even finished the thought. "Edward needs help."
Three people came alert. Alice slid off the desk. "Where? What kind of—"
She froze, her mouth still open. I knew the signs. She was going canny. "The Sight," Emmett called it. Carlisle preferred "gifted." Alice didn't care one way or the other.
Her eyes went unfocused. "They have him!" she shrieked.
Emmett and Rosalie were paying attention now. I could hear them scrambling out of bed. "WHERE AT?" Emmett roared. The windows rattled.
"The meadow."
Alice began to faint, but Esme burst through the door to catch her. She was the weakest fighter of the family and we both knew where I was needed.
I didn't bother to open the window. By the sounds of it, neither did Carlisle or Emmett.
Edward usually ran point. Emmett and Rosalie would flank him, and I would bring up the rear. Carlisle didn't fight unless he had no other choice. But Edward's absence forced us to rearrange. Emmett led the way. Rosalie and Carlisle were a few steps behind him. I stayed behind. I would fight… if I had to. But first, I would assess. Strategize. Direct.
We swept through the forest toward the meadow. Halfway there, we crossed a familiar scent trail. The nomad from Port Angeles. It was fresh. But it wasn't Edward's. We moved on.
I could no longer feel Edward, even if I strained. There was something else—someone else—there. I tamped down my connection to everyone. I couldn't afford to be distracted.
I heard him before I saw him. Hissing and snarling.
We emerged through the trees.
Someone had hit Edward from behind. It looked like he had ducked the worst of the blow. That was the only reason he was still in one piece. He lay, face-down, the side of his jaw crushed in. At least one of his legs was broken. Probably one of his arms, too.
But he was whole. He hadn't been burned or dismembered. He'd recover.
His opponent—one of his opponents, judging by the tracks I saw around the clearing—lay face-up a few feet away. He was terrified. Confused. Abandoned. His left leg was shattered so badly I wasn't sure if even vampire resilience could restore it. He had plenty of scars. A hard life, or a long one. His clothes were a little ragged.
Carlisle threw himself to his knees by Edward's side, drowning in blue. I could feel his heart breaking. His son. His firstborn. His weakness. He had sacrificed everything for Edward. His comfortable life in Philadelphia. His good deeds, at the height of the Spanish flu. Most importantly, his conscience. None of the others would exist without that first weakness. None of them resented it.
Emmett pounced on the strange vampire. "Who the fuck are you and what did you do to him?" He lifted him bodily from the ground, one huge hand around his throat. The stranger choked and clawed at Emmett's fist. He was in no shape to fight.
"He can't tell us if he can't breathe." But I understood Emmett's white-hot rage. I had felt it too, before I had learned how to survive. I could feel it now.
Emmett ignored me and shook his prey. "I'll fucking kill you, you—"
With a grimace, I felt along my connection to him and jerked. I hated doing it. His rage poured into—through—over me. I let it. I could control it better than he could.
Emmett relaxed and let go. The stranger, no longer held up by his neck, collapsed to his knees and shrieked. I could feel his pain. I didn't do anything about it.
"Tell me your name," Rosalie ordered, putting a hand on Emmett's arm. I almost introduced myself. When she put her mind to it, Rosalie was hard to disobey. But whenever Carlisle suggested it might be more than just charm, Rosalie would toss her hair and pout. "I'm just pretty."
"Laurent," he gasped.
"Why are you here, Laurent?"
Laurent's bright eyes flicked from Rosalie to Emmett. "They told me—it was just supposed to be him. Just a lone nomad. An eccentric. James said—he reads minds, so he stays away from everyone. If we killed him, we'd have this place all to ourselves. It's a paradise."
"Who said?" Rosalie prompted. She was smiling, but it was far from reassuring.
"James. His girl Victoria. I hardly knew them. They'd come up from somewhere down south. I ran into them in Wyoming… it's slim pickings, out in the prairies. Nobody's allowed near Denver—or Vegas." Laurent was trying to pull himself together. He sounded like he was used to being a smooth talker.
"And… where are James and Victoria now?" she inquired, sounding almost pleasant.
"They took off after the girl. I don't understand. Why was she with him? Who are you?"
Rosalie glanced a question at me. "He's telling the truth. Or what he thinks is the truth," I snapped. If it were up to me, I would have disassembled him on the spot. Showing mercy to your enemies makes you look weak, Maria whispered in my ear. They'll always come back.
She looked back at Laurent. "What girl?"
"Some human. Little, brown hair, smelled nice. He defended her." He sounded amazed by that fact.
We had both already known it was Bella. I wanted to wash my hands of the whole affair. Good riddance.
But… I looked down at Edward. Venom oozed from the size of his face, plastering his hair back. He looked very young.
"He'll never forgive you," Rosalie said, without turning to look at me. "You can't hide it from him."
I ground my teeth. He took on three vampires for her. He must have known, even with his advantages, what that meant.
"If it was Alice?" she prompted, quietly. I could feel how much she hated to do it. She didn't like Bella any more than I did. But she would do the right thing, as she saw it, if it killed her.
My shoulders slumped. "I don't like it."
"He would do it for you."
I snarled wordlessly and stalked away. Carrying my own rage on top of Emmett's was too much. I gave his back.
He whirled and snarled at me, realizing for the first time that I had taken it. "I hate it when you do that. Don't fuck with my head."
I snarled again. "Don't be so childish. We needed answers."
He closed the distance between us. "Childish? Me? You're throwing a fucking tantrum because you don't want to go looking for Edward's gal. Don't you dare lecture me on—"
Carlisle stepped between us. He looked old. Tired. "Please. You're both better than this."
The fight went out of both of us. I swallowed my feelings. "How long until he's up?"
"A couple of hours, at least."
"Can he be moved?" I'd feel better if I had an eye on him. James and Victoria were unknown quantities. What if they circled back around while we were gone?
The doctor hesitated. "Yes. If we're careful."
"Fine." I looked down at Edward—my brother—for a long minute. "Tell Esme and Alice to bring blood. We'll all need it."
I had a trail to follow.
The tracks were easy to read. Bella had run up the hill. James had pursued, followed by Victoria.
She's fast, I noted grudgingly. Or Edward had kept the two of them occupied for longer than I'd realized. Bella had made it halfway to the house before they had caught up. I saw marks where she had fallen to her knees and struggled up again.
Then the tracks crossed. A scuffle in the pine needles. She had fallen and been dragged a few feet, kicking and clawing. James' footprints went off-balance, like she'd almost gotten loose. Then—nothing. She disappeared.
She put up a hell of a fight. But no blood. No body. If they had killed her, it hadn't happened here. Did they hear us coming and clear out? Or… There were too many variables. I kept going. Two sets of tracks headed away from the house. Toward the road. If we'd followed the scent trail when we first crossed it, we might have caught up with them.
A car had been waiting on the shoulder. Some oil had leaked. The footprints disappeared. So did the scent.
I scowled down the road. "This makes it harder."
"Why didn't they just kill her?" Emmett asked, from the other side of Rosalie. We were still keeping our distance.
"No idea." Edward had held his tongue about whatever had worried him so much about the inside of the nomad's—James'—head. "But if they want her alive, that means we can catch up."