Chapter Twenty

School started back up and I was less than enthusiastic as Edward dragged me out of my bed in the morning, unfortunately he was not an alarm I could throw against the wall to let me sleep longer. He had my clothes in his hands, apparently Alice had told him where to find all my clothes, and he stood with an expectant look in his eyes. "I don't wanna." I grumbled as I grabbed my clothes from his hands and began to change, I cared so little at this point that he had barely had enough time to turn around himself.

"You made me promise I wouldn't let you skip school today." He reminded me.

"Yeah yeah," I pulled my clothes on and shoved my shoes onto my feet. My stomach threw a large and deep gurgle.

"Hungry?" Edward asked as he turned around.

"Opposite!" I yelled as I ran toward the bathroom, feeling the burn in my throat as my stomach betrayed me. He was there, holding my hair back, we had a system down, I'm sure he already had a glass of water in his hand to let me rinse my mouth afterwards.

"They still don't know what's wrong?" He asked, audibly tense.

"Acid reflux is the best we have so far." I grumbled as I sat back, rinsing my mouth with water and spitting it into the toilet before standing and brushing my teeth immediately. Edward flushed the toilet and lowered the lid for me, letting me sit down as my stomach settled. I heard a ding from the kitchen and looked at him curiously.

"Toast, I realized it was what you normally ate after throwing up. Did you want butter?"

"Yes please?" My stomach felt incredibly empty and the idea of buttered toast made me feel so warm and fuzzy. While Edward prepared my breakfast I walked back to my room and grabbed my book bag, thinking about the discussion of my crystals, in the bottom of my bag sat tumbled quartz and tumbled obsidian, and yet somehow he had never put two and two together.

I grabbed my jacket and worked my way down the stairs. By the time I was at the bottom Edward was handing me a paper towel that had two pieces of toast wrapped in it, and a travel coffee cup, taking my bag from me and throwing it over his shoulder. Out the door and into the car we went, the heater was on and I was instantly grateful that he had to leave to get his car after my dad left every morning. "What's the game plan?" I asked Edward as we raced toward the school where we would inevitably be early like every other day. I ate the toast carefully, constantly nervous I was going to leave crumbs in the car and Edward would have to get it detailed, though I was sure they were much more efficient at detailing then any of the shops they could go to.

"For what?" He asked, my thoughts must have been muddled today and not as straightforward as I thought.

I took a swig of coffee before turning to him. "What's the game plan for the visitor? It's only two and a half weeks now." I looked anxiously outside. The snow was thick on the trees, but the rich green that poked out from beneath the blankets of white made it look like a bob ross painting.

"We don't really have one, just that she can't get close to you and we will dispatch her before she can."

"So there is no chance of reasoning?" I asked anxiously, getting another drink of coffee.

"No, she's going to be too new for that. Alice thinks she's in the changing process right now, that she saw the decision as she made it, that she hadn't turned yet but would be turned soon." He clarified as we rounded the corner into the empty school parking lot.

"Where is she going to be?" I asked nervously looking down into my coffee as the car came to a stop in the spot he always parked in.

"If she takes the pathway she has planned right now we should meet her just outside of town."

"I hate this uncertainty." I grumbled as I shoved another bite of toast into my mouth.

"I know." He sighed and let me finish my toast and take another swig of my coffee before continuing the conversation. "Your father is going to be at work all day so you can stay at our house, Gaia can be with you if you'd like, I will also be staying back." He clarified, and I looked at him curiously.

"They don't need you?" I asked curiously.

"For one newborn- Jasper and Emmett could dispatch her no problem. Jasper could do it alone even." His words seemed to have some significance as he spoke them, but it was lost on me.

"But don't they need to know what she's thinking? If she will send reinforcements?"

"No, Alice saw her entire path from the moment she started to turn. She's pretty straight forward, apparently a one track mind. She doesn't know much about vampires, we don't think she even knows you're protected by us." Edward shut off the car as other cars began to fill the parking lot.

"Have you looked into… the thing I can do?" I asked hesitantly as the memory of the event just a few short weeks ago replayed in my head. It took me days to be able to touch Edward again despite his reassurances.

"Not yet, but we have a friend in the Denali coven, Elezar, that has a talent of identifying others' hidden abilities. We've thought about asking him if he's ever heard of such a gift."

"Wait. You said the gift some vampires get resembles that of the intense qualities in their human life. Yes?"

"Yes."

My bottom lip stuck out and I felt my eyes get big. "Does that mean that Elezar was exceptionally good at finding what was special in people during his human life?" My heart swelled, this man sounded so wholesome and sweet if this were true.

"I never thought about it that way." Edward smiled as he mulled it over. "I suppose that is what it could mean."

"You always knew what was on people's minds then?"

"I don't remember much from that life." He said glumly. "It's faded away into time."

"Did you never search for journals or family photos?" I had become genuinely curious about the man before me. It dawned on me that he was as old as my great great grandfather (presumably) and that threw me for a loop.

"I guess I never really thought to." He shrugged his shoulders and grabbed my bag and his from the backseat. "Time to go in."

He always had such perfect awareness of time, it eluded me how that could be. I snagged my coffee cup and heaved myself from the car, dreading the day of school that lay before me. "So does that mean that Jasper was always able to change the mood in a room?"

"Probably." He laughed lightly as I continued with my probing questions.

"I know you said Carlisle doesn't have a gift but I think his intense compassion is a gift in and of itself." I nodded my head as I agreed with myself. "To have the capacity for that much kindness and unwavering trust in humanity." I shook my head in disbelief. The image of Carlisle in my mind was so sharp and clear, and when I stopped looking at the mental image and looked up to Edward, I saw a smile painted on his face. "What?" I asked curiously, feeling the blush flood my face.

"I love the way your brain works. How you see the world. It's so…" He struggled for the word. "Bright? No. Unwavering!" He snapped his hand and beamed at me. "You have an unwavering view of the best of people, you've opened my eyes to some of those traits myself." His smile seemed so genuine and kind, that it filled my heart with joy. Then quickly my heart deflated as we stepped into the first class of the day- and the Monday reality came crashing in.

•••

Edward ditched lunch, he had some "stuff" to take care of apparently. So I spent the hour hunched over a sketchbook with Gi.

"Wait wait wait- you're telling me this is a candid portrait?"

"Still life," I corrected, "but yeah." I smiled at the drawn planes of Edward reading The Mortal Instruments, City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare. He looked so confused, and I knew exactly what page he was on that confused him so much. He had probably read it four times before looking up to me and speaking.

"Let me guess," Gi said with a laugh as she looked at the book then his face. "He got to the 'you're my sister' part of it."

"Bingo!" I held my stomach as I laughed. His confusion didn't end as he furiously finished the book and demanded my second one. I wasn't surprised when he was nearly halfway through it in the morning when he picked me up. I had promised not to think about the plot around him, which wasn't hard to do considering how much of a fever dream it was. He had finished the first three books in as many days and seemed shell shocked. "Edward said he had to take a break after the ending of the third one, he hasn't picked up the fourth yet and it's been about a month, but I've seen him eyeballing it when we study." I joked, lying only a little. He was eyeballing it more when I was winding down for sleep but saying that would sound outrageous to my classmates. I gave him one more night before he caved and picked up the next book, I told him the order to read it in was publication order, he seemed intrigued by the complexity of the story line in the sense of how many generations it spanned.

"Has he figured out what character you identify with the most?" Gi asked, as if it wasn't obvious.

"I think in a book with only one ginger who happens to be artistically inclined and consistently down a parent, I don't think it's much of a mystery." I rolled my eyes as I joked and snapped my sketchbook shut. I rarely used it for anything other than assignments or yearbook/school paper things.

"Full moon tonight!" Gi said with a gasp as she stared at her phone. "Oh my god please can we do the photo shoot tonight!?" Gaia had been begging me for weeks to help her expand her portfolio, and she had the perfect setting in mind. She told me it would work regardless of weather, but that the full moon was ideal.

"What time?" I asked curiously, it was a Monday after all.

"10pm? The woods by my house?"

"That works, and I can cut through the trail that's between!" I countered.

"Sounds good to me," Gi smiled, "just wear your hiking stuff and I'll provide the outfit change." She had a few photos on her phone of the outfits she had picked, all of which had beautiful lace trims and billowing skirts.

"Gaia," I looked at her with sincerity filled eyes, "these look so beautiful."

•••

After school Edward picked me up, and he seemed off. He didn't speak at first, he just looked at me, almost angry in his expression. "You're not going." He finally spoke, his car accelerating out of the lot.

"What?"

"You're. Not. Going."

"Where?"

"The woods tonight. Absolutely not."

"Excuse me?" I felt the attitude seeping into my voice.

"I said no." He spoke curtly and continued to speed down the road toward my house.

"You don't own me Edward." My blood began to boil.

"I never said I did."

"But you're acting like you do."

"No I'm not?"

"You don't get a say in what I do and don't do Edward." At this point I wasn't sure if I was speaking or thinking, the words were coming so fast.

"You'll get hurt!"

"No I won't! I've done this a million times!"

"That doesn't make it any less dangerous."

"Are you going to do this every time I make plans with my friends?"

"No."

"How about when I plan on going surfing with Jake again?"

"I'd prefer you didn't go to the reservation."

"I'd prefer you didn't try to cut me off from my friends."

"Ara, that's not what I'm doing." He pulled into my empty driveway.

"No Edward. It is." I got out of the car, slamming the door, and stormed up to my house. "Don't bother coming over tonight!" I yelled, turning to look at him through his windshield. He stared back, looking more vexed than he did originally. I knew full well that he would later stalk me in the woods, maybe even attempt to block me. I wasn't about to back down, and he knew that.

The night had begun to drag without Edward around, but that gave me time to call Jake. Around six I had finished my homework and my dinner was in the oven, my father on the late shift had made the night all mine.

Once I was settled onto the couch I pulled out my phone and began to dial Jake's number. Due to a series of pranks on his sisters, Jake had been grounded recently and lost his cellphone, so I had to hope Jake was the one who picked up the home phone. It was, however, Billy who answered. "Hi Billy!"

"Oh, Ara… hi." He seemed so distant, like he was lost in thought.

"Oh I'm sorry! Were you expecting a call?" Suddenly I felt bad for calling.

"Uh… sort of. You're dad and Charlie are here right now."

"What happened?" I paled, my heart hammering in my chest.

"Sam Uley has gone missing."