I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
A huge thank you to my beta Madmooey18 for putting in the effort and helping me make this story what it is.
Author's Note at the end.
"So, Adam, can we talk?" she asks clapping her hands after she sits opposite of him on the ground and looks at what he is coloring.
Adam eyes her for a moment before he goes back to coloring and tells her in suspicion, "Did something bad happen?"
Feeling offended, she asks him, "Do I, your mum, not have a reason to talk to you unless something bad happens?"
When Adam glances up and notices the look she gives him, he tells her, "I didn't mean that. I just have a bad feeling."
She smiles sadly at him. No child in KG should ever talk about having a bad feeling. That's another thing she fucked up at. By bringing him up in a violent atmosphere, she turned him into an anxious child that hates change and talks about having a bad feeling.
She combs her fingers through his hair as she tells him, "It's not bad. I promise."
Looking at her through his lashes, he asks, "Can I keep coloring?"
"Of course," she tells him and he goes to coloring but drops his wooden pencil once he hears her next words, "Seth is going to live with us."
"No," he tells her shaking his head and then resuming his coloring.
"But why?" she asks him feeling disappointed as she scoots closer and plays with his hair.
"No, no, no," he repeats vehemently shaking his head.
She pushes his hair away from his forehead as she asks, "Can I at least know why?"
He looks up biting his lip, before he returns to coloring and tells her, "I don't want to go to Forks."
Looking surprised, Bella asks him, "Honey, who said anything about moving to Forks?"
"You said he will live with us. Seth lives in Forks. I hate Forks," he replies coloring furiously.
"Adam, can you please look at me?" she asks him and when he refuses and continues coloring she tells him, "Can you please look at me? At least just for a moment," she requests at the end.
He huffs loudly and puts his coloring pencil down then looks at his mum in irritation.
Bella pushes his hair out of his face and tells him, "We are not moving back to Forks. Seth is moving to New York."
Adam silently contemplates her words before he tells her, "But he is from Forks?"
"You were from Forks too," she reminds him.
"No, I am not. You are from New York and so am I."
She laughs at his logic before telling him, "Even so, people can change where they are from. It's not permanent. You can change anything you want about yourself. As a matter of fact, you will change a lot over time."
"Well, that's stupid," then resumes coloring before he declares, "I am never changing."
"We will see about that," she tells him knowingly.
Bella paces the floor of her apartment as she waits for Seth to arrive. She asked Phil if the boys could stay with him for a couple of hours while Seth gets acquainted with the apartment. The truth is that she wants to talk to him without little ears listening.
A chime from her mobile phone alerts her to the fact that she received a message from Jim telling her that he just dropped Seth in front of her building. She opens the door of her apartment and waits by it with the perfect view of the elevator.
The elevator opens its doors and before she can think twice, she crosses the distance between them and embraces him. She feels him clutching the back of her shirt as his shoulders shake in silent sobs. She rubs his back silently and holds him as he breaks down on her. When she realizes that he won't move on his own, she walks them back into her apartment and locks the door before leading him to the couch in her living room.
She combs her hand through his hair as his silent tears wet her jean-clad knees. She feels the agony and terror radiating off him and it takes everything in her not to ask him what he saw. She knows all too well that she can't make him tell her. She doesn't want to make him tell her. She is fine with waiting as long as he needs before he speaks.
"There is a grave at the Swan manor," he tells her, suddenly raising his head to look at her before he returns it to her lap.
At her shocked silence, Seth continues, "I noticed it first when I started doing yard work for your father but I didn't think much of it as it was a small rock with the word, "My Love", carved on it."
She nods her head even though he can't see her and resumes her combing through his hair before asking him in a shaking voice, "Who's buried there?"
She knows that Seth wouldn't tell her that, if he didn't know it's owner.
"It belongs to Sara Black," falls on her ears like thunder. Her fingers freeze in his hair as she stares into space trying to make sense of what she just heard. She hopes against hope that Charlie doesn't have Sara's blood on his hands.
Seth turns his head to glance at her before he returns to staring into space and tells her, "Billy told me that he found out that Sara was cheating on him with Charlie."
God, please don't let Charlie be the one who killed her.
Does it matter who killed her? Whoever did it got away with it.
"What was the video?" Bella asks in a monotonous voice barely able to put a cap on her emotions.
Seth is silent for a while before he finally tells her in a tone that matches hers, "Billy shooting Sara and forcing Charlie to dig a hole and bury her."
"Excuse me," Bella mutters as she quickly but gently pushes Seth's head off her lap and makes a run for the bathroom. She reaches it in time for her breakfast to make a comeback. The bits of green and brown blur together as she cries in pain from feeling like her body is turning in on itself and turning her inside out.
She sniffs loudly and pulls at the roll of toilet paper within her reach and uses it to blow her nose. She closes her eyes and holds her nose as her body heaves loudly. She doesn't want to see what her body is pushing out. If there is anything she learned during her pregnancy, it was that the sight and smell of vomit makes her want to vomit more.
At last, once it feels like it's passed, Bella pulls the toilet seat down and places her head on the lid that makes her face feel cool. Two minutes later, she gets up and splashes water onto her face before swinging the door open and locking eyes with Seth. He has seen her broken and blue so she can't look any worse.
"Sorry," she tells him as she walks back towards the seat she vacated.
He nods and then returns to their previous position as he tells her, "It's fine. I did my fair share of vomiting when I found out myself. I didn't make friends with the flight attendant."
She snorts at his statement and is silent for a moment before she tells him, "I am sorry. If I did not ask you to keep an eye on Billy, this wouldn't have happened."
"Nah, let's not blame you for Billy's psychopathy. Let's blame it on Charlie," he tells her, nudging her shoulder with his.
She smiles a humorless smile as she thinks over his words before she looks up to meet his eyes and tells him, "I think it's more like Charlie's psychopathy is Billy's fault."
"Or maybe that," he replies shrugging his shoulders.
She leans back into the couch and messages her temples as she moans as she telling him, "And now what? Are we supposed to ignore what happened?"
"What do you suggest I do?" he asks.
She opens her eyes to look at him and then tells him, "We do. You won't do anything on your own anymore. We are a team."
"Okay then, what will we do?" he asks looking at her waiting for a plan.
She throws her hands up in the air and tells him, "I have no idea."
She gets up and goes to the kitchen and starts the coffee machine. "Coffee?" she asks showing him one of her coffee mugs. He nods his head which prompts her to take out another coffee mug and make both of them coffee.
"I think I know what we should do, and I want you to hear me out on this, okay?" she asks as she walks to him with two mugs of coffee.
He nods his head while taking the mug of coffee from her hands which prompts her to continue, "We should ask Phil for help."
He opens his mouth to disagree but she stops him by saying, "You said you will listen to me. You and I didn't do anything in this. We just found out. There are no legal consequences for that. Phil is trustworthy and he might have a better idea to what to do than you and I."
"What if we were supposed to go to the police the moment we found out? This is a crime. We discovered a woman who is missing in your father's backyard," he tells her worried.
She rolls her eyes and then tells him, "We discovered a crime that went down over 15 years ago. What would they jail us for? Not building a time machine and going back in time to stop him."
It's his turn to roll his eyes and think over his words before he demands, "Why would he know something we don't?"
"Because he is not personally involved and might be able to think more objectively than us," she tells him patiently after some thought.
"Are you sure of what you saw?" Phil asks Seth who is pacing around her living room looking agitated.
"Yes," Seth replies curtly.
Phil ignores the tone of Seth and turns to tell Bella, "You are right, We should not sit still and do nothing. We should do something."
"What do you suggest we do?" Bella asks and then sends Seth a glare that shuts him up. The last thing she needs is for him saying something rude to Phil. The glares he has been sending in Phil's direction are a clear enough signal.
"I would say go to the police but I don't trust Forks PD to do an honest job. They once worked under your father after all," Phil replies.
"What about the video?" Bella asks, "Isn't that the kind of evidence they can't bury?"
Phil replies, "You don't have it and you would need a plausible reason for a judge to sign on a searching warrant of their house."
"Not if they find out that his son is the second in command in a drug cartel," Seth pipes saying something useful for the first time since Phil came in. He wasn't the one who explained everything to him. Bella did.
Phil drops the phone in his hand and stands up before telling him, "Seth why have you been holding out on us this long man. This makes everything so much easier. Now all we need to do is to tip off the FBI and problem solved. They will end up searching his house and find the video all on their own and then the grave will be dug and Billy will be sentenced."
Fuck!
What?
If they dig the grave and find it, they will connect Charlie and subsequently me to the crime.
Why did you not think of this earlier?
I don't know.
What are you going to do about it? We can't deal with such a scandal.
"No, no," Bella mutters.
When both men turn to look at her, she stumbles over her next words under their gaze, "That would be too messy and he might have enough time to hide the video. We need to get it another way and anonymously send it to the police."
Phil rolls his eyes at her reply and then tells her patiently, "Sweetie, the FBI aren't novices. Of course they will make sure that Jacob and Billy don't get a head start."
"What if they do?" she snaps back angrily standing up to face him.
He drops his chin then places his hands on her shoulders and tells her, "Sweetie, we can't let our fear hold us back. We have to do something."
"Who said anything about doing nothing?" she asks stepping back and walking to her window to look at the street from above.
"What do you think we should do?" Seth asks beating Phil to the question.
She keeps looking at the street making her face hidden from view as she tells them, "Aro knows people. If I ask, he can have someone extract it out of his house and take it to the police easily."
But that's not what you will ask for, is it?
Hello lovely people,
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and liked Seth. An anonymous commenter left a review on an old chapter that Alice shows some signs of neurodivergence. They were worried that since she is also a difficult person, that I was unconsciously being biased toward neurodivergent people.
Firstly, I want to say thank you for letting me know that. I always appreciate being corrected when I am wrong. Secondly, I had no idea that being mentally over stimulated is a neuro divergent thing. I thought that it happens to anyone really. I tend to feel that all the time and need to spend time in calm sales that give your senses a break. That is why I come to uni even on the days when I don't have classes. I have four younger siblings, so I find the library to be a great place to hang out. Even if only to scroll through social media, although most times I read, study, or write in the library. I am writing this current AN while sitting in my school library and all of my classes are online today.
Anyways, thank you so much for the person that commented that. I don't plan to change Alice's character as that is also my personal experience too, but I will be researching and learning on the topic to make sure I am doing anyone any harm.
Please leave a comment in the review section. It could be your favorite part, thoughts, feeling, or even criticism. Any and every comment you leave is read and taken into consideration. Your comments motivate me to update faster, and help me grow as a writer.
Until my next update,
Stay Safe