Chapter 26:

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"Kate, how many times do I have to tell you? You are not going to make a giant newborn army and teach them how to make the Cullens haul ass out of here," I said, scolding the blonde vampire as she sat on my piano bench across the room.

She snorted with her arms crossed over her chest. "Why not?" she asked. "They'd be glad that an army was after them instead of me personally. I wouldn't give them a chance to haul ass."

Carmen sighed; rubbing her temples with her fingers next to the window. "Katrina, you know that Bella's right. Not only would you be breaking a vampire law, but you would also cause an ever bigger problem for Denali if they were here."

The Denalis had come over as soon as Charlie had left for work the next morning to discuss the Cullens. I had just gotten out of the shower to find Tanya waiting for me on my bed with the rest of the Denalis spread around the room to discuss the plan and how things were going to be handled.

Obviously, it wasn't going very well as Kate had brought up several plans on how to chase the Cullens out that didn't involve actually killing them. Her army of newborns was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the number she had apparently come up with last night while Tanya stayed with me.

Kate snorted. "We could control them," she insisted. "One touch from my hand and they wouldn't break any rules we set."

"Kate, shut-up already," Irina growled from the foot of my bed. "You know you wouldn't ever actually make a newborn army just to get rid of the Cullens, so stop talking about it and let's discuss an actual plan here."

She was about to argue when Tanya growled lightly from behind me and her arms around my waist tightened. "That's enough, Kate," she said, using her position as coven leader to shut the vampire up. It worked as Kate glowered at her, but didn't argue. Tanya then addressed the room. "The best plan is to just let things play out. If we decide on anything drastic, Alice will see it and alert the rest of her family which could knock over a domino we do not want."

I nodded in agreement. "Not to mention I still have to tell Charlie," I said. I looked around the room. "I know I don't have to say much about why we need to be careful about that, but I can promise you that if we tell him soon he will plan things that are for sure to make Alice have a vision."

Eleazer gave an exasperated sigh. "That is another thing to also consider, yes," he agreed. "However, if we perhaps waited a day or two before the Cullens arrived to tell him, he may not appreciate being lied to about something so important as well."

I nodded in agreement. "That too," I said.

"Then we tell him a day before, but make it sound as though they are coming later," Kate supplied. "It will give him time to adjust and if we keep the Cullens out of his sight for a while we wouldn't have any distraction in our focusing on the Cullens and you, Bella."

"It could work," Irina agreed with a nod. "But we also have another thing to consider. They are arriving the day Bella is having her MRI. That could complicate things in the schedule and we don't even know what time to expect the Cullens."

"That's true," Tanya agreed from behind me. "But all that we can really do for that is to be prepared the best we can be for them arriving before or after Bella's MRI where she will either be at the hospital or at our house."

"That's a pretty decent range there, Tanya," Kate said from the piano bench. Her arms were still crossed in front of her chest with her features morphed into a scowl.

"And it is the one we were dealt with," Tanya replied harshly. "Whether you like it or not, Kate, this is what we are going to be dealing with, and you need stop bitching now."

"Bitching?" Kate snarled. "Is that what you think I'm doing, Tanya? Is bitching?" She leaned forward on the bench and her eyes darkened. "I am not bitching. I—apparently—am the only one here who's actually thinking about what the hell this is going to be like. I can hardly even think of the Cullens in the same way anymore, and seeing them is going to make it worse. I won't even be able to stand in the same room with them, and you know how close we were before now."

"Of course I do," Tanya growled in my ear. "Do you really think that this is any easier for me, Kate? Do you really think that I'm okay with the idea of seeing the people we considered to be family after finding out they broke my Bella's heart? I don't want to have anything to do with them, to be honest."

"Then why are you letting them come?!" Kate snapped. Her arms fell to her side as her hands gripped into fists. "Why are you letting them near her? Why didn't you tell them to go fuck themselves, because we didn't want anything to do with them?"

"Kate," Irina growled. "You know Tanya had no choice. They are still a part of our lives and we have ties with them that—"

"I don't."

Carmen sighed. "Kate—"

"No," she hissed. "I don't want to have any fucking thing to do with them! That jackass hurt our Bella—my sister. They lied to us when they came here. They are nothing like the people we thought they were. They are selfish, ignorant and they deserve to be thrown out on their asses."

In a blur, Tanya was no longer sitting behind me on the bed, but standing next to it in a crouch. Her eyes were a dark brown—hardly any evidence of gold—as she growled with her hands in fists next to her sides. "Do you really think I don't want that? We all want to do that, Kate. Not just you, but you are being stupid enough to over think—"

"I am not being stupid, I'm being honest!" Kate pushed off the piano bench, cracking it from the force. "I'm not afraid to say what everyone else is thinking."

"And what you are saying is sure to cause trouble," Tanya hissed. "Doing anything that you have come up with in the past day could possibly lead to events that—"

"Events my ass!" she shouted. Kate's eyes were completely black, her lip curled into a snarl. She took a step forward. "I am done acting like this is a diplomatic problem; that we need to be objective. The facts are straight forward: the Cullens hurt Bella. They left Bella alone, in the woods, and left her to die by herself feeling unloved and uncared for. And letting them come waltzing back into her life like this is fucking stupid! Why don't you just go ahead and lay her heart out on a nice, shiny platter for them, and—"

A growl loudly emitted Tanya's chest, so loud I could swear the floor was vibrating. What remained light in Tanya's eyes turned an instant black as her teeth bared. Complete and utter rage took over her features, and in the blink of an eye, both she and Kate were gone.

The sound of crashing boulders filled the air as Carmen and Eleazer blurred, jumping out of my window. I jumped off my bed and ran forward; setting my hands on the sill while Irina stood behind me, placing a protective hand on my shoulder as I watched the two figures of Kate and Tanya briefly come into play when Kate's body collided hard with a tree.

The two were blurs again.

Carmen and Eleazer jumped in trying to pry them apart. I turned around to face Irina. Her eyes were a dark gold and her face was set in a scowl as she watched the two fight.

I wrapped my arms around her neck. "Take me down."

She snapped her attention to me. "Bell—"

"Take. Me. Down," I growled. My eyes bore into hers, hard as steel as I impatiently tugged at her neck. The woman stared at me, studying my eyes intently before she sighed.

Her arms scooped me off the ground, and in the blink of an eye we were next to the fight that was now slowing from Carmen and Eleazer's help. Irina set me down carefully, keeping her hands on my hips with my back against her front protectively.

After several low growls and snarls, Carmen and Eleazer successfully pulled the two away and locked their arms to keep them from moving. Tanya had a large crack stretching from the nape of her neck to just under her jaw. Her eyes were black, filled with fury and her teeth were bared as she struggled in Carmen's grip. Her hair was tussled from the fight and a patch of her shirt was torn.

Kate wasn't much better. She had a crack on her left cheek from Tanya's right hook that webbed from her jaw to the corner of her eye. She was snarling, fighting Eleazer's grip as if her life depended on it with wild snarls and growls as her black eyes fixed on Tanya.

It was pure madness.

"Tanya, Kate, calm down," Eleazer hissed.

Kate growled in reply, pulling even harder against his arms. Her hands began to spark as her power began to pulse through her body to touch him and get free.

I didn't even think before I acted. It was like an instinct kicked in that I hadn't known I possessed. I yanked out of Irina's grip and ignored her yelp while I shouted, "Stop it! Both of you!"

The two women froze at my voice. Their black eyes turned with the dark brown of Carmen and Eleazer towards me. I stood barely ten feet away from them. Their breathing was ragged and their gazes held an animalistic gleam I deemed their beasts trying to gain control.

However, both of their immediate attention was on me and only me. I looked between them and took in a deep breath, keeping my heart from pounding in my chest as I closed my eyes. Slowly, I let it out as I said, "Kate…walk with me."

The straight haired blonde's hands stopped sparking at once as the animalistic nature began to fade. I moved towards her and looked at Eleazer with a nod, giving him a sign he could release her. The Hispanic man hesitated and glanced at Tanya—unsure of what to do.

I held out my hand towards her and said, "Eleazer. Let her go."

The man did as I said, slowly taking his arms from around her before he fully released her. Kate immediately stepped towards me and took my hand in a firm grip. I gently pulled on it, heading for the woods. As we began moving, I heard a small growl of frustration and struggle to the side.

I turned my head to find Tanya struggling against Carmen's arms to join us. I shook my head. "Tanya," I called, gaining the blonde's attention. "Stay. You need to calm down and I need to speak with Kate alone."

She scowled. "Bella—"

"No," I cut her off. I let my eyes stay soft as I looked at her, silently giving her a plea to understand and do as I said.

Tanya watched me for a moment, staring into my eyes as intently as hers would allow for even her eyesight. She looked, looked and then gave a small sigh of defeat. Her shoulders lowered and she nodded, lowering her head as she blinked in understanding.

I gave the vampire a soft smile of thanks before I turned my attention to the woods and began walking, still holding Kate's hand. The pale blonde didn't hesitate to follow, squeezing my hand lightly in hers as we slowly disappeared in the tree line.

Neither of us spoke as we walked and moved further and further from the house. In a strange way, it almost reminded me of when Edward took me on that walk in the forest; the walk that changed my life. It had been two years since that walk, and now I was doing it with Kate—about the Cullens no less. It was strangely poetic to think about how events had unfolded.

I got cancer and became ill. My social confidence and really confidence all together was squashed. I survived through the cancer and then I moved to Forks to be with Charlie to escape everything in Phoenix. In Forks I met a vampire and their family. I fell in love and then had my world come crashing down when my heart was shattered.

Now, I had cancer and was ill again. My confidence had risen over the two years from friends supporting me. We moved to Denali in order to help me get better and escape my ghosts. I had met another coven and was falling in love with a beautiful vampire and I was taking the same walk.

Everything about my life was like a loop.

Over and over again the same major things happened to me. It was a never ending string of persisting occurrences. The memoires, people, feelings, sicknesses and lord knew what else kept coming back—just as the Cullens were coming into it again.

I cocked my head, looking around the trees as I finally broke the silence between the blonde and me, "You need to stop being mad."

"What?" Kate swung her head around to look at me, bewildered by my first words to her since we first went on this walk. Her eyes were much lighter than they had been earlier—almost a dark caramel now.

I let my thumb stroke the back of her hand. "Stop being mad," I repeated.

She scowled and shook her head with a small sigh. "I can't do that, Bella," she said. "I would be surprised if I ever stopped hating them for—"

"Stop being mad for me," I clarified. I turned my head to cast my full attention on the blonde. "I know that you are angry about what happened to me, Kate. You are just as angry the wolves were, as Charlie was, as Tanya, Irina, Carmen and Eleazer are now, but you aren't mad because of what they did. You're angry because I'm not."

"Bella, I—"

"No," I cut in as I stopped our walk. I turned my body towards her, stroking the back of her hand with my thumb. "Listen to me, Kate. I've seen what it's like—hating someone for hurting someone you love. I've seen it for the past two years with my brothers, sisters and father. I've seen it in Victoria when she wanted to kill me for revenge."

I bit my lip as I looked down at our hands, still stroking hers. "But most importantly, I've seen it in me," I said. "My identity was stolen from me that day. The identity I had carried around with me for so long—the one that I had become accustomed to." I looked back into her eyes. "Every day, when I woke up in the morning and looked in my mirror, I didn't just see a girl with an expiration date on her head, I saw a stranger. I didn't feel anything like the Bella Swan I was before, or what I was before—I could not see her in anything.

"But that was because I wasn't looking, not really. I was angry, Kate, so angry at what happened, so angry at myself and them that I was blind. I couldn't see what was standing directly in front of me." I shook my head. "I had been staring at a stranger ever since I was little—ever since I first got sick. I was never the Bella Swan that was back in Forks—I was who you see right now in front of you."

I took in a deep breath as Kate cupped my cheek, her golden eyes staring into mine. I continued, "The Cullens hurt me, terribly, but they also gave me a chance to see the true me. I was allowed a chance to peek behind the veil and I discovered myself." I smiled slightly. "Maybe that's why I have been able to come to peace with the idea so easily—not just because I was dying, but because I was living. I was living more than I ever had in the past eleven years. I was liberated, freed from the chains that kept me bound to that girl."

I reached up to cup her cheek. "I know that you are angry for the Cullens, and I'm alright with that, but don't be angry for me."

The blonde stared at as the words rolled over in her mind. Her eyes were soft and gentle, yet somehow still heavy with a look of understanding. Her thumb stroked my cheekbone, wiping away tears I hadn't even known had fallen. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

I shook my head. "Don't apologize, Kate," I smiled. "I'm just trying to make you understand where the line is drawn; not apologize."

Her golden eyes filled with venom tears that wouldn't fall. She removed her hands from mine and my cheek and wrapped them around my shoulders, pulling me into her. Her face buried itself in my neck and she inhaled my scent deeply. "I love you, Bella."

I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around her tightly as my own face disappeared in her corn-silk hair. My heart warmed at her words, sending a heat through my body that was comforting, familiar and welcomed. "I love you too, Kate. I love you too."