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My heart sank as I took in the words. The Volturi are coming. The fear on Edward's face told me that they were not coming to talk, to discuss. They were coming to eliminate the threat.
Everyone had now gathered around us. Alice and Edward staring at each other in horror. The terror on their faces was greater than I had ever seen. The panic threatened to overtake me, the red haze seeping into my vision, my mind not focused on it, but on Edward's face.
"Breathe," I heard from behind me as Jasper's hands lightly touched my shoulders, his gift seeping calmness into me. I took a deep breath, realising just how close the red haze had come to overtaking me. In, out, in, out. Focusing on the red haze and the calmness that Jasper was projecting, I managed to push the haze away, clearing my vision.
"They're coming to kill me," I stated, looking to Alice for confirmation, as she sank to her knees beside me and Edward. She took my hand in hers and looked deep into my eyes.
"Not just you," she said quietly, "The whole family. Only Edward and I will be spared. For our gifts."
Esme wailed, Carlisle pulling her into his arms, as Emmett did the same with Rosalie. Jasper looked at Alice, still on her knees on the grass beside us.
"But, we can explain," I urged, turning back to Edward, who hadn't uttered a word since his declaration earlier, "You said Aro can read minds. Once he touches any of us he will see it wasn't me!" I was shouting hysterically, willing this to be the answer. I couldn't bear to think of Edward without me. He had barely existed when we were apart. If I was dead, if his whole family were dead... I couldn't bear to think about it.
He looked up into my eyes, dread shining in his own, but it was Alice who answered me, "Aro isn't coming. It is only some of the guard. Demetri, Jane, Alec, and a few others."
"Then, we'll tell them. Make them bring us to Aro so he can see we aren't lying," I cried. There had to be some way out of this. It couldn't end like this. We were supposed to have forever, not five measly months.
"Alec," Alice continued, "will incapacitate us on arrival. His gift is great. He can take away all of our senses. They won't give us time to explain ourselves."
"So, we leave," Emmett said, "We can't just stay here and wait for them to come execute us."
Alice's eyes glazed over, and hope soared in my stomach.
"It doesn't stop the vision," she said quietly, but a soft smile played on her lips, "But, it does delay it. We would have to keep on the move. Never staying anywhere too long. Demetri is a tracker and a damn good one. He'll find us eventually."
"But it might just give us time to figure out who this other vampire is," Jasper said, his strategic mind whirring, "Maybe then, we can bring them to Aro. If we have proof it wasn't you, maybe, just maybe he'll listen to us."
"Edward and I were talking," I began, "There are too many coincidences in all of this. Another vampire being in this very sparsely populated area. Same hair as me. Same clothes as me. The video being sent to the TV station. And how did the Volturi find out about it so quickly?"
"Someone's setting you up," Jasper said and the rest of the family murmured their agreement as they all came to the same conclusion as we had, "But, who?"
"Irina?" Esme said, "She was really angry about Laurent, and she blamed Bella for his death."
"And I bet that bitch, Tanya, is helping her," Rosalie growled, "She would have needed someone to take that video."
"I'll call Eleazar," Carlisle said, "Find out if they are with him in Alaska. Then, we need to pack. Keep it light. We'll all meet back in the living room as soon as we are all ready to discuss where we are going to go."
~~~PS ILYF~~~
Thirty minutes later, we were all gathered in the living room of the main house, the mood sombre as we waited for Carlisle to speak.
"Eleazar hasn't seen Irina or Tanya in months," Carlisle sighed, "Irina hasn't taken Laurent's death well. For the few months after, she stayed in her room, hardly even coming out to hunt. Tanya stayed with her a lot and she was the only one who could get her to even attempt to hunt. Then, they just upped and left. No goodbyes, no explanations. They haven't seen or heard from them since. They've been frantic with worry, but they said they didn't contact us about it because they knew we already had so much on our hands with Bella's change."
"So, we can be fairly certain they are behind this then," Emmett said, looking like he would kill them instantly if they were here right now.
"I get why Irina is pissed at me," I said, "But why is Tanya? Is this just complete loyalty for her sister? The rest of the Denali's have stayed out of it."
I glanced around the room, waiting for an answer, but no one would meet my eyes. I looked to Edward, who did look at me but there was guilt written all over his face.
"What?" I asked, dread creeping into my thoughts.
"There's something I haven't mentioned about Tanya..." Edward began, his voice hesitant. The room went utterly silent, the tension thick in the air.
"Oh, God," I groaned, as I put two and two together, "You... and Tanya?" The image planted itself in the front of my vision. Of Edward and her together. Touching. Hugging. Kissing. I couldn't take it. My anger at the thought grew and the red haze crept into that vision. I couldn't shake it. I was no longer in the room. I was no longer seeing or hearing what was in front of me.
The red haze was so close to taking over, to sending me into a rage-induced tantrum, when suddenly the image was wiped from my head and replaced with Edward's face. His lips were moving, but I couldn't hear anything. The terror in his eyes made me stop. Made me think. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. The haze began to fade. I pushed it and the image that threatened to return, away as far as I could.
"No, Bella, please listen to me," Edward was pleading, his hands on my shoulders as he stared into my eyes, "Never. I have never even thought about Tanya in that way." I let the words sink in. Let them dispel the image.
I pushed his hands off my shoulders, not ready to feel his touch until he had explained everything.
"I'm in control," I said through gritted teeth, "Tell me. Everything."
He moved to sit beside me again but didn't try to touch me and I noticed that everyone else was slowly filtering out of the room, giving us the illusion of privacy at least.
"First, I promise, nothing ever happened between Tanya and me," he began, but the guilt still covered his face, "But, she wanted it to. From the very first time we met, she was constantly trying to seduce me, but I told her, over and over again, that I didn't feel like that about her. Anytime we visited them, she would conveniently arrange for it to be just us left in the house when everyone else was hunting. Then, she would parade around in barely-there outfits. Even when everyone was around, she would project thoughts of herself naked or the two of us in risqué positions, in the hope that I would give in. She would constantly come up with reasons to touch me, though I could usually hear her thoughts and avoid it. She even tried to convince me that we were mates at one point."
Edward was staring at the ground, his guilt-ridden face just hidden from me as he told me everything she had ever done to him. Guilt flooded me as I realised that I had just assumed the worst about him, not even giving him the chance to explain. I took his hand in mine, my touch causing him to look up at me again.
"I'm sorry," I said, looking deep into his butterscotch eyes.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" he asked, confused.
"I'm sorry for how I reacted," I said, "But, I'm also sorry that this happened to you. You shouldn't have had to go through that. It's sexual harassment. You said no at the beginning. That should have been the end of it. Why have you never told me this before?" There was no accusation in my voice, only sadness that he had never felt he could share this with me.
"I never wanted you to think I wanted it or encouraged her," he said quietly, "Most people think that men should enjoy being lusted after by a beautiful woman. I hated every second of it. She made me feel so uncomfortable that I began to avoid seeing her altogether. I would come up with excuses not to visit Alaska and to be out of town when they came to visit us. The family thought I was being rude. They knew she wanted me, that she had tried a few times, but they didn't see the extent of how she acted around me. She was clever enough to keep it hidden."
At that, the rest of the family, who had obviously overheard our conversation, came filing back into the room. Esme rushed across the room towards us.
"I'm so sorry, son," she said softly, "I had no idea she was treating you that way. You should have told us."
"Yeah, bro," Emmett piped up, "I knew she wanted you, but I didn't realise she was that bad about it. You should've said something."
"We never would have made you visit if we'd known," Carlisle said, "Bella's right. It's sexual harassment and you shouldn't have had to put up with that."
"I didn't say anything because I was embarrassed," Edward mumbled, "I know you all thought there was something wrong with me. I didn't want to make it worse, so I just avoided her as much as possible. I thought once she knew I was mated to Bella, everything would stop, but even when they came to help us search for Bella in Rochester, she was the same. Worse even. She was nastier with her thoughts because I had 'chosen' someone else over her, but I ignored it all. I was too worried about Bella to even give her the time of day."
"I'm sure that didn't go down too well," Rosalie said, her eyes blazing with hatred, "That explains her taking Irina's side though. She's pissed you've found Bella after turning her down so many times. Maybe she thinks with Bella out of the equation, she'll be in with a chance."
"Sounds like she's delusional enough to believe that," Jasper said. There was a murmur of agreement throughout the room.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I pulled Edward towards me, embracing him tightly. Maybe I should have felt some annoyance that Edward had kept this all from me, but he'd kept the extent of it from his whole family, and all I felt was sympathy that he'd had to go through that.
"So, now what?" I said eventually, breaking the silence.
"Now, we split up," Alice said softly to gasps from around the room.
"What? No!" I exclaimed, "I don't want to leave you guys!"
"It's our best chance of delaying the Volturi," Alice said quietly, "I've been making decisions and watching to see what works out best for us. Splitting up into couples and heading in different directions is our best option."
I looked around the room at the rest of the family. Most looked resigned to Alice's assessment, having lived with her for so long, they rarely questioned her. Esme looked devastated, not wanting to be separated from her family for God knows how long.
"So, we split up and do what?" Emmett asked.
"We search for Irina and Tanya," Alice answered, "I think it's our only chance to get the Volturi off our backs. Carlisle and Esme, you should head to Alaska. Speak to the Denali's and see if they have any idea where Tanya and Irina may be hiding. The rest of us go in different directions, staying off the grid as much as possible. I've packed bags for each of us with burner phones, cash, fake IDs, and everything we should need to stay off the radar, though that won't stop the Volturi completely. But keeping on the move will delay them plus being split up, they can't track us all at once."
"Wait!" I exclaimed, "How are we supposed to travel around when I haven't ever scented a human? We won't be able to stay that far away from humans. I may actually kill someone and then we'll have no defence against the Volturi!"
"We don't have a choice," Edward said softly, pulling me into an embrace, "If we stay here, the Volturi will find us and..." He gritted his teeth, a growl escaping through them. He didn't need to continue. I knew what would happen if we stayed. "We are just going to have to try. We'll stick to the least densely populated areas we can. I'll be able to hear if there are humans before we scent them and you'll have to hold your breath or I'll keep a hold of you. I promise I will do my very best to stop it from happening."
"I know this isn't what you want to hear," Emmett piped up, "But most vampires do hunt humans. The Volturi don't go after vampires that kill humans, only those who risk the secret. If you do kill a human, as long as it's discreet, that won't make things worse. Apart from Saint Carlisle over there, we've all ended human lives. It's not something we enjoy or take lightly, but know that there's not a single one of us that would judge you or love you any less if it did happen." Murmurs of agreement sounded around the room.
The thought of killing any human was completely abhorrent to me, but I understood where Emmett was coming from, and he was probably the only one who would have been direct enough to say that to me. Weirdly, he actually made me feel a little better.
"Thanks, I think," I said, rolling my eyes at my big brother, before turning back to Edward, "So, we're on our own for a while." As much as I loved spending time alone with Edward, nerves tingled in my stomach at the thought of what might happen, especially when we didn't have the rest of the family to help us, to help me.
A short while later, we were all gathered outside the garage as we loaded the cars with all the things we needed to take with us. We were all travelling fairly light, just a small bag of clothes each, plus the bags that Alice had packed with all the things we might need to keep us off the grid and in contact with each other at all times. Edward and I had also packed some camping equipment, as in my newborn state I wouldn't be able to stay too close to humans. It wasn't technically necessary, as we didn't need to sleep or cook food, but Edward said we would look less conspicuous this way in case we did happen to come across any humans.
Carlisle and Esme were heading to Alaska first and then they would be heading to Europe on the guise of visiting friends there, starting with England. Rosalie and Emmett were heading to Africa. Despite the situation, Emmett was looking forward to tasting lion, though Rose rolled her eyes every time he mentioned it. Alice and Jasper would be heading to the States, staying close enough by in case Alice saw any hint of Irina and Tanya. Edward and I would be sticking to Northern Canada to begin with. It was very difficult for me to travel in my newborn state at the minute so our only plan was to stay where it was sparsely populated and would give me the best chance at staying away from humans. We knew we couldn't stay in Canada long-term, but we would work out the best way to move on in a few days.
These were the plans to begin with anyway, never staying in one place any longer than a day or two. Alice would be constantly watching her visions, looking out for the Volturi as well as Irina and Tanya, and keeping us all up to date with any information through the burner phones she had provided us with.
I looked out the window as Edward pulled away from the house, watching as the rest of the family climbed into their cars. We didn't know when we would see each other again and tears burned behind my eyes as I watched them fade into the distance.