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Chapter 22

Escape and Rescue

Edward

I could have killed James. Why hadn't he just knocked the guy out? Well, I had to be fair. He was very worried about Isabella and very unhappy.

As we walked, I thought about why I hadn't realized what Jacob was up to.

He had gone with me to my father, told of the vampire roaming the La Push area, and demanded that we keep order. As far as the borders of La Push, they would have killed him themselves, but since this vampire also ran as far as Forks or even Port Angeles, they didn't want to go after him. We were then responsible for that. If a vampire drank a human dry somewhere, did it inconspicuously and then moved on, that was okay. But here it seemed to be a particularly ignorant specimen, because he had been killing people indiscriminately for two weeks and simply leaving them lying around. Again and again in the three towns, which put the police in a frenzy, as they suspected a crazed serial killer.

After talking to my dad, Jacob and his packmate Seth left us, and I talked briefly with Dad about who we were going to put on the wild vampire, because it wasn't necessary to go out with a large guard force for that. Shortly after that, James called to tell us about Bella's kidnapping.

Either this Jake was good at hiding something from me or it was an absolutely spontaneous decision.

I rather believed in the latter. His thoughts beforehand had been clear and obvious to me. His concern for Bella was genuine ... though out of his infatuation. He truly loved her idolatrously and had for a long time. His thoughts of her were of a tender nature and he was overjoyed to see her alive. That she was with me was a shock to him. I could really feel his emotional pain. What was he up to? He must have realized that we would pursue him.

Nevertheless, along with worry, fear gnawed at me and also a spark of jealousy. I loved her so much. I would give my life for her. An existence without this woman at my side would no longer be possible for me, unimaginable. With every fiber of my body I just missed her painfully. My little delicate Princess, my life.

They had turned into wolves, the trail was clear.

We ran briskly behind, but still they had a head start.

Wolves were damn fast.

In the middle of the wolf smell, the scent of magnolia suddenly hit me. But there was no magnolia tree here.

I stopped and sniffed.

Isabella's hair ribbon was lying on the floor.

I picked it up and smelled it.

Clearly my Princess. It had certainly slipped out of her hair. Hopefully, this kind of trip was not too uncomfortable for her.

I put the hair band in my pants pocket and kept running.

James, of course, had observed the incident as well as the others, and his thoughts were also full of concern for Isabella. Even Alec hoped that we would find her again. I couldn't figure him out.

A while later we found her wristwatch.

But this one couldn't have fallen off her arm by accident. Was she trying to leave me a trail? I wouldn't put it past her.

Later, my suspicions were confirmed.

I found her sneaker.

I smiled.

There would have been no need to leave a trail, because the wolves stank intensely along the way. But the idea was cute and yet showed me that she wanted to be found by me. She hoped I would find her and the thought made my dead heart leap.

I will find you, darling, for sure!

That's what I thought confidently, not yet knowing what trouble was brewing ...

It was the middle of the night when we arrived in La Push.

I instructed the guards to stay in the woods. They could take care of the vampire problem in La Push or Forks. The wolf trail became harder to follow in the village because there were many smells mixed in and wolves had run through everywhere. But the delicate magnolia scent of Isabella led all the way to the beach. Unfortunately, it ended there. I found nothing more and also the others were helpless.

Dad and Jasper joined us. They had parked the helicopter at the edge of the village.

"The trail ends here," Emmett explained.

"She couldn't have swum. The water is too cold and she's too weak for the swell. So he must have gone on by boat from here," Jasper said.

"There's a boat behind the dunes here," James said.

We looked at it. It was lying upside down. The keel was wet and guaranteed to have been in the water recently. Sand stuck to it. We turned the barge around and a light magnolia breeze hit my face.

"She was sitting in here," I said.

James sniffed and nodded.

"But then why is the boat back here? Did he take her somewhere and then leave it alone?" dad pondered.

"We would have to find out where he lives. Only he will be able to show us where she is. In principle, it can't be too far, can it? I mean the place where he took her? So huge was the lead of the two really not ... And if he's already back again?", Emmett pondered.

"You guys stay here and I'll go with Edward to find the house of this Jake!" said Dad.

The house was easy to find because the guy smelled strong and his scent was unmistakable.

"Is he the alpha leader, Dad?", I asked.

"Yes, my son. He is the chief's son and thus, although he is not the eldest, he is automatically the pack leader."

Isabella must have had a magical attraction to kings or chiefs, it occurred to me.

Dad rang the bell without restraint.

A light came on, there was a rumble and after endless minutes the door opened. An elderly man in a wheelchair opened and was startled when he saw what we were.

Vampires, he immediately thought.

"Right, that's us," I said.

"Ah ... you are a Volturi?" he asked.

He thought of what his son Jake had told him: that the Volturi Prince could read minds.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Your son was with us today to inform us of vampire activity in your area," Dad said.

The man nodded.

"I know ... and?"

"He kidnapped my future daughter-in-law, the fiancée of my son here," Dad said.

The man looked completely horrified.

"I'm sorry, what?" he asked, thinking he had misheard.

"He kidnapped my fiancée and we tracked his trail to the beach at La Push. Apparently he took her away in a boat," I said.

The man looked at me in disbelief.

"I find that hard to believe, sir. Why on earth would he do that?" he asked, aghast.

"I think because he knows my bride and was not pleased that she wants to marry me and live with us," I said.

"Know your bride?" He pondered. "Who is she?" he then asked.

"Your friend's daughter, Isabella Swan," I explained.

He gasped for breath and chaos arose in his head.

"Bella is alive?" he breathed.

"Yes, of course. But she's glad that everyone here thinks she's dead. She wanted to finish with her old life. We fell in love and she wants to marry me," I said.

"Voluntarily?" he asked

He could not imagine that at all now.

I saw Bella in his thoughts.

She was like a daughter to him and his tone sounded extremely skeptical. He loved her and couldn't imagine her marrying a vampire - he had hoped she would take his son. That would complicate things. It was immediately clear to me that he would no longer help us in this case.

"Voluntarily, of course. She loves me and I love her. And I will not give up. I'll find her again. Is your son there?", I asked.

"No, he's not back yet," he said.

"Do you know where he might be or could have been rowing with her?"

"No, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you!" he said.

At least he was honest.

"So you think it's okay for him to hold Isabella against her will?" my father asked.

"The two like each other. Bella trusts him. She would always follow him and he would never force her to do anything," he said, truly believing that.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, sir. Her son threatened her with a gun. Bella fought back, told him she didn't love him, that she didn't want to go with him, that she loved me, and she deliberately dropped things on the way here, hoping I would find them. Sir, I know how you feel about vampires. But I, too, am a being who can love. And Isabella is everything to me. I love her sincerely!", I said.

He nodded, even believing me, but he couldn't approve of it. Now he hoped that his son was able to teach Bella better.

I looked at Dad. He nodded.

We both felt that we would not get anywhere here and so we said goodbye.

"So what now?", I asked him in frustration when we had left the house a little way behind.

"We could see where the other guy lives. Maybe we'll find out more," Dad mused.

"Okay," I said.

We sniffed our way to another house.

"He seems to have separated from him. The trail is fresh. He might even be here," I said, and Dad shared my opinion.

He rang the bell.

Clearwater was their name.

After a while, a woman opened.

"Pardon?" she asked, astonished, and then shrank back, for she too had immediately recognized what we were.

"Ma'am, we're not going to hurt you. We're Volturis," Dad said reassuringly and deliberately politely.

"Is your son here?", I asked kindly.

"What do you want from him?" she asked anxiously, eyeing us skeptically in turn.

In her mind she was thinking about calling this Jake or the police chief. I saw Bella's father in her mind. Oh ... she knew him well and above all she liked him very much.

Answering the question was superfluous because this son joined in. Seth was suddenly behind her.

"Go back to bed, Mom, it's all right," he said.

She retreated, but stopped at the door of a room so she could still see us and waited anxiously for her son.

"Sir, as you can imagine, we are looking for our Princess. You helped your alpha leader to kidnap her. We don't want any trouble with your pack, but we won't give up until we get her. Where did he take her?" asked Dad kindly.

The young man hesitated.

He thought what Jake had done was wrong. He liked Bella, but he couldn't stab him in the back, I read in his mind.

"I can't tell you!" he said - thinking of his mother and how she better not find out Bella was alive, because she would have given them both hell.

"You can't or you don't want to tell us?" asked Dad.

"I can't, sir, he's the lead wolf. I can't question his decisions," he explained.

"Seth, what did Jake do? Kidnap a woman of the Volturis, am I understanding this correctly?" the mother asked, horrified.

Seth rolled his eyes in annoyance because his mother had now caught on after all.

I answered for him.

Maybe the woman was helpful for us.

"He kidnapped my fiancée and your son helped him do it," I said.

The woman was perplexed.

"But why are you doing something like this?", she asked her son irritated.

"Mom, because his fiancée is Isabella Swan!" he said.

She slapped her hand over her mouth.

"Bella's alive?" she asked, turning white as a sheet.

Seth nodded and took the woman in his arms.

I saw Bella in her thoughts in the house of this Jake, together with her father. In her thoughts, the woman embraced my Bella, talked to her and she loved her, had maternal feelings for her and was now immediately worried.

Then she eyed me critically.

"Ma'am, I am the crown Prince of the Volturis. I'm a fucking vampire, yes, but I still have feelings and the ability to love. I love Isabella, she means more to me than my life. She is with me voluntarily and agreed to marry me. We want to get married on July 1. She will be fine with us!", I said.

She believed me.

"Is Isabella with you guys of her own free will?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am. She has her own rooms at the palace, a harp that she has wanted for so long, has enrolled at the university in New York and is now continuing her studies at a correspondence university. My mother is very attentive to her and has taken her into her heart. My whole family loves her. And she didn't want to go with Jacob. He threatened her with a gun to make her go, and she purposely lost personal things along the way so I could track her and find her. For sure, ma'am, she loves me."

She looked at me for a long time.

"Seth, that was wrong, you shouldn't have done that. Even though I hate vampires, it's Bella's decision. You have to bring her here and talk all together and then she can decide here... and no matter what she decides, we have to accept it. I don't feel that the Volturi Prince is lying," she said.

"Mom, he's not lying. He really loves her. I saw him with her and I also believe that Bella's feelings are real. Jake decided otherwise, though, and you know what that means to me!" he said.

"Yes, my son. But we don't have to approve!" she said. "Jake is so a bullhead, " she sighed. "Just like Bella," she added with a smile. "And the chief can't find this out!" she added seriously.

I nodded.

"I think so, too."

Seth said, "There's nothing we can do right now, sir, except wait for him to come to you."

I nodded again and we said goodbye.

Dad put an arm around me.

"When it is light, we will consider where to continue our search in the sea or by the sea, Edward!"

We went to the others and sat down on the beach.

Dad reported what we had learned and I supplemented the narrative with the thoughts of the people I had heard.

"We can't just sit here and wait!"

Emmett jumped up and ran across the beach.

"It's going to get lighter soon," Jasper said.

"We can see if there's an island somewhere. He must have taken her away, and with a rowboat like that, it couldn't have been far," James said.

"Unless he had a motorboat anchored outside and went on with her in it while the other one rowed the boat back," Alec said, and unfortunately I had to agree.

That would be quite conceivable.

I'll find them, Alec thought.

"I'm glad you want to find my fiancée, Alec, but what is your purpose in doing so? You're not doing this for me, are you?" I asked, and my father and brothers looked at us curiously.

"It's none of your business," Alec said coldly.

Dad immediately got involved.

"Alec, it's his fiancée. Of course it's his business!" he said indignantly.

"Do you want to steal her from me?", I asked with a mocking grin. "Or why did you send her the Volturi crest?"

Dad looked irritatedly back and forth between us.

"He what?" he asked.

"He sent Isabella the Volturi crest when she was sick!" I said, already looking forward to Dad reading him the riot act now.

"Alec, have you gone mad? How did you come up with such an idea? What gives YOU the right to give away the family crest? That's my job, isn't it?" Dad groused in a sour tone.

"I wanted to prove to her that I was sincere and I want her to forgive me!" said Alec without a trace of insight.

"Alec, your intentions in all honor, but that's just about the dumbest gift you could have picked out for it," Dad said.

"Don't worry, Dad. I explained to Bella what it meant and she was outraged and doesn't want it. She can't stand Alec and always puts his weird gifts away right away," I said, giving Alec a triumphant look.

"That is good, my son. Of course she'll get the crest from me for the wedding. I'm having a very small one made for her right now, so she won't have to wear such a pompous thing," Dad said, and he gave Alec a withering look. "The last word on that hasn't been said yet, Alec. I'll let your father know," Dad said.

Alec laughed coldly.

"Do that!" he said.

And then he thought of how good it smelled by the sea.

'If it made sense to challenge and provoke him like that, my Prince,' James thought, looking at me dejectedly. 'Maybe he can still help us with the search,' he then thought, 'or maybe you have stirred up his hatred and he will take it out on our Princess.'

I looked at James.

He wasn't wrong there. He was always so deliberate and forward-looking in such matters.

"I'm not mad at you, James," I said, and he nodded gratefully.

'Thank you, my Prince. I will help where I can. I want her back, too,' he thought then and looked very desperate.

He thought of her constantly and missed her painfully, just as I did.

We were all silent.

It became light and in the distance I saw two islands.

Very small. Certainly not habitable.

Jasper followed my gaze.

"Are we swimming?" he asked.

I nodded.

Emmett joined us and we swam off.

Dad and Alec decided to search by helicopter and James stayed on the beach guarding clothes and cell phones.

It didn't take us that much time to get to the first island. It was ten by ten square meters. There was a bit of scrub growing on it and that was it. So we swam on to the next island, which seemed to be a little bigger. It had a few trees and bushes and it took us a little longer to search it. But again, we found nothing. There was no hiding place and it didn't smell like either of them.

I looked around, looked at the sea. But I could not discover another island.

"Maybe Alec was right with his motorboat idea," I sighed.

We swam back to the beach. The sun was high now, it was almost noon.

We retreated to the first cliffs, as children came to the beach. It was never really hot here, but it was just summer and of course children played here.

The helicopter flew further out to sea and then once along the coast - in both directions.

When Dad and Alec rejoined us, they basically had nothing to report.

"We saw no other island, no place to hide, and no boat at anchor. Along the coast, too - absolutely nothing to see," Dad said in frustration.

I bent my knees and pressed my face against them.

Oh Isabella, that would be more difficult than I had thought. What would she experience in the meantime? Would she be all right?

Dad was worried about me and James was worried about me too.

Jasper let a wave of reassurance wash over me and I was grateful to him.

"We could dive the sea. Maybe there's something underwater. Something like a bell you can breathe under?" said Emmett.

"Or an underwater cave?" opined Alec.

Since I couldn't think of anything else either, we dove around in the sea all afternoon up to and around the islands, but found nothing.

No trace.

Dad decided to wait another night.

"We will now wait until tomorrow and then swim down the right side of the coast and search the rocks. After that, we'll move on to the left side," he said.

So we sat there and waited.

I was quite nervous and kept thinking about how she was doing. This inactivity was driving me crazy.

So on the second day we searched the right side.

We swam, dove and climbed around on the rocks. Every now and then we found tiny crevices or caves in the rock, but none so large that a person could have been hidden in them. It was frustrating.

On the third morning, Dad decided to go once again to Jake's father and to Seth.

I went with.

The others began to search the left half of the coast, which stretched much further and was much more difficult to access. It seemed increasingly likely to us that he would have taken her away in a motorboat. This Billy was worried, too, I noted. Jake hadn't gotten back to him yet. He had spoken to Seth, but he had withheld details and hadn't revealed the hiding place either. But that didn't help us.

Just as we were leaving, a patrol car drove up and I quickly pushed Dad away.

"That's Bella's father," I said.

Charlie stopped in front of Billy's house and went inside, glancing at us and wondering who we were since he didn't know us. After all, he knew everyone living in La Push!

We visited the Clearwaters.

The woman was friendly and very concerned. She didn't know where Jake and Bella were, but she had bitched her son out thoroughly.

I was completely desperate.

"Please ma'am, if you find out anything, get back to us. I'm so worried about Bella."

I gave her my cell phone number.

She nodded.

She sympathized with me. She really felt sorry for me.

By 11:00 we were back at the beach helping the others dive and climb.

When it got dark, we had only made it halfway along this stretch of coast. We could see well in the dark, but still Dad was afraid we might miss something in the dark, so we called off the search and swam back to the beach. I was at the end.

During the night it also started to rain and Emmett built us a temporary shelter.

Unfortunately, that did not lift my spirits. With the rain, a terrible sadness settled over me. What if we didn't find them and Jake never came back? Jasper tried to calm me down, but it didn't help anymore.

I sat down far away from James, because his thoughts were as terrible and restless as mine.

The next morning, Mrs. Clearwater stood before us.

"Come to our place, it's dry there!" she said.

We went along, except James and Alec, because they wanted to wait and hoped for a miracle in the form of a returning ship.

I hoped that this Seth would come out with something, so I thought it was a good idea to go along. We could still search the rest of the coast in the afternoon.

The woman offered us coffee, but of course we declined.

"Mom, they're vampires," Seth said, "they don't drink coffee."

"But I don't have blood in the fridge," she said dryly, and we had to laugh.

"We don't need anything, ma'am, it's okay," Dad said.

We talked about this and that, the life of the people here and she told a little bit about Bella. That she used to come here a lot and play with Jake, and later hung out with him. Seth was younger than the two of them and his sister Leah was much older, so she hadn't had any contact with her kids. But Mr. Clearwater had also been friends with Billy and Charlie until his death, which is why Sue had often been to Billy's house and knew Bella well and liked her very much.

I watched Seth.

He was not feeling well. His thoughts kept going back to Jake and Bella. He was worried because Jake hadn't contacted him and he wondered if he should check on them. So it was clear that he knew where he had taken them and it had to be within his reach, otherwise he wouldn't have had the idea to check on them.

Should we finish searching the coast? Perhaps the boat was also a deceptive maneuver? Maybe they had hidden them somewhere on the mainland? Could that be? Couldn't I have smelled that?

Now it was the fourth day. It was approaching noon and still raining.

We went back to the beach and I told the others what Seth had thought and what I thought. Suddenly we heard sounds of fighting.

Immediately we ran faster.

On the beach, Alec was actually fighting with this Jake guy. James was jumping around next to him, trying to pull Alec away from Jake. At first I thought James was out of his mind, but then I understood what he was saying.

"Alec, you idiot, don't do that. He was trying to tell us something. Only he can lead us to Princess Isabella. If you beat him to death, it won't help at all!", James just shouted.

We all immediately realized how right he was and got involved in the fight, pulling the two apart.

This Jake was strong even as a human, but Alec had battered him badly. His face swelled up - he was guaranteed to have broken bones in his face as well.

Emmett and Jasper held Alec tightly, and James cursed.

Dad and I took care of that Jake.

"You guys are so stupid," Jake whispered with the last of his strength, "I was going to take you to her. She's not doing well. She needs help," and then he passed out.

"FUCK!", I shouted angrily.

Then I went after Alec.

"Where's your brain, man! He wanted to lead us to her. She is not well. He said she needed help. And now he's unconscious. Is that what you wanted? Don't you want to find Isabella?", I yelled at him.

Alec was silent.

He thought I should shut up.

Nice. Such an ass.

I was beside myself with rage and now my brothers had to hold me down.

Dad had James fetch his bag from the helicopter and he treated the wolf and set his bones.

"Edward, he's going to get better quickly. He has self-healing powers just like we do. But he's still more human and it's going to take some time. If we're lucky, he'll come around by tomorrow and be able to talk. But I can't promise it."

I nodded in despair.

Only because of Alec would we have to wait again now. I was so angry.

Suddenly Seth stood between us.

"I overheard what happened here. I'm also worried about Bella. I'll take you there, sir," he said to me.

"Thanks, Seth, that's great. I'm going to die of worry," I said and was really incredibly grateful to him.

Dad had explained to me that he was under the command of the alpha leader and that it was not easy and even dangerous for him to defy him.

Seth went to get the rowboat.

"Can my father and Bella's servant come with us?", I asked.

Seth nodded.

We squeezed into the boat.

Seth rowed briskly along the coast and past the point where we had abandoned the search yesterday. Shortly afterwards he stopped, secured the boat to a rocky outcrop and told us to go with him.

If we had kept looking for half an hour, we would have reached this, I thought in frustration.

We climbed after him and went through a small waterfall.

A cave ... aha.

I smelled them immediately.

She was lying on blankets on the floor.

A dim light illuminated the room.

Immediately I ran to her.

"Isabella, Isabella, I'm here!", I said.

She was asleep?

I moved them carefully.

She did not move.

"Dad, is she dead?", I cried desperately.

He knelt next to her on the other side.

She looked terrible. She had clearly lost weight, her lips were dry and chapped, she was pale and also quite dirty. What had this maniac done to her here? I asked myself.

Dad listened her chest.

James knelt at her feet and, like me, was completely horrified and distraught.

Seth waited at the entrance, ashamed of his alpha leader.

"She's alive, boy, but she's unconscious and completely debilitated. She seems downright dehydrated," he said.

He drew up a syringe and gave her something in a vein.

"We have to get her out of here. I can't take care of her here. She needs an IV and she needs it fast. I can do that in the helicopter," he said.

"But how are we going to get them out of here in this condition?", I asked desperately.

Seth stepped closer.

"Sir, there is a small meadow behind the cave. You can't land in it, but I think you can land the helicopter on the rocks above. That should be easier than transporting her by boat across the water."

Dad ran out the back - came back.

"That works. I'll get the helicopter. James, tie any poles together and wave to me from the gap so I can find the spot from above!" he said and jumped out at the front.

He renounced using the boat and swam back. That was quicker.

I called Jasper.

"We have her. She's unconscious and completely debilitated. Dad is coming now to pick up the helicopter and us right at the rocks. I'll then fly home with Dad, James and Bella. You guys can pack up our stuff and run. And you'll take this wolf with you," I said.

"Okay," Jasper said, and I hung up.

"Seth, thank you. You'll understand that I can't just let your alpha leader go. But thanks for your help. I think you can go back. We don't need you anymore."

He nodded.

"I'm sorry, sir. I hope Bella gets better soon."

"I hope so for all your sakes," I said coldly, aware that he had understood this threat perfectly.

I would wipe out his people if Isabella died because of them. That was an oath.

James walked out with shelf poles to which he had tied cloth.

I gently pulled Bella into my arms.

She did not show any reaction.

Carefully I kissed her forehead.

"Please, love, I'm here. We can do this. Wake up again, please, please! Please don't leave me alone. I love you so much."