Disclaimer: Original characters and part of the plot belong to Stephanie Meyer

Chapter 5 – Pain and Discoveries

Bella POV

This last one month, I had worked out like hell.

I had run. I had jumped. I had learnt fighting from Charlie, Jake and Quil. I had tried improving my coordination and aim. I had done everything to make myself stronger. Both from inside and out.

I parked my car in the driveway and headed inside. There were no heartbeats.

Thought I shouldn't have been able to hear people's hearts beating, in the last month, my hearing and sight have improved crazily for reasons unknown. So had my sense of smell.

Stepping inside, I immediately knew something was wrong. One, there were two scents in the house – Charlie's and another unknown sweet scent which was strangely like peppermint and mango – and they were very recent. Couldn't have been older than an hour. Two, there was a smell of blood. And three, like I said, no heartbeats despite the fact Charlie should be home by now.

I followed his scent to the kitchen and stepped out of the backdoor. It led to the backyard. I gasped at what I saw.

"No!"

Charlie was lying in a pool of blood. His face and torso slashed horribly. But more than that, he wasn't breathing. His heart wasn't beating.

Not believing my hearing. I quickly placed my hand at his neck. No pulse.

"NO!" My voice was choked and my eyes were stinging. I placed his head into my lap.

"Dad, wake up! Wake up, Dad! Please! Wake up! You're not dead. YOU'RE NOT DEAD! Wake up! Dad, please! Wake up!"

My voice had reduced from screams to loud sobs as I begged him to wake up. Begged his broken body to function again.

But then, a horrific realisation hit me. For some inexplicable reason, I want to drink his blood. I wanted to place my lips into the cuts of his chest and suck that delicious liquid out. I wanted every last drop of it into my body.

Why?

I heard footsteps behind me and was hit with a weak smell of wet dog.

"Bella?" A moment later. "Oh god…"

It was Jacob.

And the next moment, he was kneeling beside me.

"Charlie? Charlie!"

He did the same thing I did. His hand went to his neck to check the pulse. And his face paled as he came to same realization as me. Something, two low for humans to hear, slipped out of his mouth, "The red-headed leech. It's her scent."

Victoria, my mind said to me. It's her. She's trying to hurt you because he killed James. He killed her mate. She wants you to suffer and then wants to kill you. She's after you.

He pulled me to his chest as my sobs reduced to quiet sniffles and tears. He placed his cheek on my hair and started rocking me back and forth.

After what seemed like several minutes, or several hours. He said softly, "Bella?"

I responded with a soft hum.

"Bella, we need to call the police."

I almost shouted my answer out. "No!"

He pulled away slightly from me and looked into my eyes. "We need to call them, Bells. It's an animal attack. The police have to deal with it. I know you don't want to accept it. But we can't do anything about him anymore, Bella. We have to call them."

"It's not an animal attack," my voice said hoarsely. "It was her. You said it yourself, Jake. It was Victoria."

"You heard me?"

I nodded.

"Are you talking about the red-head?"

I nodded. "But how do you know about it?"

"Remember the legend I told you months ago. That wedescended from the wolves?"

It hit me like a jet train. I remembered it very well. It was what started it all. Jacob's voice said it my head, "Another legend claims that we descended from the wolves – and the wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them."

"You're a werewolf?" I said with incredulity.

"Come on, Bella. If vampires can exist, then why can't werewolves? Although, we don't need to the new phone to phase. We can phase at our will."

He was right. If vampires could exist, then so could werewolves. Did that mean that every fairy tale, every myth humans had ever heard had a true root behind them. Could the world be full of any more different kinds of species? My mind had a hard time digesting it.

I had come to Forks expecting a quiet, boring life. Yet, in this inconsequential rainy town, where it rains almost throughout the year, I came across vampires and werewolves. Did these mythical species hide it small tiny towns like this? It made sense in a way. It kept them under the radar. Yet, with Charlie's death (which my mind still had a hard time believing), I had a hard time making sense of it all.

"Call them," I said. "The police."

Nothing did matter to me anymore. Only my father did. And he wasn't here with me. I started crying again.

Jacob pulled me to his chest and called the police with my cell phone. He quietly explained everything and told me they were coming in twenty minutes.

I wanted to forget everything. I wanted to go back to how I was a month ago. Numb. Lifeless.

But several things were going on inside my mind. One, my sense of smell, sight and hearing was way stronger. Two, I craved blood – I wanted to drink it. Three, Jacob was werewolf. Four, Victoria was after me. And five, Charlie was dead. He wasn't alive anymore.

I couldn't process anything anymore. I couldn't think ahead anymore. I would have to play it by the ear now. And so, I waited for the police.