Five

Chapter Five

“Edward.”

My blood pumps like cold knives through my veins at the mention of that name and my body quakes from the force of my tremors as a million thoughts barge through my head at once.  Alice’s face is pinched with worry and a Carlisle and the ever coiffed Esme are looking much worse for wear.  I had never seen them in such a state.  Their hair disheveled and their clothing ruined, they look like the had been through a crusade.  

“What?  What happened?”  I asked panic seeping into my voice as it cracks and breaks with worry.  

Carlisle runs a hand through his matted hair sighing heavily.  “Edward has gone to the pack.”  His tells me lowly but it is Caius deep growl that drown him out.

“What?!”  I exclaim.  What the hell was he thinking?  

Carlisle explained to me that after he had set Jacob’s bones he left to check on Esme and call Alice and Jasper.  When he returned to the reservation he was met at the treaty line, with force.  Sam heading up the pack in human form called the Cullens traitors and that he and his leech family were no longer welcome in Forks.  

“I asked him why this sudden change and all he said was that he received a call from Edward and that they knew about everything.  It was all very vague but as I was greatly outnumbered I thought it best just to leave.”

A chorus of questions called out from several directions of the room but Carlisle simply held a hand out and directed himself back to me.  

“Bella, I have no idea what any of this means.  Would you care to call them and find out what you can?”

“Sure, but is Edward… I mean did he get-”

“No.”  Rosalie answered.  “Emmett just talked to Jasper and Edward is still in there care.”

“Then how?”

“We don’t know, Bella.”  Esme answered.  “It’s beyond any of us as to how he made a phone call with Jasper and Alec right there.”

“Alice?”  

“I’m sorry but Edward hasn’t made the decision to do anything.  It’s like he’s not there anymore.”  She said sadly.

“Does that mean there’s a wolf clo-”  I stopped short as a deafening roar sounded, shaking the glass panes in the room.  

“No,”  Alice answered her forehead creasing with confusion.  “It’s not like that at all, when the…” she stopped short obviously rethinking her words as to not upset a certain vampire again.  “When they are around all our futures go black, this is different, I can see him through Jasper or Alec, but just not what he intends to do.”

I thought about the possibility that Edward had another gift that none of them knew about, but would Aro be able to see it through his memories.  I was fast gaining a headache I didn’t want and to add to the frustration I still had to call the pack.  

Alice handed me her sleek black phone, and whispered.  “It’s alright, Bella.  Jasper won’t let him get away.”  

I nodded and dialed the Black’s with shaky fingers and my breathing picked up when a voice answered after the first ring.  “Black’s residence.”  Shit, it was Sam.

“Hello Sam, it’s Bella.”

“Bella?  Where are you?”  He asked in a gruff, angry voice.  I looked to Alice for some sort of an idea.  Should I tell them where I was?  Should I lie?  She grabbed a slip of paper and quickly wrote what I was to say next.  

“I’m safe.”  I told him.

“Edward has you then?”  Edward?  

“No, I’m with the family, the Cullens.”  It came out so fast it was more like a whoosh of air than actual words.  

“Where are you, Bella?  Where coming to get you.”

My eyes widened in panic.  That was the last thing that needed to happen, if the Volturi found out about them they’d be finished.  

“NO!”  I yelled in panic and Alice came and pried the phone out of my hands, crushing the chic piece of metal and plastic with the force.  

I looked to her with fresh tears starting to spill.  “Bella, you can’t go back to Forks, I don’t know what Edward told Sam to get them to turn against us so suddenly but… you can’t go back Bella.”  

“Why is this happening?”  I was a trembling mess and Alice wrapping me in her cool embrace.  

“I don’t know, Bella, but everything in life happens for a reason.”

“So, what happens now?”  I asked eyeing the room but really only searching out one.  He had his back to me, his long hair pulled up at the nape of his neck, but cascading like a waterfall over his hunched shoulders as he braced himself at the window.  

“We leave.”  He made no move to go and I could see that he was straining with something, his hands were all but claws pressed against the clear window pane, and the way he was positioned it would seem he didn’t want me to see him.  

“Come on Bella.”  Alice said, Rosalie and Esme pulling me along back to my room to gather my things, which weren’t much.  So I concluded that maybe something was happening in the next room that my human eyes weren’t supposed to see.

At the sound of raised voices and the shattering of glass I guessed that I was right.

Esme, Rosalie and Alice seemed un-phased by the goings on as they made their way around the room collecting and bagging anything in the room they thought I would need over the course of the long flight. But I knew better every once in a while I would see one or both of them stop short in what they were doing and then go back to it.  

“What’s going on out there, Alice?”  I asked as the voices continued to get louder but I couldn’t make out what any of them where saying.  

“Caius is not happy with the new developments and thinks he was wrong to let Edward live.”  

“And?”  I deadpanned.

“Carlisle is begging for Edward’s life.  He still things he can be reformed after your change.”  

“I don’t know why,”  Rosalie cut in.  “after what he was planning to do, the bastard deserves to get what’s coming to him.”  

I looked at her like she had grown two heads and as Esme scolded her for her outburst she laughed.  “What?  I always knew there was something wrong with him.”

Alice just shook her head.  “Don’t be upset with Carlisle, he feels that this is all his fault, that he had Edward changed to young.”

“That’s bullshit and you and I know it!”  Rosalie yelled jumping in again and when Esme tried to stop her with a hand to her shoulder, Rosalie shrugged it away.  “No, Esme, I know plenty of people that have suffered fates far worse than that sniveling coward, and they were changed at the same age.  Their not running around playing with their food, and you know what we did to James for the very same thing.  So what right does Carlisle have to beg for his life?”

Admittedly, Rosalie made a very good point.  Edward was doing exactly the same thing as James.  Edward was playing a game, although it was somewhat different, but he was still toying with me, waiting for the moment to strike.  

It took us a little less than fifteen minutes to get to Sea Tac and as we walked the boarding ramp to the Volturi’s personal jet, I felt a sense of Déjà vu course through me.  Here I was running to Italy because of Edward, but this time I wasn’t running to save him, no, this time I was running for my life.

I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised, I mean it seemed that any of the cultivated vampire species seemed to have an addiction to all things costly, but seeing the interior of the jet had my jaw hanging slack.  

It was insane.  Plush overstuffed chairs and personal tables for two.  Thick upholstered drapes and even a queen sized bed.  It was crazy to think that vampires, who didn’t need anything except blood loved to live so luxuriously.  Everything in the front cabins were done in a shiny black walnut and gray and white fabrics.  And when Alice brought me to where I would be staying, the queen suit, I nearly fell over.  It was beautiful, everything was.  

It didn’t take long to settle me in with the meager possession I brought with me.  And Alice, bless her heart had Carlisle grab a few more things from my house before he left Forks indefinitely.  I cried a little at the loss of Charlie and it made me feel a little guilty that my father, or my mother would ever gain closure at my disappearance.  

When I asked Carlisle if it would implicate them with the family up and leaving right after I had disappeared, but he just simply replied that I was eighteen and if I wanted to leave there was nothing he could do about it, but I would have to call him at some point to tell him I wasn’t coming back and that they would have to stage my death sometime soon.  All in all I was happy with the outcome, at least I would get to speak with my parents again, even if they were yelling at me.  

We had been in the air close to four hours when I started to tire.  I hadn’t seen Caius since his little outburst before we left the hotel and I wondered if he was even on the same jet as us, but as my eyes closed for the night a niggling in the back of my head told me he was.  

The rain hurled from the sky in sharp, angry drops and the thunder crashed around me in my fear.  

I had to keep running, always running.  
With only the quick flashes of lightening to guide my way I tripped and stumbled through the midnight wood.

I had to keep running, always running.

“Bella…”  The voice would laugh, the tinkling of silver bells.  “Bella…”

Looking over my shoulder, loosing my footing in the thick black mud.

Running, always running.

“Bella…”  The voice called again, malice lacing ever syllable.  “Bella… I’m coming.”

A flash of lightening so close forces me to my knees, scraped and burning with fresh blood.   “Bella, love…”

“Leave me alone.”  I wail as I force myself to my feet.  

I had to keep going, always running.

Another flash of light and eyes that glowed red even through the pitch.  Blood pouring from his mouth like falling from a beautiful fountain.  

“I told you not to run.”  He tells me and I look down and blood seeps through my clothes.  He smirks down at me with lopsided grin, a grin I used to so desire.  

“Edward…”

“Edward no!”  I scream, lurching awake.  

Cool arms surround me and I panic.  I started kicking and screaming, and the bright lights are clouding my vision.  I want comfort.  I want security.

“She’s going to call for him.”  The voice calls again.  

“You need to back up, babe.”  Another voice calls, this one thick and masculine.

“Caius!”  I wail, fighting against an unknown force.  I hear voices trying to comfort me but in my blinding terror I hear only Edward’s voice.  

“Bella it was just a dream.”  The voice tells.  

The sound of splinting wood hammers my now sensitive ears and the sound of a scuffle.  

“Qu‘est-ce quise passé ici?”  I know that voice.  My eyes open of their own accord and I am staring at an unclothed back, white flowing hair trialing to his hips.  His back is broad and strong looking and it is all I can do to figure out what is going on.  

Rosalie and Emmett are at the wall opposite me.  Emmett in front of Rosalie but he made no move to attack or strike out at a threat.  I didn’t know if he was understanding of the situation or scared himself, I know I was.  Alice was trembling next to them, and I had never seen my pixie friend so lost.  

“Elle a farl un cauchemar.”  Alice speaks up but her voice is trembling.  

“CAUCHEMAR?”  He growls.

Alice nodded her eyes crossing to mine quickly before shifting them back to Caius. “A propos de Edward, je pense.”  

From my point of view, still shivering in my blanket I couldn’t tell if he was satisfied by whatever Alice was telling him, and I kicked myself once again for taking Spanish instead of French, although I knew this had something to do with Edward, that much was clear.

“Congés.”

Alice nods again and swiftly moves from the room, Rosalie and Emmett giving me a long stare but following her without word.  

What the hell just happened?

“Are you alright, Isabella.”  His voice is like crushed velvet and I nearly moan when he says my name.  I can’t begin to understand what is happening to me.  I’ve had crushes before and even lusted after men who were not Edward, but this, it was like I was unable to control myself around him.  It was mortifying.

“Y-yes.”  I nod my head dumbly as I stuttered and I wonder briefly if it would have been better just to moan.  

My eyes are still glued to the floor in fear of looking at him and doing something terribly stupid.  But as my luck would have it, icy cold fingers grip lightly at my chin but with enough force to raise it.  

“Look at me.”  he commands and I am powerless to tell him no.  My eyes raise to meet his and I gasp.  In my time with supernatural beings I have seen many pissed off vampires at one point or another, black eyes were a dead give away. Caius pissed off was unlike anything I had ever seen.  His eyes were the deepest red.

“No one will harm you.  I won’t allow it.”  He tells me vehemently and I believe him. It was curious to me that as he spoke I could make out the slim points of… fangs?  I had to be hallucinating.  I was still so tired.  

He motioned for me to sit up and curiously I did, not understand what he was wanting.  But he was a man of few words and to satisfy my curiosity I did as he requested.  I felt the soft plush mattress give way with his solid weight and I was told to lay back.  My head hit a pillow that was elevated from is previous position and looking back my eyes were met with a pale, well muscled chest.  I was laying in Caius lap.  Like I said, hallucinating.

“Caius?”

“Hmm?”  

“What are you doing?”  

“Allez dormir, peu de Bella. We will be landing soon.”  He says in his rich, luxe voice and I wonder what he said that I couldn’t understand.  

“Sleep.”  He tells me in English and I nuzzled down and close my eyes, but I can’t sleep, I had my head in strange vampires lap.

I don’t know what possessed me to agree to go with him in the first place but as Alice explained to me that I had been destined to join them I realized that a life change was not all that bad a concept.  As my mind drifts and my eyes grow heavy I hear a low hum but I’m to sleepy to figure out what he said.

“Qu‘est-tu pour moi, petit être humain.”