The Way It Should Have Happened…

Chapter 11

Bella dropped Charlie’s body on the front steps and disappeared into the woods, Edward following on her heels with Alice and Jasper in close pursuit.

They went miles at full speed, running full out, waiting for Bella to either tire or become distracted by something along the way. Headed north, Jasper began to wonder if they had crossed over into Canada yet, if maybe Alice had seen where this was going to end. Would Bella calm down before she’d murdered too many people for them to reasonably cover up or would they be forced to move yet again just as they were settled in the area? Rosalie would pitch yet another fit if that happened and even Emmett would be hard pressed to have her keep even a semblance of a lid on it

This wasn’t going to be easy; Charlie dead back at the house would be a problem. Of course Carlisle could come up with some plausible explanation but if Charlie was merely the first in a long series, well...

Finally, finally after almost a dozen hours of straight running, Bella slowed a bit, eventually coming to a complete stop six hundred miles north of the border. Edward was still keeping pace, close by with Jasper and Alice trailing a few hundred yards behind. He stayed a dozen of so yards away from his wife, slowly and very cautiously approaching while she ignored him, staring at a small waterfall she’d found.

“Bella?” No answer.

“Bella. Can you hear me?” Nothing. He moved a few feet closer.

“Would you like to hunt with me? Are you thirsty?” She inclined her head but still didn’t respond.

“I’m sure I smell some deer and a grizzly not too far from here, would you like to see with me?” She shifted her weight enough that she seemed to agree then half turned to glance at him before smiling, her newly changed teeth glinting in the sun.

Raising her arm she stopped, mesmerized by the look of her new skin, throwing rainbows around the clearing, her smile widened and she laughed with pure happiness. “I had no idea—this is wonderful!”

“Yes, you’ll find out how much as time goes by.” He held out his hand, moving within inches of her. “Shall we hunt?”

She let him lead her down into a smallish valley where they found a herd of deer, stopping long enough to feed on several with Alice and Jasper joining in but not intruding on the newlyweds. Bella turned to Edward. “I’m a newborn, aren’t I?”

“Yes, love. You just woke a few hours ago. You’re doing very well.” This caused her to smile again, smearing the blood on her face.

Edward took off his jacket and used it to wipe off as much as he could as she spoke to him. “Why do you look so boring? Are you tired?”

Edward knew what she was referring to.” No, this is how I look to other vampires. There’s no need to attract them as with humans. We’re not as attractive to one another.” He tossed the bloodied jacket behind a tree. “Are you disappointed?”

“Yes.” She looked around, fixing her eyes on Alice and Jasper for a long moment. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere in southern Canada. I’m not sure exactly.”

“Alice? What do you see happening next?” The sun was setting behind the trees.

Alice stepped forward and spoke softly, hesitantly but with honesty. “I see you going to a small village and killing almost everyone in it.”

Edward knew what Alice was going to say before she said it, of course. “We’ll all stay with you, prevent it from happening, Bella. Don’t worry.”

She gave him a sweet smile the started off again, moving at more like a lope than a full out run. In less than an hour and a half they were all on top of a ridge overlooking another valley, thick with trees and with a small river running along the bottom. There was a hamlet with maybe twenty or so small houses and one main street. “Bella, don’t. We’ll find more animals.”

“But Edward, I don’t like them as much. I want to drink human blood.” She sounded a cross between exasperation and petulance.

Jasper came with a few yards. “It’s wrong, Bella. I know it’s what you want, but it’s wrong.”

She gave him the same sweet smile and a small shrug then switched to vamp-speed and was inside the first house in a millisecond; the family didn’t have a chance to even scream. Quickly she moved onto the second and then third homes. The other three tried to stop her but she had a newborn’s strength and they were no match for her. There was nothing they could do unless she cooperated or they caused her real damage and they knew Edward wouldn’t allow that. Inside of an hour she killed and drained almost twenty people from young children to grandparents.

The others did what they could to stop her, they did and they bore the injuries to prove it. Alice had been thrown through two buildings, one after the other without stopping due to the force Bella used in her punch. Next, Jasper, driven mad by bloodlust had drained everyone Bella hadn’t, including the dogs. Edwards though…Edward. He suffered the worse. Bella simply bit off his right hand, followed by his left ear.

“Bella, love it’s all right, they’ll regenerate in no time. Don’t be upset, don’t blame yourself.”

Her answer was a loud growl, a hiss and then the loss of Edward’s nose.

“I won’t leave you, love. I promise you. We’ll see this thing through together, I swear.” She struck out with her arm, pinning her husband and snapping her teeth at his neck.

“Ohmigod”, she thought; “Who knew he’d have so much venom spewing out when his head fell off?”

This vampire thing was a hoot!

 

*          *          *
 

She heard a harsh buzzing; her alarm was going off. There was there an alarm clock in the ruins of a Canadian village with all the inhabitants’ dead? It didn’t make any sense. Her eyes weren’t wanting to open yet and her mouth tasted like dead muse turds. Weird. Forcing her eyes to focus, she looked around the dismal little room, the ancient curtains and stained rug, the yuck color the walls were painted with. Cripes, she was supposed to live here?

It was damp, it was chilly—no, it was frigging cold and she wanted, more than anything in the world to turn roll and go back to sleep. But… “Bells, you up? Get a move on, okay?”

“Oh, man…” Charlie.

Forks.

Washington State.

God.

Oh, yeah, she’d moved here, arrived yesterday. This was her first day in school in the land of Podunk and crappy weather. This was a nightmare. The kids would all either ignore her or hate her. The boys would all be geeks and dweebs and the girls would all be beyotches and mean girls—the ones who didn’t sell Girl Scout cookies, that was. And, naturally, she didn’t have anything to wear that would keep her warm in this constantly dripping freezer she’d landed in.

And, damn, that was a strange dream.

Oh, and Jacob was a werewolf? Jacob? Yeah, right. Vampires? She’d married some hunky vampire and moved in with his entire vamp family? Uh-huh, sure she did. Like she ever wanted to get married—not. Then she had an insta-baby that wasn’t, ended up a vamp herself for some dumb reason and went nuts? Killed Charlie? Wiped out an entire village?

Yeah, sure. Okay, whatever.

Man, no more too spicy Indian food after eight PM and that’s all there was to it.

Dragging herself to the shower and then down to breakfast she was ready to go in twenty-five minutes when Charlie, with a scary look of bashful pride on his face made her go outside. There he showed her this ancient, about to fall apart into a pile of rust pick-up truck that looked like he’d bought it at some sale of Civil war antiques and handed her the key.

The day was starting out even worse than she’d thought possible.

She found the school, signed in, got her schedule and wandered around from class to class. One was more horrible than the last until lunch and then—damn—a mega-hunk strolled in and sat down with some other hunks and hunkettes at the far table. Sure, they were all really pasty skinned (get out much?) and weird but they were the best looking things in this stupid burg. The odd man out? The one with the reddish hair? Not bad. Not bad at all and he was even staring at her. A quick gossip told her they were local celebrities, rich and total snobs who never even spoke to anyone besides their own stupid family.

Well, cool—nothing like a challenge, right? And when he sat down beside her in bio? Oh yeah, she could work with this, thank you very much.

Things were looking up.
 

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