CHAPTER SIXTEEN

V_ _ _ _ _ _ _?!


By the time we arrived home – which wasn’t long as Edward drove fast – Renesmee had fallen asleep. It really was like she was drunk. Edward carried Nessie into the house and up to her room, where I had pulled her sheets back on her bed ready for her to be put in. When Edward had finished gently laying her on the bed, I pulled the sheets back up again, and gave her a light kiss on the forehead before leaving the room with Edward.

          

We went downstairs to the main lounge where the others were gathered.            

            

“How is she?” Esme asked softly.

            

“Completely out to it,” Edward replied.

            

“What did he give her?” Rosalie asked, referring to Eric.

            

“I’m not sure,” Edward answered, “its like she is drunk, which is probably possible considering she can eat human food; but, she hasn’t consumed any alcohol – we’d have smelt it on her otherwise.

            

“Whatever it is, its affected everyone else though,” I pointed out, “except us.”

            

“Well, at least we know for sure that if they had any suspicions about weather we’re human or not, they do now!” Emmett said, his tone a little more light-hearted compared to how everyone else seemed to be.

            

“Hmm, it’s a good point,” Carlisle said, “we need to break the ice with them - quickly.”

            

“Savanna seems to be the odd one out in all this though,” Edward added, “and she has some explaining to do with the strange medicine that she gave to Emmett; I want to speak to her first.”

            

“I think that would be best,” Carlisle replied, nodding his head slightly in agreement.

            

“When?” I asked, anxious to get some answers. I wanted to leave right now to speak with her.

            

“We’ll go round first thing tomorrow morning,” Edward replied, it wasn’t the immediate action I wanted, but I knew it wouldn’t look good going back now; “she seemed to be excluding herself from the party too, so perhaps she will even be the one to answer the door if the others are sleeping-in from a later night –”  

            

“No,” Alice said, causing all eyes to turn and focus on what she had to say; “I think we should wait until Monday, and speak with her at school. It could make things worse if we go around tomorrow; and besides, I will know if any of us are in danger.”

            

“But you didn’t see that Nessie was in any trouble,” I pointed out. What was Alice thinking?! Savanna’s family were somehow dodging the effects of both Alice and Edward’s gifts; and I needed some answers! Now! It made sense to confront her at school, I just didn’t want to wait the weekend – none of us did.

            

“And Emmett,” Rosalie added, quietly.

            

“That was because I wasn’t looking properly,” Alice said; “ when we went to look for Nessie, I tried to get some sort of vision, but only got these weird, interferences – a dazed, laid-back, joyous feeling, and all I saw was a range of blurred colours.”

            

“So?” Rosalie said, prompting her to continue.

           

“So,” Alice said, “whatever they gave Nessie was effecting her body, manipulating my vision; I wasn’t looking for Eric’s future, that would have helped – I think that the colours I saw, the feelings I felt were what Nessie was experiencing.”

            

“What about Emmett?” I asked.

            

“I wasn’t really looking out for any of us at that point,” she said, “I thought we were safe here; but even if I had seen something, it wouldn’t have made any difference as the bear actually sprung-up on Emmett, changing his immediate future anyway – someone else’s last minute decision perhaps.”

            

“It makes sense,” Edward said, his tone, serious and thoughtful.

            

“Yes,” Alice replied, “the visions are there, they’re just different to what I’m used to seeing!”

            

“And if we are dealing with magic here, it only make even more sense,” Edward added, getting a little more excited now.

            

“Exactly!” Alice said.

            

We continued discussing the situation for a little while longer – mainly the way that Edward and Alice’s gifts were affected, what these odd effects could mean, and how they should be interpreted. For Edward, it was simple – they either know he reads minds, or they know someone else who can, so are conscious of it; and Savanna seems to know more than the rest of them.

            

Whilst it was likely that she had told her family about Edward’s ability, after seeing how distanced she made herself at the party, I questioned her closeness with the other family members, and highly doubted that she would actually had told them about Edward if she was aware of him. The effect that Alice was experiencing was simply from the unknown aspects that this family possessed and brought into this fictional world we were all already a part of as vampires; the effect on her was similar to what happened with Jacob and his pack – simply because they aren’t human; we were pretty safe in saying that much!

            

After around another thirty minutes, we decided to go to our own rooms. Edward held the door to our bedroom open for me, and closed it once I was inside. I turned to face him, hoping for some sort of reassuring expression, but he didn’t give me the chance to look at his face as he was too quick in coming over to me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me in close against his chest – if he were human I would have heard the beat of his heart. I concentrated on this, trying to hear something, even the faintest flicker of a beat, but only received silence – something that I welcomed all the same though. I stayed in his embrace for what must have been at least half an hour, but only felt like two minutes, when Edward broke the silence by chuckling slightly.

            

“What is it?” I asked, looking up at him. He had become a lot more rational about things since Nessie was born, not worrying so much – the multiple encounters that we had had with other vampires when I was human probably helped this as well. I’d expected to see his eyes full of fear, and was even more surprised that he was actually laughing about something.

            

“Emmett,” he muttered to me, “he’s trying to get my attention. He’s found us some entertainment for the weekend – which I’m sure will help get our minds off things.”

            

“What kind of entertainment?” I asked, completely clueless.

            

“You’ll have to wait,” he said, chuckling again, “it’s a surprise – and its not my surprise to spoil;” his white teeth gleamed as he gave me a slight, cheeky grin.

            

I rolled my eyes at him, light-heartedly of course. His mood was taking my mind away from Savanna and her family – which was important for my sanity’s sake, as we had decided to wait the weekend before talking with her.

           

He kissed my forehead and led me to our private bathroom, where our constantly hot bathtub was featured. Edward clicked a button on the wall with the bath’s features, and I heard the small jets inside of it come to life. The bath slowly began filling up with white, foamy bubbles.

            

I sat in Edward’s arm, in our bath, watching out over the clam forest until it was time to start the next day. We sat in silence. There was no need to talk; being in each other’s arms was more enough – safely together.

                                                                        *****

A few hours once the sun had fully risen, Edward and I got out of the bath and dressed for the day. We went to see how Nessie was first. She had a really bad headache – something she hadn’t really experienced before – so we left her to continue to rest and sleep it off.

            

We hadn’t feed for a number of days now, and our eyes were very dark. Carlisle gave us a few strips of metal each, the size of a small rulers, so that we could test the blood of the animals before we drank from them – to prevent the situation with Emmett from happening again; if the blood was acidic like the bear’s was, then it would eat through the metal instantly. We had to kill with our hands before we drank too, something I wasn’t use to doing – I usually jumped and bit simultaneously; I wouldn’t find this way hard though.            

            

Hunting took up the entire morning; we also filled a bottle of blood for Nessie, in hopes that it would help sooth her headache faster.

            

“How are you feeling,” I said softly, almost in a whisper as I closed the door to Nessie’s room behind me.

            

“Mmmm not good,” she replied, her voice slightly croaky from resting.

            

I went over to her bed, and sat down next to her stroking her head. “You should drink this,” I said, opening the cap to the bottle of blood I had brought in with me.

            

Her eyes opened slightly as she clearly smelt the deep-red blood. She sat up slightly, and I passed the bottle over. She seemed to come more alive as she drank, almost chugging it down.

            

“It’s helping already,” she said, putting the bottle down slightly as she spoke. She had drunk about half of it.

            

“That’s good,” I replied. I took the bottle from her after she took a last sip, and placed it on the side table next to her bed so that she could drink more later on. “I think you should continue –“

            

An engine noise cut through the air interrupting my sentence. It wasn’t overly loud, but definitely louder than any of the cars we owned – even the motorbike that Edward gave to Jasper.

            

“What was that?” Nessie asked.

            

“I’m not sure,” I replied, moving to the window to take a look outside.

            

Before I got to the window to open the curtain however, Alice came into Nessie’s room; “Bella,” she said, “come outside, Emmett’s found a new toy.”

            

“What is it?” I asked.

            

“A jet-boat,” she chimed excitedly, “we can use it in the lagoon!”

            

“Awesome!” Nessie said, her face lighting up. She already had one foot out of her bed too.

            

“Ahh, you’re staying right here,” I said in a light-hearted tone, “your not well enough”.

            

She froze for a moment, “maybe you’re right,” she replied, clutching her head as she eased back into her bed slowly.

            

Alice chuckled softly; “you’ll be on it in no time Nessie.”

            

I went back over to her, and ran my finger lightly down her soft cheek, “I love you,” I said quietly, then followed Alice out of her room, and outside to the front courtyard where the boat was.

            

The boat was on a trailer attached to the back of Emmett’s jeep. It was sleek, sporty and shiny black, with bright red seats.            

            

“Wow!” I said, as we reached Emmett and Edward, who were adjusting a few things with the boats engine. I still wasn’t used to being surrounded by such luxurious things.

            

“Not what you expected?” Edward replied, with a huge grin on his face.

            

“I think we’re ready,” Emmett said.

            

We walked back through the house to the backyard where the lagoon was; Emmett was now reversing the jeep so that the trailer on the back was closer to the water. Edward ran over to him, and we followed closely behind.

            

The lagoon didn’t have a boat ramp, but it was easier for Edward and Emmett to take a side each and lift it into the water anyway – they did so with pure ease. Jasper and Rosalie had now came to join us, Carlisle and Esme had stayed inside.

            

The boat looked like it could fit about eight people at a time, including the driver, so we were all able to get in at once. Emmett was having the first drive, as it was his idea; Edward sat in the passengers seat next to him, and Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and I sat in the middle row, which had four seats, behind.

            

The engine roared to life as Emmett turned the key, and we drifted off, slowly at first, in the lagoon. Once we were a few metres from the edge of the water, Emmett floored the acceleration pedal, causing the back of the boat to sink into the water more, as it generated speed. In a matter of seconds we were level again, and coming extremely close to the opposite side of the lagoon. Emmett suddenly turned the steering wheel sharply to the left, and the boat did a three-sixty spin, spraying a small wave of water all over us.

            

“Hey!” Alice said, in a serious tone at first, but then broke into laughter before she could say anymore. We all did.

           

Emmett put his foot on the accelerator again and went in another direction, this time making a few shorter turns in between the large, three-sixty ones. We swapped drivers every ten minutes or so, and after about thirty minutes on the water, Alice was in the drivers seat and I was sitting next to her in the passengers seat – my turn was next. Alice was trying hard to get us all as wet as possible, doing as many three-sixty turns as she could – pay-back to Emmett!

            

“Okay, one more spin,” she said, shouting slightly over the noise of the engine, “then its your turn Bella!”

            

“Make it a good one then,” I replied.

            

She winked at me, then slammed her foot on the accelerator moving forward in a straight line. When we were about three seconds away from doing the turn, I noticed something strange floating on the surface of the water directly in front of us, I squinted my eyes slightly to try and gage what it was – then I realised it looked like somebody’s hand.

            

“Look!” I shouted, pointing to it.

            

Alice jerked the boat to the right a little too suddenly – I assumed to avoid obliterating the object that appeared to be a hand – and I heard Rosalie scream. The turn was so sharp that if I didn’t grab the side bar in time I would have fallen out of the boat – unfortunately, the strength from me grabbing the sidebar was too strong, causing the boat to capsize on us. I guessed that the others had probably done the same thing as the turn was so sudden – only adding to the reason for the boat to capsize.

            

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, yet in reality it all happened in a matter of seconds. I hit the water head first, and when I fully registered this, I pushed myself away from the upside-down boat to swim up to the surface.      

            

The others had already done this, and Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper were already strating to flip the boat the right way up again.

            

“Are you okay?” Edward said, swimming over to me.

            

“I’m fine,” I replied, “Where’s Alice?” I couldn’t see her.

            

Before he could answer, Alices voice cut through the air, showing where she was as it came from behind the boat, “there’s more!” she shrieked, her voice held a chilling tone to it. The drama of the boat capsizing had caused me to momentarily forget about the object that caused Alice to react the way she did – the object that I was sure was a human hand.

            

I followed closely behind Edward as he swam just as fast as if he were running over to her.

            

“What is it?” I asked.

            

“Look under the water,” Alice said, “there’s more”.

            

I did as she said to, and to my horror, saw lying on the bed of the lagoon three decaying bodies. I resurfaced as I didn’t want to look any longer; I would have thrown-up at the site if I were still human. The bodies were completely naked, and most of the skin had been burnt off, leaving decaying muscle and bone. I looked at Edward, for some kind of explanation.

            

“It’s the acid,” he said, “it doesn’t affect us though. Remember Carlisle said this lagoon had a high acidic level? From a past river contamination?”

            

The image of Nessie with Eric last night popped into my head; I was sure that they were connected with this in some way. Was he planning to kill her last night? So much for a distraction! I was so desperate for answers; and I knew that if I wanted any, I would have to act now, and quickly.

           

I ducked my head under the water and swam as fast as I could to the edge of the lagoon. I was on the side that was furthest away from the house so I went straight into the surrounding forest, running as fast as I could until I reached the driveway. I didn’t dare look back as I didn’t want to risk loosing a single second as I knew Edward was most likely following me closely behind –he would most definitely stop me! I ran as fast as I could, stopping outside Savanna’s house. Her street was quite and empty of people, not that anyone would have noticed me anyway as I was running too fast. I was completely dry from it too, so didn’t look out of place by being all wet.

            

I made the effort to be as casual looking as I could when walking to the front door. There were no cars in the driveway, so I was hoping that someone was home, but not the whole family.

I had to knock on the door twice before I heard someone coming down the stairs inside.

            

“Bella?” It was Savanna who answered the door. She didn’t open it fully, simply peering through a small gap as she said my name nervously and with surprise.

            

“We need to talk,” I replied coldly.

            

“Ahh – ,” she stuttered, nervously, “I can’t right – “

            

In one swift movement I pushed the door back, allowing enough room for me to step inside the house, and held Savanna against the wall with one hand around her throat, closing the door simultaneously behind me. I knew that she was alone as the house was quire, and he took a while to answer the door – although I didn’t really care about that at the time, I just wanted some answers. 

            

“Yes you can,” I said, interrupting her. “I know you’re alone. What are you? What is Eric?” I demanded.

           

Before she could speak I noticed that her arms now had large purple veins running down them, just like Eric’s were yesterday, and her fingernails had grown and turned gnarly and green like his did too.

            

“What are you!” I demanded again, moving my hand from her throat to pin back both her hands instead, as they looked more threatening.

            

Savanna’s face was full of fear, “I’m a,” she stuttered again, I tightened my grip slightly on her her wrists, “a Venevore!” she exclaimed.

            

“What!?” I asked. At first I thought she was lying, but from the terrified look on her face I knew she wasn’t. I hadn’t heard of anything like that before, at least with Vampires and Ware wolves I had known them as fictional characters – but venervore, I had never heard of that before.

            

“Bella!” Edwards’s stern voice broke my thoughts as he abruptly opened the door to Savanna’s house. I loosened my grip on Savannas wrists, and she pulled away from me instantly.

            

“You both need leave?” she said, pleading a little.

            

I was speechless, still trying to process what Savanna had said she was. I looked blankly at Edward – I knew that he was probably reading Savanna’s thoughts and wondered what he was thinking about it, she couldn’t possibly be keeping her guard up with the shock I created.

            

“Come-on Bella,” he said, taking my hand and leading me out of the house.

            

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to look back at Savanna in the entranceway, “we will need to talk on Monday.”

            

She nodded slightly and Edward closed the door.            

            

“What were you thinking!?” he demanded.

            

I ignored this, still consumed in the own thoughts, “what did she say?” I asked, “could you read her mind?”.

            

He didn’t answer me, but instead pulled on my arm so that I was walking briskly next to him from Savanna’s property – he was annoyed with me, I bet they all were; I was just lucky that Savanna was the only one home.   


© Copyright to Jonathan Cameron 2010