Familiar Strangers (A Twilight Fanfic)

Chapter 22

Took me a while, but I finally updated! :D

Chapter Twenty Two: Aniya

I was dying … very true, but I wasn’t dead yet, and my boy needed guidance that no one else could give him. Although I could not sense his presence, Mr. Charlie Swan was about to help me succeed in my last attempt to help my son.

The house grew quiet … too quiet. I knew Charlie was still in the room by the chill in the air. My lack of strength did not deter me from pulling myself up enough to look around the room. A useless effort, I know. Why look around when I knew I couldn’t sense his emotions, but it made me feel just a little like my old self again. I couldn’t see him before, but I had always known a presence lingered. I could feel his moods change like the direction of the wind. I clasped my hands together and took a deep breath and began:

“Charlie, I know you’re here with me. I know I’m not the one you wish was here with you right now, but I need your help in every sense of the word.” I waited for anything to happen, but it was still quiet as a cemetery in the night. I tried again:

“Charlie, if you don’t help me, Gabriel may hurt Edward or worse, and that frightens me.”

“He deserves whatever Gabriel dishes out to him…”

Still nothing... Maybe what I said last wasn’t the right way to put it. Of course he would rather see Gabriel bring harm to Edward. It was time to use the one thing that I didn’t want to. “Charlie, if my Gabriel does away with the Cullen boy, he may lose any hope of getting your daughter back.” I winced a little, waiting for him to give me a sign that he was listening intently to what I was saying to him now, but again nothing.

“That Cullen boy is the reason why my baby isn’t here now. Gabriel can find her, he doesn’t need him.”

Hmm, I was beginning to worry if I could upset him at all at this point. I needed him to be mad so he could help me reach Gabriel in time. First, because I didn’t want Gabriel to lose himself in his newly found hatred towards the Cullen boy and second, because that boy may know something that could potentially help Gabriel reach Bella before long. I had to think and I was running out of time. Gabriel must be close to locating them in the woods. My beautiful boy had no idea of the things he was able to do. Beautiful things and horrible things, and the latter would destroy who he is inside, and I couldn’t fathom that happening. Think old lady … There must be something that could trigger Charlie into submitting to my needs. Then it hit me, I must tell Charlie why it so important that I stop my boy from doing what I know he is feeling. He will not like what I tell him, but it is not our choice to disturb the balance of things.

“Charlie, there is a reason why we must save the Cullen boy.” I paused to let him think on it for a moment.

“There isn’t a good enough reason out there to make me stop Gabriel from tearing him apart. Why would you try to stop him from doing it? Edward is the reason why…wait, what reason could there be to save him after what he’s done? Fine, what’s the reason? If it will get my baby back then I ought to know what it is.”

I waited and hoped that what I said peaked his interest to some degree, and I was about to give up when I suddenly felt my hands freeze up with such a cold chill that I knew it had to be him. I did get his attention now. Good. Now I had to let him in on what I knew. I smiled towards an apparition that I could not see and began to tell him,

“Charlie…”

                                                                                   Gabriel