CHAPTER TWO
ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄᴋs
The whole school buzzed with a sense of freedom now, the cafeteria louder than it had been only weeks ago, the blank walls pasted with posters for yearbooks, announcements, deadlines, and particularly large, rose-wreathed ones for the prom. We were so close to being free that the air buzzed with the excitement of it. The time for graduation was swiftly closing in, so quickly that it was hard to avoid.
I'd done this numerous times before, all of which I'd enjoyed, but never as much as this year's. I didn't need to guess that it had something to do with Alice and her family.
Each day, we sat at the same table with the same people. The unending sameness held a kind of comfort in the fact that it was easy, simple, much so in comparison to the complex year we'd all had.
"Have you sent your announcements yet?" Angela asked us. Beside her, Ben was flipping through a pile of ratty, old comics he'd managed to find in the media rooms.
Bella shook her head. "No. There's no point, really. Renée knows when I'm graduating. Who else is there?"
"How about you two?"
I smiled, but Alice was beaming. "All done."
"We did ours together," Alice said, nudging warmly to my side. "It took us a while and we were distracted but we got it done."
By getting it done, Alice meant that we pretended to do addressed cards while really she flicked through wedding magazines, having seen Bella and Edward's in a vision. And by distractions, she meant I was bored and she was lovely, her lips looking even more kissable than they normally did.
"Lucky," Angela groaned, slumping to lean one cheek on her hand, the other hand running through the ends of her pinned hair. "My mother has a thousand cousins and she expects me to hand-address one to everybody. I'm dreading it."
"I'll help you. If you don't mind my awful handwriting," Bella offered, making Angela brighten considerably.
"That's so nice of you. I'll come over anytime you want."
"Actually, I'd rather go to your house if that's okay. I'm sick of mine. Charlie un-grounded me last night."
"Really?" I asked, and Bella nodded. I'd been there only the night before, and Charlie had been his usual self. holding his grudge tightly.
"I thought you said you were in for life," Angela nodded.
"I'm more surprised than you are."
"Well, that's great, Bella! We'll have to go out to celebrate."
"You have no idea how good that sounds," she said, slinking further into Edward's side.
"What should we do?"
"We could go to Jack's for dinner," I suggested.
Jack's was a diner on the border of Forks, the welcome sign standing only a few meters from the front door. There was no car park, the woods merging into the surrounding area, the neon light glowing faintly in the shadows of the pine trees. I loved it. The small diner was perfect for pretending to have eaten and had the perfect atmosphere for a late evening when the rain was coming down hard against the windows.
Alice and I had gone only a few days ago, buying a coffee between us and sitting for hours. In fact, it had been Rosalie who'd shown me the place.
"Whatever you're thinking, Alice, I doubt I'm that free," Bella said, making me draw my gaze to the girl who sat close at my side. Her eyebrows were curved in their usual thoughtful manner.
"Free is free, right?" she said.
"I'm sure I still have boundaries, like the continental US for example," Bella said, rolling her eyes. "So what are we doing tonight?"
"I still think Jack's is a good idea."
"Look, let's give it a couple of days to make sure he wasn't joking. It's a school night, anyway," Bella said.
"We'll celebrate this weekend then," Alice exclaimed, leaving no room for an argument.
"Sure," Bella said. "I'm so ready for a day out."
"We could do Port Angeles and then grab a meal?"
"But I can't be the only one that is sick of Port Angeles!" Alice said animatedly.
"Hoquiam?"
"I don't know."
"I was kind of hoping for something bigger."
"Me too," Ben added, joining in the conversation as he pushed the comics to the side. "We always do the same thing."
Angela shrugged. "I think there's something nice about having something so familiar."
After that, I stopped listening. To my side, Alice was stone still, her face dropped with a blankness that was frightening. Her visions were not infrequent- I was used to them by now. But this was different, it was as if she couldn't pull herself out of it and back into reality again.
"Alice?"
Angela had noticed her staring. "Alice!"
"Sleepy today?" I whispered, taking the attention away from her as she frowned, blinking too quickly.
"Naptime already, Alice?" Edward chimed, smirking- but I could see the worry behind his eyes, and I wasn't surprised if Bella could see it too.
"Sorry, I was daydreaming, I guess," Alice said, her voice quiet.
"Daydreaming is better than facing two more hours of school," Ben groaned, sinking into his seek.
"So what were we saying about Port Angeles?"
"Are you alright? I've seen you have visions before, but it's never affected you like that," I asked Alice as we walked from the main entrance, down through the car park and toward Edward's silver Volvo, which was parked lonely at the back.
"I want to tell you about it, just not here," she said, grasping my hand.
Since her vision at lunch, she hadn't been the same. She was like a cat that's been spooked, wary since the event, making her quieter than she normally was. Everyone had noticed, even Angela and Ben, and Bella certainly wasn't going to let it slip. But by the wide eyes of Alice's face, I had a feeling that she wanted to just make it all disappear.
"Bella will be coming to ours tonight, but Edward will take her back to Charlie before then," Alice said and I tried not to react at the fact that she's said ours. It had been said like that before. "I need to talk to everyone about it. Edward already knows. He's already setting a plan in motion. Come on, I'll tell you first before everyone is home."
She took my hand, pulling me in the opposite direction of the car, swiftly and discretely, toward the trees that lined the blocky buildings of the classrooms. It had been a while since I'd escaped through that way, but each time made me think of Edward's confrontation when my secret had slipped.
"Are you alright taking the woods home? I need to clear my head," she said.
I nodded, letting her hand drop from mine so she could go in front. "Of course. I'll be one step behind you."
"Thank you."
We ran home slower than we usually did. It was hard to pace myself, to keep my feet rooted to the in-between speed that Alice seemed to be stuck at, but eventually, she began to sprint so fast that I had to jump to keep up. At the Cullens, I found her curled up on the window seat in Carlisle's office. The house was empty, with Esme, Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper out hunting, and Edward with Bella at Charlie's.
"I had a vision," she said, voice flat. "It will happen this weekend."
"What did you see?"
"Victoria."
That utterance of a single word made my bones feel as if they were brittle, snapping under the weight of the name. Victoria. The red-headed vampire that lusted for Bella's blood.
"She'll come running straight past the house, as if it doesn't even bother her that we could be here!" She said, her feat smoothly transitioning into blinding anger.
"It's alright," I said, grabbing her hands as she brought them up to tug at the ends of her pixie cut. "We'll be there. All of us. We can control the situation now that we know about it. Victoria doesn't stand a chance, thanks to you."
Alice melted into my touch, wrapping her arms around my waist and tucking her head against my stomach.
"It draining," she said. "My visions, I mean. I like knowing things. It makes me happy to know when I've found the perfect gift. But everything else. I hate being the one to see when something terrible happens. Something that I can't change."
I shifted my hands from hers and instead placed them on the side of her face, lifting her chin until she was looking back at me. I smiled. Her eyes were one of my favourite things about her. They were a perfect swirl of amber and hazel, deeper than Carlisle's but brighter than Edward's, and more ethereal than my own. She tried to tilt her head bashfully to the side- the vampire equivalent to a blush, making me let out a breathy laugh.
"Don't worry," I said, but stopped myself. It was useless telling her not to worry. "Do you remember what you said to me that day before we went to see Bella in the hospital? You were so angry, smashing the windows as if it was James rather than glass."
She let out an embarrassed chuckle.
"It was months ago now, but I still remember. You said, 'I will share your pain with you. I will hold the burden of it, if it helps.' And Alice, I will do the same for you now," I said, running a finger across her cheek. "I can't say I understand what it's like, having your gift. But I can say that I will share your pain. I'll take it and halve it, just so you don't have to be alone."
She closed her eyes, blocking the beautiful sight from my own. She let out a sigh, not knowing what to say as she leaned into me.
"You'll never be alone with me, Alice," I said, wary of the distant sounds of the Cullens coming closer to the house. "I'll be with you as you tell them now, and I'll be with you when you need anything else. Anything."
"Thank you," Alice said, the only words she knew to say.
The Cullens took Alice's information in Victoria much differently than I did. The threat seemed both at once to be insignificant and incredibly worrying to them. Carlisle stood by the empty fireplace, his hand wrapped around his chin, the perfect doctor pose. Esme sat with Rose, Emmett and Jasper, and Edward still hadn't returned.
"And this is Saturday? You're sure?" Jasper asked, his brows furrowing, though less pained than he was at school.
"Saturday. She went past the docks to get toward the house. Charlie was there. He's fishing on Saturday according to Elide," Alice said, glancing momentarily my way.
"And she ignores Charlie? Goes straight past him?" Esme asked, forever the caring woman she was. Alice nodded.
"Can you say what time?" Carlisle asked.
"Roughly?"
He nodded.
"Evening," she said, but quickly added, "but not late enough to reduce fears. We'll have to be careful. It was light enough to be four in the afternoon, maybe."
"We'll have to be out from noon," Rosalie said, surprising Emmett at her involvement. But no one said anything. "We can't risk it."
"About that," Alice said. "Edward has already decided to do something about that. Remember the tickets Esme bought for Bella's birthday? He's convincing her and Charlie to use them this weekend, right now."
"Edward in Florida?" I asked, and Rose pushed out a snort of laughter.
"We have to make sure she goes. To make sure she's safe," Alice said.
Carlisle nodded, finally turning from the fireplace with the regality of a king deciding the fate of an army. "We can't risk it. He has a better chance in Florida," he said. "Now all we have to do is wait for her arrival."
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Apologies if there is any mistakes or anything, I didn't read this over enough times x