CHAPTER THREE
ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ɪs ᴅɪғғᴇʀᴇɴᴛ ɴᴏᴡ

The sun was different, the morning after. It was still dim enough to allow the Cullens to walk freely, but it burned abnormally as if the tips of its flames were coated with frost, giving a blue-tinted light to the trees and winding roads of Forks. But perhaps it was me that was different. Everything felt wrong in some way or another after I'd stepped out that morning, still shaking myself off from both the events of the previous night and the contents of the memories that had chosen to wash over me early in the morning.

I'd taken to calling it a daymare- the thoughts that clung to the back of my mind, clouding my vision and plaguing me without the need of sleep. It was a meagre name for a dull thing. Though that night, it wasn't the moon or the shivering touch of beautiful hands, or my place in the woods that took up my dream-like state.

Instead, it was William: the mere glance of his blood-red eyes and snapping teeth made me shake with fear. In my daymare, he sought me out from among the autumn trees, slipping his gaze toward the shrubs in front of me. In the next moment, I could hear his laugh, his hands trailing over me, nails scratching the surface of my skin as if it were glass. The last thing I saw, before I came back to reality, was his face, cruel and frightening by the sheer twist of his nose and lips and the glare on his eyes.

Though I'd managed to slip away from the memory of whatever it was that I'd seen, William followed me still- I couldn't shake him from my thoughts, no matter how much I yearned to. When I pulled up to school, he was there on the school steps, gazing around him hungrily like a fox in a chicken coop. In lessons, he appeared by windows, peaking through, finger tapping rhythmically. I almost expected it to break. Then lastly, in the cafeteria, he stood by our table, eyes finally leaving me to roam over the faces of my friends- Jess, Mike... Bella. He always stayed with Bella.

I'd been so preoccupied that I'd almost forgot about the previous evening entirely. Bella looked as if she hadn't had a moment of sleep over the night: her eyes were dark, chin slumped against her knuckles and arm held lazily toward her chest. Edward appeared to give her no solace. There was something off within his expression. His eyebrows were drawn together, hovering darkly over his inky eyes, like storm clouds over a thrashing, shaded ocean. He didn't sit right against her either, instead, he kept his distance, gaze downcast toward the table or to the fog that drifted toward the windows.

"You alright?" Bella asked as I sat down beside them. There were a few greetings from Jessica and the rest at the other end of the table, but the line between us remained as it always had.

I felt guilty about Bella's question. I was not the one who had shed blood the previous night, almost being pounced upon by a starved vampire. It should have been me who was asking the question.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "But how are you, are you alright?"

Instead of answering, Bella ignored my question completely. "You may have insane beauty and strength and the gift of hiding or something, but the look on your face says enough," she said, playing it off with a joking tone and a chuckle.

I didn't smile.

"Bad dream, is all," I said.

"Vampires can't sleep?" she exclaimed. From beside her, Edward didn't stir.

"No, we can't. Doesn't seem to stop the bad memories and thoughts from popping up though."

We went back to the silence that id joined upon coming. I expected Bella to turn straight to Edward and begin their conversation again, but she didn't- she just sat and stared awkwardly at her fingers, lips chewed and gnawed. I knew Edward didn't feel comfortable around me just let, but it was not enough to avoid Bella because of it. Something very was off.

Energy had betrayed me long since this morning, and so I avoided the struggle to find a conversation when they were in such a state. Instead, I waited for Alice. She would know what to do or what to say- she always did. I had to tell her about my memories too. They were practically bursting to be said out loud, and she was the only person who remotely knew off my past and of William.

Alice was always early to the lunch table. She said it was because she liked to be precise, but I felt it had something to do with the fact that she hated the idea of my and Edward sitting together without her being there to chaperone. Despite her love of punctuality, however, Alice did not show. At all. It wasn't until the end of the lunch break, that I began to be wary.

Bella and Edward stood from the table, waiting until Jessica and the rest of the group left before they began to head toward our joint lesson- biology. I didn't bother to go straight to Bella, by the look on her face, I knew she had no idea as to where Alice was either. Instead, I caught Edward by the wrist, hand moving carelessly like a blur to gather his attention.

"Edward!" I called, watching as his eyes flickered down in confusion to my hand. I spoke softly. "Where's Alice?"

His lips were pursed, as I'd he'd been waiting for me to ask that very question. "She's with Jasper."

"Are they alright?" I asked, glancing to Bella behind. She was equally as solemn.

"He's gone away for a while."

"What? With Alice? Where?" I asked, not as quickly as I should have.

"I couldn't tell you. She tried to convince him to go to Denali."

I nodded slowly, turning around with a brief wave of my hand.

Bella's voice floated to my ear. "Elide?"

"I think I'm going to head home early. I'll see you tomorrow."

The next day, Alice wasn't in school again. Though I wished for nothing more than to just be able to talk to her again, I knew it would be a while before she would return from her break with jasper, given all he'd been through. On another note, I supposed it was simply me getting a taste of my own medicine, as they say. How long had I stayed absent during the summer? I wondered if Alice had handled it as badly as I did.

"Hey, Jess?" Bella called from across the table.

"What's up, Bella?"

"Could you do me a favour? My mom wants me to get some pictures of my friends for a scrapbook. Can you take some pictures?" she asked, digging in her bag and retrieving a camera.

"Sure."

Jess grinned as she shuffled around the table, leaning over chairs and shoulders as she clicked away. Bella almost groaned as she turned to her, taking another flash of the camera.

"Bella lean next to Elide!"

I did as she said, feeling as Bella's shoulders sagged with relief as the attention of both Jess and the camera was then shared between two. I smiled, keeping my eyes open as Jessica quickly snapped a photo before Bella could change her mind.

"Mind if I have a copy of that one?" I asked.

"Of course not! I'll get them developed tonight."

Jessica turned, holding the camera between two hands. "Oh, I think we used all of your film."

"That's okay, I got a picture of everything else I wanted."

The next day after school, William followed me all the way to the Cullens home. He didn't follow me, fo course. It was some weird part of my memories that had decided to plague me with his existence for the past three days. But even if he wasn't real, it still bothered me enough to make me flinch each time he flashed in the corner of my eye.

The driveway held the same unearthly silence as it always did, as I walked up to it slowly, expecting to see Edward's Volvo parked near the front steps, Bella lingering near the glass windows. But as I stepped up to the front door, ignoring my reflection in the glass, I listened properly. The quietness was different- stale, barren and cold.

My hand dropped down from where I'd knocked against the wood. There was no answer.

I didn't know what had made me think that showing up at the Cullens was a good idea but seeing the emptiness through the windows, I began to worry. Running around, I stopped outside of Alice's room, gazing through the window, which was open by an inch. The books were still stacked along the shelf, the tarot cards in their place at the end, and everything else I'd seen the other day was in place. Except for the wardrobe. The door was swung open, the rails bare of the piles of clothes that were only there the other day.

I told myself that there had to be a reason, that Alice always needed all the options for clothes, even if she was only away for a couple of weeks or so. But I was kidding myself- I'd never seen Alice wear the same thing twice and the rest of the house was as barren as her wardrobe.

I found myself to be moving through the woods before I'd even made up my mind toward where I was going. Bella had to know something, anything- it didn't matter what. But as I slowed down near her house, my worry bubbled further until all I could force myself to concentrate on was the numerous heat beats that echoed from the driveway.

"Charlie!" I shouted, spotting him by the front door of his house, behind many bustling heads. He's insisted Alice and I called him that after we'd spent the weeks Bella had her cast on, helping her do everything. "Charlie!"

"What's going on?"

"Elide? Oh God," he said, placing a hand over his forehead. "Bella's missing."

"What?" My eyes widened- after what I'd just seen at the Cullens...

"She went into the woods with Edward and never came back."

"With Edward?" He nodded, face crumpling with fear.

I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It'll be alright, Charlie. We'll find her. I'll go help search."

He shook his head. "You can't. It's not safe for you young ones out there. I don't want what happened to Bella to happen to you too."

I was already moving away before he could try to stop me.

'It's fine Charlie. I'll look for her. I think I know where to start."

It was almost as if the forest knew what had happened before I did. The trees held their breath, suffocating the bitter air until the birds no longer sang and the branches no longer shook their coats of leaves. I ran until I heard it: the sound of Bella's heartbeat, so distinct and memorable from the time I'd spent with her. But there was another voice too... I slowed into a walk, staying far enough away that no one would see.

"Bella, my name is Sam Uley," the voice said as I rounded a tree, the two of them directly in eyesight. "Charlie sent me to look for you."

Sam Uley. I remembered him faintly from the beach day on La Push, but all of my memories from the trip were tainted and fogged by the memory of the smell. It pained my nose then, just as something did now. I felt nauseous- something I hadn't felt since being human. But I supposed it was something else; my body's way of warning me to run. Everything about the smell repulsed me.

I didn't dare to step forward. Sam Uley had been at the beach. I watched him move, his feet bare and darkly tanned chest shining with sweat, also without a top. The way he gazed out into the woods as he bent to pick up Bella nerved me like nothing else. It was as if he could see through things- see into the very things that they were. I pleaded he wouldn't turn to me, something within me knew he would see me, even from that great distance.

The smell prickled my nose again. That horrid smell warning me to run. The source of it was at the tip of my tongue, the top of my tongue. Alice must have said something once, even if it was just a passing comment. Sam stretched out, holding Bella's limp body in his arms as if her weight was equal to that of a feather, and then he was off, trekking through the trees with a swift, unwavering speed.

Wolf. The name echoed through my thoughts. Sam Uley was a wolf.

☾
𝐼𝑚 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑝𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒- 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚? 𝑥𝑥