CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I SURPRISED EVEN MYSELF by not calling Jacob back at all for the next few days. Of course, this wasn't because I didn't want to interrogate him, but because I was trying to process the whole thing. If my suspicions were correct (and all evidence pointed to them being correct), then my friend was a… a shape-shifter running around in the woods frightening hikers.

And I wasn't sure I was prepared to handle that knowledge, especially after how I'd reacted with the whole vampire thing. I wasn't afraid of Jake, at least, not yet, but I was afraid of what he was now. And whether or not our friendship would be able to survive it. Who knew what Sam was telling him, after all. Just because there was now an explanation for anything didn't mean I suddenly trusted Uley.

Besides, I was meeting Edward today, and consequently, an anxious mess without worrying about Jake's... new problems.

Dad caught on to my nerves, and correctly assumed I was attempting to hide something from him. "I don't want you out in the woods today," he told me warningly at breakfast. It was the 18th, finally. A Sunday. "We've got a missing hiker, and with all those reports of wolves…,"

"They're probably just tourists exaggerating," I muttered offhandedly. There was no way in hell Sam and co were responsible for the missing hiker. They'd have to be insane to pull something like that, and just because I thought Sam Uley was manipulative and possibly plotting something didn't mean I thought he was a murderer.

"Bella, I'm serious." He frowned as he put on his jacket. "I know you and Jake aren't hanging out as much, but I don't want you outside wandering around like you like to do."

"Alright," I snapped, and we glowered at each other for a few moments, before I mumbled, "Sorry.", and he let it go.

Of course, as soon as he was gone, I proceeded to get ready to go out into the woods.

The snow we'd gotten had not melted, but it had iced over, and I was careful on the winding roads as I approached the long abandoned Cullen homestead. Edward had suggested it, seeing as the meadow would be extremely difficult to reach at this time of the year, at least for me. I remembered the rush- and panic- of traveling through the woods on his back, and exhaled in a mixture of regret and exasperation.

Even though my feelings were currently mixed, I still missed him. But did I really miss him, the person, or what we'd shared together? Like it or not, Ed had changed my life forever. If not for him I couldn't say for certain that I'd even be the person I was at this moment. We'd never said the dreaded 'I love you', but did I? Love him? Did I even know him well enough to love him? There was so much we'd never discussed, so much I'd passed over in the stress of the past year…

I pulled up to the house, which looked like a ghost, covered in snow, almost fading into the landscape behind it. The river below it, to the back, was no doubt frozen solid. This was a stark contrast from the house I'd last seen in September, as summer took its leave and fall began to settle in. There were no flowers on the steps. No cars in the driveway. No one inside, waiting for me.

I parked under a gnarled oak tree, already scanning the sea of white in front of me for any hint of Edward's presence- a glint of auburn hair, a quiet, snickering laugh, footprints in the snow. But there was nothing but the faint rattle of the breeze through the empty house before me. I approached the front porch, and tried the door. It was locked, of course. I peered into one of the windows, my breath fogging the glass. All I saw were shadows. I was beginning to feel like the victim of a cruel joke. Where was he?

I walked around the house twice, even sticking my head into the barn turned garage, which was completely barren. Nothing. No one was here. I was all alone. I sat in my truck and waited five, then ten minutes. Still no sign of him. Shaking my head a little, I laughed in disbelief, then started to cry. Was he really going to do this to me?

It was so cold that crying sort of hurt, and I jumped out of the truck, stalking back towards the house, and only slipping twice on the frozen ground. There was a loose panel lying on the ground, I heaved it up and threw it at the front door, which it bounced off of uselessly. I looked for some rocks, or anything I could throw, but all I came up was with snow. I chucked some at the windows, and watched the snow slide down the glass as I wiped at my stinging eyes with the back of my gloved hand. Fuck this. Fuck him.

Something shifted behind me. A deliberate cracking of a brittle twig. I whirled around, giddily excited, and came face to face not with Edward, but with an olive-skinned man in a worn out winter coat. After a moment of paralyzed shock, I put a name to the face. Although his formerly long hair was now cropped short, and he was thinner and gaunter than I remembered, some of his muscle lost, it was Laurent.

"Bella," he said, as moderately as I had always remembered him, "I'm not at all surprised to find you here."

I rocked back half a step, as instinct kicked on. Some small part of me was almost pleased to see him, as twisted proof of all that Edward and I had gone through, but the larger part of me was, if not outright terrified, certainly afraid, as if I'd just stumbled upon a grizzly.

"I thought you went to the Denalis," I said, carefully. "In Alaska."

He smiled. "For a while, yes. But I've always been a wanderer, and not even beauties like the Denali sisters could change that."

I glanced around. Of course, we were completely alone. My truck wasn't far, but there was no way I could outrun him to it, and even then…. vampires were strong. It wouldn't take much effort for him to punch through a window. Did he know the Cullens were now with the Denalis? Obviously they weren't here.

Laurent was silent for a moment, dark eyes tracking my every twitch and fidget, before speaking again. "You don't look terribly happy to see me, Bella." His tone was just shy of patronizing, but still as neutral as ever.

"Yes, well, the last time we met your friends were trying to kill me." Granted, they'd actually been after Alice, but I hadn't known that at the time. I was sure he had, however, even if he'd stayed out of it.

"Touche," he said with a small smirk, while I waited for him to get to the point. "The Cullens have abandoned their favorite human, I see."

"Oh," I said coldly. "They keep in touch."

By the way he was looking at me I could tell he was trying to decide whether I was lying or not. I kept my eyes on him, and tried not to look intimidated in the least.

"Really? I didn't pick up any of their smells," he commented.

"Why are you here?" I blurted out, narrowing my eyes.

"Well," Laurent said thoughtfully, stretching a little as if about to run a marathon, "Victoria asked me to do her a favor."

I darted away from him, towards the truck. He caught up with me very easily, spinning me off my feet and onto the frozen ground. I gasped in pain, although nothing seemed broken or hurt, beside a bruised back and bum, and scrambled away from him in the snow.

He laughed, not cruelly, but in bemusement. "You need to relax, Bella. I'm not going to kill you. After all, Victoria wants you alive."

I was busy scrabbling at the ground, looking for anything- a rock, a stick, to defend myself with, not that it would do me any good.

"It's not just you she's upset with," he continued, conversationally, "She was rather put-out with me as well, over the whole ordeal. But I've learned that an angry Victoria is not someone you want to deal with, so I think this should make amends."

He leaned down towards me, and something collided with him.

"Ya know," I distinctly heard Emmett snarled, "I hear an angry me is even worse."

I clumsily got to my feet, backing away in a panic from the blur of grunting, growling bodies, and arms wrapped around me. I shrieked and clawed at the face of whomever it was, only for them to release me. Edward looked at me, and I looked at Edward, before he bounded past me to lunge into the fray.

I wrapped my arms around myself, and this time, I got to watch as the Cullen brothers tore someone apart, and the snow ran red around them.

You dug yourself into a pretty mess that I made for you...

- The Ready Set, 'Killer'