I'm sorry, no updates as promised. I've been fairly busy, and I didn't take my laptop on vacation. Now I'm back in school, so I have a lot less time. But I will try to keep updating as often as time allows.

I sat in my room with my head in my hands. I mulled over the wolf Jacob's odd attraction to me, and I wondered if Edward hadn't simply been making fun of me. It was always a possibility, although I had no idea what would have made him come up with something like love on his own.

However, the subject of my thoughts distracted me momentarily by bursting into the room loudly. "The police are here!" he said quickly. "They're back to look for Charlie, apparently, since they think he's gone missing."

"Where's his body?" I asked in alarm. As much as it hurt to talk about my father's death, I knew what we would be subject to if the police found my father's body in our backyard.

"We've buried it," Edward reassured me, "But the problem lies within the bloodhounds that they've brought with them."

"Damn it," I breathed. I didn't usually swear, but I felt that the situation was tense enough that I could bend my rule a little bit. "So basically, we have no chance."

"Carlisle's afraid that they'll see us if we go and dig up his body now. Besides, they'll probably come here anyway, just to question us about it. It was probably a mistake to bury him, since that will look much more suspicious than if they found him lying on the ground. If he's buried, there's no way that his death could have been an accident."

"Why were the police here in the first place?" I asked; my curiosity piqued in spite of the seriousness of our predicament.

Edward rolled his eyes and said, "Apparently Alice stole a car a while back, and an ingenious detective managed to trace the theft back to us. That basically means that we accidentally left one of our false identity papers in the car when we returned it. But even so, our pictures were on them."

I blew out a short, irritated breath. "Alice," I muttered sourly. "Imagine the trouble you'd be in if they found me here!" I said, the horrible thought suddenly occurring to me. "My mother is probably raising hell in Phoenix, thinking that I was kidnapped.

"Don't even talk about it," said Edward, shuddering slightly. His eyes darkened noticeably. "Anyway, so the cover story we're using for Charlie is that we were out of town at the time and we had no idea what was going on. I'm fairly sure that we didn't leave any fingerprints on him, so there's really not any proof that they have against us."

"I hate this," I grumbled. "It seems like we're living such a life of secrecy and deception. I mean, I've killed someone and we're preparing to deny it to the world. It just seems morally wrong to me."

Edward paused in the doorway, looking at me with compassion in his now-softened eyes. "I know how it feels. But we don't kill people on a regular basis. In fact, we don't at all if we can avoid it. We try our best with the lot life has thrown at us. It's the best we can do."

I grimaced at his words, but brightened suddenly when a brilliant idea occurred to me. "Wait a second! What if I just forced the policemen to leave? You know, with my power? Do you think it would work?"

He had looked mildly hopeful when I had exclaimed, but then the excitement in his eyes dulled. I immediately knew that he had found the disadvantage to my plan, and waited grimly to hear the worst.

"The thing about that is…" he began hesitantly, watching me to gauge my reaction, "Well, that wouldn't shut off their minds. In fact, that would just convince them that we're even stranger than they already thought we were. I don't think that they would take very kindly to being made to leave by some unknown force. It would just expose us to the media even more."

"Oh," I said quietly, my hopes coming crashing around my ears. "I guess my plan wasn't as brilliant as I thought it was.

He looked at me intently, obviously trying to read my mental state, and said slowly, "Well, I suppose if you're really so worried about this, then we might be able to make an escape… I'd have to talk it over with Carlisle, of course. We might be able to make it out when none of them are looking…" He concentrated, thinking deeply.

"That wouldn't work either," I said gloomily. "If we left, the police would just think that we had things to hide since we never were at home. Besides, it seems a little suspicious that you're not home on the day before school starts after the weekend."

"That's true," he said, sharing my depression. We both thought about ways around the confrontation in a glum silence for a while, but as the silence told me, neither of us was getting very far.

Suddenly, Alice burst in. "The police are in the entrance hall talking to Carlisle!" she exclaimed. "They want to see the whole family for questioning. We'd all better be able to verify each others' stories, or we're all sunk!" She bounded back out, and down the stairs.

"Well, there goes our chance of escaping," I said, crestfallen. "There's no backing out now." To my surprise, Edward began to laugh at my disappointment. I scowled at him, not finding the situation one bit funny.

I dashed downstairs, almost forgetting to use human speed. Edward caught up with me easily, still laughing heartily. I ignored him stolidly, and focused carefully on the conversation going on a few staircases below us.

"Mr. Cullen, the police are under orders to search your property for a certain Charlie Swan, who disappeared a few days ago. Have you seen him recently?" a policeman that I vaguely recognized asked Carlisle.

"No, actually," said Carlisle, shaking his head. "It's upsetting that he's disappeared so suddenly. Do you have any idea why he may have vanished?"

"No," said the policeman slowly, scrutinizing Carlisle carefully, "But we're not ruling out kidnap."

All polite airs that Carlisle had put on dissolved. "Are you suggesting that we kidnapped him?" Carlisle asked, his countenance still calm. "I can assure you that we had nothing to do with his disappearance. We have never had a problem like this before, nor have we been accused of any wrongdoing! You have absolutely no basis in fact that we would be likely to kidnap Charlie Swan."

The policeman merely raised an eyebrow. "The reason Charlie was here is premise enough for us to arrest you on a few charges, and we actually were sent to," he told us. He pulled out a sheaf of papers. "We have a warrant for your arrest, having found strong evidence that your family was behind the theft of a car and also forgery of legal papers."

Carlisle said nothing. Edward and I were still watching and listening from the top of the stairs. Edward said quietly to me, "We've got no choice now. We're going to have to leave, and permanently."

"Does Carlisle know…?" I asked.

"Yes, of course," Edward told me. "He's the one who made the decision. But quickly, we've got to round up the others so we can leave. Get Rosalie and Emmett, while I tell Esme and Alice."

I nodded once in agreement, then shot off to find the couple. I located their room, and promptly forgot to brake. Before I knew it, I had crashed through the door, leaving a Bella-sized hole behind me.

"Oops," I said, glancing back sheepishly. "Sorry about your door."

Emmett, however, was not to be deterred. "What's the problem?" he asked quickly. He must have guessed that I probably wouldn't have been running at high speeds in the house unless the issue was fairly urgent.

"We have to leave now; the police are here about Charlie!" I blurted out quickly. "Carlisle's stalling them right now, but we haven't got much time!"

Rosalie's eyes widened at my declaration, and she instantly sprang up and grabbed a large duffel bag out of her closet, and began throwing clothes, shoes, and makeup in at top speed. Emmett began doing the same.

I realized that we probably wouldn't be coming back, so I dashed back out and into my new room. I opened the closet full of clothes that Alice had bought for me, and began tossing them into a bag that I had found. Once I was packed, I slung the bag over my shoulder and slid down the stairs.

Everyone was already there, waiting for me. They mostly had their bags hidden behind their bodies so that the policemen couldn't see them. We all gathered behind Carlisle, pretending to listen to the questions he was being asked, but really watching all his movements for some kind of signal.

Carlisle put one hand behind his back and held up one finger, then another, and then the last. It was obvious what we were to do: run.

All at the same time, we grabbed our bags and flew toward the door. We were out before the policemen had even noticed that we had moved. When they did, there were shouts of confusion and of frustration.

An order came from behind us, "Get them! Do whatever you deem necessary; just stop them!"

I turned my head sideways to look at Alice, whom I could barely see at the speed we were going. She rolled her eyes, and I grinned back. We were both thinking the same thing: the police had no chance whatsoever of catching us.

The forest passed by in a blur as we followed Carlisle and Esme, who were running lightly at the head of the large group.

Suddenly, they came to a screeching halt, and surprised, we all did the same. Then, the wind blew sharply against our faces, and we gagged at almost the exact same moment. A stench had reached us, one a thousand times worse than rotting eggs. I held my breath rather than inhale the horrible fetor.

I scanned the forest carefully, and picked up on the one con to running away: the werewolves. There they stood, in a large pack before us, looking menacing although they were in animal form.

Edward, obviously acting as translator again, said, "You have broken the treaty by killing Charlie Swan. You have left us no choice."

Without warning, and with a lithe gracefulness that only a vampire could match, the wolves sprang silently.

Then, my eyes lit up. I didn't know how to fight the wolves, but there was one thing I did know how to do that would help my whole family get rid of the problem.

Stop, I commanded them in my head. I focused every fiber of my concentration on forcing the wolves to halt in mid-spring. They did, and the effect was almost comical. However, I had no time to laugh, as I still had a job to do.

Go home, I ordered them, and obediently they turned and began to run off, silently. I still concentrated fiercely, for I didn't want to take any chances with the lives of the Cullens.

Once I was sure that they were gone, I turned to my family, grinning rather broadly. "I wish I'd thought of that earlier," I said, a little ruefully.

"Well, we did discuss it," said Edward reasonably. "I just didn't realize that you were so powerful. But it's no matter. Right now, we need to get out of here as fast as possible. Once we get south into Oregon, maybe we could pick up a car? It would be a lot faster in the long run."

"That would be a very good idea," Carlisle agreed. He was the only one besides Edward that didn't looked shocked at the turn of events. He motioned forward with one hand, and we all picked up our bags and prepared, yet again, to fly.

That's a good chapter-ending sentence. :) Hopefully, you're not too angry with me for leaving the wolves alive.