Another school year was ending and Alex couldn't be more glad. She could finally take a long vacation and she was going to spend it with Jasper no doubt. But first she had to go through a few more weeks. A few more weeks of exams, containing her blood lust - which had gotten worse since Italy - and of course, the looks. The looks filled with pity.
"Do we have to?" Alex sighs as she looks at the table in the far back where Edward and Bella had joined Bella's old crew.
"We would like to appear normal, no?" Jasper asks her and she sighs once again. More deeply. Alice jumps beside her.
"This will be great." She had been wanting to interact with the humans when they first came and finally they got around to it.
Jessica is busy addressing a pile of note card envelopes. Mike writes what he's saying on a legal pad.
"My fellow student. We are the future. Anything possible if we just believe, blah, blah, blah." He rips the page off before handing it to Jessica.
"Yes, this will be my speech. if I want people to throw their diplomas at my head." She crumples the paper and tosses it at him.
"Ya gotta embrace the cliches, Jess."
"They are the bread and butter of all valedictorians." Eric agrees.
"This is why you're not valedictorian." Eric looks at Angela with narrow eyes before smiling.
"I chose to exit the political arena to spend more time with my family."
"Jess doesn't need clichés. She's gonna rock that speech." Bella encourages.
"Rock? It'll change lives." Jessica smirks at all of them.
Alice, Jasper and Alex appear, carrying trays of food.
"I've decided to throw a party." Alice says before Jasper adds the rest.
"After all, how many times will we graduate high school?" Edward stifles a smile.
"A party?" Angela asks. "At your house?"
"Whoa. I 've never seen your house."
"No one's ever seen their house." Eric mutters to Jessica.
"I have." Alex shrugs but she gets ignored, just the way she likes.
"Another party, Alice?" Edward asks and Alice smiles at him.
"It'll be fun."
"That's what you said last time." Alex wiggles uncomfortably in her chair at Bella's comment and Jasper grabs her hand. He wasn't going anywhere.
Suddenly, Alice freezes, her eyes glazing over. She's having a vision. Mike hasn't noticed yet.
"Well, cool, that's really uh normal of you. What time?" Alice doesn't reply. "Dress code?" It stays silent for another minute. "Bring anything? Cheetos?" Alice still looks into the distance. Bella looks at Edward, concerned. Edward shrugs it off nothing to worry about.
"Wake up, Alice." Edward softly says.
"She hasn't been getting much sleep lately. Senior jitters." Jasper fluently says and though everyone looks a little confused, it serves to break the moment.
•
"No. That's not what's bothering him." Edward says as he looks at Charlie. It wasn't that he was spending time with Bella. "Those people. Their son has gone missing." Bella can read their feelings on Edward's face.
"Do you know something about this?"
"Seattle. Unexplained disappearances, killings. We've been tracking it for a while."
"Really? You think..."
Edward nods. "Our kind generally stick to victims who won't be missed. Or they move on quickly. But whoever's in Seattle isn't playing by the rules."
"You said that if vampires kill too conspicuously, the Volturi step in." She looks at Edward. "But if they go to Seattle, they could come up here, see I'm still human." He turns to her, reassuring.
"We won't let it get that far. We'll protect you, whatever it takes."
•
"Do we have to?" Alex mutters towards Jasper and he hums. "Well, let's kill her then." She sighs. She could do with some killing.
The Cullens and Alex stand in the woods, waiting for Victoria to show up. Everyone - minus Edward - had been waiting for this moment. He had taken Bella to see her mother. A dumb idea if you asked Alex, it would be sunny out there.
Alice her eyes glaze over, intently watching something in her mind. The woods are all mist and shadows. Everyone is standing around her, waiting for her signal.
"You're sure this is where you saw her?" Alice nods at Jasper.
"She's almost here."
Female boots make their way through the muddy forest. They falter and slow down to a stop. Victoria takes a breath before bolting in the other direction.
"On your left!" Emmett runs to his left, Rosalie right behind him and Alex follows them. Jasper and Carlisle go wide, looking to cut Victoria off, Esme and Alice following up the rear.
Victoria races through the trees, tense but not afraid. Escaping is what she's good at. She reaches a ravine but she doesn't break stride and just leaps across it. Carlisle pulls up short and yells to Emmett and Rosalie.
"Wait! She's in their territory."
"She'll get away."
"No she won't!" Jasper yells as Alex jumps over the ravine in pursuit of the red headed vampire. Three giant wolves leap beside her and the four of them chase after Victoria.
The Cullens keep an eye on her and run along with them on their side of the ravine.
Victoria leaps back over. Emmett grabs hold of her shoulder and hair. They roll over and Victoria uses the momentum to her advantage and flings Emmett off over her into a tree. She takes the split second he's down to leap back over to the wolf territory and keeps running. Emmett is pissed and Esme tries to warn him but Emmett sees red. He flies over the ravine. The second his feet hit the other side, Paul in wolf form turns to face him. There's a moment of standoff.
It would be simple enough for Emmett to defuse the situation by jumping back but that's not his style. Paul growls loudly but that just makes Emmett smile.
Victoria is at a safe distance now. She slows, looks back, surprised to see what's happening. She studies the conflict with curiosity, her mindworking.
Paul and Emmett charge at each other but Alex is quicker and pushes both the wolf and the vampire to their own territory.
"She got away." She angrily snarls at the two before shaking her head and marching home.
Normally I don't do dedications but this one right here has been commenting like crazy and giving me some real good vibes so here ya go!
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Sign Of The Times || Jasper Hale
General FictionStarted: 08-12-2020 Finished: 05-07-2022 Every now and then paintings of a world famous artist would show up. No one had actually seen her in person but all the paintings were true to the first one. The woman who started making them hundreds of year...
