Past Time

11

The next night, Edward arrived at my house in his shiny Volvo. I crossed my arms over my chest. "What are you doing?"

"Bella is going to Port Angeles with friends tonight, and I'm going to keep an eye on her. She can't seem to keep herself out of trouble," Edward said. "So, I figured you could keep me company."

"Well," I thought about it for a moment. "I don't have anything else to do tonight." At least this way, I know nothing is going to happen between them.

Edward drove speedily to Port Angeles. He swerved around cars, and always knew when a cop was around thanks to his mind-reading. We finally spotted Bella later walking out of a clothes shop to go to some book store. I looked at Edward while we waited for Bella to come back out with her purchases. 

"I wonder why she wanted to go here so bad? This doesn't really seem like a place she would want to go," I pointed out.

"Who knows?" Edward said, clearly as confused as I was. 

I looked at him. "How did it go last night?"

"Fine. It was so late, and she was already asleep, so I snuck into her room to check up on her. I was only there for a minute," Edward admitted.

"Oh," I said, my voice trailing away. He was only there for a minute, so nothing happened. I was almost relieved when Bella walked out of the bookstore's doors with a bag in her hand, and her head looking down at the ground.

We followed her until she got to an alley, and Edward drove to where it led. Almost as soon as we got there, his body went rigid, and he had a feral look on his face. 

"Edward!" I said his name a few times before he looked at me with an almost crazed look in his eyes.

"We have to save her! There are guys in that alley following her!" Edward growled at me.

Before he could drive off, I quickly turned off his car. "Edward, I know you want to swoop in like some kind of hero and rip off those guys' heads, but they can't be anything that she can't handle. You're not giving her enough credit."

"We don't have time for this! They're closing in on her! I can hear their thoughts!" Edward snapped at me.

I ignored his tone and looked him dead in the eye. "You have a chance of putting us at risk, exposing us for what we are. Let me handle this."

"But you don't understand," he pleaded with me.

Ignoring him, I opened my door and slipped out. I could smell the humans, who weren't even that far from where we were parked and did my best to intervene. 

Spotting Bella, I waved at her. Noticing that the group of guys was getting too close to her for my comfort, I wondered what exactly Edward heard from their thoughts. "Bella! There you are! I was wondering where you ran off to! Everyone's waiting on us!"

The group of guys stopped to look at me, and their eyes widened in appreciation.

"I see you made some friends," I said to Bella, smiling at the group of men who appeared to be drunk.

"They're not really friends," Bella said in a small voice.

"Oh," I said, narrowing my eyes at them. "In that case, go ahead and get out of here, Bella. I'm right behind you."

Bella quickly walked ahead towards where Edward was, but before I could walk away, I felt a hand grab ahold of my arm. I looked back to see that one of the drunken men grabbed me, while the others created a circle around me. I could hear that Edward found Bella, and she was telling him that I was supposed to be behind her.

I looked the man over with a sneer. "Would you be so kind as to remove your disgusting hand from my arm?"

All the men laughed, and the one who had my arm said, "What if I don't, little girl?"

That comment spiked my temper, and I jerked my right arm from his grasp and my left hand curled into a fist to punch him in the face. He flew back and looked at me with wide eyes. Before any of the other guys could do anything, I let out a low growl. They all looked at me with scared eyes and instantly backed away from me. I let out one more low growl and walked back to Edward's car.

Edward looked at me, Bella was in the backseat. "Are you okay?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle," I told him.

"You didn't do anything, did you?" He asked me in a low voice.

"No," I lied, knowing Bella could still hear us and let Edward know through my thoughts what happened.

He nodded his head, and we got inside the car. I turned to look at Bella, who looked like nothing happened. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded her head. "How did you guys know I was there?"

Edward and I looked at each other. "We were just about to leave when we saw you going down the alley, I thought we should stop to say hi. When I walked down the alley, I never imagined you were in trouble. Right time, right place, I guess."

"I guess so," Bella echoed, looking us both over.

"So, where should we take you?" Edward asked Bella, looking at her through his rearview mirror.

She grew quiet as looked at her phone. "Oh, no! They're probably worried about me! I'm supposed to meet them at Bella Italia!"

"Don't worry, we'll get you there," Edward said, already zooming off.

We were there in less than a blink of an eye. Jessica and Angela were outside the restaurant, both looking worried. When we all exited the car, Angela ran over to Bella, Jessica strutted to us, batting her eyes at Edward.

"Bella, we were so worried about you!" Angela cried. "Are you okay?"

Bella smiled at her friend. "I'm fine. I just got...lost. I was lucky that Edward and Audrey were here, and found me."

"Looks like you're our hero," Jessica purred at Edward.

"Audrey helped, too," Edward told her.

Jessica looked at me. "Well, we already ate, or else we would invite you both to eat with us."

"Sorry Bella," Angela said apologetically to her. "Jessica just wouldn't wait for you."

"It's okay," Bella said. "I'm not that hungry anyway."

That was a lie. I heard her stomach growl in the car. "If you want, we can take you to get something to eat. We're on our way back to Forks, anyways."

"No. I mean, I can always just get something to eat when I get back home." Bella said. "Thanks though."

Jessica shrugged her shoulder. "We should get going, then."

"Jess is right," Angela told Bella. "We all should get home."

"Yeah," Bella agreed and followed the girls to where their car was parked. "I'll see you guys later."

"Bye!" I called after them.

Edward said nothing, and I looked at him. He still didn't say anything as we got inside his car. "You didn't say anything. You didn't even offer her a ride," I said to him.

"She didn't need one," he pointed out.

"I bet if I wasn't here, you would have," I said in a quiet voice.

Edward looked as if he was about to disagree with me, but decided not to. "If you didn't move here at all, then I would have. But you're here, and you're changing everything."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, I guess not." He laughed. "Want me to take you back home?"

"If you don't mind," I said.

Edward nodded his head, and we once again drove in silence. It seems like we even arrived at my house faster than we drove to Port Angeles. Before I got out of Edward's car, he stopped me.

"I like to think you changing everything, is a good thing." He told me.

I smiled at him, but said nothing and got out of his car. I can only hope my being here is a good thing.