Starless Night (A Twilight/Stranger Things Fan Fiction)

Chapter 11: Conservation

We follow the trail Alice and Bella left—car exhaust, mostly, but it's the only scent of car exhaust any of us has smelled since we arrived in this alternate reality—all the way to Illinois. Idly, as we run, I go over possible things Alice could want with Illinois—but as we followed the scent, I felt more and more sure we were not headed in the direction I thought we were headed.

Eventually, we arrived at a place that hadn't been on my list at all—a prison. The United States Penitentiary at Marion, to be exact.

From the outside, the massive facility looks worse than most of the other buildings in this world so far. I wonder why as we follow the scent through broken gate after broken gate. Some of them were obviously torn down long ago, but some of the breaks look more recent—like, maybe, the hands of a vampire had torn them down, a few days or hours ago.

"Why would she bring Bella here?" Jasper muttered, voicing the same thoughts that had been running through my head. As we got closer to the heart of the center, I could smell Bella's scent becoming more concentrated, overpowering any other scent. I was about to turn to Jasper and ask him if he could smell anything else—Bella's scent was less overpowering to him than it was to me—when we reached what I was sure was the center of the facility.

Understanding came to me in a flood. Alice had brought Bella here to protect her. To protect her from the creatures. It was genius, really; I was suddenly giddy with excitement. Bella was safe here—she must be safe here. And I was about to see her again.

This door was broken off more violently than the rest—broken off its hinges and flung across the floor. On the floor, near where the door lay, was a flashlight. All the cell doors were closed but one—a cell halfway down the hallway had its door wide open, and when I went in, Bella's scent hit me like a battering ram.

I was sure, to a human, the room would be black as pitch—but I could see it well enough. The sea of flashlights in a cardboard box, the stacks of water bottles, the boxes of cereal and the crackers and the other nonperishables, all of which smelled decades old. The cot on the side of the room, rumpled and smelling most strongly of Bella.

And Bella, nowhere in sight.

The anxiety, which had vanished while I was running, returned full force. I turned and raced back to Jasper, Emmett and Esme.

"Is Bella here?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. I felt wrong, like someone had cut a vital organ from my body—a lung, a heart. Though I really didn't need either one. "Where is she?"

Silence reigned, and the silence told me all I needed to know—no heartbeat disrupted it, no footsteps of breathing. There was no sound here. Bella was not here.

It was then that we heard it: a car. It didn't take long after that to pick up Alice's thoughts, dutiful and disappointed. She was thinking about how useless her trip to the Library of Congress had proved, but also how excited Bella would be that Alice had found some frighteningly well-preserved stale marshmallows...

It wasn't long before the car came to a stop and Alice was speeding toward us. I knew, by the tenor of her thoughts, the exact moment she picked up our scent.

Jasper's eyes widened, and I saw, in his mind, that he had recognized Alice's footsteps. Relief filled him, potent enough that it made my anxiety less uncomfortable for him. And then Alice was in the doorway, staring at the emptiness of the cell block.

Alice looked between us, then at the single open cell door. Her eyes flashed again to mine.

"Where is she?" I asked, even though I knew, by her thoughts, that she had no answer. "Where is Bella?"