Chapter 5

Discovery

"I honestly can't believe it!" I exclaimed for the fifteenth time on the drive back to Forks, wondering what I'd done to Jake that was so terrible that he couldn't tell me that he was in a relationship. You would have thought I'd terribly wounded him. Well excuse me for being loyal to my boyfriend (vampire? Significant other?). Winter scoffed before settling her eyes back onto the road.

"I think you're full of crap. I know you must have done something to get Jacob as pissed-as-hell. Perhaps you led him on, then rejected his advances?" Winter's voice was dry. I couldn't stifle a laugh. Jacob, advances? Get real. But wait, he had a girlfriend now.

"If it's any consolation, his girlfriend's a pain in the ass. She's so, common."

I was surprised at this bit of prejudice. "She's Native American. Just like Jake."

"Oh no," Winter said, "Jake's something more. That girl? She's just ordinary."

"Her name's Jeannie." I said, feeling somewhat sorry for the poor girl. She didn't deserve Winter's wrath.

"Jeannie…what a name…" Winter drew her eyes back to the road—and once more I was startled by the elitist way in which she could sometimes act. Winter was an explosive force, and I hated to be in the middle of her path. With a last sigh I lay my head back onto the headrest. Sleep would have been welcomed. I awoke to the jangling of a cellular phone ringing. Winter flipped open a small silver piece of technology, the like of which I had never seem before.

"Hey." Winter said into the mouthpiece. "It's for you." She tossed it into my lap. How…?

"Hello?" I answered.

"Bella?"

"This is she," I could not identify the voice on the other end. It was female, but I couldn't recognise the tone.

"It's Alice." Again, the voice was unrecognisable, but it had to have been Alice. The voice did say so.

"How'd you find me?" I said. "This is my friend Winter's phone." The line went dead. Huh.

"Who was that?" Winter asked, removing her hands easily from the steering wheel to grasp her cellular.

"Jesus Christ, Winter, are you trying to get us both killed?" I sounded terrified, and knew it. Winter snorted. The car hadn't swerved once off the path.

"Don't be stupid. I can drive us in from here. Where to?" Winter proceeded to close her eyes and lean back in her seat, blonde hair mussing against the headrest.

I clutched the leather, hoping to come out safe. Winter opened her eyes.

"See? Safe." She held down the gas pedal. The needle on the speedometer crept up higher and higher. I could feel the hybrid protesting.

"This doesn't drive fast. You look like the type of girl who'd drive a fast car." I said, trying to make conversation as my blood pressure rose.

"I am that kind of girl. I just have a slow car." Winter laughed before lightly pressing down on the brakes. We slowed. Thank goodness.

After many more awkward conversations as well as silences, I found myself nearing my driveway. All of a sudden, my curiousity at the phone call intensified.

"Hey, Winter?" I asked, trying to send her telepathic messages to keep her eyes on the road. She stared me in the face.

"What?"

"Could you make a detour? Um, you know where the Cullen/Hales live. You could just drop me off there." Why did I assume she would know where Edward and his family resided?

"Oh your boyfriend? I think I can find my way." Smirking rather unkindly, Winter took the next left; driving into the familiar arched road, lush foliage surrounding the pathway. Sunlight through the windows dappled Winter's skin against the shadows, turning her into some kind of weirdly patterned creature.

I sucked in my cheeks as we reached the end of the road.

"That'll be three hundred and fifty three dollars. First mile's free." Winter stuck out her hand impatiently.

"Um—" I started.

"C'mon Bells! I was just joking, duh. See ya soon 'k? You have my number…Call me at home and I'll give you my cell. What's yours?" I called out the carefully memorized digits, barely exiting the car before Winter drove off. The Cullen's gate looked sinister, and I felt intimidated as I trekked down the driveway.

"Helllooo?" I called at the gate. "Heeellllooooooo?" The door opened to the foyer, creaking slightly. Why was nobody answering? I entered.

"Edward? Alice! Carlisle? Esme?" I called, trying to get some idea of who was in the house.

A rush of skin across my vision and Alice was in front of me. She must have run quickly to meet me.

"Hey Alice…" I began.

"Bella." Alice gave me a thin smile. What?

"Come here Bella." Alice extended her hand, allowing me to take it. It one quick motion I was in her arms as she raced somewhere faraway. She abruptly stopped. I looked around me, feeling dizzy. All of Edward's family was there—Edward in the centre, looking especially annoyed.

"Who, Bella, may I ask, is this?"

I looked up to see Jasper Cullen holding up a very thin, flat mini digital camera.

"What?" I asked.

"Not what, who. Who is this girl in the picture?" Jasper's voice seemed very controlled, but I was slowly starting to feel unwanted feelings of guilt creeping into me. Ugh. Powers.

I moved closer to the small device. Jasper placed it in my hands. I willed myself not to fall and break it.

Examining the screen, I saw a high-resolution photo of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a self-satisfied smirk.

"Oh, her? That's the new girl, my friend Winter. She was the one I went to Jacob Black's with."

Edward now, madder than ever. "You traveled out to La Push with this girl you could've only met at the beginning of this week! Bella—"

"What?" I asked. "What's wrong with her?"

Edward's face was pained. "Bella, this is the new girl. The one I was telling you about. The one with the smell! The one whose mind I couldn't read!" I suddenly realised the significance of his words. Edward couldn't read Winter's mind. Winter had an exceptional scent. What was going on?

"Bella," Jasper was speaking to me now, and I could feel myself incapable of any erratic behaviour. "Bella, Winter's scent—it's unlike anything we've ever smelled before. It is not a human scent. It is a scent of something with unimaginable power. Winter's scent is that of completion—satisfaction if you will. Winter's scent describes someone with the power to achieve anything they want." The conversation had once more twisted into a facet of vampirisms that I couldn't hope to understand.

"Huh?" Eloquent.

"What I meant is, that Winter is obviously extremely exceptional—not only in her smell. Edward can't read her mind. And Alice had no way of seeing this coming. We believe that Winter is from a different sphere of humans. She is impervious to the special abilities of vampires such as ourselves." Jasper was looking more intently at me. I could feel Edward's stare also burning into my face. Alice had tactfully angled her pale upper half away.

"The point is that we believe that yourself, Bella, and Winter may be similar. Extremely similar. You have already proved yourself to be unaffected by most Vampire-special powers, excepting Alice's and Jasper's. We believe—" here Edward, who had taken over the conversation, paused, "That you and Winter are not normal human beings. You both are something more."

And with this I felt a wave of anger rise up in me. I loved Edward. I know I did. But he thought I wasn't normal?

"Not normal?"

"Better than normal! Extraordinary!"

"Extraordinary?"

"Damn it Bella! I meant that you might be something special, something we can't even imagine!"

"More than human—less than human, really!" I closed my eyes and counted to ten slowly. When I reopened them, the feeling of anger intensified as I realised that Jasper (along with the rest of the Cullens) had left. Only Edward stood in front of me.

"Bella—" I couldn't take this. He was criticising me, and wasn't offering words of condolences, showers of affection, or anything. "—You know that's not what I mean." He was saying.

"Then Edward, what do you mean?"

"Bella, I don't think that you're less than human. You're a very special human, and even though I've always known that you were special, now the whole world is capable of even more fully realising that fact."

I now understand the meaning of the word angry. I wanted to take Winter's neck into my arms, and commence strangling her to death.

"So what, you're going to exhibit me?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Bella. The whole world doesn't know about vampires anyway. No, it's just strange."

"What is just strange?" I was getting antsy. Um hello? The point please?

Edward simply looked at me, and I could feel my face grow hot.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"For what?" He asked, astonished.

"I hate seeing you look like that," I replied truthfully.

"Don't you ever feel that you are the reason for any expression other than pure bliss that runs across my face." I laughed shakily. Edward pulled me into a tight embrace, and I buried my face into his chest.

We had been fighting a lot lately. I was beginning to become unnerved.

-- --

"Bella?" Charlie was talking to me.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Jacob says to stop sending him notes. His words," Charlie said hastily. I looked down.

"Oh."

"I invited Billy and him over for dinner tomorrow though. Well, Renee did, really."

"Oh."

"So um, wear something nice, okay? And, I think Jacob would really appreciate it if it were just you and he. And you know how I feel about you and Edward anyway."

"Yeah," I said.

"It's not Jacob's fault you can't ever like him the way he wants you to, not his fault—"

"Cha—Dad. Jacob has a new girlfriend. Her name is Jeannie." I gave Charlie a nice smile.

"Oh, he does, hmm?"

"Yeah," I repeated, and then left.

I entered my bedroom to find a figure perched on my bed.

I raised my eyebrows. It was Renee.

"Hi Renee," I said, giving her a brief smile.

"Oh honey, can't you call me Mom? It's so, homey."

"Mom," I corrected.

"Bella? Are you happy?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're—different than you used to be honey."

"What?" I asked.

"You used to be so much more alive. Independent. You never really had friends, not in Phoenix. And now, Charlie is telling me that you rarely speak to anyone. Well, except for your boyfriend. But when you moved—we thought it would be so much better for you."

"We?" I asked.

"Charlie and me, mostly. Phil too. You wrote all about Jessica, and Mike, and Andrea—"

"Angela," I said.

"Right. But now, you don't talk to anyone but him. Edward has become your whole world, Bella. And it hurts me to know that soon you are going to have to give him up."

I was stunned. I couldn't believe I was having this conversation with Renee. Foolish, ditsy Renee, from whom I'd only inherited pale skin and dark eyes.

"What if I don't?" I asked.

"Hmm?"

"What if I don't give him up?"

"You have to."

"Why?"

"Because he loves you."

"And what's so bad about that?" I asked.

"You love him. And—if he leaves again, you're going to die." Renee said firmly, her mouth set into a grim line. I felt hot tears gather around my eyes.

"Where were you just now?" Renee asked.

I sniffed and cast my eyes downward.

"I thought so." Renee said with a sad smile. She pushed off from the bed and left, giving me a little half wave. I shut my eyes until I heard the door close—Renee's footsteps down the hall.

I buried my nose into my pillow, spread myself across the bed, and began to cry.

---

Well, that was chapter 5. Short, I know, and I'm soooo sorry for the--wow has it been three months already?--wait, but I'd already had most of this chapter written, and decided to post the rest. This chapter is two thousand and eleven words, I think. Read and Review!

Peaches,

Anya