Charlotte

Eight: Ghosting and Vampire's?

It'd been a little over a week since we had gone to watch "Face Punch" with Jacob and Mike - honestly, I was glad that Mike had fallen ill, that film was fucking dreadful. I know Bella was trying to avoid any kind of romance, but she could've at least chosen to watch a better film. Mike had returned to school a couple days ago, looking a tad skinnier, but back to his normal self; he'd apologised to me and Bella about 50 times each, but I dismissed him. He had no reason to be sorry. As I said, he'd saved me from watching the shittest film in the land.

Bella hadn't heard from Jacob since the movie. She hadn't even been round to see him either, I don't know what was up with him. I know that Bella had called him almost everyday. I could hear her on the phone downstairs, talking to Billy up to three times a day. I felt bad for the older man.

Billy had said that Jake had mono, that he was too sick to leave the house or even pick up the phone. It made sense, the boy had been burning up when we saw him at the movie theatre. But something in my gut said that it was something else. He'd been in a foul mood that night, like something was really, really bothering him.

Bella actually agreed. She'd confessed last night that she thinks something is wrong, that he's mad at her.

"Charlotte." I looked up to find Bella awkwardly stood in my doorway, dressed in her version of active gear, and her ratty old trainers. Where is she going?

"Are you free today?"

"Yeah, why?" What did she want? She hadn't been my friend since she'd started hanging out with Jake, and now she wanted me for something.

"I was thinking about going for a hike."

"Give me 30 minutes." And, surprisingly, I was actually ready in that time. I sat in Bella's truck, wearing a brown hoodie and my usual black jeans. I also had on some scruffy brown converse - i actually think that they were originally white, but had turned brown with, well, mud. I hurriedly shoved a piece of toast in my mouth, swallowing it as Bella got the engine going.

"I saw Jacob yesterday."

"Oh? I thought he was ill, mono wasn't it?"

"He's not. He's got a tattoo, and he's grown like eight inches, and he's cut his hair."

"He's cut his hair?" I almost cried, I loved his hair so much. I wanted to run my fingers through it and play with it, and braid it for him. How dare her cut off such beautiful hair!

"Mhm, and he was stood outside shirtless. And! Get this right, he was with Sam Uley."

"Sam got to him?" Bella nodded. So he was doing what Embry did - went off sick, and then totally ghosted everyone. I don't understand it though, why would he do that?

"You think Jake was right? Sam actually runs a cult?" I asked. It'd seemed like a stupid idea when Jake said it, but now it actually seemed like a possibility. It wasn't like Jacob to just disappear like that.

We parked in this little, shitty car park at the base of the hiking trail. There was literally no one hear, and panic caused my stomach to cramp. Was this another one of Bella's stupid plans to get some kind of adrenaline high? Still, I followed her up the trail. I think we were walking for about an hour, and we'd easily strayed from the main path. It was clear that Bella knew exactly where she was going or what she was looking for, but she hadn't let me into that piece of information.

"It's here," she muttered, leading me into a clearing. It was a sad looking clearing, with the grass turning a depressing looking brown, clearly having a serious lack of nutrients. Large trees surrounded the clearing, hiding it away completely. Bella sunk to her knees, clutching at the very dead grass, clearly extremely overwhelmed.

"Bella, what's up?" I muttered, dropping to my knees besides her.

"Nothing," She muttered, standing back up, "get behind me." I followed her gaze to find a man on the opposite side of the field, staring dead at us.

"What the fuck, Bella, let's go." I muttered, tugging at her sleeve. I was not going to let that creep anywhere near me. Where had he even come from?

"Laurent?" Bella called, and it was like he teleported. In milliseconds, he'd crossed half the distance of the field. What. What the fuck? And how does Bella know him?

"I didn't expect to find you here, and you brought someone else," the guy muttered, peering at the two of us creepily, "I went to visit the Cullen's, but their house is empty. I'm surprised they left you behind, weren't you almost like... a pet of theirs?" A pet? How was Bella a pet? Was she being treated that badly by them?

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Do the Cullen's visit often?"

"Yeah, all the time. I'll tell them that you stopped by," Bella stammered out, clearly also uncomfortable by the man, despite clearly knowing him, "I probably shouldn't tell Edward." The two continued to converse, both completely ignorant to my presence. I didn't really understand what was going on, but it didn't feel right. As the conversation continued, Bella started to panic even more.

"Victoria won't be happy about me killing you, but I can't help it, you are so mouth watering. And your sister, is she your sister? Well, she smells just as good," Laurent taunted, stalking closer to us. Mouth watering? My smell? What?

And then I got it.

I glanced up at the man, to find deep, ruby red eyes staring back at me. He grinned, showing off sharp fangs, and let out a snarl. He also 'teleported' earlier.

Vampire. He was a vampire. But they didn't exist, did they? Well, clearly they did, because there was one stood right in front of me, threatening to eat me and my sister.

Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I realised that I was going to die. The vampire stalked closer to us, getting in Bella's face and playing with her hair. He's a fucking sicko.

I flinched as I heard a low growl, my eyes snapping up to the monster, but he looked just as lost as I did. I followed where both Bella and the vampire were looking, turning to look at the direction that me and Bella had come from.

I sobbed more as I spotted it - a huge, black bear. No. Wolf. It stalked out of the bushes, followed by 3 others. One was a dark, dusty grey; one was more silvery, he honestly looked like Grey; and the other was a gorgeous, russet colour. Great, I was going to be killed by a real life version of my stuffed animal. 

But the wolves didn't go for me, or Bella. They passed us, chasing the vampire.

"Come on!" Bella yelled, grabbing my arm and pulling me away. I cried the whole way home.