Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ The Fragrance of the Perfect Lie ❯ Light/Dark ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Bella tried to act as normal as possible for Charlie’s sake – she didn’t want to worry Charlie with her strange dreams. Unfortunately, she knew it would be fruitless to worry over these troubling dreams in school, especially since she wanted to ‘repair’ her relationship with the Cullens without giving them the impression that she ignores people on a regular basis. Charlie’s last few words, which suspiciously sounded like ‘wolf problem’, pulled her out of her hazy daydream and back into reality.

“What did you say?” she struggled to mask the panic in her voice and keep a casual, disinterested frown on her face.

“It looks like a couple of wolves had escaped from a local zoo. The news said to keep out of the woods until they gather them up again,” Charlie explained using a cool and collect tone, which he only used when he was warning her about something extremely dangerous. “I want you to promise me you won’t go hiking around here until they collect the wolves.”

“I promise I won’t go hiking around here at all,” she replied with a solemn look in her eyes. Truthfully, she didn’t know if she would be able to keep this promise. Her dream-self had been a ‘danger magnet’ and she had a foreboding feeling she would get into some kind of trouble, too. A shot of fear for herself and Charlie tingled through her system; she could very well be dealing with something even deadlier than a vampire from her dreams and not even know about it. She swallowed back her fears, and managed to tell Charlie to "Have a good day at work."

Charlie dumped his dishes in the sink and called a ‘good-bye’ behind him as he left the house. She quickly stumbled upstairs to her room to get dressed into a cozy outfit and collect her backpack. After hastily gulping down a bowl of corn flakes, she left the bowl in the sink and carefully marched towards her rusty Chevy. The fact that a light veil of snow coated the ground and her car left her with a queasy feeling in her stomach. The engine stuttered and after a few more tries, the ignition flared the engine into a deafening roar.

As she finally reached Fork High’s student parking lot, she became extremely aware of the other students’ – especially Tyler’s – cars and their proximity to her own. She gave a slight shudder at the thought of dealing with Tyler’s oncoming van once again without dream-Edward there to save her. After she parked the car, she gingerly placed her right foot on the slick ground. She took a deep breath, placed her other foot next to her right foot, and pushed herself out of the Chevy. She gave a squeal of surprise as her feet gave out under her and she landed on her behind. Her face burned as she stood up and supported her weight against the door. She could immediately tell that this was not going to be one of her luckier days.

Her words undoubtedly came back to haunt her, and every little thing she seemed to do went wrong for the rest of the day. During English, the ink from her pen started to bleed on her jeans, and she missed the first fifteen minutes of her next class, trying to wash the stain out. Later on, she happened to greet Edward in the hallway and trip over her own feet in the process. This is not my day, she silently fumed to herself as she walked with Jessica to the cafeteria. Her mouth slightly opened in surprise as she turned her gaze on her usual table – there was Edward, Alice, Emmett, and Jasper, laughing and eating among her other friends like they had always sat there.

Her eyes tightened in the teensiest fraction in suspicion at this arrangement. Why were the Cullens sitting at Jessica’s table now, when they didn’t on Bella’s first day of Forks High? A new revelation dawned in her mind and settled into her suspicious thoughts as she tried to come up with a rational conclusion. I think that Edward and Jessica are having relationship issues. She couldn’t believe how occupied her mind had been, when the clues were right under her nose the whole time. She carefully observed them both from the corners of her eyes during the whole lunch period.

If one was observant enough, it was obvious how strained their relationship actually turned out to be. Edward and Jessica sat close to their other neighbors and their movements were slightly stiff when they were in close contact to each other. She also noticed the hard glints in their eyes, and how they gritted their teeth as they forced small talk upon one another. Maybe they just had a fight? I wonder what happened…her train of thought was interrupted by Mike’s announcement.

“Hey guys, I think we should plan a trip to the La Push Ocean Park in a few weeks. It’d be the perfect time to go,” said Mike as he gave Bella a wink. “What do you think?” He gazed at the rest of them with plain excitement glowing on his facial expressions.

“It sounds like a great idea!” Alice piped up. The rest of the table chimed in and eagerly agreed with Alice.

Bella’s heart skipped a beat when Mike mentioned the La Push reservation. She had completely forgotten about Jacob and Sam Uley’s pack. She tried to fit the missing pieces of the mysterious puzzle together – since the Cullens turned out to be human, would the Quileute tribe turn out to be human too? Or would they still be werewolves? A pressure grew against her skull and she could feel a headache on its way. She was sorely tempted to raise her fist against the sky and scream, “Why, oh why can’t I live a normal life just like the other six billion human beings on this planet? What makes me so different from the others?” Instead, she ignored these thoughts, and concentrated on finishing her chicken burger and her bottle of lemonade.

As inevitable as it was, the bell rang once again and forced her to concentrate on her next class, Biology.

The rest of the school day went by in an alarming blur, and left Bella lightheaded. Jumbled thoughts of her future relationships with Edward and Jacob occupied her mind as her Chevy groaned its way back home. Once she arrived back to her house, she busied herself with making a light dinner. Charlie arrived a little later than expected and they slowly enjoyed their silent meal. After she cleaned the dishes, Charlie flopped himself onto his arm chair and asked her to join him in the living room.

Bella raised an eyebrow in confusion at this request – what could possibly be on TV that Charlie would want to show her? She drifted to the sofa and attentively listened to the current program. It was the nightly news channel, which showed pictures of the escaped wolves and strange information about these particular wolves. Her eyes widened in horror at these pictures; these wolves looked like freakishly mutated mammals that were as big as horses.

No, it can’t be true, she thought as her composure became absolutely still and her mouth froze into an “o” figure. The horrifying truth which had cleverly veiled itself became exposed – this world truly held mythical creatures such as werewolves. And since werewolves can’t exist without vampires and vice versa, well, you get the idea. Uncontrollable giggles escaped her throat and warned her of how close she was to a possible breakdown.

“What’s so funny?” Charlie asked as a cautious frown formed on his face.

“Are those wolves really wolves? I mean, look at how ridiculous they are. They don't even look like wolves,” Bella tried to joke in an animated manner, and she raised her arms in the air to exaggerate the effect. “Are they even from America?”

“Well…the news said that they’re a new breed that came from Canada and scientists wanted to test them here,” Charlie replied as his frown lessened a little bit. “They do look pretty huge for wolves. See, Bella, I wasn’t joking around when I said it would be a dangerous idea to hike in these woods.”

Bella nodded and ignored this supposed “information” from the news. She knew that the news station had no idea whatsoever of what these monstrous beings were, and they only made up these lies to safely warn the public. The only problem was the question of what officials would do next. These wolves could very well be Sam Uley’s pack and it would be her fault if any harm came to them.

“Good-night, Dad.” she said as she stumbled upstairs to her room to gather pajamas to wear after she took a quick shower.

She was determined to find out any necessary information from dream-Edward tonight. Maybe he would explain his warning from last night’s dream and tell her the identities of the “escaped” werewolves. This extreme determination prevented her from drifting into sleep as easily as usual, but she didn’t take any medicine to solve this problem. Instead, she let her memories of her meadow drown out all of her other worries and she could almost feel the breezy, electrical shock that her and dream-Edward had shared.

Bella found herself surrounded by the Cullens’ living room with only Alice there to greet her. She gave a little scream of surprise and hugged Alice with all of her feeble strength.

“Alice, you do not know how good it is to see you again!” She stopped to notice Alice’s blank expression. Alice turned her focus to Bella and continued to stare at her with blank eyes.

“Things are not always as they seem to be. Take heed of this warning or else you will find yourself facing Death with no escape,” Bella had to strain her ears to hear Alice’s quiet warning.

“Listen to what Alice has to say, she’s speaking the truth!” Esme appeared before her and she took Bella’s hands into her own. “The safest thing for you and Charlie is to leave here and Forks forever! Please Bella, believe in what we’re telling you.” Her golden gaze was filled with pure concern and love.

Dream-Alice and Esme’s warnings faintly echoed in her dreams until she felt a light grip on her arm. The hands started to shake her a little and she recognized Charlie’s voice whispering in her ear, “Wake up Bella, or else you’ll be late for school.” Her eyes flew open and she saw Charlie closing the door behind him.

She gave a moan of frustration and punched her pillows in response to her latest dream. “Why are these dreams becoming more and more strange?” she muttered to herself in exasperation. It was never going to end, was it? She thought about the chilling truth to these words, but instead of knowing it was Victoria hunting her down this time, she had no clue of what was after her this very moment.