Darkness Will Come to Light [1]

XLV. Running Away

Jeremy Jackson loomed in his stepdaughter's vision. He grinned, which exposed rows of sharp, pointy teeth. His red eyes glared at Mel menacingly.

There was a splintering sound. Jeremy lifted a jagged piece of wood like a bat. He swung it towards her curled body.

Mel flinched hard enough in reaction to her dream to wake herself up. She took a deep breath to calm herself before she blinked slowly to get used to the dim lighting in the hotel living room. Alice was standing by the curtain-covered window with her hands gripping the edge of the wooden desk tightly with both hands.

Bella came out of her room and left the door open, basking the living room and kitchen with light. Mel yanked her phone close to her face to check the time. 2 AM. She frowned and tucked her phone back under her pillow with her glasses.

"Alice?" Bella called softly, as to not wake up Mel who she thought was still asleep.

Alice didn't react when Bella called her name. Her head was slowly rocking side to side with blank, dazed eyes. She was having a vision.

Bella hurried across the room to her side, reaching out to touch her frozen hand.

"Alice!" Jasper's voice whipped, and then he was right behind her, his hands curling over hers, loosening them from their vice grip on the table. Across the room, the door swung shut with a low click. Mel's heart jumped in surprise.

"What is it?" he demanded.

Alice turned her face into her husband's chest. "Bella," she mumbled.

"I'm right here," Bella replied.
But Alice hadn't been searching for Bella; she was answering Jasper's question.

"What did you see?" Bella said. There was no question in her suddenly flat, uncaring voice, and Mel knew something was up.

A tranquil atmosphere settled around the room as Jasper looked between Alice and Bella. Mel fought against her closing eyes.

"Nothing, really," Alice answered finally, her voice remarkably calm and convincing. "Just the same room as before."

Bella left to take a shower. The sound of running water filled the quiet air. Alice and Jasper spoke in whispers, so Mel was not able to hear that they were doing something wrong, that they were going to fail...

~*~

"Where are you going?"

Bella forgot about Melaina, but Mel had been watching Bella fall apart at the seams since that morning.

"Uh...bathroom?" Bella couldn't lie to save her life.

"A bathroom outside our room?" Melaina smirked. "You're going outside, aren't you?"

"I need some fresh air."

"Take me or I tell."

Bella pursed her lips as she contemplated. "Fine, but it's risky."

"I just want to get out of here. Please."

"Alice and Jasper will kill you if James doesn't first."

"I guess we'll be dying together then."

~*~

Escaping from two overprotective vampires should have been more difficult.

The suite hotel room was located on the third floor by a set of stairs. Alice went down to the lobby to check them out and pay while Jasper ran down to the dining hall to bring back breakfast for the humans.

Instead of taking the elevator that would lead to the main lobby, Bella and Mel hurried down two flights of stairs. Beside the first-floor door to the steps, there was a side door to go outside into a parking lot.

Bella stepped out into the hallway first and glanced towards the lobby. She waved Mel forward when she saw no sign of any Cullens.

Just as Mel was opening her mouth to ask a question about the plan, Bella shook her head aggressively. She pointed to her ear and then in the general direction of Alice and Jasper. Mel nodded in realization that the vampires would easily recognize their voices.

Without wasting any more time, Bella and Mel left the hotel through the side door. Bella signaled for a taxi as Mel watched in interest.

~*~

In her eagerness to get away from the hotel of claustrophobia, Melaina followed Bella without hesitation into the waiting yellow taxi.

Bella rattled off an address to the cab driver. "We need to get there as soon as possible."

"That's in Scottsdale," he complained in a gruff voice.

Bella tossed four twenty-dollar bills of the seat at him. "Will that be enough?"

"Sure, kid, no problem."

Bella sat back in the seat with her arms crossed. In contrast, Mel nestled into the faded leather with a satisfied smile.

"What?" Bella muttered.

"I've never been in a taxi before," Mel explained. "But it's exactly how I imagined it to be from what I've seen on TV."

The knowledgeable driver smoked in the car as he weaved through vehicles and pedestrians on the busy Arizona road. He babbled on about town gossip and the decline of people needing taxis with all the new advancements coming out in the world. His rough voice made him seem twenty years older than he probably was.

Mel breathed in the cigarette smoke and cologne and nodded to herself as she stared out the window. At least Hollywood got one thing right.

~*~

Squeezing what could have been a twenty-minute conversation during the drive into a two-minute blurb of details, Bella finally filled Melaina in on the real plan of action when they arrived at a brightly painted house. 5821.

Apparently, the hunter had Bella's mother, Renee, held hostage. The message Bella left only set everything in motion for James.

Bella unlocked the front door with a key from under the eave and ran into the house with Mel hot on her heels. Flicking on the kitchen light, Bella spotted a number written in neat handwriting on the whiteboard.

"James. He was really here."

Mel and Bella exchanged anxious looks. Bella dialed the phone, messing up numbers as her fingers tripped over themselves. She had to start again.

Only a moment passed before he must have answered, because Bella blurted, "Is my mom alright?"

James responded in a light, easy tone. He asked if she was alone.

"I brought my sister," Bella lied quickly.

"Tsk, tsk, Bella. I told you to come alone. Poor mommy will have to pay for that--"

"No! No, please. She's just worried about our mom, like I am."

Mel was impressed by Bella's surprisingly quick thinking; she really must have been out of it to be able to throw a story together so fast. Maybe she thought of it in the cab, which was an explanation that made more sense to Mel. Bella didn't seem like one to easily think on her feet.

James asked if Bella's "sister" was human. "Yes."

Bella listened a moment and then hung up. "We have to get to the studio where I took classes. My mom's there."

They took off down the road in the late morning heat.