Chasing Flame

Chapter 4

Bella awoke to the sound of noise coming from the kitchen. Bella's first thought was that of a robbery. In a sleepy panic, she threw off her sheets, barely taking note of her surroundings, and bounded towards the source of the ruckus, only to find her mother and sister making pancakes in their pajamas and singing along loudly to Elton John. Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) blaring through the speakers of the small radio almost as loud as her family members.

"Nice of you to join us, Bells." Charlie acknowledged her sister, though not bothering to turn around, as the song came to an end. Renée whipped her head to the side to find that her youngest had indeed joined them in the kitchen. "Why don't you make yourself useful and set up the griddle?" Bella glared at the back of Charlotte's head. "Why do you have to call your fiancé and cunt waffle?" She snared in retort, wrestling the griddle out of its box and onto the counter.

"I never called him a cunt waffle. I didn't say 'Hello my lovely fiancé Paul, you're a cunt waffle.' I called him Cunt Waffle, as in 'Hello Cunt Waffle, how are you today?' Learn the difference Bella, please."

"Language!" Their mother scolded in vain.

"Renée, I can't find where you put the present you wanted to give Junior here, but I did find this." Phil said as he walked over to his wife, holding a baby doll by it's foot. Charlotte gasped, nearly dropping the batter. Placing the bowl on the counter, she crossed the kitchen with a reverent expression, looking between the doll and her mother. "Is that?" She whispered. Renée simply nodded in answer.

The eldest Swan snatched the doll out of Phil's hand faster than he thought possible, cradling the battered old thing to her chest and kissing the top of it's head affectionately. "That was it, Phil." Renée said. "You wanted to give your kid an old beat up baby doll?" He questioned her sanity some days, sure, but never as much as he would in that moment. "It was mine when I was little. My grandma gave it to me when I was 3 years old." Charlotte spoke softly, holding the doll closer to her, treating it like it was a human child instead of a hunk of plastic.

Smiling fondly at Renée, Charlie, and Phil all finally getting along without incident, Bella moved the bowl of fruit and bottle of syrup to the table before starting to cook the pancakes.

Edward had known Victoria would show up this weekend, it was why he reminded Bella of the tickets he'd bought her to go see her mother in Florida- of course he had to show her the loose floorboard he'd put anything to do with him in first- in the hopes that he would go with her.

He should've known Charlotte wouldn't let that happen in a million years, even if it meant she had to go in his place. Alice had been quick to remind him that Victoria thinking Charlie's dead could prove useful later on, but he was still cross at losing an opportunity to reconnect with Bella.

Upon their arrival at the Swan family home, Bella paled before Charlotte had even turned into the driveway. A pair of motorcycles sat in the front yard. A pair of motorcycles that Charlie didn't recognize, but Bella sure did. The youngest Swan was out of the truck and pacing next to the bikes before her sister had the chance to turn Dorothy's engine off and hop out herself.

"Isabella, would you mind explaining who these bikes belong to?" Charlotte hadn't seen their dad this angry since the day she broke her hand. It was moments like this that reminded the girls he was the chief of police for a reason. "They're mine and Jake's, but Charlotte has a motorcycle and you're fine with that." Bella squeaked, trying to change the subject by placing the blame on her sister. Charlotte wasn't having it. "He knows I have a licence for it, I'm perfectly safe." Bella snorted. "Would you call marrying a werewolf safe?"

"That's rich coming from the vampire fucker!"

"I never had sex with Edward!"

"No? Well you probably wanted to. I know for a fact that you desperately wanted to be one of them, join your beloved for all eternity. Oh, and for the record, Paul's a shapeshifter, not a werewolf, but you knew that already."

"Girls? Girls. Hey!" Charlie senior yelled, both exhausted and perplexed by his daughters argument. Was he hallucinating or did they call Edward and Paul a vampire and... A werewolf? Shapeshifter? He must've been hearing them wrong. Damn ears. Damn kids. He thought they were done with the whole arguing thing when Bella came to live with him, but clearly they weren't.

His outburst had the desired effect of silencing his daughters, but not for the reason he thought. The pair had forgotten their father was present pretty quickly and he'd heard them talking about their super-secret supernatural drama. The girls looked at each other as the blood drained from their faces once more.

"Shit."