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"Why didn't you just head back here?" Esme asked knowing that Alice had her car with her. Emmett and Rosalie had run over to Bella's house and then driven Alice's car back for her. It would have been easy for Alice to have just turned the car around and come back to their house, which Victoria wouldn't have come near. "Why try to go inside?”
Alice exhaled deeply. "I didn't pick up her scent until we were outside of the car," she admitted, looking down at her lap, knowing that Esme was wondering why she hadn't just driven away．
Bella couldn't understand why Alice seemed so upset about that and looked around at the others, but they were looking at her in surprise, as if they couldn't comprehend how her statement could be true．
"Is that weird?" Bella asked sounding confused. Victoria had been quite a ways away from them. Surely it wasn't that surprising that Alice hadn't been aware of her．
Alice closed her eyes and nodded dejectedly．
"What happened?" Bella asked softly, squeezing Alice's hand, looking up surprised a second later when she heard laughter．
Turning her head to the side Bella wasn't surprised to see that it was Rosalie．
Alice looked up at the sound as well, and shot Rosalie an absolutely withering glare, but this only seemed to amuse Rose more．
"She couldn't smell Victoria over you," Rose said calm now, her eyes trained on Bella. "A car's pretty small. You kind of take up all the smell space," she continued when Bella looked over at her perplexed. "It's like concentrated essence of Bella. Alice was in heaven," she went on, her tone indecipherable to Bella, though she suspected it was a touch mocking. "She probably wouldn't have been able to tell you her name, let alone if someone was watching.”
Bella turned to look at Alice in surprise, but Alice wasn't paying attention to her, she was staring murderously at Rosalie, muttering something under her breath that Bella couldn't hear, but which seemed to amuse Rosalie．
"You know, I don't think that's anatomically possible," Rose murmured a second later as Alice continued to stare at her. "Not even for one of us," she added smirking．
Alice growled and turned away from her, her body tense as she stared down at her lap. Bella had never seen her wound so tightly, and shot Rosalie an irritated look herself before she reached out and placed her hand on Alice's thigh, rubbing gently in an attempt to calm her．
A second after she started her soothing motions Bella felt a comforting wave wash over her, and she realized that Jasper was trying to calm Alice down as well．
"Ｈey now," Rose said, her eyes on Bella's hand as it caressed Alice's thigh. "You're not in the car, anymore," she continued, her eyes twinkling with mirth. "Let's keep things PG.”
Emmett looked at Bella's hand and then over at Rose. Ｈe straightened in his chair, suddenly looking interested, as if he could detect something sexy in the air. "What happened in the car?”
Rose smiled widely and leaned over, whispering something to him. Emmett's eyes widened as she spoke, and then he looked between Bella and Alice, and grinned broadly．
"It's not true!" Bella said immediately, hating to even contemplate what horribly sexual images were flashing through Emmett's brain courtesy of Rosalie's big mouth．
Rose looked at her smugly, "You don't even know what I said.”
"It's probably not true," Bella muttered, averting her eyes as she remembered that Rosalie was present that evening that she and Alice had been making out in the car and that whatever Rosalie had muttered to Emmett probably was true, and had to do with the aroused state she had been in when she had entered the house that night．
"It's okay Bella," Rose said soothingly. "People are allowed to have fetishes. It doesn't mean you're a bad person.”
Bella looked up at her sharply, sputtering indignantly, but before she could form a coherent sentence, Esme spoke, glaring at Rosalie as she did．
"Rose, that's enough," Esme said, looking more miffed than Bella had ever seen her. "You're ninety-one years old. Try to exercise a bit of maturity.”
Rosalie stared at Esme for a second, and for a second Bella thought that Rose was going to backtalk, but the blonde turned away and kept her mouth closed．
Bella smirked, gloating at Esme's victory. Rose bared her teeth at her in response, but this only made Bella smile brightly．
"Don't taunt her," Alice murmured knowing that Rosalie would put a good scare into Bella if she thought Bella was making fun of her. She wouldn't hurt her of course, but there was enough going on in their lives at the moment without Rose and Bella feuding．
Bella dropped her eyes from Rose's, and Rose – jaw clenched – angled her back towards Bella. Knowing that they were through fighting with each other for the moment, Alice took a second to breathe in deeply and then she looked around the room．
"Now that the children have calmed down," she continued, her eyes holding Rosalie's as the blonde's head whipped around to glare at her. "Can we talk about what we're going to do about Victoria?" she continued ignoring her sister's withering stare．
Alice's voice was serious and descended into a threatening hiss when she said Victoria's name, and even Rose was sobered by the gravity of words．
They were silent for a moment, thinking, but then Emmett broke the silence by slapping his hand on his thigh before standing up．
"Talk?" he repeated. Ｈis tone was rife with excitement. "What's there to talk about? Let's kill the bitch!”
To be continued …
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新章節22
Title: The Edge (Part 22 – Together We Stand）
Author: JanineFandom: TwilightPairing: Alice/BellaRating: PGDisclaimer: All characters are owned by Stephanie Meyer. I'm just borrowing them．
Summary: Now that Victoria has made a move against them, the Cullen's must decide what they are going to do about her; Rose and Bella have a serious chat．
ATTN: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I'm sorry I wasn't able to write back to everyone this time, I'm absolutely swamped in RL and barely have enough time to sleep. But I really appreciated the reviews, and the kind words of encouragement, and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you :DBella's head turned from side to side, her gaze jumping from Cullen to Cullen or Ｈale to Cullen or Ｈale to Ｈale as they talked over each other and responded to each other, and occasionally even yelled at each other．
It was chaos, utter chaos．
Bella could just barely make out the interweaving threads of the multiple conversations happening．
Ｈer head began to throb．
"You can't do it alone," Bella said leaning forward．
Ｈer comment was swallowed up by the other voices in the room, drowned out before it had even registered with any of them. Around her the Cullen's continued on as they had been before．
"You can't do it alone," Bella said again, her voice a little louder though it still didn't make a dent in their consciousness．
Bella sighed．
Even Alice who was sitting beside didn't seem to register what she was saying. Alice's eyes were on Emmett and she was glaring at him, yelling something at him in Spanish – which Bella only knew because she knew a few swear words in Spanish and swear words seemed to be all that Alice was using．
"YOU CAN'T DO IT ALONE!" Bella bellowed at the top of her lungs, her eyes squeezing shut as she concentrated on focusing every ounce of her energy into her vocal cords．
The voices around the room immediately died down, and when Bella opened her eyes she saw that everyone in the room was staring at her．
Bella tugged at her shirt, straightening it, trying to buy herself a few seconds to gather her thoughts as the Cullen's turned to stare at her curiously．
"What exactly do you mean, 'we can't do it alone'?" Carlisle asked finally．
