Darkness Will Come to Light [1]

XLIV. But I Want a Cookie

"Do you want food?"

"No."

"Are you going to be a grump the whole time?"

"If I'm stuck in here, yes."

Alice sighed and continued to stare blankly at the TV screen.

"If you're not going to watch that..." Melaina mumbled and reached for the remote. She changed the channel to a TLC show on weddings.

Jasper and Alice sat still as statues. Bella fidgeted and paced, and it made Mel more anxious. "Bella, sit down before I make you sit down," Mel said through her teeth. Her hands were shaking, and she could feel her blood tingling in her veins. Bella sat obediently.

It didn't last long. Bella hopped up. "If you start pacing again, I will jump out a window, Isabella Swan."

Wrong things to say.

Jasper was beside her before she could take in her next breath. "You know we have to tell Carlisle every time you say somethin' like that?"

Mel clenched her fists. "Gah!" She stood. "I need to do something. I need a distraction," Mel said desperately.

Bella slunk into the bedroom and Alice followed behind her. Mel was left with Jasper in the living room.

"You could read or draw. We could play chess. You could do homework."

Melaina made a face at the empath.

Alice leapt off the bed in the room with Bella. "Something's changed." Jasper rushed from the couch and reached for the bedroom door at the same time as Alice. He led her back to the cushioned couch beside Mel.

"What do you see?" he asked intently, staring into her unfocused topaz eyes.

Alice spoke in a low, quick voice that had both Mel and Bella leaning in to hear. "I see a room. It's long, and there are mirrors everywhere. The floor is wooden. He's in the room, and he's waiting. There's gold... a gold stripe across the mirrors."

"Where is the room?"

"I don't know. Something is missing--another decision hasn't been made yet."

"How much time?" Jasper asked.

"It's soon. He'll be in the mirror room today, or maybe tomorrow. It all depends. He's waiting for something. And he's in the dark now."

Jasper's voice was calm, methodical, as he questioned her in a practiced way. "What is he doin'?"

"He's watching TV... no, he's running a VCR, in the dark, in another place."

Bella and Mel exchanged confused glances. James was in a room of mirrors and then he's watching TV?

"Can you see where he is?"

"No, it's too dark."

"I thought you could see in the dark," Mel said. Bella smacked her arm to hush her. Mel slapped her back.

"There's nothin' else?" Jasper was saying, to which Alice shook her head.

"What does it mean?"

Alice said that the tracker's plans had changed, but she couldn't see the room he was hiding in. He would elude the other Cullens on the hunt.

"Should we call?" Bella asked. The vampires exchanged looks, undecided. Then the phone rang. Alice picked up the silver phone from the table. Alice talked to Carlisle and then Bella talked to Edward.

Alice picked up a pencil, and her husband handed her a piece of hotel stationary. The seer began to sketch. Mel watched in amazement as the paper went from being blank to having a complete drawing of a long room with broken mirrors and a wooden floor.