The front door opened.
All heads turned.
Alice stepped into the Cullen house like nothing had happened but every one of her sisters saw it. The difference. The tension coiled in her shoulders. The distant glow in her eyes.
Edith set her book down, slowly.
"Where were you?" she asked, not accusatory just quiet. Direct.
Alice hesitated for a breath too long.
"Walking."
"Liar," Rosalie said from the couch without looking up.
Alice glanced at her. "Excuse me?"
"You weren't walking," Rosalie said. "You smelled like pine. And sweat. And him."
The room fell still.
Esme, seated in the armchair by the fire, looked up, her expression unreadable.
Emily narrowed her eyes, legs crossed, fingers tapping lightly on the armrest.
Jasmine, always the observer, tilted her head slightly. "You went to see him."
Alice didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
Carla, seated near the kitchen with a mug she didn't need to drink from, spoke first. "Alice…"
"I just talked to him," Alice interrupted. "Nothing happened."
Rosalie scoffed. "Nothing yet."
Edith stood. Her eyes were sharper than anyone else's in the room piercing, analytical. She took a slow step forward.
"You said you weren't interested," she said. "That he was strange. Dangerous."
"He is," Alice said. "But that doesn't mean—"
"Then why did you go to him?" Edith asked. "Alone?"
Alice looked down. Her hands clenched at her sides.
"I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
Alice met her sister's eyes. "Then what do you want me to say?"
"I want the truth," Edith said.
"I don't have the truth," Alice snapped, her voice rising.
Silence followed. Unnatural. Heavy.
"I don't know why I went," Alice continued, quieter now. "I don't know why I feel this way when I'm around him. It doesn't make sense. It's not… normal."
Emily sat forward. "He said something, didn't he?"
Alice's eyes darted toward her, just for a moment.
"What did he say?" Jasmine asked, softly.
Alice hesitated. Then:
"He said… he feels it too."
"The bond?" Carla asked.
Alice flinched.
Rosalie stood, arms crossed. "I don't believe in fate. Not like that. We're not… chosen."
"He doesn't act like he's trying to convince me," Alice said. "He doesn't need to. It's like… he already knows."
Edith stared at her for a long moment. "And you believe him?"
"I believe what I felt."
The others went silent again.
Not because they didn't believe her.
Because they felt it too.
Even if they wouldn't admit it not yet.
Rosalie paced. "This isn't right. We've survived over a century without ever feeling anything like this. And now one guy shows up and everything changes?"
"He's not just some guy," Alice murmured.
"That's what worries me," Edith said.
Esme finally spoke, voice soft but firm. "Maybe we need to understand what this is before we try to deny it."
"Or before it controls us," Emily added.
Alice looked at all of them. The confusion. The suspicion. The fear they weren't willing to name.
She felt it too.
But beneath it all… she felt him.
Even now.
Kane's voice echoed in her memory.
"You'll come back because you want to."
And he'd been right.
She had.
She would again.
Not because she was weak.
Not because he had power over her.
But because something inside her knew she belonged to him and him to her.
Even if she didn't understand it.
Yet.