"Where's Riley." My voice was flat, like I didn't really care, but I did. As much as it pained me to think it, I still did care about Riley.
"I don't know, honey," said the yellow-eyed woman with wavy brown hair and kind eyes. She was civil, which surprised me.
"Dead," the big one piped up. "Seth and Edward got him. They got Victoria, too."
Something in me snapped at the harsh word he spoke: dead: My Riley. The one who had held me in his arms. Told me he loved me. And gone back on that word. Dead.
Light shines through my closed eyelids. I open them, and the first thing I see are Riley's hazel eyes, open and studying me. "Good morning, my sunshine," he murmurs. His arms are around me, and his legs are intertwined with mine beneath the yellow quilt on my mother's bed.
"Hi," I breathe, groggy.
"How did you sleep?" he asks, pulling me closer.
"I liked it better when I wasn't asleep," I murmur. Riley laughs and reaches up to stroke a lock of my short dark hair, which is probably sticking up in every direction.
"So did I, Bree," he whispers. He's so close that all it takes is a bit of effort to kiss his soft, warm lips. It takes all my strength to pull away, but I know we both need to breathe.
"Very nice," I congratulate him with a grin.
"What time's your mom coming home?" Riley asks me. I try to look at the clock, but I can't without moving both of us. And I'm content to stay where I am.
"What time is it?" I wonder aloud.
"8:30," he responds.
"She'll be home at 9. We better get moving," I informed him.
"What if I don't want to?" whispers Riley. I laugh and kiss his face softly.
"I don't want to, either. Not at all. But we have to. I'm totally, totally screwed if she comes home and sees this," I say, unwillingly unwrapping my arms from around my bare back.
We stand then, and I can admire his long, lean shape, uninterrupted by unnecessary clothing. He's looking at me, too, and I can only wonder what's running through his mind.
I pull on my clothes, slowly and deliberately, watching Riley the whole time, and wondering what I had done that was so great and made me deserve him.
The tiny vampire, her red eyes glowing, glared at me. "You there. Your name."
I didn't want to tell her. I wanted to keep what was mine to myself. The girl waited. When I didn't answer, she smiled evilly, lips together. And then she burned me where I stood.
I cried out and fell to the ground, writhing under the pain that was not physical, but mental. The fire burned worse than the pain of transformation. "Mercy!" I screamed, the words garbled and hard to understand. "Mercy!"
The girl smiled again, showing teeth this time. "Your name," she repeated. The pain lifted, and I lay on the damp ground, trying to retain normality.
"Bree," I panted.
The evil girl grinned at me, and the pain flared again. I screeched out loud, wishing either to have the pain end or to die. Die, die, die.
"She'll tell you anything you want to know. You don't have to do that," said the hypnotic-voiced, bronze-haired one.
"Oh, I know," the girl replied, but the pain fell away. I gasped on the ground like a fish out of water. She looked back at me.
"Bree," she announced, saying my name like it hurt her to say. "Is his story true? Were there twenty of you?"
"Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don't know! Sara and the one whose name I don't know got in a fight on the way..." The words spilled out in a rush, and then I flinched, afraid of the awful burning returning.
"And this Victoria—did she create you?" she continued.
I shrugged, and a violent shudder ripped through me. "I don't know," I replied, cringing in fear. "Riley" —the pain of his name was almost worse than the burning the girl had given me— "never said her name. I didn't see that night. It was so dark...and it hurt..."
"Riley?" My voice is incredulous, but overjoyed. After weeks of an unexplained disappearance, it seems Riley has returned. I see the tousled blonde hair shining at me from the dark, and a huge grin spreads across my face. "Riley!" I call.
"Bree, go!" he commands. His voice is not at all how I remember. It used to be husky, rough, and wild. Now its rough edges have been smoothed out, like sanded marble.
"Where have you been?" I demand. "I've been so worried..."
"Bree, get out of here now!" Riley roars. He steps out from the shadows, and my heart nearly stops. He is not the Riley I remember, not at all. His skin, once tanned like worn leather, is pale white. His hazel eyes, which once held so much promise, were now blood red, frightening me. And he was glittering—literally like he had just rolled in a first-grader's art project.
"What's going on here?" I ask, trying not to let my voice shake.
"Bree. Go. Now. Hurry." Riley's voice is dangerous, low.
"No," I declare. "I want you to tell me what is going on. Now."
And then a third person steps out next to Riley, and my breath whooshes away. She is tall, angular, wild, beautiful; with masses of shining, quivering orange curls and eyes and skin to match Riley's. She turns to face him. "Riley, who is this?" she asks in a soprano voice that contrasts with her appearance.
"This is my old girlfriend, Bree," Riley says, sounding slightly scared. My heart shatters into a million pieces at the words "old girlfriend," and I sink to the ground with a moan.
"Bree. Bree." The woman repeats my name over and over. "Don't be so scared, little one," she says, misleading sympathy in her voice. I don't look at her. I don't look at Riley. I stare at the ground, completely devastated.
"Bree, I'm so sorry," Riley gasps to me.
"I bet you are," I mumble to my feet. "If you're so damn sorry, why did you do it?"
"Because he loves me now," the woman cuts in. And, before my bleary, red eyes, the sparkling creatures before me lean in and kiss, the way I used to kiss the beautiful, bizarre, shining man. Tears spring to my eyes, and the world blurs.
The red-haired woman breaks the kiss first, and then begins to mutter to herself. "She could be useful. Strong. Emotional, maybe, but helpful." Then she turns to Riley. "Riley. Take her. We can use her."
"No, not Bree..." Riley protests.
"Why not?" the woman asks cruelly. "Who do you love? Bree or me? Make up your mind."
Riley's crimson eyes flick from me to her and back. Then he approaches me swiftly and locks my arms behind my back in a stony, icy cold grip. "Riley!" I scream. "Riley, no, don't do this!"
Riley has no response. He pushes me at the woman, who grips my shoulder. "Goodnight, Bree," she whispers. Then, in one swift movement, she's at my neck. I feel cold, razor-sharp teeth sink into it, and at the last second, realize what is about to happen to me.
Vampire.
And then the flames begin.
I blinked, remembering where I was and trying to dissipate my sorrowful reminiscing. "He didn't want us to think of her. He said that our thoughts weren't safe..." I continue.
"Tell me about Riley," prompted the evil vampire girl. "Why did he bring you here?"
I babbled out the description. "Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here. He said it would be easy. He said that the city was theirs, and that they were coming to get us. He said that once they were gone, all the blood would be ours. He gave us her scent." I weakly pointed to the human girl in the back, huddled behind the hypnotic one. "He said we would know that we had the right coven, because she would be with them. He said whoever got to her first could have her."
"It looks like Riley was wrong about the easy part," she mused. I nodded my agreement, relieved that there didn't seem to be pain in the future.
"I don't know why this happened," I admitted. "We split up, but the others never came. And Riley left us, and...he didn't come to help like he promised." My pause was very brief, a moment of silence for my fallen once-love. "And then it was so confusing, and everybody was in pieces. I was afraid. I wanted to run away. That one said they wouldn't hurt me if I stopped fighting." I gestured to the blonde leader of the yellow-eyes at the last sentence.
"Ah, but that wasn't his gift to offer, young one," the girl told me, her voice a gentle lull now. "Broken rules demand a consequence." I gaped at her, not sure if I was really understanding what she was saying. But she looked away, toward the leader. "Are you sure you got all of them? The other half that split off?"
"We split up, too," explained the leader.
The girl smiled slightly. "I can't deny that I'm impressed. I've never seen a coven escape this magnitude of offensive intact," she marveled. "Do you know what was behind it? It seems like extreme behavior, considering the way you live here. And why was the girl the key?" Her gaze flicked to the human and back.
"Victoria held a grudge against Bella," explained the hypnotic one, the human's protector.
The girl giggled. "This one seems to bring out bizarrely strong reactions in our kind," she observed with a smile for the human, Bella.
"Would you please not do that?" Bella's protector asked suddenly. I didn't follow.
"Just checking. No harm done, apparently," she said, brushing off the subject quickly. "Well, it appears there's not much left for us to do. Odd. We're not used to being rendered unnecessary. It's too bad we missed the fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch."
"Yes," said the protector sharply. "And you were so close. It's a shame you didn't arrive a half hour earlier. Perhaps then you could have fulfilled your purpose here."
The girl glared at the protector. "Yes," she said stiffly. "Quite a pity how things turned out, isn't it?" He nodded, but it seemed to be to himself. The girl grew bored and turned to one of her black-cloaked cronies behind her, after a malevolent glare at me. "Felix?"
"Wait!" the protector exclaimed. The girl raised an eyebrow in suspicion, but the protector's gaze wasn't on her. He was glancing at the leader while he spoke. "We could explain the rules to the young one. She doesn't seem unwilling to learn. She didn't know what she was doing."
My eyes narrowed. I hated being talked about like I wasn't there. But I knew the protector was trying to do me a favor, and complaining would do nothing.
"Of course," the leader echoed. "We would certainly prepared to take responsibility for Bree."
An edge of excitement creeped into my thoughts. I might get to stay, to live?
The girl's expression told me she wasn't having it. "We don't make exceptions," she said firmly. "And we don't give second chances. It's bad for our reputation. Which reminds me..." She turned to Bella and her protector. "Caius will be so interested to learn you're still human, Bella. Perhaps he'll decide to visit."
"The date is set," said a pixie-like girl, standing with a pissed-looking blonde male. "Perhaps we'll come to visit you in a few months." This talk confused me, and obviously didn't apply, so I ignored it.
"It was nice to meet you Carlisle—I'd thought Aro was exaggerating," the girl said with a smile to the leader, apparently named Carlisle. "Well, until we meet again..."
And then the big, evil one had his arms around me, and was dragging me away, into the trees. "No. No," I whispered. "NO!" I scream out loud. I let out a shrill screech as my second chance was annihilated, and I went to join Riley.