The moment he'd slid his hand under my chin to yank my head off, I'd gagged on death. Managed to gag out a plea for mercy, I seem to recall. That made the hand retreat.

Then I was being scrutinised, still just as terrified, feeling hatred bearing down on me. I couldn't believe how unfair this was.

As a human I was treated like shit, only to find myself a Red-Eyes….treated like shit and now I would die, again, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I had been for my entire life.

As least they'd make it quick - that wild-looking blonde one was ready to go.

She had scared me, Riley had scared me, the others like me had scared me, the Dark-Cloaks had scared me and these yellow-eyes fucking scared me.

Oh, and speak of the devil.

"Hmm…"

The voice sent shivers down my spine. It was the Dark-Cloak leader, the kid. This is who the Yellow-Eyes had been waiting for. But wait, weren't they, like, enemies? The Dark-Cloaks had been working with her, against the yellow-eyes.

"Welcome, Jane," said the leader, the guy with the human.

Instead of answering his slightly stiff greeting, this Jane instead turned to look at me. Her gaze felt like a punch in my granite stomach. I wanted to throw up.

"I don't understand," she said.

No, me neither.

"She has surrendered," Ginger replied.

"Surrendered?"

Surrendered?

"Carlisle gave her the option," he muttered, turning reverently to my would-be executioner, the blonde.

So-called Carlisle then stepped forward and the others almost subconsciously shuffled back to let him have the stage.

Ah, so he was the leader. Makes sense. He had expensive shoes on. Leaders usually had expensive shoes, (just an observation).

"There are no options for those who break the rules," said Jane with a kind of smirk.

"That's in your hands," said the leader, Carlisle, or whatever he called himself, in a calm voice. "As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught."

Yeah, thank you Mr Yellow-Eyes, no, she wasn't. I almost forgave him for addressing me as 'child.'

"That is irrelevant," Kiddy countered carelessly.

I think at this point my mouth must have fallen open in indignation. How was that irrelevant? I was in trouble, right? So wouldn't the first thing to do be to ask me what happened?

"As you wish," said Mr Yellow-Eyes in the same tone.

At this, Jane looked pissed off with him. And so was I. So, that was fine, right?

"Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle," said Kiddy, politely. "He sends his regards."

"I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him," Mr Yellow-Eyes replied just as courteously.

"Of course. It appears that you've done our work for us today…for the most part," said Girlie, arrogantly sweeping her eyes across me.

For the most part.

Somebody was't dead yet.

I was glad a heartbeat couldn't give away my fear at those words. I could guess who 'somebody' was.

But Kiddy continued blandly, as if she hadn't just pronounced my death sentence.

"Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there? they left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle."

I felt a slight frosting of guilt on my terrified skin,

"Eighteen, including this one," said Mr Carlisle-the-Aryan.

"Eighteen?" Jane repeated in surprise, whether real or fake I'd never know.

"All brand new," blondie continued. "They were unskilled."

His eyes raked the battlefield for a moment. Yes, yes we were.

"All?" repeated Evil-Jane. "Then who was their creator?"

Hah, like you don't know. I thought savagely.

At this, I saw the red-head stiffen. Okay, so he was the mindreader. At my revelation he shook his head ever so slightly at me. A warning.

"Her name was Victoria," he then managed to say to Jane.

"Was?" Jane asked, though needlessly.

Red-head tossed his head carelessly towards the mountains and another plume of smoke. The Yellow-Eyes had killed her.

And suddenly I was even more afraid. She had been the epitome of fear. How could anything defeat her?

"This Victoria," Kiddy continued, seeming to feel the same concern as I did. "She was in addition to the eighteen here?"

"Yes," said Ginger serenely. "She had only one other with her. He was not as young as this one here, but no older than a year."

Riley. They killed Riley!

"Twenty," breathed Kiddy.

If I didn't know any better (and I'm not sure I did) I would have thought she was panicking.

If the Yellow-Eyes killed all of our Red-Eyes, what problem would four more Red-Eyes be?

"Who dealt with their creator," she asked, careless again.

Maybe I had imagined her worry.

"I did," said the Red-head.

And enjoyed it I thought before disciplining myself. He could hear me, after all.

Ginger seemed to wig kiddy out a bit so she turned her gaze back to me.

"Your there, your name," she said.

I just glared at her.

Fuck you, Princess. I thought. You'll get nothing from me you dirty, twisted, corrupt lying whiny little motherfucker. I'll die bef-

But then the pain hit. Hit like bullet-train. I didn't know what to do. It was like the transformation into a Red-Eyes except worse somehow because I could feel the intent behind it, like Jane's hate was flowing inside me.

I guess I was screaming, I didn't really know.

"Your name," she repeated calmly after the train had passed.

"Bree," I managed to gasp.

It didn't occur to me to lie. It didn't occur to me to disobey.

And I'd given her what she asked for! But, again, the pain came, though this time it was different, this time it was for fun.

"She'll tell you everything you want to know," came a voice, warped in my own ears by agony.

I didn't know who was speaking.

"You don't have to do that."

"Oh, I know," came her voice, happy. "Bree?"

I turned to her, fearfully now, finally understanding why the other Red-and-Yellow-Eyes were scared of the Dark-Cloaks.

"Is his story true, were there twenty of you?" she asked, almost kindly.

"Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don't know!" I burst desperately. "Sara and the one whose name I don't know got in a fight on the way…"

I braced. It was coming! It was coming!

But no, Kiddy wanted to talk now.

"And this Victoria…Did she create you?" asked Kiddy, knowing damn well.

"I don't know," I said. "Riley never said her name. I didn't see that night…it was so dark and it hurt!"

I shivered involuntarily then stopped as I realised that Jane could bring that pain back again if my answer wasn't good enough (and maybe even if it was.)

"He didn't want us to be able to think of her," I stammered. "He said that our thoughts weren't safe."

Everyone turned the the mind-reader. Yes, you.

"Tell me about Riley," continued Her Majesty. "Why did he bring you here?"

Yes, why did he bring us here?

"Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange Yellow-Eyes here," I said, truthfully.

That was what he had told us.

"He said it would be easy. He said that the city was theirs, and they were coming to get us. He said once they were gone, all the blood would be ours. He gave us her scent-"

I gestured vaguely to the human.

"-He said that we would know that we had the right coven, because she would be with them. He said that whoever got her first could have her."

I didn't think I'd talked so fast in my life.

"It seems like Riley was wrong about the easy part," Kiddy laughed.

Ha ha…Fuck you.

"I don't know what happened," I continued, taking some savage pleasure in telling Kiddy exactly what she needed to have me say to the Yellow-Eyes while I told Ginger the truth in my head. "We split up, but the others never came. And Riley left us, and he didn't come to help like he promised. And then it was so confusing and everyone was in pieces. I was afraid. I wanted to run away. That one,"

I jabbed a finger at Expensive-shoes.

"Said he wouldn't hurt me if I stopped fighting."

"Ah, but that was not his gift to offer, young one," said Kiddy. "Broken rules demand a consequence."

BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THE RULES SO HOW COULD I HAVE INTENDED TO BREAK THEM? I thought frantically.

Leaving me to my turmoil, Kiddy turned to Mr Yellow-Eyes.

"Are you sure you got all of them?" Kiddy asked. "The other half that split off?"

"We split up too," said Mr Yellow-Eyes, perhaps a note of triumph colouring his smooth voice.

"I can't deny that I'm impressed," Kiddy said, though I'm sure she could deny anything she wanted with that pain of hers.

"Yes," agreed Kiddy's three hench-cronies.

"I've never seen a coven escape this magnitude of offensive intact," she said while I balked.

So, not a single Yellow-Eyes had died? That was insane.

"Do you know what was behind it?" she continued to simper. "It seems like extreme behaviour, considering the way you live here. And why was the girl the key?

She turned to the human. I stiffened. The human. Seriously, how could I actually think about blood at a time like this?

"Victoria held a grudge against Bella," Ginger told her.

Jane laughed.

"This one seems to bring out bizarrely strong reactions in our kind," she said, and I fucking agreed.

How many lives ruined or taken for this battle today?

"Would you please not do that?" snapped Ginger, breaking me out of my thoughts.

He looked from Jane to the human.

"Just checking," said Kiddy lightly, though she looked pissed. "No harm done apparently."

Ohhhhhh, so the human wasn't affected by Jane's … thingy. That was weird … and super lucky, actually.

"Well it appears that there's not much left for us to do," said Kiddy.

Yes, it certainly appears that way, doesn't it?

"Odd, we're not used to being rendered unnecessary," she said. "It's too bad we missed the fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch."

"Yes, and you were so close," said Mind-reader. "It's a shame you didn't arrive just a half-hour earlier. Perhaps then you could have fulfilled your purpose here."

I was triumphant. He knows! In your pretty face, bitch!

"Yes," she said infuriatingly. "Quite a pity how things turned out, isn't it?" she gave Mind-reader a sickly smile.

I guess she was very decidedly thinking of unicorns and rainbows.

Then she looked at me.

"Felix?" she said casually.

"Wait, we could explain the rules to the young one," said the mind-reader quickly. "She doesn't seem unwilling to learn. She didn't know what she was doing."

Yes, thank you Ginger, well said.

"Of course," said Blondie after a long meaningful look with nice Yellow-Eyes lady. "We would certainly be prepared to take responsibility for Bree."

They….they would? Why?

Actually would they? The other Yellow-Eyes blonde male was looking at me with loathing. I hated him too.

"We don't make exceptions," said Kiddy plainly. "And we don't give second chances. It's bad for our reputation. Which reminds me…"

She tuned to speak directly too the human.

"Caius will be so interested to hear that you're still human, Bella. Perhaps he'll deicide to visit."

"The date is set," said another Yellow-Eyes, the minuscule dark-haired female. "Perhaps we'll come to visit you in a few months."

So…they would make the human into a Yellow-Eyes. That was…an interesting notion.

Now Jane looked pissed off. I guessed now even she had got fed up with all of this talking.

"It was nice to meet you, Carlisle," she said, though the opposite was clearly true. "I'd thought Aro was exaggerating."

She looked loftily at the Yellow-Eyes.

"Well," she said. "Until we meet again."

She then turned and stalked away.

"Take care of that, Felix," she said without looking at the thing which was obviously me. "I want to go home."

"Don't watch," murmured mind-reader to his human.

He didn't want her to see my execution, though maybe she should have watched out of respect. It was her doing.

The big guy strode forward. He was the 'heavy'. I guess even in this weird new world the ass-holes in charge still got others to do their dirty work for them, though the kid looked like she would actually enjoy killing me.

Killing me.

I was going to die. Somehow it was worse the second time, knowing to was going to happen.

I threw my gaze a final time to the amassed Yellow-Eyes. Their expressions ranged from relief to anger to polite regret to apparent disinterest. Only one, the pretty caramel-haired female who had stood up for me showed any real remorse. But they looked down on her. I had noticed that hey barely let her fight us.

I flipped my eyes back to the individual of more pressing urgency, passing the Yellow-Eyes now. They just let him through. Just like that.

Oh, a kid dies, what a shame. We'll just pretend to be sorry then go back to whatever Yellow-Eyes like to do.

I knew what had gone down, and I knew why I was being condemned to die, but it wasn't fair. Not at all. How the fuck was I to know? I didn't even attack. Sure, yes, I killed people, but I was taken and bitten too! I was a victim here!

It was obviously just cleaner to get rid of me. Bree Tanner's death would be a convenience.

No, I was not having that. I was not going to let them have me.

So, almost with my own eyes closed, I ran.