Chapter 1: Sure As Hell Didn't Expect This

In the end, I knew it was over. All over.

For them.

For us.

For me.

The rest of the vampire coven had to have been destroyed. I heard the screams, the sheiks, the unmistakable sound of limbs being torn from bodies, heads being ripped off. The older vampires Riley had told us about, being weak and easy to defeat, they slaughtered us with ease. We never stood a chance.

Diego was dead. The realization of that hit me hard. It hurt, like when I got my left arm ripped off once. Even though I knew he was dead, I still searched; I couldn't help myself. My eyes were restless, darting around, looking, but he wasn't here. I wondered if he had been destroyed by the older vampires. If he had, I would have recognized even a piece of him, I knew it.

And until now, I didn't really care what would come of me. With Diego dead, what else was worth living for? Why would I want to live? I wondered, would Fred wait for me? Would he still be willing for me to tag along?

But, would I still want to . . . with Diego . . . dead?

My thoughts were chaotic, my feet seemed to moving of their own accord. I had to keep looking, though I knew somehow, that my efforts would bear no fruit.

I must have been very lost in my mind and its desperate state, 'cause I missed it when I heard approach from behind me. What felt like a bulldozer, something slammed into me, actually knocking me off my feet. I landed on my belly, hard. A knee pressed into my back, an arm slipped under my chin, it began to pull . . .

This is it, my mind realized. This is the end.

For some reason, I was all right with that. Despite my protesting instincts, which were screaming at me to fight back, to bare my teeth and growl. I refused to listen to them.

"Please!" I begged. Not for my life, but for this vampire to get it over with. Please kill me!

The arm hesitated, uncertain, and then the next second I was airborne, flying. A second later I crashed into a tree which groaned and shuddered in protest violently. I crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Numbly, I stood. At some distance away from me was a male vampire. Young, blonde, and of course handsome. His position hinted at slipping into a crouch whenever he wished, yet he held himself, ready, waiting. His ocher eyes glared at me, yet his expression wasn't a feral snarl, it was . . . just measured, neutral. He knew what he was doing, he was in control, he just didn't give in to it all. He wasn't luxuriating in the thrill of the battle, like I'd seen some of Raul's crew do. He was controlling himself, every movement was sure and steady. What the hell?

Though this confused me, I did not really care; nice or not, in control or not, just let him kill me and be over with it.

"Please," I begged again in a pathetic whisper. "I don't want to fight."

Still in a crouch, his expression changed. Dammit, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was different, something I'd never seen and wasn't familiar with.

"Nor do I, child," he spoke with calm authority. "I wish to not fight, either."

Curious, curious, curious. I had enough room in my head to feel that, besides my despair and foreboding dread of what was to come. This vampire didn't want to fight?

"Then why do you?" I daringly asked. Ooh, brave Bree Tanner, that's me.

"We had no choice. A threat, your threat, was coming. We had to protect ourselves," the male vampire said calmly.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This totally contradicted what Riley told us. He said these vampires were coming to our feeding ground, the place we'd been tearing up. We were the threat? Scratch that, we had been the threat. In the clearing where I'd seen the mighty battle take place, I heard no sounds of fighting now. No wild screaming and snarling. It was over. We had lost.

I was not surprised.

Stupidly enough, I had to ask him something, while I still could before I was dismembered and burned.

"We were a threat?" God, I sounded pitiful. I had to wonder if that's what had this vampire still keeping me alive, my pitifulness. What were his intentions? "We . . . were told . . . differently." I muttered, carefully not revealing all of my side of the story.

Some part of me refused to tell him everything. I wasn't stupid. I mean, I was told this vampire coven was the enemy, that they were going to hurt us. Anyway, I wanted to play it safe, while I still could.

A very small change came across his expression. Aside from the one I couldn't name, he looked . . . surprised. Hmm.

Before he said anything, though, another vampire approached. A female, older than I, with wavy brown hair that went to her shoulders. She went automatically to the blonde vampire's side; her gold eyes flitted to me anxiously. I stayed where I was.

"Carlisle?" she asked, her voice worried. "What is this?"

Hmm . . . so his name was Carlisle. I had to admit, that was kind of an unusual name. Guess he was an older vampire.

Which, I now realized, made sense; he seemed so damn mature, made me feel like a baby.

"She does not want to fight," Carlisle said in an even tone. Ah-hah. I could here underlaying message/possible warning in that tone. I don't want to fight now, but hell, I could change my mind and start lashing out.

The female touched his arm tenderly; he still held that half-crouched position. I couldn't blame him.

"She is just a child," the woman said. "We can't . . ."

Wait a minute. She didn't want to fight, either? What was going on with these vampires? They didn't want to fight? Hadn't they just ripped apart my entire coven, and now I was an . . . an exception? And what about me was making them think twice about killing me? What did it really matter? What was special about me that they held themselves back?

But in the next moment, that question and possible answer became irrelevant. Yet another vampire came to our little group. A male, tall and leaner than the other one. He also had blonde hair, and gold eyes, but he had the fiercest expression I'd ever seen. Holy crap. When he saw me, I actually cowered slightly. Not just because of how he looked at me, but because of the scars crisscrossing his face. Yikes. These weren't recent either, they were old. How many fights had he been in? How many vampires tried to kill him? He immediately slipped into a crouch, muscles tensed, ready to spring. If it weren't for the other two vampires here, I would've so felt like I was in a cage with an angry lion. He was going to kill me.

But Carlisle stopped him.

"Hold on, Jasper," he said, calmly, not like a harsh order, but I heard the order anyway.

Surprise flickered across his face, but he straightened up.

"What's going on?" he said in a deep voice that said he did not approve of being stopped from killing me.

Carlisle had also straightened up. "She wishes not to fight."

"So?"

The woman stepped forward. "Jasper! She is just a child! She didn't know what she was doing."

Wow. She was right on the money.

Jasper looked at her now. "Esme, it doesn't matter if she did or not. Look, the Volturi are coming, and if they see us with her . . ."

"Son, I know their rules quite well, and they don't prohibit making newborns, just as long as they are kept in control."

Jasper's eyes widened, and I saw that this movement highlighted a few more scars. I couldn't help but stare.

"You cannot be . . . suggesting that we keep her . . . alive?" Jasper demanded, astounded at the fact. "We can't risk it!"

Unexplainably, I felt frustrated. I knew that I shouldn't, why, when I could be killed any second? But for some reason, anger came to life within me.

"She did nothing wrong," Esme said. Why did it seem like she was trying to defend me?

"It doesn't matter what she did!" Jasper burst out. I felt angrier. "I don't care if she did do anything wrong. We can't have her still be here once the Volturi arrive."

A tense silence followed that. I stared at the three older vampires: Jasper furious, Carlisle calm, leader-like, and Esme . . . defiant?

As if to prove that description of her true, she strode forward, walking a few feet in my direction, then turned her back toward me.

"I won't stand for it," she said, and her tone gave way the fact that no argument was allowed.

I was so damn surprised right now that I didn't think anything would surprise me after this. This vampiress was actually putting herself between me and the angry vampire Jasper, who had the ferocity of an angry lion. What, did she think she could take him on? Or wait . . . no, he wouldn't attack her! She seemed so nice, and she was protecting me. He couldn't, wouldn't, attack her.

It looked like I wasn't alone with thinking that. Carlisle was looking at her, then to me, with obvious anxiety. I could tell now that he cared for her, cared for her very much. He seemed prepared to leap forward and protect her, if any harm did come her way, and it seemed like that possible threat was from Jasper right now.

I was to blame for this, I know. I was the reason why these vampires were right now at odds with each other. Carlisle cared for Esme, who was standing up for me being kept alive for odd reasons unknown. Jasper, who I had heard Carlisle refer to as "son", was going to do something, either attack Esme, or get to me right now, another way.

Man, I hated it all.

The silence was charged, quite literally with electricity. Finally, Jasper sighed.

"All right. We will figure out . . . something, but I'll spare her." For some reason, I knew that my dead heart would have leapt, if possible.

The tenseness died slowly, like air being let out of a balloon slowly. My anger melted to a small burning point of frustration. Esme went back to Carlisle, who seemed just as relieved as I was that she was safe.

"But," Jasper continued. "I will have charge over her. No offense, but you two aren't as familiar with newborns as I am." He glared at me. "I don't want to take any chances with her."

Bite me, I thought, resisting the temptation of baring my teeth.

"Of course, Jasper," Carlisle responded. Then he looked at Esme, who I was guessing was his mate, and then, hand-in-hand, they left, disappearing to somewhere. I guessed the clearing, the sight of my coven's slaughter.

I watched them go, then looked at Jasper. Yikes. His eyes had absolute loathing for me. He may have agreed, quite reluctantly to keep me alive, but he sure as hell wasn't going to be nice. I tried to meet his glare as evenly as I could.

But I felt like I was trapped in a cage with an angry lion all over again.

A/N: So, yeah, I'm writing my own version of the ending of the "Bree Tanner" novella. I always wondered what would've happened if she were kept alive, right, so of course I started writing something. Anyways, I'm not very good with dealing with characters with personalities someone came up with, so I had a hard time about it. Did you think I was way off with these three Cullens would've acted? Was it bad?

Yikes, I'm worried now. Anyways, could I ask for a little review? That'll help me continue this, 'cause I'm anxious to get it going.

Thanks for reading~