Bree's Story

1. The Clearing

Bree's POV

We silently crept forward now, at no more than a quick human pace. I would crouch instinctively and my head would whip around – scanning the gloomy forest for any danger – at sounds and scents far too subtle for my old human senses to register. We crept as a group, united as one, toward her. Toward the delicious scent that made my mouth water and my throat burn in anticipation. The army moved forward, like a vicious tornado, but leaving no evidence of our passing behind us.

The wind suddenly shifted. It blew from the west now, bringing with it the scent of a nearby stream, followed by the scent of the girl. The scent of human blood. My body stiffened, all my muscles going rigid. My throat, before burning dull and content, now burst into flames of wild thirst. My glowing red eyes tightened just slightly as I calculated the position of the human; the position of my prey.

We darted through the forest, untamed and bloodthirsty. The speed was astounding. I was sure I had never gone this fast before. But I could not focus on that. Her scent still burned my throat and the only thing that was running through my mind was how she would taste. Before long I was imagining it. How she would scream with terror when she saw us; how her weak struggles would be no match for my strength; how her warm blood would smother the flame in my throat.

But my imagining was interrupted. The scent of other vampires blew past me in another gust of wind. Riley had told us about them. He said they were to be expected. They would be with the girl, protecting her. We had to defeat those with the golden eyes to claim all the blood.

"Split up," Riley whispered. "Come at them from both sides. I'll follow right behind you."

"Okay ," one of the others said. "This'll be fun."

"Yeah, let's get them," another whispered quietly. We divided into two groups and continued on our hunt.

It wasn't long before we broke through the last of the ferns and emerged in the clearing. I'd forgotten that it was unusually sunny today, so I was a little stunned when I saw the six sparkling vampires standing together – their eyes focused – staring at us.

A low hiss escaped from the mouth of a refined looking, blonde haired man. The position in which he was standing, clearly displayed that he was the leader of the coven. They launched themselves toward us and the fight commenced. All I could hear were growls, screeches and cries of pain. In just a few seconds over half our group's numbers were decimated. Where were the others? Where was Riley? He said he would come and help us.

More screeching filled the air as my friends were ripped to pieces. Almost everyone was gone and I was still standing frozen with shock at the edge of the clearing. The leader of the other coven walked toward me. He put his hand on my shoulder, but he didn't look aggressive. He didn't look like he was going to hurt me.

"You don't have to do this. You don't have to be harmed," he said. "If you halt your attack we will not destroy you." I just nodded, unable to speak, still frozen with shock.

It felt like betrayal as I watched our army being destroyed, but I was relieved that I wasn't the one fighting. After all the shrieking and ripping had stopped I had a thought, and it disturbed me slightly. What was I going to do now? I didn't know anything about this life besides the slaughter and the domination for blood. As I stared at the thick haze of smoke that rose from the ashes of my only friends, I realised that I had absolutely nothing. I didn't know anybody, I didn't know anything and I didn't know what to expect. I had no knowledge of what my future may hold. I was all alone and I had no idea what I should do next.

My depressing observation ended, because another golden eyed vampire entered the clearing and he was not alone. In his arms, a fragile looking human lay limp and unmoving, besides her deep, rhythmatic breathing. The wind blew her aroma in my direction and I crumpled to my knees in the shadow of the pillar of smoke. It was the scent that set my throat on fire. It was the scent I had come to find.

Within half a second, one of them was standing over me. He was tall and blonde, but it wasn't the leader. He stood there guarding me, waiting for me to move an inch, with an expression that told me he would tackle me to the ground as soon as I did.

The vampire held the girl in his arms and the others – apart from my guard and an excruciatingly beautiful blonde girl – converged around her. They checked her pulse, stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks. It seemed like they all had a hand on her. Soothing her. Comforting her. I didn't know how they could stand it. I couldn't understand how they could be so close to her. I felt like ripping my own throat out, just to stop the burning, uncontrollable thirst.

The boy holding the human girl whispered something into her ear and her eyelids fluttered open. She looked a little dazed at first, but she soon realized where she was. It was clear that she hadn't noticed me yet. When I could focus on something other than the burning I wondered what her reaction to seeing me would be. Would she be afraid or would she feel safe with her many protectors? Would she comprehend how impossibly difficult it was for me not to go and kill her this very second?

My guard crouched closer to me. He must have noticed my arms tightening around my legs and my glowing eyes – focused only on her – pass reason. She saw me then, her eyes looked mildly shocked. The vampire who had carried her in, the boy who had his arm around her, who quite obviously was her boyfriend, explained to her about my surrendering. The group continued chatting casually as if they were all vampires; as if they couldn't smell the mouth-watering perfume of her blood, which was radiating from her body and sending me out of control.

I couldn't stand it anymore. Without my approval to do so, my head threw back wildly and a scream of agony escaped from my mouth, through my clenched teeth. The vampire guarding me growled and I cringed in response. My fingers dug into the ground like claws, and my head thrashed from side to side. The guard took a step closer and crouched ever lower. A restraining hand grasped his arm and I looked up to see the leader looking down at me.

"Have you changed your mind, young one?" he asked me. "We don't want to destroy you, but we will if you can't control yourself."

"How can you stand it?" My voice was almost a scream. "I want her." My eyes focused towards the vampire standing in front of her, but I wasn't staring at him. I was staring through him, to her. It was like he didn't even exist. My fingers dug into the soil again.

"You must stand it. You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will save you now," the leader told me.

I heard what he was telling me, but I couldn't just ignore the raging fire that was engulfing my throat. I was so close to losing the little control I had. I could feel the bloodlust taking over my entire body and I knew I wouldn't be able to resist for much longer. I raised my dirt covered hands and clutched my face, but I couldn't stop the quiet yowling from exiting my mouth.

"Shouldn't we move away from her?" the girl whispered. Her voice tortured me and I thrashed wildly on the ground.

"We have to stay here. They are coming to the north end of the clearing now," her boyfriend murmured quietly. The girl's eyes scanned the forest edge and then met mine for a second. She looked away, seeing the anguish in my eyes, but kept gazing back at me every few seconds. Probably watching my sharp jolts and shudders as I writhed in pain. She was most likely also concerned and afraid of my violent glare directed only at her.

"Hmm," a dead voice murmured, from the mist I had almost forgotten about. Five figures emerged from the haze, one standing in front of the other four. She was about two feet smaller than the rest of them and was obviously the one who had spoken.

"Welcome, Jane," one of the golden eyed vampires said courteously. I couldn't tell which one had said it. They had all surrounded the girl and were now standing in a lose semi-circle. The girl's scent was very strong and that didn't help me focus. The wind had died down, so the scent lay dormant around us, like it was its own new type of haze. There was no wind to blow it away and provide me with clean air. Great. It would just have to torment me further. I put my hands over my face again, trying to think about something else and ignore her scent, though I knew that was an impossibility.

"I don't understand." The vampire called Jane was staring at my curiously.

"She has surrendered," the human's boyfriend explained.

"Surrendered?" Jane questioned.

The boy shrugged. "Carlisle gave her the option."

"There are no options for those who break the rules," Jane said in a harsh voice.

The leader – who I now realized was named Carlisle – spoke then. "That's in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught."

"That is irrelevant."

"As you wish."

Jane started again in a very in a very different tone, a soft tone. "Aro hoped we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle. He sends his regards."

"I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him." Carlisle seemed sincere, but there was something in his eyes that made me question my judgement.

"Of course." Jane smiled, before looking back towards the column of smoke. "It appears that you've done our work for us today… for the most part." Her eyes flickered to me quickly. "Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there? They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle."

"Eighteen, including this one," Carlisle answered immediately, looking at me.

Jane glanced at the fire again, before looking back toward the others. "Eighteen?" she questioned, not able to completely hide her shock.

Carlisle looked slightly nervous, as if he didn't want to comment. "All brand-new. They were unskilled."

"All?" Jane questioned again. "Then who was their creator?"

"Her name was Victoria," the human's boyfriend answered.

"Was?" Jane picked up on the key word.

The human's boyfriend looked toward the eastern forest, and the eyes of all the other vampires followed his gaze. I didn't look. I couldn't afford to loose my concentration when I was already so close to loosing control and quenching my raging thirst.

"This Victoria – she was in addition to the eighteen here?"

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

I was getting quite irritated. I was trying to pay as little attention to them as possible, just trying to control myself, but every time they mentioned me I would loose some of my focus. And if the golden eyed vampires want to keep the human girl they had all risked their existences for alive, they had better not make me loose my focus. It took everything I had, all my concentration, not to run over there this instance and drain the girl's blood.

"Twenty," Jane was astounded. "Who dealt with the creator?"

"I did," the boyfriend responded casually.

Jane's large red eyes narrowed as she turned to look at me. Her crimson eyes were the most dominant feature on her face, but they didn't stand out the way my ghoulish glowing eyes did.

"You there," she said in the silence between my screams. "Your name."

I glared back at her, my mouth shut tight, with no intention of speaking. She smiled back at me angelically. My next ear-piercing scream was not from the torturing scent of the human. This was a completely different type of pain. It wasn't a burning fire in my throat. I would take that quite happily now; I'd welcome it even. This was the most agonizing pain I had ever felt. It felt like I was being stabbed all over my body, the skin being torn and shredded. It felt like acid was being poured over me, burning and dissolving every part of flesh it touched. It felt like I was being hit by a train, all my bones being shattered and crushed.

My back arched into a distorted, unnatural position as I screamed at a volume that hurt my own ears. Then finally I was released from the agony. I lay limp in a heap on the ground, relieved to be free.

"Your name," Jane repeated.

"Bree," I gasped.

The torture suddenly began again and I shrieked in agony. But it didn't last as long this time and I was soon released.

"She'll tell you anything you want to know," the human's boyfriend told her. "You don't have to do that."

"Oh, I know," she replied and a flash of humor crossed her face. She smiled happily, like a young child receiving a present, before turning back to face me. "Bree," she said. "Is his story true? Were there twenty of you?"

I was truly afraid of her now so I spoke quickly. "Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don't know!" I just hoped that she wouldn't feel the need to hurt me again. "Sara and the one who's name I don't know got into a fight on the way…"

"And this Victoria – did she create you?" she asked.

"I don't know. Riley never said her name. I didn't see that night… it was so dark… and it hurt," I shuddered remembering the night my human life was ended. The night where my frail human body was transformed into something new. Something unknown and indestructible – or so I'd thought, until I saw my friends being torn to shreds.

"He didn't want us to be able to think of her. He said that our thought weren't safe…" I continued. Jane's eyes gazed over the other vampires before retuning to me.

"Tell me about Riley," she said. "Why did he bring you here?"

"Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here," I answered her immediately, fearing her torturing glare. "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 moaned as I pointed at the human girl who I couldn't bare to be around. "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," Jane noted.

I just nodded, consumed in thought. "I don't know what happened. We split up, but the others never came. And Riley left us, and he didn't come to help like he promised. And then everyone was in pieces," I shuddered violently. "I was afraid. I wanted to run away. That one" – I looked directly at the leader – "said they wouldn't hurt me if I stopped fighting."

Ah, but that wasn't his gift to offer, young one," Jane murmured in a low voice. "Broken rules demand a consequence."

I had no idea what she was talking about. All the explaining about Riley and the promises he had made us – especially those involving blood – where making me thirstier than ever before. My brain was dazed as the thirst consumed my every thought. Although my hearing was perfect, the words that the vampires spoke all slurred into one. My brain would not unscramble the jumble of words, when all my thoughts were already filled.

"Felix?" Jane said, her voice sounded utterly bored, but she was looking at me and that's what awoke me from my daydreaming.

"Wait," the human's boyfriend almost shouted. "We could explain the rules to the young one. She doesn't seem unwilling to learn. She didn't know what she was doing."

"Of course," the leader, Carlisle, said. "We would certainly be prepared to take responsibility for Bree."

"We don't make exceptions," Jane said in a harsh tone. "And we don't give second chances. It's bad for our reputation…" She was about to continue, but the boyfriend interrupted.

"I think you would be willing to make an exception if you knew about her gift," he said.