Cruel Master, Kind Mistress, Fair Friend, Fate.
Call me what you may, but know one thing.
Love is my Lord.
Chapter 1 – EPOV
I sat very still. Oh how frequent this activity had become for me in the past fifty three years. If I wasn't skilled at the undertaking when I first began, then by now I had to be the world's most proficient sitter by a long shot. While I sat I tried to halt the flow of my own thoughts as they threatened to bombard my mind and I longed for the release that I knew would only come with sleep.
I longed for sleep more than anything else this cruel world had to offer. Such an enchanting and elusive concept that one such as myself would never meet again. And to sleep perchance to dream, but alas dreams are only for those who have a soul, something I have been without for more than a century and a half.
I had once considered my after life on this earth something akin to purgatory, a way to atone for the many sins I had committed against mankind, specifically all the people I had killed. Up to that point, I had only destroyed the most evil, cruel people I could find, murderers and rapists with souls nearly as gone as mine. It wasn't until that fateful day fifty three years ago, when I allowed the most precious and pure creature on the face of this planet to perish that my real hell began. Bella
And there it was. All of my hard work and attempts to avoid thinking about the most painful and torturous of all subjects always lead to this. My love, how could I have abandoned you? How could I have left you unprotected? How could I have let you die? It was entirely my fault and nobody knew better than I that life was not worth living, once you've lost your one and only love, once you've lost the whole reason for your existence. I tried in vain to keep the images of that last day from filling my mind once again, but with the perfect clarity that only accompanies the mind of a vampire such as myself, I relived the last day of the only life I had ever known.
It was about 3 am and a resolution had finally settled in my mind. It was impossible for me to live without her. I looked around the dusty attic crawlspace where I had settled myself for the past week and half with new eyes, eyes that were finally open. I needed her and that was it. No matter how wrong it was of me, or how dangerous it was for me to be around her, there was absolutely no way I would be able to live without her for one more day. I was giving in to my selfish nature, and I was sinfully joyous.
I knew what I had to do, and it would not be easy. I had to go back to Forks and beg for her forgiveness. I had to tell her the truth. The day I left, I had told her that I no longer loved her, and oh what a blasphemous lie it was. If there were any way that I couldn't love her, it would only be because some genius had invented a word ten thousand times stronger and more binding than the truest love, and I would simply adopt that word to use instead of love. The only reason I left was for her safety. I wanted her to have a normal, human life. I didn't want her to have to risk her life every time she was around me. I wanted her to be married someday, and most of all I wanted her to be happy.
But what a fool I was to think that I would be able to overcome my selfishness in order to let that happen. I needed her like the earth needs the sun, like a fish needs water, like a human needs air. And so I stood and felt my rumpled hair brush the bottom of a cobweb covered chandelier. I smiled as I took one final glance at the musty crawlspace where I had had my epiphany, and realized that it was almost charming, at least in the elated mood I was enjoying currently.
In the early morning darkness which would all but blind a human, I crept out of the old apartment like the creature of the night that I am, and made my way toward the forests of Virginia. After a few minutes of running at a pace so fast that it was completely indiscernible to a non-vampire, other than a slight rustle of leaves in my passing, I decided it would be faster to take a plane rather than run the whole way back to Washington. I slowed my pace and whipped out my cell phone dialing the number of a nearby airport within the time it would take a human to blink.
As soon as an airport associate answered, in a less than friendly manner I might add, I practically begged for a list of the flights that would be leaving for Seattle, Washington that morning. The frosty gentleman on the other end of the phone informed me that the earliest plane would be leaving at quarter after six. I would have a layover in Chicago, Mid-way of all places, so with the time difference I would be arriving a little after ten a.m. in Seattle. I eagerly booked the flight using one of my false names, Edmund Bertram, a name which I knew Bella would enjoy since she was such an Austen fan.
With over two and a half hours before my flight's departure I decided to hunt a little before heading to the airport. Lord knows how hard it is to resist the smell of human blood, especially in close proximity, but pack 150 humans together in a flying tin can, and my endurance is sure to be put to the test even when I'm not thirsty. So for the sake of all the humans on the plane, a few deer and with any luck a mountain lion would have to make the ultimate sacrifice in an attempt to mitigate my insatiable thirst.
Of course my flight was delayed in the windy city of Chicago. Despite being in my hometown, the city in which I was born the first time, and then born again as a vampire, I could not feel less at home. The only place I ever felt truly at home was with Bella, and I was more than a little bit anxious to see her again. I realized it would probably be a long time before she trusted me again or even considered taking me back, but I didn't care. I would stay as long as it took, I would stay forever just to be close to her and to be able to peer into those two beautiful and too deep pools of warmth and perception. The chocolately colored orbs which have taken up residence on her lovely face where her eyes should be.
Thinking about Bella and the miracle she represented helped me pass the time at the airport while I waited for my flight. The putrid smells wafting out of the airport restaurants along with the tantalizingly sweet aromas of the thousands of humans passing me and heading for their destinations was completely lost on me. Even the voices which rang out from each of their unoriginal minds in my head could not distract me in the slightest. The only thing I cared to have occupying my mind in this world was Bella. If I were to see her in the next second, it wouldn't be soon enough.
Finally a little after 11 a.m. Pacific Time, I exited the plane in Seattle. The sky was bleak, and far darker than usual, even for Washington. Normally I would be glad of an overcast sky because it meant that I wouldn't have to hide myself from the sun. This was different though, as soon as I stepped off the plane, something felt wrong about this weather. As I walked out the automatic doors of the first floor exit, I felt the pressure in the air outside. It was heavy like a severe thunderstorm was brewing not too far out in the Pacific, so heavy that it made me want to collapse onto the ground the way cows lie down before a rain shower.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned it on. It read 8 missed calls and 2 voicemails across the top, and my ominous feeling doubled. Nobody had tried to contact me in weeks. The last I had heard from my family was that Carlisle and Esme were taking a vacation in Europe while Jasper, Emmett, Alice, and Rosalie stayed with the Denali coven.
The first two calls were from Alice, I assumed she must have foreseen me going back to Forks, so of course a joyous call from her was only to be expected. The next six, oddly enough, were from Rosalie. I had no idea what she could possibly have to say to me, but I doubted it would be pleasant. Rosalie, my ever self-centered and self-righteous sister had refused to even speak to me when I asked that we all move away from Forks to give Bella a chance at a normal life. At the time I hadn't been in any mood to speak to even my family when we first left Bella, so I didn't really mind her being angry at me, although her caustic thoughts toward me grew tiresome in a matter of days. I highly doubted she was calling to give me any kind of apology, and I doubted I deserved one anyway. It also seemed unlikely that she would be so desperate to berate me some more that she would call six times, so there was no other reason for her to contact me.
I dialed my voicemail and waited. As suspected, the first message was from chipper Alice at about 1:00 a.m. Pacific Time, which meant 4:00 a.m. in Virginia, a mere hour after I had made my decision to return to Forks.
"Edward, Edward, Edward!" she squealed into the phone, then in her bird voice she chirped off at a speed too quick for human comprehension "I'm so glad you changed your mind. Don't worry I know she'll take you back. Sorry I missed you, I would have called sooner, but I was out hunting with Jazz. We rushed back as soon as I saw you had made up your mind. I don't see you arriving in Seattle until late morning, give Bella my regards!"
I had to smile a little at my sister's enthusiasm. Alice loved Bella like her own sister and I realized now that it was wrong for me to make them all leave like that. I knew Rosalie would be all too quick to agree with me there. I waited impatiently for Rose's message to play.
"Edward," she began in her perfect voice which went a little too well with the rest of her too perfect body, "Look I have some, er-," Rose stuttered. That was odd, Rosalie was nothing if not sure of herself, stuttering was just something that didn't exist in her world. "I have some unfortunate news," she continued slowly, "It's about Bella," my dead heart grew colder, and I was beginning to panic. My ominous feeling was being confirmed, and I was about to tear through the phone if Rosalie didn't tell me what happened, and quickly. "It's not right for me to tell you this as a message, so just give me a call back when you get to Seattle, there's something you need to know," she finished.
If she knew I was going to be in Washington, then that meant Alice had told her about the vision. But what had happened to Bella? Did Alice have another vision? Maybe Alice saw that Bella didn't take me back or maybe she had found somebody else like I had intended when I left. I could live with that, as long as Bella was happy, my happiness could wait. But what if Bella was in trouble? What if she needed me?
I quickly dialed Rose back and she answered on the first ring, "Edward?"
"Rose, what's wrong?" I shouted into the phone catching the eye of some airport attendants working outside.
"Edward, it's Bella. Look I don't know how to tell you this, but she's--," she hesitated, and I almost growled.
"What Rose?" I said with as much control as I could muster.
"Bella's dead," she whispered, almost as if she cared.
"What?" I stammered. I couldn't make sense of it. In fact, there was no sense to be made of those words. What point could this universe possibly have with Bella not in it? Bella couldn't be dead. But I of all people, of all creatures who walked this planet knew how fragile she was. I knew she was a breakable as a China doll; in fact that was why I had left in the first place. So she could live. There was no possible way Bella could be dead, I wouldn't allow it.
"Bella's dead Edward," she said more forcefully, "Alice had a vision earlier this morning. It was Bella. She jumped off a cliff into the ocean, the currents were really strong in the water and she smashed her head on a boulder. Edward, Alice's vision went dark from there."
And that was it. That was all I could handle. I flipped my phone closed and let my knees collapse below me so that I was crouched, hovering over the ground hugging my knees to my chest. I felt like I had died myself. This couldn't be happening. Maybe Alice's vision was wrong. There was a first time for everything, I had to be sure. I was in Washington already so all I would have to do is drive or run to Forks and find out what happened, see it for myself. I knew it was insane to try and prove one of Alice's visions wrong. I had never succeeded in proving her wrong before and there was no way she would be wrong about something so severe.
I vaguely noticed the thoughts circling me. Mild curiosity about why I was balled up in a near fetal position filled the thoughts of most of the insignificant humans as they walked by me toward the street. Most people dismissed me as a lunatic or a crazy teenager. I heard one set of thoughts from nearby that was a little disconcerting because they were actually familiar.
Maybe he hasn't left the airport yet, oh I hope he hasn't found out yet. He just can't do anything drastic. Oh poor, poor Edward. It was Alice. I couldn't begin to comprehend how she had gotten here so quickly, but it looked as though she was going to try to stop me from doing anything drastic, whatever that may be. Oh there he is. She sighed within her mind. Well it looks like he knows. She thought with sad and bitter disappointment. Edward! She called to me in her mind, but I couldn't bring myself to look at her or even move. "Edward!" she progressed to saying my name out loud, but I felt more frozen than a statue at the North Pole.
In seconds she was at my side. She wrapped her tiny arms around my body and I felt myself shaking with the silent sobs and tears that would never come. As if the sky decided to answer my request for tears, it began to rain. I still couldn't move. I sat there in Alice's arms letting the sobs rock my entire being as tears from the sky drenched our faces and our clothes. We should see if Charlie needs any help with the funeral, this has to be really hard on him. Alice thought. I nodded and allowed Alice to lift me off the ground, she was surprisingly strong for such a little sprite.
Alice and I rented a car and drove to Forks only slightly faster than a normal human being. We pulled up in front of Charlie Swan's house and parked the car. We both listened to see what was going on inside and I heard Charlie's muddled thoughts louder than I had ever heard them before. Complete and utter devastation, not so unlike my own emotions, ruled his thoughts. Alice and I could hear him weeping from outside and it was a heartbreaking sound because it confirmed what Alice had seen. Bella was gone, and I was left alone in this world once again.
I hadn't noticed at first, but there were other sounds, other people's thoughts emanating from the house as well. Odd, there weren't any other cars in the driveway. I opened the door so I could get a look through the window at who was in the house with Charlie, but the smell that cascaded into the car immediately set my senses on red alert. It was an overpowering scent of wet dog. Not good. I slammed the door and Alice looked at me in confusion. "It's a werewolf, maybe even multiple," I said softly. My voice was slightly more than dead, much like the rest of my body, but I was not about to let a werewolf close enough to hurt Alice, not after I had just lost Bella. I knew I was being silly, Alice was more than capable of protecting herself, but I was confused in my mind thinking about Bella and Alice looked so fragile at first glance, so much like Bella.
Alice looked at me puzzled, she hadn't joined our family yet the last time we had been in Forks, when we met the werewolves the first time. "I thought you said the line died out a long time ago," she finally answered, just as quietly, "We still abide by the treaty with the Quileute natives, but I thought we came back in the first place because we were certain the wolves were gone," she continued.
"They were gone, but that smell," I paused to roll her window down and let her sniff the air a little better, "It's unmistakable, that's werewolf alright, I don't know what they're doing here though. You don't think they could have had anything to do with Bella's death do you?" as soon as I asked, burning red anger began to fill me. I would destroy anybody who may have had a hand in Bella's death, I would tear them limb from limb. But then I thought about it, Bella had launched herself off a cliff, was it suicide? I felt utterly miserable, I refused to believe that Bella would do that to me, but then again she thought I didn't love her. I couldn't bring myself to continue that train of thought.
Alice shrugged, sensing where my train of thought had led me. "We don't know anything for sure," she said calmly. "It looks like Charlie has enough people around to help him take care of this, maybe we shouldn't barge in on him," Alice stated. I knew she was really concerned more about me than Charlie and she knew staying around here would be unbearably hard for me. If she knew Charlie's thoughts, she would understand how truly unwelcome we were there anyway, or at least how unwelcome I was.
"Let's just stay and listen for a few more minutes," I said with my dead voice. She nodded and looked toward the house where we could hear a conversation between Charlie and his visitors. But Alice couldn't hear the condemning thoughts passing through Charlie Swan's mind. I understood he needed someone to blame for the loss of his precious daughter, and I couldn't help agreeing that he had chosen the correct person to blame, me. It was my fault.
If he hadn't left her, she wouldn't have jumped. Charlie kept thinking over and over again. How could he leave her like that? He continued. How could he leave Bella here and never contact her once. The poor girl was devastated. If he knew how dead she was without him. Not one letter! Charlie was thinking of Bella, picturing her in his mind, while one of his visitors, a Quileute man named Sam, described how they performed CPR and rushed her to the hospital, when they got her out of the water. Charlie was thinking what I hadn't dared believe, what I couldn't bring myself to admit. Bella had committed suicide because she was so depressed, depressed because I had abandoned her.
What kind of monster am I? I thought to myself. I couldn't bear to listen anymore to the spoken conversation or the thoughts which belonged to Charlie and his Quileute visitors. I resigned myself to sitting in silence with my head in my hands.
I had noticed earlier that one of the Quileute visitors, Jacob, had been particularly heartbroken about the whole ordeal. He was admonishing himself because he had been unable to save Bella; it was as if he lost the one he loved as well. I remembered him from the prom last year, he had barged in to give Bella a warning about vampires. In his mind he was picturing swimming through the strong currents with Bella in tow, trying to keep her head above water and get her back to land. That was interesting enough indeed, a normal human should not be strong enough to fight those currents, let alone tow a 100 lb girl along with him. Then I realized, of course, these Quileute tribesmen were the werewolves I smelled out here. My mind went into overdrive, I had to save Charlie, there was no way he knew that he was in the presence of three potentially dangerous werewolves. I jumped out of the car, startling Alice, but she was by my side in less than half a second.
"Edward? What are you doing?" she asked out loud before I could stop her, but it was already too late, the werewolves inside had noticed our presence, and we now no longer had the element of surprise on our side.
"Alice, those are the werewolves!" I would have yelled if my voice hadn't been so dead, "We have to save Charlie," I continued.
"Oh!" she gasped, "Right, Charlie!" We began to creep toward the door, but before we could get any closer, the three werewolves had exited the house and were walking straight towards us in their human forms with looks of pure loathing on each of their faces.
"What business could you possibly have here, you filthy bloodsuckers!" said the one I remembered as Jacob. He was so much taller and bigger than I last I saw him, a few long months ago. There was a glint of something in his eye, as if he had never seen something he hated so much in his entire life. His thoughts were practically screaming at me.
I know you can hear me bloodsucker, and there's only two reasons I'm not ripping you to smithereens right now! One, Charlie. I'd rather not let him see that his daughter was so heartbroken over a stupid, filthy, bloodsucking leech. Two, Bella. The name hurt to think of, especially to hear it from this overgrown and extremely dangerous wolf-boy. Sam, who I assumed was the pack leader, placed his hand on Jacob's arm and ordered him to relax.
Sam turned to us now, and spoke with only a slightly less acidic tone. I inched myself a little bit in front of Alice to protect her. "I can't imagine what business you could possibly think you have here, but I assure you that if you step in that house with Charlie Swan right now, I will view that as a violation of the treaty and we will have no choice but to attack, am I understood?"
I completely ignored him, and instead turned to face Jacob, "What about her, Jacob?" I pleaded. "What about Bella?" my voice broke.
He gave me the most disgusted look he could muster before he explained with both his thoughts and his words. "On her deathbed, Bella made me swear that I would never hurt you. She begged me to honor her memory by not tracking you down or trying to harm you in any way." As he spoke he pictured the scene in his mind, and I grasped onto those last moments of Bella's life like a starving man grabbing for a scrap of bread.
"She banged her head on the rocks below the cliff where she jumped, she wasn't strong enough to fight the current," he continued. His tone drifting into an angrier, even more bitter than before. When I saw what happened, I rushed in and tried to pull her to safety, but she was unconscious. We performed CPR and called an ambulance. In the hospital they found that her skull was cracked and she was bleeding very intensely internally, it was clouding out her brain. They didn't think she would regain consciousness at all. But what do you know," he scoffed, "She had a few words for her precious bloodsuckers."
I felt any color in my face fade completely. Jacob was picturing the scene at the hospital. Bella looked so peaceful despite the purpling bruises which covered her neck and the left side of her face close to the hairline. "Edward?" she whispered. Jacob was shocked.
"No Bella, it's me Jacob, your best friend," he said softly back, trying to hide his disappointment.
"I'm so sorry Jacob, it was an accident I promise!" she tried to face him but he put his hand on her face and kept her still.
"Don't move Bella, it's okay, I know it was an accident."
"Jake I just wanted to hear his voice. I just wanted to hear it one last time." She looked so weak, even more breakable than normal. But now Jacob was fuming. This was the reason she had jumped off a cliff? To hear the voice of her beloved leech one last time. She made absolutely no sense sometimes. Ever perceptive Bella caught the glimpse of anger that was hiding behind Jacob's calm façade, and she blanched. "Jacob," she begged, a plan clearly forming in her mind, "promise me something."
"Anything," he responded, though he knew he would regret this.
"Promise me you'll never hurt him, no matter what!"
"Excuse me?" Jacob was in disbelief. Bella was dying and she was begging him, a werewolf who loved her to protect the stupid bloodsucker, his sworn enemy, who she loved more than anything in the world. How could I expect anything less from Bella? He thought wryly to himself.
"Please just honor my memory, and don't track him down, and don't ever hurt him or try to kill him, please Jacob!" she tried again.
"Fine! I won't hurt a hair on the pretty little head of your precious parasite. Any other ridiculous requests?"
She smiled and Jacob couldn't help but smile back, even though he was in the greatest pain he had ever felt. "No," she said weakly, "I'm sorry Jacob, tell Charlie I'm sorry too, and Ed-," tears filled her eyes as if it was too hard for her to say the name, or think about him. "I just wish I could see him one last time," she breathed barely more than a whisper as her eyes drooped and a single tear fell down her cheek. Jake hardly noticed as her heart rate began to slow and the monitor's beeps got louder and more spaced out. He was too focused on the dying form of the girl he loved, and her final words only broke his heart further, "I love you Edward," the ringing in his ears only doubled got louder when he looked up and saw that it was coming from her heart rate monitor.
"Nurse!" he tried to yell, but his throat was too dry. It didn't matter because the nurses were running into the room already anyway. They used the defibrillator to try and restart her heart, but the doctors knew it was hopeless. Her time of death was recorded at 10:06 a.m. the exact time I was supposed to arrive in the Seattle airport if my plane hadn't been delayed in Chicago.
I hadn't even noticed that I had fallen to the ground again as the tearless sobs filled my body. "Please," I heard Jacob say quietly and I looked up to meet his eyes. "Please just leave, I can't stand to have you around if I'm going to keep true to Bella's promise."
Alice was next to me again, wrapping her arms around my shoulders again and trying to pull me back to my feet. She had been listening to Jacob's story out loud, while I watched it in his head. "Come on Edward, let's go. There's nothing more we can do here."
"Oh Alice," I cried, "Don't you see, this is all because of me. I never should have left her. I just wanted her to have a normal, human life, but instead I destroyed her, such a pure and beautiful creature, I let her die, it's because of me!" Alice let me sit there for a few more moments. "I should just let him kill me now," I continued mournfully, "What point is there to this life without Bella?"
Unfortunately I could hear that Jacob was pretty resolved about remaining true to Bella's final wish, especially since he saw how much pain I was suffering. It was far more pain than I would suffer if he granted me the death which I now seemed to crave. "Don't you dare say that Edward!" Alice yelled at me. "You have a family that needs you and loves you, and you are going to make it through this, we'll help you. But what do you think Bella would say if she knew that you tried to kill yourself?"
She had me there. If Jacob, the half human, half overgrown mutt could honor Bella's memory, one would hope that I at least had the decency to do the same. Right then I decided I couldn't follow through with my contingency plans which I had made last year. There was no way Bella would approve of me going to the Volturi and asking them to help me die. She had demanded that I avoid such plans last September, during our last day of happiness together, on her18th birthday.