I was staggered. No…I was…appalled. My once beating heart was breaking. Bella knelt in front of that…thing? Aro, Aro of the Volturi, one of the worst vampires on the planet. And Bella, so sweet, so innocent, knelt to him?! This was insanity, this was madness! Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. But I knew they weren't.

I didn't know if Jane was using her power on me, but I didn't care; I fell to my knees anyway. This was a thousand times her pain.

"Why, Aro?" I sobbed into the stone covering the floor. "Why, of all the ways to kill me, you decide this way?" there was no anger in my voice now. It was lost to me; I was in too much pain. I had just found my Bella, and now I lost her again. "There is nothing worse than this!" I exclaimed.

Well, this was unexpected… Aro thought, bringing me out of my pain. He was now a red dot on my 'I must kill' radar.

"What was unexpected? That I left her for her own good? That it was more painful to leave than to breathe her scent over and over again? Or that I'm a liar?" I seethed. Aro looked taken aback.

Edward, I didn't know, I'm sorry… Aro was past speaking; he could barely form those coherent thoughts.

"Sorry? Sorry?!" I shouted, making the rest of the vampires---including Bella---flinch. "Look at her now! She's one of us! How on Earth could that be fixed by saying 'I'm sorry'?!" If I could be crying, I would be. And now there was the pain again, Jane's burning pain, but I couldn't feel it; it was like an annoying fly, buzzing around my head. I could just brush it off.

"Master, he's not being affected," Jane murmured worriedly, her eyes flickering between my face and Bella's.

Bella looked unaffected by this atmosphere, and I saw Marcus staring at her. In the way that would have made her blush were she still human. She was looking at me.

There was a small pucker between her eyebrows, and her eyes were frustrated. I realized, suddenly, that I'd misread the color of her eyes. They weren't all red.

They were a smoky gray with black, red, and dark blue. The strangest eyes in the vampire world.

And the room burst out yelling. The brothers that it wasn't their fault, that they didn't know, the guard as well. But half were defending me, and the other was defending the brothers.

"It was your fault, Edward!"

"No, it was Aro's fault! He went to Forks!"

"Edward kept her human!"

"Aro was doing you a favor, Edward!"

"Yeah, you should be thankful!"

"No, he should feel like he does; brokenhearted!"

"STOP!!" Someone yelled, and suddenly the atmosphere was pressing on me, and I couldn't breathe, therefore, I couldn't speak. The rest of them looked like they were choking.

All but Bella. Who looked cold, and emotionless. She stalked forward with elegant grace, right toward me.

Bella's POV(Same part as above, but from her point of view)

The burning ended with my heart's last few beats. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

Then there was silence. I opened my eyes, and everything was clear, sharp, defined, and I could see everything. But couldn't remember anything. Besides my name. Bella Swan…

Where was I? I knew I was a vampire, something I had known about long before I became one. But I couldn't remember how… what had happened? I knew about the Volturi, the rulers of the vampire world, and I couldn't remember how I knew about them either.

Then I heard the shouting. I cocked my head to the side. I could just barely make out the words.

"Where is Bella?!" Bella…that was me, right? Right. I felt proud that I remembered something about myself.

But wait…why would they be shouting about me? I spun off the bed I was laid on, and I saw a boy with an angelic face and short brown hair.

"Here," he said, holding out a length of black fabric. I unfolded it and saw a deep black cloak. I looked at him with a question in my eyes. He nodded and I slipped on the cloak, fastening the golden clasp that was shaped like a V.

"Come," the boy said, holding his hand out to me, I gratefully took it, wondering where we were going. But still, I was glad someone was with me, and I wasn't alone. Alone…why was that word so painful? I shoved this to the back of my mind, for we were already walking.

Then I remembered something else; they boy's name. Alec. And his sister…Jane! That was it, his sister's name was Jane.

The shouting grew louder.

"I'll ask you one last time. Where. Is. Bella?!" the velvet voice demanded. It sounded familiar.

"Right here." Alec said as we came into view. I could feel my eyes wide with wonder as I took in the room.

There were threes thrones up two marble steps. Guards stood around them, and the people on them. "Aro, Marcus, and Caius. The nighttime patrons of the arts." the words were flat, like words on a page, but hey, at least I remembered them!

Aro and Marcus were the ones with black hair, and Caius had the snow-white-blonde hair. Marcus's face was rather…dead-looking.

There were three people who stood out in the room of black and gray cloaks. There was one girl, who was extremely short, and had pixie-like black hair. The boys were the opposites. One was tall, and had honey-blonde hair, and several crescent-moon scars on him. The other had bronze hair and a perfect face. A statue of Adonis in the throne room of the Volturi castle.

I was very calm, not wondering why they were there, just…calm. And then the bronze-haired one was on the ground, thrashing around in pain. I saw the source of his agony. It was Jane. She was smiling evilly at him, like a cat who's put their paw on the canary.

It was rather disturbing, to see an immortal incapacitated like that, so I decided to stop her.

I launched myself across the short space between us, and started clawing at her throat. It worked, the boy stopped thrashing, so I let Demitri and Felix pull me off Jane.

Then I remembered. Aro. He was looking on at me with both a disapproved and amused look on his face at the same time. I sprinted over to him and knelt like I was supposed to.

I quickly apologized and promised it wouldn't happen again.

"Why, Aro?" the boy sobbed suddenly into the floor. "Why, of all the ways to kill me, you decide this way?" it was heartbreaking to see him like this. It was very sad. "There is nothing worse than this!" he yelled.

"What was unexpected? That I left her for her own good? That it was more painful to leave than to breathe her scent over and over again? Or that I'm a liar?" he shouted, enraged now. His gift was like Aro's, I decided, why else would he be yelling things that nobody said?

"Sorry? Sorry?!" the boy screeched, answering another of Aro's thoughts. There was so much pain in his voice that it made me flinch. "Look at her now! She's one of us! How on Earth could that be fixed by saying 'I'm sorry'?!"

And the room exploded with yelling. The words were so jumbled, I didn't even try to figure out what people were saying.

But I wanted it to stop. So that's what I yelled. And the room was suddenly quiet.

I looked towards the boy, and walked toward him, wanting answers.