Her Keeper
Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I just like to play with the characters. My thanks to Jaspersdoll for coming up with the title.
This is a Jasper-Bella fiction. It takes place in current time. Vampires are in hiding but have a more structured society. They take human "pets" for food, and some humans are held in captivity to be bled for vampires. They bottle blood much like humans bottle beer, and this product is sold in the underground vampire clubs and bars. There are a number of "designer" blood labels. Bella's blood has been featured in a blend called "LaGuerra" and is the most popular designer bottled blood of this vampire black market.
Humans who have been claimed by vampires have a small tattoo on their wrists to mark them as vampire property. The marks are usually a series of dots forming a small triangle or rectangle. The colors and pattern identify both the vampire territory and individual owner claiming the person.
(Bella's POV)
Chapter 2 – Meeting my Rescuer
I don't know how long I stayed on that chair. I heard the noises of voices, and occasionally sensed hands touching me, slapping my face or hands, but I refused to respond.
At some point, I'm carried somewhere and laid on something very soft. I feel a vague sense of relief, as it's easier to lie down than to remain sitting up.
Eventually though, I feel a pinch, like the kind I used to get as warnings from the other girls on the barrack, so I look up. But it's a vampire. A girl vampire with short blonde bangs framing her heart-shaped face.
"There you are," she says.
Another vampire trick. Whatever hope I had held that this was all just a dream fades, and I try to sink back into my numbed state.
"No, don't leave me!" I hear a frantic voice, followed by light slaps on my hand. "We're getting out of here! He's dead. I killed him."
I start to respond, but it all hurts too much.
When I don't answer, she sighs, picks me up and starts running. "I wish there as a way to return you to your world. Maybe there is. It's just…these tattoos…"
She goes outside the house, kicking the door closed behind her. Moving silently to a car sitting outside, she opens the door and sets me in it, wrapping something around me before putting a blanket on top. She moves to the other side, gets in next to me, and puts the car in motion. I do my best to sink bank into wherever I was. That place where things don't hurt and maybe I can convince my body to stop breathing. Or at least to stop hurting.
After a while, though, despite my fear, hunger and curiosity force me to sit up and take notice of my surroundings. As I blink my eyes in stronger than usual direct sunlight, I try to figure out where I am.
"You're back!" says the blonde vampress sitting next to me.
We're in a place I've never been before, the interior of a car. It's a small, tight space. In front of me, on the left, are rows of odd instruments. I look down, and where the blanket has slipped down, I see a strap across my chest. I immediately grab the strap and try to loosen it.
The vampress's hands quickly cover mine. "No wait, that's a seatbelt. It's for your safety. Just hold on while I'll pull over, so I can explain. "
There is a sudden crunching sound accompanied a rattling motion, as we slowly roll to a stop. I only realize that we had been in motion when we actually stop. I look around again.
"This is a car, baby. Have you been in one before?"
I shake my head, no.
"Well, it's a car. People make them. Safety belts, like what you are wearing, are installed inside cars to keep you from getting hurt in case we are hit by another car. So you want to leave that on. Are you hungry?" She stops speaking for a second to look at me more carefully.
"Can you talk?" she asks me suddenly. "Open your mouth, I want to look, OK?"
I'm startled at her request, but finally say, "Yes, of course I can talk."
"Good. It's just that sometimes…" the vampress voice drops off, not finishing her sentence.
"What?"
She pauses, as if thinking how to continue. "Sometimes, well, people's throats get hurt, and they can't talk."
"Oh," I reply. "No, my throat is just dry."
She reaches into the space behind and between us and pulls something out of a box in the back seat. "Here's a water bottle. I've got some sandwiches and fruit, too. We can get something else, if you want."
As I look at the plastic bottle in my hand, she reaches over and twists the top off. I drink the water quickly. It's very cold, which surprises me, but it tastes good. She pulls back onto the road and begins driving again.
I inspect the interior of the car in silence for a while. I've seen them through the windows, and the adults, especially the new ones, always talked about getting one and using it to escape.
Finally I break the silence, asking, "Where are we? Who are you?"
"My name's Wenda, and I'm very pleased to meet you," she says with an engaging smile. "You?"
"I'm Bella. Bella Swan."
"Nice to meet you, Bella."
She reaches back into the backseat again, and this time pulls out a sandwich and something I've never seen before, something long and yellow. "Here's a turkey sandwich and a banana. You should eat something, Bella."
As she watched me turn the banana around in my hand, she seems to realize I haven't seen one before. "You peel it, like this," she says, with a sad tone in her voice as she demonstrates. "Then you bite it, and eat it from the top down. Don't eat the peel, though."
The water seems to have spiked my hunger, so I take the food and tear into it. As I eat, she drives on. Looking out the window, I take in the changing scenery. The road is lined with trees, very tall trees. Other cars pass us from time to time.
We travel for the rest of the day, and into the night. As the sun rises, there is a change in the scenery. The trees end, and water stretches out in front of us. "This is California, baby," she says. "Look at the ocean, isn't it beautiful?"
It is beautiful. The blue ocean reflects the blue sky above. Birds careen and wheel in the sky making raucous noises. We get out of the car onto a huge expanse of a glistening white substance, which turns out be made of tiny rocks leading from the road to the water. When I turn back to Wenda, I see her skin sparkling in the sun light.
"This is a beach, and it's covered with sand," says Wenda with a huge grin as she puts her arm around my shoulder, pointing to the sand. "These are next to oceans and lakes, and are places where people go to watch the water or soak up the rays of the sun. It's where you go to have fun."
She brings the blanket out of the car, and we both sit on it. After a while, she lays back and closes her eyes.
"You're wondering who I am, aren't you?" she says quietly after a few minutes. "I mean, besides my name?"
I nod then pause, feeling silly. After all, her eyes are closed.
She seems to sense my hesitation, as she puts her hand over her eyes to shade them as looks up at me.
"I was invited to a party by a guy I had met kind of randomly a while back," she begins. "He said he knew of good parties where he worked, and he would invite me to one.
When I arrived, I saw a big building and got the feeling a bunch of you guys were inside. I was going to leave, but he kept saying he had something special for me. I went to his place…and it was you."
I gulped.
"We left to go to the party at the mansion, then after a while, he wanted to go back to his house. He told me how he worked as a guard and had caught an escapee. Claimed that you would be killed just for trying to escape. He said he just report that he killed you during that escape attempt. No one would be the wiser.
When we walked inside and I saw you again, you hadn't even moved. You were just sitting in that haze. I didn't know what he had done to you.
What had he done to you?" She stops talking, waiting.
I realize that I am supposed to answer. "He killed my mother, right in front of me. We had escaped together, earlier in the night, but…" That was all I could say, the shock from the previous night still too fresh.
Wenda rolls onto her stomach, and looks up into my eyes. "I'm sorry, baby. I wish I could make it alright, but I can't."
Then her tone changes. "But he's dead. I jumped onto his back the second he bent over you, twisted his head off, and burnt his body in his own fireplace. He won't be bothering you or anyone else," she says grimly. "How many of you were there in there?"
"Twenty in my room," I answer.
"Oh, shoot," she replies. Then she continues, "How long had you been there?"
"I was born there," I answer. "My mother's husband sold her when she was pregnant with me."
Wenda gasps. "He what? Oh, men are such disgraces. I wish we didn't need them. Think of a world with all women. Well, it might get boring, I suppose. And I do rather enjoy their company…" Here she grins, then suddenly seems to remember I was there. "I'm sorry. Got lost in my thoughts.
Anyway, you're good now. I'm not going to hurt you, and we're going to be friends. You'll see! We'll get you caught up on the essentials and work you back into your world. We're going to get you a job, waiting tables or in a nice little store somewhere. You can't talk about what you know, as they'll kill you. Getting a job is key to starting a new life. You'll meet people and can find some independence."
She leans over and grabs my wrist, examining it closely. "First, though, we need to do something about this tattoo."
"What exactly does this mean," I asked, even though I dreaded the answer.
"It's an identifier. It's like they used on the Nazi death camps in Germany. I suppose you're lucky they didn't brand you, like cattle," she mutters.
"What?"
"Brand. They put a hot iron onto animals to mark them as belonging to a ranch."
I gasp in horror. "That's so…barbaric," I say.
"Well, people do it all the time, but they do it to animals. The use it on livestock, animals they're raising for food. But they used tattoos on you. I hear there are patterns in these tattoos. They identify a human as having been claimed by a vampire. If you're found with it on, you can be returned, of course, because the marking shows who you belong to."
"What does mine say?"
"I don't know this one, baby," she says softly, as she examines the pattern of dots closely while stroking my wrist. "I only know the big ones, like the Cullens and the New York covens. They use this on their stationery and other documents to indicate their affiliations. We're organized now, you see. The Cullens mark is three red dots. Just three. Most of the other covens have five to nine dots, but the Cullen use only three, all red. New York has five dots, the top three are black, and the bottom two are red. Every coven has their own."
"Who are the Cullens?"
"Oh, the Cullens. We're going to steer clear of them. They're the ruling clan. They only report to the Volturi in Italy. Any problems in the United States, or North American Hub as they call it, are supposed to be resolved by the Cullens. It's just the big stuff that goes to Italy these days.
But enough about this world, it's time you become acquainted with your own. Do you like music? How about TV shows, did they let you watch TV in there?"
"No," I reply, "Though I heard a lot about TV."
"Well, then. Let's get you caught up on the fun stuff, while we tackle the book-reading and other stuff. It's beyond tragic that you don't follow any shows!" she laughs.
I laugh when she laughs. It feels good to laugh, though it is so soon. She says I can live like a person, and I am determined to try.
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