Renee nicknamed Bella "hoover" as a kid because she sucked food right off her plate, abandoning knife and fork in order to accelerate the process. She read more than anyone in her class and precociously locked the smooth crotches of her barbie and ken dolls together. Something inside her burned like a subterranean fire.
She was told an imagination was the best thing a girl could have. Knowledge is limited, but an imagination embraces the entire world.
Bella lies in a bed of roses, extravagantly large and luscious, dripping wet, in infinite bliss. The Meadow is a sandpit in comparison...
She wakes up feeling emotionally wrung out, rotten and oily, from her blowsy three-day-old ankle socks to her dry-bitten fingernails. Her heart aches like a squeezed blister.
"Bella, dear. You're awake at last." Aro perches on the bed next to her, smiling like a physician holding a needle smiles at small children. They're in a windowless, turpentine-and-oak smelling room. A grandfather clock ticks in the corner. There are several antique dovetail cabinets and a roll top desk so fine an empire might be run from it.
"Where am I?" She squirms uncomfortably. Her menstrual pad leaks slowly, and the criminal bloodstain reminds her of the other blood that may stain this bed - because Edward stupidly refuses to make her a vampire. She feels like a bad dog left at the pound, only for the person who is the reason for her existence to return and put a gun to her head, a halo of cold, trembling metal. Her questionless trust absolves her of all responsibility. She just wants to be Snow White, sleeping forever in her crystal coffin with Prince Charming by her side.
"You fainted during our little tête-à-tête. It seems you forgot to breathe," Aro says with amusement and a hint of impatience. "I never heard your answer."
The belittlement in his voice gets a rise out of her. Not to mention her other hang-ups, she can't stand the thought of him crawling all over her like a tarantula. "My answer's no, obviously. No offence, but you're creepy and old."
"None taken," he says goofily, with a deep-freeze butcher's grin and eyes that could split marrow. She thinks about her blood running down his chin to meet his dusty adam's apple, taut like a bow string in the crook of her palm. How he could make her vulnerable, but be completely in her thrall. Heart to unbeating heart. His lips at her throat like a knife, offering her two kinds of death.
"I'm older, and so much creepier, than you can possibly fathom. Though it would be nice to have something young to hold, and not have it fall apart in my arms." He presses his colourless lips together.
"Right," Bella says.
"Alice and Edward are upstairs in the foyer. You may return to them, if you wish."
"Not yet," she says. Her heart does a loop-de-loop as she imagines confronting Edward, who would be patient and understanding and good, and not because she deserves it. "I think I need some space to think things over," she amends.
Aro grins clownishly, as if his nose honks if you tweak it but also like he stalks children in the dead of night. "It would be my pleasure to accommodate you here. I will personally ensure no-one bothers you so you can... how do you say... clear your head."
Bella blushes. "You know, you don't live up to the hype of an evil vampire overlord."
"Public servant, my dear. Would you prefer someone else to be your evil vampire overlord, possibly even more evil and murderous than I?"
"No, thank you."
"I only have one teensy-tiny condition."
"Oh no, not that again - I already told you -"
"It's something else." His airy voice is punctured, ragged, poked with iron. "No door will be barred from you. But I beg you - I implore you - do not go near the tower."
"Why? What's in there?" Her stomach throws around fistfuls of confetti. Piles of skulls, rivers of blood? The scene of a murder? Chained werewolves? Untold riches?
"My wife, Sulpicia, inhabits that place. I can't be sure you will be safe with her. She has an unstable temperament... and you may provoke her wild jealousy."
"I didn't know you had a wife," Bella says uncertainly. Was it something Edward mentioned in Vampire one-oh-one? What is there to be jealous of?
Aro ignores her, as he seems to do with anything he prefers not to answer. A trait he shares with Edward. "I will inform Edward and Alice of your decision - tactfully, of course."
"Fine," she says.
He shoots her a quizzical look, but leaves her alone to stare blankly at the smoke-stained maroon wallpaper. She only sees Sulpicia, lovely and mad as only a true Lady of the Night could be. She wears a floor-length gown that exposes her shoulders and the swanlike column of her neck. Her eyes are flat black, and she crooks a finger in a mocking come-hither gesture, nails filed sharply to points and painted a red so dark they nearly match her black dress. Aro's shadow, his blood diamond, a jade cicada, hard-edged, balletic, destructive, forbidden, lethal as a panther. She's already better than Bella in a million ways.
Self-contained in her cardigan and her many genetic shortcomings, Bella wonders what she'll be like as a vampiress. Would she be locked in a tower, like Aro's wife? Would it be because she's the princess, or the dragon? She crawls off the bed and follows Aro into the gelid hallway, treading through darkness so thick she might choke on it.
Author's note: I can't believe it's been over a year since I posted the first chapter! I was a little overwhelmed by the positive feedback and hope this update meets all of your expectations.
The "imagination... entire world" is a famous quote attributed to Einstein.
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