A/n: And here's chapter 2. My beta was holding it hostage. Go figure. I will say that I have no set update schedule. It's all on my beta and when she decides to send back my chapters will the corrections and whatnot made. Sorry to disappoint. We've got a few projects going all at the same time so whenever I can, I'll update. Hopefully it'll be with some frequency.
D/c: Twilight isn't mine. I just use SMeyer's work for my own twisted pleasures.
Thanks to Snow-white-queen89 for her epic beta skillz. Love her to death.
Chapter 2
BellaPOV
I looked up as Jasper returned with the blood. I drank most of it and slowly regained what remained of my senses. My Nessie was safe. That was what mattered, in the long run. It wouldn't matter, soon. I would see my daughter again. With the return of my senses, came my thinking ability, and my vampire mind was already starting to plan. I would have my family back. Even without my soon-to-be-ex husband.
Jasper leaned against the door. "In three hours we need you to open up a crack in the shield. For Peter and Char." He said. "They're coming to visit."
I nodded. "What's the plan?" I asked, moving towards the bathroom for a long overdue shower. When you're thinking with your baser instincts, hygiene isn't one of your main concerns. "I know you have one."
I walked into the bathroom and started stripping, turning on the water to full hot. I knew that Jasper was smirking from the other room.
"I'm thinking something along the lines of a Revolution." he said.
I poked my head out the door, hiding my bare torso. "How?" With Edward's departure, something in me broke. A long dormant version of myself broke free. Bitchy, sarcastic, skeptical Bella was back from her long break. My mother would be proud. She'd missed me while I was living with Charlie. Once I'd moved out, I'd planned on returning to my old ways, but then I met Edward, and he fell in love with the girl I had changed myself into. I'd locked her away for what I thought was forever. Now that he was gone, I didn't have to worry about it. I was leaving, anyway. They wouldn't have to deal with me for long.
"The same way the Colonials did." Jasper said. "Only we're going to Italy."
"Good." I said, ducking back into the bathroom. "That means I can put my soon-to-be-ex husband on a pyre." I thought for a moment. "Remind me to contact Jenks for divorce papers." I stepped under the spray and sighed in relief. The hot water felt fantastic. I'd been so tense for weeks. I needed a moment to relax.
"Will do." Jasper said. "At any rate, to start, we're going to take the separation deal. First, you and I will hit Forks to parley with the wolves, then we head south for the warlords. Meanwhile, Carlisle and Esme can have their peaceful existence."
"Let me guess." I called. "You're sending Em and Rose after nomads?" It wasn't a bad plan. It just needed some tweaking. I wasn't about to let him call all the shots. He wasn't the only one that lost something in all of this.
"You got it." He laughed. "Peter and Char are with us."
"Sounds good." I told him, finishing my shower and walking out in a towel. "Can't wait, but I think we need to tweak your plans a little bit."
"Why?" Jasper asked, staring at me as I moved. I was towel drying my hair. I was thinking about trimming it. "What do you think you could add that I haven't already thought of?"
"The fact that going to Italy means challenging them on their own turf." I told him, sitting down on the bed. I dropped my hair towel next to me on the mattress and looked at him. "Think about it. If we go to Italy and challenge them in Volterra, then we're at the disadvantage. They know the area better than we do. That's not counting the exposure risk. We want them out of power, but we still don't need the humans to know about us. That would just create more trouble for us in the short term. We need to challenge them somewhere open, somewhere we don't have to worry about humans coming across us by accident."
He looked thoughtful. "You're right." he ran a hand through his hair. "I guess I still haven't completely reverted back, yet."
I shrugged and got up. "Look, I realize you're still trying to find yourself, but you really need to take a break and think about short term goals before you start making big plans. I agree with you completely on the method, but we need to keep this low key."
He nodded and watched as I walked over to my dresser. I pulled out a pair of clean underwear and a matching bra, both in black silk. I rooted around for a pair of low-rise black jeans and pulled them on as well before dropping my towel completely. I turned to finish the blood I had been brought and chugged it.
I heard Jasper growl as blood trailed down my chin, neck, and breast. When I set down the jug, I found myself pinned against the wall. His tongue trailed up to the corner of my mouth. "Bear." He murmured. "Typical Emmett."
I smirked. "Jas, what are you doing?" He had moved back to my neck and started nipping and sucking at the flesh. It had been so long. Edward had been reluctant past the attack by the Volturi. It had been nearly twenty months. I would bend to his will if he demanded it.
He laughed. "You're a very special young vampire, aren't you?" he nuzzled my neck. "Very neglected, as well."
I whimpered as his hands found my breasts. "Jas, why are you …" my breath caught as he rolled my nipple between his fingers. "Fuck."
Jasper smirked. "So responsive." he murmured. "Do you want this, Bella? Do you want me to take you?" he thrust against me and I threw my head back.
"YES!"
"Jasper, stop." Came a foreign voice. We both growled as our eyes found Carlisle standing in the doorway, shocked. Jasper didn't move as my hands slid to cover my chest as much as possible. Jasper was one thing. Carlisle was another.
"Go away, Carlisle." Jasper snarled.
"Get off her, Jasper. She's not yours." Carlisle snapped. It was the closest I'd ever seen him to looking like the vampire he was instead of the human he pretended to be.
"This doesn't concern you, Carlisle." Jasper informed him. "Isabella is an adult. She can make her own decisions."
"Bella," Carlisle murmured, trying a different tactic. "What about Edward, your husband and mate. He'll be devastated. You know he'll come back once he finds out you're well again."
I laughed. Jasper stepped away from me, realizing that it wasn't happening today. "You're an idiot, Carlisle." I told him, pulling on a tank top that fit my form and stopped an inch above my belly button. "A fool too blind to see what's really in front of you. Edward left me. Remember? Willingly, I might add. The moment I started to lose it."
I pulled my hair back into a bun and faced him as he shook his head. "He left to protect you, Bella. He left to keep you out of Volturi hands and keep Renesmee safe." Carlisle claimed.
I snorted. "Is that what he told you?" I asked, deadpan. My voice sounded dark, even to my own ears. "You know nothing." I told him, staring at the floor as my mind returned to that night. "You were too busy to care…"
"Bella, I know you're not happy about this move, but you know that it's best." Edward said as he walked into our bedroom at the cabin. Nessie was already packed away to the Rez with Jake. It was just me and him. It took me back to that night, the first time he left me.
I wasn't in control. I knew that I didn't have the control to face him like this. I was losing it fast and it wouldn't be long before I broke down and reverted completely. "I don't know what you're talking about, Edward. How could it be what's best for you to leave behind your family? Your wife and child? It doesn't make any sense to me."
Edward sighed. "Bella, you know I love you. You know I love Nessie. I would do anything for you."
"Then fight back!" I screamed at him. "Tell them that you don't want to join them. We can go away together. See the world. We could come back every couple of months to see Nessie and Jake. Go visit the rest of the family. They only said we couldn't live together, not that we couldn't visit each other. We can become nomads for a while."
Edward shook his head. "You didn't see what Alice saw, Bella. This is the only way. If I don't join them, they'll come after you and Nessie."
I threw down the shoes that I had been packing and left holes in the floor. "You are so full of shit!" I screamed. I could feel her coming free again. The one I'd tried so hard to keep from him. That darker personality. "You're doing this to save your own ass. You're doing this because you're running scared. You know as well as I do that I'm on the verge of a full fucking collapse and you don't know how to handle it, so you're taking the coward's way out. AGAIN! Tell me I'm wrong." I challenged.
Edward stared me down, fear in his eyes. "I think you've been spending too much time with Emmett."
"I call Bullshit." I told him. "Don't try to change the subject, Edward. My language has nothing to do with this argument other than the fact it's a side effect of my current breakdown because I'm losing my daughter, husband, best friends, and parents all in one fell swoop." I shook my head as he failed to deny anything. I could see in his eyes that he wasn't going to change his mind and that he was scared shitless of me. I was barely past my newborn years. My eyes had only just lost their last traces of red. He was scared that something was going wrong with me.
"Yes." He said. "Yes, alright? I'm scared. I'm scared for your safety, I'm scared for Nessie. I'm scared for our family. I'm also scared of you. Is that what you wanted to hear? That you terrify me? You haven't been the same since you changed, Bella. For the most part, sure, but you've been slowly growing more and more aggressive. Ever since the last meeting we had with the Volturi, you've become more and more extroverted. I miss it being just you and me, like it used to be."
"So you're going to leave me?" I asked him.
He nodded. "It's the only way. You know what they say: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. When we meet again, maybe it'll be for good."
"Or maybe this is the end of us." I growled. I wasn't going to break like the little girl I had once been. I wasn't going to crumble in his hands again. "This is the second time you've broken that promise to me, Edward. You once told me that you would leave if it was the best thing for me. We've already discovered once that that isn't the right way to go. When you got back, you promised me, you SWORE, that you would never leave me again. Yet, here we stand, on the verge of yet another separation." I was done with him. I was done with his games. Looking back, I saw just how one-sided this relationship was. I looked him in the eye and saw my own black eyes reflected at me. "Congratulations, Edward, you've broken me again. I hope you're proud of yourself, because this time, there's no one to pick up the pieces. Get your shit and get out of my house. I hope you burn in Hell."
"…I broke completely." I told Carlisle. "The next thing I remember is yesterday." I covered my face with one hand and wrapped the other around the chasm that was threatening to reopen in my chest. The same one I thought closed. "Because you didn't stop him when you saw my state. Because you didn't stand up to Aro and be a fucking vampire. You had to play the submissive human, just like always."
Jasper was smirking at the dumbfounded look on Carlisle's face. I would have found it funny too, if I weren't so pissed off.
"And you're not the only one guilty." I told him. "I'm just as guilty as you in that I didn't fight, either. But I'm done playing the submissive. I'm sick of being pushed around and controlled. Aro's days are numbered." I looked him straight in the eye as I faced off. "With that said, I'm leaving. For good. I'll be gone in a few hours, because I'm done living here. I'm going to visit my daughter, best friend, and father, and then I'm going to travel." I had him completely dumbstruck.
He left and I turned to Jasper. He had his plans, I was formulating mine. Bella Cullen was dead. I was a new and improved Isabella Swan and it was time to play.
JasPOV
I could tell she was planning. Isabella Swan wasn't one to sit back and twiddle her fucking thumbs. Even when she was human, she was loath to sit on her ass and wait for people to do things for her. She wanted in on the action.
Watching her put Carlisle in his place was fucking beautiful. She held nothing back and I knew that this Bella was going to do well in vampire society. Peter and Char would fucking love her.
I head Esme and Carlisle take off into the woods and smirked. "What are you planning, Doll?"
"Getting out of here." Bella said. "I want to go home and see my kids. I want to get out of this room. Most of all, I want away from the memories of him."
She seemed so vulnerable in that moment. She'd been broken, not once, but twice, by the man that she gave herself to wholly; been betrayed by the girl she thought was her best friend; had her daughter and other best friend ripped from her; and watched her life fall down around her in less than a months time.
I was fucking ashamed. I'd all but fucked her against a wall because of the sheer force of her sexuality. If that was what Edward had gone home to, how the fuck did he walk away? I'd never let her leave the damned room.
I knew that answer. Edward was a fucking prude. Emmett and I had been hunting one night and had come through the clearing down wind of the house. Nessie had been at the main house to spend time with Auntie Alice and Auntie Rose.
Nothing. The fucking prudepire didn't even have the balls to take his all to willing wife. Why? They'd been in a fight earlier when she'd tried to jump him after feeding. He never could give her what she needed. Em and I had felt bad for her.
I sat down in a chair and faced her. "So what are we going to do, Querida?"
"We?" She asked.
I nodded. "I stuck around because of you, Bella. We're the odd ones out in this. Carlisle and Esme would have been perfectly content to let you rot down here. Rose and Em would have bailed sooner, had I not stuck around."
She laughed. "Fuck too, you had no where else to go."
She called my bluff … sort of. She was good. "While that's true, it's not my only reason for staying." I told her. "So are you going to be my companion or not?" I asked, redirecting.
She nodded. "First step is a phone call to Aro. Second is to Jake. After that, we'll see."
I smirked. "What are you thinking, Bells?"
She gained an absolutely feral grin. "I think it's time for the reign of terror to end, Jasper. I don't think our coven was the only one hit. Denali coven was good sized as well and I would be willing to bet that the Southern Covens are next."
I was shocked. She'd deduced that much in just a few short hours, at the same time she was giving Carlisle a verbal beat down and nearly fucking me. I was impressed. Vampires had fast and vast minds, but her mind was running well above the norm. It was either that, or she'd done a lot of thinking while she was pacing and growling down here. If we could collaborate properly, then this whole thing was going to be a beautiful bloodbath.
"So what are we going to do?" I asked.
Bella shook her head and smirked at me. "I'm not making any final decisions yet."
I was curious, now. Why wouldn't we begin moving against them as soon as possible. There was no way …
"Alice." I hissed. "Agreed."
"The moment the wolves decide to assist in whatever it is we decide to do," Bella told me, "She'll be blind. You, more than anyone, should know that."
I nodded. "I forgot about that, actually. But I agree with you." I mentally wiped my plan board clean and smirked. "Well? What are we waiting for?"
"Well, for one, Peter and Charlotte are going to be here in about … ten minutes. I just felt them pass through the Shield. Then we have to call Aro and tell him that we're leaving the family so we don't end up with a shadow. After that is a trip to Forks, where everything starts." Bella told me. She finished her blood and walked towards the stairs. "You coming?"
I nodded, not voicing the come back I had passing through my head. We needed to get things moving, and the quicker we did that, the quicker we could move on with our lives.
I would let her go, for now. She had a mind for strategy. She'd read enough of my history books to know a good plan from a bad one. We would work well together. Collaborate. When the fighting came, I would take charge. I was the Major, after all.
I was the brawn, she was the brain. We could make this work.
It was only a matter of time.
A/n: Tell me what you think. I love hearing from my readers. It's what keeps me posting.
Review Responses (wow there's a lot of you)
Coffee-for-closers: Thanks, hon. I meant to tell you, but with everything else going on, I spaced.
cullen818: O_O Wow. I'm honored. Thanks. .
mama4dukes: *points* she's sane again ... kinda.
Cathy29jes: *waves* don't worry, everything has a purpose.
twimama77: ^_^ I think i had a little too much fun with some of it, but that's the point here.
sparklingEAMC: Thank you! I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it!
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And with that said, i take my leave. See you all in the next chapter.
leggy freak003
