The train ride had been thankfully uneventful. No one bothered them as no one wanted to antagonize Bella as her mood had only gotten worse after confronting her 'friends'. Although she had lied when they asked where Hedwig was, saying that she was off delivering a request for a summer subscription of the Daily Prophet. That was the bulk of the conversation that they had.
Though she had a feeling that Hermione was only sitting with her as the other girl had no other friends. Both Hermione and Ron hadn't talked to her after her semi-public dressing down of them. Then when they had followed her to the compartment she knew that it was just for show.
Ron was also not happy that she refused to let him take Scabber's out of his cage for the duration of the ride. Something about the Rat set her on edge. Though she did threaten to feed it to Hedwig if it got within six feet and wasn't contained, which made sure that he listened to her.
When the train pulled into the station neither of them even turned to say goodbye. Both just grabbed their trunks and walked away towards their parents.
Watching them go she felt something within her that had been slowly getting weaker, shrivel up and die. It felt like she had been kicked in the gut as her heart clenched uncomfortably.
The car ride back to the house had been quite which had suited her mood well.
Though she had been surprised that as soon as she gotten into the house she had a cheap duffle bag tossed into her face.
"Pack your clothing and toiletries, we fly out in the morning." Her Aunt ordered her.
So, with her Aunt standing over her watching as she packed to ensure that all school-related items bar acceptable clothing were the only things placed in the bag. Thankfully Petunia didn't notice that her wand was not in the trunk at all.
Half an hour later Bella was pacing in her room as she ran over the information she had just been given. Apparently, Uncle Vernon had been invited to Italy for some in-person business negotiations, said negotiations were to last for a month ending two days before her birthday, they would be leaving in the morning as they had decided to take advantage of the opportunity to take a vacation, and for some reason when she was ten they had gotten passports for the family.
When the paperwork was being filled out for Dudley they had gotten hers as to avoid any questions and had used her school picture for that year. That was also why she was traveling with them, Aunt Petunia was worried that people would talk if they left their twelve-year-old niece home alone, or with a neighbor the day after returning from a boarding school, even on for troubled young girls like Saint Catherine's.
Before she went to bed that night she sent Hedwig to Ron and Hermione with letters letting them both know what was going on. Some small part of her hoped that they would at least care enough to read them, also it was best to keep up appearances. Though she did give her beloved owl orders to see if they wanted to write a response before returning to her if not then to just return.
With that done she laid down absently rubbing at her sternum where the ache still lingered, as they would have to get up early to catch the flight to Florence, Italy the next day.
The next afternoon she found herself stumbling into the hotel suite that they would be staying in. They had to be up and at the airport for five after all. Though she had managed to keep hold of her passport as her sleep addled Aunt forgot to take it back.
Looking around she knew that she would be lucky to sleep on the couch in front of the tv as there might have been two bedrooms there was no way in hell that she would be sharing with Dudley.
After the bellhop had dropped the bags off she had received direct instructions that she was not to interfere with their vacation. So, with orders not to be in the room between the hours of eight in the morning and eight in the evening, she grabbed her school bag which had been her carry on and left to wander around the city. She even had her own room key.
Glad that she at least had some pounds on her she grabbed a tourist map off the counter by the hotel.
She then went in the direction of the elevator so that the staff wouldn't see her leave alone. Though she was now one of the taller girls in her year she was still only twelve nearly thirteen and she didn't want any questions asked this early in the stay.
With the map stashed in her bag, she walked in the direction that she could hear traffic and proceeded to try and find her way to get something to eat.
Her first stop was to a currency exchange, then after getting her food, she wandered around until she found a small park/playground that wasn't too busy.
So, the days passed, she would sneak out of the hotel in the mornings and back in in the evenings. Spending her days either walking around the city and seeing the sites or at the park listing into the parents as the talked to the kids so that she could at least brush up on her verbal Italian. She would even talk to some of the kids occasionally, but not for long and she never told them that she was there on vacation.
On her second afternoon, she found an out of the way alley and started to use it to practice with her flames. Though on her third afternoon she started to feel eyes on her but was unable to see anything when she looked around. By the middle of the second week, Bella could summon the yellow speckled purple flames into a thin shield that could either hug her skin or moved further out as a barrier. She was also able to tell that the person watching her was about her height, male and kept to the rooftop. He hid at such a spot that the angle allowed him to watch her, but she couldn't see him. Just the random glimpse of blond hair and only hear the occasional snicker drift down on the wind.
She purchased food from the various corner stores that she found alternating the streets so that no one would get suspicious of her. At night she would return to the hotel and stay out of the way. Though it wasn't that had as they would go out for dinner, then she would bed down in a corner of the room under a spare blanket with a second one being used as a pillow.
On the last day there she returned to an empty hotel room. Not empty as in they had stepped out for the evening but empty as in everything bar her bag had been packed and removed.
Trying to ignore the growing panic at the possibility that they had left her she settled down and tried to get some sleep.
When they hadn't returned by the morning Bella assumed that they had left her. With a heavy heart that they had abandoned her, not quite believing it but not surprised either. The envelope that had been pushed under her door didn't help matters much either. In it was an invoice with a note thanking them for paying for the room service they had had.
Still not being able to believe that they had left, Bella checked the small kitchenette for any leftover food (which there was none), grabbed her bags and left.
The duffle was small enough that it fit on snuggly on her back, even after she placed her school bag in it. Then again, it's not like she had a lot of clothing to bring with her, to begin with.
As she arrived at the alley where she practiced her control Bella sent out a small invisible amount of flames to do a quick scan of the area. Absently noting that her watcher was already there but with someone else that was both older than him but smaller as well. Looking up she still couldn't see them, but she sent a quick smile their way for the sake of it, as she pulled the flames back in and headed towards the back wall taking a closer look for spots where puddles might form when it rained while stepping around one on her journey towards the back.
When she was three-quarters of the way down the alley she heard footsteps other than her own echo off the walls around her.
Turning slowly, she watched as two men blocked her exit and slowly advanced towards her. They were spaced apart enough that she wouldn't be able to slip along the wall and to get by, but close enough to the center that they would catch her if she tried to run straight down the middle.
"I don't know, she seems a little younger than the other ones we have already brought in." The one on the left said in a slow but deep gravelly voice. His words filtered to her brain as she recognized spoken Italian well enough to understand.
"Don't care. We only need to deliver one more and I want to get out of here before they find us." The one on the right said with a growl in his voice.
The emphasis on the way he said 'they' sent a shiver down her back. As if this man now following her into an alley and
Dropping her bag to the side Bella tried to put some distance between herself and the men while she looked for anything she could use to try and aid in her escape. She really didn't want to have to kill them in the one place she had started to claim as her own. The cops showing up to investigate the bodies would mean that she would have to find a new spot to hide.
Not seeing anything that could help and not wanting to give away the secret of her flames right off the bat she slowly drew her knife as to not draw attention to it.
Her residual flames that had started to permeate the alley as she practiced informing her of the fact that her watchers were now very interested in what was going on.
Taking a deep breath, she froze when her left foot hit the back wall. As the men got closer the height difference became more and more apparent. They both stood around a foot taller than her, and in the shadows of the alley, they didn't see the black blade in her right hand.
Seeing that the man on her left had stepped into the middle of the alley to avoid a puddle she made a break to try and run past them, wanting to get out of the alley and back to the main street without getting in a fight. Then she would be able to run to a store, shed some tears about how bad men were chasing her. The men would then have to back off if they didn't want the cops to arrest them.
But the man saw her attempted break and moved to intercept her. He side-stepped and grabbed on to her right arm as she went to dart by.
The sudden jerk of him catching her shoulder and pulling her, caused her to lash out with the knife. She drove it into his lower right rib cage and buried it up to the handle with the tip sticking out of his back near the spine. The spells on the blade allowing it to slice pass the rib cage and through the liver kidneys and nick the infer vena cave with no problem. Her momentum as she ran forward caused the knife to tear sideways gliding along the ribs and out his back.
The jarring motion caused by both him grabbing her and the pressure as the blade punctured, traveled through then leave his body caused Bella to trip and fall to one knee. The sudden warmth on her hand caused by the mortally wounded guy's blood caused her to momentarily forget about the second man in the alley with them.
That is until her left shoulder erupted in a flash of mind-numbing pain that she couldn't even cry out from while hearing the seemingly distant report of a gunshot. Mind cleared of anything but the pain it took her several seconds to realize that the other man had walked up to her and was watching her from only a foot away, the gun in his hand pointed at her head.
"Well now, we were going to let you live and only give you to our employer. However, you just killed Frank over there." The second man's voice washed over the haze in her brain. "So now I will just kill you and be on my way."
The words caused her to forget about keeping her flames secret. She pulled them up to form a visible shield around herself. The sudden surge of adrenalin caused her to momentarily forget her pain as she somehow managed to get her feet under her and lunge at the other man.
Barley taking note of how the now pure purple flames moved with her as they hovered only a couple of inches above her skin, Bella lunged forward at the surprised man and purposely drove the blade of her knife into the middle of his chest piercing into his heart and killing him in seconds. She pushed him back as he fell so that the blade slid out from his body as easy as it went in.
Not caring about the blood that had just sprayed onto her shirt, Bella stumbled the six feet over to her bag and dropped her knife so that she could try to open it with her right hand. The pain in left shoulder rendering that arm useless as every breath became agony when her chest moved.
Belatedly she realized that her hand was shaking as she fumbled with the zipper. Placing her knee on the one end held it down so that the bag would open. Reaching in she grabbed the first thing that she could and tried to wrap it around the area in her shoulder that the blood seemed to be coming from. That was when she realized that the purple flames were still dancing on her skin and that the yellow ones seemed to have decided to center themselves in and around the wound.
In fact, she could feel them as they seemed to be dancing more around the back then her chest. They had a mild warming sensation that if not for the angry white-hot burning sensation of the wound itself she might have said that they tickled.
Gritting her teeth in the pain she did her best to wrap the sweater that she had grabbed behind her back over the exit wound, biting the top end to hold it she slid the other side under her arm and pulled it up to the front.
She almost passed out from the pain as the makeshift bandage was tightened over the wounds, the waves of agony sending white spots into her vision.
Still feeling her watcher's eyes on her, Bella picked up her blade and unsteadily got to her feet.
Looking around as a white tinged indigo mist started to fill the alley, Bella heard a now semi-familiar snicker.
Shear exhaustion seemed to bulldoze into her as she felt her control of the fire slip out of her grasp. She fought to stay on her feet with pure stubbornness as the pain from her wound seemed to flare a thousand times higher. She struggled to stay standing feet as the mist reached out to seemingly grab her.
The last thing she saw was as her watchers jumped down into the alley in front of her. After looking at the bodies the blond boy with his companion sitting on his shoulder turned to look at her. Unable to see his eyes due to his hair and unable to make out the others face due to their hat the last thing Bella would be able to recall is the bright flash as red fire engulfed the bodies, while darkness filled her vision and she felt herself starting to fall.
Hope that you enjoyed the changes.
Have a good day,
Alavear