Disclaimer: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn, and all of their content and characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended. Text from the prologue of the first chapter belongs to Stephenie Meyer.

Warnings: violence, assumed character death, actual character death (of the ones you don't like, I promise!) and remember... I ship BxE. Also, a note on this chapter… the violence didn't end with Jacob. I suppose if you've read Twilight and toughed out Breaking Dawn, you've already seen Bella suffer, but consider this your warning. Also, this chapter contains a brief cameo by an insignificant OC.

A/N: Also, on a personal note… thanks to my reviewers, and to the silent supporters who've put this story on their alerts. I'm kind of gratified/surprised that I've gotten this far without flames.


A hysterical sob bubbled up from some deep, ugly place inside of me. I didn't even care. I was barely aware of the screams that came from my throat, caught up in a pain so immense that all of reality started to fade. I barely heard Victoria's voice call to Laurent as the engine purred to life.

"Laurent! Knock her out."

A marble fist connected with the side of my head, and in a brilliant flash of pain, my world disappeared completely.


Chapter 3: Bloodlust

There were two situations that I was fervently praying for. Option one was that I would wake up and find myself at home in bed. Option two was that I wouldn't wake up.

Once again, I was down on my luck.

"Good morning, Bella" A mocking voice taunted, as if it were a joke that anything about this morning could be good.

I didn't respond, shifting around surreptitiously to figure out exactly what kind of a predicament I was in. The news wasn't good. My wrists burned from the friction of rope bindings, and my arms screamed from the uncomfortable way that they were pulled behind my back. My ankles were bound similarly, and I wondered at the necessity. Did they really expect that I would be able to escape two vampire captors? And how long did they plan on keeping me alive?

They hadn't gagged or blindfolded me, but I wasn't sure if I cared. It didn't matter.

We were still in the tinted sports car, but from what I could see, it was just closing in on dawn. I shifted again to try and get a better view, but as I twisted on my side to look out the window, I noticed a cloth bandage wrapped around a small section of my left arm.

"What…?" I puzzled out loud, staring at the bandage. I didn't recall any injuries yesterday. Had I hurt myself when I was running away? It wasn't entirely impossible.

"Oh… Laurent was thirsty." Victoria spoke to me over her shoulder, one hand barely holding the steering wheel. Apparently my expression conveyed my lack of comprehension, because she clarified with a smirk, "It was really the only way, without him losing control. I wouldn't want my fun to end prematurely…"

She held up an empty syringe.

My eyes widened, and I could feel the blood drain from my face. Of all my irrational fears, Victoria and Laurent had managed to strike upon my aversion to needles. I could feel my stomach turn, but I worked quickly to calm myself down. Throwing up on the backseat of Victoria's car would hardly earn her mercy.

I may have won the battle with my gag reflex, but the shudders coursing through my shoulders and arms were a different story. As my full awareness finally returned to me, I recalled why I had been knocked unconscious in the first place.

Jacob…

I had the sense to stifle the urge to scream again, but couldn't stop the fresh tears that spilled out of my eyes. I was on my own. Jacob was dead, Edward was long gone, and I was a paper doll in the hands of two vengeful children. I buried my face in the back seat of the car and continued to cry, quietly sobbing my heart out. I had nothing left. What did I need a heart for, anyway? They could have it.

"Why are you crying, Bella? You deserve this pain. You, an insignificant mortal, should never have survived the battle with James. When Edward finds your dead, mangled body, when he finds his love ripped from his life… I wonder if he'll be able to live with himself."

So it was the death sentence, then. It surprised me how calmly I was able to acknowledge the coming of my own death. But of course, the months after Edward had left hadn't really been living. However, her use of the word "mangled" sent more chills down my spine, and I remembered Laurent's words about Victoria's plans for me.

I continued to sob, unresponsive to Victoria's jeers and taunts. Angered with my apparent resignation, she snapped at Laurent, "Get me another syringe!"

That was enough to jerk me out of my haze. A fresh wave of adrenaline electrified my nerves in anticipation. A cold hand roughly flipped me over to expose my un-bandaged arm, and a sharp sting alerted me to the needle piercing my skin. I flinched, trying to pull away, but Victoria's grasp was inescapable. I could feel my breaths quickening, and I began to whimper as pain flared in my arm. The only mercy was that Edward was with me again, breathing into my ear.

"Shhh, Bella. Don't give up. Stay with me. Stay alive. If not for me, then for Charlie."

Of course. Charlie, the only person left who needed me. Renee would survive, but if I died, Charlie would go back to living all alone. He would be devastated. The thoughts were ephemeral though, as I began to feel extremely weak and tired. My vision became overwhelmed with gray and black spots, and the pain in my arm crescendoed one last time. Edward's voice, even diluted from the passage of time and laced with worry, carried me tenderly into the dark.

As I came to for the second time, I rapidly became aware of several things. First, that I was no longer in a car. Second, that my arms and legs we un-bound. Third, that my stomach was unbearably hollow.

I blinked hesitantly, reluctantly adjusting to the room's fluorescent lights. Pushing myself up onto my elbows, I found myself on a gurney, in some kind of abandoned hospital…

Oh please, no. Had we arrived at Chicago? Was this… could it be the hospital where Edward had been treated for the Spanish Influenza? I felt a small thrill course through my body. It was stupid, really, the excitement I felt at the prospect of potentially being in the same hospital where Carlisle had found Edward. I was going to die here. And if Edward found me here… I was certain he'd find some way to blame himself.

The room smelled old, as if the building had been unoccupied for quite some time. The room was long and dimly-lit, with a dozen gurneys in battered condition lined up along the wall. There were several doors, and one at the end looked like it might be a bathroom. There was a single window at the end of the hall, but it was jammed shut, and there wasn't much to see out of it besides a few other run-down buildings. Perhaps we weren't in the city. I glanced around again, looking at the room in a new light. Was there anything in here that could help me escape? To my dismay, there were no telephones or communication devices.

Not that there was anyone I could call for help. I'd half hoped that there would be a way that I could call Charlie, and hear his voice one last time…

I shifted my legs over the side of the gurney, and the piercing creak of the rusty metal made me flinch. Sliding off the edge, I braced myself as vertigo hit me worse than I'd anticipated.

In an instant I was on the floor, barely managing to protect my head from cracking against the crusty tiled floor. I shuddered to think of how much blood Victoria and Laurent had drained from my body.

Reminding myself that I was a goner anyhow, I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled to the bathroom, pulling myself weakly along the floor. To my great surprise, the plumbing still seemed to work effectively enough. I assumed that Victoria and her vampire sensitivity to smell were probably behind that. It was a small mercy.

I found that I could walk if I held onto something, so I gripped the wall and made my way back out into the room. The room had been empty before, but to my surprise, I now had a guest who was neither vampire nor werewolf.

It was clearly a man, but he wore dark clothes and a mask over his face. What…? My subconscious Edward seemed to realize his intent before I did, and he snarled fiercely. My eyes flicked down to his hands, and widened at the sight of a whip in his hand. Not good news…

All the adrenaline in my system couldn't help me work up the stamina to run, or attempt to escape this somehow. The man stalked forward, and before I could get two steps away, he shoved me to the ground with one large, calloused hand. This time I did not have the ability to protect myself. As my cranium connected with the floor, I had a strange sense of déjà vu, remembering the time that Edward had saved me from Tyler Crowley's van that day in the parking lot. It was a world so far away from where I was now. The man grunted as he shoved me again, turning me so that I was face-down.

Giving no warning, he started in on me with several strong lashes. The leather whip ripped through the back of my shirt, slicing into the smooth skin there. I screamed at the burning sensation, but before it could dull, he'd pulled back his arm and released the whip again. Who on earth is this man?

I realized dully that this was a torture that Victoria and Laurent could not inflict on me. The blood would be too much of a temptation… they wouldn't be able to draw it out. I cringed, not liking how far Victoria seemed to have thought this through. My death was clearly not going to be short and gratifying.

As Victoria's masked cohort continued, I hysterically counted the lashes as they tore at my back. Seven, eight, nine... this was far beyond anything I'd had to endure before. I shuddered, and realized that my breaths were coming in sharp gasps and leaving in shuddering exhalations. The whip continued to rip into my back, and I let the fear consume me. It was so intense… blindingly so. I continued to scream, but my attacker had no mercy. My screams echoed back to me and continued to ring in the room, the only sound that I could fathom. I writhed in pain, trying to twist away from the whip, but I was so weak. Too weak. Always the weak human. My forehead pulled tight with the renewed pain in my chest.

As my vision began to fade in an out, I realized that under the sound of my screams, I could hear Edward's voice again. He was begging.

"Please, Bella… hold on! Please, please, hold on for me. Be strong, Bella! Don't let go…"

As the pain began to numb, my screams turned into sobs, wracking my already-shaking body. My face was covered in sweat and tears, and I continued to cry into the floor.

Suddenly, the lashings stopped, but only for a moment. I heard the man's voice briefly in my ear, low and repentant.

"I'm sorry, kid. She has my wife. If I can get out of here, I'll call the cops for you. I'm sorry." Desperation laced every word, and I didn't doubt his sincerity.

I nodded, far from the ability to articulate further. He was no monster, then. I could deal with the pain. It was almost as though the mental pain I'd been suffering for months had taken on a physical form. I even had the presence to pity him.

I knew that neither he nor his wife would be set free. He was as much a prisoner as I was.

He resumed the torture, and I cried anew, for this innocent man who would be sacrificed for the sake of my, and Edward's, torment at the hands of a vengeful murderess vampire.