Home again! I have me my Bella. Time to ... play.

I brought Bella home.

Time to play.

It was the campsite we returned to, the one she so desperately fled. The one the other campers would never leave. Alan was still lying there in front of the other staked campers.

He wasn't moving. He wasn't 'gonna.'

I like slang. It makes me feel so ... 'cool' and 'with it.' I like being 'cool.' It beats being poor, and beaten, starving and sick.

It beats being dead.

Ha, ha. I am dead, ... undead, ... whatever.

But I wasn't dead-dead like Alan and the others. Poor bastards.

And but those poor bastards were lucky, or that's what Bella would be thinking, ... shortly.

There was a central fire pit for the camp ground, benches made of large, hardened logs encircled it. Campers probably built a fire at night, toasted marshmallows, sang Kumbaya, ... all that.

I have no idea what marshmallows taste like. I know they don't taste like blood, so they're shit to me.

I have no idea what 'Kumbaya' means. I have no care to know.

I sat Bella on one of the logs facing me. My back was to the dead spectators, so she had a very clear view of what I could do.

When I wasn't trying.

"Now, Bella, ..." I began.

"I told you that's not my name," she cut in angrily. "My name's ..."

SMACK!

I had been smiling at her rude interruption, so amusing, but I didn't need the offered information, and she needed a lesson in obedience.

Here I was trying to tell her what was coming, give her a little guidance, but she sees fit not to listen, but to interrupt? And then start volunteering nonessential information?

My hand lashed out on its own, not even awaiting the command from me, and connected with her face, connecting, staying there, pulling her from her seat then sliding across her cheek, letting her go fly free.

It was a light slap, so she landed a mere seven feet from where she had been sitting.

"Woof!" she cried as her body hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her. By the time I got up from my seat, leisurely, and picked up her crumpled form, she was moaning a soft 'owww!' lightly, clasping her cheek.

I sat her back on her log, made sure she was still sitting when I let her go, then returned to my seat.

"Now," I said easily, "Bella ..."

"That's not ..."

SMACK!

'Turn the other cheek'?

Bella got that opportunity.

Now she sailed in the opposite direction, right into the fire pit.

Oh, for goodness sake! Don't worry: the fire had been out and cold since last night!

What kind of person do you think I am? I wasn't planning on setting her on fire or anything.

Well, not yet, anyway.

I walked into the fire pit, my bare feet crushing the cinders into grey-black dust and I picked Bella up by the shoulders, just a little bit off the ground.

She was a mess. Ash-dust mingled with tears giving the effect of mascara running where there was none, so she looked like one of those beggars in one of those third-world countries: dirtied, tired, defeated.

"Bella," I snarled quietly right into her face. She wouldn't look at me. "Tell me your name."

She was sobbing softly and gasping for breath. Some girls cry because they know their crying evokes pity in the person hurting them, and that person stops.

Bella knew, instinctively, that I wasn't the kind of person who indulged in pity.

I indulged in other things.

So she wasn't crying to elicit pity from me. She was crying because the 'woe-is-me' was in full force.

And the pain might have had something to do with her tears, too.

"F-fuck you, bitch," she said.

You know how somebody fights, not because they're brave, but because ... there's nothing left to do? They're done for, but they can't give up, because they've already passed that point, so they just fight, just with that last bit of reserve, so they can get the shit beat out of them, because they know that's going to happen anyway, and they have nothing to gain by giving up and nothing to lose in that last act of defiance?

You know those kinds of people?

I smiled at her. "Wrong answer, Bella," I said factually.

Then I shoved her down, hard, ... for her .. back into the cinders.

"Ugh!" the air she had tried to recover rushed out of her lungs as her back hit the ground.

I picked her up again as she drew in a gasp of air, and threw her down again. Hard.

"Aouf!" she gasped.

I picked her up again, and threw her down hard.

"Unnnnngh!" she whined.

I pulled her up from the cinders and stood, holding her up.

"Bella," I prompted, and raised my eyebrows at her. "Your name."

She took a good ten seconds gasping for air around my hand lightly holding her up by her throat, then she took another ten seconds to compose herself, still panting hard.

The left side of my mouth twitched upward into a lopsided grin. I was waiting for her answer.

She, very deliberately, spit in my face. Spittle went into my eyes and dripped off my nose.

I blinked twice and nodded. Good girl. I thought, almost ... proudly.

I didn't last this long, when it was Anne who broke me then so casually turned me.

You break your newborns before you turn them. They're easier to control after that way.

"You can beat me," she said, "you can hurt me," she said. "But you're never going to get me to give up. Ever." she said. "My name's Summer Fergusson, not Bella-whatever, and nothing you can do to me will ever change that."

My lips twitched at this.

"Fergusson," I said, looking at her eye-to-eye, and not liking that at all.

"Yes," she said, her eyes narrowed just ever so slightly.

"Scottish," I stated.

The girl just kept glaring back at me.

I don't know if she knew if she were Scottish or not. Her eyes didn't give anything away.

I frowned. "The Scots are known for their pride," I said.

It was true. It was easier to kill a Scotsman than to break him. Far easier.

I could ... break this girl but ...

But it'd be far easier if she let me.

I sat her back down on the log.

"'Never,' huh?" I said, standing over her.

She glared up at me. Her eyes answered for her. Never.

"Hm," I said thoughtfully, displeased.

I was quiet for a moment, regarding her.

I didn't like this turn of events.

"I want you to do something for me," I said. "I'm going to walk away for a brief moment, and in that time I want you to count each person I've hanged here in front of you. When I come back, I want you to tell me your count of the number of people I've killed here. Look into their faces as you count them. This is important: for you, and for what comes next."

And I left.

I went into the forest and found myself a nice adolescent sapling. It was about a half-a-foot in diameter and rose about twelve feet into the air. I uprooted it and stripped it down to a nice long pole and made sure the tip was nice and sharp.

I returned to the campsite.

The girl was not at her seat.

Not a problem. I laid the spear down, and then walked to the parked cars, and lifted up the jeep by its front that she was hiding under.

Only one human heartbeat in the vicinity.

Playing hide and seek with a vampire. I mean: really?

The shocked look on her face ... priceless.

I picked her up as she quickly tried to recover and scramble away, and dropped the jeep back down.

Hard.

Its frame bent, and settled slightly, absorbing the shock of the impact.

I then carried her back to her seat and sat her back down.

"I forgot to mention: stay," I said off-handedly.

She so wanted to snarl at me, but that worked only partially, because she couldn't ignore the spear in my hand.

I buried it into the ground, front-and-centre of the crowd of dead people.

"Hi, dead people," I said airily.

They didn't answer.

The girl didn't find it funny, either.

Humour.

Wheresoever did humour go this last half-century?

I turned and sat back down in front of the girl, crossed my legs casually, then put my chin on top of my hand in a thinking position. Then I looked at her.

She looked between me and our audience.

She couldn't stand the silence. "What?" she demanded petulantly, then winced at my raised eyebrow response.

"So, what," she pushed, "you gonna stake me? Is that what ..."

"No," I said.

She blinked in surprise. She wasn't expecting that response, nor the cool, off-hand way I delivered it.

She blushed and looked confused now.

She was a fighter, all right, and I'll give her that, but I wasn't giving her anything to fight, and now she was befuddled because of that: all keyed up, all ready to be courageous, but not expecting nothing.

I smirked.

I could tell she hated my smirk.

Good.

"Then what!" she demanded angrily.

I sat up quickly, causing her to flinch backward slightly. I smirked again. I waved behind me.

"How many people?" I said.

She looked away, ashamed and angry, and mumbled: "Twelve."

"Good girl," I said.

Her eyes whipped back to mine and she glared.

"You can count," I said, pleased.

"Fu-..." she hissed.

"But you missed Alan," I said and waved down to the mess that was his body. "Did you forget to count him? Did you forget him already?"

The girl's eyes widened in shock, and she gasped.

"N-..." she said.

"Because I didn't," I said.

That hit her. "You ..."

"You know," I said conversationally. "I was the last person he was with when he died."

"Because you killed him!" she shrieked.

"Yeah," I said, "'cause I killed him, and what where you doing, precisely at the moment of his death? Hm? Running away, perhaps?"

"That's not true, and that's not fair. He told me to go get help, and I couldn't ..."

She broke off and looked away.

"You couldn't stop me, because you weren't strong enough, and you weren't good enough," I said.

She became stone.

"You know," I said. "If our places were reversed, ..."

... and they were, my little voice said, ...

"I would've gladly traded places. If I truly loved my J-... my lover, I would've rather have died in his stead. But you obviously didn't love Alan."

Her lips tightened up and she pushed her hand over her face, not really clearing it, just moving the soot around a bit in the slime of her tears.

She looked at me with pure hate. "Fuck. You."

"Eloquent, aren't we," I said, unaffected. "Truth hurts, doesn't it?"

"You want me to feel bad about this?" she demanded coldly, raising her chin. "Well, good for you: I feel bad. I did everything I could, and I just wasn't good enough. Is that what you want to hear, you f-fu..." She drummed her fingers for a second, realizing that she was the one lowering herself by insulting me with her name-calling, but not knowing how else she could respond. "Is that what you want to hear? You win, okay? Happy? Now get this over with, because I'm done with you, you cunt."

Then she turned her whole body away from me and crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip, trying to look defiant.

It was actually kind of cute. I giggled a tinkling little laugh.

Her whole body shuddered in anger. She tried to pretend to be a stone, unaffected.

But you can't pretend to be a stone. You either are one, like me, or you aren't. Like her.

"Yes, sweetie," I said easily, "You weren't good enough, because guess who's the last person who made him cum, huh?"

She shook. "Bullshit." She whispered.

"Uh, huh," I said.

I went over to Alan.

"You see this?" I said. She was still turned away, but the very corner of her eye followed me, I saw.

I wiped the front of his shorts, blood covered my hand, but then I stood and separated my fingers.

Blood doesn't connect your fingers with slime like that.

I flicked my hand and the blood and semen flew across the distance between us and splattered against her face and chest.

"You saw him grinding against me," I said. "I should've just ripped off his shorts so he could've cum inside me. What a waste of sperm, right? What a shame, too. And I could've been all yummy-warm inside, but no, he couldn't wait to blow his load. Was he like that with you last night? Boom, he's done, and you're full of cum. Or do you practice ... what do you call it? 'Safe sex' whatever that means."

She hung her head. "Shut up," she said. "Just please shut up."

She sniffled.

I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "Mr. Quickdraw, the one-shot won-..."

"SHUT UP!" she screamed.

I shrugged. "Okay. I win again," I pointed out. "Right?" I pressed.

She looked further away and whispered a sad, 'Whatever.'

I stood by Alan, the one-shot wonder for a second, then returned to my seat in front of the girl.

"So you're not Bella Swan, and nothing I can do can change that. Okay. You win." I said.

She didn't move.

"You happy?" I demanded.

She was quiet.

"So, as you say, my mistake, and all these dead people, ... thirteen by my count," I emphasized the point, "because 'you're insane,' right? That's what you called me."

My lip twitched up slightly.

"But we have a problem, Bella," I said.

She sighed.

"You see," I explained, "I was going to kill just you and your Alan last night, and nice and quickly, too, but then ... oh, Bella, there you were, and I, frankly, did not know what do to with myself, for I never expected to have this opportunity just given to me."

"Why do you hate this person so much?" she asked in a small voice.

"Uh, huh," I said dismissively. "Doesn't matter to you, right, because you're not her. And even if you were, you wouldn't know the tenth, nay, the hundre-... nay: the milleth of what my hate is for you ... excuse me, for her."

She looked at me at this.

"Look," she tried reason. "I don't know what ..."

"Yes, you don't know," I said, forcefully interrupting her, then added: "and you don't care, right?"

I waited.

The girl bit her lip. She was smart; she knew there was no right answer to my question.

"So, now I have a problem," I said. "I went to all this effort to get me a Bella Swan to ... play with, but you just don't want to play the game. Well, sweetie. I payed the price for you, but ..."

I shrugged.

"You don't own me," she hissed.

I smiled lightly.

"Right-o," I said easily. "I don't own you. But this is not the only campground in this forest park, right?"

She blinked.

"And you're so sure you're not Bella Swan. You know this, see? Well, if you're not Bella Swan, and there's nothing I can do to make you her, well, then, you're free to go. All you have to do first is help me pick the person who is Bella Swan. I'll gather them up and bring them here, one-by-one, and since you're so sure that ..."

"This is no fair!" she shouted desperately, her eyes wide.

"And since you're so sure you're not Bella Swan!" I screamed right back.

The air shook. The girl gasped, then doubled over and vomitted, grasping her head in pain.

Okay. Maybe I overdid that.

I didn't shatter her eardrums, however that ringing in her ears? Those were the nerve cells screaming and dying. Permanent damage. Oh, well.

So it begins.

I continued, even again: "Then we'll skewer the ones you're also so sure who aren't Bella Swan, until we find her, then I'll play with the one you point out to me who is, and you can be on your way. How does that sound?"

She bit her lip and turned away from me again, putting her head into her hands.

"Bella," I said. "What's your name?"

She didn't answer for a second, then she sniffled.

My lip twitched upward. I would have giggled with delight, but this was an important moment for her.

The moment she gave up.

"Just nod your head, love," I offered gently.

"Is your name Bella Swan?"

She held herself in with her arms, her hands covering her face, and she rocked herself, swallowing hard. Two, then three tears fell through her hands onto the ground in front of her.

She nodded just a little tiny nod of her head.

I stood, glided over to her, then sat behind her, my side touching her back. Her back tightened up, and she shuddered at my light touch.

"Good girl," I said softly, and kissed the crown of her head.

I smiled warmly. "Let's ... play, Bella."