Before the Grey:


Chapter 7:

Red part 2


The house they have taken us to isn't like ours in the least. There are no roaring fireplaces, the house is lacking the olden day charm that ours had been built on. Instead, their home is modern and stylish. There are walls of glass, and some rooms that are decorated in the latest fashions and the hottest colors of the year.

The living room, in which we are currently sitting, has a spotless white carpet, and equally stark white walls. The couch and the coffee table are black, as well as the flat screen T.V. that spreads to cover most of the wall. There is a vase made of broken glass, all shades of crimson. They are placed in layers around the vase from the top, the shades darkened until the very bottom tiles are almost black. A single long stemmed, white rose is placed inside.

On the wall behind the couch, there was red metal frame that forms an intricate design of squares and holds what could be thirty candles. Enough to burn the house down, I think to myself. Just the sight of the fire hazard has me squirming in my seat. Aubrey has not taken his eyes off it either; I think he still doesn't trust them.

Jasper who is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest starts to glare at Aubrey. "Trust me, if we wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead." Fear instantly rises from the pit of my stomach, and all I can see in my head is the two of them tearing each other to pieces. Aubrey narrows his eyes and looks like he is about to say something but stops as he sees Esme frown.

Her disapproving eyes look to Jasper and then to me, curious to see my reaction to all of this. I simply fold my hands in my lap and lower my eyes to stare at the ivory in them.

The sliding glass door opens and Carlisle steps over the threshold fallowed by Emmett and a woman with a celestial face to match her lovely figure which is set off by shimmering blonde hair that plummets down her back in soft waves. I felt ugly just looking at her. Her glittery golden eyes swept around the room and landed on me. The expression on her perfect face is so distorted with different emotions, but I still caught the dread and the dull resentment, before she looks away quickly.

They sit next around Esme on the long couch and suddenly I feel like it's us versus them, the way they are positioned and the solemnity on every one's faces is unnerving. The blond I don't know forces a smile on to her sensual lips.

"Bella, this is Rosalie." Carlisle gestures across Esme to said vampire, who takes a breath and starts to say something.

"I saw your music video on the television not a week ago." She pauses, searching for words, "It was powerful, I was very moved." I wonder if her words our as fake as her smile.

"Thank you." Nevertheless I thank her, and for what? I do not remember her, there is no interest pulling at me the way it did with the others. My eyes harden; I do nothing to try to stop it. I suddenly feel tired, exhausted. I don't have the energy to play up an act. I just need to know what I came here to find out, I do not need to make enemies, or regrets.

"Bella I just want to ask one thing before everything is set in motion," Carlisle sounds frustrated as he says this, the look doesn't suit him. He looks at me as he speaks, "What happened to you? How were you changed?" The casual passing of air through my nose halted and a small strangled sound that originated somewhere in my throat jumped out of my mouth before I could silence it.

Something, anything but that question.

Sure it is always a painful question to ask any of our kind, but for me it is an especially gut wrenching. It isn't the pain of the transformation, the despair of the blood lust I felt when I first awoke, or the pain of being kept from feeding. The person, who changed me, tortured me, played sick games with me and instilled a permanent, irreversible, crippling fear into every fiber of my being. She was the only memory I had worth remembering of anything that ever happened before I met my savior, before Aubrey saved me from my black hole of depression. He gave me life, and that is the only thing I wish to go back to, I do not live in the past as everyone else does. I can't.

Unable to do anything else I fall foreword, my face smothered in my hands. I could not let them see me like this, horrified expression that I knew was burned onto my face from the memory. They are strangers they can hurt me. I shake my head several times, trying to make them stop asking the questions that was repeating like a broken record in my head.

What happened to you?

Why were you changed?

"No." I can't breathe, though it couldn't make a difference, I can't even force it. My elbows are digging painfully into the flesh just above my knees. It can't make me move, ever since Victoria I have a high tolerance for pain. "Ask. Something. Else." When I could find and successfully use my voice, I demand it. I move my hands upward into my hair and running my fingers through the bone straight strands.

My eyes, still closed, when I sit back on the couch and cross my arms, and cross my left leg up, over my right, there isn't an opening in my stance, I'm trying to protect myself. I keep my eyes closed so I can't see the expressions that I can already see I my mind. The shock, the confusion the sympathy. I don't need to see it when I can already feel it radiating off of them all in ridiculous, hideous waves.

I've already been through the whole moping period, wondering why she hated me so much, why I was loathed by the only person I had to live for. She was my blood mother, she made me, but she wanted to destroy me so badly. The only reason she kept me alive was to torture me, she wanted to make me feel pain.

That sucked, I didn't need to be reminded of it by people who had no business knowing the events of my past.

"Please, Bella. It's imperative we know who was responsible." Carlisle pleading voice is soft; he is feeling bad for the pain he knows the question must bring. My eyes snap open. I don't want them to keep talking to me like that, looking at me like I'm some poor victim. I deserved the way I was treated. I did.

Vampires aren't petty when it comes to humans. She wouldn't have hated me so deeply if I had done nothing to hurt her first. She didn't single me out randomly. I didn't even stay to fulfill myself through her punishment.

I told them all what I was thinking in an angry voice, quick to the point. I left no doubt in any of there minds that I didn't want to talk about it. And if I don't want to talk about it, then I won't. One after the other their reactions bubble to the surface and pop, dispersing into the air, their expressions are stapled onto their faces and hastily they try to tear –raised eyebrows, wide eyes, dropped jaws- them down, desperate to compose themselves.

Oh, the suffocation is making me sick, which is very disturbing considering I don't need to breathe.

Beside me, Aubrey's knuckles are alabaster mountains under his stretched skin. His fingers grind together, his back his stiff and muscles are extremely tense, I wonder if it hurts. He stands up rigidly, pulling me up with him; wordlessly I let him pull me through the door, through the woods, through his window into his room. Dazed as I am I notice the blind rage in his eyes.

He lets go of me, I fall heavily on to the burnt-orange colored comforter that is sprinkled with black in the shape of falling leaves. I notice the colors of his room-black, tan, that dark dull orange that I think I love right now- all bring the image of autumn to mind. The walls are a light tan, with dark brown leaves painted perfectly spaced on the walls. The ceiling fan above the bed is a dark wood, but not cherry like mine, the light is some shape I can't make out through the bright florescent lights.

Aubrey sinks to the ground beside the bed with his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped behind his neck. I lay there feeling numb, trying to figure out why I had to leave, why I couldn't get my questions answered, and then I remember when Aubrey stands back up and looks at me. Oh. that's why, I think as I see the dull pain in his obsidian eyes.

He looks away, out the window, into the black blue. I start to get up but then he's there pinning me down, forcing me to look in his eyes. It might as well be physical pain, because right now the hurt I see on his face is just as bad as being ripped to shreds by Victoria. He props himself on his elbows and I pull out of my thoughts long enough to be embarrassed by our position.

However, he can't see the blush on my cheeks because their isn't one. I would have tried to move, make him take the hint, but that would be saying I didn't like his weight pressing down on mine, or the way our legs felt, tangled up like they were. That would be lying, and I am a horrible liar.

"Bella, please, promise me you will never visit them again." His words are pleading, but the pain mixed with blind determination is what catches me. How can I object with the way his eyes burning, liquid onyx bright and trembling the way they are.

"But," It is one word but I can hardly force it out, I am too distracted by his hips, and his broad shoulders and him staring at me, and I'm feeling self conscious. I can't finish. He leans down, I could swear our noses rubbed together for a fractions of a millisecond, or that could be my imagination acting up again. The fact that his hair has fallen into my face and teases my cheeks doesn't exactly help.

I blink, and try to take a deep breath, but then my chest rises, brushing against his and all I can smell is his scent heady and strong. My hands are trembling, I keep my eyes closed as I try to resist, but it's too hard. I'm not very strong, I can't will myself to stop thinking of things that aren't helping my situation any.

"I can't," My voice is shaky and I not sure, if I sound scared or mad. I can feel his lips trail down the side of my face and rest just beside my ear.

"Why," he breathes, "Why would you go back to them? They'll only hurt you again." His breath tickles the shell of my ear, I shivered, then shuddered as his fingers wound themselves in my hair, his fingertips, cold, running along my skin. I sigh and lean into him.

"Please." It's unnecessary to ask, he already has me, wrapped around his finger.

"Yes." I breathe. I find my hands, and wind them around his neck.


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