Author's Note: Hey guys, finally got another chapter for you. I had it mostly written weeks ago, but I kept going back and making edit after edit. I wanted to make sure any progress between Victoria and Bella felt natural. So be sure to let me know what you guys think. Enjoy!

Chapter 7: Molotov

Bella stood in front of the fireplace, cradling her bandaged hand, lockjawed from the effort to quell the lingering spell of nausea. She was full of emotions, and the tangy smell of congealed blood didn't help calm things down.

A part of her was wistful. Walking through the house and visiting each room, she had replayed several warm memories. Esme's gracious smile, and how it had lit up her face whenever Bella awkwardly accepted her offer of a hearty meal. Emmett's dimpled grin whenever he succeeded in making her blush, even when the joke or innuendo earned him a clapping backhand from Rosalie, who doled out the punishment with a reluctant grin.

They almost made her abandon her plans.

But beyond the sadness, there was a quiet fury brewing in Bella's thoughts: How many of those precious memories were staged? How many secret glances and plans had escaped her notice? Was any of it ever for their amusement, without regards to her or her sanity? Did they ever love her at all... did he?

An impulse ran down her spine, and Bella hastily left the comfort of the cushioned piano stool.

She waved off the ceaseless doubts, they were pointless and distracting, but braced for another.

Quiet solemnity and a cold chill seemed her only present company, but her fearful anticipation of Victoria's arrival stirred her blood.

She was constantly whipping her head around, jerking her chin up with each creaking floorboard and each peripheral glimpse of waving tree branches, expecting the telltale sign of her tormentor: bright hair that flickered with the wind as if it were a sentient ghoul with a mind of its own and lithe, pale limbs that carried the strength for unimaginable devastation.

She was afraid, but she knew that things couldn't continue this way, this constant look-over-your-shoulder, fear-for-your-life sensation.

As much as she wanted to avert further violence, Bella knew that the only way to make sure her friends and family remained safe was to end Victoria. It didn't matter that they would never know how much she cared for them.

But Victoria wasn't working alone. Just how was Bella going to manage this without dying?

The fireplace was unlit, a dark chasm amid the grey, woodsy stone frame, so that it appeared like a gaping mouth.

Bella bent down with the black iron poker, prodding the wood into a pyramid at the center as if starting up an outdoor grill. If only circumstances were as banal as a day spent outdoors.

She pulled the lighter from her back pocket and sat still on her haunches, feeling the weight of the cheap plastic in her unbandaged hand.

How utterly frightening it was to realize that her fate rested on the speedy flick and burn of a small handheld lighter. A gust of wind, an unsteady hand, and the whole thing could fall apart. She was envious of Victoria for her lightning-fast reflexes and abilities, maybe then creating a booby trap would feel less like play pretend and more like the serious matter it was.

Bella wasn't sure she hadn't deluded herself into thinking she had a sporting chance against a vampire.

Certain only of her intentions, she peeled back the rag that bandaged her wounded hand.

Earlier that evening, biting down on a kitchen rag to muffle her cries, she'd had a tough time working through the pain and cutting past the paper-cut level. But under the same bravado she'd mustered as she pierced her own flesh, Bella ran her bloodied hand against dark mahogany tables and grey stone counters in the hopes that by spreading out her scent she'd manage to overwhelm Victoria's senses.

Perhaps the smeared blood could conceal the smell of alcohol or gasoline, or at the very least distract Victoria from those things by appealing to her blood lust. Force her to take pause like Bella had been forced to do when she realized that she'd inadvertently created a nauseating concoction for herself, her plans evaporating so that she was all instinct, yanking the damp fabric from her mouth and wrapping it around the wound to staunch the bleeding, only mildly covering up the scent of fresh blood.

Holding the soiled rag out in front of her by one fraying corner, Bella ran the lighter along the bottom edge.

After a few seconds the flame caught. Wisps of grey, stifling smoke whizzed out, snaking along in front of her face like ghostly ribbons.

She tossed the bloodied towel into the fireplace, stepping back to watch the towel twist and curl into a shriveled black mass on top of the pile of wood.

The smoke caused a cough to tickle along the back of her throat, but at least the amber glow provided some much-needed light around the room.

Outside, the navy blue sky was blackening. Nightfall was slowly arriving, and no moonlight, no stars, only fast-moving clouds, illuminated the house and the nearby woods and river.

The firelight created vast, oblong shadows around the furniture but reflected off the grand white piano in the corner.The house felt vacant, haunted.

Here, she was going to fight Victoria—although the word fight is used loosely given that a human is hardly capable of inflicting harm on a vampire—to some extent, her methods were akin to the torches and pitchforks of earlier superstitious hunts: foolish and futile. Here, there was a strong possibility she would get killed, and die for nothing at that.

But just the possibility, the faintest uncertainty, allowed room for hope to grow.

Grabbing the plastic container of alcohol, which she'd pulled earlier that evening from one of the bathrooms—a remnant of when the Cullens had stocked up the house with first-aid items for her, the danger magnet she was—Bella squeezed the bottle over the flame.

A burst of orange-red flames caused a heat wave to wash across her face. Once the bottle was empty, she dumped it inside the fire as well.

Bella took slow, careful steps toward the kitchen. Each second she tried harder to muster the courage to follow through on her plans. Each second her bravery dwindled.

She'd skimped out on taking action for months, always holding out for the far-off possibility that Victoria was done with her, that she had left Forks, or the Olympic Peninsula altogether. But that had been cowardly, wishful thinking.

Arriving at the kitchen doorway, Bella was able to appreciate her preparations.

On the kitchen island were an assortment of bottles, green and black and transparent, sometimes short and stout and more often skinny and tall. Inside their glass necks were alcohol-soaked rags.

Molotov cocktails, improvised on the spot.

As a precaution, Bella had also dispersed some prepped bottles across each floor of the house. Victoria could appear to her at any moment. And when she did, Bella would have a weapon, or rather the raw materials of one, within reach.

Candles were lit and placed strategically throughout the house, so that if Bella found herself forced to flee from the first floor, where most of her incendiary weapons were dispersed, or happened to lose the lighter in the midst of an attack, she would still be able to grab hold of something flammable within a fleeting moment's time.

As Bella stepped forward into the secluded kitchen, a dark blur appeared in her peripheral, instantly raising the hairs on her arms.

Her downcast eyes spotted a long shadow shifting over her shoes in gradual increments.

Victoria was inside the house, though she hadn't heard any telltale signs to warn her of her presence. No sound of doors slipping open or incoming footsteps.

Bella grasped the door frame with unfeeling hands, the combination of smoke, blood, and fear suddenly knee-buckling.

Her heart raced in her chest, an incessant pounding at her ears, despite her outward collectedness.

Whether it was out of renewed fear or a Pavlovian reaction to her presence, she wasn't sure; but it was certain that she believed Victoria to be a harbinger of pain.

"Victoria," Bella said, her voice unexpectedly strong, though her back was towards her.

"And company," Laurent added, his voice echoing from deeper inside the house, by the stairwell where he was leaning casually.

Bella flinched, almost whipping around in a disturbed flurry.

This was exactly what she had feared: Victoria did not arrive alone.

Laurent frightened her in a way that Victoria never could. His shifting allegiance—warning the Cullens about James, only to join Victoria in her revenge mission months later—was frankly disturbing.

It made her feel as if she were fighting James all over again. Though when it had been James, she wasn't as fearful as she was now

Alone and unloved, the strength and willpower to battle enemies born from her past was flimsy at best.

Devastating memories flitted across her brain: Jessica's body being thrown haphazardly across the parking lot; the alarming crunch as her body dented a nearby car; Laurent as he crushed her hand with his foot.

Even though she had held the lighter on and sprayed his face with the aerosol can and sent him staggering backwards—a pained growl escaping through his livid grimace—her attack had not achieved significant damage.

She could not hope to achieve more with throwing a molotov cocktail at him. But if she could just stun him long enough to trap him and Victoria inside a massive inferno of a house, there was a chance she could succeed at finishing them off.

Like the familiar adage: Go big or go home—home meaning she was dead.

As if her damaged hand remembered its assailant, it began to tremble at her side. Her other hand reached across her body to hold it still.

Though she had refrained from turning around only a second ago, too scared to look into their beady red eyes, Bella did so now, slowly taking in the dangerous company.

Victoria was leaning against the white grand piano, her arms crossed over her chest. The low hem of her jeans and the curve of her hip resting against the piano lent to that air of audacious nonchalance she always carried with her.

The red of her eyes and hair were magnified by the lapping flames inside the fireplace, where the wood blocks crackled and hissed as they glowed with embers.

Part of Victoria wanted to flee from the house, sensing a setup, but she had already agreed with Laurent to kill Bella.

The fake smirk died on her lips as soon as she met Bella's eyes, seriousness frozen on her smooth, seraphic features.

Though vexed that Laurent had had the gall to challenge her plans as if he were her equal, Victoria was curious to see what he would do.

Laurent stood at the foot of the stairs, his splayed hands joined at the tips below his chin like a reverent appraiser, bright red eyes calculating.

"You've been expecting us, haven't you, Bella?" a slight pause, "I wonder, what does a human have to gain from seeking out the attention of two vampires? Do you wish to bargain for immortality? At least, I hope that has been your intention. It would be considerably foolish to come here without acknowledging the risk of crossing our paths. Tell me, Bella," he drew her name out like a precious tune, "do you desire death?"

Without glancing away from Bella's wide chocolate eyes, he asked, "What do you say, Victoria? Shall we give her what she wants?"

Bella's hand slid from the door frame to the edge of the marble kitchen counter, which was hidden from their views. The other tightened around the lighter, determined not to let it slip out of her grasp.

Her hand scrambled for a bit, and coming up empty, she broke into a sweat. Resisting the urge to turn towards her left with expectant confusion, she glanced to the side and spotted one of the bottles by the sink one yard away.

So close, and yet so far away. She couldn't get any closer to it without alarming Laurent, and she wasn't sure she should risk revealing her plans just yet.

The indecision rooted her to the doorway.

Laurent and Victoria gazed at her dispassionately, unimpressed. Like Bella, though, Victoria was internally struck with doubts: Should she kill Bella? Or perhaps Laurent?

Of course, logically Victoria knew there was no contest. As much as Laurent annoyed her, it was his help that would allow her to fully avenge her mate by destroying the entire Cullen clan, his help that would keep her distracted from the loneliness. There was nothing that Bella could do for her. At least, not alive.

"We shall," Victoria answered, barely a second after Laurent voiced his question, her jaw tight with displeasure.

Bella didn't know who moved first but all of a sudden Laurent was halfway across the floor to her and she was launching herself towards the kitchen sink away from him.

The sideways lunge was quick on her part, but what slowed down Laurent was not Bella's desperate grab for the lighter, it was the sight of dozens of bottles gleaming back at him from the kitchen island.

Their presence baffled him. Surely there must be some meaning to this, he thought.

Against her better instincts, Victoria pushed herself away from the piano and flashed over to where they stood inside the kitchen. What's holding him? she thought.

Bella pushed the lighter against the rag stuffed inside the bottleneck, the small flame flaring along the alcohol-soaked fabric.

Laurent turned to look at her, realizing her intentions, and prepared to launch himself at her.

Bella fought the urge to close her eyes, and hurled the bottle at him, trying to imitate Phil's baseball pitch from those times she couldn't escape joining him and Renée at one of his practices.

The room flared into brightness so that she was blinded for a half-second before she could tell if she'd succeeded in nailing Laurent.

Victoria jumped away from the large burst of flame, her eyes wide with alarm.

The flare dissipated as quickly as it had started, and Bella's hopes sank as she realized Laurent was mostly unharmed. The bottle had hit his side, the contents spilling on his pant leg and smothering the flame before it had a chance to grow.

Bella stepped back and reached for another bottle, not stopping to gauge his reaction.

Laurent flashed over to her side just as Bella tossed another at him. The brief flash moment was enough distraction to sprint past him.

She ran up the spiraling stairs, steeling herself with the hand rails as she made each jerking step towards the top.

Her eyes caught sight of her goal—the gasoline container that rested on the second floor landing—and she pushed herself to close the distance as fast as possible.

She reached into her back pocket for the box cutter.

She came very close to jamming the gasoline container open with her knife, but Laurent caught her by the shoulder.

An action born from desperation, Bella twisted and aimed a backwards kick with her right leg, but her left shoe slipped on the stairs so that she tumbled down a few steps on her front, landing on her knees, the wood groaning under the force of their weight.

She recoiled with a gasp, twisting her body around as she realized that Laurent stood directly behind her, his large hands reaching out towards her.

He gripped her arms tight, lifting her up with ease in front of him despite her struggles. His grip was tight; if he squeezed any tighter, he would break her fragile bones. Her feet barely touched the steps, and the sensation of being airborne made her moan in terror.

She knew fighting him was futile. If only she could get to the top of the stairs, if she could just slash the container open and light it up… though the main thought that registered was that she had undeniably, pitiably failed.

Laurent could bite into her jugular at any second, and she will not have succeeded in killing neither him nor Victoria.

In the next second Bella found herself falling backwards on the steps. Her elbows and hips broke the fall.

A loud, volatile sound rattled her ears: splintering wood and cracking stone, as if there were a rebellious group tearing down a town square statue right underneath her.

Bella steadied herself on the steps, glancing down to see Victoria slam into Laurent and their clashing bodies tumble down the stairs in a shocking blur.

Bella instantly got to her feet, resisting the urge to stare at the brawl that had broken out until she'd put more distance between them, and rushed towards the upstairs landing.

Once there, Bella gripped the rail, trying as she did to make sense of the scuffle occurring below her feet.

Their colliding bodies were a shocking blur.

Her eyes could scarcely begin to make out what was happening; there were white flashes of quick punches and wiry escapes, but it was difficult to decipher who was coming out on top.

Victoria's hair was most noticeable, and so following that, Bella was able to ascertain, to some degree, what was happening.

Victoria was leading an attack, slamming into Laurent, who blocked her advance and shoved her away with a powerful kick. Their clashing bodies tumbled into the walls and whipped down the stairs, creating a trail of splintering debris.

Terrible, violent noises shocked her ears. A sound like crashing boulders, an avalanche at a snowy cliff side, reverberated through the hall.

The flash of opportunity coursed through her, and raising her unsteady hand, Bella slashed into the gasoline container with a grunting cry.

Jerking the blade out, a splash of gasoline hit the top steps.

A heaving torrent of gasoline gushed out. Each wet lug of foul-smelling gasoline coated more and more of the stairs with its flammable liquid.

Bella stepped back, glancing towards the battle that waged below.

For a second she had the crazy impression that Victoria was defending her, but then she turned, red hair flaring out like wayward flames, and sneered as she stalked up the steps towards Bella.

Laurent laid haphazardly at the bottom of the stops, cradling his arm as if wounded. His face was scrunched in pained outrage, a ferocious growl escaping his lips.

Turning around, Bella grabbed the vintage wrought-iron candelabra from the hall table—the same one that had been upturned all those months ago, when Victoria had only begun trying to spook her. She hurled it down the stairs now, the ornate, solid metalwork and lit candles creating a loud clamor that followed a half-second after a loud whoosh as the flame caught and grew into an inverted falls, red and bright.

Twin screeches of pain reached her ears, which both frightened Bella and flooded her body with victorious exaltation.

Victoria leapt away from the steps. Realizing that her jeans had caught fire, she ripped off one of the pant legs as if it were a wayward mutt that had wrapped its muzzle around her leg.

Stepping back away from the stairwell, towards the grand piano, Victoria watched as Laurent flung himself through walls and tables, one hand waving at the flames that climbed his face while his dismembered arm was being consumed by flames on the steps. Victoria could still hear the metallic pop his arm had made when she'd ripped it from its socket.

Her nostrils flared, her body shaking as she followed him with her eyes. She didn't understand why she stopped him from killing Bella, why she fought him when it went against all logic, why she was letting him die.

She could easily push him into the outdoor pool if she wanted to save him, but instead she chose to watch. A vindictive move but one that felt vaguely satisfying.

Someone had to die tonight, and it wasn't going to be her.

She turned her body towards Bella, intent on killing her herself. The hesitation and predatory affection that had been festering for months pulled against her. She tried to set herself on autopilot to complete the task, but she suddenly understood why she couldn't kill Bella.

Staring down at her from the landing, an expression of detached fear and horrified satisfaction, Bella reminded her of a long lost friend: Anne, whom she considered a sister, and come to think of it looked quite like Bella did: mahogany hair and rosy complexion, though her body was more shapely while Bella's was wiry. And instantly she understood why the memory had been triggered despite her efforts to stow the memory of Anne away to the darkest recesses of her mind: Bella with that simmering look of triumph, held back by an open-mouthed uncertainty, it had been the same look that beheld Anne the day they killed Master Holland. (More accurately, Anne had killed him with the axe Victoria used to cut the heads off chickens because she'd been too frightened to instigate such an attack on a human being, even if that person treated her worse than any of the house staff.) While she had been meek and conflicted, Anne had not let the powerlessness of their situation stop her from ending his cruel rule of the estate. Just as Bella was trying to do. And against two vampires, no less.

One memory and Victoria had transitioned from must kill her to can't kill her. It was clear that she would never find herself capable of killing the human girl. Torturing her was one thing, but as violent as her fantasies grew, she could never find a convincing reason to end it, end her. Her plans to bring down the Cullens might as well be just be another unobtainable goal.

She'd had every opportunity, and at every single one of them she had found herself postponing that end under the pretense of delayed gratification.

It was striking how quickly the memory had hit, how quickly it had eliminated the hatred she felt towards the human girl. As if she'd always known that Bella wasn't at fault. But the instinct to mourn, to seek revenge, had been so strong. And now that she found herself back at square one, without Laurent at her side or the willingness to harm Bella, she was frightened by how aimless she felt.

There had always been somewhere to running away from, someone to do it with, something to search for. How could she live without either of those things?

Glancing over to Bella, the hollow outrage slammed through her whole body like a freight train, but she forced herself to stand still, lest she unwittingly marched up to her and smacked her before the human could so much as utter a sound of surprise.

Locked in her stare, the dark shine of Victoria's eyes frightened Bella. They were wild with conflict.

There was a pervasive will she, won't she dilemma to Victoria's actions. Bella couldn't answer the question: was she friend or foe? And if Victoria was ever set on being the latter, could she trust Victoria to leave her and her friends alone, having saved her just this once?

A loud explosion, a blinding flare, and they realized that the fire had grown beyond the stairwell. It consumed the walls and curtains and crept closer towards the Molotov cocktails in the kitchen. It would be seconds before the entire table was engulfed in flames and moments before the house was as well.

The smoke and fumes embittered the air.

Choking on her breath, Bella realized that she needed to get down to the first floor. But just how was she going to do that when the stairwell was obstructed and Victoria was waiting for her below?

Conflicted, Bella glanced between Victoria and the front door.

Victoria's lips twisted at the idea of helping her. Now at this pivotal moment, Victoria was certain that the right thing to do was to bring the girl down to safety and leave without ever returning to entertain her fascination with the girl. But there was still a residual grudge that stopped her from snapping into action.

Feeling the heat of the fire on her skin, Victoria decided to jump into action. She leapt up to the second floor, reaching out to gather her in her arms and cart her out of the house, but when Bella caught sight of the incoming figure she immediately turned and sprinted down the hall.

Landing on silent feet, Victoria huffed in exasperation. Her eyes thinned into dark jeweled slits as she stared at Bella's retreating form.

Within a second, she flitted across the hall, directly in Bella's path.

Bella recoiled as soon as she spotted her. Fighting off the sense of doom, she rushed over to the closest door, which turned out to lead into Alice and Jasper's bedroom.

The light color palette of the room usually soothed her, but in that moment Bella wanted to get out of the house, away from danger. Her eyes briefly glanced at the window. She quickly dismissed the idea and searched the room.

There was a full-length mirror hanging at one corner of the bedroom. Normally she'd walk by it, avoiding her reflection—though she could have turned it away at any time, she always chose to leave the room intact—as if it were a pariah. But in that moment she couldn't look away from the reflection.

Victoria was right behind her, her white hand reaching out to grasp her by the shoulder.

Bella whipped around—without a plan in mind, only the primitive need to not give the predator her back—and a sharp slap sent her falling to the floor.

Bella rubbed her cheek, staring up at Victoria with panicked eyes. The desire to run was still so strong that she tried scuttling away. Pushing herself backwards away from Victoria with her feet, she tried to pull herself up by the edge of the thick comforter of the grandiose bed.

But Victoria's arms wrapped themselves around her body, and Bella found herself swept off her feet.

Her arms instinctively wrapped themselves around Victoria's neck, and she pressed her face into her cool chest as if to close herself away from everything.

Victoria glanced down at the top of her head, shaking her own at the absurd creature in her arms.

Holding Bella firmly against her, she flashed out of the room and leapt down to the first floor, denting Edward's grand piano as she landed on top of it, before making her way over to the front patio.

She spotted whirring lights less than a mile away through the thick foliage that secluded the mansion from the main road, and she knew that she had to take her leave.

The house burned behind them, the flames whipping open the glass windows and engulfing the massive walls.

For a moment, Victoria held Bella more tightly against her, recalling her former fantasy of burning herself down with the house.

Bella was besides herself, as if only a part of her existed in this reality, and she had wrapped her finger tightly around Victoria's neck, nestling herself deeper into her arms, an unbridled need for comfort making her seek out the unyielding stone-like skin of her body. So similar to Edward's, and yet so different. Slimmer, with different divots and curves.

For the first time in a long, Bella felt almost at home. The cool temperature of Victoria's arms soothed her heated skin. It almost met her desires for the kind of physical affection that, up to this point, Edward had been the only one to provide.

Those little moments, lost in time, when things felt whole and blessed, that's what Bella missed most.

Victoria set her down on the steps and, peeling Bella's arms off of her, gazed fondly at her head, only mildly irritated by her humanity.

Assured that Bella was safe, she left without a word.

When Bella opened her eyes, she realized that she needed to get farther away from the house. She could still feel the heat emanating from the house fire.

She spotted her truck a few yards away on the Cullens' drive and stood up. Her knees buckled, disorientation messing with her equilibrium.

She staggered away jerkily, her knees juddering and her hand shaking. She made it a few steps out from the porch before she had to lean against a nearby tree and catch her breath. There were bright, blaring lights, red and blue, appearing just before her eyes, and she raised her arm over her face to ease the burning sensation beneath her eyelids.

With a terrible, detached clarity, she realized that the firetrucks were there, and probably Charlie, along with a whole team of police officers.

She felt lucid and wavy, as if all her nerves had been unstrung. The exertion, the fear and dread, the smoke; all of it had exhausted her and she wanted nothing more than to collapse on the spot.

She staggered forward, walking towards the flashing lights, but stopped abruptly when large hands wrapped around her shoulders.

The abruptness felt like a crash and she wavered backwards on her feet. But the hands were strong and managed to hold her up. She jerked her head back, the dark curtain of wayward hairs parting for her searching eyes.

Her eyelids clicked one, twice, and she realized that Charlie was staring back at her angrily.

She turned her head, as if to find Victoria, but she felt pressure on her jaw pulling her gaze away from the crumbling house.

He was speaking to her, but her attention was elsewhere. She felt him pull her over somewhere by her arms, which she realized were curled behind her back, but all she could think about was Victoria: Is she still inside? They cannot see her. She'd kill them. I need to—.

She felt him push her into some place dark and confined, soft but hard.

Bella realized that she wasn't being pushed into a cotton-laden coffin, but into a place she'd only ever seen from the other side, foreboding in its quiet emptiness.

She was in the cop cruiser, and for once she was sitting opposite the partition cage.