Hi everyone!! :D
Wow.. 10 chapters… I cannot believe it! My Italian's teacher would never believe I've written so much and the story hasn't finished yet!!! X)
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Her words had been heard by my ears, and I saw her lips moving while she was speaking, but the meaning of what she had said remained unknown to my brain. I forced myself to understand, but that sentence had no sense to me because everyone of us knew well that a vampire could not die, or at least, even if not impossible, it was certainly a hard thing to do. Moreover what has she meant when she said 'being a monster'?
"Monster? We're already monsters" asked Edward impatiently, translating into words only half of my thoughts. I was sure that he'd wanted to read her mind and understand what Julia meant.
"You're not a monster when in front of a choice you prefer to renounce to your natural instincts rather than hurt somebody" Julia replied to him and then turned her eyes on me. "You can choose Bella, me and your husband can't no more".
I leaned against the hood of the Volvo and looked at Edward terrified. He was staring at me and had just my same expression on his angelic face, his jaw was strongly clenched, his soft lips shut but tried to maintain the most reassuring expression he could when he caressed my cheek with his hand.
If I was human I'd had got a ringing noise in my ears, I'd have heard only the throbbing boom of my heart and be convinced that its features could be seen from my chest. But I wasn't human and the hammering heart I heard was that of the little vampire in front of me. I'd wanted to pull it up from her chest with my hands and silence it. As doing that would have cancelled the truth. The truth that I didn't know yet, but already scared me. I wanted to stop that moment, I didn't want to hear what Julia was going to reveal.
"Can you be less cryptic Julia??" Nessie asked her friend. My little grumbler couldn't stand the funereal air which surrounded me and Edward.
Julia sighed then spoke in an undertone. "I'm sorry. What you need to know is that Samanta is a half-vampire as you are Renesmee".
"Oh" Nessie's eyes widened for the discovery she had just made.
This explained lots of things, such as Samanta's physical features, which were so different from those of vampires. I perfectly remembered her deep blue eyes and the brown skin of her face when she blushed after that Edward had helped her. Jasper was not so far from the truth when he had said that her scent remembered him that of Renesmee.
"Ok, but what has this whole thing got to do with Samanta?" I complained.
"Everything. The transformation is because of her". Julia answered to me, then after some seconds of silence, she said "Samanta has a very strange capability and it's difficult to describe… I think the better way to explain it, it's to tell you my story" she shrugged finally.
Yes. Maybe you even could be less cryptic Miss I like keeping you guessing.
"I've known her since 1985, some months after I've been transformed in a vampire.
At the beginning I was completely alone and I hided in the metropolitan in Paris, I hated to be the monster I've been transformed into, but I couldn't do anything to change things. I observed humans having a life I couldn't have anymore" She said with a grimace on her thin lips.
I nodded impatiently. I knew she was telling us her story but I wanted to know about Samanta and finally reveal all this mystery.
All our eyes were fixed on her but in the corner of the eye I saw Jacob tightening grip around Renesmee's hand. As none of us spoke, she continued her explanation. "I've never liked to kill humans, but on the other hand I knew that this was my nature and I couldn't do anything to change it. It's for that reason that when I met Samanta I was astonished. I knew she was a strange vampire, everything about her told me that, but the fact that she didn't attack humans, and drank animals blood, impressed me so much."
"Is she a vegetarian vampire as we are?" I asked her intrigued, we've never found any other 'vegetarian' vampire except for the rest of our family in Denali.
"Yes, she told me that she changed her habit when she left her family. We were alone and we soon became friends, I began to follow the new lifestyle she offered to me.
I was fascinated by her, because she was so different, she could even walk under the sun and her skin didn't sparkle, no human could perceive the differences between his species and hers. It was something I really missed of my human life, I wanted to be like her" she said and shrugged.
Renesmee was looking at Julia incredulous, but didn't speak.
"At that time Samanta didn't know exactly her capability, she told me that she could help me if this was my will, she only knew that she could turn me into something very near to a human, like her. At the beginning she couldn't believe my words, because every vampire she had met always avoided her as a carrier of pestilence. But I was convinced to get transformed and looked at her capability as a lifeboat. Thus she resolved and with a simple touch of her hand began my transformation".
I wrapped my hands around Edward and leaned my face on his chest as Edward put an hand on my hair and squeezed the other on my waist. I couldn't bear the sight of this girl, but at the same time I couldn't prevent myself from listening to every single word of her story.
"Thus we were right, it's Samanta's touch that made everything begin" Edward deduced from her explanation. I felt his body moving, as the air get in and out his lungs, which were now working for need and not for the simple force of habit.
"Yes, a simple touch of her skin it's sufficient to start the transformation" she nodded.
Well, at least obtaining what I wanted would be easy. I'd touched her, whether she wanted it or not.
"How long did the transformation last?" Edward asked, even though we both knew the answer thanks to Alice.
"Three days. Well, I should say that my transformation lasted three days. I've never witnessed another transformation. Samanta had told me that my strength and my speed wouldn't be as those of the other vampires, but I would be stronger and faster than any human being anyway. And those had been the first things I saw changing, before that my skin began to get pinker and hotter than usual, and mostly, before that I stopped sparkling under the sunlight. Wasn't it the same for you, Edward?" Julia asked him.
"I don't know…" he said, but I turned my eyes on her and cut him off.
"Yes Julia, it's happening exactly as you said" I admitted with sorrow. "What's going to happen?" I wanted to know how this was going on.
I tightened my grip on Edward's waist.
"By now, his transformation is almost completed. When your heart will start to beat your transformation will be over"
After a minute of silence Jacob glanced up at Edward and said frantically to Julia "What didn't Samanta know about her capability?"
Exactly. That was the point, the most important point.
"She didn't know that I'd became completely addicted to her" she said sadly.
"Addicted?" asked Edward really preoccupied now.
"My body," she shook her head and then corrected her statement, "Our body has become almost human, we need air, we need warmth, and… we need blood. But we can't produce our own blood, we must suck it from another individual. It's for that reason that we're still vampire and not human. Fortunately the physical proximity to Samanta consents my body to be content with animal blood".
"What?!" asked Renesmee.
"What the f..?" Jacob began to say but halfway through the sentence he stopped and said "How?"
Julia didn't answer to Jacob, but glanced at Edward, who was silent not. I couldn't bare to wait for her answer, so I looked at her with disappointment and she finally noticed it.
"Bella, I don't know why, I only know that without Samanta my body refuses any other blood which doesn't come from a human. But the most important difference between our thirst and vampire's thirst is that if we don't drink blood, our heart will stop beating and for us will be only one thing… death".
I stopped breathing. Edward stopped breathing- for a brief moment- then his breathing accelerated.
It was unbelievable. No, it was impossible. It couldn't be true.
It could not.
"How can you know it?" I yelled at her.
"I know it 'cause I experienced it on myself when we didn't know the other side of the coin of her power yet"
"But you're alive" I replied.
"Yes, I'm alive but at what price? I couldn't prevent myself from doing a real bloodshed in the hospital were I was" she said coldly clenching her jaw and closing the eyes. Her hands were making fists.
"You were in a hospital?" Edward asked.
"It was a week I had left Samanta, I fainted in a square in Siena and when I woke up I was in a hospital. Doctors didn't understand why my blood was diminishing and its flux slowing even though I had no visible wounds or internal bleeding to explain it"
"But isn't there a method to stop the transformation? To come back completely vampire?" I tried to find a way to avoid the abyss that was laying before me.
"No, I don't think so"
"What if I bite him?" I proposed.
"No, love, I'm still a vampire, I don't think that your venom could work on me" replied to me Edward with tender and resolute voice.
Julia shook her head denying me any way of escape from this disaster.
"But where is Samanta?" Renesmee asked her friend.
"Yeah, she could help Edward" said Jacob with a thin line of hope.
Obviously thinking that Edward would be addicted to Samanta wasn't the best thing that could happen, but she'd saved him, and I'd accepted her joyfully with open arms.
"I don't know, she wasn't at home this morning, she hasn't left me any message or anything to tell me where she has gone. And my sense of smell is too weak to follow her scent".
"Will she come back?" I asked.
Julia shrugged and grimaced. "I don't know, perhaps, I don't think she's abandoned me, she knows that she'd sealed my death". Her voice was trembling and uncertain, she was really unsure about the come back of Samanta.
"Julia, don't get me wrong, but neither you nor Edward seem to be dying" said Jacob.
"Of course, Samanta's power conditions me for some days even though I don't touch her, so for some days I'll be… I think I can say I'll be autonomous, and Edward isn't changed yet and the animal blood on his veins is sufficient to him, he'll began to need Samanta some days after his first heartbeat" she explained.
Edward closed his eyes and breathed deep. "So, I'll die in some days" he whispered.
"No, Edward, we will find her!" I yelled, trying to convince both, myself and him.
Renesmee ran towards us and embraced Edward and me in a strong hug. "No, dad, you've promised me. Don't leave me" she cried loud. Her thoughts reflected her words, but the despair of her mind was unbearable.
My senses were overshadowed and I felt more fragile than I've ever been when I was human. I rethought everything Julia had said, the metropolitan, Samanta, her transformation, the hospital, Siena, Italy.
Italy. Volturi.
All of a sudden the idea of the Volturi possessed me and everything became soothing and endurable.
I'm sorry for this short chapter… but I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway! :D
Please tell me what you think about it, I'd like to know your opinions and suggestions!! In particular I'd wanted to know how you feel towards SAMANTA, because i've got a proximate choice to do...
Happy holidays!! :o)