"Bella?"

The whispered voice sounded as though the owner wanted to screech, but thought better of it.

Their eyes were golden, like mine, which told me that these vampires weren't part of the redhead's troupe, but they were still vampires, watching the three of us with wide eyes and shocked expressions, disbelief clear on their faces as they stared at me.

"Yes," I said hesitantly, looking to Jacob for help, who was staring right back at the strangers with disbelief and hatred in his eyes. "And who are you, exactly?"

I watched as disbelief became complete confusion, and a lack of understanding, as though they couldn't possibly comprehend that I didn't that I didn't recognize them.

After several moments of stuttering on their behalf, Jacob finally spoke up.

"These are the Cullen's, Bella," he said darkly. "Some of them, anyway."

My eyes widened and I looked at the two people in front of me, taking them in slowly. I didn't remember the Cullen's, but, according to Jacob, they had been a huge part of my life for eight full months – my whole life, really. I'd been in love with one of them and loved the rest as family, and from what Jake said, they'd loved me back, treating me as family, taking me in, making me feel wanted.

The female was possibly the shortest girl I'd ever seen. My incredibly sharp mind was able to quickly realize that if she hadn't been wearing stilettos on her feet, she wouldn't even stand a full five feet, and she was incredibly slight. Her features were sharp but dainty, almost fairy-like in their perfection: her small, upturned nose was perfectly centered between two very large, very wide, perfectly made-up eyes, and over the delicate (and aptly named) cupid's bow of her red-tinted lips. Her cheekbones had been dusted with a pink blush that looked natural - human.

Her companion towered over her, more than a foot taller, with shaggy blonde hair, and well-muscled, though in a leaner, subtler way than my wolf friends. He stood slightly in front of the female, obviously ready to jump in front of her to keep her safe from anything. Any threat. His sharp, butterscotch eyes were slightly downturned, and his nose was wide over rather thin lips, which were pressed together tightly, watching our group carefully. His skin was covered in scars, which made me recoil instinctually.

"The Cullen's," I repeated, surprised and not fully understanding. It had been made very clear to me that the Cullen's had left me – those leeches took every piece of you when they left you behind, Jake had said – so I had definitely not been expecting to see them.

I known it was a possibility eventually – I didn't really know how big the vampire community was, and of course there was a chance that, if I decided to live a nomadic life, I would run into them. But I certainly hadn't been expecting them to run into them so close to home. If they had moved away, wouldn't they move…away, away? Start completely anew? What on earth could they be doing in Seattle?

"Bella, what's happening?" The female asked, her voice a tinkling chime – richer than any bell – still confused, watching me with her wide, large eyes. "I don't understand, I didn't see…" she blinked several times and gave her head a quick shake, looking lost. The male placed a gentle, reassuring hand on her tiny, narrow shoulder. She took a deep breath and seemed to center herself, exhaling sharply. "No. Let's start easy. What are you doing here?"

"Hunting the redhead," I answered as simply as I could, feeling the heat of the wolves' as they trembled behind me, holding back their obvious dislike for the vampires that stood before us. It wouldn't do for someone to see two men turn into wolves in the middle of the street.

"Victoria?" the female whisper-screamed, stepping towards me, which make me take an automatic step back, towards my friends. The movement didn't go unnoticed by either of the two newcomers, and I saw hurt flicker across the female's face.

Jake stepped forward, placing an impossibly large hand on my shoulder protectively. I could feel the burning heat through the jacket I'd worn for appearance's sake, and allowed him to take half another step forward, so that he now stood between me and the Cullen's. The male watched this movement carefully, no doubt taking in the protective stance and the shoulders Jacob had rolled back. "This has nothing to do with you," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

"That isn't up to you," the blonde vampire responded, his deep, melodic voice carefully measured.

"We're here to deal with the mess you left behind," Jacob snarled in response, stepping forward and bunching his muscles. "So it's definitely up to us." Quickly, I grabbed his wrist, holding him back and gently reminding him that these weren't the vampires we were here to fight. I could feel his hard thud heavily and all-too-quickly, his blood rushing through his system and pumping him full of adrenalin. I knew if he didn't get control of himself soon, he would phase.

"Jacob," I said quietly, "Jacob, look at me." He did, his dark eyes glinting dangerously and his nostrils flared, his mouth set into a straight line. "Calm down," I said gently, looking him straight in the eye.

He took a deep breath, meeting my gaze, and his shaking slowed to a barely noticeable tremor. "They left you," he reminded me, imploring me to understand his anger – anger I could no longer remember feeling – and I nodded.

"I know," I released his wrist, squeezing bicep once, gently, before letting my hand fall back to my side. "But this isn't the time for that. We have other things to do tonight."

Jacob pressed his lips together and nodded once, stepping back with a final glare.

"What's your plan?" the male asked, his voice even, looking at me from under thick, blond brows.

I looked to him in surprise and frowned. "Sorry, who are you?" I asked carefully, frowning at him and watching as his eyebrows jumped up in surprise. "I mean, I know you're the Cullen's. The two of you are two of seven, right?" I looked to Jake for confirmation, who nodded. "You're the vampires who lived in Forks when I moved in with my father, I know that. But…ah…which ones are you?"

The two of them blinked at me in surprise, and again, it was the male who answered. "Jasper," he finally answered.

I nodded and turned to the female, who swallowed thickly before choking out, "Alice."

Their names meant little to me, but at least now I could actually address them. "Okay," I said with a nod. "Jasper and Alice. What are you doing here?"

Alice and Jasper exchanged a long look, seemingly talking with only their eyes. This went on for several minutes, and I could feel Jake and Embry getting antsy behind me, but I waited patiently, keeping my eyes on the two of them, even though I felt as though I might be intruding on a private moment. Finally, Alice exhaled sharply and turned her gaze to me. "We heard that Victoria was in Seattle, and we decided to deal with her before she slipped away again."

"Maybe you shouldn't have left the mess behind to start with," Embry said quietly from my side, speaking for the first time since the vampires had arrived.

"Embry," I scolded, frowning at him, and he shrugged in response, obviously not bothered.

"He's right," the female, Alice, jumped in, and I turned to look at her, seeing what looked like a genuinely apologetic expression on her small face. "We thought…we thought she was gone. We never thought she'd come back. Bella…" her lips quivered and she blinked several times. "Bella, what happened?"

Unsure of what to say, I looked to Jake for help, who was looking to me, obviously unsure of what I wanted to reveal to the family that had left me behind. I shrugged and he gave a quick nod. "A leech – one that wasn't like you – was hanging around Forks. He managed to get to Bella before we could get him. He's a non-issue now. We helped Bella through the change. A few months ago, the redhead started sending newborns down the reservation to kill Bella. It didn't work, and we got one of them to tell us where she was hiding out. We're here to deal with the source of the problem."

Alice's eyes widened and her mouth dropped into a shocked oh at Jacob's extremely condensed summary of my life for the past year. "But I didn't see…" she muttered, seemingly to herself, while the one called Jasper looked at her in concern. "Why didn't I see?"

I exchanged confused looks with both Embry and Jacob, and it felt strangely good, for once, to not be the only one out of the loop. "See?" I pressed, cocking my head. "What do you mean, see? How could you have seen any of it? You weren't there."

She waved off my concern, and I felt a flash of irritation at her quick dismissal. "It doesn't matter right now. This probably isn't the best time to be doing this." She said quickly.

I checked my watch and saw that it was only 1:47. "I think we have time. We weren't planning on mobilizing until around four, when we figured there'd be the least amount of people wandering around and the boys could do their thing."

Jasper and Alice exchanged a confused look, gave the Quileutes a hard look, and then looked back to me. "Their thing?" Alice asked, her voice flat. "What, exactly, is their thing?"

It was my turn to blink in surprise, and I turned to Jacob. "She doesn't know? I thought they knew?"

He shrugged, his arms crossed over his broad chest, obviously enjoying having something over the Cullen's.

I shrugged in response and turned my attention back to Alice. "Jake and Embry are werewolves. They're going to help me deal with Victoria."

Jasper's eyes widened and his gaze darted between the two men at my sides as though he expected them to transform right this moment. He tensed and took another step forward, so that he was standing in front of Alice, his hands bunched into fists and his expression threatening.

Alice stepped out from behind him. "Werewolves? Bella! Werewolves are unpredictable and unstable!"

Jacob growled. "It seems like we're the ones who've been predictable in the past year and a half. You know, since all of you predictable and stable leeches up and left with no warning." He bit out, his expression twisted in anger.

"Now isn't the time, Jacob," I said quietly as Alice recoiled in surprise and Jasper snarled at Jacob's accusation.

I felt Embry stiffen next to me and I turned to look at him curiously. His nostrils flared and his muscles bunched threateningly, his hands forming tight fists and starting to tremble. "She's here."

Jacob tore his glare away from Jasper, turning to look at Embry with wide eyes.

"Well, isn't this a lovely reunion?"

Her voice was high and childish, and she regarded us with a disgusted smirk from fifty feet away, her wild, flaming red hair easily distinguishable. Her crimson gaze darted between each of us before settling on me, and her lips curled in displeasure. "You just won't go away, will you?" She snapped angrily.

At my sides, Jacob and Embry trembled with the effort to not change, their teeth clenched and their hands bunched into tight fists. I knew that both wolves wanted nothing more than to allow themselves to transform so that they could tear Victoria to shreds with their powerful jaws, but it wasn't yet late enough for the streets to be deserted, and unfortunately, the wolves valued their secret far too much to change in front of witnesses. Similarly, it seemed, Alice and Jasper were unable to attack without drawing attention to themselves. And so it seemed we were stuck.

Victoria lifted her chin, looking down her nose at us. "I knew your Cullen's wouldn't leave you alone," she spat out their name, "their little human pet. I thought it was a ploy, you know? Hiding with these dogs. After all, how could those sweet, loving Cullen's leave you behind? So I sent Laurent to watch you, to wait for them to come back so that we could kill you, together, in front of your little mate. But he was weak, and now, because of you, I have no mate and no coven.

"And with your little coven gone, there was no point in killing you," she seemed particularly annoyed at this. "After all, it's his punishment, too. A mate for a mate doesn't do anything if your mate doesn't even care. So I sent vampire after vampire to you, waiting for you to finally wise up and ask one where I was instead of just killing them," she paused, sending a rather evil smirk my way, "how many young ones are dead because of you? Did you count? And I made my kills so obvious, waiting for little Alice to catch on." She rolled her eyes, as though it irritated her that we hadn't figured out her plan sooner.

Alice recoiled in shock at Victoria's admission, and I wondered what that meant, exactly, resolving to have her explain it to me once this was done.

Jasper moved slowly, stepping away from Alice for the first time and towards Victoria, who immediately moved back, not allowing him to get close to her. "Ah, ah, ah," she scolded, which sounded particularly strange in her childishly high voice. "None of that. I know you. I've been watching you for months. You won't do anything to get your precious family in trouble. You won't do anything to expose yourself," she grinned maliciously. "So we'll stay right here, in the open, where you're stuck. Did you really think you could lure me away, into the shadows, where your precious dogs have the advantage?"

I blinked in surprise.

Victoria scoffed, regarding me as though I were a particularly annoying gnat. "Please. Your little plan was so obvious, it's almost embarrassing. You could at least give me some sort of a challenge, you know. It's the least you owe me."

With that, she took off, obviously not caring about exposure to the humans. Jasper and I took off after her, our baser instincts getting the best of us, but she was clever. She seemed to know exactly what we weren't expecting and did it, and a few seconds later she was gone.

When we finally gave up, coming to a stop, we exchanged a long look. It was, of course, nothing like the long look that had been shared by Jasper and Alice earlier, during which they'd seemed to be communicating wordlessly. This, instead, was an exchange filled with curiosity, each examining the other.

"Let's go back," Jasper finally said, and I nodded.

And there we are.

I know most of you were expecting this to be an easy take down, but Victoria is clever.

Thank you to Acetabells, TwilightWallflower, viola1701e, jansails, Estel Ashlee Snape, DutchGirl01, RunningManJunkie2015, ginkgo00, Imnotsurereally, Reinbeau, ScrewballBRain, Iisobella, Anno1701, Mina, Don'tBelieveInFear, dlajmc, and four guests for taking the time to leave reviews. This is, I believe, the most reviews I've ever gotten on a single chapter (ever), as well as the most reviews I've ever gotten on a fic. So many new names this time around! I should leave you guys in suspense more often.

Before I sign off, I need to make one thing clear. To the guest who has reviewed several times asking me to focus on Bella's character development and not on the romance between Edward and Bella and her relationship with the Cullen's. I'm extremely grateful that you've enjoyed my writing so far, and that you're enjoying the story. But you are still reading a story that explicitly states that this story is ExB and is labeled as a romance. So you already know this is coming. If this is not the kind of story you want to be reading, you have to option to not read, but please don't hate on me just because you don't like the pairing.

Lastly, like I said last time, I'm extremely busy with school at the moment, so chapter updates will be slow.

See you next time!