Phase
Captive

"How did they find me here, what do they want from me?
All of these vultures hiding right outside my door;
I hear them whisperin', they're tryin' to ride it out,
Cause they've never gone this long without a kill before."
"Vultures" John Mayer

Though I'd been in peril many times since meeting Edward and becoming the main focus of his mythical world, I'd never felt quite as hopeless as I did now. Which was an odd thing to say, simply because now I was just the opposite. I wasn't hopeless. I was strong. I was a newborn vampire. I had a special talent that had just discovered its off switch. But, for some reason, this golden-blond, graceful, and curiously strong vampire had managed to capture me and drag me from seven others who cared a lot about me.

It was bright, and I had shut my eyes a while ago, disliking the uncomfortable feeling of staring up at the sun as he ran. I'd given up trying to break free due to the fact that I was losing energy, and I'd realized that I was very thirsty, even though I'd fed the day before.

My captor slowed to a walk, and my escape tactics instantly restarted as I writhed in his arms, trying to scream over the band of metal covering my mouth, failing when I did so. He chuckled in my ear, but it wasn't musical, like Edward's—if it were musical at all, it would be nonharmonic tones smashing together to form a badly composed symphony. "So stubborn," he muttered, and I was surprised to find that he didn't have the same Russian accent as the others.

True to my trait, I didn't give up struggling.

He walked through a large door and threw me onto the ground, turning back to lock it with a giant key. He placed the key in his pocket, buttoned it shut, and turned back to me. "Sit," he instructed, coming forward to take off my mouth guard. When it was off, I snapped my teeth at him. "Sit," he said again.

Growling, I crossed my arms over my chest.

He frowned. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the—"

Anger bubbling inside of me, I kicked the vampire as hard as I could in the stomach, watching as he stumbled back a couple inches. I roared up on him, my hands balling into fists and coming down mercilessly on his face. "Take me back!" I demanded. "Let me out of here!"

My hands trailed down to his pants—I unbuttoned the pocket and attempted to get the key out, but he grabbed my arm and twisted it around. I let out a short cry, surprised that it actually didn't hurt that much, and realized that this was it—I was either going to cooperate and possibly be set free, or not cooperate and be tormented.

I weighed things in my head. If he had the ability to keep me secure in his arms, a newborn, and could be invisible like Asher, I should listen to him. Aggravated, I sank to my knees and then sat cross-legged on the dusty wooden floors, looking at the oddly lit room around me.

It was no bigger than a large bedroom, with stone walls and a large stone door with a large keyhole. The floors were hardwood, but very old and scratched up. There wasn't a single window, but when I looked up, I could see that there were very small windows on the ceiling, which allowed the sunlight to shine in.

"My name is Joseph, as I told you. The entire coven you saw back there is made up of my brothers. We look different, but we are related. My father remarried many times. We're very similar to the brothers in the chapter of Genesis… of not by looks, then by name. The other six of our brothers were killed, as Reuben said… but your coven never asked about the fifth left, me.

"My special ability is that I can mirror other vampires' powers when close enough to them. So, naturally, I took Asher's ability to be invisible, and took you away. Reuben is a brilliant tracker, and with Levi's ability, they'll be able to find us here."

"Why do they want me?" I demanded, hating it when my voice shook.

Joseph chuckled again, his frightening, hard on the ears chuckle. "Isabella," he clucked his tongue. "Everyone wants you. You're so… unique. You give hope to our kind. You don't desire to feed on humans, so you don't have to resist like the rest of your family does. I…" he exhaled. "I don't like the way we live," he admitted. "I always wanted to be a 'vegetarian.' Benjamin and I—he's our youngest brother—don't like to feed on humans. In fact, we split from the hunt most of the time and feed on animals, like your family does.

"But our brothers don't like that. They can tell by our eyes when we aren't eating… people."

"Right. They have a problem with that." I rolled my eyes.

"I know that you had the choice of being changed or not," he said, his eyes portraying an odd emotion that I couldn't name. "It makes me curious as to why you would choose that. Our parents were killed by vampires… Reuben was changed, and he took to changing all of us. He lies about how my other six brothers died; he only managed to change four of us successfully… he ended up killing the others."

Now that I was a vampire, and could hear others' back stories, I understood how odd it was that I would choose this life. "I chose this life for Edward," I told him, tracing a circle in dust on the floor.

He snorted. "He made you choose it?"

"No," I shot back in defense. "He tried to prevent it. He did. But I proved to him that I could never be happy without him forever, and told him that I wouldn't let him do the honors. Carlisle would've. But Edward agreed that he'd do it. I love him." I let my eyes wander on his incredulous face and felt fury rumble in my chest. "It's clear to see that you'll never be one to experience anything like it. Pity."

He laughed his dark laugh. "Very mean," he said in an amused tone. "Feisty. I can tell why Edward listened to you."

"They're going to find me," I promised, trying to control my rage. "And Edward listened to me because he loves me. I'm sure you feel you're the most superior being in the world, but please try to control your sarcasm."

"And here I was thinking you were fluent in it."

A steady growl reached my mouth and I leapt up, dashing to the door. I pulled as hard as I could on the handle, putting my feet against the wall and heaving. "Let me out of here!"

"It won't make a difference," Joseph told me softly. "They were too into the battle to notice that you'd gone. Edward was keeping tabs on everyone's thoughts, I'm sure, though he couldn't keep tabs on yours. He thought Emmett was watching you, who made Rosalie watch you, who took off to fight. Naïve vampire should've just let his love fight…"

I whipped around, stomping over to Joseph and kicking him in the jaw. "Don't talk about Edward like that!" I demanded. "He wouldn't let me fight because he loves me!"

"You're newborn," he retorted, "you're stronger than the strongest one."

"I don't know what I'm doing! My power wouldn't even work."

Grinning, he stuck out his tongue at me.

I felt something inside me snap.

I launched myself at him, snapping my teeth, but slammed face first into an invisible wall. Bouncing back, I managed to catch myself in a crablike stance, seething at my captor.

"Your power is very, very useful," he said, standing up and leaning against the transparent block. It was an odd sight, and my brain could barely process it: it looked like he should be falling over. "You just need to learn how to control it. If you try hard enough, you can do what I'm doing now… not even focus on what you're doing, and yet hold it up with mind power. It's almost what Carlisle does, resisting blood, or what Edward does; tuning out all the voices."

I felt despair leaking into my brain. It was odd, that I hadn't rebelled yet, that I hadn't gone insane, that I hadn't tried to beat him. Maybe it was because I knew, somewhere deep inside, that Edward was looking for me, and that he would be angry if this vampire killed me.

However, the despair crawled into my mind, making everything spin, so I backed into a dusty corner and dumped my head into my lap, crying dry tears.

I liked this chapter much more, though it is a lot shorter.

Clear a few things up –

Uno – Bella didn't use her force field ability last chapter, as I explained a bit here, because it was very sudden that they showed up and started fighting. She wasn't thinking, she was very worried. Also, she just acquired her power by a mere accident, so she needs to learn how to control it.

Dos – they didn't let her fight because she was the targeted individual.

Tres – I think the reason I realized I didn't like the last chapter is because I felt so odd, creating so many original characters that materialized out of nowhere, and the fact that Alice didn't even see them. I don't know; I still don't like it all that much, but at least most of you guys liked it. :D

Alright, review! (:

steph.