Chapter Ten: Trapped

Bella's Point of View

That night seemed far too short. There weren't enough hours to tell each other what had happened over the past twenty years, or enough time to embrace Edward to my satisfaction. It seemed that I would never get enough of his lips, his arms or the sound of his musical laughter in my ear. It was marvellous to hear his voice raised in happiness rather than misery. As for me, I felt more like Bella than I had done in years, no longer the cold, distant creature that I had become. I had been accepted once more by the people I loved as siblings and parents, reunited with Edward, and no one dreamed of demanding that in exchange I sacrifice my small family.

To my deep dismay it was soon morning and we could no longer put off the task of investigating Forks. So, bidding the rest of the family to be careful, I cast my mental shield over myself, Jasper and Edward and began the short run into town. The journey was made considerably longer by Edward's need to stop every dozen paces to kiss me or touch my cheek, until Jasper finally tired of this and dampened our hot emotions. Edward grumbled quietly under his breath for the rest of the trip.

The streets were empty when we reached town. Confused, I glanced at my watch thinking that perhaps we had arrived too early, but it was almost ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. Exchanging wary glances, we pushed forwards. Eventually we came across a cluster of shops and scented hot, rushing blood. We peered in through the front windows, past the shabby, outdated displays, and glimpsed our first humans. The shopkeeper, a man of about forty, stood with a rigid back, staring straight forwards. A girl in her late teens, his only customer, held a bottle of shampoo in her hand. At first I thought she was scanning the writing on the back, but at second glance realised that she was gazing fixedly at one point.

"Can you hear them?" I whispered to Edward.

"No. Well, I can, but…" He trailed off, his brow crinkling in confusion and frustration. "It's like I'm listening to them from a great distance. I can't make out individual thoughts, but I can hear the stream rumbling by."

"There's something strange about their emotions, too," said Jasper. "They're not complex enough to be human. They feel more like animals."

Worried now, we continued down the row of shops, looking into every window. Every human we saw was the same. In different positions, but the same blank expressions, the same unnerving stillness. In the final shop we encountered a shock: Mike Newton, far older than I remembered him, frozen in the act of reaching for a carton of milk.

I was beginning to wonder how we would ever discover whether the vampires camped at La Push were the Volturi or the Brotherhood. Obviously they had tampered with the humans, but with their minds and emotions so difficult to decipher it was impossible to discover anything more. In Mike, however, I saw my chance. Perhaps the reappearance of the long dead Isabella Swan would shock him out of his daze and I would have a chance to question him. It was risky, true, but I didn't see any other option.

"You have to leave," I ordered Edward and Jasper.

"What?" demanded Edward, shocked. "Why?"

I explained my plan about Mike, but Edward shook his head. "It's too risky. He thinks you have been dead and buried for twenty years, Bella. You could give him heart attack!"

"I'll say that Renee and Phil had a daughter, and I'm Bella's sister visiting Forks to see her grave. I'll ask for directions."

Edward began to protest but Jasper silenced him with a shake of his head. "It's the only plan we have, Edward. But why do we have to leave?"

"I might be able to say I'm my sister but I won't be able to pass you two off as your own sons as well, and I won't be able to concentrate enough to maintain the shield covering you."

"I don't like leaving you on your own," said Edward.

"There's nothing else we can do. If there's any sign of danger then I can put the shield back up and run home."

Edward looked like he would like to argue, but Jasper grasped him firmly by the arm and began to pull him away. Warning me to be watchful and run at the first sign of danger, he kissed me briefly before turning and loping away with his brother. I gave them a few minutes, more than they needed, to reach the house before letting my shield disappear. Taking an entirely unnecessary but nevertheless calming breath, I pushed the door open and stepped into the shop.

Neither the woman behind the counter nor Mike glanced up when the bell above the door tinkled quietly. It was a fact of a vampire's life that humans' eyes followed you through rooms and streets, startled by your inhuman beauty and the grace of your movements, but the woman seemed to look right through me. As I moved away from the door her eyes remained fixed on the space I had just vacated. Chilled, I tore my eyes away from her and turned my attention to Mike.

I had told Edward and Jasper that I would lie to Mike about my identity but I didn't think that would be enough to jolt him from his catatonic state, so instead I murmured, "Mike? It's me, Bella. Bella Swan. I went to school with you. Do you remember?"

Nothing. No flinch of fear, no terrified cry. He blinked once, far too slowly even for a human, and then there was no more movement. As I continued to call his name I reflected that of all the things I had seen since discovering vampires, and I had been witness to many terrifying events, nothing had ever chilled me quite like this. There was something unnatural about Mike's stillness, as if someone had stolen something essential from him and in doing so had robbed him of his humanity.

I persisted for a few more minutes before reluctantly accepting that there was no way of rousing Mike. But I couldn't leave him like that, frozen as he reached forwards. So with infinite care, aware that I could crush his bones as easily as blinking, I grasped his arm and returned it to a more natural position. As I moved it his unbuttoned shirt sleeve fell back, and I glimpsed a shiny white scar on his forearm. Rolling his sleeve back, I found several more. Leaving Mike, I hurried over to the woman behind the counter and turned her arms over, bruising her wrists in my haste. The same scars littered her skin.

Suddenly I knew what was happening. Although the scars hadn't been caused by teeth I was certain that the Brotherhood lay behind them. The Brotherhood dreamed of a world where vampires moved in the open and humans were forced into subservience as little more than cattle; clearly they had chosen Forks as the town in which to launch their project. I had no idea how they had dragged the humans into this state of confusion and I doubted I would ever find out. We would launch an attack on the camp the moment Bryce and Marcus arrived.

Turning, I ran from the shop and burst out into the street. The moment the door shut behind me, however, I found that I struggled to remember what I was doing and why. I knew that I was frightened and felt a sense of urgency, but as the seconds passed even those emotions faded. I stood motionless on the sidewalk, my hands hanging uselessly at my side.

"Oh my," said a silken voice in my ear. "This is my lucky day."

I knew that voice from somewhere but my mind was too sluggish to remember where from.

"After all these years of chasing you, Isabella, you walk right into our hands."

Isabella. Was that my name? I could no longer remember.

"What are we going to do with her?" asked a new, different voice.

"Get Eleanor and the chains and meet me at the cliff," the first one ordered.

Then I was being lifted, slung over a shoulder and the world was flying past me. All I could see was the steely sky because I had been placed on my back and couldn't summon the willpower to turn my head a few inches to the side. I couldn't say how long we ran for: time meant nothing to me. Eventually I was set on my feet and my captor stood in front of me. Although he was mere inches in front of me I couldn't say what colour his eyes and hair were. My eyes refused to focus.

Another passage of time and voices approached.

"Eleanor," said my captor with relief.

"What would you have me do with her?" asked a female voice.

"Nothing just yet. You!" he ordered sharply. "Put the chains on."

There was a clank of metal and then something cold and heavy wrapping around my legs. They began at my ankles and finished at my waist, making it impossible to move even if that ability hadn't been taken away from me. When my legs were covered my arms were pulled behind my back and restrained similarly.

"Good. Eleanor, I want it impossible for her to get out of those chains. Then I want her aware."

One clear thought penetrated the dense cloud surrounding my mind: I would never be able to break free of the chains that bound me. Even though I could crush metal to dust, I would be powerless against this binding. As soon as that thought was lodged in my mind, the world around me came back into sharp focus and I could think clearly again.

I knew the man – or rather, the vampire – who stood in front of me. Not by name, but by appearance. He had been in every Brotherhood attack against my family for the past thirteen years, the one who had always managed to slip away from us before we could kill him. Now he smiled at me almost politely. "It's such a shame," he murmured. "A criminal waste. If only you had joined us when you had the chance. Goodbye, Isabella."

He placed his foot in the middle of my chest and pushed. I soared from the cliff edge and plummeted to the grey water below. I had begun to struggle before I hit the water, but as I broke the surface my struggles increased tenfold. It was all no use. I knew that I should be able to break the chains as easily as snapping a twig, but I might as well have been as weak as a human. That vampire, Eleanor, had done something to me, just as she had presumably hypnotised the humans of Forks.

Terrifying thoughts flew through my mind. My family wouldn't leave without me and the Brotherhood would be searching for them, expecting me to be accompanied by Marcus, Bryce and Billy. Without my shielding ability they stood no chance against the Brotherhood's far superior numbers. They would be torn apart. Then Marcus and Bryce, and perhaps Rose and Emmett, would arrive to help us and would also be killed.

I don't know how long I lay there in the dark water, sobbing uselessly and screaming with rage, but eventually I became aware of the fact that I was no longer alone. I thought it was one of the Brotherhood come to torture me, and I readied myself to fend them off as best I could, but instead the chains trapping me were ripped away and my arms and legs were free once more. A hand slipped into mine and began to drag me back to the surface. I looked into the face of my rescuer and in that moment knew that somehow I had died, because what I was seeing was impossible.