Chapter 11

Bella POV:

"Bella!" Alice screamed and hugged me as tightly as she could when I walked through the door of the Cullen house. "I knew you'd be back!"

"Really? And was that just a gut feeling, or did you see it happening?" I asked in an accusing voice.

"Gut feeling of course! I would never cheat like that!" she replied sarcastically. I laughed and welcomed Esme's embrace as Alice stepped back. Rosalie was next, then I was finally let free of all of their hugs, or so I thought. Emmett came next, lifting me off of the ground in his big bear hug. After he was done with me, Edward grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him before anyone else had a chance to hug me.

"I'm really sorry, to all of you. Though I'm sure Alice already filled you all in as to why I left." I said as a big grin came over Alice's face.

"Bella, darling, we all understand that you were trying to keep us safe, but you also have to think about your health too. Imagine what would have happened if he had found you on that island all by yourself, defenseless." Esme said kindly.

"He doesn't want to kill me, but I still have no clue what exactly he does want from me. I just knew that I had to get away from you guys to take you out of the line of fire," I said calmly, and I heard someone snort. I didn't think anything was funny personally, but they can suit themselves.

"What are we going to do now?" Edward asked, "Just sit here and wait for his army to come and destroy us?" He was still holding my hand as we stood next to each other. All the rest of the couples in the household were sitting together on separate couches: Alice and Jasper on the love seat, Emmett and Rosalie on the couch, and Esme and Carlisle on the sofa. There was one couch left over I guessed for Edward to sit when they had these family meetings. I walked over to it and sat down, towing him along with me.

"If he catches me, I can get away again once the focus is on something else. Last time in the meadow-"

"What do you mean 'last time'? He had captured you again? And you didn't bother to include that in your story? If you ask me, I think that that'd be a pretty vital piece of information to share," Edward said angrily. I sighed and turned to face him.

"Before I left when I went out to hunt, I stopped in this meadow I found and was just thinking about things. He came at me, alone at first, and when I tried to run away they had had me surrounded. He was talking about me just running away while he had his servants tie me to a tree with this stuff that it absolutely impossible to move whatsoever.

"Victoria stepped forward from the crowd and she and him got into a big fight about how they had made so much fuss over me. He got angry with her for always bossing him around and so he had all of the newborns help him kill her.

"When they were distracted in that, I willed the boy who was guarding me to untie me from the tree, and he did very obediently; without any hesitation. I told him to go join the fight and forget what he did, so James wouldn't kill him too, and ran here." I looked up from my thumbs, which I had been twiddling while I was talking, "But none of that should've happened since I should've been able to smell him or at an army of vampires coming my way."

"Why weren't you able to smell them?" Jasper asked curiously.

"I guess because I was super deep in my thinking; making me unaware of my surroundings. And I know that that was a really stupid thing to do, but I'm still very new to all of this so that's why I forgot." Edward rubbed his hand around my back and whispered "It's going to be okay." into my ear.

"It wouldn't be smart to leave yourself as bait; they'll probably be prepared for the next time they catch you. Yet there won't ever be a next time now because we are going to protect you from him," Carlisle said obviously still in thought about something, "I'll be in my study if any of you need anything." He got up from the sofa and walked away with Esme right behind him. Edward followed, but instead went up the stairs with me in tow.

He went into his bedroom and then let go of my hand and walked over to his stereo. I looked around and took in all of the CD's and tapes and finally rested on his couch. It was odd to not have a bed in a bedroom, but then again there would be no need for it. I sat down on the couch with my legs crossed and watched him. He laid his head against one of the shelves casually. It killed me to not be able to read his mind so I could know what he was thinking.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked quietly, barely over a whisper. In a second he was sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulder pulling me closer to him. He rested his head on my hair.

"No, no, I'm sorry but it's nothing you did, I promise. It's just him. I feel so angry at myself and at him to know that he almost had you and took you away. I knew I should've gone after you instead of just walk away like a coward." I tilted my head up to look at him and reached up to kiss his lips. After a little peck that I could barely manage, he leaned his head down and extended it into a real kiss. I tried to turn my body around to make things more comfortable while we were still in the kiss, and I tangled my hands into his hair. After awhile, I pulled back and put my head on his chest.

"You'd probably be dead by now if you had come after me. So I'm thankful that you were a coward," I said with a little laugh. He tilted my head up and gave me a quick little tender kiss before putting my head back down on his chest. "Please don't be mad at yourself, for my sake."

He kissed the top of my head softly, "For your sake I won't." I smiled and looked out his window to watch the sun fall behind the trees.

We had stayed like that all night just talking about our pasts. We had moved around a bit but stayed on the couch. He told me about how he had been changed and all of his memories left of his human life, and I told him about my life before I was changed; the good and the bad parts of it, including Jacob. I had even started to cry through half of it, and he had just pulled me closer and comforted me as I told him everything. When the sun finally came up behind the clouds, I sat up ready to do something.

"I need to hunt, I haven't eaten anything in about two days and I just want a deer or something little to snack on," I told him.

"Well you're not going by yourself after the last time," he said in a concerned voice.

"That's why I'm telling you, dummy. I just, I'm scared to leave the house period with any one of you. What if he's watching it right now, just waiting for someone to leave? We can't take on his whole army; there's too many of them." He sprung up and started pacing across the room. "What's everyone else doing?"

He paused for a second before answering, "They're all in their rooms talking. One hint of advice: never read Emmett's thoughts when you don't have to." He shook his head and I laughed. I got up off of the couch and walked over to his stereo and looked at his CD's.

"What CD is in here already?" I asked as I turned it on and flipped it back to the first song.

"Oh, just Debussy," he muttered as he shook his head. The song came on and I smiled.

"Clair de Lune is great." I said with a smile, and he turned to look at me with a crooked grin.

"Didn't think you people of this century even knew what classics were," he said as his smile got wider.

"Ha ha that's so funny," I replied sarcastically. He came over and grabbed my hands and pulled me with him as he started to dance. I was about to protest that that wasn't a good idea since I was the world's worst dancer, but I guess some things change when you become a vampire. He leaned down and kissed me with the same intensity as when we were on the island. I leaned into him closer in the kiss and I never wanted to have to pull away from him, yet I knew the kiss would end soon as they always did.

When he pulled away, he had a sour look on his face and I figured it was something I had done until he muttered: "Incoming in 3, 2, 1," Alice barged in not a second after he said one.

"Aw, how cute. Don't let him get you stuck on Debussy, I've been trying to get him to listen to modern music but it ain't happening so far," She said with a laugh. I looked up to see Edward's brow furrowed but Alice didn't seem to take any notice while she continued speaking, "You two should come downstairs, we have some company coming," and that's when I finally smelled them.

A/N Hey everyone! I'm really sorry for not updating in soooooo long, but I've been really busy. I'm also sorry that this chapter is so short, and I promise that the next one will be longer and come a lot sooner if I get at least two reviews from you guys.

Thank you for reading! And a special thanks to my beta reader! She helped me a lot with this chapter, so I want to thank you for that!