In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, which began to plan the Insurgence.

I am, of course, indebted to Stephanie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01.

Chapter 14 – Family Tensions, and the Blood Sickness

(Bella's POV)

As time went on, Carlisle seemed to relax more around me. He started leaving the house and going back to his rounds as a doctor. Whenever he was gone, Jasper would be with me. Whether it was Jasper or Carlisle, I was never out of a vampire's sight. The daily routine continued to solidify.

Esme, Carlisle's wife, was always warm and wonderful. She had caramel hair and a heart shaped face, and she made the house feel like home. She made such a fuss over me, talking to me, playing with my hair, trying to draw me out. She seemed to like cooking, and she liked to have me sit with her in the kitchen while she cooked, trying out baking with the limited ingredients Mrs. Miniver's store could supply. She was regularly getting milk, butter and eggs, and was starting to get flour and sugar. She bustled around the house, singing as she went. I wanted to get involved in something, I was kind of getting bored, but she wouldn't let me clean anything but my room.

Often during the day, I would fuss around Carlisle's office, pretending to dust. I knew he liked that I spent time in his office when he was out, as all that fussing around distributed my scent. He would keep the house shut up to keep my scent in when he was there. It was one of the things that was not discussed between us, it wasn't normal for a human to know how good they smelled.

Whenever he was home, he kept me next to him. If he was on the sofa, I was at his side. If I was in front of the fireplace, lounging on a pillow, he would be on the other side. And if there was company, he became protective, curling me onto his chest for a nap, and sometimes even carrying me from room to room.

Emmett, the tall, muscular son with short, curly hair, brought life and energy into the house. He would come roaring in, lifting me into the air, and swinging me around. He had gradually relaxed around me and obviously liked having a playmate. We would go outside, and he would run through the trees with me clinging to him like a gibbon.

When Edward, the boy vampire with the bronze hair, would come in, that was more difficult for me. The human experiences would be dripping off of him from his day at work. I was exposed to all of the feelings of the twenty women and girls from the cell block he was assigned to, the fear and despair of the adults, the boredom of the children. On days when he walked through the entire facility, or dealt with something in another unit, I could have another forty to sixty human feelings radiating off of him. The days when he used his cattle prod on someone or escorted a girl to the breeding rooms were the hardest. He would sit across from me, frustrated he couldn't read my mind, but obviously finding my presence somewhat relaxing. I wanted nothing to do with him but tried not to let my feelings show, as he was Carlisle's first and favorite child.

The fear and pain that came radiating off of him on those days infuriated me, but I had to hide my feelings, as I had not revealed my "gift" to the coven. In addition to being able to see certain human moments from any vampire, especially their change event, I also picked up the feelings of the humans from a vampire's latest contacts with people. In most cases, I was bombarded by their latest human contact, as the feelings that had generally attached themselves to the vampire in this world, such as pain and fear, were strong and negative. This was a "gift" I often wished I could return, but I was stuck with it. The Human Council had asked that those with gifts dedicate them to the Resistance, but they understood that a human might use their gift to get preferential treatment with vampires. Often that meant getting changed, which in this world might seem the best option to one who had grown up in the oppressive living death camps. To be a vampire meant to be top of the food chain and be one of the masters of this world, even as one became the oppressor. But some of us thought that staying human and resisting was important.

The vampire named Rosalie would flounce in when Emmett stayed too long. She had obviously been beautiful as a human, with her blonde hair and a lovely figure. She would take a position on a sofa next to the vampire named Alice, thumb through magazines, or hiss to Alice in the vampire language Vampiri. Neither of them spoke to me in human, so I did not address them by name or speak to them at all. They clearly thought I was putting Carlisle and Esme in danger, as Carlisle was not acting according to the Rules set out by Aro and the cops for humans. He dressed me in nice clothing instead of the coarse undyed cotton garments that were sold for $1.50 at the Pet supply stores. While this wasn't breaking a rule, they felt it was dangerously close to treating a human like a person, not a property maintained as a food source. And, even more dangerous in their eyes, Carlisle didn't make me wear a collar, he spoke to me in human, allowed me to sit on the furniture, and wanted me to call him by his name. Each of those actions broke a Rule, and was punishable by removal or death of the human, or possibly even the death of the vampire.

The two girls were convinced that the cops would be paying a visit, and it would not be friendly. The entire family present at the time could be placed in jeopardy. Alice had lost her first human years ago by treating her like a friend, and when the cops came and find five Rule violations, they had torn the girl apart and beaten Alice. They could have killed Alice, but they didn't. Instead they tore her apart and threw her limbs on her front yard for the entire city to see. The family had to come and reassemble her, as the chicken-shit cops had waited for Jasper to be out of town before they dared to take such an action.

Of course, the vampress called Alice was my biggest challenge. She was a small vampress, with spiky black hair, who was clearly suffering from the early stages of the Blood Sickness. I had never seen a case this early before. She was having stomach cramps, numbness in her hands and feet, and was constantly cold. The Blood Sickness was the very reason the Insurgency would work.

All those stories about humans whose blood was toxic to vampires turned out to be true. There are humans whose blood can kill a vampire, and I was living proof.

One day in Cleveland I knew a tracker was getting close. I hightailed it to a parking garage along the river and waited. He had a friend with him, and the friend was hungry. But a female teenager was a payday to a tracker, so I wasn't worried about the friend. Big mistake.

The two appeared across the parking garage. Suddenly one of the vampires was on me, with his teeth sunk into my throat. I could hear his guzzling and sighing and could feel the cold weight of his body pinning me to the column. Before I could push him off and defend myself, he was suddenly yanked off of me.

The tracker had yanked him off and thrown him across the garage. I was trying to breathe, wondering if I should thank the tracker, when the tracker leaned over me and starting licking at my neck himself. He licked the blood slowly and luxuriously at first, then started pressing on my neck, with his tongue darting and pulling at something on my neck.

Ew, first bitten, and now being licked! This day was NOT going well.

Suddenly the tracker stopped licking. He looked up at me, and I noticed his eyes were glazing over so that they were no longer red, but were turning white. He started to reach for me but fell to the ground. I grabbed my neck and watched. The tracker sat up slowly, looking both dazed and blind, trying to stare at his hands. After about a half a minute, he slowly fell forward so that he was lying across his legs.

The other vampire was still also, laying in much the same position as the tracker, but across the garage where he had been thrown.

They were both dead – or rather, double dead, since they had to die to become vampires, right? I got out my lighter and set fire to both bodies to be sure they stayed "dead", then jumped into my car and took off. This was weird, and something to report to the Human Council.

-TO BE CONTINUED –

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