Author's Note: I own nothing.

You wouldn't believe the amount of effort it took to get this one out to you, especially since the first draft was lost forever when my computer crashed, and right now I'm fighting a triple migraine. But I know you all are dying to read this (I hope, I hope), so I sucked it up and re-typed it! Please review!

Freesia Juliet

Part Two: The Queen

Chapter Fourteen: Light

(Edward's Point of View)

I was laying on the couch in the living room, just for a change of scenery. In the earlier part of the week, I had been lying on the couch in my bedroom.

Shapes and sounds moved past me, possibly people. I could discern neither who they were nor what they wanted, so I let them drift past me in their hazy dream world.

I was not a part of the realm of light.

I had fallen into the realm of darkness.

There was no escaping my self-inflicted tomb.

A faint, continuous buzzing burned in the back of my skull. I recognized this as people's unbidden thoughts flooding my brain with their empty messages. I ignored them dimly.

"Edward," beckoned a shrill female voice, the rest of her words lost on my dulled senses. It was like listening to a person speak underwater. "Edward!" persisted the voice, this time accompanied by a faint wail of an irritating pitch. I tried harder to sort out the female's connotation, and picked up a few more words. "Edward! Your phone is ringing!"

That explained the wail, but it did not explain who was speaking or what I was supposed to do. Perhaps nothing. I sat perfectly still; it wasn't too difficult, because that was what I had been doing for the last seven days. Success! The wail of the ringing phone stopped.

After a period of undeterminable time, the wail began again. And stopped.

And again. And stopped.

Aggravated at the devices consistency, I finally began to force myself to dig around for the phone, and found it conveniently in the pocket of my rumpled pants. For the first time in this hellish week, I actually found myself closer to consciousness than the unconsciousness I so sought.

And I waited, almost fully aware of what I was waiting for. But the silence remained, and slowly I sunk back onto the couch, convincing myself it had never happened.

"Edward?" whispered the previously shrill voice, this time soothing. I finally placed it as Alice.

"Alice?" I mumbled back, unsure if my speech was even comprehensible.

"Yes, Edward?" she said hopefully. I heard her thoughts coming in the muffled stream. Something about 'sanity.' I wondered what that was.

"Never mind," I breathed, shaking my head, willing her to go back to the realm of light where she belonged, so that she might leave me be in the realm of darkness.

"Oh," she said, deflated, standing to go.

No. No, this was not what I wanted. I didn't want her to go. I didn't want to fall back down, alone. I tried again to formulate a reason why she should stay, against my instincts. "Alice, please," I begged. She seemed to understand, and sat back down, her head upon my silent chest.

The phone rang. Funny that I could actually pick out the meaning of that sound now. One step closer to sanity. Oh, so that was what sanity was.

Immediately I flipped the phone open, catching it in the middle of the second ring. It was so natural; I wondered if I had done it before.

"Edward?" asked the voice on the other end.

I flew to an upright position, practically knocking Alice to the floor. "Edward?" pleaded the voice on the other end, "Please tell me that it's you."

"Bella?" I hissed back, a trillion connections reborn in my numb brain. With this connections spilled over the grief and pain that had overwhelmed me.

"Oh, thank God, Edward, I thought I was too late!" exclaimed the cruelly beautiful voice of my wife. "Listen Edward, and listen good," she instructed in one breath, "because all of our lives depend on this."

"I'm listening," I assured her. For the first time in seven days, I actually was. I stood and ran a frantic hand through my hair as the old possibilities slammed my brain. "Are you in trouble? Are you hurt?" I croaked.

"Yes to the first, no to the second," Bella said with a nervous laugh, "but it's my own fault."

"Bella, what have you done?" I growled, having a pretty good idea that she had done something incredibly stupid.

"Saved myself," she said with such brutal, overwhelming honesty that I wanted to weep; only I wasn't able. Then she was all business. "You and the rest of the Cullens need to get out of Forks. Maybe Tanya and her coven need to get out of Denali, too. I'm not sure how far Felix and Demetri will go to find me."

Demetri and Felix? Volturi. Oh, Damn, Bella, what have you gotten yourself into?! I thought with horror. "Bella, where are you?"

"The Rensard Coven in Paris. Undoubtedly Carlisle will know the address."

Coven. She was in a coven. Then my deepest fears were confirmed. Surprisingly, this brought me more peace than anxiety.

She was a vampire. There was nothing more to it. She would be safe from the Volturi if she was hiding in another coven, at least until we could get there.

"I miss you Edward," she said with a trace of fear.

"I miss you, too, Bella." This was an understatement.

"I love you Edward. Hurry." The phone disconnected.

Alice looked startled when my eyes met hers. "That was Bella?" she said with disbelief.

"Yes," I said, almost casually. "She's hiding from the Volturi in the Rensard Coven."

Carlisle and Esme had walked in on the tail end of my sentence. My mother's eyes almost bugged out of her head, she was so surprised to see me up and moving around. "The Rensards?" asked my father.

"What do you know about them?" I asked quickly.

"They're the only 'vegetarian' coven in France," said Carlisle, his eyes far away as he thought back deep into his past. "They were a noble family who were changed in the fourteen hundreds. Um, let's see… Colette, Henri, Helene, and their leader, Vincent. Yes, that's it. They were barons or something like that just outside modern-day Paris. I believe their castle, the l'Hôtel d'Or, still stands as upscale lodging. Why?"

"Bella is hiding there," explained Alice.

"Bella is staying with the Rensards?"

"Apparently," I growled. "She thinks Demetri and Felix are tracking her. She wants all of us to get out of Forks and meet us there." Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie had joined us by now.

"I can have tickets for the first flight to Paris, Edward," offered Emmett. He hit a few keys on his laptop and brought up the airline website. "Uh, there's a flight in an hour and a half."

"Good," I said with a nod. "I can hunt and be on that flight." I turned to face my family. "I want you to follow me on the next flight, but first I need you to let Tanya know that there's trouble possibly coming their way."

I had spent the whole twelve-hour flight pretending to sleep. In actuality, I had had trouble containing myself, I was so nervous. Would she be the same? Who had she gone to change her? Why were the Volturi after her all of a sudden? Who were these Rensards, really?

Now, I stood before the door of Suite 617, and I wondered if I had the courage to knock. For a moment, I was frozen on the spot.

Then I raised my hand, gingerly, and knocked lightly on the heavy oak door.

"Un moment, s'il vous plait," requested her beautiful voice as I heard several locks creak open.

The door swung open quickly, and I felt a strong hand drag me inside. "Hello Edward," she breezed. I took one look at her and could not hold in a gasp.