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The first thing I became aware of was a burning thirst, my throat feeling more scorched than it ever had when I was a newborn. My first instinct to grab at my throat to try to soothe it in some way was overruled by my body, which didn't seem capable of movement just yet.

I gasped a breath, the only motion I was still in control of, inhaling the sweetest scent I had ever smelled. I began to fight harder to move, feeling trapped by the weight of my limbs.

"Bella. Bella can you hear me?" I heard an urgent voice, but I couldn't tell who it was. "She inhaled, she can smell it."

"Bella, please love, try." I heard another voice that I did recognise. That I would have recognised if I were in fact dead, I was sure.

The scent and the voice begging me equally to move; I fought the fog over my mind and pushed hard against it. I recognised the sensation and realised I was fighting my own shield, trapping me in an almost physical way. I could feel its weight upon me, holding me down. I struggled against it completely unable to move, unable even to betray my inner battle to any observer as I remained absolutely still.

Intense frustration filled me and made me push harder, flinging it away from me suddenly. There was a crash as I felt the weight leave me and I opened my eyes.

"What the fuck..." I heard Emmett say in the background, but I was too focussed on finding the source of the voice and the delicious scent to hear anyone else speaking.

"Bella! Can you move? Bella, can you hear me?" Edward's face appeared over mine as I tried to work out where I was. My mind was functioning much more slowly than usual and I felt strangely detached, the many trains of thought I was used to as a vampire merging into only one – Edward.

I caught his worried gaze and relaxed for an instant, until I saw something that made my whole body clench in horror. His beautiful eyes, a light honey colour the last time I saw them, were a dark burgundy. That was enough to finally pull me from the remains of my lethargy.

"Edward..." My voice came out small and tired. The effort it took me to speak seemed to drain me beyond comprehension and I felt my eyes begin to drift shut again. I suddenly heard a different voice.

"Bella! No stop! You have to feed now Bella. Come back, we don't have time for this!" I thought I recognised Alice's voice, high and frightened, before my mind was totally taken over by the ravishing scent again.

I felt a cup at my lips and I managed to take something from it into my mouth, swallowing hesitantly, the effort seeming to be almost insurmountable.

"That's it. You must feed, you used up everything against the Hunter." Alice was still speaking, but she no longer needed to be concerned. As soon as the first few drops of the sweet nectar they were feeding me hit my stomach I regained strength instantly, and I sat up snatching the cup that she had been proffering, drinking greedily.

My strength returned to me rapidly, and as I gulped down a second and third cup of blood I was able to look around and assess where I was.

I was on a bed in a small white room, from the machines sitting inactive around me I assumed we were in a hospital. Edward was sitting on the bed beside me, clutching hold of Alice's hand furiously as she stood beside him. Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie were all standing around the bed looking at me, their faces etched with concern. The lights were on, and I could see that it was fully dark outside.

My mind, swiftly recovering, spent an instant remembering my conversation with the Hunter, which had felt more like a battle to me. The last thing I remembered was Edward lifting me from my chair, then... nothing.

I looked at him, suddenly remembering my first vision of him when I came around.

"Your eyes......" I reached out towards his face unable to ask the question, though I was certain what the answer would be.

"Carlisle said it was the only way for both of us to heal fast enough. It's donated blood." He spoke quietly before he looked down, still clearly uncomfortable with the fact he had consumed human blood, whatever the source.

"Both of us...?" I looked down at the cup still in my hand; the very one I had drained dry only a few moments before. I threw it away from me in disgust, hitting the wall and leaving a small red splatter against the white paint. "What the hell Edward! This isn't going to help our case." I remembered my assurances to Hudson only hours ago, and closed my eyes in defeat.

"We don't have time for anything else Bella." He looked at Alice and the change in their expression made my heart drop into my stomach.

There was silence for a few moments until I found the strength to break it. "They're coming."

"Within hours." Edward pulled me into his arms as my mind swam again for a moment. They were coming. I waited for the fear to come and overwhelm me but instead I remained strangely calm, unsurprised by their revelation.

"The Volturi." The word came out of my mouth like a curse. "Who for?"

"You and Edward have been sentenced, they know about what happened yesterday." Alice whispered, her face blank, clearly still searching. "This time it's just the guard and Caius. There will be no negotiation if we face them."

"Then we have to leave, you can't be anywhere near us." My strength now nearly fully returned I leapt from the bed. "I can shield Edward, we'll run." I was certain that the Volturi would be using Demetri's tracking skills to find us, skills that were useless against my shield.

"It's the excuse they've been waiting for Bella, if they can't find you two, they'll go after us anyway. We have a better chance together." Alice's face looked sad, and I saw her exchange a glance with Edward.

"We can't face them, there are too many." Everyone looked towards Jasper as he spoke, his face grave. "There are only seven of us; they must have been planning this ever since the last time we met them in Forks."

"How many?" In my mind I was already planning, knowing that one call to Jake would see our numbers greatly increased.

"I can't be totally sure, but it's too many. I can see maybe twenty or thirty." Alice reached out and Jasper caught her hand in his before she continued. "They are all fairly new, but trained. Warriors. Caius has built an army."

"Twenty or thirty?" I croaked as I spoke, even with the wolves on our side a battle would be too close. If we included them we would just be adding their deaths to our own.

"Too many to fight. They would destroy Bella in seconds, probably with Edward along the way, and then Jane and Alec would take over. It wouldn't be a fight, it would be extermination."

"Easy Jasper, it isn't going to come to that." Edward looked at me and took my hands before he continued. "Can you shield all of us, if we run? They will eventually lose interest and stop looking for us. Then we can think of some kind of plan to stop them being able to find us in the future." He looked back at Jasper, but I couldn't even begin to think about what that plan might look like.

Without replying I threw my shield out widely, finding the tiny pricks of light that represented the five of them in the room with me without any problem.

"Where's Carlisle?" I noticed that he was not under my shield, even though I had cast it widely and I could feel hundreds of humans under it, but only five vampires. I wondered what would make him separate himself from us right now, with so many dangers so close at hand.

"He's getting you more blood, he should be back in a minute." Edward said as I heard a gasp from behind him.

Alice's eyes were glazed again, but the confusion on her face was clear. "He's gone, I can't see him."

"What? What do you mean he's gone?" Edward stood, panic filling his face suddenly.

"I can't see him; I've been so busy watching the Volturi I hadn't noticed. He's just, gone."

As one we all leapt towards the door, everything else forgotten but Carlisle in that moment.

"Where's the Hunter?" I muttered at Edward as we moved. Even with the Volturi on their way towards us, I knew that we had other dangers nearby.

"He followed us here with you, but I still can't hear him and Alice can't see him, so I'm not sure what happened after we arrived." Edward replied as we hurried down the quiet hospital corridor. We passed a clock that told me it was a little before nine, I had been unconscious for nearly three hours.

All six of us ran together, following Carlisle's scent towards the stairwell at the far end of the corridor. I couldn't hear any humans on the floor, and as we ran I noticed that many of the rooms were in various states of disrepair. "Where are we?"

"Calgary General, they're redecorating the top two floors, Carlisle thought it was the best place to bring us so we could access some.... things." I heard the hesitancy in Edward's voice to admit that we had come here for human blood. "Here he had access to everything he needed, without having to expose us to any humans. We waited until all of the workmen had left before we brought you in."

"What does he think happened to me?" We were speaking at vampire speed; I felt a desperate urge to catch up with what had happened while I had been unconscious.

"He's never seen it before. A vampire can actually starve themselves to the point their bodies and minds begin to shut down, but usually the bloodlust would take over before that happened. He thinks the effort it took you to prevent the Hunter from breaching your shield drained every drop of energy you had."

"How much did you hear?"

"Most of it, we got there just after he did." He glanced over at me and for the first time I saw the fury I had expected in his face. "It took all of them to prevent me from just going in there and dragging you out, Hunter or not. Do you have any idea what could have happened? What I would have done if he had harmed you? Didn't you think about Ness at all?"

As he spoke we reached the stairwell, and all of us froze at the scent that hit us as Edward pushed the door open.

"Hudson." Edward said, his voice a whisper.

"And Carlisle." Edward was already flying down the stairs before I had finished speaking, with Jasper and Emmett behind him. Alice Rose and I followed quickly behind, following the now mingled trail of Carlisle and the Hunter. There was no mistaking it; they had been in this stairwell together only minutes previously.

We reached the car park in seconds, reluctantly slowing to human speed as we broke out into the open air. I was surprised to see not only the Porsche, but also Rosalie's BMW and Edward's Alfa, all lined up together. Edward was standing in an empty space to the left of them, which I could only assume had formerly held Carlisle's Mercedes.

"Alice, do you see anything?" Edward's voice was loud and fast, I could see panic was overtaking him at the thought of the loss of Carlisle.

"No, I can't see him.... he's just gone." She cried out the last few words as Edward took her by the shoulders, shaking her.

"Look harder, Bella got past the Hunter so can you. LOOK HARDER." Edward shook Alice as he spoke, making her head whip back and forth sharply.

Jasper leapt at him with a snarl and knocked him away from her. "Get off of her Edward; she's doing the best she can."

Edward and Jasper glared at each other for a moment, Jasper standing defensively between him and Alice. Finally Edward's shoulders slumped, "I'm sorry Alice, it's just...... Carlisle." His voice broke as he said Carlisle's name, he ran his hands roughly through his hair and his eyes were wild.

"I know." Alice began to sob, her eyes glinting with the tears she was unable to shed. "I just can't see him, I..... I don't know.... and we just don't have the time....." She was descending into hysterics and Jasper pulled her into his arms.

All this time I had been standing between Emmett and Rosalie, spectators to the debacle before us, frozen as we awaited some kind of answer. I thanked god that it was late enough that the car park was empty of any human at that precise moment.

Suddenly I became aware of Edward looking at me speculatively. "Alice's power isn't affected by your shield is it Bella?"

"You know that it isn't"

"But the Hunter's is, if you really try."

"Yes." I was beginning to get frustrated, my own fears for Carlisle wanting action not words, but I waited for him to continue.

"Could you shield Alice? Do you think your shield can remove the impact the Hunter is having on her?"

"I am shielding her; I'm shielding all of you right now anyway." I shuddered slightly at the reminder of what was before us.

"No, I mean, like for me, when you pull me right in. I can still hear other people at the moment, maybe it might help...." He looked from me to Alice, who was staring at me.

"I don't know, I've not done that with anyone other than you, and I've been practising around you for years. I don't know if I can." I realised everyone was looking at me expectantly and I closed my eyes to avoid their stares.

"Try." He whispered

The sudden weight of their expectation was horrifying. Not only was I responsible for exposing us all to the Hunter, but now for the loss of Carlisle. I could feel all of their eyes burning into me as I reached out for Alice in my mind.

I searched for her, I could see the light in my shield that represented her, bright and pink, but I couldn't find a way to wrap myself around her in the same way I did Edward. I reached out, but it was like grasping at a dandelion seed caught in the wind, the light seeming to move as I reached for it.

"Alice..." I called her, hoping the sound of her name would help me, in a flash I felt her pull me into her arms.

"I'm here Bella, you can do this." She put her chin against my neck and squeezed herself up against me as I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, but I still couldn't reach her.

My mind felt like a swirl and I needed something to ground me. I could still feel everyone else under my shield and I tried to reach for Edward, finding I could wrap him into myself as easily as I ever had.

I'm trying Edward, it's not working.

"Open your eyes - look at her." I did as he said, my first sight the same as it had been earlier, his dark red eyes looking at me in worry.

I looked down at Alice and in the second our eyes met I felt her slip effortlessly into Edward's place in my shield. I wrapped it tightly around her, at the same time grasping her more tightly against my body as I felt her gasp and lurch against me.

"Alice?" Jaspers voice was nervous, and I could feel him hovering over us, ready to rip her from my arms.

"I can see them. I can see them!" She crowed with victory, a massive grin spreading across her face.

"Is Carlisle ok?" Edward was entirely still as he spoke, his fear for Carlisle etched on his face.

"Yes, he's driving, I can't see what's going to happen..." Alice scowled for a moment. "The Hunter hasn't decided anything though; I don't think he's blocking me."

"Where are they going?" Edward was beside us as well, and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, being so fully invaded mentally as well as physically.

"Towards Wendle, towards the forest. The Hunter wants to talk to Carlisle, he's looking at him..... I don't know..... like he thinks he's being deceived."

Meanwhile the effort it was taking me to hold Alice was growing. Having a foreign consciousness so forcefully wrapped in my shield was uncomfortable, and I found my mind tightening its grip on her, trying to hang on. My awareness of my surroundings was slipping as I focussed on her alone, desperate to maintain our connection and so her vision of Carlisle. I felt my face screw up with the effort I was making, and my body begin to tremble.

I became aware of a shriek coming from somewhere close, and I heard Jasper's voice by my ear.

"Let her go, let her go!" He sounded desperate, and I realised the shriek was coming from Alice. I could feel hands and arms suddenly all around me, trying to pull us apart. I registered their urgency and my stomach flipped at the thought that I was hurting her.

I threw my shield away from me, as hard as I could, letting go of Alice in the process. There was an enormous crash, and at the same time I felt all of the arms that had been around me vanish.

For a moment I stood still, shocked by the sudden space surrounding me after being so tightly encircled the instant before. I struggled to take in the scene before me, confused by what I saw.

In front of me my family were scattered about the area, Emmett was lying on top of Rosalie's now virtually flattened BMW. Alice and Jasper were in each other's arms on the floor, in a pile of broken up tarmac, nearly a hundred yards away. Rosalie was slowly standing, having been lying in a crater in the grass on the other side of the car park. For what seemed like hours, but could only have been a couple of seconds, I searched around with panic building in my chest, unable to see Edward anywhere.

Suddenly I felt a pair of solid arms wrap around me from behind, and Edward's breath on my neck, I collapsed against him in relief and confusion.

"I hate to repeat myself guys, but what the fuck?" Emmett was heaving himself out of the smashed BMW as he spoke, scowling down at the wreckage.

"Shhhh, Bella, calm down." Edward, ignoring Emmett, was stroking my hair, as he rocked me in his arms gently. "It's ok, we're all ok."

I looked around myself again, watching as my family walked towards me almost warily, and realised what had caused the chaos all around. Me. I realised I was gasping loudly for breaths that I didn't even need, and tried to focus on calming myself. I turned in towards Edward and buried my face in his chest, gripping him to me fiercely.

"Was that Bella?" Rosalie's voice was uneven, and I turned to see her standing beside Emmett, her eyes moving between her former car and me.

"I think so; I suspect she was what made the table hit the wall in the hospital too." As Edward spoke I remembered another crash not too long ago, as I came around upstairs.

"But she's a mental shield; I've never heard of anything like..... telekinesis?" I heard Jasper speaking, but I didn't move from where I was in Edward's arms, watching Rosalie looking at me in fear.

"You know that powers grow as we age Jasper." Edward sounded very calm, I became aware that I was too, and realised that Jasper was most likely trying to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation. "And with the efforts she's been making against the Hunter, something has clearly changed."

"Is she in control of them?"

There was silence, and I realised they were waiting for me to reply, "I'm ok. I was just trying to release Alice, it felt like I was crushing her." I finally managed to make myself turn to look at them, Jasper was supporting Alice by his side, and relief hit me as she smiled.

"I'm ok, you were just holding on to me so tightly..... It hurt." Her smile widened as her voice showed her surprise at her comment.

"What was that?" I whispered as I looked up at Edward, trying to read his eyes. I couldn't believe what seemed to be happening. How on earth could that have been me?

"I think it was you. Didn't you feel it?"

I looked back and tried to recall what was going through my mind in the moments before they were all thrown away from me. I remembered hugging Alice to my chest, trying to hold onto her mind to allow her to continue to see Carlisle. I remembered the feel of her body being crushed by mine, and the shriek in my ears as I tried to push her away. "I was just trying to push Alice away; I didn't want to hurt her."

"We need to get to Carlisle...." Edward looked towards Alice with renewed purpose. "Do you know where they're headed?"

"Yes, but we're not going to have time to get to them and get away from the Volturi. They're going to be here soon." She looked at Jasper, "If we go for Carlisle we will end up facing them, before the end of tomorrow."

"We can't win...." He looked at her in agony, the soldier in him clearly posing the argument that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

A look passed between each of us, a conversation that had to go unspoken simply because no one had the will to voice any of it. Seconds passed, an infinity of time to each of us as we each made the same choice.

"There is no alternative. Carlisle needs us to go after him." Edward's voice was flat, and as he spoke he looked down at me. "But you can run, go to meet Ness and Esme and run with them. I can't..." His voice broke off, grief washing over his face.

"No."

"Bella..."

"No. The Volturi have no quarrel with Ness or Esme, they won't go after them unless they have to follow me."

"There will be no negotiation Bella; we won't all survive this time." Edward cupped my face in his hands and leant his forehead against mine. "I can't watch you die."

"Without me you have no chance at all, I would be leaving you all to die. Please don't ask me again Edward; I don't want to fight with you." I begged him with my eyes to understand me; I would rather stand and fall with him than survive an eternity alone.

There was another moment's pause, all of us stood and looked around at each other; the family we loved without question. As I gazed at each of them in turn I fought to ignore the voice deep within me that wondered which, if any, of them would survive this.

"Alice, we'll follow you. Rose, Emmett, you're with us." Edward finally spoke, breaking the silence that had overtaken us.

Without another word we walked towards our remaining cars, Rosalie glancing once towards her shattered BMW as she climbed into the back of the Alfa. We pulled out of the car park and headed towards Wendle, where Carlisle, the Hunter and god knew what else awaited us.

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A/N – I know, I'm sorry. I hate it when people take ages to update too, this chapter has just killed me for some reason! The next one is already half written and won't take nearly so long I promise!

Now for some shameless self promotion:

This story has been nominated for the Nessie award (best post Breaking Dawn) in the sparkle awards, if you like it go and vote now, voting closes on 8th November. Sparkleawards(dot)webs(dot)com.

If you haven't found it yet I am also writing a new story, something quite different to this, but you guys must know me well enough by now to know it won't all be fluff forever.....

Finally, leave me a review – they are my own personal brand of heroin...

Ria.