Chapter Twenty-five

1 "It…she's quite immobilised, my dear. There is no reason to be afraid," Aro told Irina, as they stood in front of that awful, frozen door at the end of the equally awful corridor of curiosities and assorted monsters.

She had absolutely no idea what was behind the other doors, nor did she care to find out. Instead, she just looked back at him with a mix of apprehension and fascination, well aware that he could hear every single one of her thoughts due to the fact that he was holding her hands. "Then why is she chained up like that, if there's no reason to be afraid?" There was no point in keeping anything to herself, but simply having a one-sided conversation where he read her thoughts and replied to them out loud was kind of strange; she felt compelled to speak.

"Hm," he made, and chuckled wryly. "That's an excellent question. The answer is that there would be reason to be afraid if she weren't chained up like that, if she weren't starved, and if you weren't this resilient." After a brief moment's hesitation, he added, "Also if I weren't here."

Arching her eyebrows, she said, "You can control her with your ability?"

He bit his lower lip and briefly raised his eyebrows. It was an oddly sheepish look. "Not completely, no, but I can hold her in check if I put my mind to it. At her full strength, however, she is more than a match for me. It cost me dearly to get her in there in the first place."

"And now you want me to go in there and bite her."

"Yes." He gave her hands a little squeeze and then cupped her face. Although this must be an illusion, his skin felt warm to the touch, so much so that she could almost pretend that her cheeks were flushed – that she still had blood coursing through her petrified veins. "She'll be too slow and sluggish to resist, and I'll use my own power to distract her as long as you're in there. It should only take you a few seconds, anyway." He cracked a dazzling smile. "I apologise for the discomfort in advance. Regrettably, but for what I believe are understandable reasons, we couldn't exactly afford to allow her to take regular baths."

Memories of home and hearth and safety in face of all this horror let Irina's thoughts wander to her sisters. Even if the Cullens had called them and assured them that all was well, the last update they'd got would have been days ago. They just had to be getting suspicious by now, no matter how easily vampires got distracted, no matter how relative their view on time might be. What if they decided to investigate? What if they turned on the TV and happened to come across footage of the Cullens' burned house, of reports about all the massacred vacationers and that one camp Jasper had lit on fire? What if-

"Irina." Aro's warm, pleasant voice gently dragged her back to the here and now. Vampires had a tendency to internal ramblings that figuratively froze them to the spot. He was, of course, smiling. It was mesmerising. How could such an ordinary face look that captivatingly beautiful? What an enviable power he had. His smile grew. "Please, don't worry about a thing. Your sisters have been informed that you have been exposed to a dangerous pathogen and that the best they can do is stay out of our way as we treat you for it. Yes, they brought up the argument that vampires don't get sick, but we asked them to trust us and to trust that we are doing everything in our power to help you. We've also asked them to take our word for it and to keep quiet about the current development until the crisis has been resolved."

In other words, they'd been intimidated into compliance and into silence, hadn't they?

He sighed, clearly exasperated. "Dear, sweet girl, if only I could make you understand that I am not a despot. I don't thrive on spreading intimidation and fear wherever I go." When she thought that he had clearly neglected to pass that particular memo to Caius, he snickered. "Well, yes, he can make rather rash decisions. He is a soldier, after all, and not accustomed to pondering his decisions for long; surely, you understand. Still, I apologise for his conduct. The threats he makes are usually uncalled for and based on his own insecurities."

Slowly but inexorably, she knew that she was starting to believe him. He really was a rather pleasant person to be around, despite (or maybe even because of) his somewhat eccentric mannerisms, wasn't he? And he had treated her with more respect and kindness than she'd expected, truth be told. It may not be what she deserved, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and she did understand that the circumstances were dire. She'd been exposed to a dangerous pathogen, indeed – one that must not ever be allowed to spread. Images of Renesmee greeting her for the very first time popped up before her mind's eye.

She bit her tongue and gathered herself. "It's all right," she said quietly. "I just don't want my sisters to worry. We've lost much. I fear they would stop at nothing to find out what happened to me if they were left in the dark." Vasilii. Vasilii. Vasilii. The name was almost like a heartbeat, wasn't it? The only kind of heartbeat she had left. It repeated itself over and over in her head, incessantly, and it would continue to do so until the day she ceased to exist.

"They won't be, and you will be absolutely fine," he said, let go of her, and took a small step back. "I'll open this door now. Please be quick… and please be careful. I wouldn't want any harm to come to you – any harm whatsoever."

After taking a deep, unnecessary breath, she nodded curtly. "All right. Okay. I'm ready." She was as ready as she'd ever be, in any case.

He beamed, said, "Wonderful," rather enthusiastically, and unlocked the door.

2 The Forks Police Department had been decimated. They were almost all gone. Chief Swan was missing, but five other officers were dead. Sure, the human remains found at the smouldering ruins of the Cullen mansion were only now being taken to the special lab in Seattle, and other than was the case in TV shows, it took a good long while for DNA testing to be completed. They'd have to resort to DNA testing, too, if they were to get any definitive results regarding the identity of the dead; all that had been left were charred bones, all jumbled together as if the bodies had been previously ripped into tiny little pieces. It wasn't a certainty yet that the bones belonged to the five police officers, but authorities were almost entirely sure. The DNA testing was all but a formality, as the circumstantial evidence was overwhelmingly easy to interpret.

Already, the FBI had been called in, and a task force was being organised. They were bringing in the heavy guns, the Feds, because this wasn't just a case of several spree murders in the area, being were vaguely connected through a similar MO. No, this was a case directly involving a family of people who had now been under relatively close scrutiny for a good long while. The Cullens actually weren't, as far as the FBI was concerned, a family at all. No, they were a criminal organisation who specialised in financial fraud – to great effect, one had to admit; they'd made millions upon millions during the past few decades.

The general assumption was that the names under which the suspects went publicly – Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, Edward, Jasper, Alice –were aliases 'inherited' the moment one of the organisations' members left or died. It was a rather ludicrous notion, surely, but given all the evidence, it was pretty much the only one that made sense. It was either that or subscribing to some agents' pet theory that these people were zombies of whatever kind. They were undead and didn't age, but at the same time, they were so stupid (what with the giant paper trail they'd left all over the place) that their brains could simply not be functioning at full capacity. Okay, they'd managed to go about their business undetected for a good long while, yes; one had to give them that. Maybe they'd just gotten cocky and therefore careless. It didn't matter. Al Capone had gone to jail because he'd failed to pay taxes. It shouldn't be too hard to bring these bozos to justice – finally.

At least that had been the general consensus until a short while ago, when people all around Forks, Washington had started to drop like flies. Campers had vanished, mass graves had been discovered, the Olympic National Forest had nearly been set on fire. Then, the Cullen residence had burned to the ground, and inside the torched remnants, several remains had been found, belonging to humans and non-human creatures that were as of yet unidentified.

There was also the case of all those missing persons in Seattle the year before, and the reports of big bonfires burning close to the Cullen mansion shortly after hordes of pale teenagers had been spotted heading toward Forks. Was there a connection? Law enforcement didn't know for certain, but they suspected as much.

Caius knew all this because Quirina knew all this, and Quirina knew from an online vlogger called June Cassidy, who herself cited 'reliable but confidential sources'. In his hotel suite, Caius watched one of the Cassidy woman's videos on his laptop, stony-faced and completely shell-shocked, Quirina and the twins flanking him on the couch.

"Not so long ago, the Cullen family moved to the small town of Forks, Washington, where they – according to the locals – did everything in their power to stand out," Cassidy was saying into the camera some hapless co-worker was following her around with. They were filming in front of the Forks High School carpark. The woman's voluminous, reddish hair and brightly yellow jacket reminded Caius of one of the most garish decades of the twentieth century: the 1980s. Immediately, he felt dislike for this human. It didn't help that she was butting in where she obviously didn't belong. "I've asked some of the Cullen children's former classmates about their impressions." The camera moved a little, and to Cassidy's left, two young humans appeared, a male and a female. "These are Mike Newton and Jessica Stanley. Say hello to my subscribers, guys!"

Both young people flashed toothy smiles at the camera and waved.

"Hi!" the girl's high-pitched voice squealed with irritatingly genuine delight. She had her dark-brown hair pinned up in a ponytail, giving the vampires a clear view of her pale throat, the pulsing jugular just under the frail skin, the promising hint of living blood in her rosy cheeks…

…all right, maybe they should feed before long, or one of them might end up slipping. Given the circumstances, that would be less than wise.

"So, Jess, Mike, what can you two cute lovebirds tell me about the Cullen kids?"

"Kids, yeah," Mike said, rolling his eyes and flicking away a strand of his dark-blond hair from his round forehead. He had that kind of face that had yet to outgrow the last remnants of childhood. "Tell you the truth, June, none of those guys looked a day under twenty-five. They kept skipping class, they didn't care about anything other than themselves, just going through the motions completely bored-"

"And they made a point not to mingle," Jessica added, nodding vigorously, her hair bopping up and down. She touched the boy's suede-jacket-clad arm briefly, and he hugged her around her waist. "They'd get trays full of food, sit at the back of the cafeteria, and then they'd just throw it all in the trash. They wouldn't talk to anyone, but they made absolutely sure that everyone knew they had all the money and we had none, so we sucked." She made a face of pure and unmitigated disgust. "Then, there was Bella."

Mike made a face. "Is it really okay to talk smack about the dearly departed?"

Jessica glared at him as if he'd said the single most stupid thing in the history of humanity. "You don't even think she's dead! Even if, death doesn't magically transform you into a nice person!"

Cassidy flashed a slick smile at the camera, and hurried to explain, "Isabella Swan, who was former classmate of Mike and Jess's, moved to Forks less than two years ago. She and the oldest Cullen son, Edward-"

"If that was really his name," Mike cut in sourly.

"If that was really his name, yes," Cassidy went on without a hitch. "After a brief and tempestuous relationship, Isabella and Edward got married in a very lavish ceremony at the Cullen mansion-"

"And she totally wasn't pregnant, getting married at eighteen," Jessica said in a highly disdainful sing-song tone. "Just saying."

"- only a few months ago. Footage of the wedding will be uploaded to the site soon, courtesy of one of Mike and Jess's good friends, Ben Cheney. Isabella is – or was – also police chief Charles Swan's only child." Cassidy's expression turned sombre. "She hasn't been seen ever since the wedding. The Cullen family proclaimed her dead and funeral services were held in Jacksonville, but a body was never found. Is she really dead? If so, what mysterious disease killed her? Is there any truth to the allegations that the Cullens were hiding her somewhere and lying to her family about her condition? The truth will out, dear viewers, and you'll of course be the first to know!" She whirled around to the pair of teenagers again, beaming. Her big hoop earrings in metallic green reflected the pale sunlight that kept peering out through the clouds. "Guys, tell me all about Isabella."

"Bella – and she'd throw an epic baby-tantrum if anyone called her by her actual name – was the most awful person ever," Jessica said, all the muscles in her pleasant face tightening. "She was rude, selfish, disdainful, pompous, and thought that she was oh-so-much better than any of us. I tried to be her friend, you know; I really tried. But it's impossible to be friends with someone this self-centred and plain stupid. She almost got me mugged and raped by a band of thugs once!"

"Perfect match for Edward Bitchface Cullen," Mike said, before his eyes grew wide. "Oh…am I allowed to swear?"

"This is the internet and not the evening news, so yeah. Just don't overdo it," Cassidy said, cheerful. She faced the camera again. "The Cullen family – or crime organisation, if you prefer – made no effort to hide the vast amounts of money that they had at their disposal. I have it under good authority that none of that money was earned through legitimate means – literally none of it. Now, if a group of people who were probably thinking that merely living in a small town would automatically mean keeping a low profile-"

"Because that totally worked," Jessica said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Light snow was starting to sprinkle her hair and dark-green coat.

"- and they then proceeded to live extravagantly enough to catch the FBI's eye, then maybe they also caught the eye of whoever they were trying to hide from in the first place. Maybe those people are responsible for the many deaths in and around the area, including the massacre at the Cullen mansion."

"What about that chalky white guy who was staying at Chief Swan's house? He kind of looked like Edward, and a friend of mine saw him, the Chief, and Bella's mom driving to La Push together," Mike said, scratching his neck.

"That's right," Cassidy said, nodding, frowning, a grave expression on her relatively youthful, thin face. "Eye-witnesses have come forward and told me about a mysterious young man who resembled the Cullens in many ways, who was seen talking to Chief Swan and to a resident of La Push right here, at a local café. A police report that Chief Swan filed revealed the identity of this person as one Matthew Darcy, a citizen of the UK, who was apparently searching for his fiancée, Irina Horváthová. She disappeared under the same strange conditions as Isabella, never to be heard from again. So, how many questions is this case going to raise? Where are Isabella and Charles Swan? Why did Renée Dwyer, Isabella's mother, return to Florida even though no progress has been made solving the case of her missing daughter?

"Where is this mysterious Matthew Darcy, and what is his connection to the people of La Push? Is there a link between Isabella Swan's sickness, Irina Horváthová's sickness, and the rumours that a Quileute boy named Seth Clearwater has now fallen ill, as well? Matthew Darcy's meeting with Seth's sister, Leah Clearwater, would suggest so. Who committed all the grisly murders in the area? When will this nightmare be over?" A subtle smile tugged on the corners of her full, dark-red-painted lips. "Stay tuned for further updates, as your favourite on-line investigator unravels one of the great mystery cases of our time. Check out my other vids on the subject – some of them feature security cam candids of this Darcy guy – and join me for the live-feed tomorrow evening at eight, pacific time…and thank you so much, Jess and Mike!"

"Any time, June!" Jessica said cheerily. "In fact, we would just love to-"

Caius snapped the laptop shut. They all just sat there in gobsmacked silence for at least half a minute.

At length, Jane said, "This is not good." She was occupying the space to Caius's right, her twin by her other side.

"That would be the understatement of the decade," Alec said, running his pasty hands through his short, dark hair. "This woman knows about Demetri and Irina. She knows that there are similarities between them and other vampires. She's even talked openly about a possible supernatural element that-"

"Clearly as a joke," Quirina, to Caius's left, objected sharply, having none of this useless speculation nonsense.

Alec shrugged. "What difference does it make? She's pointing out things that strike people as weird and she'd spreading it all over the internet – connections, too, between the vampires and the Quileute people. And it's only been a few days. News spread faster than we can react these days. Controlling the flow of information has become all but impossible. What does it matter that she has no clue that she's dealing with vampires and werewolves? The oddities are displayed for all to see and are not simply vaguely weird occurrences talked about by the locals over a campfire. Did you see how many clicks that video got, how many times it's been shared on social media and online press sites? This is garnering a lot of attention, which means she won't stop snooping, which in turn means the authorities will be even more hell-bent on solving the case before the media circus gets too big. That is bad news for us."

"I don't understand the need you feel to make a panic speech," Quirina said, shifting her weight slightly to the right so she could glare at him. "There is no proof that could lead to our secret being uncovered."

"No," Caius said, got up to his feet, and briskly marched to the balcony door so he could look out at the strait, his arms crossed behind his back. "But any attention is unwanted, and if we are not careful, we might end up in the spotlight. With the internet, everything changes. One slip and someone might film us showing our true faces, upload it, and then it'll be on display forever. We must not let that happen. We cannot."

"I'll kill the reporter woman and those human adolescents," Jane said flatly.

"You'll do no such thing," Caius replied, after deliberating this option for a moment. He turned around and faced Jane, who was sitting on the couch next to her twin, watching Caius with a deadpan expression on her youthful face. "Demetri is right about one thing: there has been too much death in the area, courtesy of those criminally stupid Cullens. This Cassidy woman has become too high-profile to be disappeared. She starts posting a series of videos dedicated to solving the mystery of the Cullen case, and then suddenly, she's gone? Besides, the damage has been done. If she dies, a million others will show up and simply pick up where she left off. No, we cannot kill her or those adolescents."

Jane just kept looking at him without blinking. There was no need for human pretence. "As you wish."

"What do we do, then?" Alec said, not even trying to mask his exasperation.

After another brief moment of deliberation, Caius adjusted the scarf around his neck, and said, "I'll call Demetri and tell him to wrap it up. It's time we brought this farce to an end and went back home."

"Except this time, it might not be that easy," Alec objected darkly.

"We'll manage," Jane said, her voice as usual betraying no anxiety. "We always do."

"Yes," Caius said, his own voice sounding a little tinny and hollow in his ears. Was it just the onset of thirst throwing off his sensory stability? Probably. This was so, so tiresome and so, so unavoidable. "We always do."

3 Wrap it up. Come back here. Bring the half-breed. The words echoed in Demetri's mind as he snapped his phone shut and stuffed it in his trouser pocket. What a night this had been! What a strange number of days, actually. Caius had not outright asked whether Leah was still alive, but he'd of course wanted Demetri to volunteer the information. After so many centuries of working for the same people, it wasn't all that difficult to divine their intentions. With Caius, it was especially easy, since he was the least cryptic of the three Volturi leaders – the most aggressive, too, at least in an obvious way.

It was also obvious to Demetri that something was worrying Caius. He knew that racking his brain over occurrences he couldn't control (that he couldn't even name) was pointless, but shutting off the nagging voice of doubt in the back of his mind was harder than it sounded. If Caius was worried, then something was really, really wrong. It never boded well when a plan unravelled. Death and mayhem were often the consequence, and dealing with that kind of fallout these days wasn't exactly a walk in the park, as the idiom went.

Another thing that had struck him as incredibly odd was Caius's insistence that he bring the dhampir back to Washington alive. It wasn't really Demetri's place to question a direct order from his general, but still, he couldn't help but wonder what the purpose might be. Why on Earth would anyone want to keep the little monster alive, knowing what terrible power she possessed? Wasn't it enough to have one nearly unstoppable half-breed in Volterra, under lock and key? Even that one was, in Demetri's opinion, one too many. Fiora was the most frightening creature he'd ever faced – well, until he'd met Renesmee. But living in the same stronghold as that…that abomination was unsettling enough. Nobody knew what could happen if a second one were brought to Volterra. What if those things could figure out a way to communicate telepathically (they were both thusly gifted), or if they managed to boost each other's strength somehow? Those theories might be far-fetched, but nothing was impossible where dhampirs were concerned.

The most disturbing aspect of this was the fact that Renesmee was only a few months old and was already as strong as Fiora had ever been. What would happen if they let her mature any further? Nobody knew. They couldn't know. Every day that the child lived was a day that all sapient races on the planet were being put at risk. What Demetri really wanted was to call Aro and ask him all the questions rattling around in his brain, but he couldn't simply circumvent the chain of command and go behind Caius's back. No, he needed to do his duty. The elders knew best, and just as was the case with Demetri, their primary concern was the safety of the Volturi coven. They were all family. None of the elders would ever do anything to risk their existences – not even Caius and his perpetual vendetta against all kinds of werewolves there might be.

Unbidden as always, thoughts of his mother surfaced, and he tried to trample them down with limited success. Sometimes, it was useful to be sentimental, to let the vestiges of human emotion strengthen him, guide his decisions, help hone his instincts. At other times, though, sentiment had a way of ruining logic, and that must not happen – not in times like these.

He thought of Leah, of how she hadn't had time to phase and how she'd not hesitated to jump between Rosalie and Charlie. She'd saved Charlie, but at what price? A good and decent person such as Leah did not deserve any of what had happened to her. Good people were, in his experience, hard to come by, and all that he wished for her was a long, peaceful, happy life. Why did some people get everything they wanted, not even really caring about the price they had to pay, about the price everyone else had to pay? Jasper and Bella came to mind – especially Bella.

Leah had told him that Bella had never been a great person to begin with, but that at least she'd had the decency to be horrified at her actions as a vampire at first. Now, she was quickly shedding all remainders of her humanity in her hurry to become the best psychopathic monster she could be. Jasper might be a worse person, but he'd always been like this. That didn't make him better, but it made it easier to handle him. It was admittedly more difficult to understand a person who had once had human emotions such as empathy and guilt, and who was now merrily throwing it all overboard – voluntarily, no less.

Did that stupid bint even realise how incredibly difficult it was to hold on to even a shred of humanity? How hard it was to not lose everything that once had defined someone as a person, after their whole body had been completely rearranged and they didn't even recognise themselves in the mirror anymore? For God's sake, Bella had chosen to be a parasitic, undead monster that nature rejected so completely, a whole new species of supernatural beings had to be created just to counterbalance the mere existence of vampires. She was a truly terrible person – selfish and greedy and callous – and she did not deserve a happy ending.

But life wasn't all cakes and ale, was it, and oftentimes, horrible people got everything and good people got the short end of the stick. It was nearly enough to give into despair, truth be told.

Feeling world-weary and cold and incredibly ancient, he made his way upstairs and into one of the beach house's smaller bedrooms, where Jacob Black was sitting on the bed, his hands tied behind his back. Jasper was there, too, standing by the window, working his power to keep the erstwhile werewolf pack leader compliant. Demetri didn't even think that the restraints were needed anymore, given the fact that Jacob was so much under the influence of what Leah had called Creepula's supernatural heroin, he was hardly even aware of his surroundings. That was one useful gift, one had to give the slimy little git that.

Trying not to let his thoughts dwell on Leah and the consequences of her sacrifice, Demetri stood in the doorframe, arms crossed, and said, "Can he understand me?"

Jasper gave him a smug little smirk. "Sure. He probably won't remember any of this, but he can answer questions, all right. Think of it as a truth serum. He's high as a kite and at one with the universe. He'll answer any question because he can't even understand why he shouldn't be perfectly truthful in his replies."

"All right." Demetri focussed on Jacob. "Jacob, how do you feel about Renesmee Cullen?"

Jacob's eyes flew open. They were bloodshot. His brown skin had an ashen tone to it. The vampire venom was still taking its toll, even though it had been delivered via proxy, which always lessened the effect. The discomfort must be considerable. No-one deserved to go through this kind of pain. "She's the most precious, most important thing in the universe, my Nessie. Once I get free, I'll kill all of you assholes for daring to touch her."

"I believe that answers the question whether either the venom or Charlie's little neck-snapping action doubled as a miracle cure," Jasper said, sounding so mockingly despondent, Demetri again felt like socking him in the teeth. For crying out loud, could this…this…oh, could this sorry wanker not take anything seriously?

"If Jacob can't be cured, then he'll have to die," he said, his voice trembling a little.

Jasper shrugged. "Would it help you if I pretended that I care? I don't think so." He waited for a reply, but Demetri was too busy fuming quietly. "How about the demon-spawn?"

"She woke up about an hour ago, but could neither move not speak thanks to the restraints," Demetri said in clipped tones. "Bella broke her neck again."

Making a pained face, Jasper shook his head. "That's got to sting."

"We'll have to leave soon. Your friend Maria will have to deal with the clean-up procedures by herself. I trust that she is competent enough to do it properly." He turned around on his heel and made to leave, but Jasper called him back. "What is it?"

"How's Chief Swan coping?"

"He's taken a shower and a sedative, and now he's sleeping soundly. Bella changed his bandage. The gash on his forehead is healing nicely, but there'll probably be a scar."

Jasper whistled lowly. "Why don't you just get it over with and either kill him or turn him? What will drawing the decision out do? It won't do any good, that's for sure."

"I have my reasons." He did not turn around.

Jasper chuckled derisively. "Oh, of course. Saint Leah Clearwater strikes again, even after getting broken in half by a crazed vampire and being unable to do anything anymore."

After contemplating multiple nasty replies and even the option of simply ripping the bastard's head off, Demetri bit his tongue and walked away. Sometimes, it made more sense to just let it go. There were people who simply weren't worth getting upset over.

4 Going into that terrible cell was less disturbing than the last time had been, even though Irina was immediately assaulted by desperate cries (shrieks) for mercy and freedom in her mind. At least she didn't see the image of Vasilii anymore, but Fiora as she truly was: emaciated, pitiful, powerless. It was a gutting feeling, seeing a person chained up like this, her bodily autonomy and agency taken away from her as if her life were worth nothing.

Were these Irina's own thoughts or the girl's? It would make sense for Fiora to try and elicit-

Inwardly, Irina sighed and told herself to cut the crap. No, this was all her. The girl was not responsible for Irina's discomfort, pity, or guilt over being complicit in another person's horrible imprisonment. She took one look into those huge, desperate, dark-brown eyes, said, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to harm you. I want to help you. Pray that it works," and advanced on her.

It was the strangest feeling, attacking a helpless, half-dead person like this, but she had little choice. Her fangs cut through the tough skin after some resistance, but then, warm blood that tasted repulsively like soap and perfume gushed into her mouth. Fiora jerked violently, hitting her head against the thick stone wall behind her. Irina backed off in a flash, spat, wiped her mouth, stumbled out of the cell. She would have crashed down if Aro hadn't caught her. Inside the cell, poor Fiora was being shaken by awful spasms. Her eyes rolled back, spittle flew from her chapped lips. She opened her mouth as if to scream. Her face was a contorted mask of pure agony.

"We should give the poor thing a moment to collect itself," Aro said, and slammed the heavy door shut rather viciously, before locking it tightly again. He spun around to the shaky Irina, beaming. "Well done, my dear! Now, all we can do is wait and cross our fingers, hoping that the experiment works!"

She tugged down on her blouse, straightened out her hair, and said, "What's going to happen to her if it does?"

The look on his face shifted from gleeful to thoughtful, though there still was that ever-present spark of amusement in his deeply red eyes. "Interesting question. You ask about her fate before inquiring about yours."

For some reason, this made her chuckle dryly, even though there was nothing even remotely entertaining about the whole situation. "I'm not that selfless, you know. I realise that whatever happens – success or failure – I'll be spending the remainder of my days here."

"None of our fates are sealed," he said, scrutinising her with a mix of curiosity and…what was that? Pity? Empathy? It was something along those lines, anyway. "Imagine if this works, and Fiora's power can be kept in check. Maybe your natural resistance could be helpful to other dhampirs and their victims. Maybe in the future, nobody will have to be summarily executed just because they were born the wrong kind of monster…or because they were simply at the wrong place, at the worst possible time. Even if it doesn't work, even if none of our hypotheses turn out to be correct, you are not contagious. If you can't help me in my mission to cure the world of the blight that are these half-breeds, then why would I keep you here?" The corners of his mouth curved up ever so slightly. "I know what you think of me, dear girl, but I assure you, I am not a monster. If my actions seem cruel, that is because cruelty can't always be avoided. It would please me to no end if it weren't so, but this is the world we live in, and in this world, sometimes violence becomes necessary in defence of the innocent."

It took her a while to find the right words. At length, she managed to return his warm expression; this time, it didn't even cost her any effort. "Then let us hope that this experiment turns out to be the only one we need."

5 Watching over both her temporarily dead daughter and her soundly sleeping father was a relatively boring task, and so Bella turned on the television set that had been mounted on the wall of the small-ish bedroom. She didn't speak any Spanish despite having grown up in Arizona, but that didn't matter, because the owners of this lovely home had cable, and therefore, Bella had access to American channels.

"…these online bloggers should really check their facts before spreading misinformation," a good-looking, full-figured and grey-haired, elderly black woman in a sharp suit was explaining to a young, white, skinny male reporter. The text at the bottom of the screen identified the woman as a lead FBI investigator for the Cullen case. "Ms. Cassidy has posted her videos without consulting with us, first. Now, the damage has been done." The FBI lady looked straight at the camera, her expression serious. "If the public has any information pertaining to this case, including the whereabouts of Charles Swan, please call the designated hotline. We-"

Bella shut the TV off and stared at the dark screen for a moment. The FBI was investigating the Cullens? But why? What for? And how had they even found them, given that the Cullen family had always been so discreet, had always blended in so well with their human surroundings? Bella didn't understand how this could be possible. What she did understand, however, was that this meant trouble for all of them. If the Feds dug too deep, they might find out more than they had bargained for. Of course they would never discover the existence of vampires, and even if, vampires were indestructible and basically gods, so what could the humans really do to them?

However, the Volturi, who were the highest vampire authority, implemented their secrecy rule with an iron fist. What would happen if the humans found out about the existence of the supernatural? What if someone happened to film a vampire being a vampire or a werewolf being a werewolf and, through sheer luck, managed to spread that footage online? What consequences would that have for all of them? Well, the Quileute wolves would definitely bite it. The vampires were safe. They were invincible. There was nothing that could touch them. Also, if word got out and anyone made a connection to the happenings in Tijuana, then it would be the wolves' fault, not the vampires' – specifically, not Bella's. All she'd done was play by the rules…

…yes, okay, there had been the slip-ups with the human campers, but that had nothing to do with anything. She'd only been following her nature, and humans were her prey. There was nothing wrong with that, and it had nothing to do with the FBI or the media. No, that was all due to the Quileute wolves making such a fuss over Bella being turned. It was their fault. Everything was their fault.

Still, it might be prudent to inform the others that the deaths in and around Forks were being investigated by the FBI, and that an online blogger by the name of Cassidy was all over that which must not be uncovered.

Maybe it was time to go home and clean house.

6 "So you're positive you saw several of these Cullen types drive up to La Push and then drive away with Leah Clearwater in tow?" It was a redundant question, admittedly, but being a reporter required making absolutely sure, and this story was just fantastic.

International crime families, conspiracies, murder and mayhem, financial fraud, mysterious diseases, and so much more! Over the past week, the traffic on June Cassidy's website had quadrupled, and now she had over three million subscribers worldwide (three million!), with more and more people joining every day. This wasn't all about success online, though. The story was genuinely intriguing, and helping the authorities bring those (probably) murderers to justice – or at least helping them find out the truth about what the hell was going on – was its own reward. She wasn't the type that would do anything for a good story, but if she wanted to make it as a vlogger, she needed to be able to offer people what they wanted, and that required hard work and due diligence.

In her twenty-eight years of life, she'd never stumbled on such a great story, and she was determined not to let it go until she'd uncovered the truth. Her contact at the FBI had told her that he needed to keep a low profile for a while, since he didn't exactly relish the thought of being caught as the leak, but that was okay. Right now, June had all she needed. She was right where the action was, finding connections no-one had so far. More and more news stations were pouring into the little town of Forks, trying to get a piece of the action, but June was one step ahead of them up to now. She was determined to keep it that way.

On the other side of the line, the man who'd called her said, "I'm absolutely sure. It was a guy, three women, two teenagers, that Darcy dude, Jasper Hale, and the Swan girl…only I'm not too sure about the last one. It looked like her, sort of, but it's like she got plastic surgery or something. There was something very wrong with her face."

That would make sense. The Cullens had most likely found out that their jig was up and had been forced to take extreme and drastic measures. To June, it seemed probable that they had burned their own house down. The fact that they all sort of looked alike was most probably due to plastic surgery. It was a crazy and convoluted theory, but it also made sense. People in witness protection often got their faces changed. Why shouldn't criminals? Perhaps Matthew Darcy and his pals had been betrayed by the Cullen branch of their operation, and thus the Cullens had faked their own deaths. Maybe the Cullens had duped the La Push people somehow, which would explain Leah Clearwater's involvement. She'd studied economics at college, hadn't she? A clear picture was beginning to form. This was all so exciting!

"Any ideas what they might've been doing in La Push?" Couldn't hurt to ask, right?

"Nope, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been good. The Cullen castle gets burned to the ground, and only one – possibly two – of them make it out alive? We all know how much the Quileute hated those arrogant asses. Something's up. If you ask me, I think they're hunting the Cullens. It has to be about money. In the end, it's always about money."

Not always, but most of the time, yeah, pretty much. "Thanks a lot for all your helpful information, sir. Are you sure you don't want me to quote-"

"No. I don't want to get involved with the FBI, thank you very much, but people deserve to know." With that, Mister Anonymous hung up.

Okay, then. It was fine by her. A little shaky with excitement, she slipped into her trademark (and much worn, much beloved) yellow jacket, packed her phone, her camera, and her taser (one could never know) into her purse, and left the motel in a hurry. She had a date with the people of La Push, even if they didn't know it yet. This really was the story of a century, and her subscribers deserved to be kept in the loop. June was not going to disappoint them or herself.