Chapter 25

I was standing out in the middle of the meadow. The sun was shining the brightest I've seen it since I was in Phoenix. The breeze blew my hair lightly across my face. I closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin; smiling. In one quick moment, it all disappeared. The warmth turned into a violent wind. As my body shivered in alarm, I heard a familiar voice calling out my name in panic. My knees hit the ground and eyes flew open as I gasped for a breath to respond.

I wasn't in the meadow anymore. I blinked my eyes slowly to adjust to the darkness of the room. My head ached a little, but I could tell it wasn't much longer before it was healed. I barely remembered what had really happened, but the harder I thought about it, the more my head ached.

I was lying down on a cold brick floor. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't separate my hands. After a minute of struggling, I realized they were chained together and my legs were chained to the ground. My eyes had started to adjust to the darkness of the room and I realized there were no windows and only one door. My only assumption was that I was in a basement of some kind.

"Hello!" I shouted, hoping someone would answer.

I tried wiggling more, but it wouldn't work. I thought that maybe phasing would work or at least help get the chains off. My head was still a bit foggy and that must have been interfering with phasing. I wasn't able to. I had never heard of anything stopping a werewolf from phasing, but then again I still had a lot to learn. I couldn't focus enough on one thing long enough to figure anything out. I mostly just wanted to know where I was and why I was there.

I started to focus harder on phasing just like I had my second time, but at the same time the door opened. A short vampire with glossy black hair in a ponytail walked in. I was sitting in the corner farthest away from the door, the farthest I had gotten was up on my knees.

"Awake finally?" he asked with a laugh.

"What the hell is going on?" I growled at him.

"Aw, you are mad," he laughed again, sarcastically. "We'll have time for questions later. Right now someone would like very much to see you."

"I suppose you're not going to tell me who that is either?" I asked angrily.

"Be patient."

He walked up closer to me and quickly undid the chains. He grabbed me by the arm and jerked me upwards, making me a little dizzy, while pulling me out of the room. He stopped for a moment slamming the door behind us and quickly led me down a long hallway that was a little brighter than the room I had been in and a little colder.

Once we had finally reached the end, he opened a thick metal door and pushed me through slamming the door as he followed. We were in another hallway, but only walked halfway down before we reached another thick metal door. He knocked three times on it before he stood back a few inches.

"Wha-?" I started to ask another question, but the door flew open so fast it created a gust of air that just about knocked me over, interrupting me.

"Come in Bella," a deep voice called from in the room. Something deep inside me recognized the voice, sending tremors through my spine.

"I have been waiting for this," he said, with such enjoyment and that deep sadistic smile pulling into place. Just as it had in my dream.

"Caius," I said, with disgust.

"So, I see you are still not a vampire. Going back on promises now are we? Remember, I don't offer second chances." I didn't say anything. "Though, I admit, there is something very off about you since the last time I have seen you."

"Yes, I'd say there is." I wasn't quite ready to tell him about my other change just yet since he didn't seem to know.

"Care to tell me?" he asked calmly.

"No, not really," I said.

"Hmm, I see."

"Why didn't you inform Aro of your little trip?"

"Aro doesn't always have to know everything you know," he said with a smile.

"Sure, sure."

"Any other questions?"

"Why did you do it this way?"

"I knew the others would disagree with me and I grew tired of waiting. I gathered enough guards to help me and left while they were… distracted."

He added a little laugh once he was finished. I didn't want to know what he had meant by distracted.

"So you're here to kill me?"

"You broke the rules, you and those Cullens, but your punishment is enough for me. Though, I still haven't exactly decided how exactly I will be doing that."

The last time I had seen Caius I couldn't really picture him as the happy type, but now that he was thinking of my punishment, something torturous I'm sure, it wasn't a pretty sight.

I couldn't decide what to do. I ran over my options, nothing ended very well. The only option that seemed even close to working was phasing, but I wasn't sure about that yet.

"You are awfully quiet Bella," he said, causing me to lose tract of thought.

"What would you like me to do? Cry and beg for forgiveness or a second chance? Does that really seem like something I would be doing right now?" The words just jumped out of my mouth.

"Well your little boyfriend isn't able to protect you this time," he said adding to his smile. "None of them are. So, what are you going to do?"

Just as I opened my mouth to speak, though I wasn't really sure I knew what I was going to say, the door on the other side of the room opened and two vampires came in. I could only place them as his guards, judging by their look. One of them was a lot taller, but the shortest one looked stronger. Both were slightly odd looking. I just froze, hoping they weren't coming in for me.

"Caius," the tallest one said as he slowly bowed his head.

"Please tell me you have some good news for me." Caius turned towards me. "Oh Bella, I forgot to tell you," he said with a smile. "I wasn't sure where you would have been before, so I had guards go to both your house and the Cullens. One way or another I was going to get to you." My breathing stopped and the room fell silent, all except the sound of my heartbeat that had sped up. Apparently, he had gotten the reaction he wanted; his smile grew wider. "You made it too easy though; walking out there all alone."

I just stood there, still frozen, staring at the floor. Did he really not know about the wolves? I was confused. Maybe they didn't know that the pack had been watching for them, but how could they not have seen them?

"Uh, Caius," The tallest one tried to continue. "We had a bit of a problem."

The word problem didn't sit well with me. I knew what he had to have meant by problem and either way it involved someone I cared about. I snapped out of my frozen trance, my body shook a little and I focused on the vampire.

Caius looked irritated. He looked to the door I had come in and there was two more guards standing there. He nodded his head in my direction and the two started walking in my direction.

"No! I'm not going anywhere!" I shouted, while kicking at them once they had grabbed each of my arms. I managed to knock one of them off me and started kicking the other. The one I had kicked down got up, wrapped both his arms around my waist, and picked me up off the ground. I kicked the other vampire in the face, wiggling to get away from the other.

"Caius, I thought she was human," one of them said as he was struggling with me.

I was still in his hold, kicking and swinging my arms, trying anything to get him to put me down before I realized what he had said. I stopped for a moment and looked up at Caius who looked very confused. He glared at me.

"I'll just kill her now," he said as he stood up.

"No!" I yelled again as I started kicking and swinging again.

"Caius!" The tall vampire shouted impatiently. "There are wolves with the Cullens."

Caius was frozen. "Wolves?" he asked slowly turning his head in the vampire's direction, confused.

"Yes, wolves. They were huge. Biggest I have ever seen."

I froze again for a moment. Why was the pack with the Cullens? I couldn't make sense of it at first, but I lost my thought once again when I noticed Caius's expression was quickly replaced with terror. If he wasn't already so pale, I'm sure he would have looked it. I wondered if he had a problem with werewolves.

"No…" he whispered, lost in thought for a moment. "S-Send more guards and get rid of them. I will join once I am finished with her. You may go now," he said then he looked back at me, same expression on his face.

"Don't! I thought you only wanted me?" I yelled as I pushed the guard that was holding me off.

"And you two may leave now as well," Caius said, still glaring as he walked towards me.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, though it came as a sharp snarling sound.

"This changes things a little," he mumbled.

A million different thoughts and questions flashed through my mind again, but the only thing that I could really focus on was the vampires that were leaving. Before I thought otherwise I ran after them, hoping to make it out the door.

"Stop her!" Caius yelled, but I had already pushed them out of my way and I was out the door.

I could hear more yelling but I ignored it. I had to get back to Jake. I had to make sure they were all ok. I had no idea just how many guards Caius had brought with him, but I wasn't about to wait to find out.

I kept running and at first I had thought they chasing after me, either that or they went a different way, but as soon as I thought of it, one of the vampires flew right into me. I slammed into the wall, but was able to move quickly away from his fist. The other vampire was right behind me, lunging at me. I jumped back far enough that he didn't catch me. Both of them looked at me for a second while my back was against the wall. I could tell they were still trying to figure me out, but I didn't give them much time, a second was all I needed.

I pushed myself off the wall and phased in mid run, just in time to run right into Caius as he came from the other end of the hallway. I got back up and ran as fast as I could away from them. I could tell they weren't too far behind, but I didn't let anything slow me down.

I kept running and finally noticed a window that was lit dimly from the sunrise. I turned back quickly and jumped right through the glass. I was glad to find that it wasn't too far of a drop down. I ran toward the nearest trees. I didn't have any idea where I was, but I was sure I wasn't too far away Jake.

The vampires continued to run after me. I tried running in different directions to lose them, but they were faster than I had thought. After a while of running zig zags through the trees, things started to look more familiar and I couldn't tell if they were still behind me or not. I realized that with all the focus on what was going on, that I had kept the pack blocked out.

I stopped running for a minute and the vampires were nowhere close to me. I figured they had given up, didn't think I could have lost them that easily. I sat down to catch my breath as I opened my mind up.

Still no trace of her anywhere, but there is even more scents of the bloodsuckers. They're everywhere.

She has to be somewhere, she didn't just vanish into thin air.

They have to have her. Why else would they be roaming around aimlessly? I'm not sure what they are doing, but if she isn't with them then they have to be looking for something else, or watching something.

The voices were faint hums beating through my head along with my heart. I couldn't quite tell who was who, but I could pick Jacob's thoughts out of them all.

I told you something was going to happen, that's why I went after her. I don't know why she felt the need to walk alone, but I trusted her to be ok. I shouldn't have left her alone.

I should have listened to him, I thought.

What is that?

What?

I hear someone else out there. Bella?

I'm here, I said breathlessly I started running in their direction, carefully making sure I didn't run into any other vampires.

Bella! Where were you? Where are you? Are you ok? What happened? What's going on?

All their questions rushed together in my head. I didn't know what to answer first.

Start with are you ok? Sam said.

Yeah, I'm fine. Now.

Now? What happened?

Caius. He had some guards that he brought with him hunt me down. They took me too this place, still not sure what it was, didn't take the time to find out. He planned to kill me, but with a distraction and luck, I got away.

How? What distraction? Jake asked.

For some reason Caius is terrified of werewolves. When a guard member came in and told him you were out here, he panicked. He sent two vampires away and I ran out before them. I had to fight them off, but I was able to phase in time and jumped out a window. For some reason, I'm thinking the foggyness from the hit to the head, I couldn't phase. I couldn't focus. Once he found out about you guys he ordered more guards out to kill you. He was distracted and I was more focused. Luckily, he sent mostly all of his guards out, so I had a better chance.

Jake didn't like seeing the visions of it all in my head. He started growling and whimpered as he started running. I didn't know where he was running until I saw myself in his vision. I was closer to him than I had thought and started running towards him. Once we were together, he nuzzled his head against mine and I relaxed.

I should have listened to you. I'm sorry, I told him

At the same time, I noticed someone was at the Cullen house.

Is anything else going on? I asked and was immediately bombarded with so many different thoughts I couldn't pick out one. A bit slower please? Jake looked away from me, but didn't say anything right away, no one did. I concentrated to see if I could pick someone out of their heads and gasped

What happened to Edward?

They got him. Seems to be about the same time they got you, Jake answered.

Suddenly my memory flashed over the muffled voice I heard when I was hit in the head, then to that dream of me standing in the meadow, someone calling my name. The smile that widened when Caius said Edward wasn't able to help me this time. The words he said played in my head. "One way or another I was going to get to you."

He planned it all along.

A/N: It feels like it has been forever since I have actually written anything and updated. Except for the adjustments on the last chapter. Anyways, I hope you guys like this chapter.

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