AN: Okay, my beta reader is still on vacay this week and I'm jealy as hell of her, so again, this chapter is going up without prereading. Sorry if there are to many mistakes. :o(

Thanks to all of you for sticking with me and continuing to read. And over 200 reviews now is awesome! I heart you guys!

Still don't own Twilight. Boo...

Chapter Twenty Six

EPOV

The first sense that was returned to me was sound. I could hear voices and movement around me. There seemed to be three of them. Tanya, of course. Another female I could only assume was Kate, and a heavily accented male that I was not familiar with. My mind reeled trying to put together what had happened, and falling up short.

I tried to move my hands, feel out my surroundings, only to find that I couldn't move. Not for lack of trying, though. My wrists were bound above my head. I tried my legs as well with no luck. They were bound as well.

A cold hand caressed my face, sending cold chills throughout my body. My eyes flew open involuntarily and I was face to face with Tanya.

She smiled at me. It was such a sickeningly sweet smile that I thought I might vomit. Then she laughed, and the sound fell flat in the room.

"Look who's awake," she said.

I glanced around her to see that I was in some sort of room. No windows, no obvious doorway, and the walls were padded. Soundproof. Great.

I was right; the other woman in the room was Kate. She crossed the room and put her arm around Tanya's waist.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she said with a smile. "Don't you just love my gift? Knocks any vampire on his ass, no matter how smart or strong he thinks he is."

"Yep, that's my girl." Tanya lifted her hand up to push the blonde hair behind Kate's ear. She leaned in and they kissed. With tongue. I rolled my eyes and prayed their little PDA would be finished soon. I also reconsidered the whole vomiting thing.

When they pulled apart, Tanya looked at me with an evil smile and winked.

"You should see what it does to humans."

I froze. Bella. God, no! She's safe. She's safe with Emmett and she's changing into a vampire right now. She had to be. I closed my eyes at the sudden pain and panic in my heart.

"Yeah," Kate pouted. "It's too bad your human was already dead. I really wanted to demonstrate it to you."

I screamed. I poured all of the physical and emotional pain, the hurt, the anguish that I felt at hearing of Bella's death into that scream. The sound hit the padding on the walls and was absorbed into them, leaving an empty feeling in my heart. My broken heart.

"Now, now," another voice came from across the room. The male I had heard earlier. His skin was the color of chocolate; his hair fell to his chest in intricate braids. In his hands he held some kind of metal bar. A crow bar maybe? "Save your lungs boy. You're going to need them."

Emmett POV

Four hours.

Edward had gone out for 'fresh air' four hours ago. Something was wrong. It had to be. He wouldn't just leave Bella like that.

I checked on her again, but there was little to no change. Her heartbeat was a little stronger, but her breathing was shallower. It had been eight hours since Edward had bit her. Twice. She should have shown a reaction by now. Usually it was instantaneous.

The sun was rising, turning the forest into a glittery and wondrous place. Rose would love this view. It looked like everything was covered in diamonds. I took out my cell phone to see if service had been restored yet, but before I had a chance to look I heard a noise behind me.

"Edward!" Bella's voice was barely more than a whisper.

I knelt down close to her so I could hear her easier.

"Bells, its Emmett. Can you hear me?"

"Emmett?" she whispered. Her brows crinkled like she was trying to figure out why I would be talking to her instead of Edward. Excellent question. Because once again, I didn't know where the fuck Edward was.

"Yeah Bells, its Emmett. Are you okay?"

"Fire," she whispered. "Stop the fire!"

It took a long moment for me to realize what she meant, but then I smiled to myself as relief washed through me. Thank God. The venom was working. It was taking its good ole sweet time, but it was working.

"It's the change, Bella. Did Edward explain to you about the change?" I wasn't sure if he had ever had that conversation with her or not. When they left the house yesterday morning he hadn't. Maybe she didn't have a clue what was coming up.

"Yes. I'm changing?"

"The pain will get worse before it gets better Bells. I'm sorry but it has to be that way." I pushed the hair away from her face gently. She really was beautiful in her own girl-next-door kind of way. She was no Rose, but then again, who was? Edward better not fuck this up or I would personally hunt him down and kill him.

I told Bella that I would go find Edward, and then I stepped outside of the tree shelter and checked my phone. Yes! 3 bars. I called Edward's phone first.

We were rather isolated in this part of the forest. It was quiet and peaceful. In the distance you could hear birds singing or animals going about their daily routines. But nothing else. So when the Aerosmith song "Back in the Saddle" came filtering through the trees, I knew it had to be Edward's phone. He was that close and hadn't checked on Bella? What the hell was wrong with him?

The call went to voice mail. What an asshole. I dialed the number again and went in search of the noise. I had to call three more times before I found the phone, buried in the snow. There were tracks everywhere. The one I was most interested in started right about where I found the phone and led off towards the road. Whoever made them wasn't walking. He was being dragged. There were also the scents of four different vampires in the area. Two of them I didn't recognize. One of them was Edward's, the other was Tanya's. Fuck.

Time to call in the cavalry. My next call was to Rose.

"Emmett! Are you okay? Where are you? Is Edward with you?" Rose rushed through the words so fast I could barely keep up with her.

"I'm fine. I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere. Bella is slowly changing into a vampire, and I think Edward's been kidnapped."

There was a brief pause on the other end. She didn't seem surprised by my revelation, which could only mean one thing. Alice had a vision and knew this was going to happen. But with cell service down, there was no way for her to warn us. Fuck. Gotta love technology, right?

"We're on our way," she told me and I could hear them all loading up into the Hummer as she spoke. I told her where to look on the highway and headed back to the tree shelter. I was halfway there when Bella's blood-curdling scream sliced through the peaceful morning. The change had definitely begun.

BPOV

The feeling started slowly. Like heartburn, it crept up on me. But the burning sensation only got worse as it spread throughout my body. I yelled for Edward to tell him I was burning, but instead, Emmett was the one that answered me. He told me it was the change and he told me that it would get worse before it got better. I vaguely remember Edward telling me it was the most painful thing I would ever experience.

I tried to block the pain, the same way I had blocked out my headaches, but to no avail. It was to powerful. My vision wavered. One instant I was lying in my childhood bed, clutching my pink Care Bear. The next I was lying on the ground under a tree, all alone. I yelled for Edward, but there was no response. I yelled for Emmett, again, nothing.

The pain became unbearable. I was sure my skin would turn to ash and fall off. I screamed.

I had the vague sensation of someone picking me up and moving me. I tried not to scream out in pain, but I don't think I was successful. Time passed and the burning increased, reaching every part of my body. The one thought that kept me sane was knowing that I would be with Edward. Forever. I just kept reminding myself of that. It was all worth it. We deserved to be together.

I stopped trying to fight the pain and succumbed to it. I knew it was only a matter of time and it would stop and everything would be okay.

How long had the fire consumed me? I had no sense of time, but eventually I became aware of things going on around me. I could hear movements, and occasionally voices through the blackness of the pain. These moments of clarity came more frequently and I was able to make out who was speaking. Esme. Emmett. Carlisle. Rose. Alice. Jasper. I ticked the names off in my head. It didn't escape my attention that the most important of them all was missing. Edward.

Slowly the fire increased in intensity until every fiber of my being screamed out in protest. Then suddenly, it all stopped.

I cringed against the lack of pain. It was as if I had become so familiar with the burning sensation that I missed it when it was gone. The room went still around me. I could almost feel the rest of them watching me, waiting for me to wake up.

"Bella," it was Carlisle that spoke first. "It's okay, Bella. The change is complete. Open your eyes."

My eyes fluttered open. I was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by Edward's family. The room appeared to be a basement of some sort. There were a couple of small windows up towards the ceiling and a cement staircase led up to a closed door. The rest of the room was empty. My eyes scanned through the group of vampires standing before me, resting on Emmett.

"Edward?" I asked softly, dreading the answer to my unasked question. It wasn't right that he wasn't here. "Where is he?"

Alice fidgeted, drawing my attention to her.

"Alice?" I asked, sitting up on the bed.

"You need to see yourself, Bella," she completely avoided my question. "You're so beautiful, so perfect. He'll hate that he wasn't here to watch it happen." She smiled sadly and averted her eyes. In fact, everyone in the room was avoiding my gaze. It was beyond frustrating. I stared at each of them individually before standing and pacing the floor beside the bed.

"Somebody, I don't care who, is going to tell me what the hell is going on here. Where. The fuck. Is Edward?"

Jasper stepped in front of Alice and crouched in a defensive gesture. I rolled my eyes at him. Please. Like I was going to hurt Alice? I don't think so.

"Okay, fine! I'll tell her." Rose huffed as she stepped forward. A sense of dread ran through me as I watched her take a tentative step towards me, reconsider, and step back against Emmett. "Tanya ambushed him. She's holding him against his will." She said it so quickly that it took me a moment to grasp her words.

"Tanya?" My eyes snapped to Emmett. "When? How?"

Emmett explained how Edward had bitten me to save me and waited, and waited, and waited. Then he went out for some fresh air and never came back. And Alice explained about her vision of Tanya and two other vampires that they weren't familiar with, somehow knocking Edward out and taking him.

I resumed my pacing as I listened to them. Finally I stopped moving, but didn't look at any of them.

"Where is he now?" I expected them to tell me that they didn't know. So Alice's next sentence shocked me.

"She's keeping him at a house in Seattle," she said.

I sucked in a deep breath, although it was completely unnecessary, and rubbed my temples with my fingertips. I tried to keep my growing anger in check.

"How long was I out of it?" I asked quietly.

"Four days," Esme answered. "It took longer than normal, probably due to the leukemia and the amount of blood lost in the accident."

I turned to glare at them all again, hoping that my animosity at that moment was showing through my eyes. I aimed my glare at the men in particular. Carlisle. Jasper. Emmett.

"So you've known for four days where he is, and you haven't gone to get him yet? Really? I thought you all were family! I thought you cared about him. But no, you let that psycho bitch take him somewhere and do God knows what to him, and you don't even attempt to get him back?" I was furious. Honestly, I had expected better from the Cullen's. I don't know why, but I had.

"Bella," Alice said in a patient voice, like she was dealing with an irrational child or something. She stepped around Jasper and came closer to me than any of them had since I woke up. "If we try to rescue him, we'll fail. I've seen it. I don't know why, but for some reason you are the only one that stands a chance."

I closed my eyes and forced myself to calm down. With my eyes still closed I said through gritted teeth. "Fine," I said. "Let's go."

Emmett stepped up and put his hands on my shoulders tentatively, again like he was scared of me or something. What the hell?

"Not so fast, Bells. First, we need to hunt and feed. We'll go with you, you know, show you the ropes."

I took a minute to study the look in his eye. Was it fear? What in the world could Emmett Cullen be afraid of? I looked around the room and realized they all had that same weary look in their eyes. They were all afraid. Of me. They were approaching me like I was a wild animal or something.

"Why are you all treating me like the dog with rabies that needs to be put down?" I stepped back and crossed my arms. "Did I miss something?"

"How much did Edward tell you, Bella? About becoming a vampire?" Carlisle stepped forward and everyone else stepped back. I had to admit, he hadn't told me much. He explained about the pain of the change. Thank God. If I hadn't known what was happening, I probably wouldn't have kept my sanity through it. I shuddered just thinking about it. Beyond that, though, all I really knew was that I would live forever.

"Not very much," I told him.

He shook his head in exasperation and motioned for me to sit down.

"I thought as much," he said under his breath. I had a feeling he was about to give me a lesson in how to be a vampire. Everyone else suddenly had things to do and cleared the room. Quickly.

Carlisle explained to me all about being a newborn and how unstable I would be until I could learn to control myself. Although along with the instability also came great strength. He also explained to me how the Cullen's chose to drink from animals rather than humans. However, Edward had broken from that rule and that's why he had lived apart from them for so long. I kind of knew that part already, but didn't realize the rest of them subsisted solely on animal blood. He told me it was my choice of how I wanted to live. Initially I would find human blood hard to resist, but if I decided that's how I wanted to live, they would help me with it. I told him that I had no desire to kill people and would rather live off animals. However, my only concern at the moment was getting Edward back.

"Don't worry about Edward right now, Bella. If you have any chance of saving him, you need to learn how to control yourself. Your newborn nature is going to be to rush in without foresight. Tanya isn't stupid. She has a plan of defense, so we need to have a better plan of attack." He patted my hand gently. "I want to get him away from her as much as you do, but we have to be smart about it."

I could sense his concern and I knew that he was worried about Edward too.

"She's hurting him, isn't she?" I knew, even though Alice had left that part out, I knew that she had to be torturing him. Somehow.

Carlisle didn't answer for a long time. His eyes got a faraway, pained look to them, but eventually he nodded slowly.

"She is," he said quietly. "But she won't kill him."

"How can you be so sure?" I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, white hot anger burning through me at the thought of that bitch hurting my Edward.

"Because that's what he wants her to do, Bella." His eyes were sad as he looked into mine. "Tanya told him that you were dead. He wants to die, too."

AN: Okay, I hated writing this chapter. The whole change thing. Ugh. But it had to be done.

So what do you guys think? What would you do if you woke up a brand new vampire to find that Tanya had snatched your Edward?
Yeah...I would be effing pissed! ;o)