Edward

I tried to stay calm but I couldn't. Alice had been having weird visions all day. They were all broken, distorted, and highly disturbing. She'd had these kinds of visions before and it was usually when something important was trying to push through her limitation of not being able to see impulse decisions. Alice said it had happened before but it was long before she'd even met Jasper. The vampire who created her knew her gift well and was planning to abandon her. He kept making impulse decisions in order to keep her from stopping him or finding out where he was headed.

Her distorted visions now gave all of us a bad feeling. I could see glimpses of fire and heard growls and screaming. It was ominous to say the least. We all thought it was best to convene back at the house. We all left earlier from school and we had to call Carlisle and Esme back from their romantic day out. The visions were scary enough but what really worried me was the fact that we couldn't get a hold of Bella. Esme had said she'd gone to make a clothing donation but she should have been back a long time ago.

"Where the fuck is she!" Rosalie roared before slinging her cell at the wall and shattering it into a million little pieces. Jasper sent a calming wave through the room but it didn't help completely. There was a bit of an edge to it. Jasper had to feel the emotions himself before he could put them off on other people and right now he wasn't calm at all. He and Bella had formed a strange relationship but a relationship none the less. He was just as worried as the rest of us.

"Calm down, Rosalie," Esme said going to take her first daughter into her arms. "Everything will be fine. We all know how perfectly capable Bella is of taking care of herself," Esme said trying to convince us and herself.

"Esme's right, babe. Bella kicks ass," Emmett added rubbing his wife's back soothingly.

Everyone tried to calm Rose who was freaking out more than I'd ever seen. She was highly protective of Bella and it was driving her mad that she was uncertain of Bella's safety. No one tried to calm me down though. They knew it was useless. I'd been wearing the carpet thin pacing back and forth. I was too upset to sit still. I'd wanted to go out and find Bella, track her scent, and bring her home with me. Carlisle had shot me down though. Alice's visions were streaming constantly and he said we needed to wait until she saw something concrete. After hearing him say those words, I realized I had never come closer to hating my father. I refused to be in the same room with him so instead of being in the living room with the rest of them I stayed in my bedroom.

Bella's scent was thick there and mingled with mine. The combined scent was heavenly and instead of calming me, it just made me more anxious. What if I never got to smell her loveliness again? I sighed and shook my head to clear it of those thoughts. Just as I had begun to pace something hit me like a brick wall. It wasn't physical but inside my head. I could hear no other thoughts but Bella's. I wanted to be relieved but her words only scared me more.

"Listen, Edward. I'm on my way home right now. I know you're probably worried and I'm sorry. Something has come up and you'll see when I get there. The important thing you need to know is that you MUST follow my lead. You and the others must remain calm. Staying calm is CRITICAL to all of our lives. Please, please trust me and warn the others. You don't have much time. I'll be there shortly. I love you and only you. Remember that."

Her thoughts left me with the same force that they had entered. I had no idea what was going on but I did exactly what she told me. I repeated her words to my family verbatim. A sense of foreboding filled the room quickly as we all looked at each other in silence.

"Jasper do you think you can keep a steady stream of tranquility going? If things are as serious as Bella seems to think they are, our best bet is to do what she says," Carlisle said.

Jasper nodded his head determinedly and we instantly felt his efforts.

"What could it be?" Esme asked looking between Carlisle and I for answers. I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn't sure but the sound of Esme's Jaguar approaching stopped me from speaking. We all wordlessly moved to arrange ourselves around the living room to replicate what we'd be doing on an ordinary day. The wait seemed to take years but as the car approached I lost my ability and so did Alice. Jasper however must have received a little boost because we all became almost languid in our relaxation.

Finally after an eternity of waiting, the car came to a stop outside the house and two people got out of the car. I continued to play the piano though because despite knowing that I wanted to be nervous and on edge, thanks to Jasper it was impossible. I was completely collected as I waited for Bella to enter with her guest.

The door opened and Bella stepped in first. I was immensely relieved to see that she was in perfect condition. The look on her face though gave me no comfort. It reminded me so much of when she first arrived here. Angry, wild, and arrogant. My relief left me completely when a man I'd seen many times in Bella's thoughts followed her in. Again I wanted to be angry but I just couldn't. Bella was giving Jasper tons and tons of help to keep us under control. There was no other way to explain how the man I hated more than anyone or anything could have walked into my home and still be alive. There was no other way to explain my cool as I watched Lucas drape his arm over Bella's shoulders. She pushed his arm off and gave him a look that should have sent him cowering in the corner but he simply rolled his eyes.

I took him in quickly. I knew that he was tall but seeing him in the flesh was shocking. He completely towered over Bella. Had Emmett been standing Lucas would have towered over him too. The man had to be at least 6'9, maybe an even seven feet. He didn't have Emmett's build though. He was pretty muscular but not as built as my brother. His pale blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck like it had been her memories. His pale hair and skin gave him an eerie, ghostly appearance. He was scarred even worse than Bella and just like her he had a lethal air about him. His eyes were a bright and vibrant red as he smiled at each of us in turn. I was surprised to see that there was no false pretense behind it. He looked at us with actual friendliness and…warmth?

"I brought back an old friend. You don't mind do you Carlisle? He wanted to meet you all," Bella said with an edge to her tone.

"Not at all," my father replied with a smile of his own. He had no idea who he was looking at. He approached the behemoth man and offered his hand. "I'm Carlisle Cullen. This is my wife Esme. My daughter Rosalie and her husband Emmett. My daughter Alice and her husband Jasper. And over by the piano is my son Edward," Carlisle said pointing us each out.

"It's great to meet you. I'm Bella's mate, Lucas," he said.

If Carlisle was shocked, he didn't show it one bit. He simply took the man's hand and told him it was nice to meet him as well. I was shocked though and nearly broke through Jasper's hold on my emotions. Why the hell was this asshole still calling himself Bella's mate. Hadn't she told him she knew the truth?

"Now am I to understand that you changed your entire human family?" Lucas asked knitting his brow in confusion.

"No, Lucas. Carlisle and his coven have a very…alternative lifestyle," Bella told him. She quickly explained how we lived to that prick as he nodded his head thoughtfully. I watched as his arm wrapped her waist. He tried to pull her closer but she dug her nails into his hand. He didn't seem fazed at first but he quickly let go when she broke skin. He moved around to look at her head on and cup her face in his hand.

"You and that other coven lived like this as well?"

Bella nodded and opened her mouth to speak but Rosalie cut her off.

"What other coven?"

Lucas's eyes lit up while Bella's closed hers tight as if mentally bracing herself for impact.

"I ran into a vampire named Laurent that Bella and I used to know. He was a part of a large coven like this with the same golden eyes. Bella had a score to settle with Laurent. His coven tried to protect him but I got rid of them and called out for Bella to come and have her vengeance."

"The Denali's?" Esme asked. "You killed the Denali's? All of them? By yourself?"

Laurent I hated and I was glad that he was dead but the others were people we'd considered family for many, many years. Their loss was not something we could take lightly. Especially Carlisle. The distress on his face was gone as quickly as it appeared though. Jasper's tranquility surged through us with astounding force. My body started to feel heavy under it's power. I felt sedated and numb. Carlisle staggered as the wave hit him. Lucas's brows knit in confusion. Vampires never staggered. Ever. His eyes flitted to Bella but she refused to look his way. His confusion quickly morphed into a knowing grin as he his eyes scanned each of our faces again. It killed me not to know what he was thinking.

"Um… just as a gift to Bella," Lucas looked to Bella, uncertain if his answer was the right one.

"I'm very sorry…," Bella began but my mother cut her off again.

"May I speak with you outside, Bella?"

Bella nodded her head and turned to Lucas. She pointed to a vacant armchair and told him to sit and behave. She talked to him like he was a dog or something and the way he reacted suggested that he really was as he wordlessly complied. Bella, Esme and Carlisle left the house and I looked over at Rosalie in confusion only to see that she was wearing my same expression. It appeared that Bella had been right. Her relationship with Lucas was a lot more complicated than we realized.

I was anxious to be in a room with him without Bella though. I really wanted to kick his ass but I knew without being told that Bella wouldn't have wanted that. I wished she would tell me more about what the hell was going on but she hadn't and it was starting to drive me up a wall. Bella must have been out of range or no longer feared what might happen with Lucas being in the house because Jasper's hold on our emotions slackened and Alice and I got our gifts back.

Seeing into Lucas's mind was a lot like Bella's when we'd first met. His thoughts moved so quickly and at the back of his mind he was ready to defend himself against us at any second. He didn't trust us one bit but felt no fear. He'd already thought up over two dozen ways to kill us should we decide to attack him.

"How did you find Bella anyway," Rose asked. Malice was clear in her tone now that Bella had left Jasper to his own devices.

Lucas eyed her in a way that was part amused and part curious. He knew instantly that Rosalie was close to Bella. He knew that Bella had confided in her and he also knew that Rosalie must have had gifts that deemed her worthy of trust in Bella's eyes. He also wasn't fooled by our welcome of him into the house. He didn't know the details but when Carlisle had staggered, he knew that Bella had us under her thumb.

"I'd been looking for her for a while but couldn't find her. There are three places in the world that make Isabella's eye shine like sun, like a kid's the first time they see the Disney Castle; New York City, Venice, and France," Lucas said.

It disturbed me deeply that I didn't know that about her and he did. His thoughts went to memories he and Bella had in those places. She made him sit in some café in Paris and drink café au lait because she loved to listen to the humans discuss poetry and art. She made him steal pretty Chanel and Dior dresses for her to wear as they walked around the city at night and went to burlesque shows, operas, and ballets.

He remembered the way Bella's face would take on a dreamy expression as the walked the streets of Venice. She'd told him that the city was like the new Atlantis. She thought it was the most unique place on earth. She loved the old world feel of it, riding gondola's and being serenaded in Italian as they passed under all the different bridges.

He remembered the Roaring Twenties and how Bella made the most enchanting flapper New York had ever seen. How they danced all night at jazz clubs and later on helped bootleggers during the prohibition because drunk humans made whatever party they were going to more fun and raucous.

He thought about a couple of other places Bella loved like India and Spain but they didn't have quite the same affect on Bella as the other three places.

"I knew not to go to those places because those were the first places she would expect me to look. I've been turning over every rock and leaf in Louisiana because she swore to never go back there. I figured if she wanted to hide from me, that's where she's go. Turns out she wasn't there but Laurent was. Thanks to Bree he knew that Bella would never go to Louisiana either. He saw me and thought Isabella had sent me to kill him. I realized he must have seen her recently so I told him that I was angry with her and wanted to kill her as well. I told him to take me to where he'd seen her last and we could finish her off. Laurent's always been a dumb bastard. I caught Bella's scent on the wind in Montana and killed the coven leaving Laurent for Isabella," he told us.

He laughed and shook his head as he remembered Bella destroying Laurent. I watched his new set of memories in horror. I couldn't believe the wild vicious vampire I was seeing was actually Bella. The way she slaughtered Laurent was grotesque and excessive. The joy she got out of it and the way she laughed at his pain was shocking and more than a little frightening.

"You should have seen it," Lucas continued to laugh. "It was classic Isabella and Laurent was just pathetic. She's always been one to savor a moment. Keep good times lasting as long as she can."

Jealousy reared its head inside of me. Lucas clearly shared parts of Bella that I never had and probably never would. I could take her to all the places she loved to go and create new memories with her. I would never be there with her when she discovered she loved those places though. It wouldn't be an experience if I took her to those places. It would just be a plain old vacation at a favorite spot. I would never be able share that other side of Bella like Lucas did either. I could never laugh at the suffering of any creature or draw out pain from another and extract pleasure. I could never enjoy being cruel in that way. That side of Bella was admittedly ugly but still I was angry that she had a bond with Lucas that she and I probably never would have. Maybe that was insane but I couldn't help the way I felt.

"You need to stay calm until Bella returns. I'm having a hard time controlling you and Rosalie at the same time!" Jasper's thoughts rang in my head and for some reason they were my undoing.

"That is definitely not funny! That's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen!" I snarled at Lucas.

He turned to me and quirked a brow not seeming at all to be fazed by my anger. That of course made me even more furious.

"What?"

"I can read your mind. I see what you made Bella do to him! How can you enjoy torturing people like that. You are a fucking monster," I growled.

"Edward…please," Alice murmured suddenly at my side looking between Lucas and I. Her tone was pleading but I was too focused on Lucas to care. Bella never behaved that way until he came along. He was responsible for the darkness inside her. He brought out the worst in her. Alice showed me a recent vision of Lucas dismantling me in the blink of an eye but I ignored it.

"Isabella's the most important person in my life. I find it very easy to enjoy hurting anyone who has hurt her," he shrugged.

"Then you won't mind me torturing you then, you bastard! You've hurt her more than anyone else!" I yelled.

Lucas rose to his feet. He was so much taller than me but I wasn't afraid of him. I hated him with every ounce of my long forgotten soul.

"You don't know shit about me and her. I watched Bella for weeks before I gave Bree the go ahead to change her. I knew what her father had done to her, how no one gave a shit about her. No one acknowledged her pain. They consistently forgot about her, forgot to feed her, and neglected her day after day. There was a void in her eyes worse than that of a dead person. I knew how to bring her back to life. I revived her spirit and gave her reason to breathe. Maybe I have hurt Bella in the past. I'm not ideal. No one is. Including Isabella.

"She told you about the wars and the decisions we BOTH made to reward our best fighters? Maybe it was fucked up but Isabella never expressed a desire to stop rewarding our fighters. She let her resentment and rage fester so that she could hurt others like she had been hurt. Isabella's only reaction to pain is to inflict it on others. Do you know how many times she castrated me in her anger and refused to put me right until she thought I'd suffered enough? Did she tell you that during the battles she went back and killed whoever had her the night before and told the troops we'd simply lost them to the other side. Did she ever tell you the times she was so infuriated she went and helped the humans in their war efforts just to watch the life leave someone's eyes? She has this weird obsession with it too. She'd peel off their eye lids so they wouldn't close in the process. She wanted to make sure she saw the second the light in their eyes extinguished. Isabella was hurt but she always got her revenge. She did her fair share of hurting too. The way I see it the playing field between she and I is even! I am a monster but I embrace that fact just like Bella does. Maybe you just don't know as well as I do!"

"Now I recall telling you boys to play nice," Bella said from the doorway with Carlisle and Esme behind her. There was a smile on her face but it may as well have been a scowl. Anger blazed pure and bright in her golden eyes.

Bella

I followed Esme and Carlisle who had decided to join us even though he hadn't been invited verbally. I guess anywhere Esme went it was a given that Carlisle was allowed as well. I wasn't excited about Lucas being in the house alone with the rest of the family but Esme and clearly Carlisle wanted to talk. I eventually talked myself into believing that both Edward and Lucas would coexist peacefully simply because I told them too. I'd convinced myself so much that I even dropped my strong hold on everyone's gifts.

"I don't want him here," Esme rounded on me the second we were out of earshot. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I had expected as much.

"I know. I'm sorry about the Denalis. I wanted to kill Laurent and Irina would have had to go because she was his mate but I wouldn't have touched the others. That was out of my control. They were gone when I arrived," I told them sincerely. "I know that you loved them."

Carlisle groaned in despair and covered his face with his hands. I felt his sorrow and averted my eyes from him. It was too much to watch him crumble under the weight of his loss. Esme went to him immediately. I turned my back to give them the best privacy I could provide at the moment.

"It's not just about that! It's about what he did to you! How can you want him around!" Esme seethed several moments later.

"I don't want him around, Esme. Trust me. Lucas goes to extremes in order to secure the things that he wants. He wanted my forgiveness and he took the measures he thought necessary. Again, I am sorry," I said.

"The Denali's were the first people to understand me, Bella. I love them like family and he annihilated them senselessly. I can't bear to have him in my home. He's a danger to my family and he can't stay," Carlisle said crossing his arms over his chest.

"He's only dangerous when he feels threatened and as long as everyone stays in control around him there will be no problems. He's here now and he won't be easily persuaded to leave but I can handle him and I'll get him away from Forks as quickly as I can," I promised. "You have to let me do things my way, though. It's the only way things will work out smoothly. I know Lucas and he needs to be taken care of with a finesse only I have."

"No. I don't feel it's necessary that he leaves of his own will. We'll use force if that's what it takes," he said.

I sighed and shook my head. "Carlisle please understand that I mean no disrespect. You're a strong vampire and you have a strong coven. You aren't thinking clearly right now though. You're upset and that's completely understandable. Think about what has happened though," I said gently. "The Denali's were all very old vampires. Kate had a really powerful defensive gift. She has the power to paralyze people with pain but even she couldn't hold him down. Eleazar was a Volturi trained fighter. Lucas is older and stronger though. The odds were in their favor but he still beat them. I'm not saying this to be demeaning but should you decide to make Lucas leave by force, you and your coven will meet the same fate as the Denalis."

Thankfully, Carlisle was not offended by my words. He thought about what I'd said and recognized it as truth. He was a good leader and because of that he knew when to fight and when to retreat.

"Do I have your word that you'll get him out of Forks and in the mean time there will be no problems," Carlisle asked.

"You have my word," I nodded.

Esme threw her arms around me and choked out a sob. "I don't understand you at all but I love you completely," she said.

I smiled and hugged her back, "I love you too, Esme."

"We should probably head back. I don't trust Edward to keep his cool," Carlisle said.

Esme and I broke apart and started the run back. I kept my ears peeled because the second we could hear them back at the house I wanted to know what was being said. Unfortunately the first thing I heard was Edward telling Lucas that he could read minds. I groaned in anguish as I listened to the rest of the conversation and picked up speed. Things were going downhill already. I was losing control of the situation faster than I thought I would. I was pissed off at myself more than anyone else. I should have known not to leave them alone. If I was going to pull this off, I needed to do better. I couldn't afford to make these kinds of mistakes.

"Now I recall telling you boys to play nice," I said effectively ending their little spat. Lucas turned his head my way and shrugged.

"I tried."

"Not hard enough."

"The boy wasn't harmed Isabella," Lucas said exasperatedly with a dismissive wave. "I wouldn't have touched him. You know that," he said.

"I do," I said with a dismissive nod. "The Cullens have agreed to let you stay here. However you need to understand that Carlisle's word is law here and you will do as you are told. Don't like it? You can leave. You will not hunt in the state. You will cross the border to Canada or go as far as California if you don't want to leave the country. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Isabella. I'm not a child," he said with a roll of his eyes.

I smiled. "Good. Follow me then. We have bedrooms here. You'll share with me, of course," I said extending my hand for him to take.

"I love you, Edward. Remember that. You and I will talk later on tonight and I'll explain everything," I thought at Edward as I ascended the stairs with Lucas to the bedroom I hadn't used in months. The coming days would be difficult but I had a part to play. Edward would most likely be hurt several times but if I acted well enough he would keep his life.