"Rosalie," came the reply, soft and in that maternal tone I'd grown to love. It was Esme, unbelievably. I was shocked into immobility. "You're here."

My eyes were probably falling out of my face as far as I knew.

It was Esme?

I realized then that Esme hadn't seen her adoptive daughter since she'd thought Sulpicia had killed her.

"Mother," Rosalie whispered breathlessly as the motherly vampire's eyes shined and without warning they both lunged for each other, hugging fiercely.

I beamed despite myself as they gasped and clung to each other, Esme giving a little sob. I'd never heard Rosalie refer to Esme as anything other than her name, and it made me grin to see her showing her softer side at being reunited with her adoptive mother.

"How? Am I dead? Am I dreaming? You're here, my beautiful girl!" Esme breathed, running her hands through Rosalie's pretty golden locks, almost reverently. "You're here," she repeated in disbelief.

Rosalie just held her tightly, and after a good long embrace that lightened my heart, if just a little, they pulled back.

I couldn't help myself. We'd found Esme, and she looked so overwhelmed and confused and delighted (just like I'm sure I did) that I just had to do it. I let out a cry of delight and astonishment that was mirrored by Rosalie. We both dove for the familiar woman and she laughed her pretty laugh as we both hugged her again, together this time.

Of all the cells we'd been thrown into, we'd been thrown into Esme's. I knew it had to have been intentional, because there was no way Sulpicia would ever have willingly put us back together without a reason. I didn't even care. Esme was alive, and breathing-well, not really, but…

You get the point.

I also had no doubt in my mind that that bitch knew we were here. She'd probably orchestrated this in some underhanded magical way with her super manipulative powers.

Fucking whore. Whatever, at least we'd reunited with Esme. And I had no words to express how thankful I was for it, no matter Sulpicia's reasoning.

Esme was alive. At least one thing had gone right that day.

I'd missed her, so much, more than I'd realized with Alice's death fogging up everything else in my life.

Oh god. Esme didn't know. She didn't know that her daughter, her little Lullaby was dead.

How could we possibly break that to her?

I knew that I couldn't do it. I couldn't say it; it would kill me all over again to have to tell her. I wasn't sure if this thought had occurred yet to Rosalie, but if she never thought of it I would just have to tell Rosalie to do it.

Because I refused to say it aloud. I just…No. She'd just gotten one daughter back; I couldn't stand to tell her she'd lost another.

Not my Alice…

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you alive, Esme," Rosalie murmured, relief evident in her voice as we broke the group hug and backed up on our haunches as opposed to sitting on the mossy looking cobblestone floor.

Yes, I am a vampire. No, that does not mean I have to enjoy sitting in a bed of damp green fungus.

Is moss even a fungus? Or is it just a plant? Either way, it's gross, and the Volturi made the right choice leaving it in if they're trying to gross out their prisoners.

Esme let out another laugh, running her hands through her messy hair.

"How happy you are to see me? I thought you were dead, Rosalie. How are you alive? Bella, sweetheart," Esme replied, putting a hand on my shoulder and giving me a watery smile, just to let me know that she was happy to see me too but that she was desperately trying to get over the shock of seeing her adopted daughter come back to life.

Now that I could see her better, she looked a lot more haggard than I'd realized. Esme's hair was knotted up instead of her usual silky smooth auburn and for a vampire, she looked especially tired and worn out. Her eyes were blacker than the darkness she'd been sitting in.

If it was possible for a vampire to look starved, she looked it.

It made my heart ache, and I had to wonder what terrible things she might have been through while we were gone. I could only hope it was nothing too bad. Still, I couldn't imagine Sulpicia giving into Esme's dietary demands, nor could I see Esme slaughtering an innocent human just to feed.

"Bella can explain it better than I can," Rosalie responded, waving her hand at me as Esme put a hand on her shoulder too and squeezed tightly, looking for the answers in the blonde's eyes. Esme turned to me, her expression curious and guarded somehow at the same time. I took a deep breath.

"Sulpicia's really, really good at making people think someone's dead when they're not," I said slowly and Esme's eyebrow arched up as if to say 'Oh really? I hadn't noticed.' "When she-when she broke Rosalie's neck, she didn't really sever her spinal cord from her brain, Esme."

I tried to say it as gently as possible, but it was kinda hard to do that. It sounded pretty gruesome out loud, actually. Esme winced but nodded for me to continue, gripping my shoulder a little tighter and I saw her throw a glance to Rosalie who held her hand encouragingly.

"She just paralyzed her, somehow. But she got us, Esme. She really got us with that one," I scowled, frustrated all over again that she'd managed to trick us so easily.

But really, when did Sulpicia not get us?

"Yeah, no shit," Esme muttered, shaking her head and despite the circumstances, I was still surprised to hear her curse. She breathed in deeply, as if trying to process everything. "I should have known. She used to do that trick all the time. I just couldn't think of that when I saw Rose-God, it just looks so real. She's gotten even better at it over time."

To her credit, she took it all in stride. I always knew Esme was a bit of a boss. But what did she mean Sulpicia had gotten better at it over time? It reoccurred to me that Sulpicia and Esme had a bit of a past together. Now more than ever I was burning with curiosity to know exactly what that past contained. I had just opened my mouth to ask, but she turned back to Rosalie and smiled again, a true one this time.

Oh well. I could always ask her later…Hopefully.

"As long as you're okay, my little Rose, I can breathe a little easier," she chuckled weakly and Rosalie nodded.

"But why? Why in the world are you two here? I didn't expect two ghosts to appear in my humble abode," Esme easily changed the subject, as she sarcastically motioned to our ten foot wide prison cell, apparently overcoming her shock and getting back to business. "You all were supposed to leave and never come back."

I rolled my eyes though. If she wanted an explanation for that, she'd have to ask Rosalie.

We both shared a look, me glaring at Rosalie and the blonde scowling back at me.

"Tell me you two didn't come here to save me or something stupid like that, because if you did, I'm going to be very angry with you both," Esme sighed softly, interrupting our little stare off and eyeing us both with that maternal look of concern that said You're-idiots-but-I-love-you-anyway.

She didn't know the half of it.

"Of course we did!" Rosalie huffed back. "Like we would just leave you here."

"That's exactly what you should have done!" Esme snapped back, sitting back and giving Rosalie an anguished look. "You two really came back here? Why would you do that? Why can't you two think anything through? And with Isabella dealing with her newborn immaturity and impulsive instincts, you, Rosalie, should have been the one to be thinking clearly."

Exactly!

Wait, did she just call me immature?

I wasn't immature, was I?

"I'm not immature," I protested but deep down, I knew it was probably true.

Since when had I ever been mature, honestly? Maybe at some points, but I know it had never really been one of my strong suits. And if anything, being a newborn vampire with virtually uncontrollable instincts only made it that much worse. I wasn't incessantly stupidly mature, though, but I knew I tended to be an angsty brat at times but really, what teenager isn't?

But like a true teenager, it still stings to be called that.

Rosalie snorted and muttered "Immature is an understatement." I glared at her again. Who was she to talk anyway, bull rushing us right back into this hellhole?

Esme gave me a pitying smile. "It's not your fault, Bella. It's just part of being a newborn vampire. You'll grow out of it, with Alice's help. Where is she anyway? And where are the boys?" she said, turning back to Rosalie.

My useless breath caught in my throat.

I should have known that would be addressed sooner rather than later, but it still hurt, badly.

Rosalie's face sealed off and I had to turn away from Esme quickly to keep her from seeing my eyes swimming in tears I couldn't shed.

"What?" Esme frowned, immediately sensing our agitation. "Tell me what's happened," she stated, a note of anxiety and anger entering her voice at the thought of her other children being in peril.

I couldn't speak, but Rosalie saved me the trouble, thankfully. She started talking, grabbing Esme's attention as I tried to keep it together. She went through everything, explaining it all as I fought the growl in my chest and the burning in my eyes. Rosalie told her of Laurent and Victoria, of how we'd been fooled again, and everything up until the point we'd been tossed into this stupid cell with its unbreakable diamond bars.

And when she got to the part about Alice, I let loose a rumbling snarl and stood up, turning away. As she told Esme about Alice being dropped off the face of the earth, I had to clutch at the bars tightly, my instincts screaming for revenge, for relief from the severed connection screaming deep down in my DNA.

"She's gone, Esme," Rosalie finally said, slumping back to sit down and rest one arm over her knee. I tensed as I heard a door opening in the distance, my ears practically perking. I swore I could hear approaching footsteps, but the conversation at hand distracted me.

The words made me hate Rosalie, just for having the gall to remind me of that painful fact.

"No," Esme ground out through clenched teeth. "That's not possible."

The words seemed to be the spark that set me off as I finally lost it again, as hard as I'd tried to fight it.

"YES IT IS!" I rounded on them, yelling at Esme in misguided anger.

It was all flooding back in a pain I couldn't fathom or take.

Alice is dead, Alice is gone. Alice is dead, Alice is gone. Alice is dead, Alice is gone.

Esme rose to her feet at my outburst as my fangs extended and I growled warningly.

"Bella, you don't-"

Before Esme could finish, Rosalie's head whipped up and then she was on her feet too, all three of us turning to look through the bars of our cell as the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder. And it wasn't the footsteps of just one person, but many. At least a dozen as far as my vampiric ears were concerned.

"Don't say a word," Esme warned us, but was mostly talking to me as my chest heaved. "Not one word. Let me do the talking. I mean it, Bella. Control yourself."

I was trying, I really was. But it was so hard when Alice began to consume my thoughts.

I missed my pixie, so badly that I couldn't contain it. I missed her smile, her laugh, her beautiful face. I missed how she always seemed to have all the answers, and how she seemed to always know how to make me feel better.

I missed my Alice…

And no matter what, she was never coming back. Never. Esme had no right to deny what I was struggling to accept out of her bullshit denial-

I had to stop and take a breath, remind myself that I'd experienced that denial myself not too long ago.

As I'd suspected, twelve guards came marching into view, their armor matching the bars of our cell. They lined up outside in single file, emotionless red eyes staring us down. I snarled at them and Esme grabbed my shoulder to keep me in control.

I almost broke my eye sockets from widening them so far when a tinier vampire walked into view, all blonde hair and creepy as fuck with her ruby red eyes and dainty little fangs.

Jane.

I hissed at her and she gave me a condescending sneer, eyeing me warily nonetheless. No doubt she remembered the pounding she'd gotten last time and how I'd turned her powers on her.

I hate that little shit. Something about her just makes my skin crawl.

She stepped forward and said, "We will be taking you to the Court now. I suggest you do not fight. Just because you seem to be able to resist my powers doesn't mean they can."

The threat made me impossibly angry, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wouldn't put the others at risk.

And yes, I know I had her powers left in me. I know Rosalie and I could probably use her powers to destroy all of them easily. I knew I was probably stronger than anyone here at that point with all the powers I seemed to have left, but I really wasn't sure how to even use them without provocation.

And besides all that, something told me even if we did take them all out, we'd never find out about what had happened to the rest of the Cullen clan. Sulpicia could have them anywhere. There was no way Jasper, Edward, and Emmett could have taken down all of those vampires that made up the 'Memento Mori.' I had no idea about Carlisle either. I knew he couldn't be dead, or Esme would not be as calm as she was now, but feeling the same thing I was, which wasn't the case. Rosalie and Esme seemed to agree, as when the guards opened the door and two grabbed a hold of each of us, neither fought it.

We were calmly marched side by side down a dimly lit, wide corridor lined by even more of those sparkling bars and their cells. I couldn't resist peering into some of them and seeing some empty, some with dark figures in their corners.

"Bella, Rose, look," Esme hissed and we both sharply turned to our left to see Esme jerking her head towards the cell we were passing.

I leaned forward to see past her and the guards gripping her arms, and I gasped.

"Laurent!" I said without meaning too.

From what I could barely see of the dark skinned vampire, he looked…Dead. Like, human dead. He lay prone on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with lifeless black eyes. His face held no expression and he didn't move at all. No reflexive breathing, no tiny sign of life in his body.

"Quiet!" Jane barked from behind us and Rosalie and I both rolled our eyes.

I waited a moment as we passed by him before muttering to Esme, "What happened to him?" And why did she want us to see him so badly?

Before she could answer, I felt a sharp slap to the back of my head and swore before jerking to a violent stop and baring my teeth at the guard behind me. All I received was a kick in the back for my efforts and I staggered forward, snapping my teeth like an angry mutt.

"Bella. This is what I meant by immaturity!" Esme hissed. "Keep walking!"

I did as she said, still burning up with anger. Asshole. What did it matter if we talked anyway? It's not like any of us were going anywhere.

We finally reached a door that was opened easily by the one guard marching ahead of us and led up a ridiculously long flight of stairs that Rosalie and I had been dragged down earlier, practically by our hair as we'd been kicking and screaming the whole way. I was led up first by the two guards in front of me with Esme behind me and Rosalie bringing up the rear.

I could feel a tingle of anxiety working its way up through my spine. What were they going to do to us? What had they already done to the rest of the Cullens? Would they kill us? Would they kill only one of us and make the others watch? Would we be tortured? I wouldn't be able to take watching them hurt what I considered my family…

Would I see Sulpicia?

I made a vow then to myself as we were led up and up and up, around and around and around the spiraling stairs.

If I saw that bitch, I was holding nothing back. I'd fucking kill her. I would. No matter what. It would take more than a dozen guards to stop me if I laid my eyes on her.

She had killed Alice. My Alice. I would never let that go.

My fear was replaced rapidly with rage and I know the guards holding me felt my biceps flex as they gripped me just a little tighter.

"Don't go getting into a fit just yet, Isabella. That would spoil all the fun, wouldn't it? I can't wait to pay you back for before," Jane giggled from somewhere down and behind me.

"And I can't wait to punt your stupid ass again. You'd make a real good football, Janey," I snapped back. Again, my head snapped forward as a guard slapped it roughly and I swore. Esme barked another warning at me.

"Do not speak as such to Volturi Royalty," one of the guards rumbled.

"Suck my clit!" I yelled back, unable to stop myself.

Yep.

Esme and Rose were right.

I do seem to have a maturity problem. Imagine shy, teen Bella in vampire form, as if all my sarcastic thoughts had found an outlet through my vampire. But give me a break. If I'd been human, I wouldn't have dared talk back like that. It was like the vampire inside me just refused to take the abuse like a little bitch, be damned the consequences.

The consequences were me being shoved face down into the stairs and receiving a painful kick to the ribs. It was like being hit by an agitated mule and I yelped in agony as I felt something inside me crack.

Some might say I had that coming. I say whatever.

It was almost worth it anyway. Almost. Having your ribs snapped hurts. A lot. And I've experienced it more times than I ever wanted to in my life already.

"Isabella, stop it!" Esme snarled down at me and I whined as I felt the air pulse with pheromones. Esme was putting off her Alpha female attitude, and I quickly submitted to it as I was yanked back to my feet and was forced to keep stomping up the stairs, my side aching and getting virtually nothing from that little trade off but a mildly satisfied ego.

I say it's not my fault. I'm going to milk that teenage newborn vampire excuse for as long as I can.

"Idiot," I heard Rosalie's voice and I growled, about to retort yet again when the stairwell reached a platform after what must have been ten flights and we were shoved through the iron door ahead of us. I stumbled along into a brighter lit corridor, back into the golden brick of the Volturi palace as opposed to rugged cobblestone and moss.

The sight of it made something inside my veins tighten. The last time I'd seen these walls…It had been a terrible time. I couldn't believe we were right back where we started.

I blame Rosalie. Mostly. I probably could have broken the news to her a little easier…

"Almost there!" Jane cooed from behind us as we kept walking, taking turn after turn and after what felt like a five minute walk, we reached two familiar doors that practically had me shaking with emotion.

Fear, anger, anxiety, uncertainty. There was no telling what would happen next, but it was without a doubt going to be bad. I wanted to run, to fight, to curl up into a little ball and wish it all away.

Something tells me I've felt this way before.

Jane moved in front of us and threw open the huge, mahogany doors that dwarfed her as if they weighed nothing and bright light blinded my sensitive eyes for a moment before I was shoved into the Court for the second time in my life.

My eyes adjusted quickly and I hurriedly tried to get my bearings as we were dragged further inside.

The first thing I saw was three bodies on their knees and chained to the familiar marble floor with more diamond (Jesus Christ, did Sulpicia own the biggest diamond vein on the earth or something? I knew they were rich but there had to be billions of dollars in diamond in the whole place).

Even before the lifted their heads and looked over their shoulders at us, their faces marred with cracks and their clothes ragged and torn, I knew it was them. It was the Cullen boys, Edward, Jasper, and Emmett and they stared at us as if in disbelief while we were forced to approach.

"Mom! Bella! ROSALIE!"

Their cries were both joyous and terrified. We were there, one of us back from the dead, but there also happened to be in the clutches of the Volturi.

Why can't I have one person genuinely happy to see me today, despite the circumstances? I know I was happy to see them, alive and okay, mostly, if a bit roughed up and chained down.

The place was surrounded by guards. There had to be at least a hundred of them standing around the huge room, standing stock still. Only about twenty of them looked to have that peculiar diamond armor, and I guessed they must have been the Volturi Elite or something.

I smiled weakly, as did Esme, and Rosalie just sighed softly. My eyes jumped over them, trying to get the whole room into my vision at once to see what was happening. They crawled up the steps towards the thrones and I heard Esme let out a pained cry at the man lying at their feet.

It was Carlisle, eyes closed and his skin a shiny pink, cracked in many places and black in some others. He was naked from the waist up and even the shorts he wore were torn in many places. He looked burned, badly.

A whisper of a word crossed my mind. Aflamed. He'd been aflamed, hadn't he? Burned in the midday sun and beaten half to death.

I saw Esme jerk forward out of the corner of my eye but she was held back by her escorts. My anger returned at the sight of the fatherly man sprawled out and wounded and I whipped my eyes up to see who was suddenly standing up over him.

And wouldn't you know it?

It was Sulpicia.