Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise, I just use their creations to have my wicked way with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story would be nothing without my amazing beta-team, Jadsmama and Ladysharkey1.

Battle: noun 1. a hostile encounter or engagement between opposing military forces: the battle of Waterloo. 2. participation in such hostile encounters or engagements: wounds received in battle. 3. a fight between two persons or animals: ordering a trial by battle to settle the dispute. 4. any conflict or struggle: a battle for control of the Senate. 5. Archaic. a battalion.

Battle

I woke up with that fuzzy feeling you get when you're really sick and your head feels like it weighs a million tons. Only….I wasn't sick. I'd been drugged; sedated with some sort of sedative that would get me from the Institute to wherever I was without a struggle.

I tensed, my legs kicked out as my blurry vision started to cloud with images that seemed more like a dream than reality.

As I waited for Edward to come back out again, two people walked by discussing the case, unaware that Carlisle and I were still sitting there and were probably not supposed to know the intricate workings of 'The People versus Edward Cullen'.

"…he – Mr. Black – only used the arrest to make sure his former buddies stayed as far away from him and his sister as possible," legal employee number one spoke. The sound of a photocopier whizzing to life drowned out his colleague's reply.

Carlisle's face angled towards me just as I turned to look at him, his look of surprise probably mirroring my own.

"… if they would have tried something, he would have gone to the police and told the truth," was the next thing I heard, both me and Carlisle now listening intently to the conversation. "But when his sister found out what was going on, she forced him to come forward and tell the truth anyway."

There was a lull in the conversation as the sound of papers being arranged into a neat little pile was the only thing that broke through the tense silence.

"Didn't he care about Cullen going down for it?" Legal employee number two asked. "I mean, from what I've heard, they were supposed to be buddies, weren't they?"

Number one chuckled, feeding another document into the copier. "I guess 'insurance' trumps friendship."

And just like that, the heavens opened, showing me what had been staring me in the face all along. I'd just been too stupid and too preoccupied to notice it.

Insurance.

Jacob Black had felt the need for it, but apparently so had Johannes van Leyden. In fact, there had been a whole folder marked 'Insurance' among his things in a place that had struck me as odd. I mean, it was right among his music notes, neatly stored away in the documents where it didn't attract suspicion.

At the time, I'd just thought it had been misplaced or something and put it away on the pile of files and folders to be analyzed at a later time…after we'd sorted through all the music-related stuff. After all, how exciting could 'insurance' be when you had the possibility of new music by one of the world's most renowned composers sitting in your office?

Now, though, I saw it for what it truly was.

Quickly excusing myself, I rushed out of the police station, praying Edward wouldn't be too angry with me when he walked out of that room to find I wasn't there as I dashed into the nearest Subway station.

Work was quiet. With it being a Saturday, only the downstairs reading and study rooms were open. Upstairs, it was dark and deserted, which actually served me pretty well, since I had a feeling I was about to do something that Aro wouldn't exactly be in favor of.

Please don't let him find out and fire me…

The good thing about being meticulous to a fault was that I knew exactly where I had to look; my arms protesting as I lifted boxes out of the way until I came across the one I needed.

Labeled clearly as: Insurance.

My hands trembled as I finally opened the folder, the contents spilling out to reveal some actual insurance forms and an envelope.

'To be opened upon my death'.

Bingo!

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as I held the small treasure—the latest treasure in a line that would make most archivists see green with envy—in my hands. Part of me wanted nothing than to open it and drink in the words and the music notes I was sure it contained in the privacy of my empty office. But I knew it would be wrong.

This letter was not intended for me.

I was just the messenger; the vehicle that would transfer it to its rightful owners. My eyes shouldn't be the first ones to read his words.

My mind crashed back into consciousness, my breath coming in a loud gulp as I thrashed against the restraints I hadn't even realized where there.

"Oh, good. She's awake," a female voice remarked. A shock of fiery red hair became visible through the blur as the fog in my head slowly lifted.

The document…where is it?

Pulling against the restraints, a blurry memory started to drift into my mind of placing the fragile paper inside a protective sheet and shielding it inside my shirt to keep it from Aro's prying eyes as I smuggled it out of the building.

More than anything, I wanted to give it to the one person who deserved to have it; who knew how to appreciate this missing piece to the puzzle and make the whole assembled piece shine. He and his dad were always intended to have it and I wasn't going to stand by and allow history's wrongs to spill over into the present.

Feeling for the folder I gasped as a sharp pain tore through my shoulder; the restraints doing whatever my attackers intended as they kept me from safeguarding the treasure I'd fought so hard to find and protect.

"No, no, no, no, no," a jeering voice sang, all the hairs on my arms and neck standing on end as I recognized it.

James.

And then, slowly but surely, the picture started to form; the haze of those moments in between leaving my office and ending up there lifted to reveal a horrible picture.

They were waiting for me when I got out of the building. I knew because even though I hadn't seen them yet, I could feel their peering gazes burn into my back as I hurried to the subway entrance, figuring that the more witnesses I had around me, the safer I would be.

I hadn't counted on them pulling up in a van, though. It was funny, really. I'd seen it happen in movies and television shows a million times but still I stopped—shocked and confused as the door opened.

I tried to scream but no sounds came out as strong arms pulled me inside the van; the people around me not even noticing what the hell was going on.

A matter of seconds—that was all it took.

The doors closed, the engine revving underneath us as they drove off again. And then, in a slightest hint of a moment I saw them.

Three of them.

James.

His wife.

And him.

"Make sure her legs are tied up good," his voice droned, equally as evil and terrifying as James' had been. "She's quite a kicker. You don't want out of the game before you've even gotten your dick wet, do ya?"

Ignoring the pain, my effort to break free intensified now that my brain had finally caught up to my reason for being in that dark, little room. It wasn't just because I'd taken the document and stood in James' way of profiting even more of his dead ancestor's works.

It was because of unfinished business.

"Ah, you've finally figured it out, haven't you?" James' face was hovering inches from mine but just as I'd worked up the saliva to spit at him, he was gone again. "I have to say that, personally, I was quite surprised when my buddy here…"He paused, walking up to the still slightly blurry vision of Banner leaning against the wall, "…showed up out of the blue and told me he had a little present for me."

Walking over to his wife, he grinned as he claimed her lips in a possessive, almost feral kiss. "You see…a couple of years ago my friend Demetri had this nice little setup where he let his buddies in on all the college pussy he was getting…" I shuddered at the memories of what Demetri had done to me as James growled with pleasure, his nose running along his wife's skin as he chuckled. "And you know how much I love pussy, don't you sweetheart?"

His wife should have been appalled but she wasn't. She didn't seem to mind her husband having sex with other people. In fact, she seemed to quite like it, judging on the look on her face and her words as she spoke, "Almost as much as I love watching you fuck them, babe."

"Then, of course," James continued, "he calls me up, promising me a date with the sweetest, tightest cunt I'd ever fuck in my entire life." He chuckled, his footsteps coming closer as I froze, knowing who he meant.

Me.

That night, when Banner had let me in on his little plan, James had been the one he intended for me to 'get familiar with'.

"Man, I was so fucking stoked," James meanwhile droned on. "From the way he'd described her, this girl's cunt must have been made of solid gold. So imagine my disappointment when, two days later, he calls me up to tell me his plan's fallen through and that, to make matters worse, he has to lay low for a little while, too."

"No more fresh college pussy for poor Jamie," his wife pouted as she came to stand next to him, her body glued to his side as she bit down on his earlobe.

Disgusting.

"I always intended to make good on my promise," Banner chimed in, pushing away from the wall as the three of them started to form a circle around the spot where I lay, still swaddled up in restraints like a mummy. "And today is when it will finally happen."

"Please, no…" I managed to stammer, my words muffled by the dryness of my throat. Looking at the wife, my only hope in this twisted game, I plead silently for her help as hope slowly vanished and blind, cold fear was all that remained.

"Awe, chin up, little girl!" Banner jeered. My urge to vomit was overwhelming as his finger trailed down my cheek. "We'll make sure you'll enjoy it, too! That is…if you're a good girl and play along."

I struggled again, even though I knew the only thing it would gain was a lot of pain. I had to try it, though. I had to find a way to escape before they…

"You watch our little princess, baby," James crooned in his wife's ear as she all but swooned against him. "We'll go set everything up."

And just like that, he and Banner swaggered out of the room, leaving me with my only option to make my escape.

And she seemed to be deranged.

Sighing, she sat down on a stool across from me, her almost cat-like eyes peered at me as she held her head slightly cocked to the left; studying me like some exotic exhibit at a museum. "I can see why he likes you," she finally concluded with a self-satisfied smile. Breathing in deep, almost like she was trying to get a whiff of me, she continued, "you're wholesome, and so innocent-looking...it's a pity you're not a virgin anymore. He would have really loved that."

A shudder ran through me as what little hope I had that started to blow away like dust in the wind, but I had to keep trying. "Please…help me," I whispered, my voice cracking from the dryness of my throat.

"Help you?" She chuckled, her face surprised as if I'd said something unexpectedly funny. "Why on earth would I do that when you and your boyfriend are ruining my life, just like that bitch Amelia did to my grandparents!"

"Y-your grandparents?" I croaked, eying the water bottle she'd just pulled from a drawer. Water….I need water…and a savior. I need a miracle.

"You see," she spoke, leaning forward so that I could feel her sickly sweet breath on my face as she spoke again, "my grandpa was in the war, too. He was a real upstanding guy, of the sort you didn't come across too often those days." As she spoke, her accent shifted from Upper Manhattan to country twang, revealing a much more humble upbringing than her present status would have me assume. "When America went to war, my grandma tried to reason with him, her being pregnant and all, but being the upstanding guy he was, of course he had to go off and fight."

Her mouth pursed into a tight line, and her facial expression told me she wouldn't have made the same choice if it were her. Unsurprising.

"In basic training he met another fella who'd enlisted out of love for his country and together they shipped off to France, where they'd been placed in the same unit headed for hell." Shaking her head, she went on as the picture started to form in my mind; the things I knew added up to the things I was told. "At first, it wasn't so bad for them. Sure, the trenches were worse than your worst nightmare but with my grandpa and his buddy looking out for each other, they made it through. Besides...my granddad was a Class A hustler, so soon enough he'd made himself indispensable enough that his unit made sure to keep him out of the worst of it."

A real winner! Even in spite of my fear, I had to fight the urge to snort at her proud description of her delinquent grandfather. I knew enough about military rules and tactics to know that smuggling letters containing detailed information about locations and strategies was dangerous.

"That's right," Victoria answered; her pride in him was plainly evident in her tone of voice. "Most of the guys weren't very pleased with having to bend over backwards to meet Army rules and have a fucking officer read through their shit and red-pen everything out they didn't agree with, so they went to Grandpa Riley who had his own little sideshow post office."

Her face fell and I knew what part of the story was coming next. "It didn't do him much good in the end, though, not when their unit got assigned to another post and shit got even more real than it already had." She huffed, her eyes shooting blame at me, like I'd been the one who'd been responsible for her grandfather's death. "He wrote to my grandma that his friend had come under fire from within the Army—some old enemy trolling the trenches or something." Her eyes dropped, her arms wrapping around herself as she went on. "In his last letter home, he said he was scared but that he was going to stick by his buddy no matter what. That was always him: loyal to a fucking fault."

I nodded as her eyes shot up again, the blood in my veins running cold at the sheer anger contained within them.

"Can you guess who the son of a bitch was that got my granddaddy killed?" she hissed, her eyes accusing me as if I was the one who pulled the trigger.

"Henry," I managed to speak, the words left my painfully dry mouth with difficulty. "Henry Blake."

"That's right," she nodded angrily. "And if it wasn't for that bitch, Amelia Cullen, none of it would have happened."

"It wasn't her fault," I tried franticly, my heart hammered in my throat with panic. "She…"

"It wasn't my granddad's fault either!" she barked. "Or my grandma's, but that didn't stop the bank from repossessing everything she had, including the roof over her fucking head, when she failed to make payments after her main provider had ended up dead in a field somewhere! Our family lost everything!"

Leaning forward, her face was hard again, controlled to a point where the effort to stay in control was scarier than her anger had been. "Do you see now why I'm not exactly falling over my feet to help you? That Cullen bitch cost my grandma her husband, so it's about time a Biers woman returned the favor."

Chuckling, apparently pleased with herself, she screwed the cap off the little bottle of water she'd kept in her hands; dangling it in front of my face like an unattainable treasure. "Chin up, though," she pretended to comfort me as she held the bottle to my lips allowing me a drink, "Jamie always makes good on his promises. I'm sure that if you're a good little girl for them, they'll see to it that you'll enjoy yourself."

A shudder ran through my body at her words, though most of my brain was possessed with the water; the feeling of having that smooth, cold liquid run down my throat was better than anything I'd ever felt in my life.

Until everything started to get fuzzy again.

Did she really leave that cliffie so close to Christmas.

Yes she did.

Thoughts?

Merry Christmas!