Disclaimer: Once again, Twilight is not mine; I just play in Stephanie Meyer's sandbox. My incredible betas Im2xshy and Kzintikiller keep me motivated and on track for which I am eternally grateful.
Author's Note: See? I told you another chapter! My amazing beta was able to fast track her review and she got it back to me today. Again, because you've been so incredibly patient, I'm posting this even though I just posted chapter 49 this morning. I hope you like it.
Oh! Before I forget, there is a little twist at the end of this chapter, no, no one dies or anything, but please just finish reading and I'll explain more at the end.
Previously in Chapter 49: Bella woke up and tried to absorb all the changes to her reality as a vampire and then she and Edward left so she could hunt.
Chapter 50
BELLA
I laughed. "She really wanted to put me in a cocktail dress?" I asked Edward as we neared the house after we'd finished hunting. I was a little dirty, but I'd managed to bring down two large deer and my throat felt much better. Hunting in jeans and a blouse had been hard enough, but I couldn't imagine trying to do it in a fancy dress.
Edward grinned as we went inside. "Absolutely, but I knew that you would hate that; not to mention it was impractical, so I put my foot down and she gave in."
"Yeah, Edward, just keep telling yourself that," Alice commented as we walked into the great room where everyone was occupied with various activities. However, I suspected what they were really there for was to see how my first hunting trip had gone. Aside from the fact that even as a vampire I still didn't like being the center of attention, I didn't especially want to rehash my first hunting trip. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I wasn't going to have a lot of choice. Edward told me once that given super hearing and vision and his and Alice's abilities there wasn't a lot of privacy in this family, but now I could see the reality of it first hand.
"Well, how did it go?" Carlisle asked brightly.
"It went fine," Edward answered before I could. "She took down two deer without much help from me at all."
I looked up at him and waited for him to tell them the other part, the part I really didn't want to talk about, but he just smiled down at me and gave my hand a squeeze. Alice had a rather knowing look on her face, so I suspected that she'd already seen what had happened, but she remained oddly silent.
There was a long pause and then Jasper spoke up. "Why do I think you're leaving something out?"
Edward looked at me in question, clearly asking me if I wanted to tell them or not. I knew they'd probably keep at us until we told them so I just sighed. "Go ahead and tell them."
Esme frowned. "Tell us what?"
"There was an incident while we were hunting," Edward began.
"What kind of incident?" Rose asked cautiously.
Even without Jasper's powers, I could tell that the mood in room had shifted from one of curiosity to one of concern.
"It was my fault," Edward told them. "I should have checked and I should have been paying closer attention."
I grabbed his arm. "No, it wasn't your fault."
"You still haven't told us what happened," Rose said in annoyance.
Edward sighed. "She was tracking a deer when she caught the scent of some campers that were in the wrong place at the wrong time." There was a collective gasp from everyone but Alice.
"Edward, how could you be so irresponsible?!" Carlisle admonished.
Then it was Jasper's turn to jump into the fray. "I thought you said you knew where to take her so that she wouldn't encounter anyone."
"It wasn't his fault," I tried to put in, but was soundly ignored.
Edward dragged a hand through his hair. "I know, I know. I was just plain stupid and I made a mistake."
"You should have been more careful," Carlisle put in. "Bella was counting on you."
I couldn't take them ignoring me and attacking him a moment longer and I leapt in front of Edward as my temper boiled over and an angry red haze filled my vision. "WOULD EVERYONE STOP BLAMING HIM!" I yelled.
I suddenly felt a wave of something come over me, almost like a blanket had been tossed over my emotions and I realized Jasper was trying to calm me down, but I wasn't ready to be calm and I glared at him.
"KNOCK IT OFF, JASPER! I'm perfectly in control of myself. I'm pissed, not homicidal, and I would like to have my say, so if you don't mind, stop trying to control my mood!" Jasper stared at me for a moment, then he nodded and I felt the mental blanket ebb away.
Apparently my outbursts had startled everyone, including Edward, into momentary silence, which was fine by me since I was far from done.
"Now, I want all of you to listen. I don't appreciate being ignored and besides, it wasn't Edward's fault that the campers were there when they shouldn't have been. Sometimes things happen and you have to just deal with it. Besides, nothing even happened! He chased me and I growled at him and then I realized what I was doing and I went in the other direction, okay!?" I eyed each of them. "So, stop trying to blame him up because I almost screwed up."
"Bella ..." Edward tried.
I whipped around to face him. "And YOU!" I yelled. "You need to stop blaming yourself for every little thing! I keep telling you that what happened was not your fault! I asked for your help but I am not a child, and vampire or not, I have a brain in my head and when I make a mistake you need to stop apologizing for me! I love you, but you are my fiancé, not my father and if I screw up, then I will be the one to apologize!"
Again, there was a very pregnant silence as if they were waiting for me to say something else, but by then my anger had fled as quickly as it had erupted. "That's it. That's all I have to say," I muttered feeling a bit dispirited. "So, now that you are probably all rethinking the wisdom of changing me and letting me into the family, say what you want."
Emmett went first and to my surprise he snickered. "I like vampire Bella. She's a bad ass."
In contrast to Emmett's sarcasm, Jasper just asked a question. "What did you mean when you said you realized what you were doing during the hunt?"
I figured they were all going to all start yelling at me or telling me to be quiet or something else like that, but I hadn't expected Emmett's teasing or Jasper's simple question. I looked at all of them and found that Emmett was still grinning and everyone else but Edward had a curious and almost admiring look on their faces.
As for Edward, he looked like he wanted to do nothing more than throw me down and have his way with me.
I really didn't understand vampires sometimes. Oh, that's right I was one of them now, so I better work on that.
I looked back at Jasper. "Um, I don't know exactly. It's hard to explain."
"Could you please try?" he asked.
"Okay, well, I was pretty much completely focused onto the scent of the campers and how good they smelled and how much I wanted their blood; then Edward was there. At first, I only saw him as something in my way and as competition for feeding on them and I growled at him, but then he said my name and it was like a switch was flipped. I still craved that smell, craved it more than I've ever craved anything, but I knew that I shouldn't want it and I needed to get away from it, so I held my breath and ran away."
"You ran away?" Jasper asked, incredulous. "You mean you stopped hunting them?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that's what you'd call it."
"But that's unheard of," Jasper argued.
Emmett grinned wider. "See, I told you, she's a bad ass."
I frowned at Jasper who still looked shocked. "I'll say I'm sorry if you want me to, but I'm not," I told him. "I thought it was kind of a good thing I hadn't massacred the campers. I guess I'm not a very good vampire."
"That's not what he means," Rose put in. "He means ..."
"He means you're a bad ass!" Emmett exclaimed.
"Emmett!" everyone shot back.
Then came Edward's quiet voice. "He means you're amazing."
I turned to find him kneeling before me and he still had that look on his face like he wanted to throw everyone else out and have his way with me.
"Edward ... what ...?"
"You can't know how it felt to hear you say I was your fiancé just now. After everything that has happened, I was afraid that you'd forgotten or changed your mind," he said. "And so it occurs to me that it is past time I returned this to you." He drew his hand out of his pocket and I saw that he was holding something between his thumb and forefinger.
It was my engagement ring.
I gasped and looked down at my bare hand. I'd forgotten that Edward had taken it the day that Victoria had attacked, so it wasn't on my finger.
"My ring!"
Edward smiled up at me. "That is if you still want to marry me."
I rolled my eyes and almost gave his shoulder a little shove, but I was worried that with my new strength my 'little' shove, might send him flying across the room, so I didn't. "Silly man, of course I want to marry you."
He took my hand in his and gently slid the ring back on my finger, then he kissed it. "Now, it's back where it belongs."
My eyes burned, but I knew no tears would fall, so I just laughed and launched myself at him. He caught me and we tumbled to the floor and I covered his face with kisses. "I love you."
"I love you, too," he said laughing with me and kissing me back.
"Um, not to interrupt you two love birds, but could we get back to how Bella was able to stop hunting?" Jasper put in.
"Oh, Jasper, let it go," Rose huffed.
Carlisle chimed in. "Maybe her gift is a strong sense of self-control."
"Hmm, I hadn't thought about that. You could be right, Carlisle," Jasper agreed.
Edward and I sat up. "Great, so what you're saying is that my great vampire power is super self control?" I groused. "Fabulous."
"Actually, it's a very valuable gift," Carlisle said. "Normally, newborn vampires, while not quite slathering fiends are very much preoccupied with feeding and find it difficult to control their emotions, but it doesn't appear that will be the case for you. A heightened sense of self control will make it easier for you to be around humans that much sooner and it will also give you more flexibility with regards to when and how you interact with them."
I leaned into Edward. "I guess that's something anyway."
Edward hugged me. "In time, you'll see that it's more than you realize."
"Well, now that we have that settled," Carlisle said. "I think we should move on to a less pleasant topic and discuss the situation with Victoria."
He was right about it being a less pleasant topic and if it wasn't so important to everyone's survival, I would probably refuse to discuss it, but I knew that it was something we needed to talk about and shouldn't put off.
I sighed. "Okay, if we're going to talk about her, then I need to get up off the floor." Edward and I stood up and he drew me into his side. Seeing as how we were going to discuss the recent and still somewhat traumatic events of the past week, I appreciated him keeping me close.
"How's your memory of your time with Victoria, Bella?" Jasper asked.
I considered his question and while my memories were fuzzy, I knew it would have been even worse if Anthony hadn't insisted I keep repeating the events over and over again.
"It's a little hazy, but I think everything's there," I replied. "I'm not sure where to start though."
"Why don't you go over everything that happened after Victoria showed up at the house?" Alice suggested.
I blew out a breath and Edward gave me a little hug. "We know it's hard, Bella, but it's important."
"I know it is, I just ..." I closed my eyes and forced my mind to bring up the memories it was doing its best to try to forget. "Okay, well, Esme and I were talking about the wedding."
"Esme ..." My eyes snapped open and I looked at her. I had forgotten all about her and the fact that I had not been the only one ravaged in the attack. "Are you okay?" Something in my expression had her going into mother mode and crossing the room to us, she hugged me tightly.
"Yes, darling, I'm fine," she said. "Carlisle and Edward put me back together and I'm as good as new."
I held onto her and tried not to squeeze her too hard. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you."
She patted my back. "Shhh, none of that, you tried, but we were definitely outmatched."
Taking her hand, I pulled back to look at her. "I'm so glad you're okay."
Smiling, she kissed my forehead. "I'm glad you're okay, too."
Sensing that I didn't want to let go of her hand while I told the rest of the story, Esme settled herself on my other side as I turned back to everyone. "Sorry, I just remembered the man hurting her."
"It's all right, Bella," Carlisle said. "Go on whenever you're ready."
I nodded and let out a breath. "I can't seem to remember his name, but he burst in with Victoria and seemed to be eager to do all of her dirty work."
"Esme told us his name is Riley," Edward said and I swear I heard Carlisle growl. I looked over at him and given his normal calm, almost serene personality, the thunderous expression I now saw on his face took me by surprise.
Esme squeezed my hand. "He's a little sensitive about Riley since he was the one that hurt me," she reassured me. Then she held her free hand out to him. "It's okay, sweetie." Immediately, he crossed to her and took hold of her hand. Almost instantly, I could see Carlisle's shoulders relax.
"Go on, Bella," Jasper encouraged.
So, with some help from Esme since she had perfect recall of what had happened, I recounted the story of what had taken place at the house. Then, I went on to tell what I could remember of my time in the windowless room and what Victoria told me about her plans.
"I told her that even if she killed me, you would come after her and you wouldn't stop until she was dead, too." I looked up at Edward. "But she didn't seem to care, in fact, as I recall, she seemed eager, even happy for it."
Edward looked from me to Jasper. "That's probably when she talked about making a newborn army."
"It has to be," Jasper agreed. "Unless she was suicidal, there's no other way she could expect her and Riley to survive going up against the seven of us."
"Yeah, we definitely would have pounded the two of them into dust," Emmett put in.
Parts of my time in the windowless room were so much more hazy than others, but I worked hard to pull up any memories I had from that time. "Yes, she said that you wouldn't find her until she was ready and by then it wouldn't just be the two of them against the seven of you because she'd have an army fighting on her side."
I nodded. "And she said she knew that Alice couldn't see her very well ..."
"How did she know that?" Rose asked.
"I don't know, but she did," I replied.
Emmett growled. "I bet it was that slimy rat bastard, Laurent."
I looked up at Edward. "Laurent?"
He nodded. "We've suspected for a while that he was feeding Victoria information about us and that's how she knew where to find the house."
That made sense. "Oh, well in any case, just to be on the safe side, Victoria said she was going to have Riley make the newborns because Alice had never met him and so she wouldn't be able to see what he was doing."
"It's not a bad strategy actually," Jasper said absently. "Alice wouldn't have seen this coming and if Bella hadn't been able to warn us, we would have gone after Victoria, been greeted with her shiny new army, and we'd be the ones pounded into dust." He looked at each of us. "We have to find her and stop her before she makes the army."
"And just how do you think we're going to do that?" Emmett asked. "I doubt she and her bootlicker stuck around Ithaca waiting for us. If it were me and I'd just done what they did to Bella, the first thing I'd do was get the hell out of Dodge."
"Emmett makes a good point," Carlisle added, then turned to me. "Bella, I don't suppose Victoria told you where she planned to go, did she?"
I frowned. "I'm not sure ... maybe."
Something kept brushing at the back of my mind. I just knew I had the answer to where she'd gone if I could just put my mental finger on it.
And then I had it.
"Wait, yes!" I blurted suddenly. "To the place it all started."
"What do you mean, Bella?" Esme asked.
"I just remembered. Victoria said when she was ready for you to find her, it would be in the place where it had all started ... the place we first met her."
Alice filled in the blank. "The clearing near Forks? The one where we played baseball?"
"Exactly! She said that she and Riley would lie low for a while to let you all stew about what had happened to me like she had stewed about what happened to James. Then they would build the newborn army in Seattle because it was close to Forks and no one would really notice or make too much of a fuss if people started to go missing. And finally, when she was ready, she would lure you all to the clearing and get her revenge." I frowned as I remembered the other part. "She also promised to turn the newborns loose on Forks as a victory celebration."
Everyone was quiet for a long time as they considered the ramifications of Victoria's plans, not only for our family, but for Forks and even the people of Seattle that might be caught up in everything.
"Well, if we're going to stop her then we are going to need a plan," Jasper said. "At least we have one huge thing in our favor."
"What's that?" Esme said.
He grinned. "Bella. She's a newborn, so we'll have her extra strength and more importantly she's given us the intel we need on Victoria's plans so we'll be the ones surprising her."
If I'd still been human, I would have blushed for sure. "Well, Anthony gets some of the credit. I don't think I would have remembered as much as I did if he hadn't kept telling me to think about it over and over again while I was still with Victoria and when I was changing."
Alice looked at me strangely. "Who's Anthony?"
Ooops, the words had tumbled out of my mouth before I had taken into account the fact that only Edward knew anything about my invisible sidekick. I wondered just how crazy they thought I'd be once I told them.
I looked up at Edward and even though he knew about Anthony, he hadn't known that Anthony had appeared to me recently so his expression, while not baffled, was curious as well.
"Well ... it's a little hard to explain." I sighed and just decided to spit it out. "Anthony is sort of my ... invisible friend."
"What do you mean your 'invisible' friend?" Alice asked.
"Just what I said. He's someone my mind created when things got really bad when I was in the hospital and he still appears to me now and then."
Emmett raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't tell you to kill us all and take over the world or anything, does he?"
I rolled my eyes. "No, of course not. I kind of think of him as my therapist," I tried to explain. "He actually looks like Edward, or at least what I thought Edward looked like when he was human."
"You don't have invisible sex with him or anything, do you?" Emmett said.
Even the idea of that creeped me out and I made a face. "EWWW! No! Of course not!"
"Emmett!" Rose said smacking him in the head.
"What?! I didn't know!"
"It's not like that with him. I don't have the same feelings for him that I have for Edward," I insisted. "He's more like my brother, or maybe Edward's brother."
Everyone looked at the man in question. "You don't look overly surprised to hear about this," Alice commented to him.
Edward shrugged. "I'm not. She told me about him before. But I didn't know he'd appeared to her when she was with Victoria."
"Anthony normally only appears when Edward can't be with me or when I'm in really dire circumstances, so I see him as my own mental Edward." I looked up at the love of my life. "He kept telling me to hang on because he knew you would come for me if I could hang on long enough."
He kissed me lightly. "Then I owe him everything."
I leaned into him for a moment and then turned to look at everyone. "I called him Anthony because when he first appeared it was too hard to call him Edward, but I haven't seen him since my change." I sighed. "He was a good friend, but I suppose I won't see him again now that I'm a vampire and much less breakable."
On the heels of my words, a collective gasp went up as everyone jerked around to look at something behind me.
"Who the hell is that?!" Jasper exclaimed.
Getting up from the chair, Edward and I turned around to see what they were staring at. Beside me, Edward gasped right along with the rest of them as I blinked in surprise at the figure standing right behind our chair.
"Oh, my God." To say I was stunned by what I was seeing was an understatement. "You mean you can see him, too?"
"Hell, yes we can see him!" Emmett said and before we could say anything else, he rushed forward to tackle the interloper. However, even though the figure appeared to be solid, Emmett passed right though him as if he were a ghost. As for the figure, he remained unchanged and unmoving.
"He looks just like Edward," Alice exclaimed in wonder as she circled around him.
"He should," I told her as we all gathered around to study the figure. "That's Anthony!"
"But how the hell is he here?" Rose said as she reached out to touch him. Just as with Emmett her hand passed through him. "I thought you said he was only in your mind."
"He was ... I mean he is," I fumbled. "I don't know how he's here."
"Bella, are you doing this?" Carlisle asked.
Bewildered, I looked at him. "No, of course not ... well, at least I don't think so."
"She has to be doing it," Edward said in wonder looking at himself in what I was sure was a surreal moment for him. "No one else knew what Anthony actually looks."
"But HOW is she doing it?" Jasper said. "Especially when she doesn't seem to be aware she's doing it."
Standing beside Anthony, a little smile lifted the corner of Edward's mouth. "Well, Bella, it's beginning to look like you may have more gifts than super self-control."
Emmett grinned. "BAD ... ASS."
TBC...
Author's Note: So the twist I meant in my earlier note was obviously the fact that Bella is somehow projecting an image of Anthony. The reason why I sort of warned you about it in the beginning was because when my beta started reading that section she commented that she wondered how she was going to tell me that I'd gone off the reservation, but then she figured out what I was doing and that Bella was projecting the image and then she liked it. To be clear, it's just a life sized 3D image of Anthony, like a hologram. I also want to be clear on the point that Anthony was never meant to be any kind of competition for Edward. Anthony was more for times that Edward couldn't be there but Bella needed him.
If you think it's an impossible talent for Bella to have, then I point to Amazon vampire Zafrina's abilities. In Breaking Dawn we saw that Zafrina could make you see things that weren't there, the only difference here is that Bella is projecting a person (Anthony will not be the only one she'll eventually be able to project) and not just a scene or a landscape. Please note, Bella will still have her mental shield although it too will have a twist on it.
I also want to give credit where credit is due. The idea for Bella's new talent came from a few of the readers and I ran with it so I would like to send out a HUGE thank you to them for the idea. In their review, LunaDiSangue85commented, I was thinking that it would be cool if Bella's ability, would be herbeing to project hallucinations. It be a cool way to use it asa lure or a diversion! One guest reviewer asked: Is Anthony going to be part of her talent? And JavaMasta said: Do you think Edward will ever "meet" Anthony?
So thanks for the idea!
Up next in Chapter 51: Bella works on her new talent and the crew makes preparations to travel back to Washington.
