Chapter song: Hell and You by Amigo the Devil

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I awoke with my entire body rumbling and tumbling forward before uncomfortable straps at my abdomen and feet jerked and saved me from my fall. The gray, low nylon ceiling was a muted color from the tinted windows and the honk of a semi-truck horn confirmed that I was in fact strapped onto the backseat of a car. "What in the heck?" I groaned and cracked my eyes open slowly as a headache from Hell threatened to swallow me whole.

There was an opaque window between the front and the back of the car, completely obscuring my view of the driver's seat. Jerking myself upright and unbuckling the seatbelt at my feet, my heart began to hammer as I remembered the girl who had snuck into my room. Her blood red eyes reminiscent of a demon.

Try to remember, you idiot! That annoying voice tormented me as I artlessly tried to force open the door handle. As I kept trying, that voice got louder and louder until it was all I could do not to try and smash my head into the window.

Sh-She's going to kill me, so please SHUT UP! I berated myself. But the damn handle wouldn't give, so I eventually settled for crying hysterically against the door. It was exhausting to keep waking up in places where you have no clue what is happening.

"Calm down, you cry-baby." A female voice filtered through the car speakers and once again the girl's blood red eyes flooded my mind.

It made me freeze like some kind prey animal, like immobility would disable her ability to pay attention to me. It was only after I heard an unladylike snort and AC/DC music fill the car that I slouched over. What was the point of fighting for a life I couldn't even remember anyway?

Shame flooded me when I suddenly remembered Charlie and Jasper. They obviously cared if I didn't return, and it was really selfish to give up just because I didn't remember my worth.

The music stopped suddenly before my kidnapper chimed over the speakers once more. "I left some snacks for you under the seat, by the way."

Before I could respond in kind to that bizarre accommodation, 'Hell's Bells' cheerfully resumed its assault on my eardrums.

Freakishly enough, my kidnapper had selected snacks that sent my toes curling. Oreos with milk were amazing, and it took an embarrassingly lack of self-control on my part to stop once I'd demolished a sleeve and a half of them. It beat Esme's cookies or any other junk food that been supplied to me over the past week. The car slid to a stop once my belly began to protest my treatment of it and I was a carsick mess.

The disembodied voice then told me that she'd be dragging me out of the car momentarily.

At this point in my captivity, I'd calmed down enough to realize that somebody who'd introduced me to Oreos couldn't be all that bad. Or maybe I'd developed super-premature Stockholm syndrome and was being overly optimistic. The door clicked open, and instead of the dark tresses and red eyes that I'd been preparing myself to see, a yellow hazmat mask peered its way into the car. It looked ridiculous on the shoulders of the small girl and made her look like a human-sized bobble head.

"What the hell?" I stared at her, not quite able to make sense of what I was seeing.

"Trust me, it's better than the alternative." Her muffled voice came out dry even as she grabbed my hand and hauled me out of the car with a strength that startled me, "C'mon, we gotta get inside."

She began to tug me towards a dumpy motel that didn't look too sanitary. The sign that dubbed it the Knight Inn flickered in a stereotypical fashion and it didn't take a genius that my kidnapper had seen waaay too many movies; this would be the first place the police checked unless she'd driven far longer than I'd realized.

The rented room wasn't a huge improvement from the outside with its dated wallpaper and a mildewy smell that made me yearn for the candles in my room.

A small grunt from the masked girl as she released me. "Here." Her white hand shoved into an unstylish basketball short pocket before she brought out a lighter. She then shrugged off a ratty backpack and produced a candle that I recognized from my collection at home.

"Um... thanks?" It was so strange to be thanking this oddly considerate kidnapper, but it was really all I could think to do. Despite the scary face that I knew hid behind the mask, the fear had abated to where speaking didn't seem so difficult anymore.

She cocked her head so that that the black, opaque eye-shield glinted at me. "You're welcome. Finding all these supplies in five hours wasn't easy, ya know."

"Supplies?"

A large sigh as though, of the two of us, I was the unreasonable one. "Figuring out the location of a custom-car with a privacy compartment in Forks was impossible, I literally had to steal Esme's laptop and then run clear to Port Angeles. And don't even get me started on the hazmat suit." She plopped onto the bed in a flop and started to promptly ignore me.

The scene looked so familiar... My vision reeled and spun and the only thing that really filtered its way to me was the sensation of my knees slamming into the motel carpet.

"And then, Savanna went behind Kate's back and slept with Josh anyway." My mouth moved at hyper speed as I kept folding my laundry in a purple, flowery room that could only be mine. Energy, electric and jittery, sped through me and I was bouncing like a total spazz.

A girl laid sprawled on the bed next to the laundry basket, her eyes glazed over and lazy as I kept blabbing to her. Her mouth quirked up occasionally, but it wasn't hard to tell that her attention was split.

But I kept talking. After all, there were only so few people in the world required to put up with all and any of my bullshit, and Bella was my-

I flickered back into the world even as I felt a cold, cold hand touch my face. The creepy mask looked down at me, but it no longer held together the indifferent facade that my captor had been putting between us.

"Bella?" I tried the name from that single memory - my memory - and ventured to try and touch my sister's hand. "Is that you?"

The sharp intake of air through the mask was all the warning given as she suddenly grabbed me and crushed me against a hard, cold body. "Sissy." Shakes reverberated into my body as she started crying.

She sounded so young that it broke my heart into a thousand pieces. There were so many questions I had, but my instincts told me to return the hug and never let go until I was sure that she was safe. "It's okay," I soothed. "We're together, even if I don't really remember anything."

She pulled away from me slowly. "I thought you'd be safe if I stayed away. But those bastards left me no choice." Her words came out fast and hard and angry. "We trusted them. And now I'm dead and you have amnesia! What is this? An episode of The Sopranos?"

"Dead..." The jokes were lost on me as I gaped at her. "What do you mean?" I gripped her shoulder with my hand to stop her from moving further away. "You're standing right in front of me!"

She growled at me, a low sound that sent chills through me. She then caught my hand off of her shoulder and dropped it in cold rejection. "Don't ever touch me without permission. It's not safe. And yes, I'm deader than a doorknob, weren't the red eyes and pasty as hell skin a giveaway?"

Tears threatened to spill as the silence grew between us. Was this a sick prank? Did some sicko kidnap me just to make fun of my dead sister's murder?

Fake Bella sighed as she collapsed onto the twin bed again. "Get some sleep, Mary. I'm sure as hell not ripping out an animal throat in front of you to prove a point."

I ignored that disturbing comment as I eventually settled on the creaky, uncomfortable mattress next to hers. My heart throbbed in slow agony until an impossible exhaustion overtook me.

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That could've gone smoother. The world was still eerily bright in the dark motel room as Bella listened to the even, calm breathing of her sister. Hunger, bright and sharp, twisted her mouth and was embarrassingly enough making her drool venom; the hazmat suit had proved itself helpful, but it'd been beyond stupid to fetch Mary without it.

If she were being honest with herself, she'd taken the risk because she'd naively thought that seeing her face would've made Mary remember her.

But instead it had made her shake with fear. The damn mask hadn't even scared her that much in comparison.

Bella silently and effortlessly ran out of the motel room and into the bright night. The moon hung over and made the remote landscape stretch out into great expanses of trees and grass. Unlike Phoenix, this called out to her soul and cheered her up slightly from the situation at hand. A situation that left her and Mary teenage runways in order to prevent whatever the hell Creepward and Carlisle had planned to do to them.

The Volturi really didn't sound like a benevolent force, and she sure wasn't laying down to be the Cullens' bargaining chip. The fight for her freedom would be long and bloody and utterly inconvenient to those who wanted to crush her beneath their boots. And Mary, the real one who Bella knew better than herself, would want the same fate.

But it still hurt that Jasper of all people had betrayed them. She'd thought that he loved them, that he'd been taking care of Mary while she grew accustomed to vampirism. Instead he was going to let his asshole family members bargain them to save their own asses.

The forest behind the motel finally allowed her to remove her mask and draw in a deep breath of air. She was finally far away enough to where human scents weren't taunting her into a blood frenzy, and she sure as hell had to be careful with Mary.

A scent caught her nostrils, and she was off. She'd bloated herself before she'd grabbed her sister, but she had to keep it up. Any aversion to hunting had disappeared when the thought of accidentally hurting a human hit her. Luckily, it hadn't happened since that day Esme and Emmett has taken her to the cabin.

Why does it have to look like Bambi's mom? The mental complaint still didn't stop her from launching herself at the poor animal.

It was when she bit down into the neck that all hell broke loose.

The deer died a swift death, but it by no means had any clue that it had died. A beautiful, silver apparition, its blurry shape similar to that of the creature that Bella held in her bloody arms, kept running in ghostly circles around her. It shook the trees around her and caused them to drop decaying leaves in a veil of death. In the middle of spring.

Bella sat still for a long time, dismayed that her streak for no weirdness had been broken.

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Lauren stood before the Volturi Guard, her cheeks flushed from a nice human they'd supplied her with in return for cooperating. One of the Old Ones had touched her face, and had smiled a very creepy smile. Aro, the one who had touched her was named Aro.

Jane and her brother flanked Lauren's sides as if she could pose a threat to such powerful vampires. "Lord Aro, what would you have us do with the newborn?" The witch asked, her platinum blonde eyebrows lifted in dainty curiosity.

She instinctually tensed her muscles in fear as Aro, Caius, and Marcus eyed her with an attitude akin to someone looking at a goldfish. "The Cullens are playing their odd human charade in a pathetic little human settlement called Forks." Aro grinned a smile at Lauren as though he knew all her secrets. He let his words hang for several minutes. "Isn't that a little too coincidental with so many nearby newborns running amok?" Aro finally asked in a shrill tone.

"Carlisle dares break our rules?" Marcus asked. The faint thread of incredulity made it clear that he thought that unlikely.

The Cullens? Lauren almost slapped her forehead as all of the signs of vampirism flew through her head. She could've been their meal at any point in her high school career and she had foolishly been trying to seduce them? And now the promise of death in Jane's grip around her arm dashed any hopes of surviving through the day. The little blonde really hated her.

Immortality wasn't all that it cracked up to be.

Caius finally spoke up. "An investigation must be done before any hasty decisions are made. Maybe we will finally get the mind-reader out of this."

Aro giggled. "This little human showed me something a little more promising than dear Edward. A human that can drive a mind mad with a single touch."

Bella Swan? The memory of searing pain and losing all sense made Lauren steam in her grudge even as Jane tensed beside her.

Aro clapped his hands together in excitement. "That settles it, then! To Forks we go!" His bright red eyes slid to Lauren for a second. "Feel free to kill the girl, Jane. Untalented and ignorant newborns are below our interest."

Lauren didn't even get the chance to scream.