Trigger warning: gun violence in a school setting
CODE RED. Beep. Beep. CODE RED. Beep. Beep.
Bella's heart beats at a staccato. Red lights flash in the halls. Crimson glistens against the polished linoleum floors of the school hallway. Her breathing is loud, too loud.
CODE RED. Beep. Beep. CODE RED.
I pulled a newborn vampire off of Alice. Behind me Kate electrified a creature holding Emmett. It sizzled like a snare drum before clattering to the ground. Once on his feet, Emmett unleashed the full force of his strength on the remaining newborns. I lifted Alice onto her feet while pulling the premonition from her mind, ignoring the sound of diamonds shattering behind me.
This was the same vision. This was the exact premonition Alice saw on Halloween when Victoria initially decided to come after Bella. All of our efforts, every step and tactic, every decision intended to thwart that exact scenario inadvertently led Bella right back to it.
What hubris.
How egotistical was I to believe that I could outmaneuver fate? The soldier in me was really a boy who never saw war and only dreamed of battle strategy. The doctor in me was really a man who could never truly hold a scalpel, who hurt more people than he could heal. The gentleman in me was really a social farce, a monster in monkey suit, ashamed of his truest nature. Ultimately, I knew what I was. I was a failure.
Powerless. Helpless. Useless.
"Tell me that Irina is with Bella," I roared. I didn't recognize the sound of my own voice.
"Of course. We would not leave her unprotected," Tanya replied, hurt coloring her tone.
"Carlisle called us. He said you were down a few family members and could use the help." Kate's voice faltered as she took in Alice's expression. Alice was ice personified; emotionless, single-minded.
I released a strangled breath. My muscles ached from the bite marks left by the newborns. The cracks in my skin were just beginning to heal, but I had not yet regained my full strength. We all needed to recover. Tanya wordlessly snapped my dislocated shoulder back into place.
There was no time to waste. I did not look Rosalie in the eyes as I spoke to her.
"I am going after Bella."
"We will be with you," Emmett promised, holding his mate close to his body, watching as the cracks in her rib cage began to heal.
My hands shook at my side. I balled them into fists. I kept my pitch low, lest I would scream. I did not meet their eyes. "What you do now is of no concern of mine."
I grabbed Alice's hand and we ran. I pushed myself beyond what I should have been capable of. I tuned into Alice's mind, her unwavering focus on destroying Victoria. It helped me to push the pathetic remorse from my mind.
CODE RED. Beep. Beep. CODE RED.
Bella sits under a wooden desk in a dark room, wires dangling in front of her like a fortune teller's bead curtain. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated. Her breath comes in short bursts, a rabbit caught in the clutches of a fox. Beside her sits a young blonde girl with large blue eyes. Bella's arms are around her, her hand covers her mouth, keeping her quiet. A door to their right creaks open. Light floods into the room. They are in the basement of the school – in the radio studio where the girls recorded their show after school. Slow steel toed footsteps hit against the floor. They close their eyes. Olly's tears drip from Bella's hands.
The vision splintered. Alice struggled to catch the next premonition, grasping at it like a wisp of smoke in her hand. We were out of Amelia Island now, tearing through the woods along the highway toward the school.
A lone shooter walks through the halls. His grey hood covers his sandy-brown hair, his long black coat swings at his sides. He can hear the alarm over the music in his headphones. He puts the magazine into the gun and pulls the bolt back. The alarm humors him, as does the theater of the lockdown, practiced so frequently by the school administrators and yet so ineffectual against an actual active shooter. He feels invincible. The semi-automatic rifle feels so right in his hands. He turns left, finding the room he so often frequented. He kicks it open for good measure. Walking through the studio, he finds the back entrance. He opens the door with excitement. She is there. The most beautiful creature he has ever seen, shimmering in the sunlight. Glamoured by her, he leads her into the studio, precisely as she instructed weeks ago. It was all for her. He did it all for her. He found this place for her, set up this trap for her, befriended the girl for her. He would end this - all for her. Her red hair glows like the flame of life, her eyes and lips glisten like cherry wine.
She kisses him, and purrs his name like a secret.
"Riley."
How could I have missed it? How could I not have seen that the boy was the intruder, the informant, the spy, the tool? His interest in Bella, his appearance in her friend's studio; none of it was coincidence. He must have seen me place the gift on her doorstep, he must have blocked me from contacting her, he must have been the one watching us on the beach. He must have witnessed our public breakup and prompted Victoria's attack. Jasper had sensed something wrong about his intentions; but I was too wrapped up in my own feelings to hear his concerns and think logically.
Powerless. Helpless. Useless.
"The Cullens have done something truly terrible," Victoria tells Riley, a troubled expression on her face. "Those yellow-eyed demons, they did the unforgivable. I managed to get this little girl away from them, but it was too late. They turned her, just like they turned me."
She moves aside, revealing Bree standing behind her, her small red eyes wild from the proximity of humans. She screams a distinctly inhuman sound, confused by her impulse to submit to the woman that holds her and hurts her. Riley does not notice the painful way Victoria has bent the child's wrist. He is horrified.
"They must be stopped." Victoria laments
Alice pivoted into a parking lot of a closed dealership. She smashed the glass on the rear driver's side window of a yellow Porsche, quickly rubbing dirt in the windows to create some cover from the sun. She hot-wired the car in seconds.
Riley walks out into the hallway, following a suspicious sound. Victoria whispers softly into Bree's ear. She wonders if the newborn will save her some trouble by dispatching the human with the puppy dog eyes for her. Bree tries and fails to turn away from her maker, fighting the frenzy and the sire bond. Victoria releases her hold. Bree presses herself into a corner, clamping her muscles into place. The urge to hunt is overwhelming.
"Go on baby. Behind every door of this school you'll find human goodies to eat. Have a feast for mommy."
Bree screams at the top of her lungs and charges at the double doors leading into the school.
Victoria straightens. With the human boy gone, she catches another human scent, a familiar freesia tinged with adrenaline and fear. She can't believe her luck. No need to go hunting for her lamb, she appears to have wandered right into the lion's den all on her own.
Where was Irina! Alice weaved through traffic like a daredevil race-car driver. We ignored the blaring horns in the background. Some part of my vampire mind cataloged the amount of traffic laws my sister had broken.
Bella and Olly stand side by side, pressed against a wall. Riley points the rifle at his friends. Bella and Olly whimper, sinking onto their knees. Bella cries his name.
He does not meet her eyes. He speaks incoherently, as if to himself. "I tried to help you, Bella. You didn't listen. Why couldn't you just listen to me? He's got his hooks in you so deep. You just - you kept going back to him. But you'll see what he really is. I'll set you free."
I couldn't shake the Déjà vu. We had replaced one warm and sunny city with another, replaced a ballet studio with a radio studio, replaced one bloodthirsty deranged nomad with another. Was this pattern destined to repeat, over and over, like the endless plot lines of a teenage fan-fiction? Was the universe trying to teach us some cosmic lesson that we were too naive to comprehend? Would our story ever stop being rewritten; would we ever be allowed to rest?
Irina crouches before Victoria. The two Vampiresses circle one another like wild jungle cats prepared to go in for the kill. They bare their teeth, snarling.
Victoria feigns fear as she speaks at the human boy. "This one is with the Cullens, Riley. She wants to stop me from destroying them."
Riley obediently lifts his gun and takes aim. He pulls the trigger and shoots at Irina. The bullets sound like fireworks as they bounce off of Irina's diamond skin. A bullet ricochets. Olly screams a blood curdling cry, the bullet lodged into her femur. Bella leans over her friend, covering the wound with her hands. Irina tackles Victoria to the ground as she tries to charge the bleeding human. Bella quickly takes off her belt, creating a tourniquet, just as Carlisle had done for her all those months ago.
A dark figure appears out of thin air before Riley. An olive skinned vampire with elaborate dread locks spins on his heel, grabs the rifle, and bends the metal in his hands like playdoh. He knocks Riley to the ground. He lands on his side a foot away from Bella and Olly.
"I hate guns. Such primitive weapons," The male vampire says in a strong Caribbean accent. He tosses the broken gun into a garbage bin. "She's manipulating you boy."
"You're the one being manipulated. The Cullens are monsters!" Riley holds his side as he raises. "I saw what they did. They made a fucking child into a vampire."
Irina stops in shock. Victoria breaks out of her hold. Laurent's eyebrows rise in response to his belle's reaction.
"What did you say?" Irina whispers.
"What is it?" Laurent asks.
Irina inhales, recognizing the scent of the newborn vampire as different from the others. This scent that she could never forget. Her family once loved an immortal child; Gregor. The existence of such a creature led to the destruction of her mother. She is horrified as she recognizes it.
"That's not true!" Bella screams.
"Shut up! Shut the hell up!" Riley stands and unsheathes a jagged hunting knife. He holds the weapon to Bella's throat. Olly whimpers in pain.
"There was an immortal child here. I can smell it. I cannot be here." Irina turns to Bella, regret in her eyes. "You have no idea... I am sorry, Bella, but I must go to my sisters and we must run. The Volturi will kill us all."
"No!" Bella cries. "Irina, please don't leave me."
Victoria laughs, tickled by the scene before her.
Irina spares Bella one last glace and runs. Bella is left alone with two vampires and a gunman.
Eleven seconds. Alice calculated that we would arrive eleven seconds after the coward Irina fled. That was ten seconds longer than Victoria needed to destroy the only thing tethering me to the planet.
The school was surrounded with police cars, news vans, and the vehicles of parents holding their telephones to their ears, their tear-stained faces asking the officers, is my child alive? I was almost floored by the overwhelming thoughts that flooded my mind, a stadium full of people shouting their grief at me. My mind spared a thought for Bree, of the terror and bloodshed that was sure to be transpiring inside of the quaint Floridian high school. I thought of the countless lives lost. I thought of the pain these families would endure, when the dust finally settled on the massacre.
Alice drove to the top of a hill beside the school, high enough that we could leap onto the roof without being seen if we timed it perfectly. A news helicopter circled the school building from above.
Wait, wait...Alice thought at me. Each millisecond showed her a different scenario, a different outcome. Now!
We leapt in unison and immediately started running as soon as our feet hit gravel. Alice showed me the path; shred the door to the roof access stairwell, two flights down, a hard left at the gymnasium. Through a set of brown double doors with silver door handles.
Then into the darkness. Into my waking nightmare - come alive again.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .
All characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, the Twilight Series. No copyright infringement intended.
Plot is mine :)
I made a Twitter for this story! Follow for chapter updates and twilight memes StardustRiley
Today's chapter was brought to you by Help I'm Alive by Metric!
Here's the link to the soundtrack on Spotify!
https/open./playlist/0kgyLShDmJwdza3uAqXi3q?si=YQuXxXruROSt35Pmwi28qQ