This is a little disconnected, but I just wanted to get it out.
Marjorie- Taylor Swift
Hate Me- Miley Cyrus
There were two fires burning- one was destroying James's remains, and the other was burning its way through Alice while she screamed. Her eyes were pressed tightly together, her nose scrunched as she writhed on the bloody ground, trying to escape the inescapable.
Victoria had managed to flee. Between destroying James and changing Alice, I was distracted enough to give her time to collect the arm I had torn off and disappear. Honestly, I wasn't terribly upset. I was mentally drained enough that I felt like I was going to collapse from exhaustion, and the idea of having to go through the motions of another fight was enough to make me want to curl into a ball and hide.
I held on to Alice for a while, holding her heated body to my chest and smoothed her messy dark hair while Edward held her hand as tightly as he could and continued telling stories through hiccupping sobs. All I could do was looking down at her and wish that she would open her eyes, just one last time, so I could see that mischievous verdant gaze that I had grown so accustomed to.
But even our little bubble of grieving tragedy had to be broken at some point. We couldn't stay for much longer, and there was still a body to burn.
If there had to be a highlight to my night, that was my silver lining. I gently and wordlessly passed Alice over to Edward, and was able to start a quick little fire with two dry branches, and used a pile of flaky leaves as kindling. The smoke boomed with the addition, but the fire grew to a sustainable size.
I grabbed an arm and tossed it into the flames, taking a step back when the fire erupted with the sweet smell of venom burning off. I relished it, and tossed piece by piece in one at a time and watched as he disintegrated. I carefully gathered every shark and chunk and scrap of stone flesh and watched as the long tongues of orange fire licked up rapidly, reaching out to consume him.
Last was the head. It had rolled away in my furor and urgency to get to Alice, and was nestled up against a tree that had stopped its escape.
I picked it up by the head and turned it in my hands. His eyes were wide and a cloudy red, his mouth opened in an affixed expression of surprise from when I had torn it from his shoulders. His hair was mangled and caked in dirt.
This was the face of a monster. In all my years with the Volturi, witnessing heinous crimes and hearing the screams of people as their blood was forcibly sucked from their body, never had I felt such a profound repulsion for someone. Without even thinking, my fingers were digging into his skull, indenting their imprints and fracturing the solid mass until he was misshapen and mutilated. Until the external matched the gruesome nature within.
I watched him burn. I couldn't bear to look at Edward, but I knew he was watching and waiting for the fire to smolder and die, leaving behind only the sweet ashes of the monster who had been torturing my mate for most of his life. He was gone up in smoke along with my rage, leaving behind only a wave of destruction and fear.
By the time I crushed the last burning embers under my foot, Alice was healed enough to move.
It was miraculous to watch the venom work, and work it did. The fibers of her organs knitted back together, and I could see the torn sinew of her omentum begin to pull itself back together.
Carefully, I slid one hand under her neck and the other hooked around her knees, cradling her small form to my body. She was a deathly high temperature while her system tried to fight off the venom, a laughable endeavor as if it was a virus to be burned away. I spoke to her softly, reassuring her while I moved her.
"Let's go back to the cabin," I whispered, unable to meet Edward's eyes.
He had been crying beside her while I struck out the fire finished destroying James. With each sob that wracked through his body, it was another shard of cold, piercing pain stabbing through my heart. My body was aching with wants as my mind whirled while we slowly made our way back down the hill, just a short walk to the shabby cabin we had been residing in. Alice twitched with pain in my arms, but touch had seemed to soothe her burn, however minutely.
Thoughts and desires, both rampant and unfulfilled, tempered my mood into shame. I hadn't though beyond saving Alice, beyond doing whatever Edward asked of me, and now that I had a changing form in my arms, I was finding it difficult to think beyond that as well.
It was hard to ignore Edward, even out of the peripherals of my vision. It pained me to see him, jaw clenched and angry red tracks of tears staining his face. This wasn't how it was meant to be. But somehow, Alice had been under the impression that this was exactly how it was meant to be, unless she had fallen under the delusion of the venom.
The complexities of what should have been so simple assaulted me like a pummel of fists, another beating in a night that had bared down on me. Love, mating, and the attachment that came with both- it was the simplest thing in the world, because it just was.
I had nothing anymore.
We fell in step beside one another, with me matching Edward's pace. He didn't object to walking, and I didn't insist on carrying him, so this was our course. The roof finally came into view, peaking over the thick sheltering limbs that created a canopy over the forest, and then falling out of view again as we descended further.
When we finally reached the front porch, Edward reached out in front of us and beat me to the door, pulling it open and standing beside me so I could step through. I nodded in thanks, but didn't dare to look up at him as I passed under his arm and into the foyer.
The bedroom was no longer an option after I had obliterated it in my abandon. I gently placed Alice onto the couch, propping her head up on the armrest. She was curling into herself, shaking and moaning with pain. I knew it wasn't nearly as bad as it would become. The venom was focusing on mending her superficial wounds, and when that was done, the real work began. The crystallization of her skin, the death of her body… and even still, none of that compared to the final moments when the venom finally burned through the heart.
"I need to make a phone call," I said quietly, inspecting a speck of blood on my shoelace with suspect focus. "You can keep talking to her, if you like. I'll be back in a moment."
I was polite, not wanting to draw from him the latent ire I knew must be brewing. I ducked into the dining room, which led to the kitchen where I had left my cellphone. It sat on the vinyl countertop, innocent yet ominous.
I picked up the little black device that felt heavier with my dread, and forced myself to punch in the numbers I knew I would need to reach my family and let them know of my failure.
Esme answered, a fact I was overwhelmingly grateful for. Emmett wouldn't appreciate the gravity of the situation and instead attempt to assuage my torture with his signature humorous levity. Rose- God, Rose- she would be irate. It had taken her months to adjust to the idea of changing Edward, where he was consenting and fully aware of the seriousness of that choice, and the alternative being forcing me to cope with his inevitable death. I had promised her I would never change another, and she had granted me her blessing for Edward only, given that he was my mate. I didn't know if I could withstand her fury at my changing another human, even one who had supposedly asked for this existence with her last breaths.
And Carlisle… I couldn't bear to imagine his disappointment in me. I was choking on my words as I explained to Esme what had transpired, and the fault I held for my mistakes.
"Bella, it's okay," Esme said soothingly, and her voice was like a warm hug wrapping around me. I almost cried out with how desperate I was to fall into her arms and let my adoptive mother hold me and tell me everything would be okay.
"I had to leave her," I cried softly, pitching my voice so Edward wouldn't hear through the thin wooden walls. "Victoria had Edward, and I couldn't… I had left him outside, alone, unprotected. I put him in that situation, and she managed to sneak up and take him away. Esme, if something had happened to him…"
Imagining it was physically painful, and I recoiled at the thought.
"But Bella, it didn't. Edward is safe, and he's by your side."
"I'm not so sure," I murmured, more to myself than for Esme's ears.
"What does that mean?" Esme questioned, and I could hear Carlisle, sidling into Esme's side and waiting for what I would say next.
"Victoria took Edward to distract me. They must have been watching us… I just don't understand how they got here so quickly. It was only a few minutes between dropping my shield and Victoria showing up-"
"The fault may lie on our end, Bella," Esme interrupted. "Victoria had been eavesdropping when you last called, and she must have overheard you tell us where you are. Emmett had been patrolling the perimeter of the house, but she is exceptionally light-footed."
I nodded in understanding, though I knew they couldn't see me. That made sense. It was the one piece of the puzzle I couldn't put together, and now all the pieces were fitting perfectly.
"They must have run straight here. It might have taken them longer to comb through the park, but then my shield waned and James was able to track us down directly. They didn't have to wait long. Alice woke up and started screaming from some kind of horrible dream," or vision, I added mentally, "and when I ran in to check on her, Victoria grabbed Edward and ran. They must have planned that to draw me away, and while I was chasing after Victoria, James took Alice."
Esme gasped, and I could hear Carlisle quietly call Emmett in from outside, where he must have been patrolling.
"Victoria dumped Edward in the middle of nowhere and pulled that disappearing act of hers, and by the time I ran us back here, they were gone. I took Edward with me to track them down. They hadn't gone far, less than a mile south, and they were together. I took Victoria's arm off," Emmett whooped with excitement, "But by the time I got to James… She was dying, Esme. Alice was bleeding out in front of me."
"Bella," Carlisle said cautiously, realizing what I was telling them.
"It wasn't like that, I swear," I cried through the phone. I had to lean onto the countertop to hold myself up, no longer able to stand the immense weight on my shoulders and the grinding ache of guilt and need swirling in my chest. "She… she asked me to."
"She asked you to?" Esme repeated questioningly.
"She knew, Esme. I swear, she knew. James had bit her, and she was starting to change, and I asked her what she wanted. I gave her the options. You have to make sure Rose knows that I gave her the choice, and she chose," I begged, my eyes burning with the sting of unshed venom.
"Of course, dear," Esme hushed in promise, "You don't need to worry about Rose." I knew they were empty words. Rose's rage would tear through the house like a hurricane, and she would regain force when I was finally within her reach. Of everything she could throw at me, I knew I would deserve tenfold.
"Bella, am I to be correct in understanding that Alice is currently changing?" Carlisle said, finally addressing me directly.
"Yes," I answered hoarsely, my voice barely intelligible.
"Then it is what it is," he said firmly. "You can't take a public flight home now."
As if on cue, Alice screamed out in pain, and I could hear Edward whimpering beside her, offering kind words in comfort that wouldn't come. "No," I agreed.
"I'll fly the plane to meet you, then. Best to not have any humans around, not even a pilot."
I hummed in agreement, letting Carlisle continue on with his planning. Esme had handed him the phone, and I could hear her in the background making a call to prepare the plane, then organizing flight plans and arranging for an empty private airport.
Everything was set in motion, and I hung up to allow Carlisle to get on the move. I was just grateful to not have to overhear Esme's phone call to Rose to fetch her home from her posting outside Charlie's house.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, letting the smell of lingering blood burn down my throat. The thirst wasn't unbearable- it had only been a few weeks, though the effort to hold my shield up had certainly been draining.
I wondered if anyone else had ever practiced sustaining their abilities for such prolonged periods of time. For some reason, the only one I could picture succeeding was Jane. It didn't seem like to much of an effort to visualize her standing on the cold stone in Volterra, her delicate features screwed into a vicious sneer as a faceless figure screamed and shook in pain at her feet. No, I didn't think it would be too difficult at all for her to do that for days on end.
I looked down at my hands, wet blood still clinging to my skin from where I had tried to hold Alice together. If it was possible, I was sure I would have been trembling while I let cold water wash away the stains that would never truly come off. What I had done was etched permanently on my skin, aromatically sweet and bracingly bitter. I could still feel a course of it easing down my throat like a silken river of life.
I cleaned down the residue in the sink, then cleaned the bloody prints I had left on the phone and on the counter. Towel in hand, I quickly cleaned the dishes and returned them to their proper cabinets, tidying up each space of the cabin as I walked through. We wouldn't be here for much longer.
"I'm going to take a shower," I announced quietly, staring blankly at an ant crawling through the crevice of the cracked wood at my feet. "Carlisle is going to meet us at the airport to fly us back."
I didn't wait for his response. Besides, Edward's focus was quickly pulled away by a timely scream from Alice. One of her hands was moving weakly to her side, trying to clutch at the wound that was closing over her abdomen, and the other was resting on her neck, right over the pale, shining imprint of my teeth.
The bedroom was, as I had guessed, in shambles. It was pointless to be so neat as I cleaned up the rest of the cabin, because nothing would hide the crater in the wall, the ground covered in shattered glass and splinters of wood.
I showered first, tearing off the soaked scarlet clothes and watching again as blood swirled down a drain. Traces of it still lingered on my hands, diluted by water and soap, but still there.
It had been the same when I changed Rose. She had been so beaten and bloodied that her pulse was nothing more than a whisper, but I held her to me and sunk my teeth into her neck and she transformed all the same. That night, I did the same thing I was doing now. I showered off the film of the act and opened my mouth to the stream of water, trying to rinse away the taste that clung to my throat. I didn't need the reminder, the ghost of a burn in my throat with the memory.
I cleaned up the room after, as best as I could. I swept it all outside into a pile, well away from the cabin in a bare patch of grass spaced far between the trees. I didn't need to resort to anything so prehistoric as rubbing sticks together, instead grabbing a box from the bathroom and striking a match onto the pile.
I added my clothes and the dishrag I had used to wipe down the kitchen, letting it burn away with the smoke that stacked through the early morning sky. In the far distance, I could see the faintest glimmer of sun on the horizon.
I replaced Edward in the vigil at Alice's side so he could shower and use the bathroom, and took the time to carefully clean her off. I changed her clothes- which were even more drenched in blood than my own had been- and gently wiped her skin with cool water. Her panting breaths turned to moaning sighs, and I guessed that it was a little relieving.
The gash on her abdomen had completely closed, though the skin was tight and hypopigmented- already hard with venom. The same was true of the bites I had left all over her body, and the wound on her throat from where I had ripped James off of her.
And Alice herself was already changing, too. Her skin, which had been sallow and grey from the blood loss, was just a familiar pale white. Just superficially, her skin looked clear and smooth and free from all other blemishes.
I could hear Edward in the bedroom, shuffling around and gathering the smattering of his things. I listened as he walked out through the literal hole in the wall, his shoes crunching on the remnants of the glass and wood I couldn't pick up. He threw his own clothes onto the dying fire, just as I had, and returned to the living room with our bags in hand.
Again wordlessly, I gathered Alice in my arms, and Edward followed behind me out to the car. Again, he opened the door for me. He was polite, we were polite to each other. But still, I couldn't look up at him as I stepped around him to slide Alice into the backseat. The second my hands left her, she started to scream again, and closing the car door behind me only muffled her by a fraction.
The morning haze of the sun disappeared behind a cloud, one that was dark and ominously swelled with oncoming rain. The sky was turning gray. I could smell the coming rain, feel the thickening with the humidity in the moisture-laden air. It was almost a relief. The rain was familiar, a comforting presence in these cursed woods, and it felt far more suited to the grieving mood than the clear blue skies and shining sun that had been with us for our entire stay.
Edward followed behind me quietly, and I could see the tension in the rigidity of his spine. I had ruined him. No matter what he had promised before I bit into Alice, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. I had violently unmasked myself in front of him. He could no longer be under the impression that I was a soft girl who just happened to be blessed with immortality and nice hair. I was coldblooded and soulless, and I was the monster who had ultimately taken his sister from him. He was, undoubtedly and clearly, too good for me.
Edward got into the passenger side, and I took my final look through the woods, impenetrable and forbidding in the slow leaching away of the daylight.
The skies opened up and rain poured down as I drove down the long and winding dirt road that led up to the cabin and back down to the pavement of a real road. The rain pattered against the windows, sounding like dozens of sharp needles pricking the glass. I wanted to stand in the downpour and let it wash away everything that I had done, I wanted to feel the blunted bites of thousands of drops on my exposed skin, grounding me to the present, but instead I pressed down on the gas pedal and sped east, back towards the city.
I turned off the overgrown dirt pathway and the car hit the road, the heavy metal chassis and the rain slick asphalt dampening the satisfying sound of screeching tires.
There was no one else on the road, given the early hour. I only had to swing around an eighteen-wheeler truck that was delivering some kind of cooled product to wherever it was headed- probably Chicago.
I didn't bother with the radio, and Edward didn't move to turn it on. It would have been pointless to try to drown out Alice's screams, and she was beginning to thrash against the pain. I could feel Edward looking at me, but I couldn't look back. I kept both hands firmly on the wheel, at their legally designated ten-and-two positions, and my eyes affixed on the dark, wet pavement that was treading beneath us.
It wasn't long before Edward climbed into the backseat with Alice, holding her head in his lap and brushing his fingers through her hair. I dared to look through the rearview mirror, watching his long, nimble fingers slip through the damp dark hair of his twin. He was gazing down at her with some unfathomable expression that I couldn't read, and didn't bother trying to decipher.
This was something I'd never understand, and even with all the vast range of experiences I'd had, I never would. Every chapter of my life had come to a natural conclusion, and no one I had loved had ever been suddenly and violently torn from me. No, rather, it was me who was suddenly and violently tearing people from their humanity, forcing them to be reborn in blood and fire and death.
The ache in my empty chest was cavernous, forcing me to hunch over the steering wheel in a useless attempt to abate the discomfort of the trench I had dug between Edward and me. I could see him stir from the corner of my eye, and mindlessly wondered if he felt it too before pushing the though aside. I didn't deserve his sympathy, or empathy.
The pattering rain died slowly in increments the closer we got to the airfield. The cloud cover thinned out, and snatches of the sun broke through the dark tint of the windows and bathed us in intermittent washes of grey light.
The buzz of airplane engines was audible before I could even see them, but it was a shorter trip than the drive to the cabin had been. We were west of Chicago still, and far from the traffic of O'Hare or Midway. In fact, the only movement here was on the smooth blacktop of the runway was from the familiar, sleek white jet on the far end of the terminal.
Carlisle had the door open before I even put the car in park. His eyes were a glimmering gold in the morning light. Somehow, he looked exactly the same- pale blond hair curling at his collar, full lips pulled down in concern.
He pulled me from my seat and wrapped his arms around me. I hugged him back, squeezing his midsection fiercely. He felt warm and smelled like home.
He held on to me for a few seconds longer, then kissed the crown of my head and flashed around the car to Edward. He had already clambered out, and was about to open the backseat, but Carlisle stood in front of him and blocked his way.
"I'm so glad you're safe," Carlisle said and, moving slowly and watching Edward for his permission, wrapped him into a hug as well. Edward seemed bewildered but didn't tense at the contact, instead hesitantly returning the embrace. He held on to Edward a lot longer than me, and punctuated it with the same tender kiss on the top of Edward's head. He blushed lightly, the color slapping on his ears down to his cheeks, but didn't seem to object to the display of affection.
And Carlisle was just pure affection and love. It was his basest nature to be kind, and I knew that he loved every one of us just as fiercely and with as much dedication as he loved Esme.
He never would have left one of us vulnerable and behind without so much as a second thought to chase after another.
Carlisle gathered Alice in his arms and carried her up the extended steps to the cabin. I fetched the bags and followed behind Edward, leaving the car on the tarmac. I was sure Carlisle had arranged for someone to pick it up and return it to the rental agency.
The plane had gone unused for over a year, and as consequence, it smelled almost stale inside. Carlisle carefully deposited Alice on one of the couches, and she seemed to almost settle into the cool material.
The whole plane was upholstered in a light grey, buttery leather, the walls of the cabin a chic and clean white and the floors a neat dark carpet. We had had the interior custom-designed for our very specific needs, so there were no tables, just an expanse of plush chairs and long chaises, and tucked away in the back, instead of a refrigerator and food storage, we had a small bedroom built, complete with a king-sized bed and large television with gaming consoles and all.
Carlisle had been examining Alice speculatively, running his fingers along her skin and gingerly moving her arms and legs to inspect the skin that was exposed.
"Her heart is beating strong," he reported, though I could hear it as well, "Her breathing is rhythmic. Any superficial wounds she had are healed, and anything deeper will be working through now. Did she break any bones in the encounter?"
"No," I answered.
"Then that'll be quick work."
"How m-much l-longer does she have t-to go through this?" Edward asked, his voice shaking. Alice was still screaming, and her fingers were digging into the couch with enough strength that, given a few more hours, I was sure she could rip through.
"I'd estimate it at less than forty-eight hours," I answered, still unable to look at him. Carlisle stared at me for a moment, speculation clear in his eyes, but then he crouched back down to place a hand on Alice's face.
He started speaking to her, softly but clearly. I let him explain everything to her and stepped away, up to the cockpit to prepare for flight. It was an easy enough routine, though I only ever watched others do it, and soon the stairs were up and the engines were purring. All the gauges were on and calibrated already from Carlisle's flight to us, and I steered the plane from the edge of the tarmac and down to the actual runway.
The door swung open to the cockpit and Carlisle strode in before I could pull the wheel up and begin our takeoff.
"Let me do this," he said, a steady hand on my shoulder. "You should go back there."
"I doubt he wants me there," I said smally.
"Don't be ridiculous," he snorted. "They both need you now, so I'll handle this."
Carlisle was dismissive, and his mouth was in a tight line that indicated he was in no mood to argue. I knew why. I had let him down as well. I had been so focused on Alice, on Edward, hell, even on Rose that I hadn't thought of my closest companion. We were even now, on the count of changing people. He had Esme and Emmett, and I, Rose and Alice.
But with his, he was justified in his actions. Wholly and completely right. Esme was his mate, and he had been familiar with their bond since he had set her broken bone when she was a teenager. Of course he was going to change her when she was on the brink of death, already discarded in the morgue. And Emmett was Rose's mate, and she came to him, covered in blood and begging for his help.
I, on the other hand, had changed Rose on an impulsive whim because I thought she kind of resembled my human sister, and she made sure to punish me every chance she got for that misstep. And now it was Alice, who also didn't have a carved place in our world, no unbreakable bond with any of us. Emmett couldn't have left Rose so much as he could have torn his own arm off, so he was more or less forced to stay with us and learn to adjust to our diet and way of life, however unnatural it felt to him at first.
Alice had no such obligation. She could very well take off the moment her eyes opened and decide to contribute to the gruesome human death Carlisle so abhorred, and devoted his life to preventing.
I quickly slipped past what was sure to be a disappointed stare and closed the door firmly behind me. Carlisle sighed, but then I heard him clicking buttons and register our impending departure on the AB.
The flight was quiet and uneventful, besides Alice's fits of pain. The only thing that drew Edward's attention from her was the morning light glowing on the mountain ranges, glistening off the pale waters of lakes and the specks of green from the trees below. I sat quietly across from them, gazing out the window.
I wanted to laugh with him, how we used to. I imagined it, wallowing in my fabrications rather than face reality. It was at least a minor distraction from the steely burn that was ripping through my throat.
"From your first plane ride, to your first private jet. Pretty quick escalation, huh?" I would tease, and Edward would respond with a crooked grin and an eyeroll.
He might joke about Carlisle's qualifications as a pilot. "F-flying a plane c-can't b-be that s-s-similar to the human b-body," he would say in mock-worry. "Do I n-need a p-parachute?"
"I'll protect you," I would promise. "I'll grab you and land on my feet."
"Like a cat?" he'd ask with a brow cocked sardonically.
"I've been known to purr," I would say quietly, and Edward would blush at the innuendo.
But that's not how our trip went at all. We landed at a tiny airstrip just south of Fairbanks in Healy, Alaska, without saying a word to each other. The place was empty- likely orchestrated by the figures in the darkly tinted car that was driving towards us as we taxied. I hoped we would depart with Edward before any airport workers came back to gape at the plane- it seemed like the only traffic they got was from rickety cargo planes and a few two-seaters that would take up tourists for an aerial view of the park.
We had a welcoming committee, though. The moment the wheels touched down, a sleek black car sped onto the blacktop, concealing two pale figures behind the dark tint of the windows.
The summer sun was bright in the sky. I was glad Esme had come ahead to organize everything and clear out the airport, because she shot through the light to beeline straight for Edward when he stepped out on the stairs. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, just as Carlisle had done, but held him for much longer.
I peered over them to see Tanya below, leaning casually against the car with her eyes concealed behind a pair of dark sunglasses. She didn't make a move to approach us, and her mouth was in a tight line. I was instantly more dejected than I had been. It had seemed like such a given, coming here to the safe haven of Denali, but I hadn't given much thought to how put out our cousins would be, especially since I needed to enlist their help with Alice- we had no other choice. Our family couldn't leave Forks so soon after Alice's disappearance, and I would have to return, if not for Edward, than to keep up appearances when school started. We couldn't very well leave just Emmett to deal with a newborn (Rose was sure to be unhelpful, and probably downright mutinous).
"Oh, Bella!" Esme cried, releasing Edward to stumble down the stairs and moving on to me. She kissed both of my cheeks and squeezed me tightly, pressing her face into my hair and inhaling deeply. She felt warm and maternal, and smelled like home, and I found myself clutching her desperately.
It was only with a gentle prodding that I released her and allowed Carlisle to pass between us, Alice in arms. She was twitching, but her screams had grown to nothing more than a hoarse whisper as she struggled against the constant and raging burn of venom.
The weather seemed incompatible with the morose and mourning mood, and I longed for the familiar grey skies and grieving rain. The sky was a clear and expansive indigo, the trees shone a lively green against the horizon of cheery, snow-capped mountains. And Carlisle was marching Alice towards her death, and the dark sedan was her hearse.
Edward followed every step Carlisle took, dogging behind him to the car. He opened the door for them, but stepped in front of Carlisle and made the move to take Alice from his arms. Carlisle acquiesced without a word, and gently placed her in his outstretched arms.
His hand immediately went to stroke her dark, unruly hair, his lips pressing against her forehead, her cheek, as his mouth moved in quiet, whispered words of love and assurance.
We all looked away, out of respect. Tanya turned to stare at me, her dark gold eyes peering over her sunglasses, and I turned my gaze down to my shoes again. It seemed to be a permanent fixture for my stares, and not a very interesting constant. They were worn and caked in mud, specks of dried blood soaked permanently in the canvas. I would have to burn them before Alice came to consciousness and tracked down the blood. She might not be aware when it happened, but it was bound to be an embarrassing memory in a few months if she ripped up my sneakers and tried to lick the fabric.
Once Alice was safely tucked away in the backseat and Tanya behind the wheel and quietly waiting, I turned to Carlisle.
"Are you both going back, then?" I asked.
"We're going to smooth things over," Carlisle confirmed, moving to stand beside Edward with his hand clapped on his shoulder. "Help Charlie cope and transition, and get everything settled."
"Will we be seeing you back?"
"If I can get away. I'm scheduled to work all through the week- covering for Prewitt's vacation. Emmett's, ah, dealing with something, but he'll be here in time."
I frowned, swallowing thickly. It was inevitable, but that didn't make it any easier to hear. I was genuinely afraid of what she might do to me, and words otherwise escaped me.
"You need to be going," Esme said after a long period of silence. I walked back into her arms and let her embrace me again, my fingers digging into her back and holding her to me.
Now that he knew we were safe, Carlisle was less affectionate- a signature of his disappointment with me, I was sure. He still had one hand on Edward's shoulder, and gave me a quick, one-armed hug, and then the space between Edward and me was simultaneously too close and gaping.
I still couldn't bear to look at him. I knew it would be too painful to see in his eyes what was sure to be coldness, if not anger. The trees just past his left shoulder had become incredibly interesting, and I counted each spidery vein in every leaf- nine million two hundred thirty two thousand fifty two-, then moved on to numbering the ants snaking into a miniscule hole in the wood of the trunk before Edward's hand twitched in my direction.
My breath was caught in my throat, and I had a sudden and ridiculous vision of him slapping me. It wouldn't be out of bounds, but I knew with every fiber of my being that he would never.
His hand moved slowly, as if he was travelling through water, and came to wrap around me and rest on my upper back. I followed the guiding pressure and took a step into him, and he hesitantly pressed his lips to the crown of my head.
He withdrew fleetingly, and I ached with the loss of his touch, and the knowledge that I might never be so close to him again.
I found that I couldn't move, that my feet had been welded to the pavement and my body had been turned to stone. Edward had released me, and taken a step back towards Carlisle, then shuffled behind him up to the plane. Esme sighed heavily, but just reached out to squeeze my hand and promise that she would call, and she loved me. I could feel an ocean of unspoken words swirling around me, threatening to pull me under and fill my lungs, intermingling with the choking and burning sensations in my throat. Edward's lush scent couldn't ground me in its lingering and dissipating fragrance, carried away by the repellent breeze, redolent as it was with the smells of gasoline burning from the idling plane as it smoothly steered back towards the runway.
Even over the roar of the engines as the plane sped forward, I could hear Esme quietly speaking to Edward about what Alice would go through. I was surprised that she wasn't mincing her words, and explained exactly how out-of-control her first few months would be, but promised him that he could contact Alice if he wanted to, and that she would be capable of talking on the phone after a short while.
The plane was in the sky and hurtling south, and my ability to eavesdrop was cut off.
I was suddenly able to move, and found my hands curled into impotent fists at my side. An instinctual growl, low and furious, ripped through my chest and out of my burning through, ripe and feral with a possessive ache. My hand moved to my chest of its own accord, clutching at the skin over my heart.
The car door opened, and Tanya swept out, glasses off and shedding her blank expression for one of concern.
"Bella?" She reached out and touched my elbow carefully, and I tensed reflexively.
"It's nothing," I said dismissively, shaking her off.
The last person to touch me had been Edward.
"It's just the bond. Separation is… uncomfortable," I continued, forcing out the lie. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was painful. The rapid distance was leaving a searing ache, and I forced myself to not be wracked with sobs.
It wasn't this way for bonds that had been completed. And I knew I was uniquely attuned to it- I had spent enough time with Marcus to learn everything I could pull from him about different types of bonds. Of course, denying oneself a mate wasn't exactly a common occurrence, but it had been easier for, for example, Carlisle. He hadn't bonded to Esme when she was a human girl the way I was to Edward, so he didn't suffer when we moved away- though he did frequently return to watch over her.
I walked stiffly to the passenger side and climbed in, wondering masochistically if it would always feel like this. If Edward finally saw how unsuited I was for him, I would be forced to honor his wishes. I could only hope that the ache would dull, and wondered what I would have to do if it didn't.
I did have to go to the Volturi anyways…
I pushed the thought away violently.
Tanya had almost immediately turned off the main road and carelessly sped across the rocky terrain. I hadn't ever been to their home by car, and it was clear why. It was, by design, almost inaccessible, buried deep within the park and nestled between the protective cover of towering mountains. They had been the ones to clear their own driveway to connect to the road, and it wove around one of the mountains in a most inconvenient and out of the way path.
The car barreled down the mountainside. The road was rockier here, but Tanya knew how to navigate it to mitigate any jostling, and the pursuit was instead smooth. The trees were sparse so far up, and the road was lined on either side by long, hardy shrubs and a border of bright pink wildflowers. It was purposeful landscaping, but wild, too.
Sunlight persisted through the dense canopy of trees, brilliant golden rays making their way past thick branches and heavy foliage to dapple the roof of the car in contrasting shades of light and dark. Such a bright day normally would have kept us inside, but Tanya seemed to trust the tint of the windows to shade and conceal us. I glanced back and noticed that Alice's skin seemed to almost glow in the light, starting to hard and crystallize the way ours did.
Once we descended into the valley, the towering house came into view. Unlike with Esme, where we always just renovated existing buildings, this house had been designed and built by vampires, and as consequence it was rather unusual looking.
It was almost entirely glass, for one. Each room was fixed with heavy, automated blackout blinds, but there were only solid walls on the bottom floor. It looked like boxes stacked one on top of the other, and I knew that each floor belonged to only one of them, with one floor for guests.
There was a fire going in the den, evidenced by the swirl of dark smoke from the chimney.
Alice was digging herself into the fabric of the backseat, tucking herself into the fold of the seats like she was trying to hide herself. I pulled her out of the seat and cradled her against my chest. Her skin was cooling- she only felt warm, but her heart was still thumping steadily as her eyes fluttered with the pain.
"You can set her up in the sun room," Irina directed, ushering me into the house. Kate was lounging on the couch, casually flipping through a glossy tabloid in front of the fire. She tossed her silky blonde hair in greeting, and I managed a small nod as I walked past, following Irina through the den to the other side of the house.
The sun room was more of an enclosed outdoor space, encased in glass like the rest of the house, and sparsely decorated. Someone had thrown the doors open, and there was a large metal-framed bed in the corner that I placed Alice on gently.
"How long has it been?" Irina asked.
"Thirteen and a half hours," I said.
"A ways to go, then."
"I made sure there's a lot of venom in her," I said, staring at the spot on her abdomen where I had buried my face into her body. I could still feel the heat, and taste the gush of desperate blood coating my throat.
"Impressive how you manage to do that," Irina said lightly.
"This is number two for you, Bella?" Tanya inquired, returning to us after she had stored the car in the unattached garage.
"If you refer to them so casually, then yes."
"Rose won't be very pleased, will she?"
I could feel my heart constricting in the cavern of my chest, but I didn't know if it could be attributed to Rose, or to the established hollowness of the bond.
"No, she won't," I whispered.
"Edward's all right, though?" Kate asked, stepping around her sisters. I knew that she already knew, that Esme would have told them everything, but she still seemed profoundly concerned, and I was overwhelmed with gratefulness that they weren't berating me for my idiocy or making me feel guilty for taking over their sanctuary.
"He's safe. Not even a scratch," I said lightly, choking on the lie, as it was a lie, wasn't it? Edward wasn't all right. I wondered if he would ever be all right ever again. I allowed myself a moment of pure, unadulterated rage at James. It didn't matter that he was destroyed into dust, the ghost of the monster lived on.
I wasn't given the time to wallow for long before my phone rang. I snatched it from my pocket and flung it open so quickly the hinges cracked, and everyone else stepped out of the room to give me the illusion of privacy.
Whatever hope I had been holding on to was immediately crushed. It was Esme, calling to let me know that they had gotten home safely, and Edward was sound asleep in our bed after having eaten a spot of toast and a bottle of water. Their flight had been uneventful, and they had all decided that Edward could sleep and decompress however long he needed to before going back to Charlie's. A few more days would prolong his stress and worry, sure, but Edward wouldn't be returning with good news.
Carlisle was figuring it would be best for Alice to just disappear. Emmett had already found and stowed away the old rust bucket of a truck, and we would make sure it was never found. "That way," Esme said matter-of-factly, "When you change Edward and we fake his death, it won't be as suspicious. Two siblings right in a row, both connected to us, would draw perhaps a bit too much attention."
"Yeah," I said. My throat was dry and sore with thirst, voice cracking.
Esme prattled on, filling me in on everything I had missed while we were gone, and glossing over the uncomfortable details surrounding Rose and her reaction. I knew Esme was at home, with Edward, but I couldn't hear Emmett or Rose anywhere in the background.
Carlisle called me a short while after, on break at the hospital. I wondered if he was attempting at a distraction, because he touched lightly on his conversations with Charlie before he spent the majority of our conversation filling me in on his cases. There was usually nothing very interesting, but there had been a bad car accident two days prior in which he had to repair a torn interspinales colli muscle and the cervical nerve that wove around it- a procedure that a human doctor would need microsurgery equipment and several hours to accomplish.
Kate, Irina, and Tanya flitted in and out, never lingering for long. Kate sat in a chair beside me and kicked her feet up so they rested on my lap, and read out loud from her magazine. Angelina Jolie had just adopted a baby, and Kate was filling me in on the gossip with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
"Mark my words," she said, flipping to the next page with a story on Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, "That woman is going to have a Mia Farrow brood and a nasty divorce."
Irina came in when Kate left, two mugs of steeping black tea and nail polish in hand. Her silvery hair was braided back elaborately in a style she had worn when she was young and human, and she offered to do the same for me. I shrugged in acquiescence, and Irina began to comb her fingers through my hair while I cupped the mug of steaming tea and let my skin absorb the heat.
Alice screamed, her breaths shallow and forced, but Irina continued on. Her own hair was plaited into a crown, but she left my hair half down and pulled back the front into a thick, seven piece braid that met at the nape of my neck.
Tanya drifted in and picked up the bottle of nail polish, staring at it speculatively before uncapping it and starting to swipe the bright pink onto Alice's short nails.
"She seems like the type to appreciate a little color," Tanya commented, picking up a finished hand and looking at her work.
"How do you know?" I asked. It was true. If anything, Alice might have liked to have each nail painted in a different neon color, maybe with a few intricate designs. I didn't know what she would like now. She looked the same, for the most part. Her complexion had grown paler but for the shallow flush on her cheeks and the exposed skin of her neck. Her hair had grown thicker, the color darkening to a deep black, endless like the night sky. It was still short, and seemed to stand on its ends and curved into spikes around her ears. Her skin had smoothed of all blemishes, her nose curved into a dainty slope from the straighter shape she had shared with Edward. But she was still very clearly Alice.
"She seems like the type to actually have a personality." Tanya nodded in my direction, glancing at Irina still stationed behind me, "That looks nice."
"Thank you, dear sister," Irina said politely. She knotted the final strand into place and took her leave, taking the cooled mugs of lukewarm tea with her.
"I'm sorry to cause trouble," I murmured, taking the polish from Tanya to finish Alice's other hand. Her skin had cooled, and I could only feel the slightest trace of a beat of blood in this extremity.
Tanya shrugged. "What's life without a little trouble."
"Easy?" I answered, and Tanya laughed shortly.
"Emmett is the youngest of us all, isn't he?"
I nodded in answer, focusing on carefully covering every surface of the each nail.
"He was great fun as a newborn. Very rambunctious. It was too bad Rosalie stole him away from us," she pouted, and I couldn't help but smile.
"You didn't have a chance," I laughed.
"No, I never do with your lot. Carlisle and Edward, too. All the beautiful men you Cullen girls pull in, and none of you will share."
"Very rude of us."
"It is!" she giggled, tossing her hair back same as Kate's signature.
"It's been a while since we've had a newborn around," I said quietly.
"You think it's been long for you? Emmett was what, seventy years ago? Irina was changed seven centuries ago, not decades."
"That's right," I agreed. "Eleazar and Carmen weren't newborns when they found you, were they?"
"No, they were quite controlled and rational. It was too easy showing them our way of life, no challenge at all."
"I think you might be glorifying it a bit."
"You and Carlisle seemed to do a decent job of raising up your newborns. Rose never slipped once, didn't she?"
I thought of the discarded bodies with crushed spines she had left behind in Rochester, their deaths justified in her vengeance. "No, she's never slipped."
"And Esme and Emmett only a few times each. But both of them are products of Carlisle, are they not?"
"They are," I confirmed, wondering where she was going with her absentminded conversation. Tanya looked distracted, swirling her fingers on the silky sheets beside Alice.
"Maybe this one will inherit your control, as Rose did."
"That's not how it works," I said quickly.
Tanya shrugged. "Maybe not. We don't really know, though, do we? There's a genetic element to gifts, is there not?"
I thought of Aro, keeping track of the human descendants of everyone in the Guard. I always wondered if he had ever followed my own human family, and if he was still doing so. I didn't think I would have the leverage to ask when I went back to Italy though. "That's the speculation."
"Why not in venom, too?"
"It's not the same," I argued.
"Why not? We feel the ties of the bond of venom. It holds us together as much as the choice to love each other does."
"You think that's why you, Kate, and Irina have never strayed from one another?"
"Venom is thicker than blood," she said in a sing-song voice.
"It's an interesting theory," I supposed.
"But," she said dismissively, hopping up off her chair, "That doesn't explain Carmen and Eleazar sticking around for so long, does it?"
It was the end of the conversation, and Tanya sashayed out of the sun room to busy herself on a computer in their library. I didn't think that Carmen and Eleazar would be back any time soon, though I wished they would be. If Carlisle couldn't be here, Eleazar was a very close substitute. He had spent so much time around newborns when he was a member of the Guard, shaping them if they have abilities Aro found interesting, that dealing with their temperaments was second nature to him.
But they were Ireland, or maybe in Italy already. They had been visiting with Siobhan, Liam, and Maggie before calling on the Volturi. They had been summoned, of course, as they were quite often. Aro had let Eleazar leave with the condition that he returned if he was needed, and he had no objection to the occasional trip back to Volterra. They always made a vacation out of it, anyways. It wasn't a bad deal, given the alternatives.
The sun sunk down for a quick night, the glass roof clean and open to the blanket of sparkling stars in the black sky. The night was fleeting so far to the north in the middle of the summer, and when Esme called again in the morning, the sun had been hanging above the trees for hours.
She and Carlisle both took Edward home. They concocted a simple story, and apparently Charlie didn't ask too many questions. It wasn't difficult to lie- it was a tale of being lost in grief, and Edward would certainly have no trouble acting the part.
She told me his sleep had been troubled and he awoke still tired. Esme not-so-subtly told me that he still had the phone I had given him, and she was sure he wouldn't mind any firsthand updates if I volunteered them. When I fell silent, kept quiet by the ripping ache in my chest, she backtracked and told me that she was of course letting him know Alice's progress, and would continue to do so.
Not even an hour from when I hung up with Esme, I could hear the pounding of heavy footsteps storming towards us from the south. Kate and Irina raced down the stairs, and I could almost hear the crackling of electricity on Kate's hands. I darted out the backdoor in the sun room and circled around the house to meet them in the front, holding my hands out.
"It's just Emmett," I said. I knew the rhythm of his gait as well as I knew my own. Irina and Kate immediately relaxed, and Irina turned to the thicket of pine trees with a full grin on her face.
"Hello there, beautifuls," Emmett boomed, returning the smile as he loped into visibility. He smashed right into a tree, splintering it in his haste to run over to us. His smile faltered with his steps as he looked at it, almost surprised, as if it had popped out of nowhere, but then he was back in full force.
"Emmett!" Irina greeted him excitedly, rushing into his outstretched arms. She planted a warm kiss on each of his deep dimples, and I wondered if he would have blushed if he had the capability.
Kate strutted towards him, more business-like with a hand outstretched. Emmett reached out to take it, and immediately yowled in pain and jumped back. Kate couldn't hold in a laugh, and Irina descended into a fit of giggles.
Emmett feigned mock-outrage, but he winced when Kate caught him in a harmless hug.
"Where's the other vixen?" he asked, looking around.
"Out for a quick hunt before the drama begins," Irina answered.
"Looks like someone else should have gone, too," Emmett said lightly, his eyes landing on me. I knew I was staring back at him from pitch-black irises, with deep bruises under my eyes that stretched across the bridge of my nose. My throat burned, but it didn't compare to the burn in my hollow heart, so it was easy to ignore. If anything, it was nice to feel something. I worried I would succumb to it without the thirst to remind me that I was still sentient.
"I'm not thirsty," I lied.
"You look like you need a hug," he said with his omnipresent grin. He didn't even give me a chance to answer before he was whipping me off the ground, crushing me around the middle. I rested my hands on his shoulders and let him swing me around, but I found a hint of a whisper of the smell of honey and sunshine on his skin, in the fabric of his clothes.
Emmett set me down but kept an arm on my shoulders, tucking me into his side. "Just thought I'd come to help out. You ladies look like you need a big strong man." He wiggled his brows, and both Irina and Kate laughed again.
"I don't know how much use we'll get out of a big strong man that cowers like a girl at a quick little zap," Kate retorted.
Emmett threw up his free hand in surrender and forced me to take a step back with him.
"Carlisle couldn't get away," he explained. "But he told me the show was about to start, so I thought I'd hustle up here."
And the show was about to start. It had been a little over two days since that moment when Alice looked at me with glassy green eyes and begged me to do this. Two days since I heard her heart slowly fade away before she jerked up and gave herself a new start.
Two days since Edward had told me he loved me, and he promised me nothing would change.
"Not much longer," I murmured, though everyone else could also hear the rapid pounding of her heart. We were all in position. I stood at the foot of the bed, and Emmett and Kate on either side of Alice. Tanya and Irina both kept behind me, not wanting to appear too aggressive or provoke a reaction, but there to assist.
It was like thunder was echoing through the house, slapping and wet and moments from its last beat.
With one last squeezing contraction, Alice's heart stopped, and her change was over.
I bent my knees and braced myself. Kate had her hands outstretched, and Emmett was tensed and ready to try to hold her back if he needed. The room stilled, and not a breath was taken as we waited
Her eyes popped open with a signature quickness, revealing bright, bloodred irises that were disconcerting on her.
But she didn't move. She didn't get up, or even look at us. Alice stared up through the glass rough to the indigo sky above, her expression blank and her eyes glassy with a faraway look. I remembered how disorienting the adjustment was at first. I figured she was fixating on something miniscule that had never been visible before, like the specks of dust that clouded through the air and seemed to hold every color in the rainbow within itself.
Kate glanced over at me, confusion written clear across her face.
We waited, and the minutes slipped past. Alice was stone-still laying in the bed. Clouds drifted by overhead, white whisps curling around the sky. The darker shadows of birds soared past, flocking into formations and disappearing in the horizon.
But still we waited. After an immeasurably long time, Emmett also looked over at me expectantly, as confused as the rest of us. "Well?" he mouthed. I shrugged, just as lost as he was. Every newborn I had seen emerge from the change did so with vigor, quickly searching for something to quench the erupting thirst and manic with need.
"Oh," Alice sighed, blinking away the fog in her eyes and finally sitting up with instantaneous speed. Relief rushed through me, and I could see Emmett's shoulders relax a bit. All was well in her change. I hadn't done anything wrong, anything to make her paralyzed in a state of blankness as she had been.
"Hi Alice," I greeted her softly, smiling.
"It makes sense now." Alice smiled back at me, her teeth glittering. Her large eyes widened, her delicate brows arching in surprise. Her hands came to clutch her neck, clawing into her throat. "I think I need to hunt, right? Please?"
Lmao this chapter is longer than some books. Oh well.