Bella had never made a life changing decision. She'd thought she had, once. Moving to Forks in her junior year, choosing to live with Charlie, at the time it felt as if she was purposefully flipping her life upside down.
And true, without it, she probably would have ended up going to university in Florida, would have lived with Phil and Renee, would never have become brief friends with Jake, and Charlie would have remained effectively a stranger to her. She'd have lost something important, but—
Life would have been different, but it still would have been life.
She'd finish university with above average grades, if she was lucky somehow obtain a job in the outside world despite her B.A. in English, and maybe even get a steady boyfriend (though how this could possibly happen was beyond her).
Bella was an ordinary girl living an ordinary world.
This was different.
Bella was riding on a near empty bus from Florence to Volterra. Packed in three overstuffed suitcases were all the worldly belongings she'd brought with her to Italy. She was dressed in the only clean clothes she had left: a pair of striped shorts, flip flops, and a bright green sweater.
Sweat dripped down the back of her neck and every time the bus hit a pothole, she desperately had to keep her suitcases from falling over.
And she was about to make a decision that would change the very course of her life.
This, this bus ride, was her last chance to turn back. If she stayed on the bus when it stopped in Volterra, if she rode it back to Florence, nothing would change. She still had the lease on her current flat for a few days, she could book herself a ticket for Rome then Seattle, and she could still back out.
She didn't have to do this.
"Who am I kidding?" Bella asked herself with a huff.
Stubborn, her mother had always called her. Stubborn and never inclined to change her mind once a decision was made. Bella could tell herself she could turn back all she liked, but the decision had been made in that single phone call.
No matter where it took her, no matter how far from Earth she went, she would never take it back.
Of course, where it would take her was a giant mystery.
Volterra, the address Marcus had given her dictated, but Bella wasn't sure how much she believed that. She wasn't sure how much she'd believed any of that phone call. He hadn't sounded coerced, exactly, but it had sounded like somebody had been feeding him lines and he had certainly sounded confused.
Something was going on and if he was inviting Bella to be a part of it, then so much the better.
The bus finally rolled to a stop. The bus driver watched with weary impatience as Bella gathered her herd of suitcases and tried not to trip on her way out the bus. Thank God there was nothing fragile in there.
When she stumbled off the bus it, and her last chance of taking the blue pill, turned around and made its way back to Florence.
If Charlie knew—if she hadn't lied to him and told him that she was doing some summer art program in Italy—then he would have killed her for letting that bus leave without her.
"Isabella Swan?"
Bella started, almost fell onto her ass, and barely steadied herself on the largest of her suitcases. Standing there, smiling at her, was a beautiful Italian woman in a wine-colored dress and a pair of truly dangerous looking heels.
"Ah, yes," Bella said, blinking away her own confusion and holding up a hand, "Ciao."
"Ciao," the woman responded with an equally stunning smile before switching back to accented English, "My name is Francesca, I work at the castle where your university program is being hosted and am here to pick you up."
"Oh," Bella said, now realizing that the woman was standing in front of what looked like a Ferrari. A very red, very expensive, looking Ferrari.
And Bella was in flip flops and purple aviators.
Bella tried and failed to smile, "Are we, ah, waiting on anyone else?"
For a moment, the woman looked a little confused, and then shook her head with that same, pleasant, smile, "Oh, no, the other students arrived several days ago."
"Right, I guess I was last minute," Bella said with a nervous laugh, wondering why she'd even bothered to ask. Of course, there were no other students, that there was even a pretense that there were other students—
Bella didn't know who'd put this together, but she had to give them credit, it was by far the most well-thought out, realistically unrealistic, scheme she'd ever heard of. Showed a disturbing understanding of modern, collegiate, culture while still not being nearly good enough. It perfectly suited an alien who claimed to be an art professor at the tender age of nineteen.
They would have been better served pretending this was a timeshare presentation.
It took ten minutes to shove Bella's suitcases into the far too small trunk for a drive that was only two seconds. They drove up through the city, past the art academy, and past Saint Marcus' Square. They parked in a nearby garage, which very clearly wasn't public, one that housed several more Ferraris and a smattering of Lamborghinis.
Bella was still, for the record, wearing cheap purple aviators that Renee had bought her in an airport gift store.
Francesca guided Bella out of the garage, cheerfully taking two of Bella's suitcases, and to a very sleek looking elevator. Rather than go up a floor, or even to street level, they went… down. Several stories down.
Bella, apparently, had agreed to spend her summer with the Mole People.
She looked awkwardly at Francesca, cheerfully staring ahead at the door of the elevator as if this were all perfectly natural.
She was stunning, yes, but in a very human way. She had olive, natural, human skin that looked both soft and warm. She was clearly wearing cosmetics (fabulously, of course, but still wearing them). If Bella stared long enough, she could make out human imperfections in her, the kind of imperfections that Marcus had always lacked.
She looked Italian, natural in the Tuscan landscape in a way that Bella with her bone white skin never had. In other words, Francesca looked very human.
Bella wasn't sure if that should reassure or else worry her.
The elevator dinged as it reached their designated floor and opened to reveal—
Bella didn't even know what. For a moment, her mind simply stopped processing what she was seeing. A hallway, a seemingly endless hallway, but one that looked as if it belonged in the set of a sand and sandals movie.
The floor was inlaid with several different colors of marble: white, red, and green. Supporting the walls were great decorated pillars, and on top of those, hundreds of paintings. Not just paintings either, even at a glance, even at a distance, you could tell the masterful work that had gone into each.
These paintings were old, and each was priceless.
Bella wasn't in a hallway; she was in a museum.
"This way, Isabella," Francesca said cheerfully, motioning for Bella to follow her down the hallway. Bella did so in a daze, feeling as if her mind had left her body.
The room Francesca showed Bella to was fully furnished. No, that was the wrong word, 'fully furnished' had been Bella's flat in Florence. A studio complete with a small kitchenette, a mattress, and the world's smallest bathroom.
This furniture—Bella couldn't tell how old it was, but it looked old and priceless. Everything had a glossy, sturdy, sheen to it, carved lovingly from wood. To a girl who had grown up in cheap apartments with cheaper furniture, she knew what the expensive shit looked like.
And on the wall, of course, a Rembrandt.
Francesca handed Bella a folder, which she took numbly, "You'll have an hour to settle in and unpack. Orientation will be on the first floor, in the library, someone will come by to help guide you and give you a tour. After the tour will be dinner. Your schedule is in here, along with your course rubric, and information about the different programs hosted here over the summer. If you have any questions, dial 0 on the phone and you'll reach myself or one of the other personal assistants."
Bella made some ineloquent grunting noise meant to convey understanding.
This must have been good enough, as Francesca nodded, smiled, left Bella's suitcases, and made her way out of the room. Bella could hear her heels all the way until she reached the elevator. And then it was just Bella and Rembrandt.
Bella flopped on the bed, opened the folder, and took out the schedule.
Breakfast, every day at eight, class from nine to noon, then lunch for three hours, then 'cultural activities' and free time in the afternoon, and then dinner for another five hours. Complete with weekend activities such as tours of Volterra and discussions of its history, cinema nights, and more.
"I am in summer camp," Bella said in a daze.
Bella had never been to summer camp; money had always been a little too tight. It'd sounded, distantly, like fun, but even at eight Bella hadn't exactly been the most social of people. Camp sounded good in theory but in practice it sounded like two weeks of isolation and pretending to have a good time.
Bella was twenty-two, had just moved into an underground museum after failing her art course taught by an alien, and was now attending summer camp.
She didn't even know if she wanted to look at the other sheets of paper. No, she knew she didn't, her brain would melt if she even tried.
Bella decided, instead, that the best thing for it was to just unpack like Francesca had said. It wouldn't all be normal, if she unpacked, but at least she'd be unpacked.
Idly, she wondered if they had a washing machine and dryer here. It seemed out of place, but if they had the gall to pretend to host high schoolers and university students then they had to have some access to a laundromat.
It was just after Bella had unpacked her laptop, agonizing over what appliance would have to be sacrificed given the room's sole outlet, when there was a polite but insistent knocking on the door.
Bella checked her schedule, she technically had ten minutes left. Though she supposed, depending on where orientation was, those ten minutes might be necessary.
She half expected it to be Marcus, but of course, the idea of Marcus managing to find the room Bella had been placed in and then going so far as to know how to knock on a door was a bit too mind boggling to contemplate.
Instead, it was someone much more unexpected who, perhaps in retrospect, Bella should have expected.
Bus Stop Man was grinning at her from the other side of the door.
It was unmistakably him, but in better lighting, which—Bella had thought he looked like Marcus before, had been eerily reminded her of Marcus, but apparently Bella's eyes had been pitiful in the dark. Whatever people suit the aliens had made for Marcus, they'd made for Bus Stop man too.
Same flinty, pale, perfect skin, sharp yet perfect features, and ruddy eyes bordering somewhere between black and mahogany. He looked nothing like Marcus, not in terms of his actual face, his build, or his hair, and yet he looked everything like Marcus.
She was no longer so sure he was the Man in Black, not with that face but—it was telling, that he was here, and that he'd make it a point to meet her almost immediately.
"Bella, how delightful to see you again!" the man exclaimed, as if he were greeting an old friend.
God, what was this guy's name? He'd introduced himself and his beautiful, tiny, female companion at the bus stop. Bella couldn't remember it for the life of her, it'd been something weird, something European sounding.
Bella tried to smile, "What a coincidence."
She would have added that she didn't expect to see him here, or she thought he said he lived in Florence, or something but—well, Bella had always been pants at lying, and something in the way he was acting told Bella it was best to keep up the pretense.
Maybe later, when she did find Marcus, she'd try pressing him for real answers but—no, she needed to get her footing first, needed at least some clue as to what was really going on here. If Bella couldn't lie, then Marcus couldn't keep a secret to save his life. Depending on what was happening here—the stakes might very well be their lives.
She was going to be on her own for a while.
"Oh, not much of one I'm afraid," Aro said, ballsy of him to admit as much.
"You see, Marcus, your professor, is actually my brother-in-law," he explained with truly overdramatic hand gestures, "He informed me that you would be participating in our summer program and, I must say, that we are delighted to have you."
"Right," Bella said, nodding slowly, while the pistons in her head went into overdrive.
The brother-in-law, Marcus had mentioned one in class, was this really him? Perhaps this man knew that Marcus had mentioned a brother-in-law but—no—that was too easily verified. The next time Bella saw Marcus, she was definitely asking him if Hugo Boss Bus Stop Man was his brother-in-law.
Except, that meant Marcus had a wife, a wife who was this man's sister? But then why did they look so similar? Were these people sure they knew how in-laws worked?
Don't question the Mole People, Bella, just smile and nod.
He was staring at her very earnestly, looking incredibly interested in anything she might have to say. Bella almost blurted out to ask whether that painting in her room was really a Rembrandt or not.
No, swallow it, Bella. Don't you dare ask. Do not ever ask.
"So, Francesca said there's an orientation thing?" Bella asked with a smile.
"Ah, yes, follow me," the man said, and only as he said it and made to walk down the hallway, did Bella realize that she had not only not changed but had nothing to change into. She was still in her flip flops, striped shorts, and lime green sweater.
Well, if something terrible happened to her, at least she'd look groovy for the occasion.
The man was perfectly pleasant, an excellent tour guide, and clearly incredibly knowledgeable. Without even having to ask, he described the origins of every painting, every slab of marble, the architecture of the various rooms, and even how difficult it'd been to wire the place with electricity.
Per the man, this castle had been here since the early Middle Ages, renovated every few centuries or so as city was sieged, invaded, or simply changed with the times. The way he spoke, the castle, this place, had always been here. This was not a cheap set that had been made only a few months ago…
Most of the hallways were eerily empty, not a hint of people in sight, occasionally though—they passed by people who also were not people.
Their skin, their eyes, weren't quite like Marcus' and Bus Stop Man's. They didn't have that opaque film nor the flaking substance to their skin, however, they also looked as if they'd been carved from white marble. Every single one of them had that same, stone, impossibly beautiful appearance with very different faces and what looked like different ethnicities.
Slowly, Bella began to form a theory.
It was a little early, considering, but the more she pondered it the more sense it started to make.
When she'd first accepted, she hadn't known what they would want with her, why anyone had pressured Marcus to make that offer in the first place. Bella, other than knowing more than she should, had nothing of value. She'd only known that whatever it was might be dangerous, for both her and Marcus, but she was willing to risk her life for it all the same.
Now though…
Perhaps it wasn't the Men in Black, or at least, not directly, and not here.
No, this was a colony. A colony of what, Bella didn't know, aliens, she guessed. They lived in an underground in a palace in Italy, and had either lived here forever, or somehow convinced the Italian government to fork it over to them.
Regardless of how long they'd been here, they were probably just now testing out how well they emulated human society, how well they could fit in with the local population.
And that, of course, was where Bella Swan and women like Francesca came in.
That was motive though, sensible enough, it didn't mean that this wasn't dangerous.
Bella had been fully aware, this morning, that by agreeing to this, going to wherever in Volterra she was going, she might never leave. Bella still had that feeling, that for all this was a 'summer' program, that summer was going to last the rest of her life.
Strangely, for reasons Bella could scarcely contemplate herself, for Marcus, it'd been a risk, no a sacrifice, she was willing to make.
Had she left Italy, no matter the number she had given him, she was certain she would never see him again. She would return to her ordinary life and him—to whatever it was he'd done before she walked into his classroom.
Even if she hadn't been concerned, even if he hadn't called her that very afternoon, something in her just couldn't leave him behind.
But then, maybe that wasn't the right way to think about it.
Bella had few attachments to this world.
She had no friends, a smattering of acquaintances here and there who at the end of the day barely remembered to write "Have a Great Summer" in her yearbook.
There was Charlie but—he had friends as well as a new family. Still grieving over Harry, but he and Sue were pulling through. It'd be rough, but should something happen to her, he'd get by. He always had.
As for Renee, she had Phil.
Bella could completely disappear from this world, right this second, and the impression she left behind would be shallow and all too easily forgotten.
So why not do this?
Why not dare to go further than any man had ever gone before?
Why not take the red pill?
With that thought, Bella followed Aro into the library where 'orientation' consisted of herself and a pair of the most terrifyingly beautiful adolescents she'd ever seen. Who, of course, claimed they were in high school.
Bella didn't say a goddamn word.
Author's Note: Aro, meanwhile, is very impressed with himself. His summer art program is awesome!
Thanks to readers and reviewers, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight