Chapter 25: The Liar

T'Challa watched the zimwi carefully to gauge his response. At first, his pale face, as white as an egret's feathers, froze without expression. T'Challa glanced towards Bucky and found he also kept his eyes on the zimwi, muscles tense with uncertain anxiety, glazed over with a façade of stillness. He curled the silver fingers of his metal arm and cleared his throat.

Three men waited and none knew for what they tarried.

Edward vanished out the door of the hut before either T'CHalla or Bucky had seen him rise. A resounding cracking of wood echoed through the compound followed by the rustle of leaves and protests of displaced birds.

"Please tell me that wasn't my mango tree," Bucky said, his voice heavy with resignation because he already knew the answer.

"Pole sana, bwana," T'Challa said. "It is better he takes out his heartache on your mango tree than your face."

Bucky sighed and ran his fingers through his unkempt brown hair. "I suppose that's true. I'm glad that's done."

"No. That was the beginning, not the end," T'Challa responded. "Keep close to Bella. I do not trust his mind or his control and I do not want to find out which of you would be the first to receive his anger."

"Do you think he will attack?"

"I cannot tell. We have installed the tracker in his earlobe, as we did with Bella, so we can maintain his exact location at all times. As you experienced in Volterra, knowing the location of our mazimwi has many benefits. In this one's case, it is as much for his safety as ours to know where he is. I would not be surprised if Aro tries to force his prisoner's return to Volterra when our eyes are busy elsewhere."

T'Challa and Bucky stood and ducked their heads to avoid hitting the doorway for the hut as they exited into the warm, fragrant night air. It hummed with life-full of the chorus of frogs. The zimwi had disappeared, leaving the heavy-laden tree uprooted like a weed in the shamba.

"You didn't tell him," Bucky said. "About Bella."

"I didn't tell him what?"

"She is a zimwi."

"He will know."

"You didn't want to give him a warning?"

"Why? His cup is already full today."

Bucky shook his head and kicked at a clump of grass.

"Ask Bella to continue shielding him. I do not want him to discover our secrets through digging through people's minds. It seems to be working for now. When he returns, which he will, she will need to be prepared to speak with him," T'Challa said.

T'Challa could not anticipate the outcome of such a meeting, nor did he mind so long as Bella and Bucky walked through unharmed. His mind felt pressed by more significant worries than the patching up of old wounds. His own heartaches seemed too fresh.

T'Challa paused to pick up one of the fallen, yellow mangoes and he took a bite. The sweet juice dribbled down his beard. He tossed another to Bucky who also ate.

"I must return. I need to rest before I face the council and inform them we have another zimwi. They will not be pleased. They have not forgiven me for the Watu wa Wayama."

"He's under her jurisdiction, ndiyo?" Bucky said.

"Aya. He is another child of the spirits. He falls under Bella's leadership along with the Watu Wa Wanyama. She is free to handle him as she sees necessary. However, until they have spoken and resolved their differences, you will continue as his guardian. Make sure he knows the rules of hunting and has a supply of Shuri's mafuta ya zimwi. Sawa?"

Bucky raised both eyebrows and said, "Mmmmmm," in agreement. He gathered another handful of the fallen mangoes to send home with T'Challa and sat on the fallen tree.

T'Challa left the deep darkness of the lakeside and chased the lights of Birnin Zana and the solace of his bedroom. He sought to slip in through the shadows before any of his guards or servants could notice him, but he was not fast enough. He inwardly groaned as he saw a King's Guard approach him.

"Bwana wangu, umerudi nyumbani."

"Ndiyo, Matoyo. Sasa?"

"Kuja hapa sasa, bwana." The guard motioned for T'Challa to follow him and brought him to his office. He pointed his chin towards the desk. A large, wooden crate wrapped in rough rope took over half of its glassy face.

"Nini?" T'Challa asked.

"The border tribe found it at dusk," he replied. "It is addressed to you but lacks the name of the sender. We performed scans on the contents and they came back negative for traces of physical or chemical warfare. We did not want to open it without your permission."

T'Challa nodded and pulled a long knife out of his belt. He cut through the rope and pried open the rough wooden planks of the crate. He circumspectly removed the lid. He came closer and peered inside and his eyes grew as large as a chameleon's.

"Mfalme wangu?" Matoyo asked, worry marring his tone.

"Send for the General at once," T'Challa managed to force out of his breathless chest.

Matoyo saluted and disappeared. T'Challa took advantage of his momentary solitude to slump into his chair, his head heavy in his hands. He pulled out the small envelope taped to the inner lid of the box and unfolded a silvery, elegant piece of stationary paper, engraved with a watermark of Volterra. A curved, flawless script spelled out the following words.

"As you requested, in exchange for our prisoner. Deliver him to the border."

Okoye burst through the door, spear in hand, and greeted the king with a solemn nod. Her bleary eyes gave evidence to the late night hour.

"General," he said and nodded towards both the note and the box. Okoye read the note first and then looked into the box. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

"It is a head!" she exclaimed.

"It is the head of Aro of Volterra."

"But, why?"

T'Challa remained silent and ran his hands through his thick, curled beard, deep in thought.

"General, prepare yourself. We will need to ask our new zimwi some more questions."

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Edward ran. He ran as far as he could get in half a night and then he ran some more. He needed to think, he needed to kill something, he needed to uproot something and his limbs paced with restless, disconcerted energy.

He took down three impala and uprooted a flame tree and he still felt unsettled. He climbed to the highest point of a thick, stocky baobab tree and descended into the turbulent chaos of his thoughts.

Alive. His Bella, his reason for existence was alive. How? It wasn't possible. The wolves, the papers, her own mother-they all agreed upon her death. Yet, she remained alive, hidden away from him for so many years in this foreign land. While he sat bound and descending into insanity to Volterra, she lived on without him, so far from him, separated from him.

Alive, but not his. Alive, but without him, still far from him, and still separated from him.

He always hoped she would find happiness, marry, and enjoy a normal life, but he never stopped to think about how difficult it would be to experience firsthand the reality of that path.

He needed to see her. He found himself bubbling with questions, like a volcano on the point of eruption.

He leapt from the top of his tree and ran as fast as he could back the way he had come.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Edward watched as the soldier opened a gate and ushered a dozen long-horned cattle through with a stick. He clicked and whistled until the last hoof passed him with a low snort. The metal gate closed with a clang and he fixed the clasp tight.

The dawning sun nearly broke through the tree line as Edward ran towards him.

"Bucky, where is she?" he asked, his eyes begging and pleading. Bucky met him with a cool, silent appraisal before nodding his head slightly to the left. Edward ran again, searching for the longed for, familiar burn in his throat, the exquisite agony that signaled the presence of his singer. But it never came.

He continued running around the shores of the lake, upsetting rushes, cranes, and a small crocodile with his movements. He could trace the now familiar scent of the soldier. He could sense a few dozen other distinct human scents and an innumerable variety of animals, but not the one he sought.

Then it hit him. It was Bella's scent, but not Bella's scent. It was like her, but also like him. He stopped in his tracks, nostrils flaring as the implications of this washed over him like an ice bath.

He followed the trail and called out to her.

"Bella? Bella? I need to speak with you, please."

After a moment, he heard light footsteps and a figure garbed in a deep mahogany African dress walked towards him and he nearly sank to his knees.

His Bella-the one who haunted his every waking moment and irrevocably burned his memories with her apparition-his Bella had been beautiful. But this was not her.

The woman he saw met him with eyes that shone with the heat of the sun instead of the warmth of the earth. Her flawless ivory skin now bleached her of the rosy blush that had been his doorway into her emotions. Her delicate, temporal, mortal body now wore the impervious, impenetrable frozen figure that curved and straightened with more sensuality than any statue of Venus he had ever seen.

He felt overcome with nausea, realizing that despite all his efforts, he had become like him.

This Bella, this new Bella, was overwhelmingly beautiful. She had metamorphosed into a glorious reincarnation of the woman he once loved.

But his heart burst and broke within him as he grieved again for the death of his Bella. She had lost that precious, human part of her forever. Her soul was now gone and it was his fault. He didn't know how, but he knew he must be at the root of it. And he hated himself again for the fault of his existence.

Bella stood in silence, waiting for him to speak as he gawked stupidly, transfixed in one place.

"You look better," she said, motioning towards him.

"Umm, yeah, I, uh, don't know what I looked like before, but I definitely feel better," he said, forcing himself back into the present, swallowing his full heart back into his chest instead of spilling it at her feet like the idiot he was.

"You wanted to talk?" she said.

"Yes," he said, his sense of awkwardness burning like bare feet on hot sand.

"Come on," she said. Her shoeless feet danced along a dirt path back in the direction he had come. There, not far from where he first woke, another mud hut sat overlooking the lake. He wondered how he hadn't noticed her scent when before now. She opened a wooden door and beckoned him inside.

She beckoned towards the wood and foam couch and he sat in the cool shade of the hut, a silence so thick and heavy it tasted like wet concrete on his tongue.

This hut was full of things of life-a trunk of clothes, a box of books, some stools, a rack of kitchen utensils, and a flowered curtain which hid the bed from the view of visitors. Photographs lined one wall showing their favorite moments of life.

It smelled of earth and grass and charcoal, of tea and soap and cooking oil; but most of all, it smelled of the soldier and his wife, of both of them living their lives comingled within that small world of their own.

Edward swallowed deeply and stopped breathing.

"What did you want to talk about?" Bella finally asked.

Edward rubbed the back of his neck and stuttered, attempting to even remember what he wanted to ask her. There was simultaneously too many words and not enough.

"Bella, you're alive! Well…sort of alive," he said, grimacing as he said the last part. "I…uh…I thought you were dead."

"I almost was. I had a vampire tracking me for quite a while."

Edward ground his teeth together. "Who was it?"

"I don't have many memories from my human life," Bella said. "She had red hair but that is all I remember."

"Victoria!" Edward shouted, jumping to his feet and bumping his head against the grass roof. "How did she get past me? Bella, I tracked her. For months and months I tried to find her, to keep you safe, but she must have some kind of gift. She slipped past me again and again.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I hold myself responsible. Charlie, Jacob, Billy, and you…I should have never left you alone the way I did. I know there is nothing I can say to remedy all the ways I have failed you, but you have to understand, first it was James and then Jasper, and I didn't want to be the one to ruin your life. I thought I was helping you by leaving."

He sank back onto the brightly colored foam cushions of the couch and wilted. He hung his head in his hands, fearing to meet her silent, golden eyes.

"Edward…I'm sorry, do you go by Edward or Ed or Eddy?" she finally said.

He sat straight up and faced her, unsure if she spoke in jest. "It's Edward…"

"Edward, you need to understand, when I said I don't have many memories of my human life, I was not exaggerating. I woke up to this life with almost no memories of my past life except for little hazy glimpses. When we found you in Volterra, I didn't know who you were until Aro told us your name."

His heart sank. "What do you remember about me?" he asked.

"I remember a rainy pine forest, your eyes, and the feeling of loss. That's all."

"You only remember the day I left," he said, more to himself than to her. He watched her composed silence and wished either she were less composed or he were more so. "Bella, I lied to you. When I left and I told you that I didn't love you anymore, it was a miserable, horrible lie. I wouldn't have left if I didn't love you so much. But you believed it so easily. How could you believe so little of me after all we'd been through together? After so many times I told you I'd love you for the rest of my existence?"

"Hold on, here," Bella said, her curious gaze replaced with smoldering anger. "Let me get this straight…you lied to me…and then got upset with me for believing your lie?"

"Yes…" he began, but cut himself off when she burst into laughter. "What is so humorous?"

Her musical laughter continued to bounce off the rough walls, surrounding him. He would have found it beautiful, if it wasn't directed at him. She stopped and seemed to make an internal decision. She leaned towards him, her elbows holding up her face.

"I think we are going to need to start over. Really, I don't remember any of this and so I can't speak for what has been or what once was…Let's just say, I won't hold your past against you if you won't hold my past against me. Deal?"

"But, Bella, I…I failed you in so many ways. I can't begin to apologize enough for…" he began. She interrupted him again with a wave of her hand.

"Whatever happened in the past, it is in the past. The fruit of it has led me to where I am now and so I wouldn't change it. Yes, I would rather Charlie and the Blacks were not unfortunate victims caught in the crossfire, however, I can't change that. I've made my peace. You need to make yours."

Edward ran his fingers through his unruly copper hair, tugging at the edges as if that would pull the thoughts more easily to the forefront of his scattered mind.

"I just wanted you to be safe and happy and live a normal, human life," he said.

"Edward, I am safe and happy and living a wonderful life."

"But you have lost your humanity and your soul, despite everything I did to protect you. It was all a waste. I should have never left you," Edward said, leaning closer towards her and trying to infuse his gaze with as much intensity as he could muster. He did not think his pleas would succeed but he felt compelled to try. He took her hand in his and held on as if she alone could keep him from tumbling down the cold cliff of reality hanging beneath his feet.

"Bella, I've loved you with every ounce of my being since the day I met you. We belong together, we always have. I know I told you to pretend as if I never existed and move on with your life, but that was when I thought you could still live a human life. You are like me now. As unfortunate as that is, the benefit is that we can be together now."

He flashed a crooked smile towards her. Bella's eyes flashed from golden warmth to fiery heat as she turned to face Edward.

"If you think that I am the Bella Swan you knew, I'm not. That version of me died a decade ago, first in the forest, then in a car crash, and finally at the fangs of a thirsty vampire. I am no longer that woman. I am Bella Barnes, personal bodyguard of the princess of Wakanda, a member of the Dora Milaje, zimwi leader of the Watu Wa Wanyama, and I live here with my husband. I have a good life, a loving family, and I spend my life protecting those I love from harm. I don't regret becoming what I am and I wouldn't change it."

"But you…." He stuttered, at a loss for words. "You don't understand," he began, "You don't have to settle with a human. I'm here now and…"

Edward's statement ended as an angry palm slapped him across his cheek.

"Wacha! Funga mdomo yako! You will address my husband with honor or I will defend his honor myself," she said, anger overflowing into her words. "If you so speak of him again, I will personally tear you limb from limb."

Edward sat stunned, holding his hand in the place where her fingers and slapped him. His golden eyes met hers, his full of surprise and hers full of fury.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For so many things."

Edward hung his head low as he kicked stones along the shoreline. Jealousy burned like a hearth fire in his breast as he watched the human soldier walk silently and confidently across the dirt path to the hut he had vacated. Edward glared at him, spitting daggers at him in his thoughts, before he turned and ran as far and as fast as his legs would carry him back into the savannah.

ooooooooooooooooooo

Translations:

Zimwi/mazimwi: vampire (singular and plural)

Pole sana: I'm sorry

Bwana: term of respect-roughly translated to sir.

Watu wa Wanyama: People of the Animals….our shapeshifters.

Ndiyo: yes

mafuta ya zimwi: Trying to say oil/lotion for vampires…Shuri's anti-sparkle spray. I am not sure this translates correctly though.

Sawa: ok?

Bwana wangu, umerudi nyumbani: My lord, you have returned home

Ndiyo, Matoyo. Sasa?: Yes, Matoyo. What news?

Kuja hapa sasa, bwana: Come here, now, sir.

Nini?: What?

Mfalme wangu?: My king?

Wacha! Funga mdomo yako: Stop! Shut your mouth.