Nothing is mine
--
The door opened enough for someone to slip in.
"Hello, Bella." the persons said. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it.
"Let me out of here." Bella said calmly, trying to see the person's face. She realized with a jolt that he was wearing a hood.
"Bella, Bella, so supella, how her skin doth glow." The other sang in a sing-song voice.
Bella looked down at her arm. He was right. Sun from the open door had fallen across her skin and her skin was singing in the exposure.
"Body glitter." Bella explained away, shifting on the musty, creaky bed.
No, no, don't lie to me." the word 'me' ended on a high whine that made Bella wince. "You are pale. Your eyes are dark. You're getting snappish. You need to eat." The man took a bottle from the confine of his jacket, and set it one the floor. Bella could see the liquid dark, thick, heavy…red. He was offering her blood.
Bella recoiled and looked at the man in horror.
"Wha-?"
The man said nothing.
Bella gathered her muscles, checked her reflexes, and prepared to leap. To rip his throat out. If she tasted blood tonight, it would be his.
"Don't." the one word cracked in the air. "There is a silver shackle 'round your ankle."
Bella looked at him, incomprehension on her face.
"Oh!" the man sounded delighted, and tapped his lips with a finger. "Edward did not tell you. Why would he? If you hated what you had became, this would be the perfect way."
"What are you talking about?" Bella snapped as she continued to look at him.
"As a silver bullet is to a werewolf, so is a silver shackle to a vampire." The man recited this in a textbook voice.
Bella felt fear now, as she never had before. Her thin stockings prevented the silver from coming in contact with her skin, but there was a persistent, thin, simmering burn that hadn't registered until now. She reached down to rub the burn away, and recoiled in pain and horror as her fingers met with the silver. The silver had bitten and flayed her gentle skin.
She looked at the hooded man in revulsion.
An evil smile split his lips, and lifted his cheeks bones under the cloth.
"Ah. Little Bella is learning things anew and all over."
"Why are you doing this?" Bella asked in a thin whisper as she plaited the hose and tucked it gently under the cuff to prevent being burned. The quiet, angry simmer disappeared completely, but she was still wary of it.
" The devil's children should not be allowed life. Why plague us any longer? You feel nothing, except blind hunger. We feel more. We feel the pain of each death committed by," he spat the word, "your kind. Vampires. Why should you be allowed life as though your heart still beat and your lungs still needed air?"
Bella looked at this bitter, angry, frightened, and vengeful man. " I feel things. I feel love. I feel fear here. I feel anger, hate, lust, joy. We are the same. Except," she leaned forward, "you are a coward.
Instead of striking her or even getting angry, he laughed and left the room. Bella sat curled on the bed, eyeing the beaker sitting on the floor. She laid her head back on the pillow, and then sat up as an idea came to her. She looked at the bedpost where the chain was shackled. She might be able to break the post right at where the bolt was driven into the wood and carry is with her as she escaped.
But as she wrapped her hand around the wood, ready to wrench it free, she cried out again. There were valleys and rivulets of silver running and twisting in the wood. So that was no good. She looked around. Anything else that she might have used to escape was laced, too, with silver.
"Damn," she muttered.