~Chapter 14~
The council meeting had broken up and everyone was beginning to scatter. Jacob, with Tekali at his side approached Isabella and asked quietly "Can we walk and talk for a little bit?"
"Of course." Isabella nodded stepping to follow them, gesturing for Eliza to follow.
Eliza stood and dusted off her pants, taking a few steps to follow her mother when she felt a grip on her wrist. Eliza turned and saw Leah holding her arm Leah's expression contained a wordless plea, yet still retained an aura of fierce pride. "Please?" Leah said very quietly.
Eliza hesitated a moment, but felt her Leah's need and reached a decision, glancing over at Bella, "Mother, you go on ahead. I'll catch up later."
Isabella looked back, hesitating just a moment herself before giving Eliza a significant look, then nodding subtly "Let me know if you need anything." She turned and caught up with Jacob, though she couldn't help but glance back and watch Leah gesture toward the forest. Eliza nodded in consent.
Jacob didn't say anything for several moments as the he, Tekali, and Bella of them walked through the clearing away towards the relative privacy of the woods. The three continued to walk silently. More deeply into the forest until they were well away from anyone else.
When they reached a silent mutual agreement about being far enough away, Jacob turned to look at her. "Bella, I… I just wanted to say. I'm sorry." Jacob said, looking uncharacteristically humble.
Isabella frowned, clearly caught off guard by Jacob's sudden apology. "For what?"
"For… not being there. For letting this happening to you. You were right with what you said earlier. It's my fault you're a vampire. I'm so sorry." Jacob answered, his emotions getting the best of him, as he appeared near tears .
Isabella sighed and shook her head slowly "Jacob, I admit I have a lot of anger about what happened, but I stopped blaming you a long time ago. I didn't mean what I said earlier today. I hadn't expected to see you. I doubt anything could have surprised me more and it… it.. really threw me off. So I just kind of responded with anger, you see….that sort of emotion…..that defense…has served me well for a long time. But you…you have nothing to apologize for."
"We let that bitch through and she got to you, and I promised to stop her." Jacob shook his head a little bit and his voice dropped. "I thought.. I thought she killed you, and it was entirely my fault ."
"Stop. Just stop." Isabella said, holding up her hand. "It's not your fault. I crossed her when the Cullens killed her mate to protect me. Then they abandoned me. You didn't. You tried to defend me. She managed to trick us all. Don't blame yourself. I don't blame you."
Tekali grinned and elbowed her husband. "See, I've told you that for years. She wouldn't blame you. Now you have proof."
Jacob actually blushed, surprising Isabella, and chuckled, rubbing his side playfully, before he frowned again. "So, would you mind filling us in a bit on what's happened since? I mean, you're here and you're a vampire. That much is obvious. But… you have a daughter, who you said isn't your daughter by birth but who looks a hell of a lot like you. I'm pretty sure you didn't have a twin sister… and she's a vampire too? How the hell did that happen? It's a lot of coincidences and I've been alive long enough I don't believe in coincidences?"
Isabella seemed to be on the edge of laughter yet she didn't seem happy, "That's a very, very long story."
Jacob shrugged and gestured to the silent forest around them. "We have a little bit of time I think. How about giving us the highlights?"
Isabella frowned a little bit and nodded slowly. "Okay, but I'm only going to give you the cliff notes version. Where should I start?"
"How about what happened with the red-headed leech and worked forward from there?" Jacob asked gently.
Isabella raised an eyebrow when she heard the word leech then nodded , inhaling deeply of the forest to center herself before she began her tale. "When Victoria played her trick, setting two newborns loose, you all went off to get them. I've since discovered it's a tactic vampires have used for almost two centuries. Turn some people and then set them free to create chaos. Its part of what we're dealing with right now in the cities. Usually the goal is territory or the elimination of a group. This was a bit different Victoria had a very specific goal; me. She waited until the precise moment you were gone. She came in, grabbed me, knocked me unconscious and dragged me away. When I came to, I didn't know where I was, it was just a cabin in the middle of nowhere."
"She had decided that death was too good for me. She bit me, and during the 3 or 4 days it takes to turn someone, she imprisoned me somewhere with nothing, and no hope of escape." Isabella looked at the ground as they walked, idly kicking a stick out of the way.
"When you first become a vampire, you're thirsty for blood. I can't describe how it feels if you're not familiar with the sensation, but it's not a fun one. It's like walking through the desert, without water for a week, only a thousand times worse. And she left me trapped. I couldn't get out, all that existed was me and my hunger. I couldn't tell you how long that lasted. Years. My memory of that time is hazy. I went a little crazy." Isabella shrugged, obviously holding her emotions very firmly in check as she recounted her tale.
"I did however manage to escape. The first thing I did was feed, and feed and feed. I'm not sure there was an animal left within 5 miles. When I calmed down a little, I was still crazed, but at least I wasn't feral. I remembered vaguely from my time with the Cullens, Edward telling me about the Volturi, how they were as close to royalty as vampires had, and that they lived in Volterra, Italy. So I stowed away on a plane and made my way there. At least I'm pretty sure it was a plane, I was still a bit fuzzy. I didn't know what else to do. Even if I had known where to find them, the Cullens had rejected me. I was a vampire now so coming back here didn't seem like an option either." Isabella said a tad defensively, though she saw no recrimination on Jacob or Tekali's face.
"When I showed up, I know I looked quite the sight. In nothing more than rags, my hair a mess, I basically looked like a savage. But I was brought before the council, and Aro touched me and couldn't read me, then none of the other powers of the guard worked on me, he became intrigued. They cleaned me up, fed me, and clothed me. It felt so good to belong somewhere, so when the offer to join them came a few days into my stay I didn't hesitate." Isabella shook her head, smiling wryly.
"They made me feel welcome. I'm not sure if it was pity, though I doubt it, we Volturi are hardly renowned for pity or mercy, but after Aro heard my story, he "adopted" me, or at least the vampire equivalent. Then I began training as a guard, and I don't think anyone in their history had ever taken to the training like I did. I never, ever wanted to be helpless again."
"I learned quickly, it's not hard when you spend all your time training and don't need to sleep. 'Obsessed' is a word I heard thrown around more than once, but in less than a year after joining, I was assigned to become an enforcer. They'd send us out on little missions to make sure the vampire secret stayed kept, and things of that nature." Isabella smiled, almost wistfully, as she recalled the training.
Jacob and Tekali had been listening intently, absolutely caught up in the story, but at that point Jacob frowned. "Wait, I'm confused. Victoria changed you, turned you into… a vampire. Where does Eliza fit in the story? I didn't think vampires could have children."
Isabella shook her head and chuckled softly. "I'm getting to that. One of the missions they gave myself and Felix, another member of the guard, turned out to be a very significant one, with long reaching ramifications. It was less than three years after I arrived there. We had to go to Brazil. There had been reports of mysterious disappearances and deaths there for years. However they became more and more commonplace, and finally the Volturi had to take steps. It took us 5 days to track them to what I can only describe as worse than any horror movie."
"In the basement of an abandoned, filthy warehouse, a vampire ancient was performing horrible experiments. He… kidnapped and impregnated human women, and forced them to carry the half human, half vampire, child to term." Isabella couldn't keep a tone of horror at the memory out of her voice.
Both Jacob and Tekali reacted to that. Tekali gasped and put her hand to her mouth, while Jacob gritted his teeth and managed to mutter out "That's… fucking… monstrous." His veins stood out on his neck as he quivered with rage. For a just a moment both Isabella and Tekali thought he might spontaneously shift.
Isabella nodded. "Oh I know. And it got worse, after the hybrids were born he would perform experiments on them, injecting venom and other chemicals into their bodies and then siphoning it out again and again, seeing what reactions he could get. And he didn't do this for days or weeks, he did this for years. When Felix and I showed up, he had his creations, at least the ones he was done with, attack us. They were rabid by that point, Felix told me he could handle them and told me to catch the ancient before he got away."
Isabella shuddered at the memory as she recounted it, "I followed him into his laboratory, there were blood and dead bodies everywhere, it was like a slaughterhouse. There was only one of them alive, strapped down to a table of sorts.
She looked like she was about 16 years old, later we found out this meant that she could have been as young as 5, since the hybrids apparently age to maturity very quickly. I attacked the ancient but he was far older, more experienced and more powerful. Only me being so angry and having fed far more recently, gave me any advantage. After a brief but savage fight he fled, I was in no shape to catch him, he had hurt me pretty badly."
Isabella's voice dropped low as she continued. "I was low on blood and I was desperate. At that point I was only acting on my instincts. I staggered over to the girl on the table and I bit her... I wish I could say it was to end her suffering, but I wasn't thinking clearly enough for that. What I didn't expect was for her to bite me back! I bit her neck, and she sank her teeth into my neck almost at the same time, piercing the hard skin and injecting her venom into me, causing me to instinctively inject my venom into her. Normally when another vampire bites you, injecting his venom, it hurts like hell, and leaves a faint scar. This burned through my entire body, filling my veins, it was like being changed all over again."
"That's how Felix found us, locked on to each other's necks, I'm sure it was quite the picture. He later told me he tried to get us apart, and when he couldn't he carried us both out and burnt the place to the ground. Then he took us to a house we had to hide out. All I remember from that time is feeling her memories, absorbing them. I saw everything she'd been through. The utter, constant pain she grew up with. She knew nothing of life beyond the experiments performed upon her by ancient."
"Felix said it took about 3 hours for us to release each other." Isabella shook her head and took a deep steadying breath before continuing.
"Felix told me he wasn't sure what to do but it didn't really matter, he couldn't separate us any way. When we finally let go of each other, Felix said I snarled and lashed out at him any time he tried to get close to her. I don't remember any of that. I remember waking up, next to her, with Felix sitting in a chair across the room staring at the two of us." Isabella closed her eyes and shook her head. "I had no idea about the changes which had happened to the both of us during that time."
Jacob tilted his head, curious, frowning,. "What do you mean changes to both of you?"
Isabella frowned back at him, "With me they were subtle changes. My body filled out a bit, I became slightly more toned. Almost as if something was completing and optimizing my potential growth process. There a lot of other changes we didn't notice until much later.
"Waking up was probably the most surreal experience I've ever had. Here I was next to someone who looked just like me. I had no idea what was happening. It took me a minute to realize it was the girl from the lab. Her body had completely changed. You see us now? We look like we could be sisters, possibly even twins." Isabella stated flatly, Jacob and Tekali nodded in agreement before she continued.
"When I first saw her, she looked Brazilian, darker skin, dark hair, but it was as if like my venom and her physiology… changed her. It also created our bond. It worked out though, because when she came out of it an hour later she was completely freaked out and would only let me near her." Isabella smiled softly, a look that was surprising given her recent behavior but not entire out of place surprisingly when she remembered the incident.
"We took her back to Volterra, and I think a combination of Aro's curiosity and my protective feelings towards her, convinced Aro to allow her to live. And boy did she live. She started making up for lost time as fast as she could. I'm the only memory of anything like a mother she has. I've pretty much raised her and couldn't love her more if I had given birth to her myself. She… saved me from a pretty dark place in my mind. But when she started training, shortly after we got back, that's when we discovered that the two of us are different than other vampires." Isabella said
"How so?" Tekali asked, beating her husband to the punch.
"Well, like I said she seemed to change me, making my body the optimum it could be. We're both measurably and significantly faster, stronger and more dexterous. Our senses are heightened, though I don't think our sense of smell is quite at your level. Our bodies are more efficient, we need less blood and it lasts longer for us. We also have something much like your… pack mind. We can hear each other's thoughts, feelings, talk back and forth in our minds from any distance. We have… a few other tricks, but you get the idea." Isabella shrugged casually as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"And now you two work together as enforcers for the Volturi?" Jacob asked.
Isabella nodded. "We're a good team. We don't need to talk or see to come up with a plan, and when we fight, we know where and how the other is moving. People are starting to say the Volturi have two sets of witch twins. I believe my nickname has become "Assassin" and Eliza's is "Executioner". Or it might be the other way around. Eliza is a lot like me sometimes but she also has a sense of humor. You should have seen everyone's expression the first time she Caius "Uncle", I thought Caius was going to have an apoplectic fit. But anyway, these attacks started cropping up recently and we were sent to the west coast to deal with them, which pretty much brings you up to the present."
Jacob nodded slowly, "Thank you for sharing Bella. I.. can't tell you what it means to see you again. I missed you, even if you've changed. It's good to have you back. "Without warning he turned and wrapped his overly muscular arms her in a hug.
Isabella stiffened up completely, surprised. She did not like to be touched at all. Much less a hug like this. For several seconds she had to resist the urge to push him away or do something far worse. After a long agonizing moment she did her best to relax and return the hug, albeit tentatively. "Do you remember the question you asked me earlier today? " He asked, not loosening his grip of the hug yet. His question elicited a frown from Isabella.
She was puzzled and it showed when he released the hug and stepped back to look at her. "We are still friends. Always." Isabella smiled a genuine, if brief smile then replied "And now you won't always have to be worried about protecting me. We can both take care of ourselves these day."
Tekali spoke up quietly, catching Isabella's attention. "I do have a question. Are you really okay with the whole imprint thing? I mean I know it came as much a shock to us as it did to you, but still…"
Isabella frowned, glanced back at the forest as if she could see her daughter, then she sighed. "I don't know. But not for the obvious reasons."
Tekali frowned thoughtfully, "So the fact she's a female werewolf doesn't bother you?"
Isabella shook her head slowly. "No, her being female or a shape shifter has nothing to do with my concerns. More like… an imprint is really intense. I remember that, and while in some ways Eliza is nearly as old as I am, in other's she's just a child with no experience. I'm worried she'll be overwhelmed. But I did mean what I said. I won't try and dissuade her from a relationship, nor will I compel her to be in one. She'll make her own choices and I'll be her worried, protective mother."
Tekali nodded, looking satisfied. "Leah's a good person who has been alone a very long time. It's gotten to the point that she avoids people and spends most of her time off somewhere alone in wolf form. I know she didn't expect to imprint. I just… I hope it works out."
Jacob shrugged a bit and nodded, "I hope so too, and I've yet to see an imprint that hasn't worked out. But… that doesn't mean we can't worry. I think it's pretty obvious this is a unique case." He coughed slightly, shaking his head and changing the subject, looking at Isabella. "What time do you want to leave for Seattle tomorrow?" He asked
Isabella blinked in surprise at the sudden change in topic "Leave for Seattle?" She asked, caught off guard.
Jacob nodded, "I thought me, Paul and one of the others, maybe Seth, could go down with you where you met these wolves. Nose around a little bit, see what we could come up with and I assumed you'd want to come with us."
Isabella made a face "Ew… horrible pun. But sure, let's say 7:00 am?"
Jacob grinned in a lopsided goofy way when she got the pun then nodded "That works, we'll have to drive down there. We can't exactly show up as giant wolves, or walk around without shirts and shoes and not attract attention. We were thinking of heading down during the morning and then getting the feel of the area, booking a motel room to stay to get a few hours of sleep, and stay the night in the area. That'll give us a chance to get a feel for the area and plenty of time to investigate. We'll take our bikes; do you want us to give you a lift?"
Isabella shook her head and grinned, "No, I've got my own ride. I'll meet you at the highway to Seattle at 7:00 am sharp."
Jacob nodded, turning to head back the way they'd came with Tekali "As long as you're not driving a truck older than you are this time."
Isabella snorted and waved as they separated, and then to wander in the direction of home. She walked slowly, idly wondering how Eliza was doing, but resisting the urge to check up on her through the mental link. She knew that she had to contact Aro and inform him of the alliance. A call she was more nervous about than she'd tried to let on.
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DUN DUN DUN!
1) So Eliza's history comes out! O_O i hope you all aren't disappointed! This chapter and the next chapter happen at the same time. And covers her back story from different perspectives. I'm not keen on repeating the same story but I think it's important in this case. Since it's essential to both Jacob and Bella's interaction friendship wise, and to Leah and Eliza's interaction relationship wise. However I don't want to rip any readers off. So the next chapter will also be posted today. One chapter split into two essentially.
2) Once again. massive thanks go to DarkBella. She's been letting me pester her with random questions as i continue to write the story ahead, helping prod me to knew ideas. (including one massive inspiration :D) At the same time she's been fixing grammar and making sure the whole thing flows. At this point she's way more than a beta. This story is basically a collaboration and for all intents and purposes, she's a co-author. She's been wonderful.
3) In response to the two people who have private messaged me. I *am* a Red vs Blue fan. So occasionally i've thrown in a joke or reference to them.
4) For those who are reading and waiting for Bellice. Once again, I promise it will happen. Unfortunately you're going to have to wait awhile longer before they meet. There's alot of story I want to set up first. The Cullens don't even know Isabella is alive yet. But the cat will be out of the bag soon ^_^
Lastly, please read and review. it brings other people to look at my story. Which I like. But mostly it encourages me to write more. Encourages me that DarkBella and I aren't just writing something that amuses ourselves.
Favorite us, follow us, but please review. I *want* to hear what specifically you like and what you don't like.
