─── ･ ｡ﾟ : *. .* : ﾟ. ───

May 14, 2006 - 9:27 pm

The night was silent as Edward drove his car down the roads of Forks save for the gentle hum of the engine beneath them. Bella sat in the passenger seat, just savoring the feeling of Edward's hand in hers and her freedom from home. Charlie had just lifted the ban of seeing Edward earlier this morning before she went to school after more than a month of going from school and straight home. It wasn't that bad since Edward would still sneak in at night and would sneak out before Charlie wakes in the morning, but it was great that she didn't need to sneak around him anymore.

Both of them just came back from the Cullen house. Esme and Carlisle warmly welcomed her back, and she spent most of her time with the former. The warm aura of the maternal figure was a fresh breath for Bella compared to Charlie's stiff and tepidness. She didn't blame him for it but there is a reason why you don't put two awkward people alone together. Emmett, Edward, and Jasper had taken to the couch to play video games. Rosalie was in the kitchen when Bella came but decided to stay in the living room for the rest of the time that she's here. Alice replaced her spot and they chatted and giggled in the kitchen for the rest of the night.

Edward and Bella left at exactly nine later that evening to take a slower drive than usual down the familiar road. Amidst her thoughts, Bella still noticed how Edward's hand slightly tightened around hers. His shoulders stiffened, and his stare on the road-hardened. It gave her a chill that was different from what the air conditioner nor his hand ever gave. The only time he ever got this way is if there was any kind of danger in the area.

"Edward, what is it?" Something spiked in her heart when she remembered the vampire out for her blood. Victoria was still out there, was she near? They were on the corner of Bella's street. A vampire wouldn't try anything near so many people, right? Before she could ask again, Edward's phone started to ring. She could see Alice on the caller ID and watched as her boyfriend grabbed the phone and held it to his ear. He stopped the car right as they were about to turn the corner. Everything seemed to darken as the car's growling turned into a low rumble and the headlights were turned off. She could hear Alice's high-pitched voice, although she couldn't hear what exactly she was saying.

"What do we do, Alice?" Edward asked. His eyes glanced over to Bella with a comforting gaze, but the tone of his voice negated the feeling. Alice said something again. A small tinkling voice that held something pivotal. "We're at the corner of Bella's street." The sound of her name caused a chilling jolt through her body. "Yes, you've said that twice now. Why are they important?" A bit of panic seeped into Edward's voice. His hand subconsciously went to Bella's. The cold temperature of it felt like a wake-up call for her to open her mouth.

"What is it, Edward?" Edward looked over to her right as Alice said something to him. His eyes glanced over at Bella. There was a moment of silence from Edward's end as Alice explained what was happening. "I am not letting Bella into the house until I know who is in it." He made a low hiss into the phone. Her house? Who was in her house? Where was Charlie? Oh God, Charlie was being held hostage by a vampire. At this point, Bella's heart was hammering inside her chest so hard that it hurt. She shouted at Edward.

"Who's in my house, Edward? Tell me something!" Edward looked like he was fighting someone in his head while Alice went silent on her side.

"Alice can't see her, but someone came to the house a few minutes after we left. They called themselves the Queen's Guard of the Volturi. The Queen is here in Forks and they said..." Edward paused. Bella didn't have the patience right now and she was a hair away from screaming.

"What did they say? Who is it, Edward?" She didn't catch his hesitation to tell her. She didn't understand how heavy the news would be.

"They said that the Queen will be living with her father, a Swan. Do you have a sister, Bella?" Edward asked.

Bella froze. at Edward's question and turned to look at him incredulously. Ever since she went missing, any mention of her became taboo. Her name was a forbidden word whenever Bella was with Charlie as any mention of her would send him spiraling down a familiar pit of sorrow. She could still remember the first summer she visited Charlie ever since the funeral. She had asked about the pictures that once covered the mantle and the walls.

It had become barren save for frames consisting of Charlie and his close friends or his second wife, Eleanor. Bella quickly noticed that the missing pictures were the ones that had her eldest sister in them. As if her being lost meant that she was lost in memory as well. The moment she asked her dad about it, Charlie was holding back tears and had to go to his room to calm down. She had to call Renee when it became late at night and she still hadn't eaten; The woman simply told her to never mention the missing girl in his presence again. Through the following summers, Bella learned to never mention her lost sister when she visited her dad until she was just a lost memory to the both of them.

When Bella begrudgingly decided to stay in Forks, she also decided that the facade she kept so long for Charlie had to be performed to any other person of Forks that she encountered. And somehow, the town seemed to silently agree. No one mentioned the missing girl and how she had the same surname as the new girl of Forks high. With no one in Forks acknowledging her existence, she knew the Cullens couldn't know about her as well. So...how did they find out about her dead sister? And what did they mean about her being the Queen from the Volturi? It just wasn't possible.

"Yes, I did have a sister. But she's dead now." Bella kept her voice as calm as she could. "Whoever the Queen is, she's not my sister." Her rage was blinding. How dare someone use a dead girl's name to get to her. Because that's what this was about, probably. The Volturi sent spies to make sure that she was changed and to make sure she won't tell anyone. "Olivia Swan is dead and she has been for seven years." Bella didn't know if what she said was for Edward or her. Her vision narrowed. She didn't hear Edward telling her to stop as she got out of the car, walking -almost sprinting- towards her house.

"Bella! Bella, stop!" Apparently, her anger wasn't enough for the super-strength of a vampire. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back, standing in front of her as a kind of barrier. "We don't know if she's dangerous or not. You can't just go in there!" He yelled.

"Charlie's in there! He's with an imposter and he's probably dead by now."
"That doesn't mean you should give out your life too! Charlie is fine, Alice saw him alive and talking to the Queen. I need you safe, Bella!"

Bella didn't slow down in her movements, trying to push against her stone-bodied boyfriend. She was right by the driveway of her neighbors. Most of the people here were in their homes or asleep by this time, and she could already see a few of them turning on their lights and looking out the windows to see what the ruckus was about. Any other time and she would've shut up in embarrassment, but the thought of someone using her dead sister's name infuriated her past control. Has she mentioned the fucking Audi parked in front of their house?

"Bella, please. I can't follow you to your house. There's a vampire there with the ability to put up a shield against other vampires. Once you go in there, I can't protect you."

"It's not just my life that's on the line, Edward! Charlie is in there with a stranger. The Volturi came for me." She replied indignantly. "For once, can you even comprehend that I'm not the only human in Forks that needs protection?" It seemed that was what got into his head. Edward's strength was gone allowing Bella to free herself from his hands. He looked surprised as if the revelation broke his reality. Unfortunately, Bella didn't care for him right now. She ran past him towards her house, barely noticing the feeling of pushing through an invisible force right when she passed the tree in front of her house.

She went straight to the door. Racking through her head for a way to expose this imposter to her father. It came to her easily. Her sister's birthmark. Her sister had a mark on her right shoulder, four-pointed like a star or like a disproportioned bird. Vampires can't possibly remake such a flaw and her sister never liked showing it to people.

Bella opened the door and instantly heard Charlie crying, raising the alarms inside of her more. She sprinted to the living room where she heard him but stopped in the doorway as she heard him talk.

"You're here...you're really here." Charlie cried, "We looked so hard for you. Even when the search party was stopped, I'd go to the woods and look for any sign that you were alive. B-but there weren't any. Th-There was only your red jacket, and Erica was gone." He let out a sob and hiccuped. There was a second of silence, just his cries and sniffles could be heard.

Bella slowly stepped into the room. She saw him sitting on the couch, his head hung low. He showed the most emotion Bella had heard or seen from him. "A-and then, your mother died...I just...If it wasn't for Bella, I would have been gone a long time ago." His words made her stop in her tracks. The bookshelf by the wall had become a barrier to shield her view from whoever Charlie was talking to, but Bella could guess who it was. "Olivia, there's nothing else that could make me as happy as you coming home, but...wh-what happened? You- You've been gone for six years! A-and then you're here and you're not gone anymore. I just-" Charlie stammered out.

Then she heard it, her voice. It changed a lot through the six years that she's been gone, yet it still held the same tone it did then. Bella always thought that it was like how she imagined Hermione Granger from Harry Potter to sound like, like a stuck-up know-it-all. Only time had deepened her voice. Now, it didn't sound as annoying as it did before with its former high-pitched and nasally tone. Her voice now held a firm finality and professional undertone. But she still noticed it.

"It's a long story, dad, but I'm here now. You're little Olly is home, daddy." Olivia leaned in to hug Charlie, her long, dark waves cascading down her shoulder and creating a curtain around them. Bella walked closer to both of them enough that she could hear Charlie's silent cries. It didn't occur to her that her footsteps were heard as well when Olivia lifted her head from her father's shoulders and looked up at Bella.

"Isabella?" Bella was breathless at the sight of her. She could still see her sister that would always pick her first whenever they played at the playground with the other kids, the sister that would talk her ear endless with facts from the dozens of books she owned. She saw her older sister, Olivia Swan, with tears brimming her eyes. She saw her sister sitting in front of her and alive. She was pale but her cheek was flushed, green eyes turning red from the tears coming down her face. Olivia was human. She was human and alive.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ : *. .* : ﾟ. ───

didn't notice that quotev was unpublished. sad. to keep things on track, the next update will be on Friday gmt+8.