Chapter 17: Remembering The Darkness

When Bella woke up, her head was pounding. She didn't dare open her eyes in case light made the problem worse. She tried to stay as still as possible and she tried hard not to think about the baseball game from hell. She could still hear the screaming and she felt her stomach lurch.

She quickly sat up and her headache intensified. She threw her legs out of bed and ran to the bathroom. It wasn't until her bare legs hit the tile floor that she realized she was only wearing her underwear. Her body heaved painfully as she emptied her stomach into the toilet.

After she flushed, she lay down on the floor. The tiles felt freezing against her overheated skin and she savored the sensation as her body temperature began to drop back down. The headache was fading away as she focused on her breathing.

I almost died, she thought to herself. Again. Getting almost killed was not really new, but Edward had never asked her to help him defend her life. She knew he'd never have asked if any other way was possible. Those strange transient vampires had meant to kill her. It was possible they could have killed somebody in her family.

My family, she thought of the phrase again. She'd had a family once, a long time ago, and she'd never been willing to kill to defend them. They made her hate herself and they'd made her afraid of everyone else.

She thought of how comforted and safe Carlisle and Esme wanted her to feel. She thought of Emmett showing up at the hotel, asking her to come home, wanting her to trust him. She thought of Jasper and Alice at the baseball game, reacting to defend her without hesitation. These vampires were more of a family than she'd ever had before.

She wondered how they felt about her now. She tried to shift her body and her sweaty skin stuck to the tiles… She wondered if there was a good explanation as to why she was naked.

She hauled herself to her feet and reached for her toothbrush. As she worked on getting the taste of puke from her mouth, she looked at herself in the mirror. It was all she needed to convince her that a shower was necessary.

As hot water cascaded over her shoulders, she heard the screaming again. Her stomach tightened, but she breathed deeply and refused to retch. It was necessary, she told herself. She thought of Edward's hand in hers as he stared down the threat.

Together, they'd faced a threat. They'd always faced problems together.

He could have been hurt. If she had hesitated when he called for help, he could have been killed. She tried to imagine a world without Edward. A world where she was returned to being alone. Tears slipped down her face, as she allowed herself to be weak, here in the shower where nobody could see.

Killing was a terrible thing, but she could imagine something worse.

After she was dried and dressed, she ventured out of the bedroom. The third floor of the house appeared to be empty, but for herself. The second floor was silent as the dead and she hesitated on the stairs. The first floor was quiet. She could imagine anger and fear and hate, waiting for her at the bottom. What would they do, now that they knew?

She descended slowly, but the downstairs appeared to be as empty as the upper floors. She turned the corner and flinched as she spotted the back of Jasper's head. He was sprawled out across the couch, quiet and unmoving. Her memory recalled the sight of Jasper's arm on fire, the light from which had illuminated the scars across his face and neck. She remembered the sensation of his pain and terror pulsing through her like blood through an artery. She felt the guilt creep in, making it hard to breathe.

"You don't have anything to feel guilty about," he spoke softly. "Come here."

She let her feet carry herself forward so she could see him. He held a thermos in one hand, the other arm was wound in gauze that stretched from his fingers to cover half of his chest.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I lit you on fire."

"On purpose?"

"No!"

Jasper laughed. "Well, then it was an accident. I'll live." He drew his legs up, making room on the couch for her. "Please sit, you don't look well."

Bella sat down, relieved to be off of her feet, but feeling anxious about sitting next to someone she'd nearly killed.

"Where is everyone?"

"Rose and Alice are trying to locate a consistent food source while I heal. Carlisle's working to maintain appearances. Esme and Edward are looking for a resolution to Waylon Forge's murder. Emmett's in the garage buffing Edward's footprint out his bumper. You didn't answer my question. Are you okay?"

"I feel sick," she admitted. "My head is cracking. I'll live too."

He nodded his head as he felt her guilt flare up again. He wondered what it meant, that he could feel her emotions so clearly, when the others were blinded by her presence.

"Jasper, I'm really sorry I hurt you," she said.

"You have no reason to be sorry. You did what you had to do to protect this family and we are all here because of that."

She looked away from him and fought back another rush of tears. She didn't want anyone to see her cry.

Jasper sat on the couch next to Bella, eyeing her with a newfound respect. The little human was far more dangerous than even he could have imagined. It was preposterous that she found herself feeling helpless and frustrated.

As she picked at her nails to distract herself, there was something nagging at him, something he wasn't sure he should ask. He looked down at his bandaged arm, remembering the flame creeping up. He shivered at the memory. One more to join the rest he didn't want. He followed it up with the memory of hot fire suddenly ceasing to exist.

"How long have you been starting fires, Bella?"

"All my life."

"How long have you been putting them out?"

"You were my first."

He nodded his head at the confirmation of what he'd suspected. He really had come close to losing his life.

"How did you know you could?"

"I didn't know, not until I had to...You were so afraid, so hurt, and pumping that feeling all over the field. Then everyone was afraid, for you, of me. You were going to die and I just knew. I could stop it the same way I created it."

So I can influence her, he thought.

"Thank you, then. For saving my life."

She could have killed me, if she hadn't wanted to save me. It was his turn to feel guilty. He wasn't sure, if the roles had been reversed, he'd have made the same decision. Why would you save someone who had previously tried to kill you?

"Can I ask you a question, Jasper? It's personal...You don't have to answer, but I want to know…"

It took him by surprise that she wanted to ask him a personal question. At this point, he figured he owed her that much.

"Ask."

"You got hurt, right? A lot, I mean… You have scars from your time before this family?"

"I do."

"And you and Alice… Is it difficult? Was it? Letting her see those scars?"

"I felt like a savage and I was terrified she'd be disgusted and run. Or would she pity me and would that be worse? But she just loved me." Jasper thought about the question for a moment and presented one of his own. "Everyone's a bit confused about the nature of your relationship with Edward. What is the nature of your relationship?"

Bella thought about her recent dinners with Edward, the soft glances across the table. His hesitant little touches to her fingers, to her elbow. She sometimes wondered if he knew he was doing it. She thought about the way it felt, secure and protected, curled against his chest as he ran through the trees.

She thought, briefly, of a world without Edward and cringed away from it. She thought about how much time they'd spent together and how comfortable it had been. She thought of how insane it was, that they thought they could settle down here in Forks and do that without ever having to tell their family the truth. How could she have any right to ask them to accept her, if she could never be brave enough to be honest?

What is my relationship with Edward? It was not an easy or simple thing to put into words. She couldn't do it without telling the truth.

"My parents were super religious," she told him. "They weren't thrilled by having a daughter who could start fires with her mind. They thought I was a demon. I had three failed exorcisms by the time I was ten. When they couldn't pray the demons away, they beat me. They had me institutionalized by the time I was thirteen. They couldn't get a doctor who was willing to label me crazy, so instead of a psych ward, I got sent to a detention center for troubled girls. Some were addicts and thieves, girls no one cared enough to help. But some of them were violent and got off on hurting others. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I tried to kill myself. It didn't work. Then someone showed up...Someone like you."

Marcus Volturi, Jasper knew.

"He made me an offer. Do a job for him and he'd spring me. Set me up in a foster home that would care for me until I was eighteen. So I agreed." Bella shrugged. "I don't know how they got me out and I don't want to know. I obviously didn't know he was a vampire, but I could tell he was a creep... I was just so happy to be free.'

"I set the fire they wanted and they made me disappear. It was wonderful, at first. The guy they left me with wasn't mean,but he pretty much ignored me. I didn't hate it… But people started checking up on me more often than I liked. They started asking strange questions about my age and my health. What I did, where I went. Who I spent time with. It occurred to me, you never get something for nothing. My life just doesn't work that way. I got my freedom because I agreed to start a fire. But that safe haven? What was I expected to give for that? I didn't want to find out, so I ran."

"You want to know about my relationship with Edward? Here's my relationship with Edward: He saved my life without expecting something in return. I saved his life in return because I could... He wanted to see me safely wherever I was going. I told him I had nowhere to go, so he asked me to see him safely where he was going. I went with him because why the hell not? It was probably the best decision I ever made because he makes me feel safe, he's kind to me because he likes me, not because he wants something, not because he's afraid of what I'll do. Not even because he loves me, which I suspect he does.'

"I don't trust easy, but I trust him. I would do anything for him and I'd die without him. Do I love him? It would be so easy. Like starting a fire. The energy is there waiting...But there's parts of me, he hasn't seen yet. I don't think he's aware of how damaged I am. I don't think he knows how much trouble I could cause him. There are people looking for me and I'm sure they're the sort of people who don't have a lot of patience."

"Who the hell is looking for her?" Emmett asked from the garage.

"Bella, what makes you think people are looking for you?"

Emmett chanted quietly to himself, "Don't say Volturi, don't say Volturi..."

"Jasper, the guy who bailed me out? Carlisle's got a painting of that guy in his office. Edward called them…"

"Volturi." Jasper said the name for her. He hated that it looked like Emmett and Rosalie were going to be right.

Out in the garage, Emmett cursed.

"They went to a lot of trouble to get me to do what a can of gasoline could have done faster. They put me up in a house with a babysitter who wasn't a vampire, and all the amenities a teenage girl could want. Call me paranoid, but that seems like, I don't know... investment. I can't imagine they were happy when they realized I was gone."

She was right, of course.

"Dude, she and Edward are going to have to start telling the truth. They're asking us to die for them."

"Bella, when everyone gets back… We're going to need to ask you some questions. You're going to have to answer them."

If Bella was surprised, it didn't show on her face. Jasper studied the spectrum of emotions she was generating. Exhaustion, anxiety, guilt and shame. She leaned back into the couch and closed her eyes, while her shoulders tensed against the cushions.

Jasper tried to influence her then, as she failed to relax he tried to calm her. He saw the tension start to leave her face and shoulders, and then her anxiety spiked and her eyes snapped open.

"Don't."

He stopped and withdrew.


One by one, the Cullens joined Bella and Jasper in the living room. Emmett came out of the garage and took a seat, but said nothing. He didn't see any need to break the silence or the tension. Rosalie and Alice arrived an hour later. Alice placed herself cross legged on the floor next to Jasper, Rosalie moved to stand behind Emmett.

Bella considered turning on the television to distract herself from the sullen vampires, but decided it did not agree with her head. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander the outermost edges of a nap.

Esme came home with Edward and she was relieved to see Bella sitting upright on the couch. She rushed forward and let her lips softly graze the top of Bella's head, whose eyes snapped open in surprise.

"Thank God, you're okay," she whispered.

Edward was surprised to see Bella sharing furniture with Jasper, sitting in awkward silence with his siblings. He examined her face, her body language, for a sign that something wasn't wrong, but she just seemed tired.

Jasper was thinking about her gift in terms of military applications. Wondering how far she could reach, how big a fire could she start… Did she need to see her target? Could she start multiple fires at once? How much control over the flame did she actually have once it ignited? His imagination was out of control and Edward could see on the fringes of his thoughts, the idea of Bella as a vampire.

Alice's train of thought was not dissimilar. She wanted her family safe and that included Bella. Bella would be a lot less vulnerable if she were more like them. If she were a vampire, maybe Alice could see again.

"No." Edward said quietly, catching Alice's eye.

She might want it, Alice thought.

Rosalie was thinking about the empty thermos of blood in Jasper's hands. It hadn't been easy, but what Emmett had said about herding deer had made the most sense. There was a cabin on the back of the Cullen acreage and tonight it had twelve frightened occupants tipping over vases and lamps and settling uneasily upon a bear skinned rug.

Emmett was thinking about his Jeep. In his head, he had disassembled the vehicle down to the last piece and, in his head, he was now rebuilding the vehicle. His imagination was incredibly detailed, every part accounted for on the floor of the garage and across his workbench and, in his imagination, he was rebuilding the car in real time.

Edward found he liked Emmett's thoughts the most tonight, so he stayed there to watch Emmett rebuild his truck. In Emmett's mind there was no vision of Bella as a vampire nor Volturi retribution. There was just Emmett with his 60,000 dollar jigsaw puzzle.

Carlisle came home last. Edward found the smell of the hospital as offensive as the first time. Carlisle's thoughts were surprisingly chaotic. He'd been rattled by his new daughter who could start fires with her mind, but mixed into the flames were thoughts of Charlie Swan's tired face, a toddler in the hospital who had swallowed laundry pods, and the memory of Waylon Forge lying naked on an operating table.

Emmett's thoughts of the Jeep faltered.

"Bella," Carlisle said.

She turned to look at him.

He hesitated, not sure how to ask.

"Are you-"

"I'm fine. I'm going to be fine. That was just a lot. All at once."

"I need to ask you some questions, if you're up to it. It can't wait."

"I know."

"How did you meet Marcus Volturi?"

"He got me out of a prison for juvenile offenders."

"What?" Esme interrupted, her face was pure surprise.

Carlisle held up a hand to stop his wife from getting sidetracked. "Why did he do that?"

"He wanted me to start a fire. He said if I set the fire, he'd set me free... so I did."

"Marcus Volturi," Rosalie repeated, "Needed you to set a fire?"

"What'd you light up?" Emmett asked, incredulous.

"Don't answer that!" Carlisle shouted.

"Don't answer that? You know how important that is?" Emmett argued. His lips curled into a silent snarl.

"Exactly. The oldest coven of vampires, the only governing body we have, outsourced to a human. They wanted something kept secret. If she tells us, we're complicit."

"We're already complicit," Jasper said. "We know we're harboring a fugitive. Anyone in this room going to send her back to Italy? She knows we're vampires. Anyone in this room going to kill her or turn her? We're already risking a death-"

"What do you mean 'turn her'?" Bella interrupted at the same time Edward released a feral snarl.

"You didn't tell her?" Emmett asked Edward.

"No."

I've never met two people, alive or undead, so hell bent on lying to themselves and each other. Emmett's thoughts screamed at Edward, laced with frustration. Here's what you missed while you were out!

Edward could see the Jeep through Emmett's eyes again, but this time Emmett was sitting on a footstool in the garage, eavesdropping on what the human assumed was a private conversation. Together, they could still smell the fresh coat of wax and motor oil.

"…he makes me feel safe, he's kind to me because he likes me, not because he wants something, not because he's afraid of what I'll do. Not even because he loves me, which I suspect he does.'

"I don't trust easy, but I trust him. I would do anything for him and I'd die without him. Do I love him? It would be so easy. Like starting a fire."

If you want to admit someday, what everyone else in this house already knows, including her, you'd be a lot happier a lot sooner. Get your head out of your ass.

Edward was stunned into silence. Is that really how Bella felt? He'd spent plenty of days wishing he could hear her private thoughts and here he'd suddenly received them. The awe and joy turned sour as Emmett's breach in her confidence fueled his own anger.

"I think at this point, everyone in this house has had enough of fear, anger, and misinformation." Jasper spoke over the Emmett-Edward pissing contest. "We all have a right to know what we've gotten into, including her. Bella, if you wanted to, you could become a vampire."

"How?" She asked too quickly for Edward's liking.

"Edward would have to bite you-"

"I'm not agreeing to that!" Edward yelled, wanting to shut the entire conversation down. "If I put my mouth on her, I'd kill her!" Even as he argued against the idea, he wondered if his admission was as true as it used to be. The sight of Bella collapsing on the ballfield was still fresh in his mind, and the idea of eternity without her was as repulsive to him as her scent was alluring.

"Well, I suppose Carlisle could-"

Carlisle too, was uncomfortable with the change in subject. "Regardless of who bites her, that is not a decision that needs to be made today."

"Death would be better," said Rosalie, causing Carlisle and Emmett to flinch.

Bella continued oblivious. "That's all? Someone bites me? And poof!"

Rosalie continued, full of vitriol. "That's not all. Three to four days of excruciating pain, rendering you incapable of doing anything besides screaming and soiling yourself… And when that's over, your new life ambition will be sucking the life out of every living thing on the planet."

"That is not a decision that needs to be made." Edward echoed Carlisle, drawing attention back to himself.

Bella looked at Edward, his eyes were trained on her face, unblinking. He didn't feel like he had to pretend anymore, she realized. How much of his day to day behavior had to be based around what humans thought of him? She wondered what he would do in a world where he never had to hide.

It hadn't escaped her notice that he hadn't repeated Carlisle's sentiment verbatim. She felt grief at the realization: that she couldn't live without him, didn't mean he couldn't live without her. Maybe he wouldn't want her around forever.

"We're off topic," he said. "Priorities. How likely are the Volturi to be looking for her?"

Jasper agreed with Edward to stop the argument he could feel brewing. He asked the question Carlisle had feared. "Bella, what did you burn?"

"A church."

"You burned down a church?" Esme's hand covered her mouth. She hadn't meant to speak out loud.

Bella curled and uncurled her shoulders. "Well, it wasn't like it was during Sunday Mass…" Although that wasn't entirely true. She didn't know what day the fire had been set. "The church already looked condemned. The windows were broken and the roof was half gone."

"Where was it?" Carlisle asked. Why would Marcus burn a church?

"Your guess is as good as mine. They took me to a private airfield. No one said where we were going. They gave me a drink shortly after we boarded, but they'd drugged it. When I woke up, we were already in a parked car outside the church. They took me to get food after, but I didn't recognize the language. They drugged me again and I was back in America."

"Was it hot or cold there?"

"Cold, but there wasn't any snow... There were mountains."

"Would you recognize the language if you heard it again?"

"Maybe… It sounded like Italian, but it wasn't Italian."

"Bella," Esme asked. "Honey, how did they even find you?"

Bella shifted uncomfortably again. "The news, I think."

"The news?"

"He had an old newspaper with him… My family made the front page. They almost died in a house fire. Afterwards, they had me charged with arson and attempted murder… Only the arson charge stuck."

For once, Bella had rendered them all speechless. She tried not to cringe away from the pressure of their horrified stares, choosing to look down at her hands instead.

"The only thing I'm going to say about it," Bella spoke quietly to her fingernails. "The only truth on the subject I owe you, is that I didn't let them die. They deserved to be in that house when it burned down and I didn't let them die. I just wanted them to be afraid enough to let me go…"

And they had been afraid.

Bella remembered her brother and sister's tearstained faces as they held onto their mom. Her mother's bathrobe had caught fire, leaving her sootstained and mostly nude in the backyard. Their father had placed himself between Bella and her siblings; he was a large man, but the smoke inhalation made him cough so hard his body doubled over. Bella was thirteen going on fourteen and suddenly understood that his strength was no match for hers.

Her family had known exactly who had started the fire and how close they'd come to dying in it. Fear was a great motivator. They'd insisted to the police and EMTs that Bella had started the fire in an attempt to kill them and for their efforts, Bella received a psych evaluation at a mental institution.

She did a lot of lying at first.

The investigators found no evidence of foul play, beyond the house having been razed to the ground. It looked like Bella might be sent home, assuming suitable housing could be found. Bella had no intention of going home and she was pretty sure her parents had no intention of taking her back.

So she'd confessed. Sort of. She told them she'd lit the fire with a pack of matches. She'd watched the fire burn for a while and, when it got too big, she got her family out of bed and helped them outside. The house was old and the summer was hot and dry. No accelerant had been needed. She hadn't wanted to kill anyone, she just wanted to watch the house burn.

She was found competent for trial. Bella agreed to a deal, not knowing at the time she'd never fulfill her end of the bargain. She was thirteen and determined to break into prison.

"Where are you from? Where was the house fire?" Jasper asked. "Does the facility know you're missing?"

"Phoenix, Arizona," she said, still talking to her hands. "I don't know if the ADJC is looking for me, if that's what you're asking."

"What was the name of the prison? What was your name?"

"Yuma Center For Youth Rehabilitation."

Bella hesitated on her name. With the lighting of a church, who she'd been had died. She was only Bella. She'd made the choice to never link herself back to those miserable people in Arizona. They weren't her family. They were happier without her. She'd be better off without them.

She'd always introduced herself as Bella. When Edward asked if Bella was short for something, she'd told him Isabella. He'd asked playfully, "Isabella What?" She told him, "Isabella Marie… But don't call me that. Ever." He'd arched an eyebrow in question, but he'd obeyed. He never did call her Isabella.

"Isabella Marie… Campbell." It felt wrong on her tongue. That had been her name in another life. In this life, she was just Bella. Bella the pyrokinetic transient. "My parents were Richard and Bethany Campbell. I had an older sister named Arianna… and a little brother named Anthony."

She'd never mentioned siblings to Edward before either. She could still see Anthony's face, tears coursing down his freckled cheeks, peering out from behind her mother's legs. It was her deepest regret that he would grow up in that house learning to hate. She couldn't protect him.

Tears of her own began burning her cheeks.

"Enough," Edward said. "That's enough."

Esme crouched down and wrapped her arms around Bella, who leaned into the embrace and let herself mourn.