Hello! So normally I don't do trigger-warnings, because up until now they didn't seem necessary, but I have to make an exception for this chapter. If you're not particularly sensitive to certain topics, you can go ahead and read. If you are, I should probably mention that this chapter will contain a few mentions of domestic violence, intended rape and graphic torture towards the middle, so read with care.


Thomas Langdon and Rosemary Baker.

These were the names written on the fake IDs and passports Jasper had faxed us. I looked at them, studying the flawless details. Jasper knew some talented con-men, I had to give him that.

While talking to him over the phone, I got to know more about where he and Alice went. They were in Barillas, Guatemala. They were stationed at a hotel downtown, only going out at night to avoid the sunlight.

"We won't stay here much longer," he said. "I have to make sure everyone gets their ID and their passport first, and then we leave. Rosalie and Emmett are still waiting for us."

"When have you talked to them?"

"A few hours ago, actually. They arrived safely in Reykjavík. They had a couple of problems avoiding passport control, but they made do."

"That's good. I only got to talk to Carlisle and you so far."

Carlisle and Esme went to Brazil, in Rio. They seemed fine, but I could tell Esme was worried sick - she wasn't exactly a big fan of having her kids spread all throughout the world, away from her. While there had been times in the past when we lived separately, it had always been a mutual choice - not a reaction to some tragic event.

"They're in Rio, right?"

"Yes - the last place where the Volturi would go."

"Speaking of which, Alice had another vision - they arrived in Forks. And they weren't happy with what they had found."

I sighed. We had awakened something terrible with our decision to leave. However, the alternative was dying and that was not an option.

"Where are they going now?"

"Well… the Denalis."

For a short second, I froze. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. The Volturi were aware of the friendship between our clans. Of course they went for the low hanging fruit first, as predictable as it would have been. But I didn't like the idea of them barging in on our cousins, unannounced. The last time Tanya, Kate and Irina saw them, the Volturi had killed their mother in front of their very eyes.

However, we could not tell them a word about the incoming visit. If we did, Aro would see it in their minds and hold them accountable for hiding us. He had to know that our cousins were not aware of the whole picture throughout our stay. They only thought they were offering us a temporary home after breaking the treaty with the wolves - there was nothing condemnable about that, since they didn't break any rules.

"They were sad, Edward," Jasper said, answering a question I had not asked out loud. "When they arrived and found out we were gone, they didn't understand what made us leave without any notice. Alice saw them almost calling us, but then they found the note."

I could only hope that the news on the TV were going to clarify what we couldn't.

"I just hope they'll be able to forgive us someday," I said.

"We'll see about that."

We said our goodbyes and I went back to Mrs. Lebadov's classroom, where Bella was waiting for me, curled up on a small mattress that was most probably intended for sleepy kids. The sight of her, dressed only in my shirt, was enough to bring back some of my good spirits.

"Mrs. Rosemary Baker," I saluted her, flashing the IDs and passports in my hand in her direction.

"Ugh, I wish Jasper would have let me pick my own name," she murmured, grabbing both IDs from my hand and studying the names on them. "Hmmm, and you must be Thomas Langdon?"

"Most definitely. It is a pleasure to meet such a beautiful lady in this peculiar place."

She smiled, taking my hand in hers and pulling me down to her. I watched as she parted her legs slightly.

"It is too bad I am taken, Mr. Langdon. And you see, my husband is a very, very possessive man."

"Is he?" I flashed her a smile, entertained by our little spontaneous role-play. "Well, he is out of luck, because I am willing to risk it all for a woman like you."

I leaned down, towering over her, unbuttoning the shirt she was wearing.

"Careful, he wouldn't approve of this," she whispered.

My hand grabbed her right breast, pinching the rose-coloured nipple softly.

"Wouldn't he?" I teased. "You don't seem to be much of a protester yourself, ma'am. Maybe you like being taken advantage of."

"When a man like you does it, I don't really mind."

We laughed together and I got closer, so that I could take her other nipple in my mouth. I began sucking on it ardently. The skin felt like warm silk in my mouth, calling me to devour it further. I traced a line of wet kisses from her nipple to the base of her breast, finding my way to her navel and to her hip bones. When I got to her thighs, I stopped to take a deep breath. The scent flooded my airways, unbelievably enticing.

"You smell amazing," I muttered. "I could eat you up."

I let my teeth sink in the flesh of her thigh, letting out a guttural sound upon feeling the sublime taste.

"Ah, I see you've already begun," she panted.

My mouth soon found its way to where it needed to be most. Bella's warm wet slit welcomed me, twitching when my tongue trailed a lazy line on its surface, up to her clitoris. She opened her legs wide, inviting me to dive deeper. Her taste was luscious, encompassing my every sense, and it got me impossibly hard.

Lost in my endeavours of pleasing Bella, I lost track of time. When the room got dark, I remembered to get up to call Alice, to check if she had had any visions. She hadn't - but promised me she would call back if she saw anything.

"Does that mean we get to stay a few more days here?" Bella asked me.

"Oh, I wish. But you heard what Carlisle said: we cannot afford to get comfortable. That can only make us vulnerable."

"Right."

She was now laying on the teacher's desk, completely naked, with her hair spread in a chaotic mess. I sat down on the chair behind the desk and took a mahogany strand between my fingers, studying it up close.

"How do you feel, Bella?"

"Right now? Beyond amazing."

Her eyes were closed and she looked more relaxed than ever since the accident. I had a burning question for her, one that I couldn't postpone any longer:

"What changed your mind last night?"

A delicate frown appeared in the soft marble of her face. She took her time before responding:

"I guess... I decided that it doesn't matter anymore - not the crimes, of course, I won't forgive myself for those. But if we have some ancient vampires on our backs, I don't want to..."

Her hesitation made her stutter towards the end, something that had not happened since she became immortal.

"You don't want to…?" I encouraged her.

"I simply don't want to waste whatever time we've got left. I want to enjoy being with you as much as possible, in case they find us."

"Oh, Bella…"

I let go of her strand and got up, to look at her. She opened her eyes when she felt me nearer.

"We've got plenty of time left together, okay?" I said, taking her face in my hands. "Alice is the ace in our sleeves, she sees most things just in time for us to escape, if it comes to that. And you have to remember I have been on my own before, so you can rest assured that I know how to take care of business."

"You weren't followed though, were you?"

"I wasn't, but that doesn't change things. All we have to do is lay low and move around. A lot."

She sighed and pressed her lips on my palm.

"Until when?"

"Until this whole circus with Elijah Cochran ends and the Volturi realize that we didn't expose our kind."

"Edward… things like that can take years sometimes."

"They do, love. But what's a few years in the pool of eternity?"

Her teeth pressed against her bottom lip. She then reached out to kiss my wrist.

"I am afraid," her words tickled my skin.

"I know. Think about it this way: in a few years from now, this will only be a distant memory."

She didn't seem convinced, but decided to drop it. She stood up from the desk, her eyes fixated once again on the painting of the odd family. I tried to understand the expression on her face, but couldn't: it went back and forth from curiosity to chagrin.

"Edward," her voice, light as a feather, grabbed my interest. "You mentioned that time you went away on your own earlier."

I nodded and waited for her to continue, imagining the direction of her thoughts - and not quite liking it.

"I remember you telling me about it when I was still human, but… you barely gave me the outline of those stories."

"I figured that the details about me killing people for years on end might not interest you that much, love."

I tried to play it lightly, but I knew, from the moment she opened her mouth, that there was no escaping this conversation.

"They always interested me," she pointed out. "But now that you have no real reasons to think I might get scared and run away, I want to hear them."

I chuckled and she seemed confused.

"What's so funny?"

"I didn't think you would run away, Bella. You were too spellbound for that."

We laughed together and she agreed.

"Okay, then why did you never tell me more?" she pushed, coming nearer, until her thighs settled in my lap.

It was hard to resist her when she was standing so close to me, her bare skin pressed on mine.

"I just didn't want you to know about how bad it can get. How low creatures like me - well like us - could go."

She thought about it for a second. I continued:

"I guess now you know - although it is different, because what you did was an accident. But in my case… I wanted to kill those people with all my being, Bella. It was a conscious decision on my part. I didn't have the excuse of being caught in an accident. And it wasn't just their blood, but their thoughts..."

I stopped when I saw the frown on her face.

"I'm sorry, I'm rambling," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers.

"No, not at all! Please continue - I want nothing more than to listen to you."

She placed her hand carefully on my chest, waiting patiently. Her eyes were cherry-red and I had to remind myself that I no longer had to protect her from what I was. We were made from the same material and had the same cravings now. The only thing that set us apart was my experience - and her lack thereof.

It was a dangerous thing - being both a husband and, for lack of a better word, a creator. On one hand, I wanted to shield Bella from the bad and the ugly of the vampire world, as much as it was in my power to do so. On the other hand, I had a moral duty to her to tell her about everything - ugly parts included.

Stepping beyond my usual limits, I began re-tracing my memories in front of her very eyes, in details that had remained unspoken on purpose for decades:

"I had been a vampire for a little less than ten years when I decided I'd had enough of being held in a cage. Of course, I was never in a cage - but my mind was still very much that of a teenager at that certain point in time, so rebelling against authority felt not only natural, but good. In the winter of 1919, Carlisle and I had this chance encounter with two old friends of his. Nothing in particular happened, but one of them kept thinking a burning thought: she couldn't understand why Carlisle was depriving me of what she was convinced was 'the greatest joy of this life'. I didn't think much of it at the moment, but the thought came back to haunt me almost a decade later, after Carlisle found Esme."

I hadn't relived these particular moments for so long, that it almost felt like they didn't belong to me. But they did and there was no running away from that.

"It was 1927 and Carlisle and Esme were having the time of their life, while I was dreading each coming night," I said. "They were at the peak of their honeymoon phase and their thoughts were… a lot to deal with. Esme was struggling to find her strength to remain a vegetarian, and Carlisle would always offer me as an example. He would often ask me to be a mentor for her when he couldn't - and with him doing long shifts at the hospital so frequently, that happened to be a lot. The truth is... he overestimated my commitment to the vegetarian lifestyle, as well as my maturity. Let's put it this way: there are many teenagers who love nothing more than to indulge themselves with some booze. But what if a teenager had an alcoholic mother and it was his responsibility to convince her to lock the alcohol cabinet for good? How could he do that, when he himself wants nothing more than to have a sip from the bottles in that very cabinet every once in a while?"

Bella absorbed my every word, not even breathing.

"So anyway, it got to a point when it became too much for me. I didn't want to refrain myself anymore when I got close to humans. I wanted an out and I did what most teenagers do when they want to escape their parents: I ran away. Esme and Carlisle were crushed, as you can imagine. In a bid to make up for the heartbreak I had caused them, I decided to impose myself one single rule: kill only the guilty. The vile people that the society could do without. The murderers and the rapists and the pedophiles. Although, come to think of it, it wasn't for Carlisle's and Esme's sake only. It was for mine as well. As much as I craved to cave in to my nature and drink human blood, I couldn't escape my own morals - the ones that my biological parents had instilled in me long before Carlisle had the chance to. I needed some sort of excuse for what I was doing."

I felt Bella's hand stroking the inside of my palm and I felt encouraged to continue, even though what was coming was going to show her a facet of my past self that I had tried to keep as private as possible from everyone - with the exception of Carlisle. If my heart could still beat, it would have exploded right out of my chest in that moment.

"My first victim was Esme's abusive ex-husband, Charles."

"She told me about him a while ago," Bella's voice was almost a whisper.

I raised my eyebrows with surprise. I hadn't expected her to remember this, since Esme told her those stories back in Bella's human days.

"Please go on," she added immediately.

"All right, so I had this hero complex that made me hungry for avenging Esme's pain. It wasn't hard at all to track Charles. He had remarried after Esme and he was living with this woman, named Julia. She was a small-town girl with big dreams - dreams that got crushed after marrying Charles. They didn't have kids, because Julia was unable to conceive... that was one of the many excuses he had found for himself to throw punches at her belly on a daily basis. He was convinced that the reason Julia couldn't have kids was because she hadn't been a virgin on the night of their wedding. Just like Esme, she endured daily beatings and being sweared at on the regular. Her mind was so fractured from the abuse, that... it hurt to hear her thoughts, very much so. The day I arrived at their house, Julia was cooking some sort of soup in the kitchen. Charles was getting ready for a night out to a brothel - but of course his wife didn't know about that. He had done some mercurochrome injections beforehand and those made his blood smell awful."

"Why did he do it?"

"It was a common drug back then for men who had… trouble performing in the bedroom. Anyway, he kept knotting his tie again and again, as he was admiring himself in the mirror. In between two blinks, he saw me standing behind him."

I stopped, the memory too clear for comfort.

"Are you okay?"

Bella's fingers traced the contour of my jaw.

"I am not proud of what I did next," I admitted.

"Edward, whatever it was, you are no longer that person."

Looking in her eyes, I found something there to hold on to. Something to remind me of who I actually was. It was enough to help me continue:

"I didn't offer him the chance to scream, I… I simply grabbed him and ripped this tongue out with one hand and stuffed his mouth with that stupid tie, so that he couldn't make another sound. As much as I wanted his blood, I wanted to make him pay for what he did: to my mother, to Julia and to the prostitutes he had been paying visits to. So I tortured him for a couple of hours, while Julia kept stirring in that pot of soup. I broke his limbs one by one and left deep gashes in his belly. I made it even worse for him by reciting each of his thoughts out loud as he was thinking them. By the time I was feeding from him, he was already dead."

I had to take another break to recollect myself. I knew I wasn't a rage-filled monster anymore, but that didn't change the fact that I was once exactly that. And repeating the details of what was possibly one of the worst crimes I had committed in front of my wife made me feel uncharacteristically vulnerable.

Before I knew it, Bella's arms were around my neck, her lips pressed tightly to my cheek.

"That version of you is long gone," she whispered. "And Charles was an awful person to begin with."

"Nobody deserves that."

"I'm not saying he deserved it, but he kind of had it coming."

She held me close to her for many more minutes, and I allowed myself to sink in my own temporary weakness. With her long hair draped around my shoulders and her scent in my nose, being vulnerable didn't feel so bad.

"You know, there is a good part about this story," I said, when I felt ready to talk again. "After disposing of his body, I left an envelope full of cash at Julia's door, with a note that said 'Build the life you deserve'. So she hired someone to build her a small painting workshop. She then bought all sorts of paints and brushes and started doing what she hadn't done in ages - she started painting. Her works are arguably some of the beast surreal paintings I had ever seen to this day. You can still find them in some of the museums in Ohio, actually."

Bella pulled back to look at me, smiling ever so slightly.

"You gave Julia the life she had always wanted," she said softly.

"I don't know about that. I simply took the man who was keeping her down out of her life. She did the rest on her own."

I took Bella's hand in mine, playing with her fingers.

"And what happened after?" she asked. "Those following four years?"

"I spent them mostly on my own. I had met other nomads along the way, who encouraged my ways. Some of them fed my ego way too much, to be honest. And there was this woman named Maude, who must have been in her late twenties when she was transformed. She was really peculiar, because she was a vegetarian of her own will, just like Carlisle. When she met me and I told her what I was doing, she couldn't help it and begged me to go find the men who took her father away when she was still a teenager. Her father got sold into slavery, back in 1899. She wanted to avenge him, even though he was long gone and his abusers so old that they could barely get up from their beds for a glass of water. I probably wouldn't have gone if I hadn't heard her thoughts. But there was so much anguish in her mind that it felt like torture to spend even a single minute in her head - I couldn't imagine what it was like to live with those thoughts on a daily basis, with nothing to soothe them."

"So you went after them?"

"I did. But by then I was no longer violent in my attacks. It didn't matter to Maude, she only wanted them dead to find her peace. The last time I had truly been brutal was in the late summer of that first year alone."

Bella's eyebrows raised with curiosity.

"What did you do then?"

"Well, I was at a point in my life when I was pretty pissed off that I didn't get to go to college - it wasn't until after I returned to Carlisle and Esme that I got to do that. But some part of me wanted to at least get an idea of what might have been had I not caught the Spanish flu. So I went to the University of Chicago, wasting time around the campus, trying to catch a glimpse of the lectures. Then one night, I stayed in the library until late when I heard them: it was a group of boys, all of them seniors. They were getting ready to leave. And just as they were walking towards the exit, they began talking about some kind of party. It didn't take me long to understand the context from their discussion and their thoughts: they were members of the Eta Sigma Phi fraternity. Back then, it was quite an honour to be part of it - only the best students got to join it. But that party had nothing to do with academics. One of those guys had invited three of his female acquaintances to what they called a 'private Era Sigma Phi soiree'. You wouldn't think much of it at first. Yet their plan was to drug the three girls to sleep, undress them, tie them up and have a few freshmen take advantage of them, as an unofficial rite of initiation into the fraternity."

As I was saying this, I could still remember their quiet laughters in the library, as they discussed the safest dose that would put those poor girls to sleep without harming them long-term. The unspoken pleasure of planning to steal away their innocence. The contrast between their imposing suits and their intentions.

I shuddered.

"I followed them to their fraternity house right after. The girls were supposed to arrive in one hour. In that hour, I… let's just say I took my time with those predators. There were five of them in total and I made them watch as I ripped each one of them piece by piece before drinking their blood."

My wife was frowning again.

"Well, what matters is that you got to save those girls."

It was now my turn to frown at the absurdity of it all: in her unending kindness, Bella only saw the saviour in me, not the criminal.

"In retrospective, I am sure there must have been a thousand other ways in which I could have saved them, love."

She didn't contradict me. Instead, she reached out to brush her lips against mine. My mind was still processing the memories I had let out when she did that, so her gesture made me moan with surprise.

When she pulled away, her eyes sparked and I knew she had another question before she even voiced it.

"I'm listening," I said.

"I was wondering… what made you come back?"

"That's probably the easiest question for me - although the answer might seem silly. I was in Hoquiam and I was doing my usual nighttime hunting, searching for incriminating thoughts on the streets. As I was heading towards a bar, I saw a man and a woman holding hands several feet away from me. They were walking and a quick snooping assured me they were a happily married couple. But then she told him something simple: 'I am glad they're no longer making you work night shifts'. I stopped right in the tracks when I heard those words. I don't know what it was. Maybe that line in itself? Maybe her voice? Or maybe her caramel curls... All I know is that that woman reminded me of Esme in a way that I was simply not prepared for. The resemblance caught me off-guard. I walked right by that bar that night and went straight to the woods. That was the first night I went back to feeding on animals - but it did take me another couple of months to gather the courage to show up in front of Carlisle and Esme again. My eyes had the weirdest shade when I returned, something that was not quite red, nor quite golden."

Bella's smile melted my frozen body.

"The prodigal son," she teased.

"They called me that up until Rosalie came into the picture a few years later."

I sighed, as I slowly realized that I had told Bella the worst things about me in full detail and she was still in my arms. Maybe she was right earlier: a part of me was afraid of her running away. I shouldn't have underestimated her - that was one of my less noble habits.

And maybe my stories had given her a better insight into who she was. Compared to my deliberate crimes, her slip-up looked benign. I wanted to ask her if she understood that, but I didn't want to lay it on too thick.

"But back when you were still on your own and feeding on humans… did you ever slip?"

"I had kept my promise of killing criminals only, but I was close to breaking it once or twice. I didn't though."

"What do you think would have happened if you met me when I was human, back in this rebellious phase of yours?"

That was one thought that had never wandered through my mind, not even once, not until that very moment, when Bella's curiosity decided to bring it up. I tried not to get carried away, but my mind was already building the forbidden scene in my head.

I could see Bella, dressed in a form-fitting dress, that left only her calves exposed, her chestnut curls rolled in an intricate bun, her skin impossibly flushed and inviting. Bella walking down a quiet street, with her eyes focused on the pavement, in a bid to avoid tripping over her small kitten heels. Bella, her mind as quiet as the stars above, leaving behind her a trail of the most intoxicating fragrance on the planet, diverting my attention from whatever predator I was chasing to her and only her, without even trying.

Would I have made it quick or would I have taken my time with her? Would I have had the strength to invent some excuse, so that she could let me, a complete stranger, walk her home? How scared - and how aroused - would she have been by our chance encounter? What would I have needed more upon finally being alone with her - her body or her blood?

"I didn't know my question would get you so excited," she snickered, making me aware of my own erection brushing against her thigh.

The fantasy lingered in my head, pulling me deeper into its tendrils.

"You would have let me walk you home," I responded to her question, grabbing her hips and pushing her body down on the desk, so that I could stand on top of her.

"Maybe I would have known better than to walk home with strangers."

"You would have, I am sure of that. But you would have been helpless in front of a stranger who could get you impossibly wet without even touching you."

Bella gasped a loud sound when she felt my fingers between her legs.

"What would you have done first?" she demanded to know, her eyes locked to mine as I massaged her clitoris slowly.

"I would have asked you if I may come inside - and you would have let me, love."

She closed her eyes, her body quivering under me.

"So forward of a gentleman like you," her giggling faded out, giving way to a whimper. "And then what?"

"Then... I would have slowly leaned down, to inhale that gorgeous scent of your neck… the one that lured me in in the first place."

As I spoke, I did exactly that. The skin on her neck was as soft as when I sunk my teeth in it, only not as fragile.

"I would have had the hardest time deciding between whether to possess you and find out if your orgasms smell as sweet as your blood or bite that perfect neck and drain it of all that's inside."

Bella moaned and pushed herself up, to meet my eagerly working fingers.

"In the end, I would have probably done both," I murmured against her neck.

My teeth longed for her skin, so I bit hungrily. There was no blood and her groan didn't indicate pain, but pleasure. I realized then that no fantasy could amount to the utter perfection of reality.

Bella tugged at my hair and the sweetest sound escaped her lips when I plunged hard and deep inside her. My whole world concentrated in the fusion of our bodies. The feeling was so powerful, so exquisite, getting better and better each time we made love.

This time, there was something different. The way she abandoned herself to me felt barren of any worldly vanities. Her voice calling out my name was raw and tempting, like that of a goddess who knew all the secrets of the universe. And while Bella didn't know all the secrets of the universe, she certainly knew mine. I had given her the final key to my heart, the key that led to the ugliest chamber, and she entered it. And she was still here, despite the ugliness, still my Bella. Forever bound to me.

We were breathing each other in and out, absorbing each other's reactions as if our lives depended on it. I moved in and out of her slowly, trying to predict her next actions and pleasantly failing every once in a while.

A couple of hours later, I grabbed Bella's lingerie from the floor and offered it to her without much enthusiasm.

"Time to go?"

"I would stay here with you forever if I could, you know that," I told her.

"Tell me where we're going next."

"For now, we stay in Russia. We'll move further north, to Belaya Gora."

"That's a funny name."

"Funny or not, they have the White Mountain Airport there, so we'll have a place to land."

Bella put her clothes back on and she looked around the classroom once more as she did that.

"But before we go, you need to hunt."

For a second, I thought she would protest by telling me she wasn't thirsty, but she didn't. She probably understood now why it was better for her to be over-saturated with blood than under-saturated.

"In other circumstances, this would have been a perfect second honeymoon," she said.

"I promise you that when this whole thing is over," - I made sure not to voice the 'if it is over' in my head - "I am taking you on the best second honeymoon you could dream of."

Her longing smile made me decide in an instant that, whatever happened, I had to do everything in my power to keep that promise.


All right, so I don't know how reading about Edward's rebellious phase felt like, but writing it... Oh, man! It was a little intense. Then again, that part of his story has always fascinated me and wanted to go deeper into it.

If you liked this chapter - or not, I'd be so happy to hear your thoughts in the review section!

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To all of you who are following this story - a big thank you and kudos to you! You are amazing!

Stay safe and happy, guys!