The world is centered around understanding, the basic beliefs we pass onto our children: order over chaos, love over hate, life over death. Yet Elizabeth was surrounded by death, her ears pricking at the thought that she could only hear two heartbeats, sharing blood. Her hands twitched, losing their soft russet coloring and blending into a soft blue. Everything was spinning, a tornado of anguish, hate and confusion. Aro kept skin-to-skin contact, not daring to say anything in fear she would go on a rampage, Marcus watching the bond between Eliza and Sam fester with rust, weakening with betrayal.
"I buried you." Samantha winced at Eliza's statement. Rage flooded her, she began to lash out with venom, "I stood at your funeral and I buried you...! I lowered a fucking body into the ground, thinking it was you! I dealt with the whispers of your snotty cousins saying I killed you, your mother cried on my shoulder and your father….!" Eliza huffed, pressing forward despite Aro's subtle attempt to keep her still, he seemed surprised when she released herself from his grasp, but she pushed the thought away. "Your dick of a father shook my hand and told me, 'thank you for loving my daughter, even when I did not.' Can you imagine that? Your hard ass of a dad, openly weeping in front of your casket. Who did I bury, Samantha?" Eliza had a primal desire to shove Sam to the ground, to snarl in her face, yet at the same time, she wanted to hold and cuddle her, to confirm that she's really, really here.
She must have moved too close, been a touch too ferocious, for the other vampire flitted to Sam's side, blocking her partly with her own body. Eliza flinched, her mind flashing back to the feeling of bones and sinew crushed beneath this woman's teeth in a time that never was. "I changed her into a vampire, so do not scold her when you caused her death." There was a hint of an accent in her voice, Spanish, maybe?
"You hunted us down like mice!" Eliza spat, "Mocked me when I called out to her, tried to kill me!" She was shaking, gulping down air like there was not enough in the room.
The woman knit her eyebrows together, pausing for a moment in confusion. Sam pushed past her, catching Eliza's eye, "Lora saved me, Radimaze! I was dying from that car accident, turning me was the only means of survival."
"You do have two sets of memories, don't you?" Carlisle interrupted, his face thoughtful. "Edward had theorized based on your thoughts, but it did not make sense at the time, we had assumed it was your concussion."
"You grabbed the wheel." Lora, as Eliza now knew her to be, snarled. "That car spun itself into a tree." Eliza flinched, causing Aro to intervene.
"Carlisle." He said simply, the other vampire reluctantly moving forward to take his offered hand. The elder watched the memories of the younger:
Carlisle gripped the wheel loosely, frowning at what his adoptive daughter had told him, 'You need to drive into Forks, I don't know why, I just keep seeing visions of you driving through the backroads.' Edward had come along, primarily because he was in Alice's vision as well. As they wound their way around, a sense of deja vu overwhelmed him, but he shook it off.
"Carlisle, do you hear that?" Edward asked suddenly, tilting his head slightly. Carlisle listened as well, but it was the smell that reached him first, smoke and fresh blood. "There's three sets of thoughts, but only two heartbeats." Their expressions grew grim.
Carlisle pulled the car over onto the shoulder, both men exiting the vehicle. Carlisle flitted to the scene of the wreck, the SUV had been splintered in half, partly by the tree it was wrapped around and partly from a vampire's strength, it looked like when Edward used his body to shield Bella years ago. Buckled into the passenger seat was Elizabeth Tempus, Jacob's cousin, her forehead resting against the dashboard, her lips mouthing a name, over and over.
"She's looking for someone, a Samantha?" Edward pondered, holding his breath at the sight of her wounds. He flitted to the other part of the wreckage, Carlisle noting the way a vampire had literally severed the car in half to get to the driver. The men moved to that side, Carlisle grabbing onto Edward's arm to keep him from launching at the two before them.
Lora's teeth were biting into Sam's exposed neck, blood and venom mixing in a sickly sweet scent. Sam whimpered, curling into Lora's frame, exposing a wide wound across her stomach, fragments of the windshield. "Please, help me save her." Lora whimpered, Edward's face softened as he read her thoughts.
"They're mates." Edward whispered, his mind tracing back to Bella the same way Carlisle instinctually thought of Esme. The mate bond was a hard pull, a tug on your soul that did not lessen. Edward crouched down, slowly as to not spook the female vampire before him. "Listen to your instincts, bite where they tell you." Lora moved quickly, pressing her fangs against each of Sam's wrists, petting her hair as pain blossomed in the soon to be former human.
A shrill ringing echoed from Carlisle's pocket, it was Alice. She used a clipped tone, direct and to the point, "Find her license, I need to match her description to a Jane Doe in the area." It was common, when a body needed to be found, to replace the person with a corpse so no one would come looking for them, a method of survival for newborns whose makers had connections.
Edward took control over Sam's transformation, guiding her through the process, promising morphine for Sam if they came with him and Carlisle. The doctor returned to Eliza, checking her over, making sure she was not seriously harmed. A few bruises, an inch long gash across her collar bone, a slight concussion perhaps, a night or two at the hospital and she would be fine. But why had she looked about with such fear, had she seen Lora?
Carlisle spends about an hour keeping her stable, moving about in the dark, thankful the lesser used roads do not have street lights, so the car remains hidden from humans while Edward leads Lora and Sam back to the old Cullen home. Once they are able to replace the body, Carlisle calls the ambulance and rides with them when they arrive, informing them what they expected to hear, that he stumbled across the wreck and kept Eliza stable until they showed up.
As a former doctor of the hospital, they allow him to stay at her side until her family arrives. Edward lurking outside, listening to her thoughts, confirming the theory. Eliza's eyes flutter open, fear and panic flashing. Her fingers claw at her neck, her entire body sagging in relief when she did not find a wound.
"Eliza, Eliza, it's okay…" He hushes, attempting to soothe her. Her eyes search the room for a person who is not there, she begins to cry.
"Sam's dead, isn't she?" There is little doubt in her voice, he simply nods as she breaks down further. Just outside the door, Carlisle picks up a raised voice.
"How dare you! I know you had something to do with this, you fucking Cold Ones!" Bayak shrieks, shoving Edward out of the way, though he allows himself to be moved as she opens the door. "Get. Out." She ignores him after that, wrapping her arms around her daughter. Eliza weeps into her mother's shoulder.
Aro plucked himself from the memory, wrestling with the laws he had created and the anguish of his mate. Logic stated that Eliza had to think Sam was dead, lest she be turned or killed as well, but the plethora of emotions that crossed her face upon seeing Sam made him want to kill the woman himself, allowing her previous grief to remain valid. "Elizabeth, what happened?" Aro questioned, frowning at all he had seen.
Eliza shivered, she was so cold suddenly. "I can't do this right now…" She moved to walk away, to run even, but with lightning speed Sam reached to grab Eliza's arm. Everything slowed down, even her heartbeat, it seemed to simply forget to move. All three of her mates reached forward to stop Sam from touching her, they were like snails with their pace. Lip curled into a sneer, Eliza shoved her hands forward, straight towards Samantha's chest, the blonde went flying backwards.
The room was ice cold, the vampire slammed against a wall, buckling it slightly, as Eliza stumbled back. Aro caught her, watching her memory of what had happened, the swirl of her thoughts, 'Well, that's new...' His laughter was the last thing she heard clearly as she fell into his arms, everything seemed too much, the sounds too loud, the lights too bright. She winced, letting him coddle her for a moment as Caius sped forward, reacting to Lora lunging towards Eliza. He pinned her to the ground, snarling in her face.
"Submit." Caius spat, Lora snarling beneath him as she twisted to look where Samantha dusted herself from the rubble. Demitri and Felix both moved closer, ready to protect their king. Caius raised his free hand to halt them, enjoying harming the one who had hurt his mate.
"Shit, Radimaze, I never knew you were that strong, I mean I had to carry the water cases from the car." Sam smiled, the same laid back smile Eliza remembered. If the world were not spinning, she would have punched her in the mouth.
"Don't call me that!" Eliza spat, her dark expression dampened at the look of fear on Tory's face. She had forgotten her younger sister was there. She walked forward, taking slow, sure steps, wrapping her arm around Tory's shoulder, half shielding her from view. "Come on, Tory. I want to go get drunk."
Tory barked out a laugh, throwing a glare back at Sam and Lora before giving the kings a triumphant smirk, as if she had won Eliza back somehow. "As long as it isn't with a bottle of Baileys while watching Love Never Dies for the eightieth time." Both had hooded expressions, as if the liquor would loosen their tongues and allow them to speak freely, as only sisters could.
"You know, I wondered where that shit went, I thought mom might have used it when we ran out of creamer last." Eliza joked, pausing when she and Tory were at the door. She realized then that all eyes were flitting between her and the kings, guilt flooded her. Eliza walked back, leaving her sister clutching the door handle and moved to Marcus first, kissing him firmly on the mouth before turning to Aro and repeating the action. By the time she had stepped past them to do the same to Caius, he had let go of Lora, who in turn scrambled to her own mate to check on her well being. The blonde king was not content with a simple peck as his brother's had received, pulling her flush against his body and smashing his lips against hers, his fingers threading in her hair to hold her in place while he ravished her until she was forced to pull away to breathe.
"You sleep in my bed tonight." Caius informed her, as if it had already been decided. Did he win a bet, draw the lucky straw? She pondered how the three brothers worked diplomatically amongst themselves, and how she would be involved.
"Elizabeth…" Sam called out weakly, unsure after such a display. Eliza's heart hardened, she flared her nostrils and huffed in response to her name.
"As far as I am concerned, I buried my fiancé three weeks ago." Her words were as cold as she felt. Tory's hand was warm on her skin, the younger sister had fished out the salmon totem and pressed it into her palm, a silent act of comfort that warmed her whole body with the white wood.