Chapter 11
Lariat
Following Paper Doll's set, Bella hastily discarded her borrowed bass guitar against its corresponding cabinet and fled the stage. The ballroom had become an evolving maze of drunken patrons reconnecting with their friends; a puzzle that proved no challenge for Vampire agility and speed. She quickly raced to the delivery door to find her estranged best friend had installed a cheap chain and padlock set, surely to prevent more unfortunate guests from becoming Dracula's dinner. As if rusted metal could restrict a hungry Vampire. She discreetly snapped the fragile metal chain in two pieces, allowing her to quietly disappear from sight into the dank alley.
Bella promptly attempted to dry heave the bottom shelf whiskey from her stomach, a bodily function hers no longer wished to endure. She felt almost human again; back to a brick wall on a trash filled street with a body full of poison. When her fourth and final bout of retching failed to produce desirable results, she folded to the ground in defeat.
The House of Dirt metal delivery creeped open once more. Bella locked eyes with her sire, her captor, her murderer; Edward Cullen, as he pushed an oversized dumpster in front of the threshold.
"We should stop meeting like this, Isabella," he smirked, wiping both palms on his denim trousers. "One of us is bound to get hurt in such a dark and dangerous place."
Bella scoffed, but kept her head low. "I don't need the lecture, dude. I feel like shit."
"As you should, I suppose." He slowly approached Bella. "We all venture off at some point, some longer than others. Consider it your undead rumspringa," he joked. "After Carlisle changed me, I was hell bent on finishing my medical degree."
"I'm sorry, Edward. But we're not cut from the same cloth," Bella said, sympathizing with his grief for the lost 'what ifs' in life. She could not; however, understand why a punk from Seattle needed to fall even further off the grid. Estranged from every existing blood relative and surrounded by self obsessed pseudo celebrities, Bella lived a relatively lonely human life. The perfect life to precede being liquidated by an unbalanced Vampire "I don't have a family, I had no plans to be some sanctimonious pediatric nurse or homemaker. I was a kid running from her problems... I still am."
"You've fed," he said, ignoring her rebuttal. Bella's flushed creamy complexion seemed luminescent against the grey brick. He stared, unblinking, at her rosy lips.
"I'll get it under control." Bella shifted uncomfortably. His gaze scrutinized each freckle and tattoo that graced her body, as if they held the answers to Bella's mental silence.
"It requires time."
"You're not mad?" Bella asked, meeting his soft green gaze for the second time since he'd followed her outside.
"Truly, I am relieved," he said, tousling his hair in frustration. "Your trail ended at the water, obviously. I could only guess where you would swim."
This puzzled Bella. The Cullens hadn't become members of the human world by sheer luck and guesswork. Surely the family psychic possessed the capacity to see the future of her own brother's tenant. "Alice?"
"As of this afternoon, she can't see you like I can't hear you. We believe you've found a way to shield the area of your brain that plans complex cognitive behaviour." His words expressed wonderment, his eyes unwavering from her own. "It is peculiar."
"I like my privacy, I suppose." Edward nodded. "Are you here to drag me away to the big house?"
His smile fell. "I am here to give you a choice, Bella. If you're displeased with how things stand, I can only suggest you join my family in Port Angeles"
"You're kicking me out?" she said, her voice impossibly tense. Edward sighed. He strolled closer to Bella, towering over her vulnerable form. He surprised her by kneeling down to eye level and stroking the back of his fingertips to her right cheekbone. The gesture ignited a desire to simultaneously embrace and drain Edward of his undead blood. His presence continued to captivate a seemingly undomesticated module of her enhanced brain.
"I am simply asking you to make a choice. I do not wish to reside with them, but it would be cruel to force you to stay." his voice tensed at the mention of joining his family. This puzzled Bella further. She'd assumed the Cullen family remained close despite their independent dwellings. "I am in debt to you, Bella. I am a man of my word."
"You are so fucking dated," Bella snickered, ignoring his mention of honor and choice.
Edward furrowed his brow. Bella laughed further at the confused expression. "I beg your pardon?"
"I get it. You were born in nineteen-whatever. But, Jesus Christ, man. Can we have a normal conversation for once? Without this stuffy Victorian shit?" she lamented. Edward's dejected expression forced her to mumble a rapid apology for raising her voice, though she implied the sentiment was sound.
"Edwardian, actually," Edward remarked. "My family descended from a cousin of King Edward VII."
Bella's jaw fell to her chest with an inaudible gasp. "So you're a Prince or something?" she spat.
"Eldest son of a Baron," he explained directly, embarrassment colored his tone. "My Grandfather, also Edward, married an American woman and chose to raise his family in Chicago until the Great Fire. They eventually settled in Evanston where my father met my mother. The rest is tragedy, I suppose."
"You're fucking with me, right?" Bella laughed. Situational claustrophobia powered every thought as hysteria clutched her chest tightly. Every day she'd spent existing as a murderous Vampire felt like another day closer to a colossal mental breakdown. Her sire's absurd stories of lost grandeur followed by eternal repentance seemed to simultaneously inch her closer and keep her planted to the precipice. "Sir Edward III, Baron of Freaks doth protest too much. But don't worry, he'll just send me away just like my own friends and family tried to."
"I'm not sending you away, Isabella."
"Call it whatever you want, Masen," she hissed. Edward flinched. "You waltz into my life like you're paying rent or some shit, turn my life upside-fucking-down, and peddle me off to your Vampire daddy."
Edward frowned, she was correct. He was abdicating responsibility for his exploits. Just as his Grandfather had done when he moved to America. The apple never fell far from the proverbial tree.
"Same shit, different day," Bella huffed. "I'm not leaving Seattle."
Her sire stiffened, lunging to his feet. His eyes had gone dark as the starless sky above them. "Do as I say," he warned.
Bella opened her mouth to protest when two small shadowy figures appeared mere feet from Edward in a blur of white and crimson. Their pale faces were shrouded in forgotten era velvet and night air. Bella whispered colorful profanities under her breath.
"La langue, young lady," the taller of the two scolded; his voice boyish, yet stern. The other giggled. The sound sickly sweet, like bubblegum and twinkling bells; their aura alluded to something more sinister. "Our guards are trained for surgical strike. Do as we say."
"Leave us be," Edward commanded. "Your policing is not required."
"Monsieur Edward, we'd never harm a member of Le Clan Cullen," the shorter one said. She lowered her deep burgundy cloak hood to expose dainty curls as pale as the waning moon. Bella blanched at her cherubic loveliness. "We are here to question votre fille. You are not a Cullen. What is your name, girl?" She fixed her glowing blue eyes on Bella, who continued to shrink behind Edward.
"B-bella," she muttered. She could feel a strange invisible pressure stabbing her frontal lobe. The seraph scowled as Edward exhaled a sigh of relief.
"Un bouclier!" the taller of the two exclaimed. "We haven't coveted a shield in quite some time. D'accord, Jane?" He lowered his matching velvet hood, revealing an alarmingly youthful appearance. Bella gawked at the two early adolescent, yet menacing Vampires. Only a monster would steal the life of a child and damn them to public servitude.
"Will you barter?" the girl, Jane, asked. Turning her attention to Edward once again. "Master would feel inclined to forgive your coven's transgressions in exchange for a shield of her caliber."
Bella felt her insides plummet deep into the earth below her. She longed to follow. These evil Vampires wanted her, and she had reason to believe they would be victorious.
"You have no right," Edward growled, deepening his protective stance. He abruptly crumpled to the pavement and seized in grand mal fashion for an excruciatingly quiet ninety seconds. Bella's shock left her mute and paralyzed for the duration. When the seizure subsided, Edward's eyes remained closed. If Jane and her crony had actually been sent by the ruling class of Vampires, The Volturi, Edward and Carlisle hadn't done their due diligence in explaining the omniscient power this coven possessed.
"He will be fine," the boy assured Bella. His apathetic response did little to console the grief and anger blistering her core.
Edward's lavender eyelids fluttered. Relief flooded her body like ice water, effectively dampening the flames to something merely warm and tender. "Edward, open your eyes," she pleaded, gathering his limp upper body into her arms. She firmly shook his shoulder, desperately hoping to rouse him with force.
"Jeune amour," the girl sang, tilting her head to the side. "Shall we take them both, Alec?"
Alec, likely a biological brother or cousin to the young girl, solemnly nodded his head with a spine-chilling smirk. "Les Papas will be pleased."
Bella's attempts to wake Edward from his impossible state became frenzied with fear. The rest of the Cullen were surely unaware or subdued in a similar fashion, and her only lifeline laid lifeless in her arms. A diminutive sob escaped her downturned lips.
An olive complected Vampire larger than Emmett slipped into the crowded lane. He collected Edward like a rag doll over his broad shoulder and gripped Bella around the back of her neck, hoisting her upright. "Asculta. Nu te voi rani," he growled.
"This is Feliks," Jane said, stoically gesturing toward their captor. "He vows to leave your head atop your shoulders if you behave. Come now, vii. Monsieur Edward deserves to wake in suitable accommodations."
Bella found herself in the trunk of a black Escalade on the tarmac of Seattle's foremost private airport. Edward had been laid out unconscious next to her for the entirety of their fifteen minute trek across town. She was beginning to worry that Alec had lied about his condition.
"What did they do to him," Bella pleaded with Feliks. He'd stayed in the car to keep watch. "Will he wake up?"
"He does not sleep," Feliks grunted. His deep black eyes never deviated from the small, unassuming jet on standby several yards from their vehicle.
Jane called for their mortal flight crew to board the plane and commence take off procedure for the first leg of their journey: Seattle to Frankfurt International Airport in Germany. Bella dutifully boarded the plane while saying her goodbyes to the city skyline, feeling homesick for the first time in her short life.
The airplane's interior was appropriately comfortable and spacious enough for a sixteen hour journey. Filled with lush pillows, velvet blackout curtains, and ambient light, she couldn't help but burry her face in Edward's chest when Feliks unceremoniously deposited them into a holding chamber separate from the other passengers.
Edward began to stir roughly five hours into their journey. He'd softly growled and clutched Bella's torso closer to his own. She briefly allowed his embrace, but chose to untangle their bodies to assess his condition. Edward's eyes opened, revealing hazy black pupils and dark purple bruises. "Isabella," he muttered. "Beautiful."
"That kid really did a number on you," Bella laughed, playfully deflecting his compliment. "I'm glad you're awake, though. We're somewhere over the Atlantic."
"Did they hurt you?" He hissed, quickly scanning her body for injury with his fingertips. Butterflies erupted in Bella's stomach. She ignored them. "Jane's power cannot pierce your shield?"
"I'm fine, thank god," she said, ghosting her fingertips over the dark circles surrounding his eyes. Edward hummed in approval. "You can fix this right? What do you need to get us home?"
"I... I need to hunt," he replied, shame coloring every inch of his face. "Jane's power, it is a powerful current of electricity that disrupts your cognitive faculty. It has disrupted my ability to read their minds-"
"For how long?" Bella interjected.
"I am not sure. I have met Jane through the memory of another," he admitted. They became silent as dainty footsteps approached the structurally reinforced pocket door. A faint heartbeat could be heard just beyond the thin wall.
"Bonjour, Edward," Jane announced, curtsying into the secluded rear chamber. Bella hissed, resting a protective hand on Edward's chest."I am pleased to see you have recovered, Monsieur. My sincerest apologies to you both. I would like make amends."
Edward furrowed his brow, unsure what the sociopathic child soldier had in mind for reparations. He'd never been without his talent, aside from his time spent exclusively with Bella. However, he fervently trusted the silence of Bella's creative brain. Relished in her unique turn of phrase and enthusiasm for raw expression.
He would never trust a member of the Volturi Guard.
"You are famished," she taunted, twirling a blonde ringlet around her tiny pointer finger. Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, as though a migraine had befallen him. As if on cue, Feliks discarded an unconscious human airline pilot onto the travel sized oriental rug. Bella resisted the urge to breathe as Jane slowly ran her fingernail along the delicate skin of his cheek. Tiny rivulets of blood welled to the surface. Edward snarled menacingly, his perfectly chiseled face disguised as the Vampire of her childhood nightmares. His black irises appeared to glow impossibly bright; teeth bared and ready to draw blood. "Don't make a mess of the carpet, we just had it cleaned."
The door closed behind Jane's retreating form, leaving Edward and Bella alone in a five-by-eight, airtight room with an injured man. Bella had no intentions of joining that particular sect of the mile high club.
"Don't," she gulped, drawing from her limited reserve of stale cabin air.
Edward darted from Bella's grasp and swiftly sunk his venom soaked teeth into the pilot's jugular. He growled in pleasure as he drained the man completely, his primal instincts expertly garnering every last drop. Bella's body remained frozen in fear as Edward's gaze zeroed in on her exposed neck.
"Edward?" she whispered, questioning his mental and emotional whereabouts. His eyes simmered like burning coals. A ring of flickering crimson deep in his far away gaze. Jane's childlike giggles echoed from the main cabin. Her captors enjoyed witnessing Edward as he unraveled, or perhaps, they enjoyed her fear and discomfort more so.
Edward tore his mouth away from the gaping wound, his perfect lips and teeth coated with the same substance that once gave life to the tragic pilot. "Bella," he panted. Breathless and unrecognizable as the proper gentleman he often paraded as, Edward discarded the Captain's body into the corner behind him.
"This isn't you," Bella whispered. "This happened before and, well, I know you're the type of guy who doesn't make the same mistake twice," she continued, finding her voice tucked somewhere between flight and flight.
Edward winced at the reminder of his saint-like control and patience under most circumstances. However, the human blood coursing through his veins roared louder than his conscience. "I am sorry," he growled. Bella's blood ran impossibly colder. His apology did not come from a place of genuine remorse for his display of insanity. The monster before Bella undeniably thirsted for her blood and could only manage an apology in advance.
He lunged for Bella's throat, she braced herself against the wall knowing a freshly fed, hundred year old Vampire was out of her weight class. She waited for the world to go dark, hoping for absolute death at the hands of the man who damned her. Bella knew reality was never so kind.