30: Part Three, Chapter Two
Word Count: 2558, First Published 24 April, 2019 Australian time
And as always, thanks to Ms Meyer for permission to play with her characters and mess up her sand pit.
Unbeta'd
Chapter Two – Waking
Bella's heart beat so hard she thought it was going to leave her chest. And the pain! The burning that had gradually receded from her limbs was now so intensely concentrated in her chest she didn't see how she could survive another minute; another second even.
Even so, a part of her mind could function around the pain. Jasper had told her she would wish for death, the pain would be so bad during the change (and surely, that was what was happening to her?), but that it would end. He was wrong though. She didn't wish for death (though maybe she had, earlier, when she was screaming endlessly; that period was a blur of pain during which she couldn't remember thinking anything)—she just wished for him. He'd promised he wouldn't leave her side during her change, but he wasn't here. No-one was here. Just the pain.
Maybe this wasn't the change. Maybe she was dying. Maybe she was dead, and this was the hell she'd never believed in (had she? She didn't think she had).
And then suddenly—nothing. Her heart stopped. The pain stopped. Well, not entirely. The burn was still there, she realised, but in her throat now. She knew she'd been screaming at one point in the eternity of burning, had actually screamed her throat raw, to the extent that only a croak emerged. Maybe that was why it still hurt. But it was bearable. Worse was the pain still in her chest. Not so much burning, as pulling. Aching and pulling. As though something was trying to pull her heart out of her chest. But the intense burning there had stopped. Anything was manageable in comparison.
She realised that her eyes were closed and that she wasn't breathing, in the same moment that she became aware of sounds outside the room she was in.
She opened her eyes and sprang to her feet in the split second that she thought it. There were footsteps approaching the door. In the next moment she was in the corner of the room furthest from the door, bent in a crouch. She was aware of everything at once—the dust motes in the air, the texture of the hewn rock walls, the stone floor under her bare feet, the distant sounds of a city and the nearby sounds of lowered voices and footsteps, the feeling of the air moving ever so slowly in the room, and the silk of the dress she was wearing against her skin, which wasn't what she had been wearing before—before what? What had happened? She wasn't meant to be changed yet, surely? And where was she? Most importantly, where was Jasper?
The door opened and a hiss filled the room, which she cut off as soon as she realised it was coming from her. But when five strange—red-eyed—vampires entered the room, it started again, followed by a low continuous rumble from her chest that she didn't seem able to stop.
The vampires fanned out in an arc by the door—wisely, she thought, not approaching her. The three in the middle seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place them, and she knew she'd never met any vampires outside of her family anyway—were they members of Victoria's newborn army? Maybe she'd seen them when they were humans?
But they didn't act like newborns according to her understanding. The one in the centre and to his left both had dark hair, tied back in ponytails, while the one to the right had platinum blond hair, dead straight and cut to chin length.
Of course, they had the ridiculous good looks of all vampires, but their skin looked delicate—almost papery, and their eyes, while clearly red, also had a sort of milky look to them. They all looked extremely old.
Flanking them on one side was the biggest vampire—or man—she'd ever seen. Bigger even than Emmett. On the other was a tall vampire with numerous scars on this neck and arms—not unlike Jasper's. Looking at his scars made her growl grow stronger.
The vampire in the middle spoke then, in what she supposed was meant to be a soothing voice.
"Be-lla," he said, drawing out her name as though he was speaking to a child—and was not used to doing so—"it is so good to see you conscious and aware! We have been so looking forward to meeting you properly!"
She just growled louder in response, though not deliberately. She felt herself starting to panic. Where was Jasper? He was supposed to be here to keep her in control. He'd told her newborns felt everything intensely and had trouble controlling themselves. That's why they'd been planning to spend her first year in Alaska. Right now, she was afraid she was going to start hyperventilating, while at the same time she couldn't stop growling, and her body seemed equally poised to leap at the vampires in front of her or to leap for the window. Either of which action, a dispassionate part of her brain told her, would probably get her killed in the space of one of her non-existent heartbeats.
Close your mouth, that part of her brain said, hold your breath. Stand up straight. Look like you are relaxed and in control.
Even as she thought it, she did it. But I'm not in control, another part of her brain was replying, while yet another part was just chanting Jasper's name over and over. Where was he?
"Where's Jasper?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
The vampires in front of her exchanged glances she couldn't interpret.
"Perhaps the better question for us to answer right now is, where are you?" replied the middle vampire, who seemed to be the spokesman for the group.
"Okay," she agreed, reluctantly. "Where am I?"
"You are in Volterra," he said. "Do you know where that is?"
"In—in Italy?" She asked incredulously.
"Exactly!" He clapped his hands together, clearly pleased with her answer. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"I—I—Victoria? Victoria attacked? Jake! Jasper! Where's Jasper? Please, I need him. Is he here? Why isn't he here?" The memories were coming back, but they felt wrong and confused. She remembered Jasper—he was almost crying and begging her to be okay and then he bit her—God that hurt—but then—she remembered being in the water with—with Victoria? And Victoria saying the Volturi would take care of the Cullens—and not in a good way.
"In brief—Victoria attacked you, Jasper bit you, but Victoria got you away and brought you to us, where you have completed the change. I take it you understand what that means?" She nodded, and he went on, "For now, the most important thing for you to know is that you are perfectly safe here, despite what Victoria may have told you." He stopped talking and gave her an appraising look. "I must say, you are incredibly controlled for a newborn, even one who knew what to expect—and especially given the circumstances. Your throat must be bothering you though."
The burn in her throat seemed to go up a notch when she focussed on it, and her hand automatically cradled her neck.
"She needs to feed, Aro," said the one just to his left, with seeming sympathy.
"Well, as luck would have it, I can hear Heidi on her way now with a nice soothing meal for you," the one called Aro said.
As she turned her attention out again, she realised there were two sets of footsteps coming down the passageway, and also a wet thudding sound that somehow made her mouth fill with saliva (or was it venom?)—and, oh god, that smell! It was divine, beyond divine—it was indescribable. She had to have it, now! The burn in her throat grew threefold, she needed a drink, something to douse the flames. And that smell! But it was coming from the doorway and the red-eyed vampires were between her and the door. And all those scars—could she get passed? Could she get to it before they stopped her? She was on the balls of her feet when two distracting thoughts hit her brain at the same time: Jasper said those scars came from fighting newborns—and most of them didn't live to tell the tale—and red eyes meant human drinkers. And oh god, oh god, it was a human, the smell was a human and she was being pushed through the door by another vampire, and oh god the smell, she had to have her.
She looked into the girl's eyes. She looked like she was about 16, and she was terrified.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Bella realised she was saying it out loud, "No, no, no!" She pushed herself back into the corner. Jasper, she needed Jasper! "Please," she cried, "please, please, please, please..."
"Here," Aro said, looking pleased with himself, and taking hold of the girl's arm. "She is for you." He propelled the girl towards her, and she fell to her knees, catching herself on her hands on the stone floor. Instantly the delicious smell, which Bella now realised was her blood, permeated the room even more strongly.
"No, no, no, no... " Bella crouched down in the corner and put her hands over her ears, trying to block the sound of the girl's wet blood flowing around her body.
"What's wrong with her?" One of the other vampires asked
"Bella," Aro said at the same time, "look, she is here for you. She will make the burn go away. Your throat must be burning fiercely by now." He grabbed the girl by the arm, pulling her up off the ground, and started to drag her towards Bella.
"No!" Bella cried out, and suddenly Aro and the girl were stumbling backwards.
"Che cazzo è?!"* Aro was looking at her like she had grown horns. "Girl, what did you just do?"
Suddenly the blond-haired vampire seemed to lose patience.
"What is wrong with you?" He growled at her, stepping over to Aro and grabbing the girl. He pulled her head back by the hair to expose her neck, and using a sharp fingernail slit her throat open.
"Noooo!" Bella screamed again, but the blood spurted out spraying the room. It didn't make it as far as Bella though. It looked as though it hit a wall and rebounded off it, about two feet from Bella's corner.
Bella crouched down further covering her eyes and ears as best she could and holding her breath. In her head she just pictured Jasper, and chanted his name over and over.
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"I still feel like I'm connected to her," Jasper told Alice, without taking his eyes off the trees outside his window. He'd been standing there for hours—days, probably. He'd lost count. Without Bella's heartbeat to measure the passing of time, what did it matter? Before Alice interrupted him, he'd been counting the individual needles on all the fir trees in sight.
They'd been back in Forks for three days. Bella had been dead, for three days. The thirteenth had come and gone, and Jasper had flipped a metaphorical finger at it. For all he'd worried about it, if she'd survived, that would have been the day her change was complete, after he bit her on Friday. But Bella had died two days early. The thirteenth was nothing but a con, designed to make him think he had some kind of control. He'd had no control.
Jasper hadn't left his room since they arrived.
"I don't feel the way other vampires do when they lose their mates. That emptiness that drives them mad—I've felt it too many times, from others. But this—it's not that, but it's almost worse. It's like she's on the other side of the world, and I can't get to her. It hurts so much. It's not emptiness, it's constant pain. And I do feel the constant pull to go to Italy to avenge her. It's like my whole body is being pulled in that direction, like it's my magnetic north. I've felt that in too many others, too."
"I know," Alice said quietly. "Or, I guess I don't really. You know I haven't been away from Edward since we met—not by more than a few hours run. And even that's uncomfortable, if it's for any length of time.
"But Jasper, maybe the fact that you still feel her means she's already been born again. There's no need for her to wait this time—she knows you're waiting for her."
"You think she knows? You think in between incarnations her soul knows what's happening?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Or God does. Or whoever or whatever keeps sending her back."
They lapsed into silence, and Jasper went back to counting fir needles. It didn't dull the pain, but it helped him resist the pull of Volterra, and certain death along with his revenge.
Downstairs, he could hear Emmett and Edward discussing the best way to track births around the world. He could have told them she was always born on September 13th. And even if Alice was right, and she wouldn't have to wait this time, she would surely be born as physically close to them as possible, so they would only need to track births in Washington, or nearby, for the moment anyway.
Carlisle was on the phone to Billy Black. All four of the wolves who he'd left at Bella's house had been seriously injured in the attack. Two of them, Jake and Embry, had been critical, and would have died without Carlisle's intervention.
Part of Jasper resented that Carlisle had been attending to them while Bella was still alive, and needing help. He'd saved their lives, but at the expense of getting Jasper back together more quickly. Maybe he could have saved Bella, if he'd been revived earlier. He knew Bella wouldn't have wanted that though. Not at the expense of the wolves, who were only there to protect her.
He also resented the Quileutes for refusing to condone her change. They wanted her to die. They needed her fifth life, according to their ridiculous prophecy. Every time he thought about it, he wanted to go destroy some wolves. But again, he knew Bella would be horrified that he even had that thought. Besides, she hadn't wanted to be changed straight away. She'd wanted to spend the time she could with Charlie.
Now, instead of the revenge Jasper craved, Carlisle was warning Billy of Alice's visions. She'd still been getting occasional flashes of an alarming future, though they were all unclear. She hadn't seen Aro there again, not since Bella died. But she was having regular flashes of Maria in the forest.
These visions of Maria were changeable. Sometimes there was more snow, and sometime less. As though Maria hadn't decided just what to do yet. But all were no more than flashes, implying there was something else at play, which led them to suppose that either she had a talented vampire with her, who was obscuring Alice's visions, or possibly that the wolves were somehow still involved. That's why Carlisle was speaking to them now.
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*"Che calzone è?" roughly translates as "what the fuck?" Although that's not a literal translation.
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A/N
Update: May 2020 - I have revised my thinking on the dialogue of the "kings" - I don't think they would use contractions in their English, as they are a relatively new in common usage, and - aside from the fact that they wouldn't go out into the world very often, they would not presumably need to speak English most of the time anyway. So I figure they'd be more formal and old fashioned in their English. I'm not going to extremes with that, just taking out contractions.
I didn't take out contractions in the last chapter, because speaking among themselves I'd expect them to be speaking Italian or Greek or something else... and whether or not they had contractions, they wouldn't be speaking in a formal way - so in "translating" to modern English, I am including contractions. The same will be true for Marcus's thoughts, later on (plus, his English gets more informal the more he talks to Bella).
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updated April 2021 to add: Aro's exclamation translated above is in Italian, but Marcus's terms of endearments used later will be in Aeolic Greek, since that is as close as I can figure out the the language he would have been using before Didyme died - and I can't see why he would have developed a habit of using any terms of endearment in a newer language. However, I initially had him using Italian, and am just editing them now, preparatory to publishing a new chapter, so if you come across any Italian, that's why.
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A couple of short chapters, I know. But close together! The next chapter (which is not the chapter 3 I had originally written - that's now chapter 4!) is almost complete.
Reviewers make me very happy, and get sneak peaks and sometimes progress updates via PM.
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Recs
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For starters, here's a Bella/Jasper story, but one that's relatively canon (minus Renesmee) and starts out sometime not too long after Bella's change. In other words, there needs to be some tragedy before it can be Bella/Jasper! I feel like I haven't made you cry enough (or maybe at all) with this story - just think, I could have really killed off Bella (or Jasper) and made you all sob! So this story, well it ends up Bella/Jasper and all happy, but I cried my eyes out with the first chapter! But it's worth it, I promise.
Shattered Forever by Cerianna
It was supposed to be the "happy ever after," but what if something unexpected interferes? How do you pick up the pieces of a shattered forever? /s/11103691/1/Shattered-Forever
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Now here's one with magic, but not vamps. It's Bella/Edward, and very sweet, I think. Bit of an antidote to having just reread the first chapter of Shattered Forever! Not sure it has anything to do with Twilight, aside from the names, but that seems to be true of many of the non-vamp fics. It's still fun.
Everyday Magic by: TheFicChick
The residents of Birch Hollow are used to strange things happening in autumn.
/s/13108886/1/Everyday-Magic
(August 2020 - as I type (fixing a few typos) it's been months since I updated, but if you are reading this now, just so you know, I am still working on it, and plan to start publishing again when I have the rest all completed. It's not abandoned.)
