Sorry it's taken so long for chapters eleven and twelve—school's started and I've been mucho busy! I'll try and update quicker now but we'll see…and I'll try to wrap this story up soon, it's probably boring all of you. Sorry! But thanks to all my wonderful readers and reviewers! Keep R&Ring, folks!
There was a man, and it looked like he barely went farther than my waist, height-wise. His long, white beard almost touched his feet; and he had big, round glasses. He was wearing a white lab coat, which added much to his funny appearance. And his feet were huge.
One look at Jasper and Emmett shut me up, real good—they were both grim-faced, staring back at me with that shut up look I got so often. The little man looked so harmless, though; so much like a comic book character. I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing. I sincerely hoped I wouldn't snort.
I checked closer; it didn't appear that the man was vampire. His eyes were sky blue, and I wasn't sure if that could happen on a vampire; he could very well be an animal-hunting kind, and he wouldn't have red eyes.
I couldn't risk whispering to Emmett and Jasper, in case he really was a vampire, because I still hadn't gotten it down straight and the man would probably be able to hear.
Suddenly, the man smiled; like really, really smiled. His grin was so wide, I thought his teeth would fall out—and I swear to god, if I were still human I would have drawn blood from my tongue; that was how hard I was biting to keep the laughter in check. I didn't feel any chills, either, like how a person feels when a bad guy is around. It seemed perfectly normal to me.
But then again, that could be a side effect of vampire-ism.
"Come with me, please," The man said, and his voice was so authorative and practically deadly that my laughter exploded in my stomach and disappeared, forever silenced.
And then the little man did the most amazing thing, the likes of which I have never seen before, except on animated Disney cartoon shows—he walked straight through that cave wall, the one that we had heard voices behind. I gaped after him, and my apparently my new brothers found this funny and started laughing, before following the man through the wall. Okay. So this was one of those leave-Bella-out-because-she-just-turned-vampire-recently things. I understood perfectly.
But I didn't really want to be left out in that dark, dripping cave anyways, no matter how invincible I had become. So I took a tentative step, and then another, until I was face to face with the wall. And then I took a step.
It was the weirdest sensation. It felt like I was melting into the wall, becoming a part of it. It was really quite scary, because there was no way on Earth I wanted to be part of a wall. In my haste to get through, I stumbled, and did a front roll before landing on my butt in front of everyone.
So my powers couldn't stop that from happening.
When I say everyone, I mean more than the three people I expected; there were others, too. They stood there like zombies, all unblinking, all terribly, cruelly beautiful, all staring at me with laser-red eyes. With a shudder I remembered Edward's eyes, the night he had bitten me. They would haunt me for a while; after all, now I was sticking around even longer.
I tried staring one of those—vampires?—in the eyes, but I had to look away because their stares were blinding me. It was seriously, like a laser light. Then I turned to the little man, who appeared, quite strangely, to be smirking—and then Jasper and Emmett, who looked quiet and grim.
The room itself wasn't all that big, though I could imagine it being used for meetings and such. All the red-eyed people were standing up on the bare cave floor. In the center of the room was a huge oval table, with probably thirty chairs or so placed around it. One chair was higher than the others, and more splendid looking, and I immediately guessed it belonged to the little man. Other than that, the room was bare of all furniture—except most strangely, the walls were carpeted, and pictures and paintings hung off of what seemed like nails stuck into it.
The little man caught my gaze and smiled, a fake, comfortless smile. "We try to keep things neat and tidy around here."
His tone hinted that it was pretty hard to do that, but I didn't feel like exploring the possibilities of why, though I guess my conscience was figuring it had something to do with vampire-human interaction.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I wasn't human anymore.
I grinned back, surprising everyone—the little man, the red-eyed people, and even Jasper and Emmett—and said, "Yes, yes. I can imagine why." My boldness probably surprised me, the most; I was probably the one who knew the most that I didn't have it in me. The Cullens had always had an obstructed view of me; they thought I was super brave to be hanging out with a bunch of vampires, but in actuality, I was just stupid and love struck.
"Well…" The little man regained his composure quickly, and stretched his lips over his teeth in a sad attempt at a smile. It was more smirk- and horse-like, though, and I had to look away because it was sending chills my way. "Let me have my most prominent guests here step forward." His grin was purely malicious now, and I was completely confused.
A ravishing girl with long, brown hair and eyes so red I couldn't tell the actual color stepped forward. She was tall and willowy, and I could imagine her dancing. "This is Marisa," The man told me. All of a sudden, he started. "Oh! Oh! Me and my manners. My name is Capruti. Pleased to meet you, Isabella, Jasper, Emmett."
It was my turn to be surprised. I had never told him—Capruti—my name. Obviously, since he had called me Isabella. Icky. How did he know? I glanced at the other Cullens, and they both looked as confused as me. And what kind of godforsaken name was Capruti?
The name seemed to instill some sort of fear in Emmett, but Jasper looked unaffected, just like me. Was this because Jasper hadn't been a part of the vampire world as long as Emmett? Or did Emmett just know some big secret because he was on the inside?
Whatever. I turned my attention back to Marisa; and all of a sudden the red lights in her eyes died, and they were clearly gray. All traces of redness were gone. "My name's Marisa," She told us pleasantly, as if Capruti hadn't just old us that five seconds ago.
Capruti glanced at Marisa, and the laser returned. They glowed burgundy, like Edward's had, and then reached their full red potential. Something was happening to her, too—but unlike Edward, it didn't seem like she was struggling.
"Marisa," Capruti said calmly.
Marisa's gaze grew cold and harsh. She glanced at me, and all the lines in her face that had seemed to soft and warm before were now sharp angles, unfriendly and full of warning. And then she stepped back, into the crowd.
"You'd not like to mess with Marisa," Capruti told us. The way he said it, though, made me feel like he was prideful of that fact. Why would he have pride in that?
Next, a male stepped forward; he looked about twenty-five, with short, spiked brown hair and those red eyes.
"This is Mario. Mario and Marisa are my two favorites." Capruti confided, though I figured it wasn't much of a secret, considering how arrogantly Mario was looking at us.
I stared at Mario for a minute, and the laser flickered away, revealing navy-blue eyes. He stared blankly back at me for a while, and then he seemed to remember something. All the arrogance was gone, and now he just looked scared, or worried. "Mama!" He cried in a thick Italian accent. "Mama!"
Capruti turned to look at him, and the redness returned to his eyes; he immediately shut up, and the look of haughtiness returned. Capruti looked annoyed, but his face relaxed when the red returned to Mario's eyes.
I thought back to what had happened with Edward—he had come in with bad purposes, but when the light flickered out, he had said he loved me, and had been so tender and…but then the light had come back, and he had bitten my neck, which was so insanely out of character for him, because he was dead set against my becoming a vampire.
Realization hit me.
"Oh, you!" I cried venomously, concentrating my hate-filled gaze on Capruti. He didn't flinch.
"Yes?" He asked sweetly.
I forgot the room, the people, Jasper, Emmett, everything. I felt the rage building up inside me, pushing under my eyelids, filling my stomach, squeezing my non-functioning heart out of my ribcage. My world flashed black and red and white, and Capruti was standing there, fully calm. I wanted to…to…I wanted to hurt him so badly, he was begging for mercy.
And then I let out a scream, a scream so loud and bad that it hurt my own ears. I unconsciously noticed Jasper and Emmett and Capruti covering their ears, but none of the red-eyed people although it looked like the noise was hurting them physically.
And then everything ended.
Emmett had his arm around me, shushing me, muffling my scream into his arm. Capruti was looking amused, and Jasper…I had no idea where Jasper had gone. My view was slightly blocked by Emmett's big arm, and I couldn't see much anymore.
"What kind of camp are you running here?" I tried to demand, but Emmett pressed my head harder into his arm so it came out like a couple of squeaks.
It was then that I saw him.
There he was—my one and only—near the back of the crowd, no, at the back of the crowd, almost fully hidden among the sea of flawless faces. But I couldn't mistake him for anyone, anywhere, even if his eyes were that hideous fire engine red color—
My Edward.