Disclaimer: Yeah, I know, I know. I can only own Twilight in my most warped and twisted dreams.

Chapter Seven:
Where Things Only Get Worse

"Tell me," a voice as old as the castle walls surrounding them spoke to Bella's left, "about the Edward boy." It was an order as only could be delivered by a practiced ruler; seeming like a friendly invitation to conversation but underlined with a cold edge that said if she didn't do as he said, things would take yet another turn for the worse.

She had, in her slow and wondering walk about the endless halls of the Volturi castle, been trying to ignore the ruler's, and those of his guard who followed closely behind, undeniable presence. But, it seemed, that Aro didn't tolerate any prisoner who failed to be as amusing as he had hoped.

Bella racked her brain for a way to explain without Aro becoming interested in the person whose heartbroken face haunted her mind with steadfast tenacity. "He was just a boy I knew," she decided to say in her hollow, lifeless voice. The words felt wrong on her mouth; putting the man she loved into such an insignificant and untrue phrase made her hate herself even more that she already did.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Aro shake his head with a smile. "Nice try, Isabella," she cringed as her name rolled off his lips, hearing the greedy undercurrent that accompanied it. "I was told, however, that you two were an item; that you were in love."

Forcing herself to not react, to not question his source, to make her voice as steady as the stones she was treading upon, Bella replied, "He was a brief mistake. The boy became infatuated with me and when his novelty had worn off, I left him." She stifled the aching sensation of outrage her heart had become as she spoke, fought to keep her expression blank. Then, she uttered the most painful lie she could imagine. "I never loved him."

"Do you think," asked Aro, watching her face for any to her thoughts, "that he will follow you?" He was never one to underestimate the underdog and would leave no scenario unprotected against.

"No," Bella said heavily, more of a prayer than a statement, "he will not follow me."

000

"8:25 flight to Florence, Italy boards in five minutes at Gate 21," a voice overhead said through the speakers in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Most of the people, who were either bolting through the terminals at break neck speeds or incurably bored with sitting in uncomfortable seats for long periods of time, didn't take notice to this announcement, but, in a corner away from the crowds of people, four people looked up in unison.

One of them, a startlingly handsome boy with unruly hair, stood up, holding nothing but a passport his sister had had the foresight to bring with her and a small bracelet in his clenched hands. He looked at the other three and shook his head at something one of them was thinking. "No," he said, "I should go alone. If these Volturi are as ruthless as you say they can be, Carlisle, then I don't want any of you dragged into this as well. It is my fight, not yours."

The younger of the two blond men nodded his head and stood to shake Edward's hand. They smiled warmly at each other; a soldier's approval of another man's duty passing between them.

Then the short girl rose gracefully to her feet and, disregarding the boy's outstretched hand, threw her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. The boy looked confused, but he gave up trying to look past the repeating goodbyes that shielded his access from any other thoughts in her mind. She let go and took her place beside her husband, waiting for older blond man to make a move.

But he didn't get up from his seat; the man just sat there, running his hands over his face, so young but somehow so knowledgeable and wise, with worry. "To think," he sighed, his voice like those who knew that they were trying to push a mountain but persisted nonetheless, "of you within their control, Edward, shatters all of the hope I would otherwise have.

"You do not realize how powerful they are, and what lengths they will take to keep it that way." He paused, turning words around in his head and thinking back to the tightly guarded castle that was their fortress. "They will see you as a threat to that power they treasure so."

"I will follow wherever she goes," Edward said, saying each word with conviction, turning it into the oath it already was in his heart. "Carlisle, you have told me all you know about them, the great amount of information you have gained through years of companionship, and I can outthink them if that is what it comes to. Do not worry."

Carlisle's face twisted in anguished frustration as his imagination shot his mind into a possible future where his son would be cold-heartedly killed for no reason. "I will worry, Edward!" he shouted, drawing the attention of several people passing by. "You can die, and you don't even seem to care!" He stood up and placed a hand on either of the boy's shoulders. "Why do you continue walking to almost certain death?"

Edward met his adopted father's eyes with desperate sincerity. "If she dies then I do as well. There is no other option," he said quietly, begging the man to see his side. "Imagine they had Esme. What would you do to get her back? Anything?" Carlisle's silence caused Edward to nod. "Bella means as much to me as your wife does to you." He leaned forward and wrapped his long arms around the father-figure for a moment, then pulled back. "I will see the family when this is all done. Goodbye."

Edward started to walk off in the direction of Gate 21 but turned on his heel, several feet away from his forlorn family and called back, "How will I know to find them?"

In the snatches of them he could see between the changing and pulsing groups of people moving around them, their expressions changed to cold, mirthless humor. "That," he heard the high, clear voice of Alice answer him, "is the last thing you need to worry about." Then the crowd became too thick as other people on his flight ran to get to the plane.

Turning and walking faster, Edward pushed through the oncoming throng and found Gate 21, already boarding for the flight. He handed over his ticket and stepped aboard the plane, feeling nerves bunch in the pit of his stomach as he thought ahead to where he was going. His gut said that this wasn't going to happen like he wanted it to and his brain couldn't help but agree.

000

Esme, Rosalie, Emmett, and the Denalis sat in a loose circle, staring at the phone dock in front of them. The familiar and well-loved voice of Carlisle was emitting from the speaker function as he told them of the events that had conspired since he had left the house with Alice and Jasper. They were all joined in their worry for Edward, clinging to each word Carlisle said, but as he told them of the Volturi's involvement and how Edward had left for Italy, someone broke away from the group.

Rosalie watched as Tanya stood up from her seat, her body rigid with some indefinable emotion, her beautiful face marred with an expression of acute pain. She stared unbelievingly at the phone, then turned on her heel and ran out the door.

It had happened so quickly that no one but Rosalie, who had been keeping an eye on Tanya, had seen it. Detaching herself from her family, she too left the room, walking as smoothly and powerfully to her prey as any hunter. She saw Tanya pacing along the out edge of the back porch and joined her in the cold snow.

At seeing Rose enter, Tanya stopped, almost recoiling from the intimidating blond. She wanted desperately to configure her facial muscles in a way that didn't scream guilt and fear, but it was stuck. Rosalie took a step forward, and the inner frailty in Tanya made her take a step back, showing just deeply effected she was by what she had unthinkingly done.

Rosalie appraised the other woman. They were friends, true, but Rosalie, for all her vanity and selfishness, was unwaveringly loyal to those who were family to her. She knew that Tanya had a hand in the events that were working against her new brother, who had understood her cynical humor, played any song she requested on the piano, and came to her for help with his tolerance, and she didn't like it. Not one bit. "What," she asked, all warmth gone from her voice, making it as icy as their surroundings, "have you done?"

Tanya felt frayed at her seams, falling apart and unable to do anything to stop the process; the more she tried to pick off the loose ends, the more undone she became. Her eyes searched the fiery gold of Rosalie's and she felt her voice, sounding too weak, too pleading, to be her own, say, "It was just a phone call; just a question. It wasn't supposed to happen like this…"

"How, then?" snapped Rosalie, grasping the importance of the phone call Tanya had made the other day. "How, then, was it supposed to happen?" She advanced toward the woman, as spiteful and vengeful as a fury. "Did you think that if you had them take her away, kill her; that he would just walk away? Forget about the love of his life to be with you?"

Now, practically nose to nose, Rosalie's anger simmered, replaced by pity for her old friend, for the boy running to his death, and the girl who probably had faced hers. "Their blood will be on your hands, Tanya." She walked away from the solemn girl on in the snow, trying not to look back.

And Tanya Denali stood rooted to that spot for the next hour, spiraling through the atmosphere of wild and guilty panic and crashing through to the hope of repentance, maybe a way to fix things. She had made a horrible mess of things, but that didn't mean she couldn't fix it.

000

It was five in the afternoon when Felix finished the circuit of all roadside stations. He had been ordered to alert all of the station operators that a potentially dangerous man was thought to be entering the city, give them the description they had got from that Denali girl, and then tell them to call his phone if he was seen. Until then, he would wait in the completely shadowed courtyard, watching each passing figure with open suspicion.

He hadn't been there for more than half an hour when his cell gave the nondescript, vague beep that signaled a call. Felix opened it quickly and put it to his ear. "Yes?"

"Oh, is this, uh, Mister Felix?" a rather worried voice asked. Felix could immediately place this to the short, dark haired man who ran one of the lesser used stations. "That man you were talking about, the, uh, dangerous one. I think he walked through the gate. Didn't stop when I tried calling after him…"

Felix hung up on the frightened man. So, he thought as his feet automatically started taking him to that part of the city, the boy has come for her after all. He pushed past a group of excitable tourists, not without picking out the one that smelled of exotic and mouthwatering spices, and skirted around the edge of one of the city's more ornate and flamboyant fountains. Felix almost went on his thought-out path, to the street on his right, down the second alley way on his left, and a run to the station, but something caught his attention.

It was a deceivingly appealing scent, and Felix recognized it as the sign of another predator. He slowly turned around, surveying the square with sharp eyes, looking in the shadows for movement, in the windows of houses for a face that looked back. He only turned half the way though, because the one he was searching for was out in the open, sitting at the edge of the fountain and watching the clusters of pigeons that swarmed around him. The young man, or maybe only a boy by the looks of him, didn't look up to him, but Felix had the odd sensation that the he knew what Felix was and why he was watching him.

When giving the assignment, Aro had not told Felix of Edward's talent. The ruler, for some deep, apprehensive reason, didn't want to admit that such a strong power could be given to a mere lovesick boy. It was childish, Aro had told himself, but strangely necessary, like a taboo; if he didn't say it, it wouldn't be true.

But it was true, and Edward could hear every thought running through the man's mind as he ventured a step closer. He's just a kid, Felix told himself. No reason at all to be thrown off…

Without looking up from the cobblestones, Edward said in a calm, offhand voice, "Hello Felix. I was told that the Volturi would find me quickly, but I find myself quite flattered that you would go through this amount of trouble for me." He finally lifted his face and stared at Felix, his face not as at ease as his voice suggested, but instead twisted in barely repressed anger. Felix found himself frightened of the boy and his shaking hands, which looked like they would sooner wring his neck than shake his hand. "You may all be cold, heartless killers," continued Edward, his golden eyes glinting, "but at least you're punctual."

Edward watched as Felix froze mid-step. If there was one thing that Felix hated it was when people had the gall to insult the Volturi, his home, his life. Without the kindness of his masters he would be a wild vagabond with no real purpose. He sank into his default expression, one of careful yet professional indifference, intimidating but willing you to do as he said. "Master Aro has requested your presence immediately."

Nodding once, Edward stood from his sitting position on the fountain's edge and jumped off, startling the crowd of pigeons into a flurry as they launched themselves into the air as quickly as they could. He lithely strode in front of the still wary Felix and started walking toward the Volturi castle, reading the map Felix had unintentionally given him with a mere thought.

After a second of utter bewilderment, the guard of the Volturi followed behind the boy, feeling unsure about his previously firm and admiring beliefs that his masters were doing what was for the best.

000

In the circular chamber that was the throne room, Aro could hear the two men as they approached. One was the plodding, yet always ready to jump into action at a moments notice, gait of Felix, the other was a quiet and confidant, taking long strides through the leering castle as surely as any of its lifelong inhabitants. Aro assumed that this was Edward.

If he hadn't been one of the rulers over the vampire world for centuries on end, Aro would have been surprised that the boy had even shown up. But since he was, the thought didn't even cross his mind. His face resembled stone as he gestured for one of the hand-picked guards he had assembled for this occasion to open the door for Felix and the boy as the entered the room.

Though he had a description of Edward from Tanya Denali, his appearance still shocked Aro. He seemed too young, too inexperienced with their dangerously exclusive world, to have such natural control with himself. Edward did not shake and beg as most did when entering the inner chambers of the Volturi. Instead he held his head high, looking each threat in the eye and giving off the sense that he had an advantage that all the others lacked. Only his darling little Isabella had looked upon the rulers with that amount of contempt and disdain. It would be both their downfalls.

"Where is she?" asked Edward, his voice demanding. None of their minds gave away anything though. They just parroted back what was happening in front of them, like multiple televisions playing the same channel. He could tell that Aro was trying to keep his mind from Edward, and doing a good job of it, but he could hear small things; like how Aro's two brothers had refused to take part in what they thought was insane or the predatory way he was analyzing Edward, sizing him up for flaws in a instinctive way long ago learned from his fledgling days as a newborn, when things were more difficult for their kind.

Aro spread his arms wide in a gesture of greeting and exclaimed, "Edward, my boy! Why don't we get to know each other before we discuss topics of business." He stepped down from his thrown and attempted to grab a hold of the boy's bare arm, but Edward, one step ahead, successfully avoided the contact.

"No," said Edward, the words shaking with rapidly building anger, "I have no wish to know you better. I have come here for Bella."

Aro saw the automatically defensive stance the boy took on with his mention of Bella. He instinctively continued on with the subject, formulating a plan without even thinking about it. "I don't think she wishes to see you, Edward. She expressed a wish of solitude from everyone." He took a breath, timed it right, adding the proper amounts of polite regret and the underlying hint of dismissal and said, "Especially you."

The reaction from the boy delighted Aro. He almost visibly flinched as an insecure voice rose within him, saying, That is why she left. She doesn't want you. She never did. Still, he hid his internal pain as best as he could and countered with, "You're lying."

Seeing through the brave face Edward put on, Aro continued to plunge the boy further into indecisiveness and uncertainty. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Edward, but you were only a brief fascination to her. She didn't want to bother with a messy explanation of why she no longer wished to be with you, so she just…left." With care, he thought back to what Isabella had said earlier, knowing that it must have been a lie but omitting that from his thoughts, only repeating her monotone words in his mind. "He was a brief mistake…I never loved him."

As the boy undoubtedly saw her emotionless face, heard the words he had feared all along, he took a step back. Pain shot across his face and his mouth opened and closed with undeniable heartbreak. "No," he finally managed to whisper. "No. It can't be true, isn't true." Edward pulled a silver bracelet from his pocket and stared at it pleadingly, like it would tell him a solution to this shattering comment.

He tried to find fault in the memory Aro was thinking of, but couldn't. It didn't have any hesitations like other fabricated stories had and showed all sensory reactions as only a true memory could. He was speaking the truth.

Edward spiraled then. His emotions were no longer balancing on the edge of a cliff but plummeting downward into the sea of despair that lay below. His eyes frantically searched the room for an escape, an answer, but none came. All around him the thoughts of the guard rose up and knocked him over like a tidal wave. Edward felt like he was suffocating from the pure and terrible agony of it all.

And out of writhing chaos of his collapsing world, Edward heard a voice, clear and crisp, the complete contradiction of what he was now, speaking to him. "Do you want the pain to go away Edward?"

The only way he could ever see the hurt leave was if he had Bella, his ever elusive and unrequited love. "Yes," he mumbled, hoping that if he said it that this would be a dream of some sort. "I can't stand it."

"Then," said the voice, "we will make it go away. All of it." Aro half-turned to a young woman behind him. "Would you mind?"

She stepped forward swiftly, her dark ruby eyes focused on the kneeling boy. She brushed a lock of black hair from her face, and then settled both of her palms on the boy's face. He barely noticed her feather light touch, as caught up in the throes of despair that he was. She tapped into her power, pulling at invisible threads in his mind, creating connections and ties, demolishing others with no regret.

When she finished, she dropped her hands from the boy's face and stepped back to Aro's side. The ruler took her hand in his, feeling for himself what she had done. He smiled to himself and said, "Good work, Chelsea."

000

Bella sat in her room, the same room she had been confined to years ago. It was sparse; only a bookcase and Victorian lounge chair, taken from some unused room in the castle no doubt, stood within its walls. The Volturi, anticipating her, had tried to furnish it with lavish tapestries, dark wood masterpieces of furniture, and first edition books, but they had swiftly found it all outside her door within an hour in tiny fragments of what they had once been. Only the books had stayed, though, because in the time it would take for another opportunity to escape, she would have countless hours to fill with a healthy occupation.

But now, no book could hold her attention. Something seemed off in her depressingly small universe.

Ominously, she heard a knock at her door. She wanted to ignore it, as she with most of the guard who came calling on her every now and then, but a scent pulled at her senses. It was unbearably tempting and utterly familiar, like the sweetest of dreams. That smell propelled her unto her feet and pushed her across the room. Bella gripped the door handle for a moment, hesitating, before she opened it.

What she saw was impossible to believe.

There, standing like he belonged in the foreboding walls of the Volturi castle, was Edward. A choked sob came to her lips; she immediately threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into the soft cotton of his shirt. Happiness, a concept that seemed foreign to her only a few minuets ago, welled within her body.

Bella was so overcome by the emotions that took over that she didn't at first realize that Edward hadn't moved a muscle. He just stood solidly in place, seemingly tolerating her contact with her. She took a step back and looked up into his face, a thing so loved and cherished to her that the startling change in demeanor shocked her.

Those eyes were not the passion filled orbs she had seen during their past meetings. His lips, which were normally tilted in a glorious crooked smile, were turned down at the sides. Every line and plane in his face and posture spoke one thing, loud and clear, to Bella: indifference. Bitter, hardhearted indifference…

…toward her.

For those of you that don't know, Chelsea can manipulate the bonds of relationships.

I'd love it if you told me what you think.