Ok, so I got a much better response on the last chapter, which is good. Yea, enjoy!

Oh yea, and if any of you hate music, I'm telling you now that this story isn't right for you. K, thanks!

--

Two minutes earlier, Bella had been lying peacefully on her bed, happily tearing paper out of her notebook as she continued to rewrite lyrics to a poem. Sure, she could've just as easily typed the words on her laptop and saved a few trees, but she just didn't have the patience to wait the three seconds for it to load.

"No, no, no!" she screamed, violently tearing out yet another off-white sheet from the spiral-rings, ripping it to shreds before letting the confetti float melodramatically to the floor. They were forgotten before they'd even left her hands. Her pencil had already begun its assault on the next page.

She'd written many other poems in the last fifty years, and they'd all been just as difficult. But they were slightly important to the Volturi, so she took her time on them. However, her words were looking rather repetitive as of late. She really needed to find something else to occupy her brain besides anger, unless, that is, she wanted to give up her job as 'treasurer' to the organization. It wasn't as important as some of the other things she did, but it kept her from thinking about things.

"Knock, knock," came the voice of her favorite co-worker from outside her door, just before he entered through the tiniest opening possible. Something was wrong. He only ever came in that way when something very bad was happening. The notebook was forgotten by the time it landed on the end of her bed.

"What's up?" she asked, struggling to sound casual. Santiago took a tentative seat near her notebook, glancing at it in hopes of a sneak peek. She, however, was not dumb and had remembered to close the book before tossing it.

"Aro wishes to see you in the throne room," he relayed uncertainly, avoiding her eyes. Oh, it was bad then. Assumptions jumped into her mind, and she was panicking by the time she reached her closet to change into more appropriate clothes. Torn jeans, a lewd tee shirt, and red Chuck Taylor hi tops were simply not acceptable when meeting with the head honcho of their establishment.

"He doesn't know about the thing last week… ya know, that we broke?" Her nerves were a little bit more obvious as she nibbled her bottom lip, an old habit not easily broken, and glanced at him through the corner of her eye.

"We?" he asked skeptically, his worry forgotten for a moment.

She sighed dejectedly, laying out her clothes on the end of the bed. "Ok fine, I! Does he know that I broke the chandelier last week during practice?!"

Santiago shrugged, looking away from her again. "He just wants to see you in the main office."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"What makes you think I'm not telling you something?"

"Because you just answered my question with a question," she pointed out, smug. He grinned softly as he left to give her some privacy.

Two and a half seconds later, Bella met Santiago outside her door, dressed in a black short sleeved tee with a sweetheart neckline, white denim pants, and super tall black heels. Oh, and who could forget the ever-stylish black Volturi robe? The perfect accessory to creep anyone out! Looping her arm loosely through his, the two began to make their way through the many tangles and stairs of Volterra Castle. She just had to have the deepest, darkest room in the castle. This thought had recurred in Santiago's mind many a time throughout knowing Bella. She simply told everyone she preferred the solitude. Only Santiago knew the full story behind that.

"Hmm, I've been here for forty five years, and I've never actually took the time to appreciate my surroundings," Bella mused, and Santiago grinned, despite his strange mood. "I think maybe we should take our time and just memorize the amazing architecture of this fine… wall." Her inspirational rant ended with that blunt note as she realized she what exactly she was complimenting. The walls were made of, for lack of a better term, cement that had been painted red some centuries ago and hadn't been touched since. A better look at them actually caused her to wince. The water stains weren't helping its case; or hers.

"Yea, they're just so fantastic," Santiago agreed sarcastically, his slight Hispanic cadence ringing in his words. It would have been pretty swoon-worthy had she any swooning left in her. She decided to steer her thoughts in a more positive direction.

"Still, I'm not in any rush. You?"

"Definitely not," he murmured, causing her to gulp unnecessarily. "And besides, he won't care too much." Her head cocked to the side. One thing Aro never tolerated was tardiness, and he made damn sure that everyone was well aware. "Demetri, Felix, and Alec are back." Just mentioning this, she noted, his voice was filled with nerves.

"Ok, what's wrong? You're hardly ever like this! It's making me anxious."

"It's nothing. Don't worry." And yet worry she did. She worried all the way down the hall, up the three flights of stairs, through the many corridors, and all the way to the giant oak doors behind which sat the Volturi brothers' main office. She gulped again.

And, just as she pushed the door open, Santiago's arm was gone from hers, and she turned in the direction of his hastily retreating footsteps. "Santiago!" she called after him, just in time for him to round the corner out of sight. And she would've gone after him if she hadn't already opened the door. "Shit." As soon as the word left her mouth she felt like she should've blushed because of the looks she was surely receiving from under the hoods of her fellow guard members. She turned her attention on the three 'kings'. "Um, listen, I can explain about the-"

"This isn't about the chandelier that we've already had replaced," Caius, the blonde brother, barked, and he and Bella locked eyes in a glaring contest. She broke the gaze after a moment when a familiar head of red hair caught the corner of her eye.

"Oh, you're back," she nearly growled, causing Victoria to smirk.

"Miss me?" she cooed.

"No, Victoria, I am not bi-curious, and that answer is never gonna change, so if I were you I'd quit setting myself up for disappointment," Bella bit back with a glare. Victoria's jaw fell in disbelief. She composed herself a moment later.

"Really, cuz I didn't think you were curious at all these days." That remark was below the belt, and they both knew it.

"And you are?" Bella returned easily after only one agonized look passed through her eyes, arms crossed over her torso and eyebrow raised in expectation. The redhead glared in response, unable to think of a reasonable comeback. Smirking, Bella turned her attention to the center of the three brothers. "You summoned?" she inquired in a suddenly dry tone, eyebrow raised in expectation.

"Yes, well, you'll be glad to know that your suggestion about South Africa proved to be very helpful," Aro complimented with a smile. Growls rose from somewhere in front of where Demetri, Felix, and Alec stood, and for a moment her head snapped in the direction of the angry sounds, annoyed that she was out of the loop. "However, it would appear that the fugitives we captured are old friends of yours." This took her by surprise. She couldn't recall ever meeting any vampires that weren't part of the Volturi or someone she'd been sent to persuade to join the Volturi. Unless… "Or, rather, they once considered you a part of their family."

Understanding was just one of the many emotions that crossed her stunning features, along with anger, remorse, and, most surprising to the bystanders, fear. Aro, seemingly unaware of her reaction, gestured for the three guard members to turn the captives around and face their captor.

It was just as she'd feared, and she couldn't compose her features enough to hide her obvious emotions.

"Bella?" Edward choked out, his own eyes mirroring her fear and sadness. He, however, did not look angry, and instead of understanding he seemed genuinely confused. There was another one in there, perhaps his most prominent emotion lying undisturbed in his black pools; betrayal.

That would have been enough to send her into a furious rage, ripping him apart in a way she hadn't been strong enough to that day fifty years earlier. Images of a broken right hand and left elbow added fuel to her fire and, thanks to Victoria and her vampire ability to recall and imitate, his lines were forever etched into her perfect memory in his annoyingly beautiful voice.

We're moving.

By 'we' I meant my family and myself.

I'm tired. Tired of pretending to be something I'm not and tired of testing my self control.

It's just not worth it.

You're not worth it.

Kiddo

One of the few perks of being a vampire that she would always be grateful for was the inability to shed tears. They showed just how weak and vulnerable you felt, and they blurred your vision. Totally invaluable for any situation, especially if one would be feeling mad about something. Tears popping up at that moment weren't very helpful.

Another thing she was grateful for was the mask that could be put up to hide any and all emotions. She took advantage of that after a hundredth of a second looking at Edward. Then she turned to face her 'boss', nodding her head once in affirmation to his judgment.

"Yes, well then, since I wouldn't want to put an unnecessary strain on our relationship," more than one person scoffed at his statement, though Bella remained frozen where she stood, "I will leave it up to you to decide how we take care of them."

She looked back at their faces, knowing she wouldn't have the strength to do what she was about to without looking at them. The sight would've been laughable had certain circumstances been different. The almighty, perfect Cullens were dressed in clothing that could very easily be passed off as rags. Emmett was covered in grease, his pants had dirt stains and giant holes in the knees, and his shirt was stretched from obviously being worn too much. Rosalie's jeans were in no better condition than her husband's pants, and her shirt had little tears in random places. And she wasn't wearing heels! In fact, she wasn't wearing any shoes at all!

And then there was, of course, Edward. Damn him. Only he could make her want to jump him, in a good way, while donning paint splattered, ripped, faded, loose jeans, a t-shirt with tears in the shoulders, a worn and stretched over shirt, and ratty old sneakers . Only Edward. For the briefest part of a moment she wondered what Alice Cullen was wearing, and if her hair was still spiky or if she'd let it fall flat without the product. Or, better yet, if she was using mud to hold it in place.

She glanced back at Edward again, only to find him staring into her eyes with heartbreak and fear. Oh yes, he was staring into her bright red eyes with heartbreak and fear. His 'emotions' reminded her of the situation at hand.

"Yes, I suppose I was once a part of their family," she stated, almost in an off-handed tone. As if they were discussing nothing more than the weather. And all the while she never took her eyes off of Edward, who looked very anxious. Of course it would be impossible for him to know what she was planning, without her emotions shining through her eyes, without her facial expressions, and without the tone of her voice to guide him. She almost wanted to smirk. "But no, you are wrong." She turned to look at Aro for a quick moment before glaring back at Edward, still revealing nothing of her thoughts. "The decision is not mine. Decisions are not for the family pet." She'd spoken those last words through nearly gritted teeth, and the pent up rage boiled over her stone cold mask and into her terrifying crimson eyes, and Edward sucked in a pained gasp.

"No, Bella, don't-!"

She ignored him, her face calmed once more as she turned to the three Volturi brothers. "They're all yours."

And without a last glance she turned and nearly sprinted the few feet to the door, the last thing she heard besides the betrayed shouting of the Cullens was Aro's command for Alec to restrain them. And as the door clicked shut behind her she took off sprinting in the direction of her room, where she knew Santiago would be cowering.

--

The first thing Edward noticed once Alec had 'awoken' him was that he was in a cage. And, if you reached out to touch said cage, as Emmett had just discovered in a similar enclosure next to him, it would burn you to a crisp. So no touching the bars. Then everything came rushing back.

Bella had turned them over to the Volturi. Of course it had been her. It must have been one of those random human memories that could come to a vampire at any given moment. At one point during that summer he had told her that they had some friends in Egypt, and that a couple of Romanian vampires were trying to persuade the Egyptians to borrow their land to a resistance that was forming. Of course the Cullens had believed it to be completely false… at the time. But certainly Bella would have relayed that information to her leaders once it had come to her.

After all, she had no reason to remain loyal to Edward's family. Not after the things he'd said to her.

Rosalie had been furious after the initial shock of seeing Bella as a vampire wore off. She believed Bella had gone looking for Victoria to change her into one of them, and together they'd joined the Volturi to fight against the Cullens. Rosalie had strongly believed that for a solid two seconds until she remembered the exchange Bella and Victoria had shared. They didn't sound like teammates at all, and Bella certainly didn't seem happy to be a vampire. And then the blonde began to point her fingers at her brother.

What did you do to her?! she accused rather harshly, shouting in her head to be sure he heard. He did his best to block her thoughts out, as well as Emmett's, and focused solely on Bella. And that's when he'd noticed her actual appearance.

The first thing to catch his eye, catch it, but not hold it, was her hair. It seemed much darker than when he'd last seen her, black if the lighting had nothing to do with it. Had she dyed it perhaps? Or had that simply happened during her change? It was also much straighter. But when she turned to glare back at him, the color of her eyes nearly broke his lifeless heart.

She didn't look more than three days over eighteen, which was the exact age he'd left her at, and so the red in her eyes could not be played off as that of a newborn. No, she had to have been a vampire for fifty years now, and no newborn blood lasted that long. Therefore, the crimson color of her eyes could only be from a different human; meaning she hadn't chosen the Cullen's choice of diet. That thought brought him to tears, and for a moment he almost believed they would fall.

And then she shut him out of her emotions completely, from her eyes to her face to the tone of her voice, nothing led him on to her train of thought. Not until the very end, where she passed along the fate of not only Edward, but Rosalie and Emmett as well, to the hands of their greatest enemy. And then she left without looking back, despite his loud protests. Alec had made quick work of shutting him up.

Alec was gone now, and instead their babysitter was a brunette woman who appeared to be focusing rather hard on something. That's when he felt a strong tug on something deep within him. He knew who this woman was at once.

This must be Chelsea, the one Eleazar had warned them about from the get go. She could manipulate relationship ties of anything weaker than that of a mated vampire pair. Her only loyalty was to the three Volturi kings, as well as her mate, Afton.

Edward felt a sudden urge to join the Volturi guard. It wasn't a strong one, but the feeling surprised him for a moment. So this was their plan, then. They were going to keep on 'persuading' the Cullens to join their little guard, while at the same time attempt to sever their ties to the other four Cullens. He could hear his siblings' sudden urges to surrender as well.

Looking around, he noticed they were in a large, square room. There were ten cages spread out against two different walls. He and Emmett were occupying two of the cells across from the one Rosalie was in, and Emmett was very upset about this; another technique to force them into surrendering, no doubt. Edward didn't understand why they were keeping him and his siblings alive. Wouldn't it be much easier for them to simply kill off the three rebels and move on with their plans? Oh how he wished he could have access to their minds.

There were two doors, one on each of the empty walls, and the large one called Felix stood still as a statue against one door, and Afton stood at the other. Chelsea was perched on a stool near her mate, still focused intently on the relationship ties of the three Cullens. He decided to voice his questions aloud to them.

"Why are we still alive? Wouldn't it be a lot less trouble to simply kill us off and move on to other things?"

Edward, are you trying to get us killed?! I'm pretty sure the Volturi guard members aren't dumb enough to fall for reverse psychology! He ignored Rosalie's loud thoughts. Just once he'd like her to play the quiet game.

"Oh believe me, Cullen, I'd very much enjoy ripping you to pieces myself," Felix assured, a malicious grin forming on his mouth even as his eyes tightened into a glare. "However, Aro has other plans for you. His reasons are unknown."

"So lemme get this straight. None of you get so much as a say in anything? You guys aren't even clued in on the reasons for doing things? You simply let Aro and his brothers boss you around and possibly put your existences in danger without so much as an explanation for why you're doing it?" Not for the first time since knowing Emmett did Edward wish it was his burly brother that had the gift of mind reading. That way he could be informed of when would be a good time to shut the fuck up.

Afton and Felix bore matching hard lines through their mouths, and it was the former that responded to the captive's inquiries. "We know enough. And besides, a chance at power is worth the risk of the unknown. And from now on I suggest watching your mouth, or something very unpleasant may happen to your mate while you sit by and watch." A snarl ripped through Emmett's chest, causing the guard members to smirk in unison. Creepy. "I'm just saying… accidents happen."

And so they sat and waited, frozen like statues while their throats slowly burned hotter and hotter for the blood that would never again satiate it. Time was lost track of, save for the changing of the guards. Sometimes Chelsea would be replaced by someone with a different method of persuasion. Jane would stop by every once in a while, and was disgruntled further with the denial she would receive after they'd each suffered and hour of her wrath.

Heidi stopped in a few times, tempting them with their wildest fantasies. At first Emmett was offered an impossibly large, ferocious grizzly bear. However, his thirst eventually turned into lust with each day that passed without any contact with Rosalie. Hers were much similar to his, and Edward was quick to learn that, the moments Heidi was tempting them, would be his time to pick at the shield that was blocking the Volturi minds from his.

Heidi saved him for last, and gasped when she saw what he desired most. "Don't worry, you're secret's safe with me," she assured him with a wink and a devilish smirk. For some strange reason, he wasn't entirely sure he trusted her.

The only way they had of knowing how much time had passed was when, every Saturday night, Aro would come to ask if any of them had changed their minds. Each time they would answer no, and this seemed to amuse him.

On the third Saturday, they were informed that it was dinner time. The infernos that had become their throats burned hopelessly stronger at his words and, since Edward had to deal with not only his but Emmett's and Rosalie's thoughts centered solely on blood and how relieving it would be, he leapt at the bars. He jumped back after a sixtieth of a second with a loud yelp that gathered more than a few chuckles from somewhere in the castle.

Felix, Corin, and Jane came to relieve Demetri, Afton, and Chelsea of their duties an hour later, their eyes each burning bright crimson in honor of their latest feast. While Jane worked her tricks on Rosalie, who could handle the pain surprisingly well, Edward gathered as much stealth as he could from within and began picking at the wood floor beneath him.

At first he thought it had been too easy. They were surrounded and covered by bars with flames running rampant through the insides, so why would they possibly have it resting on a wooden floor? It was too easy. There had to be a catch.

But he'd never been so thirsty in his life, and with the wild desperation of an unsaturated vampire he continued to pick at the floorboards underneath. Corin spoke after a moment.

"Go ahead Cullen. Pick away at the floor. It's not like we keep the fire for the bars underneath this room or anything." That stopped him in his tracks, and his thumbs began to twiddle in his lap as he waited his turn to be picked on by Jane.

--

"Has anything changed?" Jasper whispered to Alice uncertainly. They sat curled up on a couch in the meeting room at the new headquarters, and Alice's hands were pressed to her temples determinedly.

"No," she sighed out after another moment. Neither knew if that was good or bad. Nothing had changed with the status of their siblings for nearly two months now, and it had everyone feeling hopeless and confused. Aro was up to something; of that much Alice was certain. He had no reason to keep Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett alive, and yet he did. Each time she saw him go in to check on them he appeared expectant, and when they declined his offer to join his ranks his expression never changed.

Unfortunately, the leader of the Volturi had been tipped off to Alice's power the day he read Edward's thoughts. He wasn't being definitive with any of his plans, and it was pissing her off to no end. The best guess anyone had was that he wouldn't kill any of his captives. He couldn't afford to waste good talent like theirs in these hard times. They could use all the numbers they could get. And he had the perfect bartering weapon: Bella.

The Cullens had been heartbroken to learn that, not only had Bella joined the Volturi, but had also tipped them off to their last location. It had them all wondering what had made her so cross. Sure, Edward had broken up with her, but so what? Humans got dumped all the time. Something else must have happened that none of them knew about. It was so un-Bella-like to turn them in. Or join the Volturi.

Carlisle, of course, had been smarter about this move. No one besides him and, of course, Alice knew where they were located. All they knew was that it was in a forest. He had flown them all to this latest place in a plane he had been saving for just this purpose and had kept secret from everyone, and no one went outside of a ten mile radius to hunt. Yes, that meant everyone would be sticking to a vegetarian diet unless some poor lost human should happen to wonder into their vicinity. But then, it would be a necessity to get rid of them, should the Volturi happen to be wondering around and bump in to said human. They were taking every precaution.

The rebels could do nothing but sit around the headquarters and make plans based on Alice's visions. Needless to say, the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She wished they would understand how quickly her visions could change, and how impossible it was for her to read every changing variable of every vision that ghosted through her brain. It simply couldn't be done, and to top it off, if they failed and she survived, the guilt she would harbor would be so strong that not even Jasper could rid her of it. He couldn't even relieve her of her stress at the current situation.

"What about now?" Eleazar, the only male Denali member, asked after another moment.

"Still no," she responded a bit more harshly than the last time.

"Well, what if-" Garrett, an adventurous nomad who was currently in the process of becoming the second male Denali member, began to interrupt, but she cut him off.

"Just stop! Don't you people see how difficult this is for me?! I have to check every possible scenario of every single member of the Volturi, and you don't even want to know how many of them there are! Plus I have to keep checking on every vampire that has still decided to remain neutral and see if any of them are even considering picking a side, and if one of them should choose to join us than I have to search around for some record of their information so that one of us can call them up and someone can go fly out and meet them somewhere! And then to top it off I have all of you breathing down my neck asking me every point two seconds if something's changed! AND I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT!" Her entire rant had been shouted using one breath, and now she sucked in a gracious amount of air while she and Jasper worked to calm her down. Everyone was frozen, shocked at her outburst. Alice never lost her temper.

"Alice, we're sorry that we've been so pushy," Carlisle apologized, his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "It's just, these are hard times, and with so much in our minds it's easy to momentarily forget that while yes, your talent is very helpful, it is also very tricky and takes a lot of concentration and patience and isn't one hundred percent certain. I will do my best to remember that from now on." The others murmured their agreements, and Alice smiled shyly.

"Thank you. And I didn't mean to explode like that. I just…" Her sentence trailed off, unfinished as she slipped into a particularly powerful vision.

"Alice, what is it?" Jasper asked after her dark gold eyes refocused. He could feel the terrible emotions rolling off of her and knew it wasn't good.

"In Volterra. Something's changed."

--

Ooo, cliffie! Bad Jazlyn! Bad! I know, I'm sorry! It was just so tempting! Ending things like that is the best! Well, for me. I personally hate it when that happens in a story I'm reading. But you know what I've found to be a great way of getting the answers you want? Reviewing! :O Jazz, is that really possible? you ask. Why yes! It is! In fact, I have chapter four up and rearing to go, if I get enough requests…

~Jazz~