Ok, so here's the third chapter. The next one won't be up for another three weeks because, like I said, I'm trying to catch up on twilighted. So just be patient!

--

"Santiago!" Bella shouted, nearing the door to the room in which she took residence. How she had managed to keep calm throughout that meeting she had no idea. The entire time she had been on the verge of breaking down into tearless sobs. She assumed it was her pride having kept her from that. One thing she was sure of, though, was that Santiago had known exactly what was going on, and yet he had still led her up there; he'd fucking thrown her to the lions! "I know you're hiding in there!" she continued, just before she burst open the door to find her 'friend' sitting on her bed reading over her latest draft of lyrics; which weren't very interesting or long, seeing as she had about two usable lines written down.

He was across the room from her in the blink of a vampire's eye.

"Bella, I know that what I did was bad, but Aro asked me too! I couldn't just refuse him, you know that!" He was backing away with every step she took towards him, but too soon he found he was backed into a corner. Bella continued to advance, a murderous look plastered across her face.

"A little warning would've been nice!" She was practically shrieking now, and if her eyes could still produce tears they would be streaming down her un-rosy cheeks; yes, she was that angry.

He scoffed, momentarily setting aside his situation. "Yea, because you'd have come if I'd told you they were waiting." Her jaw set angrily and her arms crossed over her chest. She hated not being right. "Besides, you should have known you would have to face him at some point during the next eternity."

"And you ran like an unnaturally fast little scared human girl because…?"

"Yes, that was dumb, I know," he admitted, trying not glare at her insult as he shifted his feet nervously. "Honestly, I was more afraid of how you'd react to seeing them versus me running away. And at least I didn't try to hide from you!" She rolled her eyes, anger at him fading away and being replaced by her ever present hatred of her conceited ex and his equally terrible family. She crossed over to the middle of the room, slamming down face first onto the bed. Her face burrowed in the pillows and she screamed with all her might into its feathers.

"What am I gonna do?" she whined after her fit. She felt the weight shift on her bed, meaning Santiago had sat down, and turned her head to him. His face held nothing but sympathy for her, and that was both comforting and annoying. There was a loud bang on her door before Bella's second closest colleague came bursting through the door in a fit of rage.

"What was that all about?! Aro looks like he's about to fall on the floor in hysterics, Victoria is looking very proud of herself, which is never good, and you're in here practically balling your eyes out, and don't even try to deny it because I can see the venom swimming in your eyes!" As she waited for Bella to reply, Heidi sucked in a large breath of air. That entire speech had been delivered in one breath, and she may have needed another in case either of them tried arguing with her.

As Bella gripped her middle, her way to keep from falling to pieces, as was a common occurrence with the telling of this story, Santiago delved into the scarcely known past of Bella Swan. He recounted everything he'd been told about Bella's time with the Cullens fifty years earlier. While this was going on, the girl in question hummed quietly to herself, trying to tune out the words being spoken beside her. It didn't work.

By the time Santiago had reached the outing of the truth, better known to Bella as Doomsday, Heidi's jaw appeared to be permanently dislocated, a crease etched into her perfect forehead. Not that Bella could see that, through her clenched eyes. She wished she could hurl, without consuming human food that is, just so that she could feel some sort of relief within her body.

"That motherfucking asshole!" Heidi shouted a moment after Santiago finished telling the only important part of Bella's past, in her own mind, taht is. "And here I'd been thinking it was just living with Victoria that had made her so depressed! Oh, no offense, Bella."

Bella poked her head up from her pillow, just enough to glare briefly at the succubus. Then she merely shrugged and went back to wallowing in her self-misery. Silence gripped the room after that, during which Santiago and Heidi shared uncomfortable looks. There was a lot the two of them wished to discuss, and it couldn't be done in the presence of a certain dark-haired colleague.

Heidi's cell phone rang out after a few more minutes.

"If the three of you could join us in the meeting room, we have recent events to discuss," came the commanding voice of Caius just after Heidi pressed talk. She glanced uncertainly down at Bella, who hadn't even acknowledged the phone call, and was still holding herself in a death grip. She looked like she had some sort of strange vampire flu.

"Um, I don't think Bella will be joining us."

"Well then you and Santiago need to bid her farewell and come participate on her behalf."

"Will do." The call was ended, and the two guard members rose to their feet, heading in the direction of the door.

"Don't tell them anything they don't need to know," Bella muttered just as the door opened. She didn't bother to turn around and see their response. Once the door clicked shut she reached out for her notebook, determined to at least start the lyrics. An idea was forming in her head, but she couldn't quite put it into words yet. Soon she found her mind wandering into her past…

The first thought that entered Bella's mind after her eternity in the inferno was to remain completely still. Something within her told her that she wasn't safe. In what seemed to be the blink of an eye to her mind, she had realized why she didn't feel safe; she wasn't. The tiniest brush of a foot against wet leaves sounded some two feet and three point six inches away from her left ear, and she had to fight off the sudden instinct to jump up and fight.

Even as that was being processed at the speed of light in her brain, Bella was able to get a sense of her surroundings. Beneath her fingertips she could feel that she was resting on a damp forest floor, in clothes that were soaked from the inside out. That meant it had rained during her three day transformation period. She had no idea how she knew that that was what the burning had been, but the moment she thought it she knew it was true.

She was a vampire.

And then the memory from three days earlier popped into her head, fuzzy from her human senses. Victoria was an enemy, though she shied away from the reasons why, knowing those memories would hurt, and she had changed her into a vampire out of revenge for some unknown occurrence that was almost completely not Bella's fault. The words Victoria had spoken were the clearest part of that memory.

"But first, remember this, and let it be the thought that carries you through the next three days. The pain I am about to inflict on you could have easily been avoided if it weren't for the selfishness of the Cullens."

And her brain did try to remember. It became impossible for her to remain still as her mind was inflicted with memory after memory of a beautiful boy with messy bronze hair and an incredible poker face.

There was chuckling from the same spot that the foot had brushed against the ground a fifth of a second before, only slightly farther up. And still Bella couldn't help but flail around as the lies Edward Cullen had told her attempted to replay themselves in her now much sharper mind.

All the 'You are my's and 'I promise's were cut off with a quick 'No!' from her thoughts. Then Edward's voice rang out through her mind. She tried her hardest to fight this memory off, but it persisted, and eventually won out. "Bella, 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." And even though she was one hundred percent certain that Edward was not speaking aloud, Bella's newborn red eyes snapped open, wide with fear and anger.

--

"Aro, what is going on?!" demanded Caius angrily from the 'dining' room of the Volterra Castle. He, his two brothers, his wife, Aro's wife, and nine of the twelve most trusted guard members were all gathered angrily around the large mahogany table, most of whom were stood on their feet out anger, confusion, or an interesting combination of the two. Santiago and Heidi entered as sneakily as they could manage, which did not work in their favor. All heads turned in the direction of the open door, complete silence engulfing the room.

"Heh, heh, hey everybody," Santiago began nervously under the scrutiny of his peers and superiors. Heidi rolled her eyes, shoving her friend in the direction of the table. They took two seats at the end of the group, and others began to sit as well.

"Alright, now that everyone is here, we may proceed," Aro began, the only one still standing. "First off, I would like to express my gratitude to Demetri, Felix, and Alec for their success in Africa." There were a few mumbled agreements and compliments, but for the most part the guard members waited impatiently for Aro to indulge their curiosity. "I have been waiting a great deal of time for the capture of any, if not three, Cullens. But I am especially pleased that you've managed to bring in Edward Cullen amongst them."

"But why, Aro?" stressed Felix, voicing everyone else's growing curiosity. "What does Bella have to do with them?"

Fellow murmurs of curiosity broke out from the small crowd, rising in volume until Aro finally commanded them all to settle. The few that had risen to their feet sat back down, almost literally biting their tongues as they waited for Aro to speak.

"There are many reason Edward Cullen was an exceptional capture," Aro began in his dramatic way, pausing for the effect. "The first is because, as you most likely figured out upstairs, he, like myself, is a mind reader. However, he does not have to have physical contact to know what someone is thinking." This sparked a string of worried outcries from Aro's audience, and he wasted no time calming it. "There is a catch though. He cannot read any thought, like I can. He can only hear what you are thinking while you are thinking about it."

"Where are they right now?" Afton asked in his serious tone. He, along with his wife Chelsea, was an avid human-hater for reasons unknown other than the fact that he found them to be inferior. If they weren't needed for nourishment he would see to it that they were all destroyed. It angered him greatly that the Cullens chose to spare their lives, and he was hoping Aro wouldn't wait too long to destroy them.

"They are being held in the chambers until we can persuade them to join us." He prepared himself for the onslaught of protest that didn't fail to present itself a short moment later.

"What?! We can't let them…" "Aro, my intentions are not to disrespect you, but have you lost your mind?!" "What's the point?! They're never going to change!"

"Listen! We cannot afford to waste talent and experience like theirs," Aro explained after their voices died off. "Edward's gift will be a great help when we end up facing the resistance, and the more numbers we can gather the better." He turned to Chelsea then. "Chelsea, I expect you can convince them to join us?"

She hesitated a moment, eyes closed as she concentrated on the still unconscious forms of Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett. "Possibly… it would take some time." Her voice wasn't entirely sure, but it was enough for Aro. If there was a possibility he would take it.

"Excellent! And now, Felix, in response to your earlier question, and as many of you may have guessed, Bella knew the Cullens before she joined us." Victoria was snickering in her seat, not even trying to hide it while others gave her envious looks. The Volturi were not known for their patience, and were not ones to be left in the dark. "To be clear, she was a human when she knew them."

There were shocked gasps at this information, Afton and Chelsea groaned and appeared sick, and Victoria nodded in affirmation to any of the curious glances sent her way. Santiago looked over to Aro, pleading with his eyes not to share the rest of Bella's past. But he was not begging, no, his eyes were almost pulled tight into a glare. He held back, because Aro had power over him, but he got his point across. Aro did not mention the love affair that had occurred between Bella and Edward. It didn't matter, five of the other members at the meeting already knew anyway.

Once the group settled back down, yet again, Aro continued, "Now if there are any more personal questions about Isabella's past, you may ask her yourself. It is not my story to tell. I only told you this much so you would understand what had happened this evening. Afton, Felix, go stand guard in the holding room. Alec, Chelsea, the two of you remain in here. Everyone else may disperse."

And so that's what they all did. Of course, Aro's brothers and the wives also stayed behind, and Jane insisted on staying as well, and so they waited in silence until it was the six of them left in the meeting room. Then Aro turned to his little group. "Chelsea, I want you to keep a close watch on a certain bond at all times." She nodded, understanding him immediately, even as Caius, Jane, and Alec squinted their eyes in suspicious confusion.

"What bond, Aro?" Jane inquired after Chelsea left to join her husband. He returned his attention to the other four that were still in his company, joyful mirth to his eyes that suggested he knew something important that was not supposed to be shared with others. This immediately intrigued all but Marcus, who for starters already knew what was happening, but also never seemed to be interested in anything.

"What I am about to tell you does not leave this room," he murmured, so low that they strained to hear. "Bella wasn't just the Cullen's family pet when she lived in Forks…"

--

"I'm not your angel darling, I'm not your angel darling, I am never gonna be," both Bella and Kate Voegele sang out from the large tub in the bathroom that conjoined with the room in which Bella took residence. She never really felt comfortable enough to call anything in the castle her own, since it was not her money that she was spending. While sure, as of late she was the source of one of the main incomes for the Volturi, they had acquired an immeasurable amount of money before her time. She was, mainly, a safety, should anything go wrong with the impending war. So no, she claimed no ownership to anything she was provided with by the Volturi money.

"I'm not your angel darling, I'm not your angel darling, I, am never gonna be."

She had her headphones on as loud as they could go, but that did not stop her from hearing the bedroom door open and close, followed by a knock on the bathroom door and Heidi's voice asking, "Are you almost done?" The tone in her question concerned Bella. Things had not gone well, then.

Bella turned off her music player, wrapping the headphones around the body of the tiny machine and setting it on the counter as she stood up, drying off and wrapping herself in one of the red towels that were given in all of the private bathrooms.

"Yea, I'll be right there." She grabbed the black hair binder off of the white marble counter top, twisting her hair in a high ponytail. She grabbed the mp3 player, then, and headed back into the bedroom.

Heidi was situated in the black leather chair set by the almost untouched bookshelf, glancing around the room with her lips pressed together. Heidi always complained about how un-homey the room felt.

There were no personal belonging at all; no pictures on the walls, or by her bed; nothing other than office supplies and the laptop on the black, box shaped desk in the corner of the room; the red desk chair was tucked neatly in place, not even a millimeter out of line; the bed was made up perfectly, not a single crease in the black covers, and the white feather pillows were fluffed up and smooth; the lamp resting on the nightstand that matched her desk was set dead center on the top, off for now; there was a black leather couch pushed up in the corner along the same wall as the back of the bed, and it faced a mounted plasma screen television, also rarely used, and a coffee table that was designed the same way as the desk and the nightstand was situated over a black rug with white stripes halfway between the TV and the couch. A single red rose was resting in the middle of the table in a clear vase.

The walls matched the large rug, black with thin white stripes, and the floor was solid white marble tile, with the occasional red placed here and there, that announced Bella's entrance to Heidi, who tore her eyes away from the crimson ceiling to stare sadly at her friend.

"I finally understand all those lyrics you write," Heidi stated, having heard Bella singing moments earlier. Bella nodded, her eyes cast down towards the floor as she made her way to the closet. She chose a black lace bra and matching panties, since that's all Heidi allowed her to buy when she forced her to go shopping, and tossed the now unnecessary towel out into the room. Taking that as her 'it's safe' cue, Heidi got up from the chair and stood in the doorway to the closet.

"So, what happened?" Bella asked cautiously, picking out a pair of sanded medium blue wash bootcut jeans from Sinful, pulling them on, before turning to glance at Heidi's perfect frame. Her physique was much the same as Rosalie, one of the few differences being her dark brown hair.

"Uh, well, um," Heidi stammered, looking for words that would not come. Bella halted in her search for a shirt, her eyebrows coming together in worry. Heidi was almost never speechless. "Ok, here's the thing," she finally decided, "Aro has decided to… convince the Cullens to join us!" The last part came out in a rush, and Heidi was quick to cover her face. When no screaming was heard, she peeked out from between her fingers to see that Bella had returned to her hunt for a shirt. The only difference in her appearance was the slight frown on her lips, her clenched jaw, and a tightened glare in her eyes. "Um, you heard me, right?"

Bella nodded, not trusting her voice, as she pulled down a black Sinful tee, examining it for a moment before pulling it on. It had two white, winged lions on the front facing in opposite directions, and a white crest in the middle of them with a Fleur de Leis sign surrounded by red designs.

"And you're not upset?" Heidi asked uncertainly, tossing Bella a pair of white ankle socks. She caught them with ease, lifting up her feet one at a time to put them on.

"Of course I am," Bella murmured, her voice constrained as she watched her actions. "But I'm done crying over them, Heidi. I won't scream and pout and throw a tantrum like the pathetic little human girl they left behind," she explained, grabbing her red converse hi tops and brushing past her friend, flipping the lights in the closet off and perching herself on the edge of her bed. Heidi pressed herself back into the leather chair, staring at her friend while she laced her sneakers.

"Well, that's great Bella! I'm proud."

Bella looked up, offering her friend a half smile and an eye roll, folding the bottom of her pants over the sneakers.

"Aro didn't say anything, did he?" she asked uncertainly, the corner of her lower lip unconsciously being pulled between her teeth. The old habit had yet to break, as she was almost always unaware when it was happening.

"He told them you were human when you knew the Cullens."

Bella sighed dejectedly. That was not good as she would, without a doubt, be the center of jokes for months to come, but it could have been much worse. She got up and went back into the bathroom, pulling out the hairdryer and letting her hair down.

"Where's Santiago?" Bella asked over the roar of the hair dryer.

"He went to go play X-Box with Corin," Heidi explained, entering the bathroom as well. She pulled a second hair dryer out of the cabinet beneath the sink. She plugged it in and worked on the back of Bella's hair. They switched off with the comb, and by the time they were done her hair was almost completely straight, and only a little frizzy.

Hair was one of the weakest parts of a vampire's body, and was therefore easily manipulated by human products, such as blow dryers, flat and curling irons, anti-frizz cream, hairspray, hair dye, and, if they were sturdy enough, scissors. Not too many vampires got haircuts, however, because their hair would not grow back, since their skin cells did not die. So when Bella had joined the Volturi forty five years earlier, she'd begged Heidi, who had quickly become her friend, to cut and dye her hair; not explaining the reason why. She wanted to be everything that she wasn't, should she ever run into Edward again. And it was only just paying off.

She took just over half an inch off and added layers, dyeing it black per Bella's request. And it had stayed that way ever since. She knew she could dye it back anytime she wanted, and had been planning to up until the return of her ex. But, seeing how devastated this look made him, she decided to keep it for a while.

They put the hair dryers away and pulled out two hair straighteners in their place. She had also chosen to wear it straight at all times, and it only took a little more effort than if she had been human.

"So, what are you going to do once Chelsea can 'convince' them to join us?" Heidi asked conversationally as she straightened a lock of hair in the back, and Bella scoffed.

"Yea right. They're not going to join us." Heidi's eyebrow arched, Bella noticed in the mirror. "They love their little family too much to do that. At least, as far as I knew they did…" she added as an afterthought. For all she knew, though, they all secretly hated each other. She wasn't sure of anything they'd told her anymore. How could she be? Edward had said so himself that he'd been lying.

"Eventually their thirst will win out, if nothing else," Heidi countered, working the top layers of Bella's hair. Bella shrugged, dropping the subject. They finished her hair and she pulled it back up into a high ponytail.

"Well, let's go watch Corin burn Santiago's Latin ass, shall we?" Heidi suggested, offering Bella her arm. Laughing and shaking her head, Bella linked her arm through her friends and the two of them entered the hallway.

"I think you're wrong," Bella argued.

"Wow, shocker," Heidi teased, and the two of them laughed as they walked, now separately, down the hall, and Bella's was almost completely genuine for a change.

--

Ok, so this was a toughie to write. Mostly the Volturi meeting part, but a lot of it was difficult. And in case anyone was confused, this was the day that the Cullens were brought in. You'll find out what happened with them, hopefully, in the next chapter. I have a few more flashbacks planned and whatnot, plus describing what everyone else was up to during the seven weeks that the Cullens were locked up. So, stay tuned!

~Jazz~

What is the best angry song you know?