Alright, I wasn't completely sure how to start this chapter, so that's why it took a little while. And I've been busy with the Holidays. I hope it was worth the wait.

--

There are many things in life that Edward cannot tolerate. Being taken by surprise, for example, really agitates him, since it happens so infrequently. The same thing goes for being outsmarted, and his mind has a very low tolerance for practicing patience. But above all else, Edward Cullen simply cannot stand being powerless.

Like after Bella ran out. Without any form of an explanation, he, Emmett, and Rosalie were shown to their new quarters-that they would all be sharing-and were then left to their own devices. He now sat on the edge of his bed, his head between his knees and his hands tugging the strange-colored hair at the nape of his neck. Santiago's room was just above his, and Edward was focused intently on the Latino's thoughts, waiting for any sign of Bella.

She had been gone for six hours, thirty seven minutes, and twenty two point six seconds, and so far Edward had no idea what was going on with her. The only hint anyone had given him was a pair of bright red eyes – Bella's eyes. He could guess that she was out hunting, but then why would Heidi still be out there searching for her? It made no sense, and the only thing that agitated him more than not knowing was the fact that he couldn't demand that someone clue him in. He was utterly and completely powerless in Italy, and he almost wished that they'd never agreed to join the guard. Like they had a choice with Chelsea preying on their weakening bonds.

He had uncovered some useful information, however, since having gained access to their thoughts. For one, even while under her shield, anyone whose extra talent involved the mind was useless against Bella. He felt both proud and frustrated about this. Proud because he knew how she liked that he couldn't read her thoughts, and therefore she probably liked that others' powers would never affect her as well. But he felt frustrated because he was still no closer to entering her mind than he had been that first fateful day in the Forks High School cafeteria. It was very frustrating.

He was also able to learn whose powers worked on Bella, and whose didn't. It was fascinating. For example, Marcus could sense all of the emotional ties that Bella had with anyone, but Chelsea could not touch them. This was a little disheartening, however, because it meant that she was with the Volturi on her own terms, instead of being held against their natural will like the former Cullens.

There were so many secrets of the Volturi to take in that, while the majority of his mind was focused on finding out where in the hell Bella went, the rest of it was poking through the minds of his new colleagues, learning everything he could about them.

An atrocious rap song blared from Santiago's pocket almost directly over Edward's head, after Bella had been gone for now six hours, thirty seven minutes, and twenty four point three seconds, and it was flipped open before one unidentifiable word could be heard. Edward froze into a statue on the edge of his black-sheeted bed, now focused solely on the conversation above.

"Did you find her?!" inquired Santiago's frantic accented voice.

"Yea, finally!" Heidi responded over a loud song blaring through her end of the phone. It was some horrendous excuse for a dance song, in Edward's mind, and he could distinctly make out Bella's new musical voice singing along with it. The hell?

"Heidiii," Bella slurred, after pausing her singing. "Dance withth me!"

"Um, ok sweetie, I'll be right there!" Heidi responded uncertainly. "Hurry up and get here," she whispered into Santiago, clearly meaning for only him to hear.

"Come oon Heiiidi!" Bella almost sounded drunk, an ever-angering Edward noted, nearly ripping apart the brand new quilt beneath his fingers. Was this some kind of game? Santiago did not seem amused.

"Heidi, just placate her until I get there. Where are you?" He memorized the name and address of the club Bella had been located at, and Edward met Santiago at the stares, ignoring the only slightly curious thoughts of his brother and sister. They had other preoccupations to busy themselves with.

"I'm coming with you," Edward informed Santiago, stopping him dead in his tracks for just a moment.

"Like hell you are," Bella's friend returned, pushing past her ex-boyfriend. This did not discourage him, and he followed Santiago all the way to the garage.

"You're supposed to be watching me until Bella gets back, right?" Santiago's jaw tightened infinitesimally, and Edward spurred on. "Well, how happy would Aro be if you took off, just like Heidi and Bella?"

"Get in," Santiago ordered angrily, gesturing to the passenger door of a silver Lamborghini.

It had been too long since Edward had been in a car, let alone one as fast and beautiful as this. As they sped through the streets of Verona, and then eventually out of the city limits and through the countryside, he took in the delicious smell of the leather upholstery and listened as the impossibly clear music blared through the stereo. Even if it was hip hop.

Santiago's thoughts were a whirlwind of colorful words, all aimed at Bella, and at first Edward tried to block them out. As they got more and more demeaning, however, he couldn't help the low growl that escaped through his clenched teeth. Santiago's head snapped in Edward's direction, and the gold eyes met the red eyes glare with just as much menace.

"What's your problem?" Santiago demanded.

"You. Stop insulting Bella."

Without voicing it aloud, Santiago realized what Edward was hearing, and his crimson eyes rolled in annoyance. Oh, you're the only one aloud to slander her? At Edward's confused look, Santiago laughed, short and quick, without humor. She told me what you did to her. Everything you said to her. You're such a hypocrite. For a moment Santiago was focused on not crushing the steering wheel between his hands, and then he was thinking again; more to himself then to Edward. But yea, I shouldn't be so mean to her. It was to be expected, after all. She's been confined to the castle grounds for two months. A pointed red glance was sent Edward's way.

"What, her shield only works from a certain distance?" he guessed.

"Not at all. Once she kept it over all of us, minus Alec who was testing it, all the way from France. It just takes a lot more focus. And when Bella goes out, she's usually anything but." He made a pointed thought at his conversation with Heidi from earlier.

"She does this a lot?"

Santiago hesitated, wondering how much he should be divulging. He was already focused a great deal on not remembering all of the conversations he'd had with Bella in which she told him about her past. She definitely wouldn't be pleased for Edward to see her so weak.

"Not so much as of late." Besides, being stuck in the castle was only part of the reason she reacted this way. Another pointed look was sent at Edward, and it clicked in play.

"So is she really drunk? Or is she just pretending?"

You'll see. The rest of the car ride was spent with Santiago singing along in his head to the radio, and Edward left to decipher these new revelations.

The entire trip from Volterra to Florence should have taken them an hour and a half if they followed traffic laws; they made it in just under fourteen minutes with Santiago traveling top speed the entire way. The agonizing part was parking.

The closest available space was three blocks away, and with the streets as crowded as they were, the two vampires were stuck walking at a fast human pace.

Getting in wasn't so hard; the bouncer seemed familiar with Santiago, and let them in without question. His thoughts were afraid as he remembered a time a few years earlier when he had refused to let Santiago in. It was his first night on the job, and he hadn't been properly informed that any employee of Volterra Records, a music production company, was welcome. And so Santiago had not-so-politely informed him, and ever since then there was no problem.

Their next obstacle was locating Bella and Heidi. Even in a place this packed with people, they had no trouble being found. A large pack of human males were giving them a small birth to dance and despite her previous anger, Edward gathered that Heidi was enjoying herself just as much as Bella; and the hormone-ridden humans panting at them.

Edward and Santiago made it to the girls just in time for a horny college student to approach Bella. One look from Edward, however, had him tucking tail and running. Bella looked up, past Edward as if he wasn't there, to glare at Santiago.

"What arrre you doin-g hhhere?!" she whined, still slurring her words. She turned her scowl suspiciously on Heidi, who glanced down with a guilty expression. "Meany."

She didn't fight them as they each took one of her arms and began dragging her towards the entrance/exit, the pack of men protesting loudly until Edward sent them a very pointed glare. They began to search for women of their own species once more, and the golden eyed vampire followed after his fellow guard members.

"What iss he doing heerre?!" Bella demanded in a whisper, just as Edward stepped out of the club. She glared at him while Santiago answered.

"Well, since you decided to take off, I was put on babysitting duty until you returned." She glanced up at him, apology on her face. Her eyes were covered by a pair of large designer sunglasses, but Santiago could see the bright red of her eyes easily. The lenses were simply there to assuage the humans. Heidi was wearing a pair as well.

"Bella, I would've stayed with you if I had known that Aro had this planned."

With a humph, Bella turned in the wrong direction of Santiago's car.

"Bella, my car is this way."

"I'm takin my owwn car backkk," she responded defiantly.

"You're too drunk to drive," Heidi disagreed, snatching the keys out of Bella's pocket before she knew what was going on. "See, your reflexes are way too slow." Heidi leant in conspiratorially. "Almost human slow."

Bella gasped angrily, but Heidi was already walking away in the direction of where Bella had parked. Santiago grabbed Bella's hand and started off in the direction of his own vehicle, a silent Edward following behind them obediently.

--

"I'm on patron, tequila/I'm drunk off margaritas/That patron, tequila/Me and my mamacita/Hey girl, where's your drink?/We gon' all get real drunk tonight/Hey girl, I got bud/We can all get fucked up"

"Bella, would you please stop singing and dancing?" Santiago pleaded for the hundredth time since she'd insisted on finishing the song she and Heidi had been dancing to.

"You sstop sssinging and dancccing!" She pointed her finger right in his face, and he swatted it away.

"I'm not doing either of those things." She giggled, finally sitting still. She continued singing, however, and Santiago sat in mute complaint. Edward was ignored completely, left to silently observe his ex-girlfriend.

He couldn't understand how she was intoxicated. His brain could not comprehend it, and that was really saying something. And still, he could not find any other explanation as he watched her poke Santiago conspiratorially in the face, and then proceeded to flick his ear. Neither old Bella nor what he'd seen of this new Bella would be doing these sorts of things if she wasn't under some sort of influence. He'd asked them three times earlier and each question was ignored in silence. It was frustrating.

"Turn around!" Bella ordered for the umpteenth time, stretching the O and U into a long whine. When Santiago didn't listen, she attempted to grab the steering wheel from his hands.

Santiago cussed, his arm suddenly pressed against her torso and arms, pinning her to her seat. He continued to drive using one hand. Edward decided he could be of service.

Bella screamed when his hands reached out and grabbed her arms, holding her in place. "Let go! Don't touch me!"

"Are you going to continue distracting Santiago?" Edward asked, his voice calm and authoritative. Her only response was a low, ferocious growl through her clenched teeth. Sighing, he released her.

"Don't ever touch me again," she threatened, still growling, and glared at him through the rearview mirror. Other than that she was a perfect, angry statue for the rest of the drive back to Volterra.

--

"It's about time you got back," an impatient Felix exclaimed as the four vampires drove into the garage. He was waiting there with Alec, Jane, Emmett, and Rosalie, all of whom had varying degrees of rage in their expressions.

"Some people might find sseparation anxiety cute," Bella mused, her slurring a slightly under control. She was far from sober, proven by the way she had to carefully plan her words, but she had gotten over her bout of temper and managed to only stagger slightly as she walked forward to the waiting immortals. "I, howwever, find it disturbing."

"I'm being serious, Isabella. This was completely irresponsible!"

"She's been locked up for two months, what did you expect to happen?!" demanded Heidi who stepped in between Bella and Felix, hopefully to prevent any trouble.

"I expected her to be mature about the situation, not run of and get drunk!"

Bella managed to step around her mediating friend and pressed herself up against Felix, the angry scowl back on her face. "Listen hear buddy," she began, standing on the tips of her toes in order to speak to him face to face. "You have no idea what I've been through. Ssso don't go running your mouth to me about being responsible!"

Edward gaped in shock as Felix took a step back, actually a little afraid of the five foot four intoxicated skinny female vampire in front of him. But his voice did not waver when next he spoke. "You have no right-" he began, reaching out a hand to keep her from advancing.

She cut off both his words and his arm, snatching it in her own before it had moved to inched, and bent it backwards so far that a tiny yelp escaped his mouth. "I have every right." Her voice was venomous, her hand tightening around his thick forearm until the tip of her middle finger and the tip of her thumb touched from opposite ends. "Or have you somehow forgotten?"

There wasn't a single trace of the drunken girl Edward had witnessed earlier in the evening, and in her place was the vicious creature that had sent he and his siblings to imprisonment two months earlier. He was ashamed to realize that it relieved him slightly, to know that he wasn't the only person on whom she unleashed her wrath.

Felix wisely didn't respond to Bella's rhetorical question, and instead focused on not remembering that humiliating night three years prior. He didn't need the Cullen kids knowing about it. "I haven't taken your job because I don't want it, but don't make me change my mind. Unless that's what you want."

"No. It isn't."

"Good, then are we understood?"

"God, yes, just let go of my arm!"

She smirked, tightening her grip even more for a brief second before she released him. Glaring at her, he massaged over her handprint a couple of times, while Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett stared in awe at the girl they had known to be a weak and powerless human.

It was Emmett who broke the tense silence that followed. "So how did you get drunk, anyway?"

Bella rolled her eyes. Were they really that thick? It wasn't rocket science. "You kill a drunk human. Duh!" She then turned her now perky attention on her two friends. "Come on! Let's go find Corin and party while I'm still fun!" Latching on to one of each of their arms, she skipped away towards the entrance door. Felix ordered the former Cullens to go after them, and he, Jane, and Alec followed; the twins teasing him about his encounter with Bella.

--

So if I got a bear drunk before I killed it, would I get drunk too? Emmett wondered to himself, sitting on the black leather sofa in the room he was sharing with his brother and his wife. Aw man, just think of how much fun that would be to fight!

Edward rolled his eyes at his brother's thoughts, the majority of his mind focused on the room next to theirs. Bella was in the bathroom, retching into a toilet. The alcohol had finally been separated from the blood and her body was now ridding her of it.

According to her friends' thoughts, Bella's room was deep in the basement of the castle. But for the time being she would be sharing a room with Heidi, for as long as she was guarding Edward.

It actually doesn't sound worth it to me, anymore, Emmett, who was also listening to Bella, decided. There was silence then, aside from the TV Rosalie was attempting to watch. Geez, who would've thought we'd end up here? Emmett's mind wandered off into the memory of the day Eleazar had called them nearly forty-five years ago, taking Edward along for the ride.

The Cullens had finally settled into a permanent residence, in a small town in Maine. It had been five years since they left Bella. They been doing individual things up until then. The majority of the family had settled in Alaska for a while. Carlisle and Jasper were studying respective things at a nearby college, Esme was working on blueprints for some different renovations, and Alice was looking into her past. Rosalie and Emmett were around for the most part, occasionally taking off to travel; mostly they just wanted to be away from the desolation that had become their family. Edward was hiding away somewhere, convincing himself to stay away from happiness. Only a few months after they settled in did they receive a startling call from one of the Denalis.

"What they've been saying about the Volturi is true, Carlisle!" a half-mad sounding Eleazar exclaimed the nanosecond after Carlisle had answered his phone. "I can't believe I never noticed it before!"

"Calm down, Eleazar. What's happened?"

Eleazar explained that Garrett, an adventurous nomad, had passed through Alaska on his way to Africa to join quite a few other vampires that were forming a 'resistance' to the Volturi. Of course there had been rumors of it for a while, but none of the Cullens, or the Denalis, for that matter, had taken it seriously. Until that point, it seemed.

"I was trying to find an argument to what he was saying, about the Volturi using their authority to gain more power, but the more I thought of it the more I realized it to be true!" He was talking so fast that it was almost impossible for any of them to keep up. Of course the rest of the Cullens had begun to listen in.

Eleazar explained that every time there was a vampire with a certain talent that Aro coveted, some evidence would soon turn up against their coven. When Aro, his brothers, and a few members of their guard would show up, the coveted one would be proven innocent, and Chelsea, a vampire with the talent to manipulate relationship ties, would work her magic on said vampire until he wished to join the guard. An invitation would be extended, and accepted.

"This almost happened to the Egyptians, but they proved their innocence without anyone coming to harm. Only afterwards did they begin to think of ways to let others know of this revelation, so as not to tip off Aro."

The decision was quick after that. The Cullens packed up their things and headed to Africa, gathering friends and acquaintances along the way.

They'd been safe up until a few months ago, when Bella turned them in.

Wonder why she waited so long.

Edward could only shrug. There was a lot he didn't understand about his ex-girlfriend.

--

Ok, so I finally managed to finish this, and I hope that I answered the question many of you have been asking. Please review!

~Jazz~

No question this time. Happy Holidays!