Chapter 3

I for one was glad to be in Denali. They were the only other vegetarian family that I knew of besides those that could not be mentioned.

Upon meeting them, I could see that there were five of them. And of course they were all gorgeous, especially the blond, but nowhere near as beautiful as Ro- I mean Heidi. The one who was named Eleazar introduced us to his family. His mate's name was Carmen, and the three that were posing as their daughters were Tanya, Irina, and Kate. I could tell that they were uncomfortable with us being there. Eleazar started by introducing his family but before Aro could introduce us, the girls split.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit Aro?" Eleazar asked. He whispered something in Carmen's ear that I had trouble following, it was in French. Carmen then promptly left the room, following the girls.

"Bella here is our newest acquisition, and her gifts could be quite amazing if she was properly trained. Tell me old friend, what are her gifts?"

Eleazar gave a deep sigh for consideration but it was all for show. "Hmmm, you are right, her abilities are extraordinary. There are two gifts that are dominant within. There looks to be a third actually but the aura around it is dimming, and has since she was changed. That one was linked to sleep, which as you know we never do."

"Eleazar kept talking and it kind of felt weird that I was listening to him and thinking about something else entirely. But I was curious about this dormant but dead gift. "Wait." I interrupted. "My dreams?"

"Well yes," he started slightly peeved that I interrupted him. "You're dreams had the ability to see the resolve to a situation before you realized there was even a situation. More so than your average human, to the point that many of them very, well, could have been considered as prophecy. As a human, you were somewhat similar to Alice Cullen, only during sleep though. If you had the proper training then, you may have been just as good as her too."

"I allowed myself to be sad for losing Alice, just this once, for a couple of reasons: at one point, there was something that we shared in common, that we could have shared together. Another reason was because I wasn't the one that brought her name up. At least that's what I kept telling myself.

"But your gifts now, I see that you are a shield and for lack of a better term, you are also a sword. All mentally of course. Given the proper training, you'll be able to shield others from mental attacks and allow your thoughts to penetrate anybody's mind. You have the perfect companion of gifts. I don't think I've ever come across anyone with two gifts let alone even one that's quite so magnificent."

"Excellent. Will you provide this training?" Aro asked without hesitation.

"Forgive me Aro, but old wounds run deep in my family. My daughters' pain still haunts them from a previous encounter with you. They will be gone for four days, until this Sunday, you may stay till then, and I will do what I can for the girl."

"Oh, and where did your girls go?" Aro asked inquisitively.

"They will be staying with friends, in Washington, for the time being at least?"

My ears perked up, "Washington?" Aro and Eleazar looked at me suspiciously, and I didn't care? I tried to sound curious without being too anxious for an answer. "What part of Washington?"

"Forks. Aro, you remember Carlisle, I'm sure. His family suffered a loss to one of their human friends. The funeral is this Saturday." Eleazar spoke to Aro even though I asked the question, and I was only slightly offended.

The Cullen's stayed in Forks? How did they manage that? Did Edward say they left several days before he was? I was trying to remember that horrible day as much as possible, but my mind was having a hard time processing the darkest day of my human life. I probably would have tried to block it out had I remained human anyway.

"Aro, I have to see them." I tried keeping my thoughts from sounding like a demand. Aro has been nothing but nice to me, so far, at least.

"I know dear. I'll compromise with you. Train with Eleazar until Friday Evening, and I'll see about getting details on your funeral arrangements. Does that work?"

I nodded my head and turned back to Eleazar. "We train now."

"Wait, before we do. Indulge me. Are you the friend in question? The one the Cullen's fear as gone?"

I couldn't bring myself to confirm Eleazar's questions. No doubt he deserved the truth, but something compelled me from telling him. However, my silence was confirmation enough. "Eleazar, please. I have my own reasons for not revealing myself to them as of yet. I was hurt by them before my transformation. I mean them no harm, whatsoever, so I just ask that you keep this amongst us."

"Okay then, let's train. We'll begin with your shield as that is the one that was most prevalent in your human nature."

Aro was amazed at the progress I was making with my shield. Within four hours, I had managed to expand my shield up to two miles away from me. With time, it was easier to expand my shield with less concentration. The one thing I found difficult was taking the shield off of me while shielding everyone else. Eleazar didn't see a need for me to do that, as it would leave me vulnerable to mental attacks, but he thought the training for all situations was essential.

I was glad there was no need for sleep since we continued training into Thursday. We only stopped once in order to hunt. Eleazar warned Aro and the others to go hunting in Canada since he would like to remain in Denali. I followed Eleazar to hunt with him. I couldn't even hide my shock that Demetri decided to hunt with us as well. He said after seeing me hunting in Volterra, he was a bit intrigued by the lifestyle. Eleazar and Demetri kept up with my pace as I led the way to a couple of male moose' fighting over a cow. I couldn't help but laugh at the challenge this would present of interrupting a pissing contest.

I immediately stepped in between the two fighting bulls and looked the biggest on in the eye. 'This one is mine.' I thought as I gritted my teeth, and leaped over his massive body. I fell atop of his back and scrambled to find his neck amid all of the fur. I drilled my teeth into his flesh and let the warm fluid fill me up. Up until I fed, I hadn't even realized I was thirsty. I wonder what it meant that I wasn't as bloodthirsty as I was led to believe I would be as a newborn.

"So how was your first time Demetri?" Both me and Eleazar asked at the same time.

"Not bad, but I won't be making the switch anytime soon." I laughed with Demetri as we made our way back to the house. The others hadn't arrived yet, but Eleazar wanted to keep up with the training. I didn't mind since the faster I'd mastered my gifts, the faster I'd get to go back to Forks.

For the next few hours, we continuously worked on my sword abilities, and that honestly seemed to be the easiest of my two gifts. One thing that we found out was that once I "spoke" to someone's mind no matter the distance, I could still reach them. I wanted to try this out by reaching out to Jane, but Aro talked me out of it. The only thing I found to be somewhat taxing was telling several people different things at the same time. It was easier to take turns with individuals, but I understood Eleazar's point that during a time for battle or a sticky situation, there may not be time to individually give orders. I promised him that I would practice the skill.

When Eleazar and Aro were finally pleased with the speed in which I mastered my gifts, I sought to speak with Aro again about returning to Forks. By now it was Thursday night, and I wanted to see Charlie and give him some type of peace, especially for Saturday.

"Aro? Were you able to find out what's going on for Saturday?"

"Yes. I had Afton go into town to find out what's going on. I actually just got off of the phone with him about a half hour ago. Your father had come home that day and found the ransacked house, along with some of your blood splattered along the walls."

"Wait how did you get my blood?"

Aro chuckled lightly, "Well you were out for quite some time dear. I'm surprised that young Edward didn't smell us in the area. Anyways, we collected enough samples of your blood so that there was an effective crime scene. It was much harder to do than you realize. We are not accustomed to passing on human blood, understand. With your blood on the walls and such a mess of the place, the police have come to the conclusion that you were abducted, possibly killed, but they're holding out hope. Eleazar is mistaken, they are not having a funeral, it is a memorial, a vigil if you will. The national scene that Forks has been able to make is quite impressive for such a small town."

"So, why are the Cullen's still in town? Edward told me that day that they left."

"Well that itself is funny. At the last moment, Edward caught our scent and apparently called everyone back. Quite possibly to avoid suspicion of having to do anything with your disappearance."

That did seem like something that he would think of. Rosalie was always afraid that if our relationship ended badly, the whole family would be implemented. With his abilities to hear thoughts, it would be more important that they were here, despite any story that they came up with beforehand to leave.

"I'm going to the memorial, on Saturday. It's not like I'll need to be close to hear any words being spoken. I can be out of sight. I'm not asking you Aro."

"I wasn't going to deny you Bella. But what you're suggesting is silly. Why wouldn't you want to sit amongst your peers during your own memorial?"

I looked at him quizzically, and he was amused by my reaction. "I guess I never properly introduced you to Corin." He called the her over as if he was speaking to me, but she promptly came into the room from upstairs. "Corin, darling, please show Isabella your gift."

Very subtly, I noticed that the vampire's eyes were no longer a shade of red, nor were they black. Corin's now very blue eyes were smiling back at me underneath a frock of blonde hair, a change from the red hair that she had when I first saw her.

".God. Are you serious?" I asked. "If you can do that, why don't you just stay out in the human world? With that as a gift, you could totally pass."

"Why should I hide my nature? Sometimes my gift comes in handy, like for now. I understand we have a memorial to go to tomorrow?"

"We? All of you are coming with me?" I looked at Aro. 'You're not going to kill them are you?'

"No, no my Bella. Only Corin and Demetri will be with you. They can be your friends from, I'm sorry where did you live before Forks?"

"Phoenix."

"Ahh, Phoenix, dreadful sunny place. You three can take the truck. Me and Renata will be fine here with Eleazar."

"So what do you want to be?" I looked at Corin only slightly confused. "The only thing I can't do is change bone structure."

"Oh right." No matter how many times Alice had tried to give me a makeover, there was not one that I enjoyed. This however, I was excited for. Maybe because it didn't involve shopping, or it could be it didn't involve being primped over. "Umm, can we try a light brown, straight hair, and blue eyes? They are completely different from what everyone would remember me as."

"Sure can." Corin held my hand for a second before telling me to look in the mirror. I ran for the closest one, and I kind of liked it. There was just one little problem.

"Can you also make me tan? If we're going to be from Phoenix we should all be actually." My first day in Forks, everyone was commenting on how pale I was to be from the desert. It just wouldn't do if three people who were supposedly my friends were paler than me.

Corin kept her new appearance of the blonde hair, only she made it curly. Demetri was now very California looking, with the nice bronzed tan and blonde spiky hair.

"So how long will this last?" I asked.

"Until I change it. The longest we've tested it was twenty seven days. Jane started torturing me because she couldn't stand the face that I was holding her 'appearance hostage,' So we'll be good."

We ran out to the truck that Eleazar had parked in the six car garage. Corin and Demetri claimed the front seat, while I choose the backseat. I curled up in a ball, closed my eyes and daydreamed about seeing Edward again.