"It's beautiful" I marveled, speechless. The large, yet quaint house lay in the woods, surrounded by mighty evergreen trees.

"I thought you'd like it" Edward laughed "this is where we stayed when we lived with the Denali's. They said we could use it, since they won't be back in Alaska for at least sixty years"

Just then, Charlie pulled up in my Mercedes, screeching to a halt. My car still needed some tuning. He climbed out, and stared at the three story house

"Swanky" he murmured, awed.

"Well, we should probably unpack" I said, smiling to myself, as I thought of how effortless it would be for vampires. It would probably take about five minutes.

"Good idea" said Charlie. Edward and I grabbed our luggage and went to the third story, where the bedrooms were.

"You two are staying in separate rooms!" Charlie grunted, before grabbing his luggage and following after us. Edward set down his bags in a room decorated in a similar way to his room at the Cullens. We walked past a room with burgundy-painted walls, and black velvet curtains. "That was Irina's room" Edward explained, reading my expression "she went Emo for awhile, but she recently decided that it wasn't her." We entered and extremely large bedroom, roughly the size of Edward's here, with white walls, and a sliver metal bed frame and a plain, white mattress, with no comforter. A blank canvas, perfect for experimenting with home décor. There was one large window, overlooking the forest.

"It's perfect" I said aloud. Edward laughed, ruffling my hair.

"It'll be even better once you're through with it" he said, smiling. "Why don't we go hunt?"

"It's almost like you can read my thoughts" I smirked "let's go"

We went deeper into the woods, following the scents of two delicious, unfortunate hikers. As we got closer, excess venom flowed freely into my mouth, prepared to paralyze these humans before we finished them off. At last, we came into view. Two men who looked about twenty-three. One was lightly tanned, with dirty-blonde hair that was cut into a crop. The other was rather sallow, with hair that was obviously dyed black. Looking around to make sure we saw no witnesses, we pounced on them. I inhaled deeply, savoring the scent though it set my throat burning, before pressing my lips to his warm neck, the metallic liquid flowing freely into my mouth, as he first thrashed around, in a pathetic attempt to escape my wrath, then began twitching, slowly and more slowly, until he lay completely still, every drop of blood gone. I looked over at Edward, who had also finished off his human, and we quickly set fire to the corpses, as Edward uprooted an evergreen to hide the remains. After replacing the tree, so perfectly that no one would guess that it had ever been dug up; we headed back toward the cabin, where a familiar, pixie-like vampire waited for us, a frantic look about her face. She seemed to shake with fear, and her eyes looked like they might tear, if that were possible. Edward, reading her thoughts, cried "what? Why?"

"I don't know" Alice wailed, her soprano voice seeming to shake in tune with her "they've always wanted to destroy us. They didn't have a reason; they just came and destroyed nearly all of us."

"What's going on?" I demanded, alarmed by their tones and context

"The Volturi" Edward spat the name like a swear. "They attacked. They killed Esme and Jasper, and they've taken Emmett and Rosalie back to their headquarters in Volterra" his voice wavered, and he half-sobbed "After Esme's death, Carlisle just wandered off, and no one's seen him since."

"What?" was all I could manage to say "how could they do that to your family? They never did anything wrong. They were the nicest vampires I'd ever met."

"The Volturi always wanted us dead- if that's the word" he said darkly "when I left, they had three new guard members, and saw this as their chance to attack the Cullens. If I had only stayed with them, they would still be alive. This is all my fault" he was sobbing softly now. It was odd to see Edward like this. I tried to comfort him.

"It's not your fault" I tried to be encouraging "I'm the one who dragged you off to Alaska in the first place"

"Don't bother blaming yourself" Edward said "no matter what you say, it won't change anything. And whether or not it's my fault, my family is still dead."

"Well didn't you say that Emmett and Rosalie were still alive in Volterra?" I asked

"Well, they might be, if the Volturi haven't killed them, too" Alice sobbed, trying to focus and scan the future. For one minute, she wore her vision face, and as she came out of her trance, her face was slightly less grieving. "We still have a week" she said, a bit of hope in her voice "if we go to Volterra now, we could probably save them, unless the Volturi decide to act sooner"

"What are we waiting for, let's go!" I exclaimed. Not bothering to pack, I left a note for Charlie, so he knew what was going on

Charlie, I wrote

We don't have much time. Most of the Cullens were cruelly destroyed, and we have to go to Volterra, or else Rosalie and Emmett will die too. Don't worry about Edward and me; we have Alice to look for upcoming dangers. If anyone calls and asks where we are, tell them we went on a vacation and will be back in a week, tops. We'll be okay.

-Bella

We ran toward Edward's Volvo, not caring who saw, and pushed the car to its absolute limit, toward the nearest airport, while Alice pulled out a cell phone, and found out when the next flight to Italy was. Edward put on his game face, and I knew he was trying not to dwell on the loss of his family, and focus on the ones he could save. Alice was still wearing a disturbed expression, but looked like she was trying to shake it off. This was it. If we fought the Volturi, we might lose. But we could win. I couldn't believe that Alice was helping us. She had suffered a loss that I couldn't imagine. And yet she was putting it aside, and helping us save the remainder of her family. She really was a great friend. After she hung up her cell phone, her face abruptly became blank, her vision face. She gasped, and said nervously

"The Volturi just offered Rosalie and Emmett positions on the guard. They gave them three days to decide, and if they don't accept, they'll kill them. We need to hurry, or else we'll be too late"

Sorry if it's badly written, I had kind of a writer's block.