We're Tethered Once Again

In less than no time, Edward was parked in front of one of the most beautiful houses I'd ever seen in my life. It was huge, but not exactly imposing. It had this kind of classical grace—a vision from decades and decades ago.

"Is this where you live?" I asked. I turned to look at him; he had a nervous look on his face, which surprised me.

"Yes," he replied. He climbed out of the car and I followed suit.

"Why did you bring me here?" He was at my side in a second and with a very light hand on the small of my back, he led me to the front porch.

"I want you to meet my family," he said. But his expression looked much more serious than that. "And there's something about us that you deserve to know."

Suddenly, a tiny creature burst through the front door. I looked up and realized that it was a girl, one of the loveliest girls I had ever seen in my life. She was skinny to the extreme with short black hair and delicate facial features.

"Bella, this is my sister Alice," Edward murmured in my ear.

"Hello, Bella!" she called in a high-pitched voice. Then, so quickly that I hardly had time to notice, she was no longer on the porch. She was standing two feet in front of me with a wide smile on her beautiful face. "It's very nice to meet you!"

My eyes widened in surprise. She had so much energy.

"My name is Alice," she added. "I've seen you around school and I couldn't help but notice how beautiful you are. Is that your real hair color?" She reached forward to touch my hair, but Edward made a sound of disapproval. She immediately dropped her hand, but the smile never left her face.

"Where is everyone else?" Edward asked. "Are they inside?"

"Yes. But Rosalie isn't very happy." Her smile melted into a grimace.

I looked at Edward and he nodded grimly. "I expected as much. Is Carlisle in his study?"

She nodded. "He's waiting for you."

"Thanks, Alice." Edward's hand was once again at my back as he lightly led me up the front steps and through the front door.

"Edward, where are we going?" I finally asked once we were far enough away from Alice. "What's going on?"

"I'm taking you to meet my father, Carlisle," he replied.

"But I've already met him," I pointed out.

Edward didn't get the chance to answer because the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life walked into the foyer. Currently, her face was hard and angry, her expression directed at him. "You," she whispered furiously.

Rosalie was so livid, so enraged that her eyes actually changed colors. They went from gold to pitch black in an instant. I felt the ground fall out beneath me and my already wet eyes start to stream in panic. Her eyes had changed so suddenly that I hardly had a chance steady myself.

Edward felt me stiffen underneath his arms and was there to catch me when my knees buckled. "Bella?" he whispered frantically. "Bella! Bella, what's going on?"

The fury in Rosalie's black eyes terrified me. It brought back the almost animalistic instincts I had to rely on three months ago. I retreated into myself, desperately trying to rebuild the walls and defenses I had neglected for the past few days.

"Bella!"

Edward's voice sounded so far away…almost as if he was standing at the mouth of a tunnel and I was on the other end. I was crouched on the floor with my forehead pressed against knees. Maybe if I curled up small enough, no one would be able to see me. If I tried hard enough, I could disappear.

I felt something cold press gently against the sides of my head. I flinched violently at Edward's touch, but he never moved. His face was right there, swimming blearily before my eyes. "Bella," he whispered. His breath washed across my face and the scent eased my lungs ever so slightly. His voice was no longer on the other end of the tunnel; he was getting closer and closer. "Bella, what's wrong?"

I was drowning and the water was slowing my reactions. But I tried to fight against the water. I tried to get to the surface, to tell him. I wanted to escape this.

"Bella." He kept repeating my name, and I clung to the sound of his voice like a lifesaver. "Bella, I'm right here. I'm here. Tell me what's wrong. I want to help."

I finally broke through the surface. "He had black eyes, Edward," I gasped. "He had black eyes."

My eyes suddenly focused and I saw his pained face. His hands left my face, but he wrapped me in his cold arms once again. "Bella, it's okay. He's not here. And Rosalie left, she's gone. I'm here. I'm here, and I'm not leaving you."

I grasped at his arms, as if my weak grip could keep him there. "Promise?" I whispered. The thought of Edward leaving me in this state terrified me even worse than Rosalie's suddenly dark eyes.

"I promise."

His voice rang with such sincerity that all doubt left my mind. Slowly, very slowly, I stood up and leaned heavily against Edward. "I'm sorry for that," I murmured. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, I'm sorry," he countered. "Rosalie's behavior was unacceptable."

I reluctantly lifted my head and looked around to see if she really had left. "Why was she so angry?"

Edward smiled sadly and wrapped his arm around my waist. "Come on. We're heading upstairs. Can you walk?"

I nodded. "I might need help, though."

His arm was still around me so I leaned against him as I walked to the staircase. My unsteady knees grew stronger with each step and soon I wasn't shaking anymore. Edward's hold became lighter and lighter until it was nothing but a light presence on the small of my back. It was comforting.

When we finally made it all the way up the stairs, he led me to the far end of the vast hallway. I noticed the open doors on our walk and I curiously peered into a few of them. No one was inside, but the interiors were light, full of deep colors. Everything was open, completely free and uninhibited.

We finally stopped at an oak door. Edward lifted his arm to knock and moments later a faint voice called, "Come in," from the other side.

The door opened. Carlisle Cullen was sitting behind a wide desk in the middle of a huge room lined with shelves and shelves of books. It looked like every picture I had ever seen of a college dean's office, but Carlisle was much too young to play the part.

The man himself looked up from the book he had been reading with a wide smile on his face. "Hello, Bella. It's very nice to see you again."

I nodded shyly. "You too, Dr. Cullen."

"Oh, I'm at home. Please call me Carlisle."

Edward led me to the seat in front of the desk and he took the seat next to me. "Carlisle, I was hoping you would tell her your story. Our story."

He sighed. "Alice said as much."

I turned my curious gaze toward Edward. "What's going on?"

But they kept talking as if they hadn't heard me. "Edward, are you sure this is the best idea? I have no objection to her—I'm just worried that she won't react as well as you think she might."

Edward sighed. "I just have a feeling, Carlisle. I can't explain it…but I know that she won't run away, and she won't tell anyone. She's trustworthy."

"I'm not questioning her trustworthiness, Edward. I'm worried about what she'll think after you tell her. How do you know she won't be terrified?"

Edward's glance flickered toward me and I unconsciously straightened in my chair.

"She's been through worse," he said firmly.

Carlisle turned his gaze towards me and I stared back at him, determined to prove myself. Edward was willing to trust me with what seemed like a huge secret and I wanted to show that they could tell me. I wouldn't tell a soul.

What he saw in my eyes must have convinced him, because he sighed, closed the book in his lap, and set it aside on his desk. Then he leaned forward in his seat, resting his forearms on the desk. "In the seventeenth century, an English Anglican pastor began a vendetta against pure evil," Carlisle began in the most serious of voices. I unconsciously leaned forward, hanging onto every word. "He, like most of the people of his time, believed that monsters were real and was absolutely determined in his persecution of these creatures. He even convinced his son to join him in his campaign. His son had never been very passionate about his cause, but he was willing to please his father, so he very reluctantly joined the violent struggle. But unlike his father, this young man actually found a gathering of these monsters in a sewer in London. He led his mob into their hiding place, but he had greatly underestimated their strength. The battle lasted seconds, and the young man was left for dead in that dank sewer. He could feel a poison spreading in his veins and he knew—he knew that soon he would become a monster himself. Terrified of his father's reaction, he hid himself under a pile of rotting potatoes."

Carlisle was an amazing storyteller. Each word he spoke practically echoed with authority and he brought vivid clarity to the tale of this young man on his dangerous adventure. I felt as if I were practically there, watching as he was attacked and left to die.

"The pain that man felt was…excruciating. There were no words to truly describe the agony he endured. But with each passing day, he felt his strength slowly return and at the end of three days, he emerged from that pile of potatoes as a new man. He had indeed become one of the monsters his father so mercilessly persecuted." Carlisle paused to watch me, to gauge my reaction before he continued. I struggled to contain the eagerness in my expression.

"He had become a vampire."

I felt as if ice had been injected in my veins. It used to be such an innocuous word—I had never been one for ghost stories myself. But somehow, when Carlisle said it, I felt as if it carried much more weight than I would have originally believed.

"When he realized who he was, he loathed himself. He tried absolutely everything he could do destroy himself. He tried to drown himself, to hang himself, to shoot himself, but absolutely nothing worked. No mortal means of murder could end his life. So he decided to starve himself. He strayed far away from areas heavily populated by humans to avoid the temptation of drinking their blood. But as he was passing by a herd of deer, he caught whiff of their blood and could resist his thirst no longer; he attacked and drank the blood of every deer in the herd."

I sympathized with the young man; he hated himself so much that he wished to end his own life.

"Once his thirst had abated, he realized that he didn't have to live the life of a monster. He didn't have to live off the blood of humans; he could survive off the blood of animals. With this realization, he found purpose in his life and he set out in the world to find others like him and spread his philosophy."

For the next twenty minutes, Carlisle continued to tell the story of the young man. He described his journey with such incredible detail that I felt as if I were reliving it; I felt as if I were actually watching this man's tale unfold before my very eyes. I watched as he swam to France, studied medicine in Italy, found more civilized vampires, and traveled to the new world. I felt his constant conflict with who he was and his desire for companionship. My heart ached for him when he pondered the terrible choice to damn a young boy in Chicago to the same lifestyle he was subjected to so many years ago.

"But his mother demanded that the doctor do everything he could to save her son," Carlisle said. A small smile spread across his features. "So the doctor bit the dying boy and changed him into a vampire, and he became his new companion. The two of them found others over the years and their family grew larger. They continue to survive on animal blood and—with a few exceptions—they have stayed true to their creed."

His words stopped and I struggled to absorb the end of the story; words failed me for several moments as I slowly reacquainted myself with the present. In addition, my brain had been filled with so many strange images jumbled and mixed together that I had to take several moments to organize them in some sort of coherent order. When I finally finished processing the story, I looked up and stared straight into his dark gold eyes. "That was a very inspiring story, Carlisle," I began slowly, "but why are you telling me this?"

The smile on his face widened. "My dear, the young man in the beginning of the story was me. And the boy I saved in the small hospital in Chicago was Edward."

I felt my eyes widen as I turned to stare at the beautiful creature beside me. He was smiling cautiously, gauging my reaction.

I struggled to wrap my mind around the concept. "You…you're…you're vampires?"

They both nodded.

As I fought my natural disbelief, I felt something nagging me in the back of my brain. It was like there was something very important that I was overlooking—like a small detail that turned out to be a rather major one.

"When…when you say 'a few exceptions' do you mean…does that imply…?"

Carlisle nodded grimly. "There is a natural instinct, Bella, and sometimes it is very difficult to resist that instinct. But even the strongest fall off the wagon."

And then I remembered. "Edward," I said slowly, trying to gather the details from my memory, "when you told me that you murdered that man who raped and left a woman for dead in the alley, did you…?"

His eyes were instantly filled with self-disgust. "Yes," he sighed. "I drank his blood."

I shivered at the thought. The vision I previously had was replaced by Edward's tall, menacing figure standing over a dead body. His glorious angel's face was contorted in an expression of hatred while blood dripped from the corners of his mouth.

"Bella, we know that we're monsters," Edward began desperately, almost as if he was asking my forgiveness, "but we try so hard. I've denied my thirst for more than seventy years. I haven't tasted human blood for so long, no matter how intense the temptation. I'm trying so hard—so hard, Bella."

Something about his expression, his frantic, wretched expression tugged at my heartstrings. Without stopping to think of my actions, I reached across and placed my hand gently over his cold one. "I know, Edward," I whispered. "I believe you."

His smile was tragic. I abruptly had the irrational desire to leap from my chair and wrap my arms around his shoulder, to soothe away his intense anger toward himself. He never forgave himself for the blood he had spilt and it was in his self-hatred that I knew he was a good person. No, not just a good person—an amazing person with a kind soul; he sought revenge for random strangers and saved young women he hardly knew from runaway vehicles. He didn't deserve this.

A strange beeping sound interrupted the powerful silence. I jerked my hand back and whipped my head around to see Carlisle looking down at something in his hand.

"The hospital just paged," he announced. Then he looked at me with a kind smile. "Will you be all right, Bella?"

Would I? I wasn't running from the house screaming my head off yet; maybe I wouldn't after all. Edward didn't seem so terrifying, not now when his eyes were so full of anxiety over my reaction.

But in the end, he was right…I had been through much worse.

"I'll be fine, Carlisle," I said quietly. "Thank you so much for sharing your story. I promise I won't tell a soul."

His eyes softened. "I know you won't." He nodded to Edward and gracefully strode out of the room and a speed that no human could possess. Then I remembered that he wasn't human.

When he was gone, my inhuman companion turned to me, his face still worried. "So?" he prodded gently. "Do you hate me yet?"

I decided to throw his words back at him. "How could I hate you?" I said with a small smile. "Despite what you believe, Edward, you're not a monster. Not to me."

Suddenly, his face broke into one of the most angelic smiles I had ever seen in my life; it broke my heart with its intense beauty. "You continue to amaze me."

I blushed.

Edward abruptly began to laugh. "I suppose this means Alice won," he mused, mostly to himself. When he saw my confused expression, he explained. "Jasper, Emmett and Alice had a bet; Jasper and Emmett both said that you'd run from the house screaming after I told you, but Alice said that you'd keep a calmer head than that." He shook his head and chuckled helplessly. "They should have known better than to bet against Alice."

"What do you mean?"

He stood from his chair and he gestured for me to follow. I got up and followed him as he walked through the house. "Some vampires have extra abilities," he explained. "Carlisle thinks that our strongest human traits intensify during the transformation. Some traits manifest themselves in more subtle ways while some become something akin to superpowers."

I raised my eyebrows. "Superpowers?"

He grinned at me. "Yes, superpowers. Carlisle was incredibly compassionate as a human, so that only intensified during his transformation. That is an example of a subtle gift. But Alice has a much stronger gift; we're not quite sure about her human life because she doesn't remember any of it, but she must have had some sort of foresight because as a vampire she can see the future."

My eyes widened. "She can see the future?"

He nodded. "But it's a tricky business. The future constantly changes because people change their minds. Alice only sees the outcome of their decisions."

"Does anyone else in your family have a superpower?"

"Jasper does. As a human, he was incredibly charismatic and sensitive to other's feelings. As a vampire, he feels other people's emotions and he can manipulate them in ways he sees fit. For example, if an atmosphere is particularly high strung, he can calm those around him. Conversely, if a group of people feel lethargic or lazy, he can excite them. It's a very interesting gift."

I paused to look into his eyes. There was something he wasn't telling me—I could see it hidden in the shades of his dark gold irises.

"What about you?" I asked. "Do you have a superpower?"

He looked unsure for a very brief moment. "I had the uncanny ability to guess at what people were thinking as a human," he began slowly. "I was very sensitive to other people's thoughts. This sensitivity intensified as a vampire, and I can now hear people's thoughts."

I felt my heart stop.

Edward realized that I had stopped walking. He turned around in confusion, but immediately adopted a look of panic when he saw my expression. "Bella?" he asked apprehensively. "Bella, what's the matter? What's wrong?"

I struggled to speak. "You can…you can hear people's thoughts? You can hear my thoughts?" I cringed in horror at the idea; if he could hear me, then he would know what really happened to me. He would know everything.

"Oh, no," he immediately contradicted. "I can't hear your thoughts. You are the one exception."

My heart slowly started to beat again. "You're sure? You can't hear what I think?"

He shook his head, frowning a little. "No. For some reason, whenever I try to listen, I keep coming up blank. On your first day of school, when I tried to hear you think, I thought you were mentally challenged."

I felt my pulse strengthen and the blood return to my cheeks. "Oh. Thank goodness."

We continued walking through the house in silence. When we reached the front door, Edward turned to me. "Well…what would you like to do now?"

I bit my lip. "Well, if you don't mind, I think I'd like to go back to Charlie's. I do have perishables in the back of Rosalie's car, after all."

He smiled and nodded. "Of course. I'll take you back right now."

We exited the front door and my eyes fell once again over the beautiful red convertible. Its flashy, streamlined appearance reminded me of its owner, and my mind wandered to her initial reaction when she saw me in Edward's presence.

When I slid into the car, I bit my lip hesitantly. "Edward?" I began, "Why was Rosalie so angry when she saw me? Does she hate me?"

He frowned and shook his head. "No, not at all. She doesn't hate you. She's…well she's angry that I told you our secret. She feels as if I've betrayed the family."

I immediately felt terrible. Rosalie was upset with her brother because of me. "You shouldn't have told me, then," I said quietly. "It wasn't worth getting in a fight with Rosalie."

"Don't worry about her, Bella," Edward said in as soothing a voice as he could. "We've been in fights before for much more trivial things."

"But she's never been this angry before, has she?"

He sighed. "No. No, she hasn't."

We spent the rest of the drive in silence. I was trying to properly absorb all that had been revealed to me today and Edward was trying to give me the chance. But that nagging feeling in the back of my mind persisted; it was something that I had looked over and forgotten so quickly that I hardly remembered it.

I looked up and saw Edward smiling at me. And that was when it hit me.

The very first day of school in biology, Edward sent me this terrifying glare with a pair of pitch black eyes. I registered the expression for only a moment because I was much too concerned with the eyes that sent me into a panic attack. But I still had seen that expression and my memory of it was not at all comforting.

"Edward," I began slowly, "that first day…in that biology class…"

He waited expectantly as I tried to find the words. "Yes?"

"I couldn't remember at first," I admitted, "but you…you had this really angry look on your face."

There was a pause. Then he sighed very heavily. "Yes. I was a little afraid that you would remember."

I was reluctant, but I knew I had to continue. "Carlisle said that there was a lot of temptation. Did that mean that you were…that you wanted…?"

He nodded grimly. When he took his hand off the steering wheel and turned in his seat to face me, I realized that we were back at Charlie's house. "It's a little hard to explain," he began. "But everyone has an individual scent; a certain flavor, if you will. Some smell more appealing than others, and yours…" He smiled sadly. "Well, you have the most amazing, most wonderful scent in the world. It was so tempting that I nearly took you right then and there in that class full of children."

My eyes widened. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. "Then why…why didn't you?"

He chuckled. "You hardly gave me the chance. I was still contemplating half-conceived notions of killing everyone in the room when you jumped up and left. I was away from your scent long enough to regain control and wonder at your strange reaction. I wasn't so self-absorbed to think that I was the sole cause and you had presented me with a bit of a challenge; since I couldn't hear your thoughts, I would have to resort to traditional means to know what you thought. So that night, I hunted for hours and hours until I was no longer thirsty to help me avoid the temptation. It didn't make it go away, not at all. That second biology class with you was pure torture—I didn't think I would make it through without killing you."

I listened in amazement and slight fear; I never would have thought I was capable of igniting that kind of reaction in anyone.

"But I managed to resist. And each day, it got a little easier. Part of it was because I was slowly getting used to your scent, but most of it was because of that pained look in your eyes. You always looked so broken, so anguished that I couldn't—I wouldn't—add to the agony you already felt. Even now, your smell is so alluring that every instinct within me screams at me to sink my teeth into your veins, but I could never bring myself to do that." His eyes shined with a sudden emotion, so powerful and so intense that it took my breath away. "I refuse to break you any further."

My breath caught in my throat. I didn't know what to say.

He reached across the small space to stroke my cheek with his cold fingers. "Isabella Marie Dwyer, I love you. And I swear, I will never, ever let anything or anyone hurt you ever again."

A/N - So I know that everyone's probably locked up in their rooms, feverishly reading Breaking Dawn, but I needed to post this before I ran off to New Zealand. So please leave some love for me to come home to!

Oh, and if you guys want a sneak peek of next chapter (since this was a rather cruel cliff hanger), you can check out my blog. It's listed as the website on my profile.