I suck. I'm fully aware of this fact, and all I can do is apologise. This chapter was a killer to write and went through several drafts before I was even vaguely happy with the end result; it covers a lot of ground and I kept needing to make additions or change how I'd pieced it together. Still, finally, here it is, and I don't expect chapter four to be such a PITA.
Two people that made birthing this beast easier are my betas Octoberland and SolarEclipses. You should be reading their stories if you aren't already (Tethered to Humanity and Sins of the Piano Man, respectively).
To recap: Victoria has just returned to Forks in the New Moon timeline and Bella has found out about the wolves. She lures Carlisle back to Forks to save the pack and Charlie from probable death at Victoria's hand. They left Forks and Bella convinced Carlisle to turn her into vampire. We left her about to wake from her change.
3.
I could see the air.
Motes – those infinitesimal particles that I'd only ever seen before in a certain slant of light – were everywhere, despite the darkness in the room. I could see everything with crisp clarity; the staircase far across the room, shrouded in shadows as it was, might as well have been a foot away from the sofa I lay on. All the tiny scratches in the wood were entirely visible.
For a moment, I wondered why my chest ached. In the very center, close to my heart, I could feel a tug, a connection to something that wasn't on the other end of the bond.
Edward.
I needed him. He was the ache.
I heard the faintest hint of sound from over my shoulder and I flung myself off the sofa to press my back against the wall. The movement was as easy as blinking.
Not that I felt the need to blink.
"Easy, Bella," Carlisle said, except the man before me couldn't be Carlisle. His voice – his beautiful, calm voice – had a thousand new soft tones to it, combining into something impossibly pure. And his face…
Carlisle, with his blond hair and golden eyes, had always had a hint of the angelic about him, but here he stood in the twilight, his pale skin shining and beauty radiating from him, every inch of him God's creature. He looked like he belonged painted on the wall of a church or captured in stained glass. Nothing that beautiful could be walking around in the world.
If I'd had breath in my lungs it would have been lost at the sight of him, but in the moments between opening my eyes and now – the seconds I'd been able to count dimly in the back of my mind, notable for the absence of my heartbeat – I hadn't taken a single breath.
"I know it's overwhelming," Carlisle continued, "but try to concentrate on me. It's easier when you focus on one thing."
I took a breath, just to prove that I still could, and nearly gagged.
My throat.
It was like I'd swallowed flames, as if I'd poured gasoline down my gullet and set my throat on fire. I let the air out of my lungs and didn't bother taking another breath, but the burn didn't dissipate. With oxygen came a medley of scents, aromas piled upon aromas, and underneath it all there was something that made my throat burn.
"Do you remember who you are? Who I am?"
I nodded, because underneath it all I did, even though right now I was more concerned with the pain that engulfed as I swallowed, and all the conflicting attractions my senses were laying before me. I could hear animals outside – the quiet pat of hooves or paws on grass – and the hum of the generator. I could smell the salt of sweat and I couldn't tear my gaze away from Carlisle's lovely face. But I knew that I'd been human and now…now I wasn't. Everything was overwhelming because I was more.
"The first thing we need to do is get you to hunt. Your throat will hurt less afterwards and it will be easier for you to concentrate on other things."
I could only nod again. I heard the minutest sound from upstairs, the brush of something on the floorboards and I jerked.
"Alice and Jasper are here," Carlisle told me softly. "Can they come down? They'll try not to startle you."
"Okay," I replied, and the sound drew a gasp from me a moment later. Although I'd said the word, it wasn't my voice – or rather it was, but better; as lovely as I'd always thought the Cullens' voices were. It was still low but without the husky edge, smooth and vibrant.
It only took seconds for Alice and Jasper to descend the stairs, but what would have once been a blur to me was now something I could watch unfolding, the rapid movement of limbs made no less graceful for the speed at which they moved.
Alice was a sight for sore eyes after all the months since I'd seen her. Although her beauty was magnified, just as Carlisle's was, I'd had time to prepare myself to expect it – even if that time had been mere nanoseconds. My mind was ticking along at quite a speed, faster than even caffeine had ever accomplished. She stopped a few feet away from me, her smile wide, bouncing on her toes, though underneath there was hesitance.
Her appearance stirred something in me, like a nearly-healed wound being ripped into.
"You left," I managed to whisper.
"Oh, Bella," she replied, her eyes wide, the smile falling. If she'd have been capable of tears, I think she would have cried. If I had been, I would have too. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I couldn't find any more words, so she stepped towards me.
"Edward was an idiot and we should never have listened to him. I'll never leave you again. You're my best friend and I missed you so much."
She raised her arms and I stepped into her embrace, crushing her to me. She squeaked and I relaxed my grip a little, shocked that I'd been able to hurt her. "I'm going to make it up to you," she promised as she stepped back, allowing me to catch a glimpse of Jasper over her shoulder.
I'd expected to be stunned by him, but not like this. When my gaze fell on him, I pushed myself back into the wall so hard the plasterboard cracked and splintered around me, and a growl erupted from my throat.
He was covered in scars. Every inch of skin that I could see – even some of his face – was littered with silvery crescents, crisscrossing each other, and jagged lines, pitted and vibrant on what should have been flawless skin.
I cut the growl off and pulled myself away from the wall. "I'm sorry," I said quietly.
Carlisle had told me about this while I was burning. It had been his voice I'd heard throughout the transformation, telling me how Jasper had gained his scars during the newborn wars he'd fought in.
Jasper shrugged. "It's a natural reaction."
"I couldn't see them before," I said, but just as quick I realized why. My eyes could now pick out details they couldn't before, just like the motes in the air. I'd forgotten about them, automatically seeing beyond them to focus on other details, but they were still there when I shifted my focus.
"You'll get used to them," Alice said.
I glanced down at my hand, at the place where James' bite had once scarred my skin, to be met with the same smoothness I'd always seen on the Cullens.
"How – ?"
"Your transformation will have healed all the scars you obtained in your human life," Carlisle explained, "even that one. Only injuries inflicted on your skin by venom-coated teeth will leave new scars."
I took an accidental breath and hissed at the fresh flare of heat. Jasper cast me a sympathetic glance.
"You need to feed," he said. "There's plenty of wildlife right outside the house. It's going to be pretty instinctual for you, but Alice and I will be flanking you while we're outside to make sure there are no…incidents."
"Incidents," I echoed, shutting my mind off to the meaning of the word.
I followed them out onto the porch, down the steps to the earth, lacking a coat but not feeling the chill that I should. It was only spring and the night air couldn't be warm but it felt no different to the inside of the house. The air was damp, like it had just rained, but it didn't raise goosebumps. The fresh air, with all the new scents and sounds it brought, was actually welcome.
With each step I took, I became aware of a new sense of equilibrium, one I'd never felt in my life before. My limbs moved in coordination without conscious thought, with confidence that I wouldn't trip or stumble like I usually did, constantly expecting to end up on my face. Every part of my body, from fingertips to toes, was connected and working in harmony, responding to me in ways it never had. I felt whole, and I felt well. Only the ache in my chest, the one I'd carried over from my old life, told me I was still missing something. Someone.
"There are deer further into the forest," Alice said, "not too far away. Can you smell them?"
I inhaled and it was true. I couldn't be sure if it was deer, but it was certainly something heady and enticing. Learning to differentiate and recognize scents would take time, I supposed, but that was definitely animal, definitely inflaming the thirst I felt.
As soon as the scent hit the back of my throat, I was running, all that grace and coordination working for me as trees whipped by, the uneven ground beneath me no obstacle in my quest as I practically flew over it. This was exhilarating, far better than clinging to Carlisle or Edward as they moved. The only thing keeping me from whooping aloud was the instinctual knowledge that it would alert my prey, if they didn't already know I was coming. My only guide was the scent and the sounds tied up in that – the quick throb of a pulse, the smack of hooves on grass as they fled, the sound of Alice and Jasper in pursuit of me. I had the first deer in my arms, my face buried in its throat before it had even escaped the clearing it had been grazing, and I was lost in the sensation of the delicious liquid pouring into my open mouth.
When it was gone and the deer shuddered and fell still, I threw it to one side, coming back to my senses a little, on the forest floor on my knees.
"It still burns," I whispered, wiping the blood away from my mouth and chin with the back of my hand, my tongue seeking the remnants and licking my skin clean.
"You need more," Jasper said. "You need to feed until you can't hold any more blood."
"Will it stop the burn?"
"It will ease it, as much as it can. Only human blood really makes it go away completely, and even that is temporary."
"And we don't drink human blood." That was one truth I knew, as much as I knew my own name. So I rose to my feet and gave chase again, Alice and Jasper behind me all the way.
When we returned to the house, I was sated; the burn eased. In such a short period of time I'd become more accustomed to my enhanced senses, although I was prone to distraction, stopping to stare and touch anything that caught my attention. I was also covered in mud and blood, and I could smell the sweat from my change coating the surface of my skin.
"I've run a bath," Carlisle said when we traipsed into the living room. I opened my mouth to protest that I wanted a shower, but Alice shook her head.
"A bath is a much better idea. You still need to get used to your strength and the shower cubicle will suffer for it before you do."
As it turned out, the bath was fine anyway, since I could duck my whole head under the water to wash my hair. Breathing was no longer a necessity, so I could stay under as long as I needed. I planned to abuse that ability until the novelty wore off.
When I surfaced, I decided to try the vampire hearing thing out. Alice was still in the house somewhere, as I'd heard her talking to Jasper.
"Alice?" I whispered.
"Bella?" she replied, and though it was muffled by the closed doors between us, I could hear her as well as if she was kneeling by the bathtub.
"Where's Edward?"
It was a jolt to say his name, and it might have felt strange to the others that I was only just mentioning him now, but he'd been in my thoughts through my transformation and beyond, even with all the distractions. Every breath I took, as scattered as they were, brought the familiar throb near my heart; the tattered wound had not quite healed. I just hadn't found the courage to ask about him before now.
"Esme's still looking for him," Alice said. "He'll be here, don't worry."
The truth was that I wasn't worried. I was disappointed. They'd had at least three days while I was changing to get him here. He should have been here when I woke up, and it was his stubbornness keeping him away.
If Esme didn't find him, I was going looking for him myself. He couldn't avoid me forever, and we really were talking about forever now.
When I was clean and dry, Alice showed me to my room. Here, I got the first glimpse of the new me in the mirror that hung on the wardrobe door. When I caught sight of myself, all I could do was stop and stare.
I knew things had changed, just from the way my clothes hung on me. My jeans were looser and my bra was…unnecessary – not because my breasts had shrunk but because they had less…jiggle to them. I'd seen my arms, the graceful shape of my legs in the bath, the smooth skin of my torso when it hadn't been covered by bubbles. But to see the changes in the glass was a different story.
I had cheekbones. I'd never had visible cheekbones, the kind that people commented on, and yet there they were, perfectly defined. The shape of my face was subtly altered by them so that my eyes seemed larger. My mouth was fuller, my eyebrows arched and my hair glossy, even tangled as it was from the hunt. I stood tall, my breasts noticeable beneath my t-shirt, my posture perfect. I looked confident and graceful, even just stood in repose. The changes were subtle but together they made me a different person. Almost me, but not quite. A beautiful me.
The only disconcerting feature was my eyes.
"They'll stay that way until the animal blood helps them fade," Alice said from behind me as I took in the blazing crimson hue of my irises. "It's your own blood that's making them that color. If you drank human blood they'd stay that way, but eventually they'll fade to match ours."
"How long?" I asked, turning away so I didn't have to keep looking at the ghastly color. I took a pile of clean clothes from Alice.
"A couple of months, at least. Anything up to a year."
"I guess there really is no going back. Not to Forks."
"In time, you could go back. In a few years Charlie would put the changes down to you blossoming. It would be natural for you to have changed."
"But right now, I have to stay away."
"I'm sorry, Bella."
I kept my back to the mirror as I dressed.
"It's okay, Alice. I chose this, and I knew what that meant when it came to my family." I swallowed uncomfortably. "Why do I feel so parched?"
"That's normal. We can hunt again."
"Is it always like this?" I moaned to Jasper as we left the house once more.
"It gets easier," he promised. "The first few months are the worst."
I didn't get quite as messy this time, needing to drain only one deer, and Jasper took us on a circuitous route back, avoiding proximity to the road, since Alice had a brief vision of me chasing down a car that passed by.
"You've all slipped up, right?" I asked as we walked in the first rays of dawn.
"Some more than others," Jasper replied. "I'm new to this diet and it hasn't been easy."
"I had my visions to help me," Alice said, "warning me when I was running a risk."
"What about the others?"
"Emmett has encountered his singers, and you know about Edward's decade of rebellion. Esme made mistakes too."
"Rosalie managed it, though," Jasper reminded her.
"Rosalie?"
"She's killed, but she's never drunk human blood," Alice explained. This was something Carlisle had told me, just like he'd explained Jasper's scars – she'd killed the men who ended her human life.
"And Carlisle has never tasted human blood," Jasper concluded. "I'll never understand how he managed it. Completely alone, yet he still resisted."
"So it's possible," I said. "If both Carlisle and Rosalie managed it, I never have to hurt anyone."
"It is," Alice promised. "Especially since we'll be with you, and we all have ways to prevent the worst from happening. I'll be watching all the time until we know it's safe for you to interact with people. Even then, I'll keep an eye out, as I do for all the family."
"But if the worst were to happen," Jasper said, "don't be too hard on yourself. It's your nature. Wanting not to kill is the important thing. So long as you keep fighting it, you're doing your best."
A stray sunbeam crossed over Alice's face, causing her skin to glitter beneath it. I lifted my hand into the light, watching it shimmer when I turned my arm this way and that.
"I guess I sparkle now."
Alice smiled. "That, you do."
The sparkles kept me entertained for a few minutes as I marveled at the sheer beauty of our skin – more vibrant with my new eyesight – before we headed back to the house.
"What do you do to distract from the burn?"
'***'
It turned out that the burn ruled everything. I found it hard to settle, my attention fluttering from one pursuit to the next. Reading was impossible because although I could do it faster, I couldn't focus on more than a page at a time. Jasper patiently tried to teach me chess, which was probably like trying to teach a toddler who was high on sugar. The only constant was my need to hunt. We had to roam further from the house, taking me ever closer to the chance of encountering humans.
On the third day, Carlisle received a call from Esme. She'd had no luck in finding Edward – every time she thought she'd caught up with him, he'd moved on. Everyone braced themselves for the epic freak-out they expected me from me, but instead I curled up fetal-style, holding the ache inside, until the burn became too insistent to ignore.
Alice was torn, wanting to go and help Esme find Edward, but Carlisle insisted her help was needed here. It wasn't an easy task either, guiding me through those days and making sure I didn't kill anyone. We only strayed out at night, when the forest should have been clear of humans, but more than once I came across the hours-old trail of a hiker and set off in pursuit. Only Alice's visions helped her and Jasper overcome the disadvantage they had: that I was much, much faster than they were. For now.
Even though my only contact with people were their cold scent trails, I suddenly understood why resisting human blood was so hard. It was the most exquisite thing I'd ever smelled, a hundred times more appetizing than anything I'd ever come across before, better even than how I remembered Edward's scent to be. The physical reaction it caused – venom pooling in the place of saliva, and the pain in my throat like I'd drunk burning gasoline – made the lure impossible to ignore. My enthusiasm for feeding from animals waned. Even the cougars I'd moved onto, which were much richer in taste than deer, didn't compare.
I still forced myself to hunt and it diminished the need, but it never completely eased it or satisfied me. The flavor was off, too earthy and bland, and my body wanted more, even if my mind resisted.
"It's okay," Carlisle promised. "Your instincts will calm down eventually. We'll move closer to human habitations and acclimatize you gradually."
If I thought I'd left calamities behind, I was wrong. My newfound strength took some adjustment, which Alice promised was normal, but it still pissed me off. Door and cupboard handles kept being crushed in my hands, I reduced a stone chess piece to dust, and I put my foot through one of the stairs running down them. The first time I tried to take a shower I pulled the water pressure dial off the wall and cracked the glass when I shut the door. These incidents didn't help my temper, which was quick to flare, and Jasper was worn out calming me down when a tantrum approached.
Within a week of my change, Rosalie and Emmett arrived. The first thing Emmett tried to do was crush me in a bear hug. As he leaned in to gather me up, I flipped him over my shoulder and onto the forest floor.
Jasper leaned out of an upstairs window, applauding the move. I'd done it at his request.
"Ooh, feisty," Emmett said to me, grinning from his position on his back. "I like it. Although I gotta say, I'm going to miss your klutziness."
"I'm not."
It was easy to hear the fluid conversation taking place in the house between Rosalie and Carlisle. While I'd greeted Emmett, she'd swept past us to go inside, and I could hear her rapid words to him, even with the door closed.
"How could you?" she berated him. "She wasn't even dying and you went and changed her. Think of everything you took away from her – all those possibilities!"
"She asked me to, Rosalie," Carlisle's resigned response. Words weren't going to appease her.
"You should have known better! She's eighteen and sheltered and has no idea what she's given up. How differently might she feel in a decade's time when all her friends have had babies and she's stuck like this?"
"It was her choice, Rosalie."
"It was an idiotic choice – you should have refused her! Now we're all stuck here on babysitting duty –"
"No, Rosalie," I interrupted, speaking from the lawn. Jasper was still leaning out of the window, and I accepted the calm he sent my way. Letting my temper get the better of me wasn't going to help. "It was my choice and you have no more right to make it than Carlisle does. You don't have to babysit me if you don't want to."
She stormed out to stand in front of me, her hair shining in the sunlight. She didn't have Carlisle's angelic aura, despite their similar coloring: she looked sinful, like temptation come to life. She was cold, especially in her fury, where he was warm.
"And what about when you realize you want children?"
"I'm frozen like this. If I don't want children now, how could that change?"
"You don't know," she said quietly, and there was more to her words than anger now, sorrow under the ice. "Everything you've given up – you don't see –"
She was gone a moment later into the forest. I took a step to follow her, but Alice laid a hand on my arm and murmured for me to leave it be.
"Don't be too hard on her," Emmett said, finally rising from the grass. "These are her issues, not yours, but she's taken it kind of personally. We've just got to give her some space and time."
"Carlisle explained," I replied, but it occurred to me that I'd trivialized it in my head. "You know you don't have to babysit me either, if you don't want to."
"Are you kidding?" He beamed, although his concern for Rosalie was obvious beneath his playfulness. "I'm going to put you through your newborn paces. It's going to be much more fun than school."
Rosalie stayed distant, returning to the house at brief intervals. I spent my time with the other Cullens in rotation, hunting and talking (I had endless questions) and play fighting with Emmett, which was an excellent way of learning to handle my strength.
I only needed to hunt every other day, which Alice promised me was an achievement, and I came home looking civilized now. I'd quickly grown able to hunt without making a complete mess of myself. Instead of the tattered remnants of clothing needing to be turned into dustrags, they could simply be washed free of mud and bloodstains now.
Esme called on a daily basis and Alice gave pointers where she could, trying to leapfrog Edward in her mind so Esme got to his next destination before he even set off. I got into the habit of leaving the room before the call came, so I didn't have to listen to the sound of his name, or think of him. Even though I thought of him anyway, comparing every waking moment to what it would be like if I shared it with him.
This turned out to be the only time of day I got to myself, and I set myself a task to complete, retreating to the porch with a pack of disposable pens and a pad of paper. I knew Charlie would be searching for me, trying to find out where I'd gone and why. Since I couldn't go back to him, I had to ease his worry somehow.
Dear Charlie,
I'm sorry that I left so abruptly. I wish that I could have given you a better explanation then; I wish I could give you a better explanation now, but I can't. I hope that one day I'll be able to.
I'm alive. I'm safe. I can't say that I'm happy, but I'm getting there. I haven't joined a cult (or the circus), and this is the only way I could come back from the place I was in before I left. The decision was my own, and no one else played a part in it. If you're looking for me – and I know that you are – please stop. I don't want to be found, and you won't find me.
This is not your fault. Thank you for everything. I love you,
Bella.
I had destroyed nearly the full pack of pens before I finished the letter. When I was done, I wrote another.
Hey Jake,
I guess I'm writing to ask you not to hate me, although I think by the time I'm through you will. I'm safe, and I left to make sure everyone else would be too. Victoria won't be able to hurt me if she finds me. You can probably figure out why.
I know you'll hate that I made that choice, but I don't regret it, and I don't want you to regret it for me. I didn't make it for him. I made it for me.
I won't be coming back to Forks, for obvious reasons. Please take care of Charlie.
I love you, even if it's not the way you want me to. I wish I could.
Bella.
Alice took the letters to post them when I was done.
Chess became a ritual at Emmett's insistence, now that I was no longer a danger to the pieces, since he was lacking in other forms of entertainment. I think he was hoping I would suddenly turn into a Grand Master and wipe the floor with Jasper. Every evening Alice, Jasper, Emmett and I would gather in the living room, cross-legged on the floor (which would never again lead to pins and needles), while I was comprehensively beaten. The games only lasted minutes, just long enough for my slowly increasing attention span. Alice was banned from playing since she couldn't help but cheat.
One afternoon, perhaps two weeks after my change, she sat watching Jasper and I as we worked our way through a game, crocheting a shawl at high speed. Carlisle hadn't been exaggerating when he said Jasper was an excellent strategist, although I was putting up a decent fight.
"I guess I'm not special," I said as I waited for his next move. He ignored me, working through every possible option in his head.
"What do you mean?" Alice asked instead.
"I haven't got a special ability – no mind reading or seeing the future or super-zenness. We'd know by now, right?"
"Maybe. Eleazer would be able to tell for sure."
"Eleazer?" I glanced back at the board to see Jasper taking one of my knights.
"He's one of the Denali coven," Alice elaborated, "although he once lived with the Volturi, which is how Carlisle knows him. He has the ability to be able to tell what someone else's is. We'll be going to Alaska soon anyway, so you'll meet him then."
"We're leaving?"
"We have to leave before we decimate the fauna of Vancouver Island completely," Jasper said, moving a final piece and capturing my king.
"How will we get there? I don't think I'm ready for –"
Alice's gasp interrupted me, and Jasper was beside her a split-second later. Her eyelids fluttered as they did when she was viewing the future, and judging by her expression, whatever she was seeing wasn't good. I removed my hands from the vicinity of the chessboard so I didn't break anything.
After a moment, Alice's sight returned to the room, although she didn't look any happier.
"I just saw Charlie. He was… I think the wolves are going to leave him unprotected, just for a little while –"
Carlisle, Rosalie and Emmett all came flying into the room, gathering around her as she spoke
"Victoria?" I whispered, and Alice nodded in confirmation.
"But it's the future, right? It hasn't happened yet?" I pleaded.
"No," Alice replied. I let out a sob of relief. "But it will soon."
I hadn't forgotten about Victoria, but the distance between us and my belief that the wolves would keep Charlie safe had put her to the back of my mind. I'd had to focus on making sure I didn't become a killer, and knew Alice was keeping watch on the situation. I'd been complacent, forgetting the whole reason I'd begged to be changed, and Charlie would be the one to pay.
"We have to do something," I said.
"Could we warn the wolves?" Emmett asked.
"We could, but this is just one instance," I said, standing up and pacing. "She's going to keep trying to get to him, and the wolves could get hurt. That was what I was trying to stop." I said it to Carlisle, reminding him of our conversation as we left Forks. "We need to lure her here."
"We're strong enough to take her," Jasper agreed.
"No, I'm strong enough to take her." Victoria was mine. I owed her, just for threatening a hair on Charlie's head.
"Bella, that's not the best idea," Carlisle said softly.
My temper flared again.
"I want to be in this fight, Carlisle. I'm the strongest person in this family right now and you need to use me to your advantage. I'm not going to sit back and let you all risk your lives for me again when you don't need to. I'm not saying that I need to take her completely on my own, but if there's any direct fighting, it should be me. She'll want me anyway."
Carlisle paused a moment, trying not to be swayed by my emotions. "What do you think, Jasper?"
I prayed he would back me up. He would be the leader on this, even if Carlisle was head of the family. It was clear the wheels were already turning in his head.
"You'll need training, so you don't fall for any obvious maneuvers, and we don't have much time," he said. "But we definitely have the element of surprise. She won't be expecting you to be a vampire."
"Then we need to use that."
We both looked at Carlisle.
"If you think that's the best course," Carlisle conceded.
"What's the plan?" Emmett asked. He'd begun pacing, letting out the same coiled energy we were all feeling. It wasn't the same as adrenaline – there was no edge to it, there would be no slump afterwards. It was just power, ready to be used.
"Bella left Forks with Carlisle," said Jasper, "and as far as Victoria knows she's still with him. She'd follow Carlisle wherever he goes, hoping it leads to Bella." We all glanced at Alice to check.
"He's right."
"So Carlisle goes back to Forks, but not alone," Jasper continued. "We need to make sure she can't pull any tricks on us." He glanced between the other members of the family, considering our options. Rosalie wouldn't travel with Carlisle – she was still too angry – and I thought he'd choose Emmett in her place, but instead he shared a glance with Alice.
"You only have a few days," she told him, acknowledging his decision to send her with Carlisle. "We can lead her on a merry dance but only for so long, before she stops trailing us and returns to Forks."
"It's all I need," Jasper promised.
They launched into a detailed strategy, trying to come up with plans, back-up plans and counterplans to ensure this would absolutely work. My attention waned, the thirst returning to an alarming degree, and before long Emmett and I slipped away so I could feed.
Carlisle was waiting for me when I returned.
"Walk with me?"
We kept the pace leisurely and I enjoyed the afternoon sun on my skin as it filtered through the canopy of branches. It didn't warm me as much as it once would have, but it was still enough to be pleasant. It was also a nice change from being out in the darkness. I captured butterflies in my hands when we came across them, releasing them back onto the breeze, happy that I could do it without squashing them. I still marveled at the richness and detail I was able to see, and Carlisle let my distraction work itself out until we reached the trunk of a fallen tree lying on the forest floor. We settled on it, side by side.
"We haven't had much chance to speak lately," he began.
"No," I replied. "I just presumed you were busy. Besides, I've been kind of a handful."
"I have had things I needed to do – I've left a lot of work behind in Ithaca and I've been trying my best to make sure this didn't impact my colleagues and patients. They know I won't be returning. I have to make the family my priority."
I nodded and watched the light glitter from the back of my hand, casting a rainbow across the wood.
"I have to ask how you're feeling, Bella," he continued. "You've taken the change well, better than anyone else did, or so it seems, but I'd prefer not to take things for granted. If you have any concerns, I hope you would be able to bring them to me. No one else in the family need know, but I'd like to be able to help you with anything that might be troubling you."
"You're feeling guilty, aren't you, after what Rose said?" I asked, understanding immediately.
"Perhaps," he admitted. "Despite knowing that you requested this, I'm concerned that we could have given it more time. Maybe I acted in the family's best interests, rather than yours – I think I may have been too easily swayed. I'm concerned that the change is more than you expected."
"It is more," I confessed. "I didn't think I'd need to hunt this much, for a start. And I didn't expect the temper, because I've never really had one before. But you told me to expect to be distracted and I feel like that's already much better than it was at first. There's a lot for me take in – the world is so different to how it used to be for me – but I adjust easier too. It balances out."
"You do seem to be coping extraordinarily well, in comparison. Others were slaves to the bloodlust."
"And I'm not? It feels that way."
"I don't doubt that it does, but you have the most control I've ever seen in a newborn. You're certainly more sentient than I expected. Even your temper is mild for one this young."
"Do you think knowing ahead of time helped?" I asked.
"Possibly. Maybe it's just because of who you are. You were a quiet, calm, thoughtful human being, and we never stray that far from where we began. We just have the bloodlust amplifying our baser instincts. You say you were surprised by your need to hunt?"
"I knew I'd need to, but not this often. I didn't expect to be so…animalistic when I fed either. I guess I see why he wanted to keep me away when you hunted. I've got used to it though, and the benefits in return more than make up for it. For the first time in my life I can walk across a straight surface and know I won't trip. That's a big deal to me. I mean, things aren't perfect, but…"
"You're still waiting for Edward?" he ventured.
"I think so – but things won't be perfect even with him. We have too much stuff to work through. I can see that now. The good news is that we have a long time to work through it and a real chance of piecing everything back together. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. Could you see that light in my life as a human? Because I couldn't. Even if he came back, we were too fragile the way we were."
"I'm glad."
We sat for a while, enjoying the vivid sunset and the way it bathed the forest in pinks and golds. As inky blue became the dominant color, Carlisle rose from his seat.
"We need to go back. I would just ask that if you ever have any regrets, bring them to me. Please, don't ever be afraid or reluctant to lay them before me. I would rather know if something is troubling you, than it be kept from me because you seek to spare my feelings."
"I promise."
We headed back to the house where the jeep was waiting, Alice behind the wheel. Carlisle and Alice wouldn't need provisions but they were taking some things I'd brought with me, those infused with my human scent. It would attract Victoria's attention and entice her to follow when they encountered her.
"Come back safely," I told them as Carlisle climbed in. "I don't need another reason to kill Victoria."
Alice laughed, but Jasper growled beside me. They were coated in each other's scent, which meant they'd had a thorough goodbye, and not for the first time I was glad that I couldn't blush anymore. Alice hushed him with a brief kiss on the mouth, and they were gone.
"Now what?" I asked of nobody in particular.
"Now, we start training," Jasper said. He needed it as much as a distraction from his separation from Alice as I needed it to prepare for Victoria.
Emmett, Rosalie and I followed him to the clearing where I'd fed for the first time. The corpse of the deer was mostly gone, picked clean by scavengers, only the bones left. Not enough time had passed for them to be trampled into the undergrowth.
"The only sure way to kill a vampire," Jasper began, standing very still in the center of the clearing, with the night silent around him, "is to rip it apart."
This was for my benefit. The others knew perfectly well how to kill their own kind.
"The limbs and head need to be completely separated from the torso, and then it all needs to be burnt to ash. Just getting rid of one limb won't stop it in the same way it would a human. That means unless you have enough vampires to grab a limb each and pull, the most effective way is to decapitate it. Of course, the same goes for all of us. Never let your enemy close enough to your neck to do that."
Jasper's gaze was far away, fixed on the bones across the clearing, although I was sure he wasn't really seeing them. They were eerily bright against the gloom.
"This is where your strength comes as an advantage, Bella. Victoria is clearly good at surviving, or the wolves would have destroyed her already. We'd probably all be even matches for her as individuals, even Emmett, but you will have the edge in speed and strength that might tip the fight. We'll focus on preventing her from escaping, herding her back to you if we need to, and be ready to take over if it looks like you might be in danger."
"Why don't we just surround her and take her apart together?" Emmett asked.
"If we can, then we do, but that's more likely to end in injury for one of us. Bella needs to be able to focus on one task, without trying not to hurt us too."
"Then how do we fight her?" I asked. "How do I make sure I kill her?"
"I'll show you."
For the next few days we stayed out in the clearing, while Jasper drilled into us his three most important lessons.
"Think," he told us. "Don't rely on instinct. You have to use your head, you need to plan. Don't rely on luck, because it will never be on your side."
He showed us offensive and defensive moves, demonstrating on each of us. Just like in chess, every movement had an effective countermovement. We needed to think two or three moves ahead.
"Anticipate your enemy. Don't just move and wait for them to decide what to do next. Plan for every possible reaction."
We teamed up to practice grappling and blocking. Emmett joined in with great enthusiasm, and for Rosalie this seemed to be a way to channel her anger. I took great pride in beating both of them, although Jasper always had the edge on me when we sparred.
"Never react. If you're reacting, you aren't in control. Force them into reacting to you, and you're almost guaranteed a win."
It was amazing how much extra time you had when you didn't need to sleep or rest, you didn't ever tire, and you did everything pretty much perfectly the first time you tried it. The speed at which I learned was only slowed by my constant distraction, specifically the need to stop and hunt every time game wandered near the clearing. Fighting, even mock-fighting my family, produced more venom and with it greater thirst, just as I'd begun to temper mine.
On the fourth day of training, as dawn was breaking in the sky above us, Jasper received a text message.
"It's Alice," he told us. "They've just gotten on the ferry, and Victoria's swimming behind. She believes they think she lost their trails so she'll surprise us when she arrives. We have to be careful not to give anything away until it's too late for her to escape."
"Do we know where she'll come from?" Emmett asked.
The phone bleeped, anticipating the message Jasper had been about to send with Emmett's question.
"She's going to loop around through the forest and come from the east." He gestured to the tree line in the direction of the rising sun.
"How do we get her surrounded?" said Rosalie.
"I have an idea." We listened intently as he laid out his strategy.
My first task was to get changed – we needed Victoria to believe I was still human until the last possible moment, and the best way of achieving that was to smell human. I dashed back to my room and changed into the clothes that most smelled like old me, including the t-shirt I'd been wearing when I'd gone through the change. Alice had swapped it when I was close to waking up and it had been discarded up here, coated in my sweat.
"Ugh, that's ripe," Rosalie griped when I reappeared on the porch. "Why didn't that get thrown away?"
I ignored her question and settled on the top step with a book in my hands, hunching my shoulders and slouching a little, trying for a human-like pose, and letting my hair fall around me as much as it could. As soon as Victoria came near she'd recognize the subterfuge, but our hope was by that time it would too late.
Jasper and Emmett had disappeared into the forest, round the back of the house, so Victoria wouldn't sense them and spot the trap, but close enough they could be here within seconds. Rosalie stood on the bottom step, lounging against the railing and looking utterly disinterested in everything.
I could hear the jeep but kept my loose posture, acting as if my senses were all dull as they once had been, and I was lost in the pages of the book. In the distance there was a new sound: the footfalls of someone in the woods – quick and light, a running pace.
I didn't say a word to Rosalie; she would hear it too. Judging by the pace of the steps, Victoria would reach us before the jeep did.
We waited. I turned pages, careful to keep my grip light so the paper wouldn't crumble between my fingers. We waited until even a human would have been able to hear her approach.
"Emmett?" Rose called out. "That better be you. I'm done babysitting."
"No need," came the soft, girlish voice. There was a flash of red as she emerged from the trees, then she leapt across the lawn towards Rosalie.
Rose ducked and knocked Victoria away in midflight, who landed on the bottom step, cracking the wood. She was back on her feet immediately, with Rose now on the grass, poised ready to strike. Victoria took a step towards her, and it was what I needed. Her back was to me: I threw myself at her.
The momentum took us rolling all the way across the lawn, and I was already on my feet before we stopped, Victoria a split-second behind.
"You!" she hissed as she took in my transformation, though the shock didn't stop her from circling, just as I was, keeping pace with me. I should have used the moment to finish her, but it was too satisfying to watch the realization that she'd been tricked filter across her face. It was gone a second later, replaced by a snarl. "I'll still kill you."
"No," I replied, "you won't."
She snapped her head around as she heard the movement of the other Cullens around us – even Carlisle and Alice, who had abandoned the jeep to run through the forest – though she kept me in her eyeline. She was surrounded on every side and facing a newborn, but she didn't look remotely panicked.
"Watch me!" she yelled, more for the Cullens' benefit than mine, then fell into motion.
I ducked her feint and the real blow that followed it, knocking her arm aside and landing one, two, three punches of my own. She fell back a step but managed to dodge the fourth blow, spinning towards me, her kick glancing off my hip.
We were both quick, quick enough to stay just out of each other's reach. Every movement was a distraction, a way of finding or creating an opening to go for the killing blow.
She didn't stand a chance really though – I was faster than her and thinking two moves ahead. When she reached out to land a punch to my throat, I caught her extended arm, ripping my teeth into her wrist.
She snatched it away before I could rip the hand off completely, but her shrill screams echoed around the forest. As she stumbled backwards, cradling her injured arm to her torso, I closed in, kicking her legs from underneath her so she tripped and fell to her knees in the grass.
I was on her back before she could recover, pushing her face down and pinning her arms with my legs, yanking her head up by the hair, ready to twist her neck and end it all. She bucked beneath me, but I was too strong for her.
Until the scent hit me, making the world spin and the writhing hellcat below me recede in my consciousness. That scent – I knew that scent.
My gaze found him at the foot of the steps, pale and glorious and everything I'd ever wanted, even looking like he'd marched through hell. He was flanked by Jasper and Emmett, each one with a restraining grip around him.
"Edward," I whispered, the word raw as it escaped my throat.
Then Victoria consumed my focus once more, twisting beneath me so that suddenly, I was the one on the ground, on my knees with her hands around my throat. I met his eyes and realized I was going to die after all.
Thank you for reading.
ETA for chapter four - soon, I hope. Did I mention I'm moving house? Er, yeah.