"Bella! BELLA! Wake up. Come on, please."

I swim back up to consciousness, blinking my eyes in the low light, taking inventory. Everything hurts. My limbs feel bruised and aching, and breathing takes too much effort. It feels like almost drowning all over again. I recognize the voice, but I don't want to.

"Bella, honey. Come on."

Alice is crouched over me, her expression painted with fear. She brushes my hair back of my face, where it feels plastered with sweat and tears.

"I need to move you, Bella. Is anything broken, do you think? I don't want to hurt you." There's an anxiety to her voice I've never heard before.

We seem to be in an alley, and I'm slumped against a stone wall, smooth cobblestones under my hands. The noise of music and revelry filter through from the square outside. Volterra. God, I'm still in Volterra. I try and push myself up on weak arms. Alice immediately lunges forward to help, lifting me gently to my feet and keeping her arm around me to steady me. I lean heavily against the wall.

She runs cool fingers across my throat, and I can only imagine the bruises Felix has left there. Swallowing seems an effort. Alice is aghast. "That thug just dropped you here, at my feet. God, Bella did he do this? What happened? Where is Edward? Oh, your throat. Bella!"

I feel a wave of nausea and gag briefly.

"Oh, I should have been there! I... was too slow, the car...and then the police...I've only managed to see flashes. I've been going crazy. Bella, what happened? Please, can you talk? Tell me you're okay. Please!"

The tears come back, welling up in my ravaged throat and burning my eyes. All of this is real. Edward.

"Bella, he's still alive. I can see that! They didn't kill him! It's okay."

She draws me into a hug, and I collapse against her tiny frame, my shoulders shaking with silent tears. Tiny Alice, still so strong despite it all. Holding me up when nothing else in this world can. She lets me cry, rubbing soothing circles on my lower back, and murmuring meaningless reassurances in my ear.

When I draw back, she smoothes cool fingers across my cheeks, wiping away my tears and calming the angry, swollen flesh. She waits, with a patience I have never seen from Alice, for me to regain my composure.

"He decided to stay," my voice sounds ragged, broken. Hoarse from screaming.

Alice's hand flies up to her mouth in shock, her eyes wide. "What...what do you mean?" Her eyebrows draw together, and I can see she's searching for any vision that could prove me wrong. Her expression moves from worry to horror. I don't want to know what she sees.

"He...they made him choose, Alice. They wouldn't let me go unless I was changed."

Alice nods, as if this is not news. "But you are going to be changed, Bella. I've seen it."

I shake my head slowly, pushing back from her embrace. It's all I can do to stand unassisted. I realize I haven't slept in days and my last meal was a mouthful of rubbery eggs before the plane landed in Rome. All this way, all this effort, and for nothing. Nothing. We still lost him.

"He chose to stay, Alice," I grit out. My mouth is dry, and my legs are still wobbling.

Alice looks as if she is about to protest further, but then she takes in my fragile state. She scoops one arm under and around me, lifting me lightly, and we move swiftly out of the alley and through the crowd, my feet hovering just above the ground. We must look like any number of other drunken festival-goers, supporting each other home. The noise and the robes and masques surrounding us in the square are jarring. In my exhausted state, my eyes keep sliding closed. My nerves are jangling. I feel like I'm buried in a nightmare.

Alice steers me around a corner and unlocks the sleek yellow sports car, sliding me gently into the passenger seat. With the door still open as cover, she kneels and easily snaps a heavy metal clamp off the front wheel. "I had a disagreement with someone about whether I was allowed to park here," she says with a scowl, throwing the twisted metal up onto the footpath, and closing my door. Sinking into the soft leather seat, I press my overheated temple to the cool glass and close my eyes. Alice stays outside on her cellphone, and even though she's whispering for all intents and purposes, I can tell her conversation with Carlisle is agitated. I look out at her in the dark, pacing on the footpath and rubbing at her forehead. She keeps gesturing frantically as if he can see her. Abruptly, she hangs up with an exasperated hiss, and throws the phone at the nearest stone wall. It cracks sharply, pieces flying in all directions.

I blink once and she's sitting in the driver's seat next to me. Her eyes are bright, and she drums her fingers rapidly on the steering wheel, her jaw working in frustration. "Carlisle wants us to come home," she says, staring straight ahead. "He thinks we need to regroup, to plan. And he doesn't want to do it here, right under the Volturi's noses."

She's not making any sense. Plan for what? I'm beyond tired, my eyes feel scratchy and swollen even when I close them. Nothing makes sense. Not any of this - Edward not beside me, Alice's concerned face, the tension I can feel spinning around the interior of this stolen car.

Alice fires the car into life and weaves through the crowds, sitting heavily on the horn. We are soon speeding through the Italian countryside. Alice changes gears with vicious slams that make me think the car might not survive her wrath. I want nothing more than to sleep. I close my eyes and hope.

.x.

This story will have around 20 chapters, and they'll all be short and snappy. I plan to post one a week, on Sundays all going according to plan. Can't thank my amazing beta, emmajanepringle, enough. I'm the Sam Seaborn to her Toby Ziegler.