Disclaimer: The characters of Twilight are owned by Stephenie Meyer. The content, ideas and intellectual property of this story and the 'American Vampire Series' in its entirety are owned by Just4ALE.

The fabulous Afterglow belongs to Mr. Tony Banks and Genesis.

A/N 1: Here we go, folks...

Chapter 16: Shattered Cage

EPOV

I returned home that Friday afternoon after speaking with Jacob and sat in my study, mentally preparing myself for the trip. I was overwhelmed with a myriad of feelings flooding me all at once. I was excited at the thought that I was going to see her again. My body was tingling, all nerve endings coming alive after all of these months; I ached to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her.

However, there, going toe-to-toe with my giddy excitement was a real sense of fear. Jacob basically said he'd step aside for me, but what if she didn't love me as he believed? What would I do?

Obviously aware of how events unfolded with Jacob, Alice called me and told me that she and Jasper would meet me in Seattle. And then she told me that I should fly, not drive there. As I trusted her advice implicitly - and my Volvo was still in long-term parking at the Atlanta airport - I did as she asked. However, as I started to make flight arrangements I immediately became frustrated when, for what eventually turned out to be a ridiculous and ironic reason, I couldn't find a flight out to Seattle until Sunday. All flights to Seattle - and I mean all - were booked! I checked the surrounding smaller airports and even to Vancouver but to no avail. While I toyed with just renting a car to get out there, Alice insisted that we stick to the plan of flying and meeting on Sunday at the airport. This delay did nothing to calm my frayed nerves, but it gave me an extra day to think of all of the things that I wanted to tell Bella.

Landing at Sea-Tac Sunday afternoon, I found my whole family waiting for me, much to my surprise… and my frozen heart melted. I needed all the moral support here they could spare as I undertook the biggest endeavor of my life: winning back the affections of the love of my existence. With hugs and shoulder pats all around, we made our way to the rental car agency, and that's when I became aware of the most ludicrous situation swirling around us.

There were women dressed in tight Elvira, Lily Munster, and Morticia Adams garb… you name the sexy Goth character and there had to have been one there. Then there were the men! Hair slicked back with black capes and pale pancake make-up on their faces. Or punked-out and pierced guys in jeans and shoulder padded jackets. Or in tuxedo with tails and top hat and God-damned little round sunglasses with blue tinted lenses. Yes, Seattle was hosting a fucking vampire convention, and most of the fools around us were human. For this, I was unable to get a flight out until Sunday!

My family and I made our way out of the airport, rolling our eyes, shaking our heads and raising our eyebrows at several of the real vampires who were among the throngs arriving for the event. They made like gestures right back at us. I did a double-take when I saw my pal Vlad wandering around. It took all my will not to take him somewhere and teach him another lesson; instead, I bumped him on the shoulder and glared. His eyes widened when he saw me. Fuck me... he thought as he moved away as quickly as humanly possible.

With priority rental at all agencies, we were able to obtain two cars to get us on our way. I rode with Jasper, who thankfully kept me calm along the way, and Alice, who hummed a number of annoying tunes in a blatant attempt to keep me out of her head. It was obvious that she knew something that she wasn't sharing. It was almost a four hour trip if one drove at normal human speed, but we made it in two. I was prepared to go to Charlie's house to see her when Alice clued me in on a change in the plan. "She's at the new house, Edward. She's in her studio."

The lights were on in the studio when we drove up. A single car, clearly a rental, was parked right outside. We pulled up alongside of it and suddenly all of my excitement had a big anvil of ACME panic come slamming down on it from the sky. All of the things I'd planned on saying over the past two days sounded stupid in my mind. Would she even speak to me? Would she listen to what I had to say? What would her reaction be?

"Jasper," I whispered, "I think I'm going to need your help. Please keep me calm."

"Yeah, I can feel it already. I'll do my best," he said nodding at me.

"It'll be okay, Edward," Alice said.

We could hear Genesis playing as we entered up the back way into the surveillance room. And there, as expected, was Bella… looking heartbreakingly beautiful in a tank top and yoga bottoms. Her hair was in a pony tail and based on the length of it, she'd cut it: it looked about four inches shorter. She was noticeably leaner and her muscles had more definition; I didn't think it possible but her body was looking even better than before! Christ! And her cheeks were pink, flushed from the activity already underway in her studio. I closed my eyes and reached for the window ledge to keep me steady. Dear God, I've missed her so much.

"Alice, what is with this studio?" Emmett asked. "It looks like Ringling Brothers exploded in here!"

"Shut up, Em," she hissed. "I knew that Bella would love this."

I vaguely recognized the song playing. I had heard it when I first tried to discover the song that she listened to when walking to school. She was listening to the live version of it, the "In the Cage" Medley. Bella had boxing gloves on and she was at the punching bag, hitting and kicking. Shortly after we entered the room, she removed the gloves and then took a running leap at the low trapeze bar. She hooked her legs over it and hung upside down for a few swings until she climbed up and made the trapeze swing back and forth. Coordinating her fall with the words and music, she threw herself backward at the top of the arc and released her legs at the other end of the arc, landing on her feet.

"Well, I guess this explains the trapeze vision that Alice saw with the two of you," Emmett said, laughing. It was Rosalie who hit him in the head this time. "Ow, Rose!" Then he looked at me. "Okay, so how does she know how to do that?"

Rosalie looked at him. "Don't you know? Bella was in circus school once."

"Get out! I thought she just liked to watch those crazy Cirque shows. Edward, you're a fool if you let her go again. This is the coolest human ever." And don't forget: bendy! Dude, remember Alice's vision? Fuckin' awesome, man!

I looked at him and rolled my eyes. Bendy Bella was the least of my concerns right now. Just seeing her was drawing me in. I was panicked. "Jazz," I reminded him, "please make sure that you help me." Thankfully I couldn't smell her and her energy level was probably at a four, I guessed. But should it escalate and should I take in her scent, I was afraid I'd get overpowered again.

My family watched in awe once again as she leapt around the room, moving at one point to the punching bag and then to the empty karate floor lunging and jumping, going down on her knees for a beat or two, only to leap up and dance in a different direction. She would grab onto the poles and spin around them and then run back to the trapeze to do a pull up, spin once on the bar and then come back to the ground to continue dancing. I could hear their admiration for the unique being who moved all around that room,. but none of it matched the adoration I could feel pouring out of me.

The speakers played a rapid musical interlude courtesy of the band's synthesizer and at this point Bella was spinning on the hoop. And then she let go and moved back to the punching bag, doing side kicks. I made my first bargain with God in that moment. Dear God, if she comes back to me, I promise that I will learn every one of Tony Banks' solos and play them for her any time that she wants.

The song had some odd lyrics, a fantastic imagined world of dangling cages and suffering, but the overall meaning was clear: a man was imprisoned somehow and he wanted out. At the peak of the music, before it changed, the vocals became fast and more furious about getting out of the cage.

I noticed that Jasper's body position began to mirror my own as he leaned on the window ledge, trying to keep himself steady and I quickly became aware of the difficulty he was having managing his own emotions, let alone mine. "Edward, this isn't like Denali when she calmed herself with Karate. There is a lot of anger in this song and Bella is both absorbing it and releasing it. It is building up in there."

"Dude," Emmett said, "you are in deep shit. You know her temper."

I did.

And part of me wanted to see it again soooo much.

The music was going faster and faster and Bella was moving just as fast. She was leaping between poles, holding on and kicking up, one leg stretched out, the other bent below. Then she would move to the next pole and do the same in the opposite direction. She was spinning around each pole and finally moved to the center of the room, pirouetting and timing her turns to match Phil Collins' words as he sang - almost instructing her - to rotate to the word 'round' over and over.

Her energy was up to a seven but that wasn't high enough for me. I needed to hear what she was thinking. I was desperate to hear her mind. Come on, Bella, I thought, willing her energy to escalate. Come on. Get it up. Please. Elevate. Go. Go. The singing ended with Phil's last cries – 'Get me out of this cage!' –then the music began to slow down, transitioning to the next part of the medley. My heart started to sink with the notion that her energy would lower as the song slowed.

She moved like a caged tiger, pacing backward against the wall far across from us, looking around the room and clearly watching some other movement taking place on the 'stage' in front of her in her mind. As the drum beats slowed and Tony's keyboard took the tune to a higher, almost happier place, Bella took a run toward us and then slid across the floor on her shins, her back arched over her ankles, her head looking up at the ceiling. As she slowed her slide across the floor, she suddenly whipped out her arms, stretching them out to her sides, her palms facing outward toward the windows directly on both sides of her body…

…and the windows shattered.

My whole family looked on in shock and the reactions were simultaneous. My body froze, as I let go of the window frame, stood up straight and clenched my hands into fists at my side. Esme and Rosalie gasped. "Holy shit!" Emmett and Jasper breathed at the same time. It even got a reaction out of Carlisle. "Wow…" he said softly.

Alice, however, was not surprised. "Yeah!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air.

Esme looked at me and then Alice. "Did she do that?"

Alice smiled. "You bet your ass she did..." she said happily. Ah, Alice, of course you knew all along... my blood... my power. I tried to see what else Alice knew, but she blocked me. Just let it happen as it should, Edward, she thought.

Bella looked just as surprised as we were. She gasped and her head whipped to the left to look at the broken window and then to the right. She looked down at her hands and then back at the windows. Her mouth was open and her eyes wide as she realized what she'd done. Then she looked up toward the ceiling, her face broke into a smile, and her eyes gleamed. Her face was radiant… my personal sun was shining in that room once more, and her energy escalated to an eight as she laughed and scrambled to her feet.

I inhaled sharply and held my breath as her mind suddenly opened up to me. The music was magnified as I heard it coming from her head as well as from the speakers. I could see what she was seeing. And it was astounding.

I'd never seen Bella's thoughts put to music. She had an entire stage production going on in that crazy, wonderful head of hers. She and her fellow 'prison escapees' were trying to blend into a city scene, so they were watching the others nearby dance and then matching them. So she stayed still, on occasion, taking it all in the way her stage character was doing. From all outside appearances, her eyes looked like she was watching something. With her, inside her head, I was witness to it all.

Emmett was confused, however. "The girl is losing her mind," he said. "Why is she just standing there?"

"She's visualizing an entire production number in her head. I wish you all could see it. It's… it's unbelievable!" Bella's inner choreography was amazing. It occurred to me at that moment that business might not be her calling.

At one point she grabbed her water bottle and leaned against the bar along the window, her back to us. I could still see the scene in her head and it was one in which her 'character' was off stage so she enjoyed a small swig and a break in her activity. She was mere inches away from me, separated only by the glass. I could see the perspiration on her neck, the hair at her nape glistening. I could see her flushed body moving, breathing heavily from her exercise. I moved to stand directly behind her and I lightly caressed the glass, imagining that all barriers I had stupidly created – physical and emotional – were shattered and that she was in my arms once again.

As the medley ran toward its conclusion, the vision in her head was so... happy. Bella was smiling as she and her three former 'inmates' – who she had imagined to be her best friends Angela, Serena and Nicole – were dancing with the other people it the city scene, at least 12 people moving in sync. The music slowed to the final part of the song, and in her vision each of her friends left to go their own way.

She first waved goodbye to Nicole who twirled off stage with her partner. Next she and Serena blew each other a kiss before Serena left the scene dancing with her partner. And then she and Angela reached out and playfully slapped hands before Angela glided off stage with her partner.

Finally, she was left alone. Bella's hand was above her head and she was twirling, matching the vision in her head of being twirled by her yet unseen partner around and around. The twirling slowed and Bella bowed with a slight curtsy to her partner. And then she looked up at the person with whom she had been happily dancing as he bowed, kissed her hand and stepped away, waving goodbye as he faded off.

I inhaled sharply as I took in the picture of who was dancing with her in her vision… me. And then the image disappeared suddenly, as her energy plummeted. Bella's face froze as she too realized who she had seen and she stiffened, her body shaking and her eyes welling up as she fought off tears. I guess that she was as surprised to see me in her vision as I was.

The second I saw myself, my heart leapt. She had pictured me as her partner! ME! But just as instantly, my hopes crumbled when I saw how upset seeing me had made her. She stood in the room, small and shaking. Then I started to sink… I felt my anxiety start to take over.

At the same time, Jasper suddenly gasped and staggered back to the sofa, his hands coming to his head balled in fists.

Alice was at his side in a flash. "Jazz! Are you okay?"

Jasper moaned. What just happened? Edward? What the hell just happened?! The two of you imploded at the same time!

"It's me," I whispered. "Oh no… it's me… it's me. I'm her partner… and she's miserable. I did that. I did. I did."

Emmett looked over. "What the hell are you muttering about? What do you mean 'it's me?' Speak English!"

For over 85 years, I had been so sure of myself. I made decisions and moved on. I didn't need support... I was the support for them. Yet here I was, this night, so hesitant, so unsure... so afraid. All of their thoughts came flooding at me before they actually spoke and they were all of one mind. I held my breath, listening to each of them, all of their words ringing true in my head and my heart, helping me with what I so wanted and needed to do.

Jasper grabbed on to Alice and hugged her to him tightly. "Oh God, Edward, I can't take this," Jasper said. "I'm getting it from both sides. She's devastated in there… and you're matching her emotions exactly. You have to get in there and talk with her. Go tell her why you left!"

Carlisle agreed. "Son, you belong with her. She needs to know why you did what you did and how you still feel. This separation will only destroy you both. For your sake and hers, you must go to her."

"I don't think she wants to see me," I said. "You didn't see what I just saw. Look at her in there! I'm the cause of her pain over and over!"

"Edward, you also brought her extreme joy. We all saw the way you two were with each other. It doesn't go away that quickly for anyone, not in the span of only three months," Esme said softly.

"I'm with them. She's gonna be pissed off at you," Emmett said, "but damn, that pain is there because she still feels something for you." You're going to have to get in there and take whatever shit she throws your way.

Rosalie was more concise. "For God's sake, grow a pair and get your ass in there!"

Edward, Alice thought, still holding on to Jasper, go now. She's purging you; she's trying to release you so that she can move on. You need to be with her and she with you. Don't waver this time or Carlisle is right… it will be the end for both of you.

Bella's eyes were glassy as she recovered from her shock and began moving to the music again. She mouthed the words as she slowly moved around the room. I recognized the song now playing. The medley had transitioned to "Afterglow"... the song that didn't make her Stupid Guy playlist. I remembered when she first played it for me:

"Edward, listen to these words with this music. It is a song of such incredible longing and loss," she said, shaking her head. "No one should ever feel like this."

Her eyes were still glassy as she walked slowly to the mirror, not looking at herself but rather at someone else in her mind. She stretched her right arm out and then she put her hand up to the mirror as if she were touching the other person. I moved to stand across from her and put my hand up to hers on the other side of the glass. Her eyes were gazing into mine through the mirror, a tear rolling down her cheek. Standing here in this room, I heard Phil's words wash over my body realizing that that my family was right. Bella and I… we both felt the same, on either side of this chasm that I had created. It was as if they were words meant only for me… for her… for us. I could see from her face as she whispered the words that she felt it too... and I believed in that instant that she was reaching out for me.

But I would search everywhere, just to hear your call
And walk upon stranger roads than this one, in a world I used to know before
But now, now, now I've lost everything and I give to you… I give to you my soul
And the meaning of all that I believed before escapes me, in this world of none
Because I miss you more
I miss you more…

She closed the hand up against the mirror into a fist and spun away running to the rope after the word 'soul.' She quickly climbed up and stuck one hand in the loop and began twisting and spinning around in the air. She hadn't mentioned she'd learned how to do the Spanish Web when she was in circus school. I shook my head. She was so unbelievably amazing... and I was the stupidest being on the planet for running from her. I hoped that in this instance, this stupid guy wouldn't be too late. If I had to get on my knees and beg, I would do it.

I ghosted from the surveillance room and up into her studio. With all of the resolve that I could possibly muster, I held myself back for a moment. Her sweat was magnifying her scent… my scent… our scent. It was literally calling my name; it was singing to me. It would drive me mad if I didn't watch myself.

The music was ending and she slid down the rope and crumpled there on the floor. As the crowd cheered at the end of this live song, I stepped into the room, and I mentally shut off the iPod and stood with my hands in my pockets behind her. Then I took a big breath.

"Hello Bella," I said.

A/N 2: Ruh-roh. Showdown. Thank you for staying with the story.

You know the drill... I ask and I hope that you'll tell: please leave feedback!

Post A/Ns: Like the reveal at the pond in AAVIC, this chapter comes complete with the soundtrack… and so if you are interested, you can go Youtube, type in Genesis Afterglow and find one of two versions:

1. swordphishtrombones has the live version from the 2007 concert tour in Dusseldorf. Pretty good quality. Bella leaves the mirror at 3:08. Edward turns off the iPod right at the end before the cheering has stopped. (The Three Sides Live tour actually took place in 1981.)

2. AlexMex54 has one which has Phil and Tony playing a slower 'Unplugged' version. Actually there are a lot of versions out there... it is considered a signature Genesis concert song.

(FYI: The In The Cage lyrics make no sense. Had to be some weird Peter Gabriel and/or drug-induced influence there... But it is an angry song on the Three Sides Live CD and, when played in concert, they always transition to Afterglow, which made it perfect for this.)

What can I say? I had to play the songs a gazillion times in order to write this chapter... it is a good thing that I love them.

*** But as the title of this story is related to both the blood and the song, I'll give Afterglow all of the credit it is due.***