A/N: So much thanks to jilburfm for the beta!

Carlisle POV

"What do you mean, you thought this might happen?" Emmett was furious. I couldn't blame him. I couldn't blame any of them. Hell, when I thought about it, I was a little furious myself.

"I didn't know until this morning, but I saw it. When we were at the table before Bella came over." Alice began recalling it once more.

"And you didn't — you didn't think it was important to tell me? To tell anyone?"

She looked as though she were about to cry, if such an impossibility existed. As it went, however, Jasper was taking on the brunt of the panic in the room. Apparently Emmett's rage was a little out of his league.

"Did you even tell him?" My son was bellowing. His hand came down on the counter, a spider web of cracks weaving themselves from the point of impact. Esme palmed her eyes, defeated. How had it come to this?

"Of course I told him," Alice cried. "Listen —"

"No, you listen! Bella and Edward — they're gone. They're gone and who knows what could be happening to them."

I sat in the corner, willing the computer into submission. With every passing moment my hope of pinpointing Edward dwindled. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to spend making decisions. This was our best shot, and we took it.

"Let's go," I commanded, when the little red dot finally appeared. The explanation would have to wait. I wasn't confident that the tracking device would remain inside Edward for any extended length of time; I could only hope that it was still in place for the moment.

Emmett was the first by my side, with Alice quickly tailing. I transferred the data to my cell phone and opted to go by foot. We'd likely be spotted, but we were fastest that way. No one would be able to recognize us at the pace we'd be moving.

The phone showed Edward at a private landing strip just outside of town, mere minutes away by foot. If they were still at the strip, they likely wouldn't be there long, and if they managed to board a plane before we arrived, retrieving them would become infinitely more difficult.

I didn't wait for my family. Giving them the location, I took off like a shot. Emmett was the only one who managed to keep up, but I knew the others were behind us somewhere. I heard nothing but the constant rustle of the leaves, the rocks biting at our legs and the low growl coming from my son's chest.

I echoed his sentiment.

Bella. Bella.

Countless times I had promised Charlie that no harm would come to her under my watch, and now it had, and Alice knew. Christ. I pushed the thought out. We'd deal with it after. Right now the first priority was to get to that landing strip.

The trip wasn't long enough to really let my thoughts run away with me, and before I even realized it, we'd reached our destination. Emmett and I looked around frantically, finding nothing. I gripped the phone tightly. My vision was blurring, panic settling in, a deep-seeded fear of the unknown. The little blinking light was somewhere in the area. I looked to the sky, listening for a recently departed plane. I heard nothing.

"Fuck!" Emmett shouted, his temper having long gotten the best of him.

Slowly the family was catching up and stopping. "It's not here," Alice said sadly. Had she known this too? I thought bitterly. The taste was ugly and I tried to let it go, but she saw it. Her expression carried the weight of the world, remorse and regret coloring her features. Her hand twitched as she reached for me but she held back at the last moment.

I found myself reaching for her, then. Alice would explain, and I would make myself understand.

At human speed, we followed the blinking dot until we were on top of it. We looked around, all of us, but saw nothing. Quietly, Alice kept walking.

Where was she walking? I wanted to follow, but instead left her alone in her desolation. When it was apparent that she was making a straight line to the dumpster, I nodded, closing my eyes. The phone dropped from my shaking hands, and no one bothered to stop it. I swallowed and let my head fall back, looking at the sky.

I knew what was in that dumpster as well as everyone else did. They were gone.

Still, she pulled it out, proof of our failed protection.

We stood in a loose circle, looking at the device or not looking, in some cases, before finally Emmett turned around and walked in the same direction we had come from. We followed loosely, the rift in the family not doing anything for morale.

We needed to pull it together, and in a big way.

Bella POV

Black spots danced before me as my eyes fluttered open, but I knew immediately I wasn't alone. The thought was both panic-inducing and oddly comforting.

The floor beneath me was cold and hard and white, I saw, as I lay on my stomach. All white.

I pushed myself onto my elbows and my vision swam. Instantly I knew my body wasn't ready to be vertical, but what choice did I have?

I moaned and pushed myself up further. All of my body parts seemed to be intact. I wasn't in my clothes, but I thankfully wasn't naked. White linen covered my body, the kind that you'd see on a patient. Around my wrist was a hospital band. I narrowed my eyes, rotating it. It looked terribly familiar, a twin to the one which we'd found on Edward. This was bad.

I took a deep breath.

"I'm terribly sorry about all this." My mysterious companion spoke from somewhere behind me. I turned my head and took him in.

It was the man from the van; I recognized him immediately. He sat casually on the floor, his black suit contrasting with all the white, browsing flippantly through a manila folder.

His shoes were shiny, polished to a tee and very expensive looking. Every button of his crisp white shirt was buttoned, disappearing beneath a tie that probably cost my dad's entire yearly salary. Charlie.

How much time had passed? I got myself upright and scurried backward, as far as my body would let me go until the cold tile wall obstructed my path.

My captor watched with weary benevolence. It was fake, and I knew it, but my heart ached to trust him. He had a manner about him which made me double think what I knew to be the truth.

"You have to understand, Isabella," he said, setting the open file on his lap. Automatically I wanted to correct him. It's just Bella, I wanted to say. But this man was not my friend, and he was not my grandpa, and he was doing something bad to my vampire. This was the man, I knew with every fiber of my being. My eyes narrowed, but it didn't give him pause. "I never wanted this for you."

"How do you know who I am?" was the first thing my croaky voice whispered. The Cullens would be on their way. Any minute they'd storm through those doors and save us. Us. Edward. Before he had a chance to answer, I was on my feet, immediately regretting the quick movements when my head revolted. "Where's Edward?"

"One question at a time." He regarded my carefully. "I understand that this must be a scary time for you. I can assure you that Edward is safe now, where he belongs."

Tears sprung to my eyes, because he wanted me to trust him and I wanted to trust him and I knew that I couldn't and God, where was Edward?

"Please," I whispered. "Please let me see him."

"Of course you understand why that's not an option." I looked blankly, not understanding. What could I do to Edward? What could I do to anyone? "He's dangerous. He has always been dangerous. He always will be dangerous. That monster is not meant to be roaming freely among our kind."

"I just want to see him," I said. "Just for a minute."

Ignoring me completely, he spoke again. "The question becomes, what do we do with you?" The man stood and my heart jumped in my chest a little bit, because that was the question for me, too. But he'd promised Edward I'd be safe. Would he keep that promise?

"Quite the group of friends you've established, aren't they? A very talented circle." He rifled through a few papers and produced the one he sought. I could see Alice's yearbook picture, next to one I didn't recognize.

He made his way over to me and I cowered back, hating myself for it. His predatory gaze traveled from my head to my toes, causing my arms to wrap themselves tightly around my body. Offering myself some semblance of protection.

"The Cullens are good people."

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that point; it's moot regardless. I've no interest in them at this time — well, maybe the fortune teller, but honestly, the odds of capturing a live vampire?" He chuckled. "I'd sooner be face up in a sewer, my neck ripped out and my blood running dry."

He leveled his eyes with mine.

"Because that's what these people do, you realize? Maybe not your Cullens; but the race is vile. And the only hope we have of maintaining control over this world is by first controlling them. Or eliminating them all together. I assume you see the waste there, though."

"You'll never eliminate them," I said resolutely.

"Mmm." He backed away, walked to the door and spoke. I didn't hear what he said. "Perhaps you're right on that point. Can you imagine, though, a world where humans controlled them? So much could be accomplished. No more men lost in war, no more families torn apart by violence. We've started something here, young lady, and we're not going to throw it away on a selfish child's love story."

"You'll never control them. How could you? Starve them to death and then what? As soon as they feed they'll kill you."

"I have evidence to the contrary. Perhaps one day you'll see."

A light overhead flashed red, the man gestured to enter, and the door opened. Two new men, complete with mad-scientisty lab coats, entered, pushing a small cart with a briefcase-looking thing on it. They gave me a once-over and left.

His exaggerated sigh was very, very sad. Fake.

"It isn't always so bad," he said. "Edward's case was special. He was our first success, back before I was even born. I promise you, it will be different."

"Different for who?"

"For you, of course."

I felt my hands shaking and wrung them, willing them to stop. The threat was implicit, and I looked around the room frantically. There had to be a way to stop this.

I fingered my pockets, looked myself over for any weapons. Nothing. I felt myself breathing hard.

"You don't have to do this," I said, backing as far away as the room would allow. It didn't put much space between us.

"I don't see another choice." He keyed in a code and the case opened, revealing what I dreaded might be inside. Three syringes, full of something clear that I could only guess the identity of, sat looming innocently inside the velvet container. "If I freed you, I've no doubt that you'd find your way back in." He stood, looking at the syringes. "If I kill you, that'd be murder." As an afterthought, he added, "And, although we have the vampire secured now, I'm sure we could find more uses for you as far as he is concerned."

He pulled out the syringe and tapped on it, examining its contents. "It's not our policy to keep humans in our facility. It's illegal, for one, not to mention… inhumane." He started making his way to me, and I recoiled. "This is the only way, Isabella. Surely you've known that. There was never any other outcome. It was always this, and that was your decision."

I moved to the other corner when he approached. "Team," he said, his voice clear and level. The men reentered and I made a run for the door.

I didn't stand a chance, and as soon as I heard the door click shut, I stopped. Three to one. I wasn't above begging.

"Please," I said again, but it was sort of futile. Would it not be better this way? It was by no means ideal, but if I stayed human, I was as good as dead or worse. As a vampire, I stood a chance. My head told me I didn't want this, but then, isn't it exactly what I wanted?

In the end, though, it was out of my hands. These were the cards fate dealt me, and when those two men closed in, wrapped their hands tightly around my arms, I knew that fighting was useless.

I did it anyway.

Alice POV

"So you knew it was coming." It wasn't a question or an accusation. It was what it was. Carlisle seemed more curious about the reason.

I nodded.

I did know. And so did Edward. That morning, I'd seen it. I'd seen them come and take him away when we were hunting.

I'd gone upstairs and into his room, and the look on his face told me he'd seen it too. Of course he had.

"We can stop it," I'd told him. "We'll stay and we'll fight."

As soon as I'd said it, I looked again. The problem was, as we both knew, that our decision to stay changed the future again.

Someone was waiting in the wings, biding their time and ready to strike. If it wasn't now, when would it be? What it had come down to was, if we stayed, they'd hold back. The assault would come another time.

A time we might not expect it.

"Tensions have been running so high," I told the family now. "We saw it, and we knew that we wanted to end it. That one way or another, things had to change."

I looked around at all the faces, ranging from angry to sad to downright hopeless.

"Bella was never part of the equation. We looked. We looked a dozen times, making sure she'd stay safe. We wanted to send her away, to keep her from coming. But every time we made that decision, it changed again. You have to understand," I whispered. But they didn't. No one would understand except me and Edward, and he wasn't here. "It's no way to live. There was no way for Edward to heal without —"

"Without the threat being gone," Carlisle finished. "You attempted to take control of a doomed situation." He nodded, throwing the idea around in his head. Except it had gone terribly wrong. "To let them have him on our terms."

I nodded. When we'd seen the vision, we'd known immediately that it was hopeless. It was Edward who'd suggested letting them have him. I'm not sure if he expected me to agree, or if he was just being angsty, but the more we'd considered it, the more necessary it seemed.

"But Bella!" Emmett said, more weary now than angry. He sat on the same couch that Bella and Edward had laughed on hours earlier.

"She was never supposed to be part of it," I told him. I crossed the room quickly and fell to my knees, taking his hands in mine and pleading with him. "They wouldn't have come if she wasn't there, but it would have just been another time. Another place. Nothing we were doing was stopping it. It was… it was destroying him. Us. Every waking moment we were panicked. Bella wasn't supposed to be involved this afternoon," I said again. I felt a stab at my heart because somewhere along the line, something got botched. "Some last minute decision? They saw her and they took her and that was that. But we're going to get them back."

When they'd taken Bella and Edward, Emmett didn't have a choice but to let them. He sat on the porch while they picked up their team, which is where we found him later. We hadn't strayed far, and I'd been watching closely, but the decision to take Bella… It was as if they knew about me. They had to have known about me.

We heard the sounds of footfalls outside and every single one of them was standing, ready to take on whatever threat was out there.

I remained seated on the floor, staring into an empty couch, the smell of Bella that I knew I'd never smell again still potent in the air. How had things come this far?

"I'm sorry," said Carlisle from the doorway. "You've got the wrong address."

He didn't of course. He knew exactly where he was. Four months ago he'd dropped a vampire in our backyard, begging us to find him. Friend or foe? I wondered. We'd find out soon.

"Carlisle Cullen, I presume?"

I could practically see Carlisle's face, even though we were turned in opposite directions.

"Are you from the hosp …" Carlisle's voice trailed off. He must have taken note of the man's long, blond hair. Perhaps the dog-tags that hung loosely around his neck, or the accent that screamed 'Chicago.'

The sound of nothingness is a strange one. But that's what I heard as everyone must have realized who was here. Probably I should have stopped what was about to happen, but I couldn't move. I'd never smell her again. I might never see her again. And it was my fault.

In a rare moment of complete loss of control, Carlisle wound his hands tightly around Garrett's throat, pulling him into the house and catapulting him against the foyer wall. I laid my head down on the cushion, watching the fight before it happened, smelling my sweet Bella. I needed to pull it together.

For a brief moment, I wandered into Edward's future. Instantly I pulled back, though, not having the stomach for it. We'd find them. I. I would find them.

"What have you done?" Carlisle bellows.

Before the vision had played out fully I could hear it beginning. It was like an ominous echo of noise, disturbing my grieving.

Carlisle was gentle with him. More gentle than the other boys would have been, but still far more animalistic than I'd ever seen him. With one last deep, deep breath, I stood. I approached them with caution and our father's fingers tightened around the man's neck.

"Let him go," I said, stepping between the two. Carlisle did so without question, implicitly trusting me even after all that I'd done. After I'd failed this family in the worst way. His eyes lost a bit of that wild edge. The human gasped and sputtered, falling weakly to his knees and holding his throat gingerly.

"Tell me where they are." Carlisle's voice was nothing more than a whisper of fury. A threat of things to come. Was he capable of them? I couldn't yet say. I was confident that Garrett would talk before such measures were necessary.

"They're in Ohio," Garrett said. "You're not asking the right questions."

Surprisingly, it was Emmett who first took my side, holding off an enraged family of vampires.

"My name's Garrett," the man said, "And I'm here as a friend."

Jasper nodded, sensing the truth to his words.

"You left him here," I said, an affirmation.

He nodded. "Edward has been a part of something ugly for too long."

Finally, Carlisle stepped forward, helping Garrett to his feet and ushering him into the living room. He graciously accepted water and sat on the couch, already overpowering Bella's smell. I regretted the loss instantly.

"When I got him out of there… he was a mess." Garrett spoke directly to Carlisle, either sensing or knowing that he was the heart of our operation. "He wouldn't — he wouldn't let me put clothes on him. He wouldn't let me touch him. We had to drive the whole way, days in the car with a shaking vampire in the backseat growling. It was a disaster. But I knew if he had a shot, it was here."

His eyes filled with tears, genuine grief over what was happening. "You need to get him this time, though. He won't get out of there twice. Security on him will be doubled, if not tripled, and as far as I know, no one else has ever infiltrated that operation."

"Infiltrated?"

"I started working there in 2005 doing basic security — that kind of thing — for the genetics division. After a while they offered me a position with a special, classified division, and I accepted. I've spent the last four years working directly with One and Five. I couldn't…" He choked back a sob. "I couldn't watch that. What was happening to them. I tried… I tried to get Five out. I left her in Alaska, where she was killed. With…" His eyes sought mine, and I knew what information he wanted.

"Edward," I said softly.

He nodded. "With Edward, I was more careful. I stayed until I knew he was safe, but I couldn't stay long. As soon as I released him, they knew it was an inside job. He had this device, designed specially for him, inside of his chest. Any time he crossed the perimeter of his room, it — it was like it detonated. There was no way for him to escape on his own. And if I stayed gone, they'd know immediately it was me."

We listened in shocked silence. We had been chosen for this, I realized. Edward had been placed under our protection, and we failed him. I failed him. We continued to let the man talk, to get his story out before bombarding him with our questions.

"Edward was very important. He was the first successful trial after a long string of failures and it is his venom that is used in the creation of new subjects. I'm not… I'm not saying I agree with what's going on," he said after a particularly pointed glance from Emmett, "but you need to know this: they will not part with him willingly."

"What's the goal? What's the reason? For all this, there has to be a reason." Carlisle's voice was strong and steady, apparently having his grasp on reality once more.

"Power. Money. Control. World domination. I don't know. They've developed an airborne version of the inhibitor that was put inside of Edward, but it's still in the early stages of testing. If it's released en masse, it could mean a very different type of power structure in the world. It could change everything."

And it could. But I didn't believe for a second that the Volturi would give them the chance. Time was our biggest enemy, though. Because every second they spent with Edward was a second more that they had to break him. And this time, I worried that it might be for good.

"Why did you visit Bella? That morning when she wasn't there – why?" I asked, uncomprehending. I watched the man as he answered.

"They've – we've – known your location for some time. I thought maybe… if I could get to her, I'd be able to get her away. If I could warn her, maybe he'd be alright. They were coming, and they were going to take her, one way or another… I just… I guess I wanted her to know what was coming."

"But then you left…"

"I did. It wasn't – it wasn't something I wanted to do. As I've said, if I stayed away for too long, they'd put it together. They sent a team out, myself included, to keep an eye on the situation. The instant they knew that I was double crossing them, it'd be over. I could only get away in the early morning, and I did leave her a way to contact me," he said defensively as he took in our disbelieving faces, "and had hoped she'd call. But when I returned to Ohio, my place had been ransacked. They knew, and I knew they knew, and I needed to fly under the radar. I've been biding my time ever since. They've been keeping a close watch on things. My credit cards, my phone records. My bank accounts are frozen… I could only do so much to get back here; they'd have killed me if they caught me."

"How many of us have they captured?" I asked softly.

"Captured? None. Well, One – Edward," he corrected, "is now officially the first. They've been creating vampires for decades, as I said, but it is not yet the plan to capture live ones."

Carlisle's voice rang out. "How many, though?"

"When I returned to Ohio and found my apartment flipped, I didn't go back. It was them, and if suspicion had fallen on me, I'd be as good as dead. At that point, though, there were twenty-eight live vampires in the compound. Number Thirty was approved, though, and now, with One… with Edward… being captured, you're looking at thirty or thirty-one."

"And they've all been created?"

"Yes. Every one of them is a product of the laboratory."

"That's impossible," Carlisle said. "Someone had to start it. How would Edward have been created?"

"They pulled traces of venom from a dead human girl in 1908. That's when they began experimenting with it, as far as I know. They tried to synthetically reproduce the venom and eventually had some success. They experimented with several people, who would survive through various phases of the change, until finally one made it all the way through." He gave us a look that said, Edward.

Carlisle POV

When the sun came up, I retreated to my office. I had three calls to make. The first was to the hospital, to take a leave of absence. Family emergency. The second was to the travel agent. A red-eye charter flight for six passengers to Ohio. And the third, well.

"Carlisle." His voice lacked the amusement and whimsy that it usually carried.

"Aro."

"I take it this is not a social call?"

"They've captured Edward," I said, leaning back as far as my chair would allow and staring vacantly at the ceiling. I regretted that I needed to add the rest, but it seemed necessary. "And Bella."

I could practically hear him nodding thousands of miles away. "That is most unfortunate news. What do we know?"

I relayed the information Garrett had provided.

"And this Garrett Callihan," Aro said, "can be trusted?"

"No. No one can be trusted, but what choice do we have?"

"Point taken."

"We're going," I hedged, anticipating the rebuttal before it came.

"You're to wait where you are."

I found a spot on the ceiling and realized that I had never noticed it there. I could hear the chatter downstairs.

"My travel agent is booking us tickets as we speak."

"Carlisle, it isn't an option. You're to wait." His voice held an edge of threat. Dare to defy me, it said. "We'll get your vampire and your pet back, but you're not to act alone."

I shook my head, knowing he couldn't see me. He would never truly understand the importance of my family. How was I to wait?

"Carlisle," he said, his voice controlled. "If things go wrong, we do not need the public attention. You're to wait where you are, and we will be on the first plane to stop this."

The problem wasn't whether or not it would be stopped. Of course they would stop it. The Volturi had resources beyond comprehension. The problem was that they would stop it, even if it meant bombing the entire state of Ohio to oblivion. If it meant ripping everything with legs apart and burning it all. The Volturi would not handle it with the care necessary to keep the people I loved alive, so it wasn't a choice.

By now, Edward and Bella would be secured in the lab. Probably for several hours, in fact. Edward could already be ripped apart. And Bella. I didn't care to think about what could be happening to Bella.

"Okay," I lied, maybe too agreeably. I don't think Aro bought it.

"Is it really worth it? To defy me, to defy the law, which, I'll remind you is an act punishable by death? And not only that, but risking every vampire in existence? While I understand that you don't care much for our kind, certainly there is some semblance of kinship? Is it worth it for a child and her vampire plaything?"

"For my daughter. For my son. It is."

"I hope you'll reconsider, old friend. It'd be a shame to lose you."

The other line rang in. I didn't hesitate to hang up. "What do you have?" I asked the travel agent.

"Your flight leaves at eleven o'clock tonight. You'll arrive in Ohio tomorrow morning at six." While she relayed the ticket information, my foot tapped anxiously on the wooden floor.

I'd hoped for the best in calling Aro, and I stood by my decision to do so. But I had an uneasy feeling in my gut telling me that this wasn't just a race against the men holding my children captive. This was a race against the Volturi, as well.

The room was bright and stank of fear. Edward recognized it for what it was — the reinforced titanium blend metal, the double (or perhaps triple, now) doors, the ever watchful cameras. So far the vampire had been untouched, but his body ached for a fight. In a room, somewhere in this compound, albeit well out of his reach, was his Bella. Sad, sweet, loving Bella, who deserved none of this world but found it at every turn. And now, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, she stood no chance of ever escaping it.

Her screams resonated throughout the minds of those working directly with her. Two days and some odd hours left. Could he endure her screams for so long? He'd kill them for ever touching her.

He slammed his body uselessly against the inner metal wall, hoping to make a dent, but knowing he would not. It was all for naught, regardless, because outside of these walls was yet another set, thicker. Still, sitting and listening and hearing the tortured cries of this place were unbearable. So over and over again, he threw his weight into the cell that had once been the only home he'd ever known. It didn't give.

A/N: Almost there :)