I didn't know if they'd torn off his arm, or his leg. I didn't believe Alice had seen this coming—the full guard was here. Where was the pack?—from the sounds that were made when they were leaving, they could've been doing anything—and then I remembered Edward's hesitation. The pack wasn't coming. The growing roar, the way the children and I had gotten away…the werewolves had attacked Edward. Alice could never have seen it, because of Leah…Panic and more panic moved the ocean inside of me, spilling tears from my eyes and sweat across my back. What could we do? We were trapped. Alice had been wrong, thwarted by the fog from the wolves.
What could I do?
Aro wanted me. My body wretched again, and I looked at Alice.
We didn't have to die. Aro wanted me.
The children could join the guard, as could Alice…and they could warn the pack, break away later. They could live—bet high, I told myself. See if he wants me enough to set them free first. All the pain in my body was numbed by the sudden desperation flooding through me, and I lifted my head.
"Aro, you want me to work for you?"
"Work is what humans do, dear," he cooed. Jane glowered; I saw she wasn't as enthusiastic about my impending vampirism. Well, we had that in common. "But yes—I think you would find yourself more than pleased with the arrangement—"
"Then you have to let them go," I said, and he looked at me with pity painted across his frozen, timeless face. "I'll join you—but I want everyone else to go free."
"You overestimate your worth, Bella." He said in a low, simpering voice. "There's no guarantee that your talent will even be preserved in your new life." I watched him carefully, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand; I tried to think like my father, a cop of twenty years. Aro smiled benevolently. He was bluffing.
"Who else have you turned, because of their human talents?" I stared up at him, and he swirled away from me, trying to hide his expression; young Jane gave him away, however, her face exalted. No wonder she was so young. In spite of his words, Aro himself was impatient. "You'll want me," I said in a low voice, and he froze. "You know better than I do what I am capable of."
"I can change you any time," he beamed back at me. "How strange that you think you have options, choices—"
"I'll kill myself if you don't let them go." He stood very still. The whole room, arcing away from me, above me, loomed in stark colors, frozen. "You change me and hurt them, and I'll tear myself apart—"
"Don't be foolish," he hissed. "Don't be vulgar." Caius watched me with appraising eyes, and the third brother stared wistfully in to the dark. The wind was my only warning before Aro appeared inches from my face. "They live. You serve on our guard."
"And the wolves," I whispered. I forced Jacob from my mind, pushing away the softness of him, the time—was it only days?—together--"The wolves live."
"Your dogs?" For just a fraction of a second, I saw him, Aro; the veil lifted and I saw a vicious, conniving liar and murderer. His breath smelled like rotten flowers, like the wilted wreaths left on graves.
"I'll remember," I whispered to him, to the tomb in his mouth. My human life was ending. Jacob, Jacob…"I'll always remember, and I'll never—"
"Fine, then, darling," he sang as he flew away across the room. "Alice, the task is yours. My limited sympathies have been sorely tested." The room erupted with catcalls and bellows, the vampires in hysterical fits of mania over Aro's triumph.
"Do what they want!" I called to the small alpha, whose eyes flew open and glittered at me. I tried to crawl towards Alice, fumbled when the pain in my shoulder shot through me, and then started again. "Alice! Alice! Do what they want!" Her black eyes turned towards me, and the suffering Jasper's pain wrote on her face reminded me once again of the last thing I wanted to think about…Jake. My Jake. I started sobbing. "We can get out of here alive—it's okay that you were wrong, Alice, it's okay, but if it will save Jasper…the others—I can join the guard…" We were face to face, and even with the screams and howls and laughter around us, I knew she could hear me. Even with her madness and pain. "It's the only way…" She stared at me.
"It's not supposed to be me," she rasped. Her skin was dry and flaking, the dirt mixing with the thin strips beginning to shred on her hands and knees. The abyss in her eyes swallowed me. "I'm not sure I can, Bella…"
"Why?" Aro's voice was low and sickeningly sweet. "Because…è incinta?" He was once again face to face with me, the tomb open and disgustingly fragrant.
The room tilted. My vision swam. "What did you say?" I gasped.
"You don't know?" Jane simpered. "How can you not know?" Jasper's frightened hiss snaked across the floor to me; Alice, he and I were all low to the ground, with the young wolves kneeling close by. Aro straightened up and stared down at me again.
"They are so loud to me," he smiled. "But then, I am very old, much older than any other vampire you have ever met, dear." His smile faded to a strange mix of excitement and sadness. "When you are as old as I am, you can distinguish the splitting of your pulse quite early in the pregnancy….but no matter." He beamed down at me. "You're quite wise. We'll be happy to have you in the guard, and your little fantasia is free to go."
"No," I whispered. Aro waved his arms helplessly.
"Well, Alice, you decide." Jasper's other arm was unceremoniously snapped off with a sound like lightning; it was so dark everyone was shadows as they soared around the room, shrill music everywhere. The last lip of light disappeared far above the vampires heads; I expected to be blind, but instead a soft, milky light bathed the room in the absence of the sun's overpowering rays. "Alice," taunted Aro, and then there was another crack, just as her teeth sank into my arm.