In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, who began to plan the Insurgence.

I am, of course, indebted to Stephanie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01.

Chapter 24 – An impromptu visit from Leah

(Bella's POV)

Later, Garrett came back to me, appearing troubled. Garrett has asked Carlisle if he can speak to me alone, and Carlisle has refused. He never allowed me to be anywhere without himself or Jasper present.

But when we were outside, and I was stacking the pinecones that Jasper and Emmett kept bringing to me, Garrett came over quietly and sat next to me on the patio.

"Emmett says you are in the Resistance," he began. "Is Carlisle keeping you, um, not prisoner exactly, but - sequestered in the house, I mean for your own safety?" he hastily adds.

"No, I actually got kicked out of the Resistance," I told him. "Well, more specifically I was ordered to stand down and cease all liberation activities by the Human Council. I was also ordered to find a home. I met Carlisle, and during the short time I spent with him, I found liked being with him and decided to stay. The Human Council said find a home-they did not say with whom."

"You've been active in the Resistance movement? And there is an organized leadership, this Human Council?" Garrett asked, getting excited.

I smiled. "Yes, and they thank you for your aid to the Inuit tribe."

Garrett is visibly started. "How did you know about that? Did Carlisle tell you?"

"No, he didn't. But we don't have so many allies that we can't keep track, and we haven't had the opportunity to thank you in the past," I answer.

"What can you tell me," he asks breathlessly. "Who is on the council, where are they? Do they have a strategy?"

"I can't tell you their location, as they all live separately for security purposes. There are multiple strategies and actions, but one main goal. They are trying to negotiate with Aro Volturi for two things. They want all humans in vampire custody released, and they want the restoration of human law."

"That's a tall order," sighs Garrett. "What has been Aro's response?"

"Not surprisingly, he won't dignify those he considers food with a response," I replied. "He has been told much in the past few years that should matter greatly to your people, and he has yet to respond. In order to force a meeting and prove the Human Council's seriousness, we told him we would execute two members of his guard a month ago. He did not reply, and the Council ordered the deaths of the guard members Felix and Demetri."

Garrett gasped, and said, "That was you, as in the Resistance? Volterra was still abuzz with the deaths of long time and well-known guard members when we were there. Other vampires were jockeying to be chosen as replacements."

"We then told him that we would give him a few weeks to reconsider meeting with us," I continued, "and then we would execute two more members, Chelsea and Renata. He let that deadline pass as well, so both Chelsea and Renata died last night."

Now Eleazar was listening. "We saw them both, in their usual positions, as we took our leave at court the day before yesterday," he interjected.

"They died last night," I answered. "Aro has now been told he meets with our Council, or he loses Jane and Alec next week."

All of the vampires have gone from pretending not to be eavesdropping to openly listening.

"What is the goal here? The elimination of Aro's court?" asks Carmen.

"There are those on the Human Council who think you should all die," I reply. "You pose too much of a threat if you continue, since what you did in 2020 you could do again. But there are those of us think that some of you are O.K., as obviously without our allies we wouldn't have made it this far. So the puzzle becomes what to do with you?"

"What to do with us? You can't DO anything with us," Rosalie snarled, addressing me in human for the first time ever. "You went down almost without a fight 20 years ago."

"We didn't go down without a fight. We fought with inadequate weapons," I answered calmly. "Vampires like Jasper used the public act of killing our fighters, those who dared oppose them, as a method to force the others to surrender. And I believe at least one human was killed for that reason in every large group," I said without waiting for Jasper's confirmation. "We've learned quite a bit since. You're not invulnerable, and your hubris adds nicely to your vulnerability."

"Then why are you here, living with us in Forks?" snapped Rosalie.

"Because I like being with Carlisle," I answered.

"This is just more b.s. If anything like this was really going on, the Volturi would have told us. They wouldn't let us just die without warning," said Rosalie firmly.

"Wouldn't they? This is all possible because of a mistake Aro made, one that makes him look bad. How far will he go to keep it quiet?" I answered.

Carlisle looks as if he is about to say something, but his phone rings. He looks at the caller i.d, sighs, and says he has to leave, he has a patient. Once he is gone, I don't want to discuss the matter anymore. I've said more than enough.

I could tell that Carlisle and Garrett probably believed me, but I didn't think the others took me seriously. They did not think any of what I was saying was possible.

The next day I helped rake leaves. Well, raked and jumped in the piles Emmett had made. Everything was fun when Emmett was around. After we had been running around for a few hours, playing tag and having pinecone wars, Carlisle finally came home and dragged me back inside. He had lit a fire in the huge fireplace in the living room and had warmed up the apple cider that had been sent with the day's food order. It smelt like heaven in the living room.

I was sitting by the fire, when I felt a vampire approaching the patio. There were enough vampires around with all the visitors that I just took a quick glance over my shoulder to see who was coming.

This was a newcomer. Her hair was short and cropped, and her eyes and skin were very tan. Her eyes were sparkling with mischief as she peeked in at me.

I gestured for her to open the door. As I looked at her slim, lithe figure, I whispered, "This could only be Leah. Come here, you."

She opened the door quietly and slipped in next to me. "Well, there's no mistaking you, either!"

"My scent? " She nods, so I continue. "Am I really 'peachy' smelling?"

"Yes," she giggles. I'm playing with the jacks my grandfather left for me. She started playing too, but she was winning because her hand-eye coordination is better.

Leah decided to try to find strategies to handicap herself, like doing a backflip after throwing the ball. Eventually, she found just the right gymnastic move to execute after her tosses of the ball so that we were almost evenly matched.

We started talking. "So, are these the jacks from your mother's house?" Leah asked.

"Yes, these are the jacks my grandfather bought in case my mother's child was a boy," I replied. "They were in the doll's pocket when the Ally sent her to me."

"Can I see the doll?" she asked. I held out the doll for her to view. "She's beautiful," she commented, stroking her boot button eyes and fingering her belt made of ribbon.

"She's made from a scrap of my mother's wedding dress," I told her, though I knew she had probably heard the strore from my cousins. "When I went back to the house, I couldn't find her right away, as she wasn't on the rocking chair the way my mother described having left her. I started to freak out, but Crazy helped me stay focused. She was lying under a dresser, just a few feet away," I said, as I picked up the jacks from my toss.

Leah tossed the ball, as it was now her turn. "I'm glad you found her. Been back to the house lately?" she asked casually.

I glanced at her quickly. I could tell from her expression she knew what I keep in that house. I don't care, as that bastard husband of my mother's sold her on July 1st, 2020. Now he stays in my house, or rather his head does, as I burnt the rest of his body in front of him. He gets fed the blood of a frog by the gardener once a week, so he won't starve. "No, but someone is keeping up the garden. Mother told me about her dreams for her garden, so every year I try putting in some of those plants. I haven't been able to actually live there, since it's an occupied city, and Crazy is always traveling."

Leah laughed at this, so I quickly added, "She's not a nomad, as that's not allowed any more. Her job requires that she travel up to 50 weeks a year." I tried not to sound defensive.

Jasper and Edward were suddenly in front of us, startled that a newcomer has entered the house without their knowledge. I wondered if this is somehow a gift of Leah's. I introduced her.

"Jasper Whitlock, this is Leah," I stated.

"Pleasure, ma'am. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in," he drawled.

"She's quiet as a mouse. Most people only notice her when she comes dragging in with a deer's head," I started, but Leah elbowed me, giggling.

"This girl and I have spent years just hearing about each other, so I thought it was time we met in person," Leah said.

"Lots of male vampires down here, maybe you'll find that ever so elusive mate?" I interjected, earning another elbow from Leah.

"Ah, so this is the young lady from the story," said Carmen with a smile.

"Yep, sometimes my stories are true," I tell her. Leah and I go back to our game of jacks. "How did you get here?" I asked.

"I ran," she answered casually.

I gasped in surprise. "All the way from Home? Isn't that hundreds of miles?"

"It was a long way. But not the furthest I've gone," Leah said softly. "When I was first woke up after being changed, I started running. The boys followed me, but it turns out that I'm faster than any of the boys. I didn't want to leave Home though, so I just ran laps around the property. They started waiting for me at spots along my route, and each of the boys would run with me for a little ways, so I wouldn't be alone. I was hurting and didn't understand what was happening, so I just hurled myself forward. I must have run for months, I wore a track around the property.

I remember very little from those months, except that there were a few times when Grandpa and Luther waited for me," she continued. "Grandpa in particular hurled himself at me, trying to grab me, and I would let him catch and hold me. He would stroke my hair and tell me it was going to be ok, and after a while, I would start running again. But I never left the property; where would I go?

Then I thought about you being down here. So…I decided to drop in!" she said excitedly, her eyes glowing from the flames of the fireplace.

"And the boys?" I ask as casually as possible. If Leah's brothers show up, I have no doubt but that the Cullen and DeNali males will go into full defensive mode. There were a lot of females, both human and vampire, in this living room.

"Oh, I think Rodrigo grabbed a few of the boys and came after me. I'll bet they're pissed, they didn't think I would come this far. Rodrigo is like my big brother. He's from my side of the family and was my guide as a newborn," she said with a smile.

I had heard about Rodrigo. All the Home boys were trained fighters. Papa, or Grandpa as the human side of the family called him, had chosen the human boys to change based on their fighting abilities. Their job as vampires was to guard their human family. Papa was over 600 years old, and had been changing a family member about every other generation for the past six hundred years. Leah was the only female vampire member of the Home coven.

Rodrigo was the best pure fighter of the group. He wasn't a strategist. He was all fighter: he loved to fight and reveled in it. Luther, who at age 550 was the oldest of the boys, may have been the coven strategist, but Rodrigo was the one to lead the charge.

Leah doesn't bring up my cousins explicitly. There are too many visitors at the Cullen's house tonight. There is no reason to let anyone know about the six girls and three children related to me living with the Home coven. My family is the only outside group of humans taken in by the Home coven.

"How far behind you do you think they are? Will they catch up tonight?" I asked her.

"Oh, probably in a few hours," Leah answered.

We started gossiping about family, both hers and mine. I've seen so much through my cousins' eyes, that I feel like I've lived on the Home coven property. My cousins were taken back to the Home coven compound six few weeks after I escaped the Human Containment Facility. They've lived in safety with the coven the entire time I was in the resistance. I owed Papa's coven a lot for my peace of mind, since I could focus on my resistance activities without having to worry about my family's safety.

Leah lead off with some juicy stuff. "Did you hear about what happened with Rodrigo when Hope had the baby?"

"A little. I heard he told papa he wanted to stay with her," I answered.

"Right. And that lasted to the moment of the first contraction. Then Rodrigo pushed Hope into a corner and dropped into a protective crouch in front of her. The midwife looked at Papa and said, 'I thought you were locking him in a refrigerated rail car for this happy event?' Papa signaled four of the boys, and they got him away from her by pulling off his arms," she said.

"What? No!" I exclaimed, shocked.

"Yep. The boys dragged Rodrigo off to a shed they had been working on for just this occasion," Leah went on. "They had installed a large screen TV, and they planned to watch the Indiana Jones movies to pass the time. They plunked Rodrigo down in the middle of the sofa, hissing and snarling at them, and held his arms out of his reach. They started the movies, but Rodrigo quickly destroyed the sofa, so they all sat on the ground. When they ran out of Indian Jones movies, they put on some Dr. Who episodes."

"Which ones, the episodes with Tom Baker as the Doctor?" I asked excitedly.

"Are there any others worth watching? Well, finally, after the baby was born, and Hope was cleaned up, Papa sent for him. So the boys gave him back his arms and quickly jumped out of his reach into some nearby trees. He snarled his promises to dismember them in the direction of the trees and took off to find Hope," Leah continued.

"Rodrigo got to the door of the Home clinic, and there was Papa waiting outside with his arms crossed. 'You have to be able to say something to me, using human words, before you can go in there,' Papa told him. There was a lot of snarling, but poor Rodrigo was trying hard. Eventually he stammered out a few phrases, most containing rather vivid descriptions of what he planned to do with the boys who had kept him away from Hope the night before," she added.

I laughed at that and shuddered, as Rodrigo in a rage would be a sight to scare even a seasoned vampire fighter.

"But Papa decided what Rodrigo said was good enough and let him in the door," Leah continued. "After all, Hope was exhausted and couldn't sleep without him, plus she wanted to show him the baby. Rodrigo raced over to Hope, and Papa and a few more of the boys followed closely. If he made a move towards the baby, which was after all the thing that had hurt Hope, they were prepared to grab him to protect the baby. But the couple were ok, and the three fell asleep together, Hope holding the baby, and Rodrigo holding Hope," Leah concluded.

All the vampires in the room had gathered into a semi-circle behind us. We glanced up and stared into a sea of gold and red eyes.

"I didn't know we had an audience," Leah said in a small voice.

"Sorry to eavesdrop," said Carlisle. "Your story was so fascinating we were all drawn to you. I'm Carlisle Cullen, by the way. This is my home."

Leah bowed her head, and he held out a hand to her. She looked up at him, and grasped it, flashing her shy smile. Then she turned back to me.

Leah and I talked for a few more hours, losing track of the time. Suddenly, I feel the arrival of more vampires, across the river. They are about five miles out and are just entering the periphery of my vision.

"How many would be coming for you?" I asked, sitting up from my comfy pillow in front of the fireplace.

"How many do you see?" asks Leah, standing up quickly.

"There are four, moving in a v formation, with one leading," I replied, concentrating on the moving shadows of my vision.

"That's Rodrigo, but I don't know who he has with him. How far out?" she asked, peering out the patio door. "I can't see anything because of the trees."

"Less than five miles and closing. They just crossed the river. They are coming straight for the house," I answered.

"Who's coming?" asked Jasper and Emmett almost simultaneously.

"It's just Leah's brothers. They are probably, um, concerned that she left Home without advising anyone of her travel plans," I answered.

Leah rolled her eyes. "I'm 250 years old. I should be able to go where I want."

"You've got macho older and younger brothers, who are overprotective vampires to boot," I retorted. "Don't think they will ever look at your leaving the safety of the property that way. And you know, it's not safe for a female vampire to be traveling alone. As human girls are getting harder to buy, the brothels are taking vampresses now, against their will."

There is a collective gasp. "Who told you that?" asked Eleazar, forgetting he was speaking to me directly. Carlisle snarled at him, and Eleazar quickly ducked his head.

"As a freedom fighter, I freed brothels," I said slowly, considering my words carefully. "Over half of the brothels had vampresses on the premises for the brothel clients. We would find them locked in a room, generally with their arms, and occasionally their lower jaw, removed. They were being held there against their will, the same as the human girls. Only the vampresses had been kidnapped, whereas most of the human girls had been bought from the living death camps. It was a strategy problem for us. We always firebombed the properties after getting the human girls out. What should we do with the half-starved vampresses? If we removed their chains, they would immediately attack the human girls we were trying to rescue. We had to start bringing extra allies just to handle these poor vampresses."

Just then, Rodrigo and the boys arrive. We could see their silhouettes crossing the short distance from the trees to the back yard fence. Rodrigo was the first through the patio door, arriving as silently as Leah. He was impressive, wearing his leather jacket and dark slacks. He had dark hair and eyes, same as Leah. He was also in full fight mode. Leah gets up and quickly walks to him, with her head bowed, hands in front of her in placating gesture. He pulls her behind him. The other three vampires form a triangle around her and then stand waiting for Rodrigo to signal them.

Leah grinned at me from between them, reassuringly, but the male vampires in the room weren't reassured. They instantly moved into defensive positions. Carlisle and Jasper stood over me, with Jasper directly in front of me. Emmett, Edward and Garrett moved the Cullen and visiting vampresses to the far corner of the room and stood in front of them. Eleazar took his place next to Carlisle, the two of them facing Rodrigo.

The stare down between Rodrigo on one side, and Eleazar and Carlisle on the other, continued for a tense moment. Finally Rodrigo took another glance at me and then decided to back out onto the patio. The entire Home coven moved fluidly as a group. That they had trained together for centuries was clear from the coordinated motions.

As they were leaving, Leah whispered, "Combo to the front door?" to me.

I whispered back, "1663cc". (1663 was the year Carlisle was turned, and cc was for Carlisle Cullen, my reason to be in Forks). Leah flashes another grin, and they are gone.

"What lock?" asked Jasper, turning to look at me.

"Papa bought a house here in Forks after I arrived. They haven't seen it yet, but I selected the entry code combination," I answered.

"Why did they take a house here?" asked Edward.

"After Carlisle brought me here, they thought they might visit. And if anything ever happened, they wanted me to have a safe place to go to, until they could come pick me up," I answered.

"In other words, if you ever wanted to run away," said Tanya.

"If I wanted to run away, I would just go to the west side of the freeway, and the Quilettes would pick me up. They know I'm here," I replied quietly.

There were collective gasps, and Emmett asked, "You know about our local werewolves?"

"I know about resistance allies," I replied. "The Quileutte wolves are strong allies. There are shifters across the nation who have helped shelter us. Why wouldn't I know about the wolves? They actually had to be told that not only was here, but that I was here by choice. After all, this house is well within Quileutte retrieval range. They could have come for me and killed anyone who stood in there way, at any time since I arrived."

Carlisle stroked his head from the back to the front, and said quietly "Well, you are full of surprises tonight. I did enjoy meeting your friend. It's late, though, and time for bed."

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