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.

Happy Halloween, everybody! As I am going to be on a short vacation, I am posting two chapters, early, including this scary one. Please show some love, and send me a review.

Chapter 33 – a Not so Friendly Visitor

(Bella's POV)

I get the feeling one evening that we're about to have visitors. Two vampires are approaching the house and have just turned down the driveway. Crazy's still back east, finishing her business with her boss. Carlisle and Jasper are looking relieved, but Jasper is sticking close by. My little jaunt with Crazy to Seattle has still got them rattled. After all, Carlisle had been at home, just a few feet away from me, when I left that night.

I can't help but think about what Crazy said about Jasper and Carlisle not having mates. I'm drawn by both Jasper and Carlisle's scents, and I know Carlisle uses his scent like a drug when he wants to calm me. I also remember Celeste and Luther's relationship. Luther is waiting for my younger cousin to be old enough before they truly become mates. But she is strongly attracted to him. And what do I feel towards Jasper and Carlisle? I realize I don't let myself feel anything. It's not safe.

Someone is approaching. The mind-reader gives me an alert – she's not alone. It's the vampress who changed my mother's husband. She has a tracker with her.

I wonder if I can con Carlisle and Jasper into thinking she's friendly. After all, Edward isn't here to read her mind. As they get closer, Jasper tenses. It looks like he's picking up on some negative energy from the approaching couple. I decide to make my move.

"I think I'm having some more visitors," I tell Carlisle. He had been watching both Jasper and I out of a corner of his eye. He relaxes slightly and begins to smile, when Jasper signals him with a shake of his head. Carlisle continues to smile, but maintains a less relaxed position.

I get up from my pillow in front of the fire and casually walk to the entrance of the patio. Instantly, Jasper slips in front of me. Damn, I really wanted to get a little closer to these vampires without his interference.

Soon two vampires emerge from the forest. They pause at the edge of the clearing in front of the patio. Even though daylight is fading, I recognize the woman from my mother's high school yearbook. The man I have never seen before.

I had learned years ago that you don't call a vampire by name without their express invitation. With humans, if you know their name, but haven't been introduced, you can safely call a person "Mr. or Mrs. X" without offense. But with vampires, only "Sir" or "Ma'am" are safe. That was the way things were even before the Event. So I decide to just jump in and goad them. They're come for me anyway.

"Hello, Connie," I say to the woman. She snarls at me, and the male vampire begins circling, trying to find a way past Carlisle and Jasper. Good luck with that, I think. Does he really think he can out position Major Jasper Whitlock?

Carlisle quickly pushes me behind him and goes into a protective crouch in front of me. He then asks quietly, "What's going on?"

"Connie," I say, as the effrontery of being addressed by her name by a human pushes the vampress further into frenzy. "I recognize you from your high school year book picture. Looks like the change has cleared up your acne, and you've slimmed down a bit. Immortality seems to suit you. You appeared rather homely in your high school graduating class photo. Your haircut wasn't at all flattering. But even that picture was better than the church picnic photos."

Connie's eyes go black, and her hands curl into claws. She begins to go into a crouch, her posture mimicking Carlisle's. The male tracker continues move in semi-circles in front of the patio, testing Jasper and Carlisle. The mind-reader tells me his name is Richard. "So, Richard?" I continue. "What's your story? Did you come here with Connie to die?"

He stiffens and freezes for a moment. "We'll see who does what shortly, little one. But you do smell divine. I can't wait for a taste," he answers smoothly.

Connie starts talking to Carlisle. "Why are you sheltering her? Do you know what she's done? You should turn her over to me."

"So my mother went to prom with the boy you were after," I begin. "But you found another date…a really good looking guy, someone no one had ever seen before. I saw the prom photo. He was way out of your league. Did you two have a good time dancing? What did your father think when he took you home? Oh, wait. I see it now – he took what he wanted from you behind the garage by your house and then left you dying. He didn't either finish you off or wait with you during your change so as to be with you when you woke up. Guess he didn't want to wake up next to that for all eternity."

Carlisle interrupts me, saying, "Stop goading her. Who is this?"

"May I introduce you to Connie," I say sweetly. "My mother considered her a close friend. She not only attended school with my mother, they went to church together. Guess Connie missed that lesson on the Ten Commandments. The one about 'thou shalt not covet…thy neighbor's husband.'"

"So you came back for him," I say, addressing Connie directly. "And you thought you had won, as you had the boy both you and my mother had wanted. You told him to sell his wife, my future mother, as soon as the Event happened, as "death had done them part', thanks to you."

"He never loved her," Connie hissed, "He never knew what I could do. So I showed him when I came back to that town, and I won. He was mine; we had always been meant to be together."

"Oh, well then I guess he wasn't much of a thinker," I say. "After all, I didn't burn all of him. I must, however, have burnt the only parts you were interested in. Because his head is still very much around…"

She lunged at me then, and Jasper caught her easily, twisting her in his arms until he was in a position to rip off her head. The man charged Carlisle, who moved forward gracefully to meet him. Rosalie slipped out on the patio, and crouched in front of me protectively. I froze in position, surprised for a moment, and then stooped behind her.

Jasper quickly finished off Connie, then helped Carlisle with Richard. They dismembered both of them, gathered the limbs, and burnt the two bodies at the edge of the patio. The purple smoke sputtered in the light rain, but there was enough protection from the eaves for the fire to burn the twisting body parts to ash.

They turned back to me after checking the ashes for residue.

"Who was that?" asked Carlisle softly.

"That was the vampire who turned my mother's husband. He had gone on a short business trip in June, 2020. He returned to their house on July 1st, 2020, with another vampire and a bill of sale in his hands. He had sold my mother to this other vampire, who had been given the rights to the local human containment facility and was collecting women for it. He and my mother had only been married a few months, so I guess he felt his wedding vows were ended when 'death did them part'. He made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her or her unborn child."

"You?" asked Rosalie.

"I wasn't my mother's first child," was all I would say about that. After I had escaped the living death camp, I had managed to track my mother's first child, my older brother. He had been taken from my mother and sent to another camp after his birth. He had become a toy to a few of the guards there and had finally escaped his torment into the flights of paranoid schizophrenia. His blood must have still tasted good to them, so the fact that they had to keep him confined in a strait jacket didn't bother them. It was just part of a game for them. By the time I found him, his twisted body had been covered not only with sores from the strait jacket, but also scars from poorly healed bed sores caused by being strapped to a bed for extended periods of time.

When I found him, I killed the vampires holding him and took him to my university friends at Dartmouth. One of my professors had been a physician prior to the event. They had started to work on the drug company formularies trying to get some kind of anti-psychotic for him. They realized there would probably be a large need for anti-psychotics and other psychiatric medications after the liberation of humans.

It had them taken months to get my brother to respond to them without fear. He still couldn't speak rationally, but on good days he would eat meals on his own. They had used various therapies, such as taking him into the sunlight, putting him in a swimming pool, and doing massage and talk therapy. He had begun to respond to their kindness with small returns to rationality. Without drugs, though, they knew didn't have any real hope of bringing him back completely.

The Human Council had been very explicit in their orders concerning my brother. I was to strictly limit my visits and communications with him. If Volterra or anyone realized that I existed, or that my brother could be used to influence me, it would be very dangerous for him. I didn't care about the danger to me. Between the burden of my gift, and the horror and pain I had experienced in my short life, I was ready to die. I didn't want to see any more. My rage at vampires for what they had done to us made me want to live to see the Insurgency. After that I was ready to go, to leave the burden of this hell-hole behind, and join my mother in heaven. And if there was no heaven, I was ready to just be free of the pain.

"What is it? What's going on?" asked Carlisle. I realized I was looking at the best doctor left in this world, and I couldn't ask him about my brother. After all, he knew Aro personally, and with one touch of his hand, Aro could lift all that information. I couldn't risk it.

"Not all my family members made it out of the living death camps," was all I said.

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