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 Stephenie 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 41 – Back to Carlisle's house, and Thoughts on Eleazar's Inablility to pick up on certain Human Gifts

(Bella's POV)

My cousins and I had watched as Ardella carefully went through the charade with the cops. We had told her that the instant a cop reached for her or Amy, I would kill them.

But Ardella had made it look like she was the agent of the cops' death, without ever stating that she was. My family was in awe at her nerve. And of course, the cousins were already starting to work on more outfits for the two of them. Now that they had seen how the clothes actually fit, they wanted to make more.

I was interested to see Eleazar's reaction to Ardella. I may have had a high regard for Eleazar simply because he was one of Carlisle's friends, but I knew his power to pick up on human gifts was no longer working particularly well on younger humans. He had missed my gifts completely, and I wasn't the only human whose gifts he hadn't sensed.

The Human Council and I had an ongoing debate about this apparent lapse in his power. Eleazar was failing to pick up on the gifts possessed by humans born after the Event of 2020, those of us who had grown up on the living death camps. We come up with three possible explanations for this diminution in his power.

First, maybe in the past, since humans were unaware of vampires, they hadn't thought to hide their gifts. Now that we were growing up in cages, living in fear of vampire guards, we had gotten better at sheltering ourselves, including our minds and gifts, from the vampires. So Eleazar wasn't sensing the younger humans' gifts because we were not as open with vampires.

Or, a second possibility, maybe Eleazar's power was not a sensing of a gift in and of itself. Maybe what he was really picking up on was an individual's sense that they were different. The emotional and psychic energy used to hide this difference may have left a "scar", and that was what he was sensing. Since socialization was limited to the immediate twenty people we grew up with on the living death camps, the power of the group, as in schools, was not as strong.

Or, a third possibility, perhaps the problem lay in Eleazar's thinking. The mind reader had alerted me to the fact that in his mind, he had called me "Rat Girl" when Carlisle brought me into the house last July. He wasn't the only one who used such terms in their thoughts. The word "rat" was commonly used when referring to the inhabitants of the living death camps, especially those of us who had been born on one. Or, as the vampires thought, bred on them. The Allies told us that vampires had not started using the term "rat" widely when referring to humans until after the Event of 2020. And as Eleazar had spent a lot of time in Volterra, judging gifted humans and judging which gifted vampires should join the Volterra guard, he had picked up this habit of thinking from his constant exposure to the language of the Volturi Court.

But that didn't excuse it. He may be a "vegetarian" vampire, drinking only animal blood, but if he thought of us as "rats", he wasn't a true ally. And it may even be blocking his gift. Possibly just the thought that we were "rats", bred in the living death camp breeding programs, precluded us in his mind from having gifts. And lots of us were coming out of the living death camps with gifts. And he had missed the gifts in many of us.

Whatever it was, this was going to make for an interesting conversation today when Jasper brought him to Carlisle's house.

So, when Jasper and Eleazar appeared at Carlisle's house, I was waiting to see how things would go.

Carlisle was home and greeted his friend Eleazar at the door as usual, with his arm around my waist. The two vampires came in, raindrops still glistening on their hair and clothing. Eleazar greeted Carlisle warmly, but was clearly distracted. Jasper followed Eleazar in and indicated to Carlisle that they wanted to talk to him in his office.

As Carlisle turned to me and began to direct me back into the living room while he escorted his guests to his office, I decided to just jump in to the conversation. "It is nice to see you, Eleazar," I said.

All three vampires paused when I spoke. I usually didn't address Carlisle's guests directly, unless they had spoken to me first. But Eleazar was apparently now open to possibilities, after seeing Ardella at Jasper's house. "Nice to see you, little one," he replied, giving a slight bow.

"What brings you to Forks today?" I asked, filling the awkward pause.

Eleazar looked at me steadily with his dark eyes and replied, "I came to see Jasper."

"Jasper has something of interest to you?" I said sweetly.

At this point, Jasper broke in. "Do you know something?" Jasper demanded.

"That depends. I must ask Eleazar what it is that he saw," I reply. This didn't satisfy Jasper, who began slowly circling me. "So tell me, Lord, what is it that you have seen?"

Eleazar paused and then said, "I went to Jasper's house. There I saw a young woman with a child kill two police officers and threaten to kill Jasper's sister, Rosalie."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's an interesting story. Is that everything, or is there more?"

Jasper stopped circling and bent to stare into my eyes, standing inches away. Carlisle was immediately next to him, and asked, "What is going on?"

"That's what I am trying to figure out," I said. "Jasper summoned Eleazar from Alaska. I am curious to know what it was that Eleazar saw at Jasper's house, when he answered Jasper's appeal for help."

Eleazar began to press me for information, asking quietly, "What can you tell me?"

"But I want to know what you observed," I replied. "I heard you say three things: there is a young woman with a child at Jasper's house. She killed two cops. She threatened Jasper's sister. So, it seems to me that there are a few questions. Who is this girl, how and why did she kill the cops, and why does she have a grudge against Jasper's sister?"

The three vampires just exchanged glances. "Sweetheart," Carlisle began gently, "can you tell us what you know?"

"First, I want to know what they know. They are looking for information, yet not sharing," I reply. "Who is this girl? Why is she at Jasper's house? If she's a visitor, then maybe she should just move along."

Jasper glared at me, at then said, "I think it is obvious who she is."

"I want to hear somebody say it," I answered.

"The girl is my pet, and the child is her baby," Jasper stated evenly, staring at me.

"And she has never shown any inclinations of this kind before?" I asked. "The cops never took an interest in the child before? Let's set aside the issue of the dead cops for now and look at what is going on."

Esme had come into the living room from her office and was watching us with interest. I didn't care. Let Jasper own up to his situation. It was of his making, when he decided to buy a human.

"I don't know what is going on," Jasper said coolly. "That's why I called Eleazar. And as for Rosalie…"

"If this girl is your pet," I interject, "then you have controlled every aspect of her existence from the time you purchased her, correct? You know about her diet, you know about her movements as you control whether she leaves your house, and you certainly know everything about her relationships. How long has she been at your house?"

"Alice and I bought her 3 years ago," Jasper replied.

"So she got pregnant while under your roof?" I asked. I knew that the Rules required that all human girls be "bred" at the age of sixteen. By the usual timeline, Jasper and Alice would have been required to get Ardella pregnant at that age.

"Yes," Jasper stated calmly.

"And the baby?" I asked.

"We took the baby back to the Seattle Human Confinement Facility to be raised after she was born," Jasper answered.

"Who was the father?" I pressed, beginning to be impatient with the slow pace of the conversation.

"He was Emmett's pet," stated Jasper carefully.

"Oh, so there is a connection to Rosalie," I stated. "If Ardella is harboring this level of animosity, why not towards you and Alice? Why is she angry at Rosalie? She doesn't live with Rosalie."

"I don't know," Jasper replied.

"Don't you? Then maybe I don't know anything either," I answered, becoming sick of the short, evasive answers I was getting.

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Yea, Bella's being stubborn. Of course she knows all about this situation. But Jasper has to admit his complicity in this situation, he has to state it.