I don't own anything!

Chapter 23

Meeting her

Bella could hear muffled sobbing as they left her room. She turned instinctively toward the sound, but Edward's hand guided her back toward the staircase.

"There's little we could do for her right now, Bella." Bella looked up at him, angry.

"You're talking about your sister, Edward." He closed his eyes; put his hand on his forehead.

"I know exactly whom I am talking about, Bella."

"The person you've shared a hundred and forty years with."

"I know, Bella."

"The least you could do is …"

"Is what?" Edward asked, looking up at her. There was anger in his eyes, and his voice was strained. "Sit next to her? Hold her hand? Tell her everything is going to be okay? Is that what I should do?" Bella was taken aback. "I have hated myself, Bella, for things broken that I could not repair, for three hundred and fifty years. Hated myself.

"I know now what I must do, and may God forgive me for it, because I will never forgive myself. Rose knows I am to be her destruction. We were waiting only for the catalyst. The thing that would cause me to flee from Carlisle's grasp. It was inevitable.

"You are that catalyst, Bella. All I can think about is our life together. It is in my mind always. I want to take you away from this. From Carlisle and Alice and Rosalie. I want to show you what we can truly be, as Kate once showed me. This means leaving Rose, and for that I am truly sorry, but I cannot help myself. I must go. The final act of this little farce that Carlisle created has come.

"How can I give her any comfort? What is there to say? It is remarkable that Rose does not hate us both." Bella was silent.

She could feel her eyes going hard and wet the way they always did when tears threatened. Edward could not meet her gaze. He kept trying, and was having no success. This somehow made it worse. When he spoke, there was sorrow in his voice. And regret. And defeat.

"I should have told you. I … Bella, I'm sorry. Living for so long, it's blinded me. I act as I wish without considering others. Even when I told you I was giving you a choice, I failed to tell you what it was you were choosing. I never even thought to do so, and I apologize.

"Your choice did not doom Rose … that had already happened. It did, though, set the end in motion.

"I will understand if this changes your opinion. You are Eresh-Chen. You can be human again if you wish. You can take that choice back. I will not stop you."

Bella looked at him, angry and in love, horrified and filled with despair. At last she spoke.

"I want to meet Alice." Edward turned and was finally able to meet her gaze. He seemed surprised.

"Bella, I explained—"

"Now, Edward. I want to understand what I am."

"Alice is nothing like—"

"Alice is everything like me! No, let me finish. You've given me this gift. I asked for it. I don't want to give it back. You've let me see through vampire eyes, taste with a vampire's tongue. You've let me run like a vampire, and feed like a vampire, and fuck like a vampire, and I love it, Edward, but you haven't shown me what I really am.

"Whatever's inside me, it wants blood. Right now, it wants blood very badly. It wants to rip, and tear, and hate. That thing is the same thing inside of Alice, the most pure it's ever going to be. I want to see her, Edward. I want to know what's inside of me. I want to see it all laid bare, and I want to see it now." Edward contemplated this for a moment, shrugged, sighed.

"So be it."

The moon was like daylight to her eyes. The forest, which might have seemed foreboding to a human, gave Bella no pause.

Forests in the night were filled with predators, and there were none out this night greater than she and Edward.

They had been walking the grounds for thirty minutes. Edward did not call for Alice, and it was obvious he knew where he was going. At times he would pause, change direction, and move forward again.

"Alice doesn't stay still, and she doesn't know we're looking for her yet," he explained. "I could call, but it would do no good. I can sense her, though. We will catch up eventually."

At length they reached a small clearing. Here, Bella saw, were paths carved into the ground from the frequent passage of some creature, like a dog that runs patterns into its yard. From the woods not far away, Bella heard growling. The sound was low and guttural, the noise of a large jungle cat.

"Alice. Come." Edward said, standing in the middle of the clearing. He gave off no palpable sense of fear, but Bella thought she could hear some measure of concern in his voice.

The creature that stepped from the bank of trees in front of them moved in a manner unlike anything Bella had ever seen.

The changes that vampirism had brought to Alice manifested themselves in a far more physical manner than Bella had expected.

On all fours, the girl moved with feline grace, sliding slowly into the clearing, eyeing them cautiously and growling. She stopped perhaps twenty feet from them, staring, teeth bared. Bella shivered.

"She's not pleasant to be around," Edward commented. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Introduce yourself. Be polite."

"Hi, Alice … I'm Bella. It's, uh … nice to meet you," Bella said. She heard the nerves in her own voice, and hated herself for it.

Alice stared at her, then suddenly opened her mouth and howled. Bella flinched, but held her ground.

"She's testing you. Stand still. If she charges, I will take care of you." Edward's voice was a whisper, or perhaps nothing more than a thought on the wind. Alice moved in a wide arc around them, eyes never leaving Bella.

She was naked and filthy, her long hair – brown like Bella's – matted with dirt. Her teeth were more pronounced than in the other vampires Bella had met, long and curved and deadly.

She sat back on her haunches, watching Bella. The eyes conveyed an intelligence and awareness far greater than Bella might have guessed.

Bella sat down in the grass without thinking, meeting Alice's gaze. She held her hands out, palms up, in front of her.

"I don't want to hurt you, Alice. I want to meet you." Alice cocked her head, rolled her body forward into her walking position, and moved a few feet toward Bella.

"You're playing with fire," Edward said from behind her. "She's very fast."

"If she kills me, she kills me. Maybe that's how it's supposed to go."

Edward murmured something inaudible. Alice was now only a few paces away, looking curious.

Edward shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Alice immediately backed up a pace, eyeing him with concern.

"Go sit on that rock, Edward." Bella indicated by tilting her head slightly to her left.

The rock jutted from the ground near the edge of the woods, twenty meters away.

"Bella …"

"She's not scared of you, exactly, but you definitely make her edgy. I don't want that. Go." Edward again said something under his breath, but Bella thought she could hear a smile in his voice, fighting against his concern. He moved toward the rock.

Alice took another step backward, watched him as he went, and turned her attention back to Bella.

"You're nothing if not stubborn, my love," Edward said.

"Got that right. Now, Alice, do you want to say hello?" Alice took a few steps forward. Bella could see the muscles in her legs, tense, ready to spring or run if necessary.

Bella continued to hold her hands out, and Alice sniffed them, seeming to relax. She sat back, cocked her head again, appraising Bella.

"Hello, Alice." Alice made a sound that started low in her throat and became a high-pitched whine. To Bella, it sounded like a dog yawning.

"How does it feel, not having to worry, Alice? How does it feel to kill, and eat, and not think twice about it? No guilt. No sadness. No concern. How does that feel?" Alice looked at her, unable to comprehend.

She scratched behind her ear briefly, followed the flight of a bat with her eyes, then looked back at Bella.

"Must feel pretty good, I bet. You hungry, Alice?" Bella brought her finger to her new, sharp teeth, and bit it. Blood welled immediately. She held her hands back out to Alice.

"You're going to give me a heart attack, Bella." Edward's voice held more tension than she had heard at any time since her encounter with Carlisle.

"Your heart's strong, Edward. You'll survive. Go ahead, Alice." Alice moved her head forward, licked Bella's finger once, twice, and then abruptly moved her head away.

"You're a killer, Alice. Take it. Take what you want. If you're going to kill me, then kill me. I refuse to be afraid of you, so kill me now, or I guess we're going to have to be friends." Alice looked again at Bella's outstretched hand, then reached up, bit her own finger, and held it out to Bella.

"Okay, Alice." Bella touched her lips to Alice's outstretched hand and tasted blood, fire on her tongue. Her hunger leapt awake, but she too pulled her head away.

"Just a couple of killers out in the forest, that's us, right Alice?" Bella was smiling, but she could feel tears making cool tracks on her hot cheeks. "Just a couple of vampires getting to know each other … getting to know who they really are." She felt Edward beside her. Alice glanced at him briefly, but did not shy away.

Edward's concern had dissipated, and in turn Alice no longer seemed to regard him as a threat.

He sat down in the grass next to Bella, and she leaned against his shoulder, still looking at Alice.

"I wish I was like her."

"Do you?"

"She's perfect. She doesn't care. Rose, Rosalie … they're the same person to her. Who'll take care of her when they're gone?"

"I had thought she was not long for this earth, Bella. Now? I am not so sure. She seems to have accepted you. Perhaps Carlisle might permit us to take her."

"Good. I understand her. I wish I was like her. Oh, God, Edward, how do you stand it? Is it always this much … tragedy?"

"No, not like this, but there is always some tragedy, Bella, and always some joy, and I am sometimes thankful for both. It reminds me of what it was like to be a human. You want to know what you are, Bella? You are a killer. You are a vampire. You are a force of nature, like the girl sitting before us. You are cursed, and you are blessed, just like Alice. She will never know the things we know, feel the things we feel. That is her blessing. That is her curse."

Bella smiled at Alice. Alice smiled back, then turned suddenly, loped off through the grass, making high yipping sounds. In seconds she was gone.

After a moment more, Bella stood. The cut on her finger had already healed, but the thirst still burned within her.

"Let's go into the city, Edward. I'm hungry." They left the clearing, moving back toward the mansion.

Overhead, the moon looked down on them, cold and distant.