All Red

by xDreamlessx

Since the loss of her mate, Victoria has been single-mindedly focused on Bella. At first she only wanted to kill her, but in stalking her she also developed an intense attraction to her, and instead she finds herself abducting the young girl and maybe even keeping her. Bella/Victoria.

6. Chapter 6

AN: Whew, glad everyone loved that last chapter. I was a bit worried at first because reviews were slow to trickle in. Usually with my stories the majority of reviews are submitted within 24 hours, but I guess that last chapter took a bit longer than usual to read, lol.

Anyway, here's the new one. Sorry it's a little late. I got about halfway through and then I changed my mind about something and rewrote the whole thing. I had some problems with certain scenes at the end too. Speaking of which, I owe a big special thank you to TipsyMonkey, who's insightful review and well-timed PM was a huge help to me in figuring out what to do next. Thanks again. ;)

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Chapter 6:

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The girl slept all night and into the morning after the sun rose and I left her in the bed while I went out to get her something to eat. It was still raining from the prior night and I had to buy an umbrella from a streetvendor. I found a diner not too far away that served breakfast and I got her couple of egg and sausage muffins to go before walking back to the motel.

She was still asleep as I came in and shook out the umbrella quietly. I hadn't handcuffed her or restrained her at all and I hadn't been worried in the least. Even if she had woken up while I was gone, I knew she would've just waited for me to get back. She said herself last night that she had feelings for me. Those feelings would keep her locked at my side far firmer than handcuffs would. Not to mention she might've found it a bit difficult to walk this morning after the pounding her poor pussy had taken last night. I was going to have to be very gentle with her today but that was okay. I wanted to be.

The breakfast came in a little styrofoam container that I put on the sideboard by the bed. She was laying on her side and I bobbed down to get a better look at her face. The lights were off and it was very dim in the room. Her face was perfectly still and pale and there was no sign she was even breathing. I reached and brushed my thumb over her lips. Warmth. Softness. So beautiful. I wanted to wake her but she needed her rest so I rose and went for a shower.

I was naked when I came back out and I suppose it had been the shower that woke her. She was sitting up in the bed with the breakfast container in her lap and she was eating one of the egg and sausage muffins. I bid her a cheerful good morning and she nodded one back, chewing the muffin and letting her eyes roam all over my body. I fetched a pair of clean underwear from the dresser, one of those bright red thongs, and then she watched as I stepped into it and pulled it up over my broad and sexy hips. She smiled behind the muffin and I felt a flush of delight. It was the first time she had ever admired my body without any kind of duress at all. I gave her a wink and a smiled and then I opened the closet to get a dress, a plain red sundress with a loose skirt to the knee. She watched me put that on as well and I asked her if the breakfast was okay. She said it was but that she was thirsty too.

There was still milk left over in the carton from yesterday but it hadn't been refrigerated. The room was actually becoming a bit of a pigsty. Discarded clothes on the floor, towels. Good thing we'd be leaving tonight.

I got the coffeemachine going and then I poured a papercup and bought it to her in bed. She took it eagerly and sipped it and closed her eyes as the caffeine seeped into her system. I sat on the edge of the bed and crossed my legs. She opened her eyes and looked at me. I smiled at her.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her.

She shrugged and sipped again. "Not bad."

I nodded, secretly amazed at how well she was handling all this. She was truly one of the most complete girls I had ever known. Whatever happened to her, there was nothing she wasn't the equal to. Even me.

She took a bite of the second muffin and nodded at how good it was. I watched her eat it until it was gone and then she wiped her mouth and finished the coffee. I tilted my head and smiled at her some more.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

She wiped her mouth again and nodded. There was even a trace of a smile on her lips. I smirked and glanced at her lap.

"How about down there?"

She snorted and smirked as well. "What do you think?"

"Want me to kiss it better?"

I went to duck my head under the covers but she smiled and stopped me with her hands. I lifted my head again, my face cradled in her palms, and she looked into my eyes for a moment, as if to confirm if she really did feel this way, and then she leaned forward and captured my lips softly.

"After I have a shower," she whispered into them. "Then you can do whatever you want."

Her words sent ripples of excitement all through my body and then she giggled and threw back the covers and hopped out of the bed before proceeding to the bathroom, naked, swinging her hips, and smiling over her shoulder flirtily before she disappeared inside.

I watched her go with a smile.

Yep.

She was broken.

I tidied up the room a bit while she was in the bathroom and when she came out she was all naked and pristine and sweet smelling. Her wet hair was dangling in long dark tendrils and there was the most peculiar smile on her face. Her eyes were bright and full of sauciness and she was clearly very excited. Whatever she had been reflecting on in the shower had put her in a considerably good mood. She seemed to have come to terms with something and it was fairly obvious from her expression and posture that her mind and her body were finally reconciled in their desires. All that remained in question was her heart but in time I'm sure I would have that to.

I was stuffing the last of our dirty clothes into a garbage bag and now I smiled at her and dropped the bag and went over. She didn't speak. There was no sound at all in the room but the rain outside. She looked at me with that strange and half-hesitant excitement in her eyes, gazing at my face as if it was the first time she had ever seen it. Or as if she were seeing it clearly at last. In all its beauty and perfection. My red eyes. My red hair. My mouth that smiled at her. Her eyes were round and dark and she kept them fixed on mine as she carefully put her arms around my neck. She looked at me some more and then she lifted onto her toes and placed her mouth on mine. The submissiveness turned me on so much and I wasted no time taking over the kiss, moaning into it and reaching behind her to give her fresh and naked ass a generous groping before lifting her by her buttocks and turning and depositing her onto the bed.

Once we were done with our morning friskiness, she got dressed in what also happened to be the last of her clean clothes—including the miniskirt with Hello Kitty on it—and then she went to the window and pulled back the curtain. The rain had slackened but it hadn't shown signs of stopping. The asphalt of the parking lot looked like a vast black lake under the sheets of rainwater that covered it.

Finally she sighed and let the curtain fall and turned back to me.

"So how long are we staying?"

I was sitting on the bed and putting some shoes on, the heeled sandals I had bought a couple days ago. "We'll give your mate till tonight," I said. "If he hasn't come for you by then…"

I trailed off. She nodded and looked back at the window but she only stared at the curtain. I smiled at her and buckled the straps of my shoes around my ankles. I couldn't imagine what she must be thinking. Did she even want to be rescued anymore?

"You don't seem optimistic," I remarked, curious about how she was feeling.

She shrugged and came over to the bed and sat down beside me.

"He isn't coming," she said. "It's probably too late, anyway."

I had been bending to finish with my shoe and now I raised up and smiled and wrapped the girl into a hug, the two of us sitting there on the edge of this bed in this nice little motel room I had kidnapped her to.

"Well, cheer up," I whispered to her. "It's not like I was going to let him rescue you, anyway."

She snorted and I let her go. She looked at my face for a moment and then I leaned and gave her a long and loving kiss to remind her that she did indeed belong to me now.

It was already noon by then and we sallied forth into the rain, together under the same umbrella. She was still hungry so we got her some lunch somewhere and then we walked to the only used car dealership in town. So far she hadn't put up one bit of fuss about anything and we both seemed to be extra considerate with the other, careful not to disturb any of the feelings that had sprung up between us overnight. An odd excitement had been building in my chest all morning and for the first time since the death of my mate it began to feel like maybe I did have a future. A future with my beautiful Ms Swan. Bella. Not as a captive or a pet or an enslaved plaything.

But as a mate.

Was that possible? Before I had met her I would've thought she lacked the constitution for a vampire lifestyle. But if she had proven anything lately, it was that she was stronger and more adaptable than I had ever suspected. Feeding from humans wouldn't come naturally to her, of course, but the thirst would soon change that, just as surely as my body and seductiveness had changed her orientation. Some things were simply too powerful to resist.

It was still raining as we roamed the used car lot and she stayed huddled at my side under the umbrella. The drum of rain on the plastic was a nice ambience and we had to speak a little loudly to be heard. We were going by a group of sedans and Ms Swan was looking at them without much interest.

"Is it weird that I miss my truck?" she asked idly as we moved on down the lot.

I chuckled at the question. "Why would you miss such an obnoxious vehicle?"

She touched her hand along the wet fender of a blue Hyundai. "My dad gave it to me as a surprise a while back," she said. "He knew I wanted a car, so he went and bought it for me from a friend. Funny thing is, I was disappointed when he first gave it to me. I wanted a car, not a truck. But after a while I loved it."

The mention of her father gave me a tiny pang of guilt. I hoped we would be able to move past that somehow but for now it was best to avoid the subject.

"And now it's my turn to buy you a car," I announced cheerfully. "Does that make me your mommy?"

She snorted and looked at me awkwardly. "Jeez, I hope not."

"Why not? I think it would be hot if you called me mommy."

She shook her head and didn't answer, blushing under the umbrella. She was fine with being raped but faux-incestuous flirting made her uncomfortable. How charming.

It occurred to me that she had never mentioned her mother and I wondered what kind of relationship she had with her. I was curious to ask but now wasn't the time to remind her of human bonds. Now was the time to lead her away from all that. In any case, her parents were divorced and her mother was obviously out of the picture.

So I linked my arm with hers and I smiled as we continued on along the row of cars, strolling through the rain, her in her pink sunburst jacket and me in my heavy black coat which was water resistant as well as stylish. My feet had gotten wet as I stepped through puddles in my heeled sandals but I didn't mind.

"Have you seen anything you like yet?" I asked her loudly over the rain.

I felt her arm shrug. "I'm not picky."

"What car did you dream of before you got your truck?"

"I don't know. Just something really cool."

"Well, take your time. I'm sure we'll find something."

"Are you sure you wanna let me pick?"

"Why not?"

"What if Edward comes rescue me? Then you'll be stuck with a car you don't want."

I chuckled and we stopped under the umbrella for a moment. "I'm not too worried about that," I said. "Besides, I'm sure I'll love whatever you choose as much as you do."

I gave her a kiss with the rain pattering over our heads and she actually smiled. A sort of sad smile but a smile at that.

After about half an hour of browsing we came upon a car that we both seemed to respond to. A red Mazda coupe. It was one of the more expensive cars on the lot and it was probably a bit too flashy for the purposes of transporting a hostage—statistics show that red cars are pulled over more than any other color—but then again the girl wasn't much of a hostage any more.

She smiled at the car as we went around the side. The paintjob had a metallic finish and the shade of red was dark like a mature rose.

"This looks pretty hot," she said.

I nodded and bent to glance into the windows. "I agree. Your truck used to be red too. It seems red is your color, hm?"

She smiled at me. "Isn't it yours too?"

"Very much so, yes. Do you like this one?"

She looked at it and nodded cautiously. She seemed a bit reserved about making the decision herself, as if spending my money implied a commitment that she wasn't sure she was ready for, but she nodded a few more times and then she straightened up and smiled at me.

"I think it's pretty cool," she said.

It was probably the most commitment I was going to get from her so I smiled and placed a kiss on her lips to seal it.

"We'll take it then," I said.

She nodded and she actually seemed tentatively happy about the situation.

After making the decision we went into the office and spoke to a sales representative. It was a bit suspicious to pay in cash, especially in a small town like this, but there wasn't any difficulties. The salesman handed over a key and I handed the key to Ms Swan. I wanted her to take the car out on its maiden voyage and she was pleased to oblige.

She was sitting behind the wheel as we drove out of the lot and before we'd even gone two blocks I had to caution her to slow down. We'd be in big trouble if we got pulled over, lacking any kind of identification and not to mention the fact that she was abducted. She half-joked that maybe she should get pulled over deliberately so that the police could take her back home but I only smiled and snorted and replied that I would kill anyone who tried to help her. She asked if I would kill her as well, still half joking, and I looked at her for a moment while she drove and finally told her that I didn't think I was even capable of killing her anymore. I enjoyed her too much. She glanced at me, wondering if I was joking the same way she was, but I was perfectly serious.

After driving around for a while and seeing the town—taking the road by the wharf where the rain dimpled in the dark gray ocean—she eventually asked where we were going. I got directions from my phone and I told her to drive us to that Wal-Mart I'd found a couple days ago. It would be easier to get new clothes than wash the clothes we already had and we would need some luggage as well.

The afternoon was well advanced by the time we got back to the motel room with our bags and parcels and it was already beginning to darken. We laid out our new clothes on the bed and began folding them and packing them into the travelbags bags we had bought. She packed all her toiletry things as well and she worked mostly in silence and with a strangely serene expression on her face. As if she were reflecting on all that happened to her recently and discovering in surprise that she was quite curious about what would happen next. As if she were willing to see it through. As if she might even be a little excited. Once again I marvelled at her strength and powers of passiveness. I couldn't even explain the delight I felt in watching her willingly pack a bag in order to come away with me. Her kidnapper. Her abductress. Folding a top daintily and tucking it into the bag. Making sure it was all neat. As innocent as it seemed it was perhaps her greatest act of submission yet and she wasn't even aware of it.

Towards the end she glanced at the window a couple times, as if she half-expected her mate to come crashing through the glass like a SWAT team. But he didn't, of course. The lack of rescue didn't seem to disappoint her much but she did seem hurt that he apparently had better things to do. It was still raining outside and already getting dark behind the curtain.

"Are you sure Edward will be able to track my scent all the way here?" she asked after a while.

"A scent as unmistakeable as yours? Certainly."

"Even in the rain?"

"Oh, yes."

She nodded and looked at the window again. I had already finished packing my own bag and now I zipped it up and took it off the bed and set it down by the dresser beside the dufflebag of cash. The girl had a rag of clothes clutched to her chest like a memento of an old lover and she was still gazing at the window.

"Do you think he even knows I'm missing?" she asked with an odd sadness that wasn't really sadness.

I sighed and looked at her with sympathy. It was pretty clear by now that her mate was not coming—not at this juncture at least—but I didn't want her to feel bad about that so I decided to be gentle.

"It depends on if he was keeping tabs on you," I said. "And even if he was, your disappearance didn't exactly make national news. Unless he was checking into your life every day, it's possible he won't realize for quite a while."

"And by then we'll be in Seattle. Right?"

"For a while, at least until I can arrange some passports. I haven't been home in England for a long time and I think it would be best to get you as far away from here as possible. If we didn't have to keep to a gloomy climate, I would've taken you out of state already."

"Would Edward be able to track me to England?"

"Not unless he's also a trained detective."

She nodded and looked away from the window. I thought she might've had more reaction to the idea of taking her across the ocean from her father but she didn't seem to care at the moment. Her eyes landed on the top in her hands and then she snorted and looked up at me.

"He told me he left me for my own good," she said. "But what if that was an excuse? What if he just wanted to get rid of me?"

I smiled at her. "Why would anyone want to get rid of a girl like you?"

She snorted again at that but she wasn't all that charmed. She looked at the window and shook her head. "I don't know," she said after a silence. "After all this time, I still can't believe he just dumped me like that. I keep thinking that if he really loved me as much as he said he did, then he wouldn't have left in the first place. No matter what. If he was worried about me, he should've stayed and protected me. Right?"

I nodded and refrained from making another quip. Her eyes were round with insecurity and she looked at the top in her hand and then she shook her head and dropped it down on the bed.

I watched her, wanting to make her feel better, and I found myself moving around the bed toward her. She looked at me as I came over and I took her hands and set her down on the bed. I sat beside her and then I wrapped an arm around her and I spoke to her very caringly and very intimately.

"And you?" I asked her. "How do you feel? Do you still love him?"

She glanced at me, not sure if she could be honest without upsetting me. But there was no hint of jealousy on my face and after a while she gave a small shrug.

"I don't know," she said. "Sometimes I'm not sure if I ever really loved him. I think maybe I was just swept away by the fact that he was a vampire."

I looked at her, searching for sincerity in her eyes. She chuckled and looked away.

"It's funny," she said. "Edward wasn't so much different from you in some ways. He was obsessive and possessive. He treated me like a child and told me what to do and how to feel all the time. He even stalked me and watched me sleep."

"Sounds unhealthy."

She giggled and smiled at me unexpectedly, cuddled there under my arm. There was a brightness in the smile and her eyes flickered at my mouth daringly and back to my eyes before she spoke.

"I guess I like unhealthy," she said.

Then she cupped my face in her hand and kissed me.

Slowly at first and then parting my lips with her tongue. My heart instantly began to soar from the softness of her lips and it didn't take long for her to build a little aggressiveness. She moaned and pushed her tongue into my mouth deeper. I moaned as well and sucked on it and licked my own tongue against it. She seemed to enjoy it and she spent a long time on my mouth, kissing my bottom lip, top lip, tongue, tasting it all and moaning softly and stroking the side of my face as she did it.

The rain continued to fall outside and soon we were peeled out of our clothes and fooling around on the bed, rolling in each other's arms with our legs tangled as our hands stroked out each other's breasts, thighs, sides, our backs and necks, moaning and rolling again, rubbing our bodies together and mashing our mouths and lips. It was our most consensual encounter yet and the girl spent quite a bit of it in control. I allowed it and even encouraged it with suggestive smiles and sly whisperings of things I wanted her to do to me or things I wanted to do to her. She levelled lidded looks at me and kissed me and arched her body into mine urgently. She was sinking deeper than ever into this lust she had discovered in the hidden parts of her heart and I was more than willing to take her and guide her into the deeps that I was oh so familiar with already.

I rolled her onto her back, between her legs now, and squeezed one of her breasts as I pushed at her crotch with my hips. She groaned and gazed up with her dark hair spread around her head like a halo of blackness. I smiled and pushed at her again and then I moved and scissored my legs with hers and began rubbing my pussy into hers, slowly at first and then faster and faster as the heat and excitement and wetness began to build. Soon she was moaning and moving her hips in rhythm with mine, gazing into my face as I gazed into hers, her chest heaving, mine perfectly still, smiling at each other and grinding our clits and telling each other how close we were so that we could adjust the speed of the rubbing until finally, at last, we arched and climaxed and shared a single orgasm.

It was still raining and she took a few moments to recover, panting and curled up on her side. She mentioned that after last night she wasn't sure if she would ever be able to come again and I smiled and placed some kisses on her body and told her she shouldn't underestimate herself. She chuckled at that and opened her legs for me to lick between them.

It didn't take long for her to climax again, arched up in the bed with a smile on her face, and then she laughed and drew her legs closed and laughed again as I settled beside her and began kissing her face. Eventually she caught my mouth with hers and rolled me over and cupped my face with both hands as she continued to kiss me, slowly and sensuously, her eyes half open, her mouth half grinning, licking my lips with her tongue and encouraging my own tongue out. Eventually she moved down to my breasts and spent a long time with them, stroking them and squeezing them and enjoying the nipples with her mouth, suckling at them, licking them, suckling some more. I lay there with my eyes closed and a smile on my lust-glazed face, my body heaving under the attentions of her mouth until finally she went lower. I opened my eyes at last and watched her tongue lick all across the wet mound between my legs. It made me moan and arch up and watch again as she licked a second time, and a third, long licks punctuated by firm kisses of her lips before licking again. I could see her smiling and gazing at it between licks and her visible enjoyment of it was mesmerizing to me. For the first time in our acquaintance she was truly doing it all by herself, not because she was afraid or because she was forced to, but simply because she wanted to. Not even because she was broken. She wasn't. She was simply discovering that she liked me and liked my body and liked doing these things to it. She was moaning and licking and lapping up all the moisture that welled for her until finally my eyes rolled away as my body heaved and arched and climaxed in a glorious orgasm.

After that she crawled into my arms, with all willingness and eagerness, and applied another generous kiss onto my mouth. I could taste myself on her lips and her tongue and the taste gave me a thrill of ownership, possession, control. I wrapped my arms around her and I never wanted to let go. So warm and soft and sinfully smooth. I stroked her back and held her and stroked some more. Mine. All mine. I kissed her and rolled her over and lowered kisses onto her neck, her breasts, and finally between her thighs.

She moaned until she climaxed and then I kissed her face as she caught her breath. She opened her eyes and gazed at me and whispered to me about how hot I was and then she kissed me and rolled me onto my back and shuffled down between my thighs. She nibbled my pussy into yet another climax and then she smiled at me with glossy lips and kissed my mouth until I rolled her over once more and played with her breasts until her vagina was ready for another tonguing.

It was dark outside by the time we were done in bed and it had stopped raining. We had been taking turns going down on each other for the better part of two hours and she was quite exhausted by the time we were done.

The floral bedspread was heaped into a pile on the floor and we were laying on the sheets, naked, facing each other. She was still breathing a little heavy and her eyes were lidded. I smiled at her and stroked some hair away from her forehead.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

She shook her head sleepily. It had been a while since she ate last but I didn't press the issue. I'd get her something to eat later.

She closed her eyes and sighed and then she opened them again.

"I guess Edward really isn't coming," she said. "Is he?"

I shook my head. "Not today."

"And we have to leave, don't we?"

"Yes. In fact, we should be on our way right now. We'll get you something to eat along the way. Anything you want. You've been such a good girl. I'm going to spoil you rotten, you'll see."

I went to peck her lips playfully but she turned aside. I retracted my lips and looked at her questioningly. She blinked at me hesitantly.

"What about my dad?" she asked in a quiet voice.

I sighed and thought about how to answer. I would have to tell her what happened at some point. I intended to give her a lot freedom from now on and the truth was only an internet search away. But now wasn't the time, not while we were naked in bed after so many glorious hours of love making, so I just smiled and shook my head.

"I know you'll miss him," I said, "but seeing him again will only hurt you both."

Her face darkened slightly. We had our heads on the same pillow and that slight glare that came into her dark eyes turned me on more than it should've.

"I don't need you to tell me what's going to hurt me," she said. "I think I'm capable of figuring that out myself by now."

She had a point, but I knew what she didn't; her father was dead and decaying in the woods. Seeing him again like that probably wouldn't be as joyful as she assumed.

But obviously I had made a mistake so I smiled to calm her and reached to stroke her hair again.

"Just be a good girl for a while longer," I told her. "Once I'm sure I can trust you, then maybe…"

She turned her head away from my hand and rose up in the bed.

Well. I guess we were going to have a tiff.

I sat up as well and put on my best don't-hate-me-I'm-beautiful face. It didn't have much effect on her and she even covered her breasts with a forearm, which was something I hadn't seen her do in seemingly ages. She glared at me and her voice came out with a undercurrent of hurt and anger.

"Look," she said. "I like this relationship. Maybe I'm just completely twisted, but it's true. I like having sex with you. I even like it when you hit me sometimes. But what I don't like? Is how you won't let me see my father even though it's no big deal. All I want to do is say goodbye and let him know I'm going to be okay. So please. Just…"

She gestured with her free hand at something and her eyes filled with tears. I was beginning to become quite distressed myself. No matter what I said I couldn't seem to find a way out of this. Finally I just shrugged helplessly.

"I'm sorry, Ms Swan," I said. "It pains me to upset you, but I truly have no choice. And in the long run, maybe it's for the best. I think what you need to do is leave everything behind."

She wiped her eyes and looked away. Then she shook her head and turned back to me with a glare.

"Call me crazy for being cool with the whole rape and abduction shit," she said, "but this? This I'm not cool with. So if you want to keep me away from my dad, then I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm gonna wait right here until Edward comes."

Then she hopped off the bed and bent to fetch up her panties. I smiled admiringly at her ass.

"I thought you said you don't believe he will?" I asked her.

She didn't answer, she just stepped into her panties and pulled them up before pulling on a top as well over her bare breasts and then the miniskirt. After that she grabbed a chair and set it by the window and pulled back a corner of the curtain to stare out into the parking lot, presumably to wait for her mate to come rescue her.

I was still sitting in the bed and I sighed in disappointment. Killing that police chief was perhaps the biggest blunder of my life. I wasn't even sure why I did it anymore. I wanted to make sure he wouldn't come home while I was busy with the girl but I could've solved that situation in a variety of other ways. The simplest would've been to do exactly what I eventually did: abduct her and take her somewhere secure. That was my usual practice. I rarely killed a victim in their own home. I always took them somewhere else—much like I had done with the chief himself.

I sighed again and spoke to her where she sat there at the window.

"Do you really want him to take you away from me, Ms Swan?"

She didn't look at me. "I can't stay with you if you're going to treat me like this."

"Even if he does show up, I'm only going to kill him and keep you anyway. I'm five hundred years old and I have the leverage of you as a hostage. He doesn't stand a chance."

"He has his whole family to back him up."

"So you'd rather watch them destroy me than come with me to Seattle?"

It was an genuine question. I thought her feelings for me were stronger than that and I was a little hurt at her sudden change of heart.

But she lowered her eyes from the window and then turned to look at me.

"I won't let them hurt you," she said. "I'm not mad about all the shit you did to me. I told you, I liked it. And after they take me back to my dad, maybe you could come see me sometime and do more of it. But I can't just sit here and let you forbid me from seeing my father one last time."

I smiled at the sentiment, my heart aglow.

"That's very sweet of you," I said. "But there's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"No one's coming to save you."

She looked down at that. Then she turned back to the window.

I sighed and climbed out of the bed.

I didn't bother getting dressed, I just finished the rest of the packing. I slung both of the travelbags bags on the mattress and put the dufflebag between them before unzipping it and stowing the pistol, the handcuffs, and the strapon inside. All three objects lay there on a bed of bank notes and I had to smile at the imagery. Quite a decedent arrangement. Then I zipped it up and turned to the girl.

She was still sitting there by the window. Did she honestly think anybody was coming for her? Now? Exactly when she needed it? No. Life isn't as convenient as that. I wish I could've explained it to her but I was afraid of making the situation worse. Everything I said in regards to her father seemed to backfire. Perhaps it was time for the truth. I tried to imagine her reaction but I couldn't picture anything other than anger and hurt and the inability to ever forgive me. No matter how twisted she had become in our short time together, it was simply impossible for her to like the murder of her father the same way she liked being raped.

I sighed and went over to her chair and knelt down beside her. I was still completely naked and her eyes glanced at my boobs involuntarily before looking at my face. Her eyebrows were puckered and she looked close to tears. I smiled and placed a hand on her knee and began to caress it.

"It's getting late," I said. "He's not coming, Ms Swan."

She shook her head, as if to shake away the tears, and turned back to the window. I stroked her knee and looked at her chest and placed a kiss on the cloth that covered one of her breasts, just on the side of the globe.

"Try not to take it personally," I whispered, kissing again. "As obsessive as he might've been, I suppose that obsession didn't extend to keeping track of you after the breakup."

She wiped her eyes and still didn't answer. I slipped my hand up her skirt and nuzzled the soft side of her breast with my nose. Her scent filled my head and filled my heart with desire.

"Don't cry for him, Ms Swan," I said softly. "He's a fool. He never should've left you to begin with. But it's okay. You have me now. We're going to be very happy together, you'll see."

She still didn't answer but this time she turned away from the window and looked at me. I smiled up at her from where I was kneeling on the floor and continued stroking the warm area under her skirt.

"It's true," I said. "We're going to create a life together. A partnership. And eventually I'll turn you into a vampire like me and teach you the joys of hunting. It's going to be marvellous. And all you have to do is let go. Let go of your old life and your old friends and your father. Let it all go and together…"

She pushed my hand away from her thigh. Gently. But insistently. Then she sniffed back tears and looked at me imploringly.

"Please," she said. "I just want to see him one more time."

She was talking about her father and I realized that none of her earlier sadness had been about her mate. She seemed to have no actual feelings left for her mate at all but it was these feelings for her father that were going to ruin everything.

She was looking at me and I could tell from the roundness in her eyes that she truly hoped I would change my mind. I could also see it was about more than just her father. She seemed to have built this up until it was a test of our relationship, as if she had convinced herself that the only way she could justify her feelings for me was if I cared about her enough to let her see her father this last time. And I did, I really did. But her father was dead and there was nothing I could do about that. Which was going to make the refusal all the more dangerous. Because if I refused I could see very clearly in those eyes that she wasn't sure if she would be able to feel the same way about me anymore even if she wanted to. She had turned this decision into a test but she wasn't aware there was no decision to make.

I sighed and replaced my hand on her knee. She didn't push it away this time, she just kept looking at me and hoping for the right answer. I tried to think of any way I could avoid it but eventually I just sighed and looked up at her.

"I'm sorry, Ms Swan," I said. "I can't do that."

She went still. Two tears dropped from her eyes and then she blinked them and wiped them and turned back to the window.

I let my hand fall from her knee. Hopefully it wouldn't take her too long to get over this. She deserved some patience and privacy while she cried so I rose and placed a kiss in her hair.

"I'm going to have a shower quickly," I said. "After that, we'll set out."

Then I grabbed some clothes and went to the bathroom door and looked back. She was still sitting by the window and her shoulders were shuddering softly with quiet little sobs.

I sighed and went into the bathroom.

While I showered I thought more about the girl and her distress and I tried to think of any way that I could smooth the issue over. My first thought was to simply fuck her silly. It was no coincidence that the two of us were on best terms when we were naked and moaning and licking each other's vaginas. Which was natural enough, I suppose. For a relationship predicated on abduction and rape, you couldn't really expect a connection comprised of love and respect. If she hadn't turned out to be such a slutty little masochist, we'd have no connection at all. So until we achieved some kind of equality in the relationship, either by her becoming stronger or me becoming gentler—or a combination of the two—lust would have to be our primary dynamic.

But would it be enough to move her past this fixation she had on seeing her father?

I wasn't sure. The manipulation would be fairly transparent and even if it succeeded it would only be a temporary fix. And what if she just wasn't in the mood for sex? She had already repelled my advances once when I touched her knee just a few minutes earlier and I'm not sure if outright raping her would achieve the desired results. Our relationship was in a tentative stage and I had to be very careful in how I nurtured it. No more rough stuff unless she actually wanted it. And right now I was pretty sure she didn't want anything, rough or not. The only thing she wanted was closure about her father and she was never going to leave Port Angeles willingly until she got it.

By the time I rinsed my hair and turned off the water, I knew there was only one thing I could do.

I had to tell her the truth.

It was inevitable that she would find out but hearing it from me would at least minimize the manipulation and betrayal. Confession would be my only hope for forgiveness. I sighed as I dried myself with a towel and tussled my hair. I would have to tell her right away, as soon as I emerged from the bathroom, and I was actually very nervous. It wasn't a sensation I felt very often but it wasn't very often that I had anything to lose. Now I did. Her affection. As much fun as it had been to rape her, it was so much better to make love to her. We had something special, Ms Swan and I. I could feel it. Something I had never felt before. A knowing deep in the bone that we belonged together. That she was supposed to be mine just as I was supposed to be hers.

So I had to tell her. There was no other choice. It was getting late and it was time to move on. The sooner she knew the truth, the sooner she could begin to get over it. I had folded my clothes by the sink and now I put them on, just panties and a dress. When confessing to the murder of a loved one's father, one really oughtn't be nude. I slipped the dress over my head and zipped it up and then I smoothed it down and took a deep breath to prepare myself.

But, of course, by the time I came out of the bathroom the girl wasn't there anymore.

I stood there, frozen, staring at the empty chair by the window. Then I looked at the bed. The dufflebag was gone along with her travelbag bag. I went over to the window and pulled back the curtain to look into the parking lot. The red Mazda coupe we had bought together this afternoon was gone as well.

I let the curtain fall and turned and wandered a few steps into the room, blinking, shocked, swatted into stupidity. She was gone. Ms Swan was gone. After all this time, she had finally managed to escape, although I suppose I hadn't exactly made it difficult for her. I had even given her the keys to the car. Surprisingly, I wasn't angry. Because she hadn't really escaped. I knew exactly where she was going. Home. To see her father.

For a few minutes, I didn't know what to do. Even with my vampire speed, she was going to have a lengthy head start. It was doubtful I could get to her house before she did and once she did and found it empty with no trace of life the truth was going to become very apparent to her. I put a hand in my hair and tried to think. I guess I could try intercepting her along the way but that would only upset her further and considerably lessen the nobility of my confession. Either way, this was going to be bad. Very bad.

Finally I shook my head and grabbed my fully packed travelbag off the bed. We wouldn't be coming back to the motel. After that I grabbed my handbag with the purse inside it—and cash—and went to the front office to check out and pay. I told the clerk that I was greatly in a hurry and I apologized for the state of the room and that any possessions or clothes left behind could simply be thrown out. I tipped a bit extra and then I turned and went out and began jogging across the street before launching into a sprint.

The road the girl would have to follow curved around the forest and mountains but I could go through them and soon I was out of town and among the trees, leaping from boulder to boulder in the darkness and barrelling over dark trunks in great crashes of wood and splinters and startling the woodland birds from their nests to shriek and flap away into the blackness. There wasn't a single star in the sky and I was moving only vaguely southwest. I wasn't even sure how much of a short cut this would be. Maybe I should've stuck to the road as well. Before long my dress was torn to pieces from rocks and dark brambles that clutched at me like fingers and my legs were splashed over with muddy creekwater and my face was covered in dirt and grass from where I leapt off ledges and rolled across the forest floor before springing up again and dashing on.

Eventually I came to a large river and stopped to assess where I was. It was the Bogachiel River which meant I had gone too far south. I turned and went along the river bank and sprinted until I came to the bridge that spanned the highway and then I took the highway north, dashing up the road in my bare feet with my rag of a dress flapping in the slipstream.

I reached Forks within half an hour. The place was dark and empty. Dead of the night. It would've been about 2AM. I slowed down to a jog because it was too late by now and I needed time to think about how I was going to handle all this. Eventually I swung into the girl's old neighbourhood and went down the row of dark houses. Dead lawns, paint peeling from picket fences. I moved at a casual stroll, plucking leaves and other debris out of my hair, until finally I hove up at the girl's house.

There was a light on in the upper window.

I looked at it for a minute, my heart sinking all the way into my stomach. I looked down. The red Mazda was parked along the curb. I had managed to carry my travelbag with me the whole journey and now I went over to the car and tried the door. It was unlocked. I popped the trunk and stowed my bag inside it between the girl's bag and the dufflebag and then I pushed down the lid of the trunk and heard it latch shut with a dull thump that seemed to echo in my chest.

I went to the front door first but it was locked. I went around the side of the house and looked for any sign of how the girl had gained entry. I could detect traces of her scent and the scent led to the back door. This one was unlocked. I opened it quietly and entered into the kitchen.

The lights downstairs were all dark. I wandered forward into the foyer. The entire house seemed undisturbed. No sign of any police investigation. There was a sideboard by the front door with some framed pictures on it. One of them was in a silver frame and I picked it up and looked at it. The photograph behind the glass showed the chief and his daughter on some kind of fishing trip, clad in rainhats and tacklevests and smiling with rods aloft. I looked at it in the dark and let my eyes linger on the chief. Guilt wasn't something I felt often but I seemed to feel a tiny amount now. The girl in the photo was several years younger and she seemed very happy to be there with her father. I set down the photoframe and turned to the stairs.

I went up the stairs slowly and at the end of the passage way I could see a light coming from the girl's room. The door wasn't closed and I slowly made my way to it.

The girl was sitting on the edge of her bed with her head bowed. She had a can of bodyspray in her lap and she was gazing down at it as if it was some sort of keepsake. I stood in the doorway and looked at her, trying to figure out if she had realized the truth. Eventually she looked up and saw me. Her eyes were full of tears and several more dropped at the sight of me standing there in my torn and dirt-stained dress like a hag come in from the night.

"I remember now," she said. "When I came home that afternoon, his car was in the driveway. But it was you in the house."

My heart sank even further and I didn't reply. She kept her tear-filled eyes on mine, her lip quivering as her emotions threatened to overflow, and she said:

"You killed my father?"

There was no way to avoid the question and no lie to tell. I nodded from the doorway.

"I'm afraid so," I said.

Her lip quivered again and now her whole face almost broke down. "Why?"

"I wanted you all to myself," I admitted. "No interruptions."

She sniffed again and shook her head and then she started crying. Her shoulders shuddered and little quiet sobs came out of her. Until now she might've been clinging to a last hope that maybe she had been wrong but she had just heard the truth from my own mouth.

I had killed her father.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to go over there and comfort her but as the source of the torment it was rather impossible. Instead I just watched her as she cried and wiped her eyes. There was a pile of used tissues on the bed beside her and now she blew her nose and sobbed again.

I took a step into the room and bobbed down beside her so that we were eye level. I wanted to look at her face. It was tearstained and the eyes that levelled at me were dark and finally beginning to smoulder with hatred. I tried to make my own face as apologetic as possible.

"I wish you hadn't run out like you did," I said. "I was going to tell you as soon as I was finished in the shower. You shouldn't have found out like this."

I reached to touch her knee.

She rose quickly and moved away from me.

I rose as well and turned to face her. She had dropped the tissue but she was still holding that can of bodyspray for whatever reason. Her eyes had gone wide and dark and I could see her sorrow was quickly being swallowed up in anger.

"How could you do this to me?" she asked in a voice that was steadier than it had been since I entered the room. "Why? What did I ever do to you?"

"You attracted me."

"Shut up," she hissed suddenly. "Just shut the fuck up."

I smiled. It was wrong but I couldn't help it. I tried to hide it by turning aside slightly but she noticed and became even angrier.

"Don't you dare fucking smile at me," she said furiously. "You killed my father. You manipulated me. You humiliated me. You lied to me. The whole time you were fucking me, my father was dead. Do you understand that? You psycho bitch?"

I smiled even more. Her anger was so attractive and I could feel what it was leading to. Violence. Rape. Real rape, not play acting. The temptation was already incubating inside me and urging me to provoke her even though I knew it could very well destroy any chance of a real relationship between us—which is what I truly wanted.

But I had always been a slave to temptation so I allowed a smirk to crossed my mouth.

"I don't suppose it would help if I apologized?"

She looked at me and shook her head with her eyes darkening in disgust and hate. "No," she said. "It's too late for that."

I chuckled and tried to shake away my darker impulses. "Come now, let's not get dramatic. I know you must be upset, but you'll get over it soon enough. Sooner than you think, even."

"No," she said coldly. "I'm never going to get over what you've done to me."

While she was speaking she had adjusted her grip on the can of bodyspray until her finger was over the button to spray it. Her other hand had been discreetly buried into the pocket of her jacket. I watched these movements with a glimmer of suspicion and finally recalled a certain fact about hydrocarbon propellants.

They were flammable.

This made me smile even more. Suddenly all the things that had been running through her mind were so obvious. She had arrived here at least half an hour before I did and in her rage at the truth of my betrayal she had concocted a little scheme in her head. A scheme that involved avenging her father by killing me with flammable gas. Very commendable of her.

But did she honestly think she could pull it off?

I looked at the can of bodyspray in her hand and nodded at it with a smile.

"What do you intend to do with that?"

She didn't answer, she just continued to glare at me with her finger on the nozzle and her other hand clenched in the pocket of her jacket. I tilted my head to regard her.

"What are you concealing in your other hand?" I went on. "A lighter? My, how resourceful. You've fashioned yourself a little flamethrower, have you? Well, I guess the only question that remains is if you are willing to use it."

She took her hand out of her pocket. Clutched in her fist was a small plastic butane lighter. I smiled. It seemed I was right.

She looked at the lighter in her hand and then looked up at me darkly. I raised my eyebrows cockily.

"Hm?" I murmured. "Go ahead, if you think you can. Only be warned: you will fail and it'll be the last move you ever make."

"I have nothing to lose anyway," she spat.

I smiled at her and let the smile tilt into a smirk. "Don't you? I wouldn't be too sure. You still have me, after all. My feelings haven't changed. You're still as beautiful to me as you ever were. And now that you know the truth, there is nothing left to stand between us. So choose wisely. Our relationship is in your hands. You can forgive me and allow me to take you away from here and guide you into a world of pleasure beyond all imagining where your father will soon become barely a memory, or…"

I gave a small shrug.

"You can attempt to kill me with a can of deodorant," I said. "Well? What do you think? I can see how it would be a difficult decision for you. But go ahead, if you feel you must. You might even succeed. Vampires are extremely vulnerable to fire and obviously I'm arrogant enough not to have disarmed you already. With a little bit of luck and a little bit of fate, who knows what could happen. Although the same could be said for our relationship, hm? What do you think, Ms Swan? What will you do? Which way are you tempted?"

Her eyes had filled with tears again and by now she was holding the unlit lighter in front of the nozzle of the spraycan. She was trying to glare at me with nothing but hatred but in those swimming black pools I could also see that she was just as susceptible to temptation as I was.

"Shut up," she hissed.

I smiled and raised my arms to my sides as if to invite her to do what she must. I was covered in dirt from my trek through the forest and one of my nipples was poking through a tear in my grass stained dress. It didn't escape my notice how she glanced at it before refocusing her furious eyes on mine. I smiled.

"Well?" I taunted her. "What will you do?"

Her entire body was heaving from rage and the conflict of temptation coursing through her. She had the spraycan pointed directly at me but she seemed unable to do anything else. I smiled.

"You and I truly have strange affinities," I said. "If you wanted to kill me, you would've done it by now. But you can't do it. The same way I could never kill you."

She scowled and lit the lighter.

The small flame trembled just in front of the spraycan's nozzle.

"Don't be too fucking sure," she said.

But she didn't do it and I only smiled wider, holding my arms out like a willing sacrifice. "Oh, I'm sure," I said. "I can see it in your eyes. You don't want to kill me. You just want me. You want me more than anything you've ever wanted in your entire life. More than anything you've ever dreamed of. You want me so much that—"

My words were cut off as a whoosh of flame licked across my face.

The heat on my vampirically pale skin was like taking a blowtorch to an ice sculpture. I howled at the pain and flung myself backwards, blinded, screaming, humiliated. I tripped into the bed and scrabbled on the quilt and got all tangled up in it and I could feel the fire grating over my body and setting the bed alight as I screamed and screamed and writhed in the flames.

It was like being trapped in a room with a fire breathing dragon. The girl was screaming as well and telling me to die and it might've only been luck that saved my life. I was thrashing in the flames and one of my bare feet happened to kick the spraycan out of her hands. The whoosh of flame was silenced instantly and the only sound left was the sound of me whimpering as I rolled out of the blazing bed and thumped onto the floor and began rolling back and forth on the carpet to quench the flames that clung to the scraps of my dress.

The spraycan must've flung out of reach because the girl made no attempt to resume her attack. She just threw down the lighter and ran. One of my eyelids was soldered shut but the other one managed to open just in time to see her flee. My body was wracked in pain and it felt like my skin was melting. I rose to my knees to try and chase her and collapsed again. Under the bed I saw where the spraycan had rolled. The bed was still on fire and the flames were licking up the wall. The room was filling with smoke and soon the whole house would be on fire. I had to get out of here. I glared at the spraycan there, the indescribable pain finally being pushed away by rage, and then I heaved myself to my feet and shambled out of the room.

My dress was all gone and all I was wearing was a scorched pair of panties. One of my breasts was half melted and the entire left side of my body was red and blistered, all down my hip and leg. I staggered down the corridor. The girl hadn't gone far. She tripped at the bottom of the stairs, whimpering in fear, and in a fit of rage and strength I leapt from the landing and flew through the air and landed directly on top of her just as she was trying to get up.

Some bone inside her snapped at the impact and she went into the floor with a loud groan. I grabbed her and wrenched her around and straddled her hips, frothing with rage and pain, my eyes burning even hotter than the fire she had incinerated me with. She wriggled desperately and whimpered and I put a hand at her throat and began to squeeze. The flesh was so soft there, so weak and fragile, and it would have been so easy to snap her neck and tear off her head and sling it across the room for how she had hurt me like this. She gagged as her airway was cut off and her eyes rolled and she gripped my wrist with her hands to try and pry it off. Venom was dripping from my mouth and my throat was absolutely parched. I needed blood to heal these wounds and her scent was…her scent was…

Calming me.

I whimpered and squeezed my eyes shut as I twisted away my face from its bewitching and doublesided effect. My body was heaving up and down as I involuntarily inhaled as much of it as I could and when I finally opened my eyes I could see that her face was going purple. The fire upstairs was crackling loudly like something feeding up there and the smoke had drifted darkly downstairs like an evil fog over our heads. She was dying and her grip was loosening on my wrist. My face crumpled in pain and hurt and slowly I began to slacken my grip on her throat. She gasped in a breath and coughed from the smoke and I leaned down uncontrollably and put my teeth on her forehead, as if I wanted to bite into her skull like a zombie. I had to focus every fibre of my being to restrain myself but I did and finally I just collapsed on top of her in exhaustion.

The rage had passed over me like the smoke overhead and all that was left was emptiness.

She had tried to kill me. She really had.

She was still coughing and now she was crying from the pain of whatever had broken when I jumped onto her. I could hear her sobs and I felt a surge of genuine pity for her and a bit of self-loathing as well. All this was my fault. I had ruined everything.

The fire was beginning to spread upstairs and there was a loud crash of glass as the window in her bedroom exploded. It was time to go and after a moment I managed to raise myself off her and struggle to my feet. We had minutes at best before someone in the neighbourhood called the fire department and maybe no minutes at all. The girl was struggling in the floor, trying to roll onto her side, and I watched her for a moment.

"Can you get up?" I asked after a while.

She coughed and shook her head. "I think my leg is broken."

The fire alarm in the kitchen went off, a loud and continuous beeping. I cursed under my breath and then I bobbed down beside the girl and scooped her up like a bride.

I was almost too weak to carry her but I managed to kick down the front door as well and stagger out onto the wet lawn. The whole upper left side of the house was ablaze. I set the girl down by the car. She stood gingerly on one leg, wincing. I looked up and down the street. A few lights had come on and across the road a front door opened.

It was a fat man in shorts and an undershirt that appeared.

I saw him as nothing but a sack of blood and moved around the car.

He was staring up at the fire across the street and then he saw me. He looked like he was about to ask if I was alright but then he noticed I was naked and half-mutilated and wearing nothing but a charred red g-string. His stupid mouth gaped open. It would be the last thing he ever saw. Confusion crossed his face at the deathly expression in my eyes but before he could speak I grabbed his throat and shoved him back into his house and forced him onto the floor before swooping to his neck.

Hot blood gushed out of his flabby jugular and I swallowed it all down with sick loathing. He was dead and drained in barely a minute and already I could feel my strength returning. I rose from the corpse and turned and left the house, slamming the door closed behind me and looking up and down the block for witnesses. None yet. Everyone else in the neighbourhood seemed fast asleep aside from the unfortunate man who had just expired in the house behind me.

I walked back to the car and noticed the girl was attempting to flee up the street. She hadn't gotten far on her fractured leg and I quickly stalked up behind her and grabbed her hair and dragged her back to the car, kicking and screaming. I found the keys to the car in the pocket of her jacket and threw her inside. The house was completely ablaze by now and several more people up the street had emerged cautiously from their houses. Some of them saw me, some naked woman with red hair getting into a car, but there was nothing to be done about it and I slammed the door shut and hit the gas and peeled out into the road.

I drove fast and within minutes we had cleared the scene. The girl was sobbing and she seemed to be in a great deal of pain. There was blood on her forehead and I had no idea how it had gotten there. The scent of it was swirling through the car and it was lucky I had just fed. I looked into the rearview and adjusted the mirror to examine my face. My mouth was completely slathered in drying blood but my wounds had already healed. The burns were gone and all that marred my perfect white skin was dirt and smoke residue. I needed something to wipe my face and after a while I just ripped the panties off my lap and spat on them and used them to wipe my mouth, gritting my teeth and snorting under my breath. Tonight had just been one indignity after another.

Once I was clean enough I tossed aside the rag and looked at the girl. She was staring into the dashboard, sniffing occasionally, her eyes vacant and empty, and every now and then a bit of pain would cross her face whenever her leg moved even an inch. I should've been more angry with her for trying to kill me but my rage was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she was entirely justified. I even respected her strength. She truly was a special girl. Every day she continued to impress me, although if she grew any stronger I might not live to admire it next time. So far she hadn't glanced at me once as we drove and I had to wonder if this was the end. I couldn't imagine her ever forgiving me for any of this.

I was making my way north and noticed a dark hardware store on our left. I slowed down and looked up and down the street. Empty. An idea occurred to me and I stopped outside the hardware store and turned off the engine.

The girl finally glanced at me but I didn't explain what I was doing. I got out of the car, taking the key with me, and went around the trunk. I opened one of the travelbags and fished for something to wear. I just wanted a dress, something I could just throw on, and finally I found one. Red, of course. I went to put it on when I heard a voice behind me.

"Whoa, lady," the voice said. "You alright over there?"

I turned and glared. Two men in flannel workshirts, one of them with a beer bottle in his hand, both of them leering at my naked body, my tits, my hips.

"You need some help with somethin? asked the other one.

I ignored them and put on the dress, slipping it over my head while my two admirers grinned at me like cretins. I then turned back to the trunk and opened the dufflebag and took the pistol out.

They didn't even have time to wipe the smirks off their faces. I shot them each through the head, one then the other. They would be witnesses and more than that they just pissed me off.

I heard the girl scream at the gunshots from inside the car but I ignored her. A dog barked somewhere beyond the darkness. The two men had collapsed into the sidewalk and now they lay there with their eyes open and blood leaking from their foreheads. The ballistics from the bullets in their skulls would be a great help to the police in unravelling the chief's disappearance which would in turn unravel the girl's as well. Kidnapping was a federal crime and it was going to make leaving the country with her all the more difficult. Not to mention the media coverage of everything that happened tonight would vastly increase the chances that her long lost mate would finally learn what happened to her. I looked at the dead men and I almost regreted my rashness. Almost.

The girl hadn't gotten out of the car and I left her there as I broke the plateglass window of the hardware store and climbed in, crunching the glass under my bare feet. The aisles were dark and dusty and I went down two of them before I found a rack of garden equipment. I selected a nice sized shovel and then I found a flashlight and batteries and carried it all back to the car. I passed the shovel to the girl in the passenger seat and told her to hold it and then I started the car and kept driving.

Soon we were out of town and headed north on the 101. The girl hadn't spoken and she didn't ask what the shovel was for. She had held it in her lap and stared out the window at the black forest that went by just as she had done the first time I had taken her from her home. Back then she had been afraid. This time I had no idea what she was. I could see the pale reflection of her face in the window she was staring out of and there was absolutely nothing on it but dried blood and smoke smears with the thin paths of tears on her cheeks.

Eventually we came to the place where I had murdered her father. It had been less than a week ago and yet it felt like years. I pulled over and got out and went around to open the door for her. I asked her if she could walk but she didn't answer. She got out of the car, wincing and not asking where we were or what we were doing. She might've thought I was going to take her into the woods and kill her and bury her but if she did think that she certainly wasn't afraid.

I gave her the shovel to use as a crutch and together we set out into the woods with the flashlight lancing into the darkness in a cone of white light. Nightbirds howled in the distance and the trees were still wet from earlier rains. She whimpered occasionally from the pain in her leg and it took almost half an hour until we reached the place where her father's remains lay.

At first she didn't notice or didn't know what it was. He was bloated and purple and insects had nested in him. The stench was thick in the night air. I shone the flashlight on him and finally she realized. The breath fell out of her and she staggered backward.

"Oh god," she said. "Dad?"

The last word came out in a tiny squeak. She looked like she wanted to go to him but she was afraid to get closer. Thankfully he was laying on his stomach and she couldn't see his face. He hadn't decayed much in only a few days but the rain and the wildlife had made him rather unpresentable all the same.

"You wanted to see him one last time," I said. "Here he is."

She shook her head and started crying, sobbing into a hand while the other leaned on the shovel. I looked around at the dark forest and I was still surprised that no one had found him. I gave the girl a moment and then I spoke again.

"I realized you would've preferred to see him alive," I said, "but this is the best I can do. At the very least we can give him a burial."

She looked at her father's bloated corpse in the pitiless white light of the flashlight and then she sobbed and shook her head and looked at me in abject sorrow.

"How could you do this?" she asked, as if she honestly couldn't understand.

I sighed and gave her the flashlight and took the shovel from her. "At the time I had no idea how much I would come to regard you," I said. "Had I known, I would've handled it differently. I would've handled a lot of things differently."

I shucked the shovel into the dirt. It was packed with gravel but with my vampire strength it shouldn't take too long. The girl watched me dig, leaning against a tree and holding the flashlight over the grave that began to emerge, and it was a long time before she spoke.

"What happened to his neck?" she asked.

"It's broken."

"Did he suffer?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "It was instant."

"Then I guess it's only me who's suffering."

I chuckled once and kept digging. I heard her sniff and snuffle into her hand as she wiped her nose. She watched me dig and she was silent for a long time before she spoke in a small and lost little voice.

"It was his handcuffs," she said. "You used my dad's handcuffs to…"

She turned away and threw up.

I glanced at her. The light was gone but I kept digging. She coughed and heaved and spat up some more vomit and then she broke down into sobs and sank into the grass and cried her heart out.

It took a long time before she was done crying and by then I was done digging. I shoved her father's corpse into the hole and she resumed watching as I piled the dirt over it. After that I went and fetched some rocks and piled them over it.

I stood back and dusted my hands together. The girl was holding the flashlight and staring at the pile of rocks and her face was almost washed clean from tears.

"They'll find this place eventually," I told her. "And after they do, the body will be exhumed and they'll give him a proper burial. This will suffice for now."

She didn't answer. She staggered a step toward the grave, using the shovel as a crutch, and she tried to bob down but she couldn't on her broken leg and in the end she just sniffed and sobbed and said very quietly:

"I'm sorry, dad."

Then she dropped the flashlight and turned and hobbled past me into the dark of the forest.

I fetched up the flashlight and followed her.

She didn't speak all the way to the car and she still didn't speak once we started driving. Two hours later we reached Port Angeles and I drove directly through without stopping. I wasn't planning to stop all the way to Seattle. After everything that happened tonight it might've been wise to head completely out of state and across the country but the girl would require medical attention as soon as possible and I would prefer an overcast climate so that I could operate more freely in the day. I didn't want to stray too far anyway. It was still possible her mate would come for her and after tonight I still wanted to avenge James. Perhaps he had been my true mate after all. He had never tried to melt my face off with a flaming can of deodorant at least.

I looked at the girl as we once again emerged onto the highway headed north. There was nothing but forest on both sides and she continued to stare out of the window in utter silence. The expression on her face had hardened over time and it almost made me smile. She had caused quite a bit of trouble tonight. Yesterday the authorities were hardly even concerned about her disappearance. But after tonight a woman with red hair, pale skin, and an extremely sexy pair of tits would be sought after in connection with multiple homicide, kidnapping, and theft of a shovel. Depending how fast the police moved, travelling across states could be risky. It was probably best to simply lay low in Seattle for a while anyway. A long while.

I sighed and kept driving. A grim gray dawn was beginning to break in the east and shape out the trees of the forest. The girl hadn't slept. Hadn't eaten. Hadn't used the bathroom. I wondered if any of those needs ought to be inquired after but I wasn't sure if she wanted to be spoken to. Her rage at my betrayal had surpassed anything I could've imagined. If she had been able to maintain her grip on that spraycan she would've actually killed me. The thought almost made me smile. It would've been a pathetic death but sort of poetic too. I think I would've been satisfied with it. At her hand. Vanquished in the righteous wrath of a victim turned heroine. Everybody has to die eventually and after five hundred years you begin to yearn for some kind of rhyme or reason to it.

I glanced at the girl again. Her face was as pale and gray as the new sunlight and she looked exhausted and half-asleep. I smiled at her.

"I suppose this means you don't forgive me," I said.

She shook her head tiredly. "Never."

I sighed and continued to drive. "That's a pity," I said. "I was looking forward to crafting a partnership between us. As equals. Friends. Lovers. But perhaps that was foolish. Perhaps we both needed to come to our senses."

"Are you going to kill me?"

"No," I said, flashing her a smile. "Never."

Her face hardened and her eyes turned into a dark glare. "Good," she said. "I'm glad. I don't want to die. You know what I want to do? I want to kill you. I want to make you suffer. So, fine. Go ahead and keep me alive. The longer you keep me alive, the more time I'll have to figure out a way to burn your disgusting body to ashes."

I gave a throaty chuckle and smiled at her as I drove.

"Mmm, that actually turned me on a little," I said. "Keep talking, Ms Swan. Don't stop."

"Fuck you," she spat. "You're fucking dead, do you understand me? I have nothing left to lose and I'm not afraid of anything you can do to me. I'm going to kill you for what you did to me. I'm going to burn you till you can barely move and then I'm going to ram my whole fist into your vagina and show you exactly what it feels like to—"

I hit the brake pedal.

The tires squealed and skidded to halt at the side of the road. The girl grimaced from the pain in her broken leg and she was taken by surprise as I grabbed a handful of her hair and leaned across the gearshift and smashed a vicious kiss directly onto her mouth.

She groaned and struggled but I forced my tongue inside of her mouth and pushed it against her own tongue and reminded her exactly how weak she really was. She groaned and twisted but all she managed to do was mash her lips into mine.

Finally I released her and she spat at me furiously before wiping her mouth. Tears had gathered in her eyelashes from the pain in her leg and it made me smile.

"You're not going to do anything to me but what I allow you to do," I told her.

Then I turned back to the wheel and accelerated back out into the road.

"For what it's worth," I went on, "your anger is very impressive. It warms my heart. Sorrow is useless to me, but there's a thin line between love and hate."

She glared at me. "I'll never love you."

"Yes, you will. Eventually. You'll see. You and I are far similar than you think. You won't be able to stay angry for long. You'll forgive me because you understand me."

"I'm nothing like you."

"No? You just said yourself that you want to do the exact same things to me that I want to do to you. Rape me. Kill me. What makes you so different? Hm?"

"I'm not the one who's evil here."

"Oh, I think you are. You just need to let it out."

She gritted her teeth and didn't answer. She just glared at me with all the hatefulness she could muster in those beautiful dark eyes of hers. I looked at her and I hadn't been lying when I said her anger warmed my heart. I could feel it glowing inside my chest right now and I smiled and turned back to the road.

"So cheer up, Ms Swan," I said. "Not all hope for a happy ending is lost. For things on a common path there is a common destination. Let my darkness consume you as your darkness consumes me and together perhaps our darkness will subsume all else until all we have left is each other."

Again she didn't reply and I continued driving, east in silence toward that breaking day and the distant light of dawn.

—

AN: Hope those final scenes turned out okay. The first version was actually very different, but then I changed it all. Originally Bella was supposed to forgive Victoria on the spot and become fully broken without any fire attack or anything, but that seemed very uninspired, so I changed it to this. I think Bella's at her best when she's fuelled by angry passion and Victoria's at her best when she's being challenged. Again, big thanks to TipsyMonkey for dragging me out of my creative ditch on that one. ;)

Also, I hope Edward's absence worked out properly. I thought it was better this way rather than to force him into the story where he doesn't really belong. It's more appropriate. It demonstrates that he was never Bella's real mate and it's a nice little switcheroo. I like to subvert expectation sometimes. I think it worked out pretty good, and it's still possible for the Cullens to show up later.

Anyway, hope you liked it. From here, the story enters a new arc, so if anyone wants to throw ideas at me on what should happen next, feel free. I have ideas of my own, of course, but I'm always willing to be inspired to something better. I intend to broaden the story and add a couple characters to the mix, so maybe let me know which ones you want to see. Rosalie could be interesting with her rape-issues, Alice might be fun, or maybe the Denali's or Jane or a combo of them. Either way, all feedback is welcome. :)