32
Judas, Charlie thought. The ultimate betrayer. He wasn't a religious man, never had been, but he knew enough of the bible to know exactly who Judas was. He'd been one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. He betrayed Jesus by going to the Chief Priests and making a deal for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus was crucified and Judas, having felt the conviction and guilt of his betrayal of Jesus, threw the pieces of silver on the floor of the temple, at the feet of the priest and proceeded to commit suicide by hanging himself. Clearly there was more to the bible than Charlie had ever known.
"Judas? They called you Judas?" Carmen asked, taking a step backward.
"In another life," he admitted.
"You lied to me, Eleazar? How could you lie to me?"
"Because I haven't been that persona in a millennia, not since . . ."
"Not since you betrayed her," Abel said, tilting his head to the side. "Eve. You led her into the hands of our deceiver, and he killed her, because of you, Judas."
"My name is Eleazar, and I have long paid my penitence for my actions."
"Not nearly enough," Abel snarled. "We lived in purgatory while you feasted upon those we were tasked to protect. You were one of us, one of the greatest of us. She counted on you, and you betrayed her."
"Wait, wait, wait," Charlie said, putting his hands up in front of him. "You really believe that my daughter is Eve."
"Yes."
"This is insane," Charlie murmured with a shake of his head before he shifted his eyes to Renee, who looked just as confused and scared as he felt. "How can that be?"
"Ask him," Abel said, raising his hand and pointing at Eleazar. "He sacrificed her to Adam."
"Wait, who the hell is Adam?" Alice exclaimed.
"Aro," Eleazar whispered, though they had no trouble hearing him. "Aro is . . . was Adam. When we were created, we were created from her, from Eve. Tasked with the protection of humans. They were our most precious treasure, and it was our responsibility to keep them safe, keep them protected. And then the blood drinkers rose from Hell and infected Adam, turned him into one of them. The strongest of the blood drinkers. His change corrupted him, and he started picking us off one by one by one, but not her. Not Eve. She was our leader, our sovereign leader. She stood up to him, fought against him, against all of us he had changed, but in the end, she . . . she wasn't strong enough, and he killed her. He killed her body, but he couldn't take her power. He drove the rest of our brothers and sisters underground, kept them locked away and spent the last thousand years searching for her. Searching for her because though he killed her body — her spirit, her soul one might say, was reborn over and over and over, searching for the right vessel strong enough to contain her, strong enough to face him.
"Eventually, I grew tired of Aro, of his quest. Like I said before, when I met Carmen, I left the guard, left Aro and his foolish hunt for her, but I'm connected to him, as all who were changed by him are. He will not quit until he has found her, until he has her back in his grasp. We cannot allow that to happen. If he finds her, he will . . . Well, it would be very, very bad."
"You lied to me," Carmen snarled, ripping her arm out of his grasp. "You've been lying to me since day one."
"I couldn't tell you who I really was. You would never have believed me."
"Maybe not, but now, I will never be able to trust you again."
Carmen wrapped her arms around herself before she turned and walked away from them. Irina glared at Eleazar before she followed, wrapping her arm around the dark haired vampire.
"How do you know Bella is this Eve person?" Charlie asked.
"Because I can see her soul, Charlie," Eleazar muttered as his eyes closed. "Pure and innocence, filled with humility and grace. She was the first of our kind, our leader, our savor, and I betrayed her for power I wish I never had. And I will live with that regret for the rest of my existence."
"You gave her to him?" Renee asked, voicing the question they all had been thinking, Charlie was sure. "You gave Adam my daughter?"
"No, I gave him Eve."
But Renee didn't care seeing as she grabbed him by the throat with one hand, picked him up, and slammed him to the ground with so much force the asphalt beneath him to crack and crumble. Charlie wrapped his fingers around her arm as he knelt next to Eleazar, causing her to look at him.
"Not like this, honey. Don't lose who you are like this. She wouldn't want you to become a killer because of him."
"We can still save her," Eleazar exclaimed, his voice tight and thick as her fingers dug into his hard, stone-like skin. "We can still save Bella!"
"How?" Renee dragged him back to his feet, but didn't loosen her grip around his neck.
"She alone can stop him, she alone can keep him from ascending." At the sound of Abel's voice, everyone turned and looked at him. "She's not a threat to humanity. She's their salvation. For she and she alone has the power to save not only the humans from extinction, but save them from the blood drinkers curse."
—Stay—
If Bella were still human, and not dead from cancer, her head would hurt from the excessive amount of information she had learned over the last ten hours. Not only was she, supposedly, the reincarnate leader of the Sentinels, but she had been known as Eve in this other life. Like the Eve from the bible. The one who betrayed Adam, ate an apple off the tree of knowledge, disobeyed the word of God. It was . . . it was just too much to understand, yet in ways that she couldn't explain, it almost made sense. As much sense as being a vampire made, at least.
"I'm sorry, are you saying, what I think you're saying?" Edward asked, drawing her and Cain's attention to him. He tilted his head to the side, and Bella knew he was trying to read Cain's mind, but he hadn't been able to before, so she knew that wasn't going to change. "You think she's Eve? Like the Eve from the bible?"
And Bella almost laughed, having just had the same thought, but didn't because the moment wasn't really all that comical.
"Yes," Cain replied.
Edward scoffed, throwing Bella a look. "I'm sorry, but are you fucking insane?"
"No."
"Are you saying that everyone from the bible, Noah, Moses, David, Jesus, were Sentinels?"
"Yes."
"Okay," Bella replied, slowly, and took a step backward. "And Aro is Adam?"
"Yes."
"And he wants her because he loves her?" Edward asked, his face contorting in disgust, a feeling Bella shared and she had never even met this Aro Volturi.
"No."
"No?" Bella and Edward asked at the same time.
"No," Cain repeated, his head lobbing to the side in confusion. "Adam, or Aro as you know him, is not looking for you out of love or any type of romantic connection. Your true mate is the blood drinker next to you, Bella. Aro wants your power."
Bella rolled her eyes, folding her arms in front of her. "Yes, yes, I know he wants me to join his guard so he can utilize my gifts, my powers."
"No," Cain replied, frowning and it was one of the first expressions of emotions that she had seen him express. "No, Bella, he doesn't want you to join his guard, as he calls them, he wants to take your power from you, use it along with his. Only then will he be unstoppable."
"He wants to kill me." The words left her mouth with ease, yet she felt like she was that fourteen year old human girl again being told she was dying from a brain tumor.
"Yes, it would end your existence, and you would not be reborn again."
Bella blew out a heavy breath. "Well, that changes things, doesn't it?"
"We can stop him, though, can't we?" Edward asked, sliding his hand across her back, curving his fingers around her hip. "I mean, he was created from her. Isn't that what you said?"
"It is, and she alone can stop him, can take his power from him as he would her, but she must learn to control her ability. He has had a millennia to learn control and caution, she has not."
"As long as there's no pressure," she muttered, mostly to herself.
Edward, however, had to have heard her seeing as he leaned over and pressed his lips against the side of her head and said, "Let's just find these writings, see for ourselves if what he says is actual fact, and not a load of bullshit."
"Bullshit?" Cain asked, his brow furrowing.
"You don't know the term bullshit?" Bella asked, and when Cain slowly shook his head, she almost laughed. Would have, had the situation not been dire. "It means that neither Edward nor I will believe what you are telling us until we see the writing on the wall, quite literally. So, we should continue on."
Though Bella could see the confusion in Cain's eyes, she ignored it and motioned for both him and Edward to follow her, which they did. It didn't take them long to find themselves standing on the edge of Boehmer Creek. They walked northeast, as Billy Black had instructed before he died, and seven miles later, the three of them found themselves standing outside a large cave opening that was built into the side of the mountain, heading downward into the underground.
Bella and Edward shared a look before they headed inside, knowing that Cain would follow. The darkness was thick and only broken up by the beams of light coming from their flashlights. The terrain was easy enough for them to maneuver. They had traveled a couple of miles into the underground when they found themselves facing a long, flat smooth wall of rock.
She stepped up to the wall, letting her fingers trace over the carvings. It was a language that she had never seen before, yet somehow, she knew exactly what it said. Only half the wall was visible, because like Billy had said, the other half was blocked by three or four dozens large boulders.
Starting on the top left corner of the wall were carvings of two figures standing on either side a large tree, clearly one was Adam and the other was Eve. On the next line was the male figure, the Adam one might say, being changed by the blood drinkers. Beneath that, was the progression of humans being changed one by one by one by him, while the Eve carving was growing smaller and smaller with each line until she was gone completely. The only thing Bella knew for sure was that Billy Black had most definitely misread the carvings.
"I have no idea how I know what this says, but if I'm reading this correctly," Bella started, shifting her flashlights beam to the top left hand corner. "This confirms what Billy claims the writings say: the mark of the crescent moon would bring forth the destroyer of humankind, but if I am not mistaken, and I don't think I am, this is referring to Aro Volturi." Bella shifted her eyes to Cain, who was so pale he almost glowed in the darkness. "Doesn't it?"
"Yes, these writings refer to a man," Cain replied, gesturing toward the symbol of a large circle with a small triangle with stars on all three corners in the middle. "This describes the transition from Sentinel to blood drinkers, when the poisoning began. It started with Adam and he then corrupted Job and Isaac," he explained, motioning toward the two men described next him.
"Caius and Marcus," Edward said with a sigh. "This is fucking insane. You're saying that the Brothers are really Sentinels, people from the bible?"
"Is it really that hard to believe?" Cain asked.
"Yes!" Bella and Edward said together.
"Why would they change their names?"
"When they were corrupted, when their bloodlines were poisoned, they lost vision of who they were. Only Aro knows the truth about them, only he has the knowledge of who you are, Bella. There was only one other who knows the truth, the seeker. He was tasked with finding you, we believe."
Bella and Edward shared a look before they both said, "Eleazar."
"Yes, though we knew him as Judas."
"Makes perfect sense now," she quipped, folding her arms on front of her before she asked, "Why would Aro keep the truth of who they were . . . who they are from Marcus and Caius?"
"Because he has already taken their power."
Bella shook her head, unsure of what to say. This was all too farfetched to be real, wasn't it? I mean, she couldn't be 'Eve', could she? With a sigh, she looked around before saying, "We should clear out these boulders, see what the rest of the writings say before we start a war with Aro Volturi."
Though, she wasn't sure she wanted to know what the rest of the writings said, she found herself unable to stop from shifting the first of the boulders. Had it really just been a few months ago that she was a fragile, human girl on the verge of death? It felt like a lifetime ago, a life far different than what she was living now.
One by one, Edward, Bella, and Cain managed to clear out the boulders.
Though admittedly, they moved slower than they could have. The truth on the other side was overwhelming and she hadn't even read it yet. In that moment, she wished more than anything she had allowed her mom and dad to come with them. She longed for the solace their embrace always gave, back when they could help ease the constant, throbbing pain radiating inside her skull.
"Holy shit," Edward murmured as they stepped through the small opening leading to the other side of the wall. She followed and when she shone her light onto the cave wall, she found herself bringing her hand up to her mouth, muffling the outrage that slipped to the tip of her tongue.
The writing, like on the other half of the wall, said much of the same. The only difference was that this half of the wall indicated that a woman — a woman born with the mark of the crescent moon — would be the savior of the humankind, the one to stop the poison from spreading. She alone would have the power to stop the blood drinkers, end the evils of human kind. The only problem, of course, that according to the writings on the literal wall, there was only one way to stop Aro Volturi. The only way to stop him, stop the spread of his evil regime would be to sacrifice herself. Bella Swan was going to have to die.
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