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Slips Away

3: Changed

Bella

"Bella…Bella," a concerned, male voice called.

This time when I opened my eyes, the room was lit by a dim, dusty caged bulb on the wall and a middle aged man with short, dark hair and kind brown eyes was standing over me. "Hey, welcome back," he greeted me in a gruff voice, reminding me a lot of Charlie.

I was disorientated and looked around in confusion. I was still in the same dank room and still in so much pain, especially when breathing. But there were three men here now, all of them looking at me with concern.

"Don't worry, kid," the first man told me, "your friend flagged us down and told us you were hurt and holed up down here. We're going to get you warm and to a hospital as soon as we can. With some considerable effort, I lifted my head and looked past them all. Victoria was leaning against the back wall, her arms folded casually and a wide menacing grin on her face.

"Please…don't" I croaked at her, giving up my resolve to suffer in silence, and willing to plead for the lives of these men, even though I had tried not to lose my dignity by pleading for my own.

"Relax, Sweetie, no need to move yet, we'll help you when the time comes. John…" he turned to the other men, "go and get some blankets from the truck. I want to wrap her up as best we can before we move her."

The man closest to the door, turned and hurried out the room, all of them unaware that Victoria slipped out behind him.

"No…" I protested, reaching out as if I could prevent this horror unfolding. But the pain this movement caused was unbearable and I couldn't help but cry out.

"Everything's going to be fine, we have you now, Honey," I was hushed again. The reassurance was so kind and genuine that for a moment I could almost believe it. Then Victoria silently re-emerged though the door, grinning at me widely, ensuring that I got an eye full of her blood stained teeth. I sank back in despair. Knowing that even if I was able to warn them and by some miracle they actually believed me when I told them that Victoria was a vampire, it would make no difference at all.

Tears rolled down my cheeks now, and I wanted to look away from the sight of Victoria stealthily coming up behind the second man, putting one hand firmly over his mouth as she sank her teeth into his neck, but it seemed bizarrely disrespectful not to share his final moment. The first man finally seemed to sense some of the misery going on behind him and slowly looked around, leaping up in slow motion when he saw his dead friend slump to the ground.

"What the fu…" but Victoria was on top of him before he could even finish the expletive. His death seemed more drawn out, almost as if Victoria was unable swallow anymore. She broke away early, before he was completely drained, and a spurt of arterial blood doused my face, scolding my icy skin with its heat. Under any normal circumstance, I would have fainted at the smell, but today I wasn't afforded that reprieve. Victoria gave his head a sharp twist and his spine snapped loudly. I felt so wretched and helpless. Three men dead in less than a minute.

"What did they ever do to you?" I asked rhetorically.

"I'll be sure to ask you the same thing, when I check in on you after your change," she shot back, returning her full attention to me. "Of course, they did nothing. Just in the right place at the right time. You see, I need to be sated. Turns out it's harder to turn someone than you might think. I've had reason to try a few times recently and it's very difficult to stop drinking once you start. Precautions must be taken, if you intend to ensure success." She lifted my wrist to her face and creepily ran her tongue along the scar left my James' bite, before sinking her own teeth in alongside it.

Even through my cold numbness, I felt the slice of them. I closed my eyes, but could still hear her long, slow gulps. I felt so helpless still. I had no control over what happened to me and hoped that she would have no control either; that this would be over here and now. Finished forever.

But then her lips were off my wrist and at my ear and my last vestige of hope slipped away.

"A little bit of venom injected at the wrist is going to make for a tortuously slow change, I'm afraid, but don't worry, I'll be here to keep you company the entire time."

And she kept her macabre promise.

As the venom agonizingly crept along my veins, Victoria kept up a running commentary of mental torture as well. She told me repeatedly of how Edward and the Cullens had deserted me. How she had no idea why they had even protected me in the first place. That they could've saved me if they had wanted to, but clearly had other concerns. She told me that she intended to do everything in her power to ensure I was always alone. That she would kill anyone I tried to get close to. That I was ridiculous, that I was ugly, that I was pitiful, that I was nothing.

I bided my time. I refused to allow a single sound to issue from my lips or a solitary movement to acknowledge how much pain I was in. I even tried not to hear the constant rain of misery Victoria was spewing into my ear, although that was what proved the most difficult. Instead, I tried to focus on what I would do once my change was complete. I envisioned a fight to the death…mine or hers, I really didn't care at this point. I wondered if, on waking, I would have the skill and strength to rip off her head quickly enough that she would never see me coming.

I could sense the end was nearing, the pain was beginning to centralize and impossibly it had intensified as well. My heartbeat was frantic, resisting the inevitable until the end. Then it did end. My pain and my heartbeat were both gone in the same instant. I leapt up, in one fluid motion, ready to pounce on my tormenter.

The explosion was incomprehensible to my newly acute senses. The roar of noise was so loud, that it brought me to my knees, hands clasped desperately over my ears and the flash made it seem as if I had been somehow transported to the center of the sun. Then the building came down around me, trapping me under stone, brick, wood and glass, burying me completely in rubble.

xXx

Jasper

We knew the explosion was coming…and hoped we were in the right vicinity. We had failed Bella, completely and that failure gnawed at me. I had hoped that it would be relatively easy to locate Victoria's scent along the coastline and then follow it to where Bella was being held, but that had not been the case. Victoria's scent was all over the surrounding area and it had become clear very quickly that Victoria had been active near Forks for some considerable time. Even more disturbingly, it became evident that she had deliberately left false trails of her and Bella's scents mingled together. She had anticipated our attempts to locate them and she also seemed to have sufficient knowledge of Alice's gift to circumvent it.

Our only conclusion was that this had not been a spur of the moment abduction, it had been well planned and Alice was beside herself that she had seen nothing of it until a few days ago. Victoria was cunning and manipulative and I was furious that she had been able to keep ahead of us. The place she held Bella was too well concealed and we had been unable to locate her in time to shorten her suffering. We could only hope to reach her as soon as we could now and to support her though her transition, so that she didn't have to be alone. I fervently hoped that she wouldn't reject us, as I knew that would break Alice's heart.

The explosion sounded like a pebble landing on a soft pillow. I huffed in frustration. Considering the size it must've been, that meant it was a very long way away. We scanned the distance, and saw it simultaneously. A thin plume of smoke, so far away it was barely visible. We took off towards it…running at full speed.

xXx

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