Playlist:
Lorde - Flicker (Kanye West Rework)
Bruno Mars – It Will Rain
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words. Stephanie Meyer owns the Twilight series, and the songs belong to their respective people.
Flicker
Bella's body buzzed for a long moment as her magicks submerged her in electricity. She inhaled and felt the spin of the universe settle into her bones. On the exhale, she felt the wave of sparks settle over her like waves on the shore, as monumental as an earthquake. It had been two years since she had allowed her magick to run freely through her veins, and there was no describing the ecstasy.
It was like becoming a whole person again. Distantly, Bella wondered how she could have ever given this up and hidden it away. Her magick was a fire burning fiercely, but it cradled her like a warm summer breeze. Hello again, it whispered. We've missed you. She responded with passionate welcome as beloved gold settled within her. She indulged herself hedonistically, wrapping the fabric of the universe around her like a soft blanket.
She remembered her place in the plan of the world. She was a queen cut from marble, a goddess of Destiny. Her scars were made of silver and gold, her veins were filled with the flood of rubies. She was more than mortal, a beloved child of earth and sky. Fae.
And then the memories hit, and with them: pain. She fell to her knees next to her shattered truck, gasping for air. Her senses rebelled against malice, other as the drumbeat deafened her. She heard it, for the first time in so long: that deadly whisper. It was an intruder that demanded to be heard. Her tongue split and bled, and she puked red onto the rolling ground.
Golden energy rebelled within her as black bled into it at the edges. Bella could feel the weight of chains at her neck, her wrists, her ankles. The brand on her shoulder burned. She retched again at the thick stickiness of remembered blood on her hands.
A shiver went down her spine, but she forced herself back to her feet. She centered herself, calling on the gold to obey her and push the bleeding black poison away. On the inhale, she processed her memories, applying them to her current situation with ruthless logic and cutting off her emotional responses.
So, this is how it all ends.
On the exhale, she sharpened her focus and fell into an ocean of gold. She allowed her feet to walk her where they would, discarding their movement as irrelevant. She let the magicks lead her and turned inward until all that remained were her turbulent thoughts. Her aura, that core of magick and character that made her who she was, appeared scattered like light through a prism. Her aura shook, choppy like high seas in a hurricane.
She hadn't had much occasion to meditate since she had moved here. The hush of the constant rain and fog had seeped into her mind, muting her magick and her memories alike. Even when she could feel herself falling for Edward, damning everything in the process, she had been able to keep the constant chaos in her thoughts from spilling over.
By the time Bella had found her way to Forks, her secret life outside of the mortal world had been suppressed and left to rot. She had locked the glorious gift of her magicks away in a steel box in her memory just out of sight, and hastily labeled it, "DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES".
The Cullens had blown that box wide open when they had exposed her scars. Her vampires had a way of doing that to her, each one of them naturally navigating around her defenses and leaving her vulnerable. She had never felt more like her true self as when the Cullens were around, and they accepted her so easily that she hadn't even recognized it as a gift- a precious gift that she had ruined by her dishonesty.
Bella took a deep inhale, and on the exhale, she faced the thoughts she had been avoiding since she had left the Cullen house a week ago.
Her Edward.
Edward Cullen was her personal angel, a miracle wrapped in stone flesh. From the moment he didn't kill her in Biology class, Bella had cared for him more than was sensible, or even sane. When he quit fighting the pull he felt towards her, she had been irrevocably lost. God, but she loved him with all her heart; enough to damn her world and herself. She had to protect him. As much as Bella had given Edward her heart, the devil had already staked claim on her soul; and the devil always gets his due.
Her feelings didn't change the facts. She had left her vampires in a hopeless situation. The beetles were scouts for a larger evil, and she had no idea how they had known to come to Forks, but they were here. They had more than enough cause to suspect her identity, and they had noticed her friendship with the Cullens. She couldn't force herself to leave. She had to decide.
Their faces flew across her mind. They would have to trust her, more than she had ever asked them to. If they could trust her long enough to get them to safety, she would pay any price to ensure their survival. Her thoughts flew to Edward's silent embrace in the parking lot. He had seen her vulnerable, seen that she was on the edge. Instead of pushing, he had offered wordless comfort. Would they trust her? What would she do if they wouldn't?
The intensity of her fear of losing them choked her, and she broke her meditation. For the first time, Bella took notice of her surroundings. They were familiar, and Bella immediately identified them. She was walking up the long driveway that led to the Cullen house, soaked and shivering in the freezing rain.
Well.
It seemed the decision was made. Bella was horrified at herself for a long moment, at how far she would go for Edward and his family. She was to be at the Cullen's mercy. Bella sent up a quick prayer as she climbed the steps to the porch, hoping beyond hope that someone would listen and be merciful to her wretched soul, despite what she was about to do.
Then, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.
It Will Rain
After Bella had driven away, the Cullens had gotten in the Volvo and headed home too. They had been a family a long time, and Edward had known without asking that school was not a priority for anyone right now. Alice had called Carlisle before they even left the parking lot. She spoke only two words. "Come home."
The strange silence that had descended on their group since seeing Bella beaten and bloodied was oppressive to his siblings. To Edward, it was as though everyone was yelling in his ear.
Jasper was replaying every interaction he had ever had with Bella. He was suspicious and on high alert for any danger, still shocked that he had been tricked and wary of Bella's emotions. The waves of desperation, rage, and fear that rolled off Bella worried Jasper. Those men would have killed Bella while Jasper sat through another boring history class, unaware.
Alice kept asking herself how she had missed this side of her best friend, pushing for a vision and coming up with nothing more than angry, muddled colors. She was blind to the future since they had laid eyes on Bella's scars. Deep below the surface, Alice was terror-stricken, unable to shake her conviction that Bella's secrets were the stuff of life and death.
Emmett was determined not to jump to conclusions, struggling to form a complete picture from the few fragmentary pieces they had. He was concerned for his baby sister but remained practical. He focused on the medical file, then the obvious evidence that Bella had been in a fight a few moments ago. It would seem Bella's secrets weren't quite finished with her. He didn't know or care what this new threat was, his family could handle it. He wanted to bash someone's head in for making his human sister so scared. Bella hadn't even been scared when she was hunted by a vampire, for god's sake. As much as Emmett tried to assure himself that the situation was under control, he was frightened by Bella's silence. He wondered what could have hurt her so badly that she could not even speak of it.
And Rosalie.
Edward's most frustrating sister was the balm to his wounds for once. Rosalie had never even considered the option that Bella could be family, but that was before Edward went to the Volturi. Bella had been nothing but a teenage human, something temporary.
Rosalie knew that her family was strong, but now she had seen how they were affected by the loss of Bella. In the months they had been away from Forks, Rosalie had bitterly wondered if her family might not survive the loss of this human girl. She knew now that Edward wouldn't survive it.
Bella had brought her brother back to her. She had saved Edward's life.
Rosalie had found herself wondering if Bella could become family ever since. She still wasn't sure, but she knew Bella was a good person.
She had previously thought her to be untouched by the evil realities of the world, untested, but Rose had been forced to reconsider. She was impressed at what Bella had overcome and determined that Bella's scars wouldn't hurt her anymore. His sister had already added up the evidence, and the answer she got didn't point to anything good. Still, whatever Bella asked, Rosalie had her back.
When they reached the house, Carlisle and Esme were waiting for them on the patio. Edward watched as they took in their children's faces. Esme's hand flew to her mouth at the thought that her children looked as though someone had died. Carlisle's mental question was urgent, overlaid with Esme's desperate inquiry.
Edward, what's happened?
Is Bella okay?
Edward had to swallow before he answered, his mind whirling into high gear at the sound of his parents' thought-speak. "I don't know. I...I don't think so, Esme. I don't think Bella is okay at all. There are some new students at school. Bella got in a fight with them."
"Does she need medical attention?"
Jasper chimed in now. "We didn't see it. No one did. Bella must've been the one to pull the fire alarm. When we got outside, the three new kids had her trapped against the school wall, and there was evidence of a struggle by her truck. Edward found her backpack. She was injured."
Alice spoke now. "She wouldn't speak to us. She just got in her truck and left. Edward let her leave."
Alice shot him a serious look. "Why did you let her leave, Edward?"
"I..." Edward was frustrated by that himself. He should have held on to her, should've demanded answers and shaken her until she had spoken. But there had been something in her eyes, some strange emotion that had spread to infect Edward. Bella was on a razor-wire with the world on her shoulders, and Edward had no idea why it was true, only that it was. Hehad been determined not to push her off balance, suddenly keenly aware of her fragility.
He shrugged and answered as honestly as he could. "She needed me to."
Emmett snorted at him, but Edward only had eyes for Carlisle's reaction. He was in desperate need of his father's counsel. Carlisle nodded at him and cocked his head towards the house. Esme shooed everyone into the living room as Edward followed his maker into the study.
There was a routine to this.
The door clicked closed behind them, and Carlisle crossed to the desk, laying his hands on the surface with his fingers crossed like a praying man. Edward crossed to the window, looking out at the cloudy field around their home with his hands clasped behind his back, trying desperately to find clarity. It was starting to rain.
Carlisle did not speak, merely opened his thoughts to Edward like a flower unfurling its petals. Edward spoke his mind, watching his father's thoughts closely for his reactions. He ran a shaking hand through his hair.
"Bella hasn't been honest with me. With us."
Carlisle recalled all the lies that Edward had told through the years, all the lies all of them had told. He remembered the one time they had told the truth. They had told the truth to Bella: the clever human with the doe-brown eyes who had enchanted his son. He felt the betrayal of that irony.
But Carlisle wasn't angry at Bella for her mistrust, and neither was Edward. They were disappointed, but they both knew the cost that weaving secrets could have and how difficult it was to break down those walls.
His father considered the cost of the trauma that would surely accompany the injuries in Bella's file, the urgency that kind of pain added to the need to keep the secret. That thought turned him to the new threat that had injured her today. Why had Bella kept her secrets? Was there still a threat, and if so, how had it found his human daughter?
"I think...Carlisle, I'm worried for her. She said something, when she was leaving. "You have no concept of what you have done." She's pushing us away, trying to protect us from what's going on here. It's something big. There is no natural threat that could take out seven vampires. Whatever she's hiding, she's convinced it could hurt us."
Edward began to pace.
"She knows what we are. She's trusted us to protect her before, seen up close the damage a vampire can do. Alice can't See what's going on, can't read Bella's future or any of ours. Something is blocking her. And those three new kids: there's something not quite normal about them. They have the physiological signs, but there is something we're missing. There's something powerful about them. And sometimes...sometimes there is that same something...in Bella."
Edward hadn't known that was true until he spoke it aloud, but he knew it now. A thousand moments flashed through his mind- moments when Bella didn't react as a normal teenager should, moments of strange pauses around her friends, like it had taken her a moment to figure out what to say. There were moments of unnatural stillness as she slept, strange silences where there should have been simple answers. She held herself just slightly differently from those around her. Even when her life was threatened, Bella always stayed calm, as though she had an ace in her pocket. And of course, her silent mind.
Are you saying you believe the threat to be supernatural?
Edward didn't try to keep his surprise and shock from his voice. "Yes."
His father accepted his certainty with caution. Carlisle had lived a very long time, seen a great many impossible things come true. But even as his father allowed for the possibility that Bella was more than human, he dismissed its relevance. Bella was herself, even if she was hiding something, and Bella was precious. Edward's father redirected his thoughts to Bella's self-enforced distance from them.
She hasn't left, Edward. I agree that Bella believes there to be a threat against us, but I worry she has not considered her own safety. She has a history of self-sacrifice.
"Don't remind me. I've never seen her so frightened, so on edge. Not even when she told me she knew what I was."
A terrible thought occurred to Edward. "What if she's already left, Carlisle? What if she's leaving right now? What if I let her go, and she's taken off? What if those men have found her?"
Then we will find her and stop them. The thought rang with his father's certainty.
Something sharp and possessive reared its head inside Edward. "Yes. We will. I can't let her go, Carlisle. I won't. I will follow her to the ends of the earth. I don't care what her secrets are, or whether she trusts me with them. I don't care about the danger. I love her. I will protect her, and I'm not going to let her go."
Carlisle's mind rippled his approval. It's decided, then. You are not the only one who loves her in this family, Edward, and she cares for us, too. We will figure this out. His father spoke aloud so that the whole family could hear.
"She has faith in us, son. We will have faith in her. Whatever it is, she is on the right side of it. We will remain patient. Bella will explain, in her time."
The Cullens were so focused inward to Carlisle and Edward's conversation, they had missed the sounds of someone approaching until there was a knock at the door.
