I stare at the three of them staring back at me. None of them are speaking, just staring. I tilt my head to the side taking in their appearance, they all look slightly similar but at the same time so very different. They all have pale white skin, honey-colored eyes, perfect angular features, Carlisle, looks like what I'd picture an angel to look like. Wavy blonde hair that falls into his eyes, smooth blemish free skin, similar to mine. His nose is straight and angles down slightly. His red lips cover his sharp looking straight white teeth.
Esme has long flowing auburn hair, the same blemish free smooth skin other than the freckle under her left eye. She has a gentle smile on her face, and I smile back. She seems so kind, so motherly. I turn my gaze to the other male in the room who had to be Edward. There isn't really much to say on his appearance, yeah, he's good looking, but nothing special, other than the angry, frustrated look that he has on his face. I tilt my head curiously at him, but that only serves to make him even angrier.
"Sweetheart, can you remember what happened?" Carlisle asks, I look back at him, into his kind warm eyes. The memories flash through my head, my clothes being ripped from me, being thrown against the wall, my intimate areas being ripped through, too many hands on me. My fiancé hurting me in a way no one that loves you should ever hurt you. I shake my head quickly trying to banish the thoughts from my mind.
"My, my," I whisper, my lip trembling as I try to hold in my sobs, bringing my hands up to cover my face. I feel arms around me suddenly, looking up I see Esme hugging me from the side.
"It's okay sweetie, you're safe now." She smooths down my hair, calming me down enough to continue.
"My fiancé and his friends, they did this, they, they raped me…" I whisper, a noise comes from all of them, it sounds almost like a growl. "But raping me wasn't enough." I continue to tell them in detail of everything that of what happened. Esme sobs with me through every horrifying detail. "How? How am I still alive, I should be dead right now?"
"Sweetheart, this will be shocking to hear, and you will most likely not believe me, but everything I am going to tell you is the complete truth." Carlisle says, and I know deep in my bones that he isn't lying. Fear suddenly goes through me; I also know that I'm not going to like what he has to say. "You have to understand that it was the only thing that I could do to save you, to ensure that you would live."
"If that's what you call this…" Edward mumbles.
"You're, we're all vampires. Our hearts no longer beat, no longer pumps blood through our veins. We are incredibly strong and fast, we no longer have a need to breath, a need to eat food or drink. Our bodies will remain always like this, always frozen we do not age and we cannot reproduce, and you can never see your family again." Carlisle says softly, sadness etched on his beautiful face.
"Mom and daddy? I-I can't have babies?" I whisper, bringing my hands to cradle my flat, empty stomach.
"No, I'm so sorry!" He says with sadness and finality coloring his voice. I drop to my knees and wrap my arms around my stomach. A sound like I never made comes from deep within my body. A sound like devastation, like the deafening quiet of a graveyard, a sound like the knock on a door to the mother of a fallen soldier. I think of Betty, my sweet best friend Betty, her belly, beautiful and round, heavy with her soon-to-be-born baby, how I'll never know the pleasure and unconditional love of having a baby of my own. My cries of despair turn to screams and then to growling. I leap to my feet and focus my eyes on the three vampires in front of me, the vampires that did this to me. Esme is closest to me, the look of complete sadness and heartbreak on her face, Carlisle has one hand outstretched toward Esme and one towards me, Edward is tense and looks like he's prepared to fight.
"Why?" I whisper, all my anger leaving me, Carlisle and Edward relax their tense poses, Carlisle more than Edward.
"Sweetie, I-.."
"Why did you do this to me!" I scream, my voice shattering one of the windows. "Why didn't you just let me die?" I sob, the urge run takes over and suddenly I'm out the door and in the middle of a forest, I continue to run, not knowing where I'm going, I just run until I reach the edge of town, the street lights dimly light the pavement, it must be very late at night as I can hear most people sleeping. I walk aimlessly through the vacant streets until I'm in a familiar area.
I walk slowly through the familiar street until I recognize the building in front of me. My head tilts the right, trying to recall the memory of the large three-story brown stone. I read the plaque near the door, 'Mayor Swan'. "Daddy." I whisper to myself. I look up at the building and see a window open with a dim light on. My memories start flooding in as I look at the open window, I had left it open to air out my room, which had been smelling of to much perfume. I stare at the window, desperately wanting to be in my room.
My body automatically crouches, poise to jump and I'm standing in the middle of my bedroom. Everything is exactly how I left it, from my fur coat draped over my chaise lounge down to my long-forgotten half drank tea, set on top of my bedside table. Rustling on my bed draws my attention. My mom is curled like a baby, clutching the replica doll of me that daddy had bought me for my fifteenth birthday three years ago, tear stains are streaked down her face. I cover my mouth as not to let out the sob building in my chest. I turn and walk out my room, into the hall and down the stairs to the second floor where daddy's office is. The door is ajar, and the lights are out except for the dying fire, but I can see just fine without the proper lighting. Daddy in laying passed out on his office couch, in one of his hands that's hanging off the couch is a half empty whiskey bottle, his other hand is laying on his chest, near his heart is a broken string of red pearls. No not red pearls, a broken string of pearls stained with dried blood, my blood, my pearls.
"Oh daddy, I'm so sorry." I sob a little to loudly and he sits up and looks around, but I'm already long gone out off the room making my way back into my room.
"Bells?" I hear daddy whisper brokenly from his office. I pause at the window as a slight gleam catches my eye, causing me to look down at my window bench. My white leather-bound diary with an emerald stone lock. I gently pick it up and clutch it to my chest. Looking back at mom and listening to daddy's heavy footsteps bound up the stairs towards my room, I close my eyes and whisper I love you, holding in my cry's and jumping out the window and onto the street below. I hide behind the street statue across the street from my family's home and watch as mom and daddy rush to the window to look out. "I swear, I could feel her, like she was in the room with me, crying out to me." Daddy cry's, mom tucks herself under daddy's arm and hugs her body to his, silent tears cascade down the thin face.
"Our baby is gone honey, with the amount of blood they found at the scene, there was no way anyone could have survived, she's gone my love." With those last words, they move from the window, turn off my small reading lamp and shut the door behind them, accepting that they'll never see me again.
"I'll never see them again." I say, staring at the now darkened window of my old life, a life that was so good to me, so full of light and unconditional love and joy.
"Not for the rest of their lifetime. You'll outlive everyone you know by hundreds, if not thousands of years. I am so deeply sorry to bring you into this immortal, unchanging life. I promise, I only wanted to help you, to help you live." Carlisle says softly, from beside me. I turn to look at him, the kind soft spoken vampire that kept me from dying. Guilt course through me as I recall the way in which I had spoken to him. I had been the one to ask to be saved, for his help.
"You have nothing to be sorry for Carlisle, it was I who had asked to be saved, I knew I was going to die, I knew you were something different. I had felt the instinctual danger in my body when you appeared before me. I knew you were something not natural, but I asked, and there is no going back now, what's done is done, it's not like I'm going to asks you to kill me now that I'm alive. Despite what I said earlier, I do indeed want to live, and I apologize for what I said and for the way I behaved, that was unlike me." I say meekly, looking down at my hands in shame.
"Sweetheart," he starts, when I don't respond, he places his hand gently under my chin and lifts my face, so that my watery eyes meet his. "You have absolutely no need to apologize to me or anyone else, your actions were completely justifiable and understandable" he says so gently that it brings tears to my eyes, I look down, still ashamed and he brings his other hand up and frames my face with both of his hands. "There is no need to be ashamed, you're aloud to be angry, as was I when I first became a vampire."
"I'm scared." I whisper and he brings me into his arms, into a hug that reminds me of my dad, and I sob quietly into his chest.
"Oh sweetie, I know you are but Esme, Edward and I will always be right there to guide you and make you feel safe, we'll be your family." He says, smoothing a hand down my hair comfortingly. I just continue to sob until I pull back from him abruptly.
"Why can't I cry?" I ask hysterically with a wobbly voice that shows I've been crying but no tears have fallen. He lets out a soft laugh as he pulls away from me completely.
"We as vampires cannot cry, we do not eat or have normal human bodily functions, nor do we sleep." I stare at him in shock. No sleep? So there is no temporary escape from all this? "Lets head back to the house, I'm sure you must be starving, you showed remarkable restraint whilst around your parents, I've never seen anything like that from a newborn vampire. You have amazing self-control, but I don't want to push your limits so let's get you fed." He starts to guide me back down the street, the way I had come, but I stop again and shake my head.
"I-I don't want to hurt people Carlisle." I say softly, the idea of hurting an innocent person just does not sit well with me.
"We my family and I, do not hurt people. We survive off the blood of animals. We'll teach you sweetie." He continues the journey back to the house I woke up in at a normal human pace, which I enjoy. I'm not in a rush to be back at the house yet.
"I'm Isabella Swan by the way, everyone calls me Bell-… you guys can call me Bella." I stutter, I'll never see anyone human that calls me Bella again.
"I'm glad to meet you Bella." And we continue walking.