Chapter 8
Manhandling
I turned slowly and opened my mouth to say something when the door to her room flew open. Stefan, Caroline, and another man rushed into the room and the man, who looked older than the rest of the group, pinned me to the nearby wall.
"Okay, let's not put a hole through my wall, Damon." Bella's voice barely registered in my head since I was looking at a man whose mysterious death I had been trying to solve for the past 3 weeks.
"You?" I was stunned. "How are you alive?"
"I am a vampire, what's your excuse?"
EXCUSE ME?! What the hell was going on here? How dare he use that word as a joke? Vampires…Vampires are blood-thirsty murderous creatures who can't go into the sunlight. Our hearts aren't beating, our veins are filled with the deadliest form of venom, and most importantly we KILL to stay alive!
"Why so quiet pretty boy?" Someone asked a question, but I couldn't tell who it was. My mind was fixed on solving the biggest problem I faced in what seemed like my entire existence.
Why would he lie about being a vampire? Why would anyone lie about that? Why would he even say that? Why vampire? Did he know something? Was he trying to provoke me? If he was, it was working.
I pushed him away from me, which I was surprised took a lot of strength to do, and looked around the room in confusion. Caroline had a perplexed scared look on her face, and Stefan was pushing her behind him with one of his arms. The look on my desk partner's face was concerned as it flounced from his brother to me. Damon looked outright murderous and angry. His lips were pierced together, blue eyes never darting away from my face, fists clenched on his sides.
And Bella. My beautiful angel, my sweet and kind angel, was looking at her hands. I felt hurt, I did this to her, invaded her privacy, and got into her room like the creepy stalker I was.
"I'm so sorry." I barely whispered to her.
And it was like she heard me, Bella looked up at me. Her eyes were watery and I felt like someone just punched a hole in my chest. I did this to her. I made her cry. Again.
"I will leave and you never have to see me again," I spoke loud enough for her to hear even though each word broke me in more ways than I could count.
"What?!" Damon yelled. "You come spying on my little sister and think I will just let you go? No, buddy, this isn't how it works."
The dark-haired man, whom I believed to be dead for the past three weeks turned out to be sarcastic and eccentric. There were a lot of hand movements during his speech.
"Dae," Bella spoke quietly.
"No, Ara! A man sneaked into your bedroom while you were sleeping! I demand to know what he was planning to do. Actually, I demand to know a lot of things. What kind of creature doesn't have a fricking heartbeat, huh? You don't smell dead, yet can I kill you?"
I looked at Bella again, knowing she wanted to know the answers to those questions as well. Oh, why in the world did I listen to Alice tonight? How could she not see this?
"I can't answer that question. Believe me…" I spoke directly to Bella now. "...it's for your own protection. I can't let anything bad happen to you, I can't be the cause of your…" I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Let me be the judge of that." Bella stood up from her bed now. Her eyes were fixed on me, not letting any movement in her peripheral vision distract her.
"I'm talking about life or death, Bella. I can't risk…"
"Shut up, Edward!" Bella snapped. She raised a pointy finger to my face. "I'm not going to debate this anymore! I can protect myself, and my family and friends can protect themselves! If you are going as far as sneaking in my bedroom when I'm asleep, I think it's time you stop worrying about my safety and spill the damn truth already!"
She put her arms in the air in a fit of frustration, her eyebrows shot up and she kept screaming. I could clearly see the resemblance between her and Damon at that moment.
"I mean for god's sake Edward, you snuck into my bedroom while I was sleeping! That kind of eliminates the conversation we had tonight. If you have such a need to intrude into my personal life, the least I get to have is the truth about you! You owe me some kind of information! Not even mentioning the fact that thanks to my idiotic big brother you already know what we are!"
I felt my own eyebrows furrow in confusion and I glanced at Damon, who looked just as murderous and angry. Stefan's and Caroline's faces were a little more relaxed than the last time I looked at them, but they didn't seem to find Bella's words confusing or funny.
"What the hell are you talking about? Damon said he was a vampire." I blurted out completely confused. What kind of ruse was this? "That's absurd, he can't be a vampire!"
"Want me to prove it, pretty boy?" The man took a step forward me, so our heads were almost touching.
"It's not absurd!" Bella cut Damon off, pushing him aside and rolling her eyes. "We are all vampires." She pointed at herself and her friends.
I heard a laughter ring in the air, and I didn't realize it was my own until three seconds after. Was this what humans called a mental breakdown?
"What's so funny?" Stefan spoke for the first time.
"You…You're all vampires?" I pointed around the room and felt my laughter quiet down. "All of you?"
"Yes," Caroline answered and straightened herself behind Stefan.
"Vampires with heartbeats and soft skin. Vampires who can go into the sun." I spoke way too fast to sound like I wasn't experiencing an existential crisis. "Vampires with normal eyes with an ability to sleep and consume food."
"Your point?" Damon cut me off.
"Vampires don't…That's a description of a human, not a vampire." I shook my head frantically, the previous mad laugh escaping my lips again.
"Edward." Bella took my hand in hers. "You're freaking out."
"Of course, I'm freaking out! You all really believe yourselves to be vampires?!"
"I was born in 1841 and died at the age of 17 in 1858. I drink blood to survive. What else would you call me?" Bella spoke quietly. "We might not look like your typical description of Dracula or sleep in the coffins, but the stories are pretty far away from the truth."
"Did Alice put you up to this?" I asked even more confused. What kind of joke was it?
And then something changed. Bella rolled her eyes and looked at me. She hissed...as in actually hissed. Just like I hiss at Emmett at times. Her mouth opened and instead of perfectly straight-lined teeth, she had fangs sticking out. Her eyes turned black, with a clear redness to them, her chocolate brown color was completely erased. Slick black veins popped out around her eyesockets, traveling down to her cheeks. And she was still the most beautiful creature I've ever seen in my life.
"Believe me now?"
I never thought I would say this as a restless vampire, but I felt like I needed to sit down.
"That's…That's impossible," I mumbled quietly. I instinctively reached my hand to Bella's face, my fingers traveling up her cheeks. I could feel the blood pumping to her eyes in those slick black veins. In a second, they were gone, as though nothing ever happened. "How is that…"
"We can control it, helps us stay hidden, protected."
"There must be another explanation to this…" I took my hand from Bella's face unwillingly and pushed it through my hair.
"Why is this so hard to believe?" Bella asked impatiently. "I mean what do I need to do to make you believe me, Edward? Tell Damon to bring me a blood bag from the fridge?"
"No!" I protested immediately, feeling that Bella was probably not lying about having blood bags in the fridge.
"Then what? What do I need to do? I've been nothing but honest with you this entire evening! Why is it so hard for you to believe me?"
"Because I am a vampire!" I blurted out frustratingly. "I am the soulless dead monster, not you!"
I took her stunned expression as an opportunity to prove my point. I took her hand and placed it on my chest.
"My skin is cold and stone-like, indestructible to anyone but my kind. My heart stopped beating the moment I became a vampire. I don't bleed, I don't have to breathe or sleep. I can't gain weight, can't eat or drink, can't show myself in sunlight. The only thing keeping me alive is blood." I took a breath and continued. "My family, we are different than the others, we only drink from animals, hence the yellow eyes."
"I am going to need a lot of bourbon for this." Damon sighed and I saw him moving toward Bella's nightstand.
"So, wait...You…You're a vampire too?" Caroline asked unsure.
"What are you thinking about, Bella?" I asked concerned, ignoring Caroline and still unable to release her hand from mine. "Please, I can't read your mind."
"I…I don't know what to say." Bella admitted and our eyes met again. "But I think I want to do something."
"Whatever you want." I pleaded. Please just don't send me away…I added in my head.
I was catching her every move. She blinked once and bit her lip before wrapping her second unoccupied arm to the collar of my shirt and standing up on her tiptoes. I could feel her breath on my lips for less than a second before she closed the distance and our lips met. It felt better than I could have imagined it. Her full lips were soft and warm on mine, and her heartbeat intensified, I released a hold of her hand and put both of mine on her cheeks, pushing her face closer to mine.
"Thank you for being honest with me," Bella spoke when her lips were free again. A soft rouge blush looked very cute on her cheeks. It suited her. I probably looked like a total fool, I could feel my beaming smile on my own face.
"Oh, my eyes!" Stefan interrupted loudly. "Can you save the smooching for later?"
I ignored him. All I could think about was her. Bella didn't send me away, didn't run screaming, she accepted the truth and kissed me. She kissed me. And even though I had about a billion questions running in my head right now, I couldn't worry less about this situation at that moment.
"I had to watch you kissing Elena. Oh, and Damon too after. And then you again, and then Damon again. Sometimes it was a lot more than just smooching..."
"Fine, fine." Stefan raised his hands in the air.
"You know I just adore romcoms, sis." Damon's voice got me out of my little world where only Bella and I existed. The not-dead-anymore guy was putting two fingers to his mouth, and making puking sounds now. "But can we talk about this 'you're a vampire' - 'no I'm a vampire' situation?"
"Um…Yeah, right." Bella sighed and looked away from me, but I was relieved when she placed her hand in mine and led me to the other side of her bed.
"So, pretty boy, tell me your sad story."
"My sad story?" I asked.
"He means…" Stefan cleared his throat. "Noone who ever became a vampire has a happy one."
"I'll bring more booze, this is going to be a long night." Caroline huffed and swished downstairs. She was fast, really fast. I wondered how fast these…vampires were. How strong?
"I was born in 1901 in Chicago. The Spanish influenza took both of my parents and I was about to follow them. Carlisle was working at the hospital. He was alone for such a long time, he thought about finding a companion for a while then, so he snuck me out of the hospital in the middle of the night and bit me once we were in his house." I shrugged my shoulders.
"And your kind of vampires, what's the difference between us?" Stefan asked, accepting a drink from Caroline. She offered me one too and I snorted.
"Well, for once, any human drink or food smells disgusting and we can't keep it down. So I will have to refuse your drink, Caroline, sorry."
"More for me." The girl nodded and chugged the liquid. She released a heavy sigh and I looked questioningly at Bella. "So what's the story about your kind of vampires behaving like alcoholics?"
"It helps with the thirst, we burn alcohol much faster than humans, so we can have a lot without feeling the effects," Bella explained and took her own glass.
"And blood bags? That's how you guys feed?" I asked astonished. Just the thought of stale refrigerated blood sort of made me queasy.
"Not all of us, but those who try not to put themselves on a human radar or those who have issues with…human blood, they do," Caroline answered for Bella, she glanced at Stefan toward the end of her sentence.
"So what's your story?" I asked Bella.
"That's not how it works!" Damon protested. "We aren't having a dialog or a discussion here. I ask you questions and then you answer them. There…"
"That sounds like a clear definition of a dialogue to me." I couldn't help but point out.
"Don't get on my nerves, pretty boy."
"Dae…" Bella warned. "We are all friends here."
Damon chuckled once and looked over the room. "You hate Caroline, Stefan is still mad at me because the love of his life was the first doppelganger not to choose him, oh and Blondie once told me that calling me a Satan would be an insult to Satan."
"Well, no one's perfect." Bella shrugged. "And I don't hate Caroline, she's just too bright and shiny and sometimes just outright annoying."
"No offense taken." Caroline rolled her eyes and then turned to me. "You said yellow eyes, I assume there is also red?"
"Those who drink from humans, yes. Besides my family, there is only one other coven like us, who live a more humane life." I pointed out.
"Why does your family abstain?" Stefan asked.
"Carlisle is a doctor in this life, in his old one he was a priest's son. Don't kill is a rule in both. His compassion and kindness lead us. And I don't want to be a murderer." …anymore. I added to myself.
"Well, noone is talking about killing, just feeding." Caroline corrected herself and I looked around the room.
"You feed without killing?" I asked stunned.
"You don't?" Stefan's voice was almost hopeful. I couldn't say I understood that emotion. God, not being able to read thoughts was hard.
"No," I spoke after a second. "When we smell blood it takes over us. For those of us who abstain from the human diet, it's easier. We can live in a society, have jobs, and go to school. But most other vampires are nomadic, traveling from city to city."
I realized I was going off-topic now, so I switched back.
"If we bite…It's almost impossible to stop. My family, we go away for our hunting trips, when the hunt starts, when we get the taste for blood, just the smell of it puts us over the edge."
Caroline and Bella looked over at Stefan again. What was it about?
"We don't have that." Bella started. "Most of us don't have it. It's hard for the newbies, but it passes with a little time. Our own blood has healing properties, so we can also feed it to the humans to help them recover quicker."
"What?"
"I know" Bella chuckled. "It's weird, but true. Not many of us would risk it though. If the human dies with vampire venom in their system, they become vampires themselves. Of course, they have about a day to decide whether they want to go ahead with the transition first."
"Decide?" I felt a tinge of pain, remembering Rosalie's reaction when she opened her eyes for the first time.
"They have to drink human blood. If they do, they become vampires, if they don't - they die."
"And you all decided you wanted to be…"
"Everyone here has a different story." Bella looked uncomfortable between her brothers. "I am going to tell you mine when we get some alone time."
I squeezed her hand in mine. I would really like to be alone with her right now.
"Can we get this over with already? Ara will tell you about us on her own time. For right now all I need is information about you." Damon huffed. "Simple answers, no follow-up questions, unless they come from me."
"Since when are you the leader of this group?" Bella chuckled.
"I'm the oldest." Damon winked.
"I'm still stronger than you." Bella winked back.
I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Damon shook his head at me. Fine, later then.
"You are strong, probably stronger than I am, since you pushed me away so easily. Does it depend on your age?"
"Newborns are stronger, we lose it with age."
"Huh…Speed?"
"I'm faster than others I've met, but others are really fast as well."
"Endurance?"
"Unlimited. We don't feel the need to rest."
"Sight?"
"I can see mold developing under that window seal." I pointed to my right at Bella's window.
"Really?" Bella asked, following my directions.
"No follow-up questions unless they come from me." Damon reminded. "Night vision?"
"Yep."
"Limitations?"
"Well, sunlight and the smell of human blood."
"So no holy water or garlic or…crosses?" He asked the last one unsurely, as though he was trying to remember vampire mythology.
"No." I laughed.
"And other abilities? You guys read thoughts, that I already concluded."
"Well, I read thoughts." I corrected. "Carlisle believes our special abilities come from something that we were good at during our human life. In my case, he thinks I was very perceptive of others, so the transformation enhanced this ability."
"And how does it work?"
"Like a constant noise in my head?" I shrugged, feeling both angry and relaxed in the quiet room. I relied on my gift too much to not find it incredibly irritating when it was gone. "I can't turn it off, but for some reason, it doesn't work on your kind and Bonnie is able to block me and kick me out of her head."
"Bon-bon one, pretty boy zero." Damon snorted. "What kind of other abilities can your kind have?"
"Um…It really varies. Alice can see fragments of the future, and Jasper can feel and alter emotions. I know a woman who can make you feel like you're being electrocuted just by touching your skin."
"Huh…" Damon spoke and took another sip. "What's that danger that kept you from spilling your secret?"
"There is a coven of vampires in Italy, they're sort of royalty to our kind, the rulers and protectors of our secret. We call them the Volturi. Marcus, Caius, and Aro. They have an army of professionally trained bodyguards, most with the rarest and most important gifts. They make sure humans never get to know about us. They destroy the vampires who let the secret slip, end coven wars, and make sure the humans who found out the secret don't get to tell others."
"So you did have a reason to keep us in the dark," Stefan muttered.
"Volturi?" Bella flinched. "I've heard that before."
"When?" Damon huffed.
"Elijah. Remember I told you he had a secret club for vampires whom he liked? The one he turned himself because they have an appreciation for music, art, that sort of thing?"
"So?"
"So I snuck into one of the club parties with Kol once. Some European with crazy hair was talking about this great city of Volterra, Italy, and how he was nearly circumcised for trying to feed in its walls. He said, "The Volturi let me go with a warning, but I'm sure as hell never trying that again."
"They do protect their city from blood-spill." I agreed. "When they need blood, the tourists from outside are offered a special tour around their palace."
I cringed, that was barbaric, even for vampires.
"That's sick." Caroline cringed.
"Wait," I spoke suddenly realizing. "The Volturi know about you?"
"I don't know that man very well, but Elijah seemed to be fond of him and I've always trusted his judgment." Bella sighed.
"Who is this Elijah?" I asked feeling a tinge of jealousy.
"The most boring vampire in the world." Damon snickered.
"Damon…" Bella sighed and then looked at me. "I'll explain later."
"I think I need to talk to my family about this." I rubbed my thumb on her hand. "Carlisle would probably want to hear about your kind as well, he is very curious about anything new."
"You're leaving?" Bella spoke with sadness in her voice and I tried so hard not to feel happy that she was sad I had to go.
"I should let you get some sleep." I gave her a half-smile, not wanting to leave her side either.
"Phhh. Who needs sleep?" Bella snorted.
"You…do?" I asked unsure, after all, I barely knew anything about her.
"We do need it, but we can go days without it," Stefan explained.
"It helps pass the time, so we do tend to go to bed every night," Caroline added.
"Would you like to come with me then?" I asked Bella, hoping my direct question would be seen as an invitation to only herself.
"I would love to." Bella smiled and winked. "Race ya?"
I suddenly stopped feeling her hand in mine and watched as she quickly moved to her window and smiled at me again before she jumped.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I spoke to Stefan. "Bye Caroline."
I decided against speaking directly to Damon. It seemed like the man had issues, and not only with me.
"See ya." I heard Stefan and Caroline's voices, but I was already gone.
Catching up to Bella was no problem, her restless heart rate and scent made it pretty easy. She looked absolutely breathtaking in the dark. Her pale skin and dark hair mixed with a little blush from running made me think she was the real Snow White, especially paired up with the setting around us. The quiet dark forest, the leaves that were slowly starting to fall down already. Even if some bird decided to land on Bella's shoulder right that moment I wouldn't be surprised, she looked so magical already.
"You're matching my pace." She noted with a frown.
"I want to be running with you, not away from you," I smirked and noticed her blushing increased.
I was never a flirtatious person, to be completely fair, I didn't even have enough experience to know if what I said could be considered flirting. I shook my insecurity out of my head. Whatever I was doing, Bella seemed to like it and it was all that mattered.
"I can smell your scent in the woods, have you been using this trail a lot?" She asked, not angrily, as I happily noticed, just curiously.
"I don't have the ability to stay away from you," I told the truth and let my eyes fall to the ground.
"So you're stalking me?" She asked with a tint of glee in her voice. I felt her hand wrap around my own and our fingers intertwined. I looked up at the gorgeous woman in front of me, Bella was smiling. "I kind of find it sweet."
"Bella when a strange man with no pulse tells you he's stalking you, you shouldn't be finding it sweet," I suggested eagerly.
"Well, when the man with no pulse turns out to be this great guy whom I like a lot, I think I'm in the right to find it sweet." She chuckled. "I'd be stalking you too if I didn't have a heartbeat."
"And what if I told you I've been stalking you before I knew where you lived?" I asked.
"How?"
"I went for a run one night and came across your scent, it led me to your house."
"Is that a normal thing for you? Running around the forest tracking things with your scent?" Bella outright laughed and I couldn't help it myself.
"I was just breathing, you know how it is." I tried to correct her.
"Oh." She furrowed her eyebrows. "It only has to be that intense when we are young. As we grow older we can sort of turn it off and just smell things that are around us at that moment. It's still better than humans, the scent I mean, but we only have to pump up the intensity when we want it."
"Is it the same with everything?" I asked surprised.
"Pretty much. You seem to have control over your speed and strength, don't you?"
"Yeah, but not when it comes to the five senses. I can control my sense of smell, but only if I stop breathing. We do that when there's blood around." I explained.
"For how long can you hold your breath?" She asked amused. Her eyes glinted with curiosity.
"Indefinitely? Unless I need to talk of course, still need the air to do that." I chuckled.
We got to the house now and I stopped for a second, Bella caught her breath in a little less than 5 seconds and looked up at me.
"Bella, may I kiss you again?" I asked. "Before the same chaos that just happened in your house starts happening in mine?"
The most wonderful laugh rang in the air and Bella stepped closer to me. She put her hands on my shoulders and brought my head down to hers in one quick motion, which sort of took me a second to register. Never have I ever been so unexpectedly manhandled in my life.
"Yes, Edward, you may kiss me again," Bella whispered and I closed the distance between us.
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