'Now, that was more like it.' Jasper thought to himself. Edward was finally exhibiting emotions that were more appropriate for the situation. Pure, unyielding terror. Any trace of the smug, entitled aura he was exuding earlier, gone. Aro hadn't given any real indication on what he saw in Edward's memories, and Peter hadn't told him who had attacked Bella. While Jasper would want details, Major Whitlock was more than capable of putting two and two together.
The throne room had gone quiet, and it was then that Jasper realized he might have acted without thinking. He had just attacked several members of the Volturi guard, unprovoked. Surely, there was some kind of law against that…? He took his eyes off of Edward knowing he wasn't going anywhere, and met Aro's eyes. He gave a half-hearted shrug of apology and Aro couldn't hold it against him. He didn't want to envision what he would do in such a situation, because to Aro, such a situation would never happen. He put protection on his mate for this very reason. It had seemed like Major Whitlock had tried to do the same… He felt pity for the younger vampire, so powerful but so helpless at the same time.
It took every bit of self restraint Aro had not to look at Marcus in that moment. Aro regretted one thing in his long life, his sister's death. Aro realized then that he could not suffer Edward Cullen to live.
"I had hoped to retain Edward Cullen's services with the guard..." Aro started, his voice a swift end to the silence that had filled the spacious throne room. "However, after seeing the lengths he went through to cover his tracks after his calculated assault on Major Whitlock's mate, just for the satisfaction of her blood..." Aro had intended to let the sentence hang there dramatically, and Jasper might have let him finish. Major Whitlock however, had waited long enough and the barest hint of permission was all he needed to extract his revenge on his younger coven member.
In the blink of an eye, Jasper had cleared the several feet between him and Edward, and proceeded to travel them both another several yards before slamming Edward into the ancient stone walls of Volterra. The stone cracking, making Aro wince. He knew how irreplaceable that stone was, the quarry it was quarried from over a thousand years ago, is underwater. When they finally managed to bring stone to the surface, the prolonged water exposure had changed the quality and color. It no longer had the visual consistency Aro desired and he had been searching for a proper replacement for centuries. It had been a laborious and fruitless endeavor, only furthering to remind Aro that the passage of time moved faster for humans than vampires. He took great care in preserving the past.
Jasper pulled Edward away from the wall and shoved him back into it. The stone crumbling under the repeated assault, bits of stone splintering away and scattering on the floor in a soft twinkle. He wanted answers, and from the traitor's own mouth. He didn't believe that Aro would lie, especially when he knew Aro's desire to have Edward in his collection. Jasper considered then that Aro might have lied, if it had been another vampire standing before him against Edward. Jasper would have known if he lied, he would have felt his dishonesty before he heard it in his words.
"You've pilfered through my private thoughts, you've seen first hand my memories of the wars. The things I've done just for land." Jasper all but spat the words out, venom spewing from his furious mouth and splattering on Edward's stunned face. Edward had no trouble seeing those things now, Jasper was taking care to remind him. The stone walls and the surprised faces of the gathered vampires faded from Edward's vision, replaced by a time and a place he had never been.
"Tell me, did you really expect a different outcome?" Jasper didn't need him to answer, he knew full well the conceited little prick expected to get away with it, like he had all those other women he had killed during his time away from Carlisle's watchful eye. Everyone knew where he had been, and what he had been doing. His newly bright amber eyes fooling no one. Yet, Carlisle always welcomed him back as if he never left.
"How long have you known she was mine?" Jasper asked, his grip on Edward's upper shoulders tightening to a threatening level.
Still, the telepath said nothing in the face of the empath's rage. Even as it coiled around Edward's mind like a snake, constricting him from acting in his own defense.
Edward's mind was reeling from the mental assault, unbeknownst to anyone but him and Jasper. The veteran of two of the three Southern Vampire wars was reminiscing about all of his most vicious attacks on humans and vampire alike. A time when a newborn under him had sex with another newborn Jasper had been sweet on and he left his torso in the desert to desiccate. Then he killed her for allowing it to happen. He needed his mate to be loyal and strong enough to defend herself, and she did neither. He reminded Edward that he couldn't even remember why he had been so intent on dismembering the vampire instead of killing him, and assumed he was still there buried under the sand and dirt. Edward had no idea what happened to a vampire's mind when that happened, and Jasper was sowing the garden of terror in the telepath's frantic thoughts.
The satisfaction of a good fight with a worthy adversary. Something Jasper didn't need to remind Edward that he was incapable of giving him. Even now, with all the reason in the world to fight back. To live. Edward did nothing. It frustrated Jasper more than he was willing to admit, and though Edward could hear his admission it did nothing to stem his blossoming anxiety keeping him immobile.
Jasper's mental assault was nothing new to Edward, it was how he got the telepath to quickly exit his thoughts, especially his more regretful moments he didn't care to share with anyone. The memories Jasper Whitlock intended to take to the grave. Edward had been both shocked and envious at Jasper's ability to kill without remorse, to drink from humans without the guilt that Edward had been raised with. So Jasper would pick at that wound when Edward would invade his privacy. It had been more half-heartedly cruel then, not intended to wound the younger vampire. Just teach him about manners and respecting boundaries.
Now - it was full of malice and promise. Visions of what could be Edward's fate. Edward still foolishly had a small glimmer of hope that Aro would speak in his defense, that his power of telepathy would be more valuable to him alive than dead. The vines in Jasper's garden grew and twisted around Edward's throat the longer Aro went without speaking on his behalf, choking him from being able to plead for his own life, if no one else would.
And no one would, not even Esme. Her own thoughts circled around Bella and her well being, her eyes shining with unshed tears. He had done something terrible to Bella and she didn't know what. She couldn't bear to lose another son, but Edward had always been Carlisle's. He never looked towards her as a maternal figure like the others had. He had always come first, and she couldn't help feeling horrible at the relief she felt that he wouldn't anymore.
"You are lucky I don't have time to take care of you properly." Jasper hissed, his eyes narrowed with anger and regret at not being able to flay the skin from his flesh. Would it grow back? Jasper had always wondered. He had all the time in the world. Edward gulped loudly then, briefly relieved that wouldn't be happening to him when Aro finally spoke.
"We could give you time, and hold him here until you can return with…" Major Whitlock was having none of that and kept Aro from continuing that line of thought. Bella would not be visiting Volterra, and this would be the last time he stepped foot in Europe, if he had any say about it.
"No. I will bring his head to my mate as a gift."
Throughout all of this Carlisle had said nothing, lost in his own thoughts of failure and ineptitude. Resigned with his failure as a coven leader and sire. He, like Edward, had been immobilized by his own mind's whirlwind of sorrow and regret. Memories cascading rapidly, all the times he failed Edward as a role model and as a sire. He was barely aware Edward's life was nearing its end, his wallow all encompassing.
Emmett and Rosalie stood stalwart side by side, hands clasped together as a unified front. Both worried about Bella and themselves, neither caring about Edward's fate. Emmett wishing he had disobeyed and stayed to look after Bella himself. He had a bad feeling about leaving her alone, and let everyone talk him out of staying. Not wanting to disobey his coven leader, or his mate.
Alice… It was almost like she was trying to disappear and escape notice by staying behind Emmett and Rosalie. As she managed to do when they first met James, despite his connection to her past. Alice hadn't realized that it was Jasper's gift keeping him from being noticed as a threat, and by extension, herself and Bella. Wanting to avoid any unnecessary conflict with the blood drinking nomads. Alice, like Jasper, had no intention of staying within Volterra's walls. She was too focused on her uncertain future to be concerned with the immediate present. Only Edward was in danger… for now.
Not a single one of Edward Cullen's coven mates spoke up in his defense, not even his sire. The only vampire alive who had any interest in the telepath's survival was Aro Volturi, and he cared nothing for the vampire. He just wanted his gift. However, Aro was less interested in keeping Edward Cullen alive than he was at appeasing Major Whitlock. Aro wouldn't admit it, but he was concerned at his very existence being confirmed. It was much better when such a powerful vampire was a myth. Especially after everyone just saw how ineffective the Volturi guard was against him. The guard Aro hand picked and trained over the last millenia. All those countless centuries finding gifted vampires and changing countless humans rumored to be witches and magicians… Completely wasted in the face of Major Whitlock's gift.
It was then Aro started wondering if his feelings towards Major Whitlock were his own? Was he being manipulated like he had done to countless others with Chelsea? Aro didn't know if the fear and trepidation he felt were real, it had been a long time since he had felt such things, so secure in his castle. Aro was suddenly uneasy, and confident that was his own feeling. Just how many vampires could he control at once, for how long, and at what distance? Aro was almost desperate to know the limitations of Major Whitlock's gift.
Jasper had given Edward plenty of time to plead for his own life. To apologize, explain what happened, to say anything in his defense at all. Not that it would have done himself any good. His future was set in stone. Yet Edward was silent in the twilight minutes of his life. Not because he was thinking about where he went wrong, or feeling some kind of emotion of regret.
Edward Cullen fully believed that he wouldn't die. So he was quiet, as not to dig himself any deeper and waited for someone to speak up on his behalf. As he had always escaped the consequences of his actions before, he felt this time would be no different. Carlisle never raised his offspring with the knowledge to know just how gravely Edward had fucked up.
Edward and James were a lot alike. It was why he fought so hard to keep Bella safe from James. He just played with his food a little differently this time, as Bella's silent mind was enthralling to Edward. If Edward regretted anything, it was not draining her immediately, her silent mind be damned.
Even as Jasper's fingers gorged holes in his skull and his vision was blinded by sharp white, he waited. His eyelids started to flutter rapidly as the pain behind his eyes grew. Any minute now, Aro would interrupt and tell Jasper that he was too valuable to kill. Even as the venom trickled down his hairline to his neck, dripping down and pooling on his shoulder. Not even when Jasper began to pull his head away, tearing the tendons and ligaments in his neck as his skin stretched taut and started making a horrific ripping sound, did Edward utter a word.
By then, had Edward the presence of mind outside of the incomprehensible pain to defend himself, it was impossible when his vocal chords were severed as his head fully, finally, detached from his body. His mind too incoherent to register the sound of his body hitting the floor with a loud thwump, a tangle of useless limbs.
.o.O.o.
Six hours.
It had been six hours since Charlie's next door neighbor, Mrs. Summers had watched Bella and her boyfriend walk into the woods one after another. She never saw either of them return. She apologized profusely for not calling Charlie, but she was in such a rush to get her laundry hanging out to dry inside, as the rain had started. Charlie feared the worst, for there had been brown bear sightings near town. He couldn't imagine why either of them would go into the woods, especially in such weather. With the rest of the Cullens gone, he had a pit in his stomach and a feeling in his gut that he would never see Bella again. Did she run away with them, like before?
When the sun set, making an already stormy dark day into an even blacker night, Billy insisted Charlie let his best tracker in after them, but alone. He promised the second he heard anything from them, he would call. Charlie had hesitated only a moment, but seeing how forceful Billy was he changed his mind before he had even made it up. Charlie would never say it to Billy and Harry's face, but he always believed there was something otherworldly about the Quileute tribe. So he let Sam Uley go into the woods alone, and told his men to go home. Only the men with young children ended up going home, the rest stayed to support their chief. Everyone wanted to know where Bella was, no one was focused on Edward Cullen. They went missing together, and some of them men wouldn't say it to Charlie's face, but they thought Edward was a suspect. When Charlie called off the search for the night due to the storm, a few had gone behind The Chief's back and went to the Cullen Mansion to check it out.
This whole situation made Charlie uneasy. The Cullens withdrawing their children from school first thing Monday morning, Carlisle resigning from the hospital with no notice, no forwarding address. Then Bella and their youngest son disappear for hours in the woods during a severe thunderstorm. Billy all but demanding on sending a single tracker in after them while everyone else waited around Charlie's house, useless. There had been some chatter about Prom night but Charlie hardly paid attention to high school gossip. He wished he had now. Something about Bella kissing another boy, but that sounded like Renee, not his daughter Bella.
Noticing a movement outside the bay window in the dining room, Charlie headed towards the open back door, and was about to push open the screen door and step outside when he heard hushed voices. He realized it was Harry Clearwater and Sam Uley.
"I didn't know what else to do, so I came back instead of following them." Sam sounded anxious to Charlie, not realizing that he had started listening with his cop ears.
"You did the right thing, there were many more of them than you. There was nothing you could do for the girl." Harry sighed, out of all the girls in Forks. Did it have to be someone as high profile as the police chief's only daughter? The only consolation Harry had was that it wasn't a Quiliete.
"What are we going to tell the chief? I can't tell him the truth." This sent chills down Charlie's spine. Why wouldn't they tell him the truth? This didn't happen on tribal land, it happened in Charlie's own backyard!
"Are you positive it wasn't one of the Cullens who took her?" Another voice chimed in and Charlie realized it was Billy. Everything in Charlie was telling him to go out there and demand answers, but the cop in him kept him silent as he listened with his fists clenched. Someone had taken Bella, but what about Edward? Did they take him too?
"I didn't see Edward, but I had followed his scent. Bella's was too washed away by the rain, I wouldn't have been able to track them on her scent alone. The two blondes were not Jasper and Rosalie Hale." Sam tried to think about what he had heard them talking about, but even with his wolf senses, the rain made it hard to make out their full conversation. "The male is the one who bit her, if that matters." He added.
This sent Charlie sprialing, just what the fuck had been going on underneath his nose? His feet found flight at Billy's next words.
"It will be difficult to tell the Chief a story without a body." Charlie was through the screen door and onto the porch, the door slamming loudly behind him. He had always meant to fix that, but for now it suited him.
"What do you mean, without a body?" He demanded of the three men before him. "Where is Bella? What happened to my daughter?" The three of them have gone silent at Charlie's fury. They had hardly enough time to come to terms with what had happened themselves, let alone having time to come up with a plausible lie. One that the Chief of Police would believe. He turned to Sam Uley then,
"What went on in the woods with my daughter?" Sam looked towards Billy and Harry for guidance but neither had any to give them. They didn't want to tell Charlie the truth, but what lie could they tell? A bear mauling requires a body, or pieces of one. If she went missing, he would never stop searching for her.
"She was taken by vampires." Billy stated plainly, deciding for himself that Charlie could be let in on the secret. The treaty was null and void as far as he was concerned. Charlie just stared at him, not believing a single word out of his mouth, but never knowing his best friend to lie to him. "She was wounded, Sam thinks it was by Edward. Two vampires we don't know took her. She's gone, Charlie." Before the last words were fully out of Billy Black's mouth, Charlie punched him square in the jaw, knocking him out of his wheelchair.
"How dare you," Charlie thundered. "Making jokes at a time like this? When my daughter is missing and you convinced me to call off the search party? Now you're telling me she was taken by vampires? And vampires you don't know, as if you know some?" Charlie hadn't realized he hit Billy until after he was already laying on the ground, Sam and Harry coming forward to help him back into his chair. Charlie couldn't even feel bad, he was sure he would later, but right now he was angry.
"Charlie!" Harry hissed, fully aware of the police officers just inside the house, the ones who had chosen to stay behind and were watching the Mariners game on Charlie's flatscreen. "Billy tells you the truth. There are tribal secrets and the knowledge of vampires is one of them. The entire Cullen family was a coven of vampires." The idea of Dr. Cullen being a vampire made Charlie instantly stick to his stomach. What kind of foul things did he do with those sick and helpless he was supposed to help? It was unfathomable to Charlie that someone so kind and compassionate could be a vampire. Esme Cullen was one of the nicest women he ever met… and Alice was just pure sunshine. Blood sucking demons of the night?
"You expect me to believe that Esme Cullen is a vampire? Alice Cullen?" Charlie asked, "They've lived here for years before Bella moved back." He was trying to piece a puzzle together without a reference photo. He's seen them outside countless times. But had it been sunny…?
"Yes, we expect you to believe that every member of the Cullen Family are vampires. The Cullens first came to Forks in 1936. They made a treaty with the Quileute tribal leader, Ephriam Black, not to hunt or bite any humans in the area. They returned in 2003. The Cold Ones have long been a Quiliete legend, and after a time, the treaty we made with the Cullens became another one of our legends. We didn't believe they were vampires at first, but Carlisle made a point to seek us out and re-establish the boundary lines." Harry just laid it out for Charlie. He wasn't as close to the Chief of Police as Billy was, having been a few years older than them.
Charlie didn't know what to say. No one was laughing. None of them sounded like they were lying, or acting dishonest in any way. In his gut he knew it was true, but it was illogical. Vampires aren't real. His daughter had not been taken by vampires.
"Where is Bella?"
"I don't know." Sam is the one who answered Charlie. "I don't know who took her, I have never seen them before."
"Are you sure it wasn't one of the Cullens? Edward was last seen going into the woods with Bella." This time Sam hesitated before telling Billy more of what he saw.
"Charlie, the amount of blood that was there when they took her away, I don't think she tripped and had a regular Bella accident. I think Edward attacked her. These vampires changed her and took her with them."
"Why didn't you follow them?" Charlie would have grabbed the young man by his shirt and shaken him, but it was then Charlie noticed he was shirtless. In this weather?
"I can't take on two vampires anymore than you could take on one, Chief." Sam replied curtly.
"You say that like you could take on one." Charlie scoffed, irritated at this whole situation. He didn't believe a damn word of it… but he kept thinking as if he did.
"Charlie, there is a lot we should tell you. But not here." Billy finally said, resigned with the fact he was about to blow his best friends world wide open, and hoped that it was enough to keep him from going after whoever took Bella.
.o.O.o.
As Bella Swan lay dying on the cold, wet forest floor, just a few miles away from her childhood home, she couldn't help herself from contemplating her life choices that had led up to that moment. Moving to the Pacific Northwest to live with her Dad, Charlie was perhaps her first mistake. Just so her Mom could travel the states with her new baseball player husband, Phil. She couldn't regret moving in with Charlie, she had always been a Daddy's girl when she was younger and it was a lot less stressful living with him than her Mother. That was, until she started running with vampires. Then she began to lie to Charlie about almost everything.
Bella could only feel embarrassment, looking back on her behavior when she first moved to Forks. She had been told Edward didn't date, but she relentlessly threw herself at him. Previously having never cared much for boys, her own behavior was baffling. Renee would have been proud knowing how torn up she had gotten over a boy. She could almost hear her, 'My little baby is all grown up!' Bella didn't understand how she had fallen so hard and fast for the boy she hadn't even spoken more than a few words with. Apparently that was her thing, falling for unattainable men. First Edward, then his brother Jasper. All it had taken was a few kind words and she was hooked. Pair that with saving her life, and it was true love. Would Emmett be next, or Carlisle? Was it a vampire specific thing, or a taken man thing?
She was the exact kind of woman Jessica and Lauren thought she was. The same kind of woman that everyone had assumed her mother had been, when she left Charlie.
Thinking back to the last thing Edward said to her, she couldn't stop the tidal wave of despair that washed over her broken body. She had thought she felt an inexplicable connection to Jasper, but it had all been a manipulation with his gift. She would die alone, too weak to cry during her pity party over her premature death.
Bella was barely aware of her surroundings when Peter and Charlotte came upon her. Blinking away the rain and tears away, Bella thought for a moment it was Jasper and hope bloomed in her fading heart. Edward had lied, and… Bella then realized that this vampire had red eyes, and shorter darker blond hair. This wasn't Jasper. Still, she hoped he would be kinder to her than the vegetarian she had entered the woods with.
Bella Swan wasn't ready to die, but she was ready to get dying over with. Be it eternal death or life.
Then Bella was screaming, the pain in the Ballet Studio in Phoenix was a distant memory compared to the roaring fire shredding her from the inside out. Her exsanguinated veins searing in protest as they are stretched past their limits, venom multiplying and racing through her bloodstream, using her circulatory system as a highway. Her body stiffening in self preservation against the merciless onslaught. Her transformation was in full effect by the time Bella regained the barest control over her mind. Thoughts swirling around her all encompassing prison of fire. Still, Bella Swan howled.
Her first coherent thought was that she felt like she was burning alive. In a way, she was. The fire of the change burning away her last bits of humanity and replacing it with something else, a durable body fit for a longer lifespan. She vaguely remembered feeling like she was dying before, somewhere long ago, in a hall of mirrors… The memory faded away just before it arrived, slipping through Bella's conscious thoughts like sand in an hourglass.
Prom night was clearer in her mind, being the main focus of her waking thoughts the last few days. The comfort and safety she discovered in Jasper's arms, ripped away by Edward's callous confession. She had just been a passing fancy for his vampiric family. Just a toy for them to play with for a time.
Just a toy for Edward to play with.
Just a toy for Esme to mother over.
Just a toy for Carlisle to play doctor on.
Just a toy for Alice to dress up like a life sized barbie.
Just a toy for Jasper to seduce and discard.
Just a toy. Just a toy. Just a toy. Toy just a.
Bella was positive she was losing her mind. She had heard about vampires who didn't survive the change, for one reason or another. Three days of everlasting pain was too much for some minds to take. Bella didn't feel like she was coping well, still thinking of Jasper and unable to feel the same anger she had for every other Cullen.
The brief time she had allowed herself to daydream about Jasper had seemed so much better than what she had with Edward, more warmth and emotion. Which made sense since she was being manipulated by his gift.
Comparison is the thief of happiness.
It was hot.
Really hot.
Hot, hot, hot!
Burnin' alive, burnin' alive!
Bella had the occasional thought about what kind of vampire had found her, but it was gone as quick as it came. Any thoughts aside from the pain and Jasper were getting harder and harder to cling to.
Hope still bloomed in Bella's dying heart for the empath, while her anger at his and Alice's betrayal constricted it.
Just when Bella couldn't stand the pain and maelstrom of memories, the ever present thudding of her heart ceased, and Isabella Marie Swan was dead… In a manner of speaking. The abrupt silence had Bella thinking temporarily that she had gone deaf, before a cacophony of sound assaulted her ears all at once. Bella sat up, groaning as her hands shot up to cover her ears. A futile attempt at blocking out her advanced vampire hearing. Eventually she began deciphering the noise into individual sounds. The bellow of a frog, the rapid rh-i-ibit quickly followed by sounds of a cricket's song. The buzzing of an insect fading away and coming back as it circled the room she was in.
A soft cascade of water weaving its way through rocks, soothed Bella's frazzled nerves and helped calm her frenzied mind. Bella had always loved the water. Fishing with Charlie, or sunbathing with her mother. Swimming was something she was never terribly good at, but loved all the same.
When Bella's heart had stopped beating for more than several minutes, and her eyes remained closed with her hands over her ears, Peter feared the worst. He had seen very few vampires wake up wrong, it would be just his luck, and his death, if she was one of them. Then she opened her crimson eyes, and with her fresh vampire vision she started examining her surroundings.
Peter and Charlotte had been still as statues ever since Bella's heart had begun to thump laboriously. So they held their breath with anticipation. Keeping still so they wouldn't startle the irrational newborn. Letting her take all the time she needed to examine her surroundings and notice them and hopefully wouldn't go on the defensive.
When Bella first noticed the two vampires standing across the room from her, her first instinct was fear, her second instinct was curiosity. That was, until the male smiled at her, revealing all of his teeth in what he had assumed was a non-threatening gesture of welcome.
Bella however, felt that getting away from that vampire was in her best interest, and turned and fled out the open window, into the twilight.
"Well, shit." Was all Peter could say before he jumped out the window after her.