Bella's Point of View

Every day that I woke up, unharmed, I was surprised to still be alive.

It felt like a mistake.

With my father gone—weeks now, though time had lost meaning—why hadn't she come to finish the job? Why hadn't she come to end me, to put me out of my misery in one effortless swipe?

Maybe she was toying with me. Maybe she wanted me to suffer first. To watch me unravel, to lose my grip on reality piece by piece until there was nothing left but a hollow, trembling thing.

If that was her plan, it was working.

I sat on the edge of Charlie's bed, knees pulled tightly to my chest, my arms wrapped around myself as if that would hold me together. His scent was fading. The pillow, the blankets—everything that had made this room his was being swallowed by time, and I hated it.

I stared at my reflection in the dresser mirror across from me.

The girl who looked back was unrecognizable.

Skin too pale, eyes sunken, hollowed by restless nights and nightmares of a red-haired goddess with fire in her gaze, slipping into the house with death painted on her lips. Victoria. Her name was a curse in my mind, a whisper of dread curling around every thought.

I used to hope that she would kill me quickly. That I wouldn't feel much, that it would all be over in an instant.

But the weeks kept dragging on. And I was still here.

Still waiting.

A cruel part of me wondered if she had already decided I wasn't worth the effort. Maybe she had enjoyed ruining me more than the idea of actually killing me.

I exhaled sharply, feeling my ribs shift under my skin, sharp and hollow. The house had never felt so empty.

Slipping off the bed, I stretched my stiff joints, wincing at how frail I had become. I didn't eat anymore—I barely existed.

My socked feet barely made a sound as I padded down the stairs. The silence was thick, pressing down on me, suffocating me.

And then I stopped at the threshold of the kitchen.

The air left my lungs.

No. No, no, no.

It had been weeks. The blood was long gone. The crime scene had been cleaned. But the memory—God, the memory—was still there.

I saw him.

Or what had been left of him.

Charlie's body, ruined beyond recognition, his face twisted in agony, limbs broken like a doll in the careless hands of a child. Blood, so much blood, soaking the white linoleum, seeping into every crack.

I pressed a hand to my mouth, bile rising in my throat.

The walls were closing in.

I turned sharply on my heel, gripping the counter as a wave of dizziness hit me. The phantom scent of copper burned in my nose, a cruel trick of my mind.

I had to get out.

I staggered back into the living room, gripping the banister as I pulled myself up the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last.

I couldn't stay here.

I would die if I did—either at Victoria's hands or by the slow erosion of my own mind.

And the Cullens—

My breath hitched, shaking as I tried to work through the ideas in my head.

They could never know.

The Volturi's law was absolute. No human could know of their existence. If the Cullens came back, if they discovered what had happened, if they reached out to me, and this all blew up—Victoria wouldn't be the one delivering death anymore. The Volturi would see to it themselves.

The thought sent a new kind of terror through me.

She was watching regardless.

Even if I tried to run, even if I tried to disappear, it wouldn't be enough.

Unless—

A plan was forming, its edges jagged and blurred, but the core of it was solid.

I would go to them.

To the Volturi.

I would plead for their help—not for mercy, never for mercy.

But for protection, if they would see to it.

I would tell them only what they needed to hear. That I was being hunted, that I had accidentally stumbled too deep into a world I shouldn't have known about. That I was terrified, and that I knew I knew too much, but there was nothing that I could do anymore. That I had already sworn my secrecy, and I needed help.

But I would never mention the Cullens.

Because if I did, if they knew what Edward had done by letting me into his world, they would destroy them. Their fondness of Carlisle would mean nothing in the face of such a sin.

I swallowed hard, my fingers trembling as I gripped the banister.

Italy.

A one-way ticket.

I could feel the weight of my decision settling in my bones. It was reckless. It was dangerous.

But it was my only chance.

I inhaled deeply, forcing the panic down, burying it beneath the sheer need to survive, the first time I had felt that feeling in months.

This was about saving myself from what was to come next, and on a more minor level, protecting the Cullens in the last way I could.

And if it cost me everything, then so be it.

I'm already a dead girl walking to begin with.

I forced my stomach to settle back down as I padded towards my room, pulling out my laptop with shaky hands as I sealed my decision. With the ticket purchased, I mulled over what was to come, shaking as I realized the uncertainty.

I needed a full story.

Something that would ensure they either protected me… or ended me quickly.

I forced myself to think, to construct the lie I would tell Aro, Caius, and Marcus.

I was just a human, I would say. A girl who had unknowingly stumbled into something beyond her understanding. I would say I learned the truth about vampires by accident, that I had kept quiet out of fear. That I had been trying to live a normal life until she came for me.

That was the truth, at least.

I would tell them she was hunting me, that I had no one left, that I had nowhere to turn. That I came to them because I knew they were the law, and only they could stop her. I would bare my life to them if I had to, just to escape this.

Maybe they would see use in me.

Maybe they would laugh in my face and kill me anyway.

Either way, it would be over.

Either way, I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

I glanced back at the laptop screen, rereading the details of the ticket one last time.

Twenty-four hours.

Then I would know my fate.