Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I'm not making any money off of this.
Author's Notes: There's a reference to being Baker-acted. The Baker Act is a Florida law that allows for an involuntary examination or temporary hold in a medical facility for people showing symptoms of mental crisis.
Content Warnings: Though not in this chapter, this story will eventually feature some intense violence and hints at sexual assault.
Prologue
"Bella? Isn't this beautiful?"
Bella blinked a few times, focusing her gaze on her mother before turning to contemplate the scene in front of them; the sun was just beginning to set, and through her hazy wine buzz, Bella decided that Tuscany was made for sunsets.
"It's gorgeous," she mumbled. She squinted, trying to burn the warm golds of the sun into her mind, the way it brightened the sienna and burnt umber stonework that built the hidden little town around them.
"Aren't you glad you came?" Renee asked pointedly, raising her eyebrows and looking at Bella over the rim of her sunglasses. Bella looked back at the sun, thinking to herself that she'd need more gold ochre. Since she'd taken up painting, she'd gone through more tubes of gold and yellow ochre than any other colors.
"Bella?"
"Of course I'm glad I came, Mom."
After four months of living with the zombie-formerly-known-as-Bella, her parents agreed that the doom-and-gloom of Forks certainly wasn't helping her depression, and despite her screaming and crying (the most emotion she'd shown in months), Charlie had put her on a plane to Florida.
Renee gave her no reprieve, no empty moments to wallow. She gave Bella her privacy of course, but Renee was always close by, ready to pull her daughter out of the deep end even when Bella didn't want the help.
The first month was the hardest. Renee nearly Baker-acted her.
Then she dragged Bella to her latest hobby-of-the-moment; paint-and-sip. Bella was too young for the 'sip' but she fell in love with painting. She moved on quickly from the carefully instructed crafts, soon amassing her own collection of brushes and tubes of varying acrylic and oil paints.
Bella couldn't say his name, but she could paint him all she wanted, and paint him she did. Near obsessively. Of course, even her quickly growing talent could never satisfy the beauty she remembered, but she found it cathartic all the same. She never showed her portraits of him, never used them for any school projects. Just painting his face was risky enough; She knew how hard they all worked to avoid being photographed. She would paint over them eventually, or muddle the works with turpentine. Even if she wanted to save them, she couldn't. She would run out of room in weeks at the rate she tried to recreate her fondest memories.
By the time she'd arrived in Florida, there were only five-ish months left of the school year. Between the months in Forks where she'd given up on everything, and the recent habit she'd developed of skipping school in Florida to sneak off and paint the many beach landscapes around her, it was somewhat surprising to Bella that she'd even managed to graduate. She hadn't applied to any universities in time, so she planned to enroll at the local community college for the fall semester.
Renee and Phil had been planning their vacation to Italy for a long time. When the plane ticket fell out of her graduation card, Bella was hesitant to say the least. After all, who wants to be the third wheel in a romantic, Tuscan village? In the end though, she couldn't resist the allure of the landscape possibilities… or the reduced drinking age.
The next afternoon, when Renee and Phil had gone out on their own for the evening, Bella found herself seated outside at a small cafe. She curled up in the wrought iron patio chair, a sketch pad and various pencils and oil crayons spread over the table.
"Bellissima," the kind waiter said as he deposited a glass of red wine. Bella blushed and nodded her thanks. He walked off and Bella took a long sip, letting her gaze move over the bustling town square. She watched as several children balanced themselves along the edge of the fountain in the middle, pointing at the loose coins that littered the bottom. She sipped at the wine, going unnoticed by most of the townspeople.
Warm from the alcohol and fading sun, Bella grabbed her sketch pad once more and flipped to an empty page. She started a loose outline of the town square in front of her, glancing up and down from the pad to the architecture and adding bits of small detail she'd flesh out later when she transferred the scene to a canvas. She looked up to the clock tower, tugging her lower lip into her mouth in concentration. Her eyes darted up and down quickly, until she saw it.
A flash that caught her eyes, just a bright strip of flesh that she swore seemed to sparkle before the hood of a jacket was raised enough to hide the man's face again. Tapping the pencil on her knee, Bella chewed on her lip, trying to remember what the Italian vampires had been called. Her memory of everything surrounding that family was normally clear, but the alcohol on an empty stomach had her feeling pretty buzzed.
"Volturi," she thought, finally. But she didn't just think the word. She said it. Out loud. She saw a flash of pale white again and — nothing. The figure was gone.
"Good evening."
Bella jumped, dropping the sketch pad to the table. To her right, in the seat that had seconds ago been empty, sat what she immediately knew was a vampire. He looked completely at ease, leaning back in the chair with one leg crossed over the other at the knee. She stared at him, her mouth hanging open. He looked from Bella to the pad.
"That's very good," he said, turning back to her once again.
"Thank you," she tried to say, but her throat was suddenly dry and her voice came out more like a whisper. He nodded.
"You know what I am?"
She swallowed, trying to ease the sudden tightness of her throat. Dumbly, she nodded.
"Right." He slapped his hands against his thighs and stood up. "I believe you know this already, but you'll need to come with me."
His voice sounded far away; She was developing tunnel-vision and her ears filled with the awful white noise buzz she'd get just before passing out.
"Don't go with him, Bella."
She nearly jumped in her skin, her eyes shooting around wildly. She'd heard his voice so clearly, she could've swore he was there with her.
"Scream, cry, make a scene. Do not go with him," the voice begged.
She stared at the impossibly pale hand in front of her.
"Come now, love. I promise, this is going to go a lot smoother if you don't make a mess."
She stood slowly.
"Bella!"
She reached down and picked up her bag. She ruffled through it, finally pulling out her wallet. She dropped some money on the table while the vampire watched her, amused. She took a deep breath and picked up the glass of wine, tossing back the remainder of the alcohol quickly.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Demetri," he answered.
He was growling. Not the vampire called Demetri; him.
"Am I going to die, Demetri?"
His face didn't move much in the way of betraying his thoughts. But she could tell with the tiniest furrow between his eyebrows that he'd given her question actual consideration. He reached over and picked up her hand.
"And what is your name?"
"You need to get away from him, Bella!"
"Bella."
"Bella," Demetri repeated. "I don't think you're going to die," he said finally. "But, if you're lucky, you will."