"It will be as if I never existed," Edward said as he kissed her forehead and walked away at vampire speed.
Bella
I wandered through endless darkness trying to find Edward even though deep down I know it's hopeless. The rain doesn't help my endless searching but the ever-present trees keep most of it off of me.
He has to be here somewhere. He wouldn't have really left me. His words echo through my mind. "I've let this go on far too long." I slip over the leaf-strewn ground. "I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not," I call his name into the darkness. "I'm not human." The further I walk the more I'm sure he wouldn't have really left me. He'll change his mind. He'll come back. "Your mind is like a sieve, time heals all wounds for your kind." I fall and hit my head on something in the dark and there is no more.
I wake up an unknown amount of time later. The sun can be seen through the tree canopy. My head is pounding, my clothes are wet, I'm sure I must be muddy.
"You must be young Bella." a male voice says blandly.
I jerk my head up and find that I am surrounded by people in black cloaks. Strike that. The man who was speaking lifts his hand and it falls into a shaft of light. It bounces off like rainbow prisms. I'm surrounded by vampires. I've gotten myself in trouble now.
Weak, dizzy, hungry and thirsty it's all I can do to ask, "Who are you?"
"I am Felix little one and we are the Volturi."
"He left me. He really left me, Felix. He left me to die by vampires..."
"Who left, little one?"
"Edward, he left me in the woods and now you'll kill me for knowing about you. The Volturi. You enforce the laws. He told me so."
"The entire family left, Bella, and we are not here to kill you but to change you."
"I can't be a vampire without Edward. I begged him to make me immortal so we could be together. Now you want to change me? Why?"
"We've been told you may have a strong gift." a young girl said.
"Edward couldn't read my mind. But Alice could see my future. If only she'd seen that their house guest Garrett would try to kill me when I got that paper cut, maybe he wouldn't have left me."
"You're coming with us," Felix said. "I want you to rub your sweater against that cut on your forehead so we can stage your death and we can be off."
"But I don't want to come with you. I need to find Edward."
"Enough of this." a woman said. My sweater was ripped from me and I felt the chill seeping deeper into my skin."
"Stop," Felix commanded. "Give me that. You forget yourself and how fragile they are. Hand it here."
A tall, stocky man approached me. "Little one, I'm going to rub this on your face. You've been bleeding where you hit your head. Then we will go. You know enough to know you can't fight our outrun us."
Tears leaked from my eyes as my sweater was rubbed over my cut several times.
"Chelsea, here stage the scene and make it good. Jane, with me. I expect you all back at the plane in an hour."
Felix picked me up and moved at vampire speed with me in his arms. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the inevitable.
I don't know how long they ran. Reality was shifting and I was hoping that I was still asleep. The only problem with that thought is I didn't think I could come up with a dream like this. Still, I hoped.
When we came to the private airstrip and they jumped the fence I knew I wasn't dreaming. Surely I would have gone to some private lounge, or through a gate, maybe through an opening in the fence.
"Felix, I'm going to be sick."
He stopped and quickly put me on my feet. I dry heaved for another unknown length of time. There was nothing in my stomach to come up. Eventually, Felix picked me up and walked more slowly to the plane. It was black with an infinity sign worked into a design on its side.
I boarded the plane still in the giant man's arms. "Remember little one. You can not run from us. Please don't try. I don't want to kill anyone in this airport but I would have to if they tried to come to your aid.
"I know what vampires can do Felix. I don't want anyone dead on my account. Do you have food and drink somewhere? I don't know how long I was in the woods but I need to eat and drink sometime on this flight."
"We took this into account, little one. You can have dinner and drinks as soon as we are in the air. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, I am the prisoner after all"
"Why aren't you afraid of me? Vampires tremble in fear at the sight of me."
"You remind me of Emmett. You're only a little bigger. If you start talking about wrestling bears and video games I might wonder if I'm dreaming again. He was my big brother. I loved him."
"I'm sorry but you aren't dreaming. I don't wrestle bears but I do like an occasional computer game."
"One out of three isn't so bad," Bella said sadly.
"Sit and buckle up little one. It's almost time to begin your new life."
I sat in a plush leather seat that had a small stack of books beside it and buckled up my seat belt. There was no place to run and no safe place to hide. I'd prefer to sit by the book lover of the bunch. Maybe we'd have something in common.
To my surprise, Felix sat down beside me. "You like books?" he asked gently.
"Yes, very much."
"You'll love the archives in Volterra then. After you've been changed I can see you spending a lot of your time there. I do."
The other vampires came aboard in eerie silence and filled in their seats. None bothered with a seat belt. None spoke to me. The stairs were lifted up by the last vampire to enter and one moved forward to fly the plane.
"What are the archives like Felix?"
"They stretch under one-third of the city of Volterra. There are old scrolls all the way up to new fiction in there. There are books you'd find in museums and books you'd find in a library. We value all knowledge. I've already read these three on the way here. Would you like to read this one?"
"Interview With a Vampire?"
"I was looking for a comedy."
"I suppose as a vampire this would be a comedy. Yes, thank you."
"We've reached altitude, the human can unbuckle her seat belt and roam about the cabin now." a speaker emitted the sound.
"I think I'll find dinner, then read," Bella told Felix. "Where do I go?"
"I'll go fetch it for you," Felix said.
I pulled the tray from the seat in front of me. Felix was back in a moment with a steaming plate and a coke. "I hope this is good. I'm afraid human food smells rather awful to vampires and I can't tell, but I had a chef prepare your dinner while we fetched you."
"Grilled salmon with vegetables and a baked potato and roll, your chef did exceptionally if that tastes as good as it smells."
I ate with the gusto of a condemned man who knows he may not see tomorrow because despite all I've been told, although I trusted Felix I also knew the law. I was human, an abandoned human with knowledge of the vampire world on my way to the seat of vampire government.
Felix tried to pretend he wasn't watching me eat. "It's ok Felix, for some reason every vampire I've met has enjoyed watching the human eat except the one who was more interested in eating me. I'm used to it."
"When did a vampire try to eat you little one?"
"You can call me Bella. I went on my first big date with Edward. We were going to play baseball with his family. The short version is the game was interrupted by three nomads. One was a tracker and set his sites on me. Carlisle and Esme took me away to keep me safe. The vampire found us and convinced me he had my mother and if I didn't trade myself for her he would kill her and then find me and kill me. So I went. He bit me but Edward sucked the venom out. Emmett killed James and Carlisle kept me from bleeding to death. It burned down my old dance studio and that was what scared my mom, the crime so close to her home. We told her I got hurt tripping on stairs and falling through a window. I'm clumsy enough they believed it." I pulled up my sleeve to show him the bite mark.
"Why did he suck the venom out?" Felix inquired.
A tear fell down my cheek. "He didn't want me to be a vampire. It turns out he didn't want me as a human either. The whole family left, you said."
"That was because of you."
I could only nod.
"You've survived a surprising amount living in the vampire world, Bella."
"It was a close-run thing. James almost got me."
"That was the name of the tracker?"
"His mate was named Victoria."
"Did she have red hair?" the young girl asked.
"Yes, curly red hair."
"Bella, this is Jane," Felix introduced.
"She will come after you," Jane said. "If the Cullens killed James she will come after you."
"At least I'll be a vampire too. I won't be so easy to take down. But without Edward, I don't really want to become a vampire. The only reason I wanted to was to spend eternity with him."
"I'm afraid you'll have to get comfortable with the idea that you will become a vampire, Bella. You will be a part of the guard that keeps rogues like James from terrorizing humans."
"What if I don't have a gift, Felix?"
"Then you won't be as high a position in the guard. Gifts like Jane are given special treatment."
"What is your gift, Jane?"
"I can cause pain by looking at someone. My brother Alec can take all of your senses away with his gift."
"What about you Felix?" I'm in charge of the guard, Bella.
"Why did so many guards come to take me? One of you could have done the job."
"We were afraid we'd have to restrain some of the Cullens to get to you."
"How did you even find out about me? I'm just one girl who never said the word vampire to anyone who wasn't one?"
"We have spies everywhere Bella. We knew the day you started dating Edward."
"But why me?"
"We were only recently told you have a gift. You can block Edward from reading your mind. It will be interesting to see if you can block Aro as well."
"So you were going to leave me alone until you found out about this gift?"
"I don't know Bella. I only received the order to come to get you yesterday."
At that, I began to read. This was too much to think, too much to comprehend. Too much to handle for one human brain. I lost myself in Interview With A Vampire and tried to forget everything else, just for a while.
While I read somethings became scarily real. One, I was going to be a vampire. Not for love, but to be a part of the guard. Two, a Cullen sold me out. One of my beloved family had not thought it was enough to rip my world to pieces by leaving they also had me kidnapped by vampires. Three, Edward wasn't coming to save me. I was on my own in this strange new world.