Archive of Our Own ^beta

Prologue

It was just getting annoying. Edward had taken to asking her in as many different ways as he could find nearly every day. Sometimes he did it so suddenly that it was obviously an attempt to catch her off guard – thinking she would say yes without thinking about it – but Bella managed to keep a step ahead of him. It was especially annoying, however, when Alice started poking her too.

Of course, Alice only wanted an answer so that she could plan the wedding. The piles of magazines littered around the Cullen house weren’t exactly subtle.

By the beginning of June, the entire school knew about the proposal. Bella had no idea how it had happened, but Edward took full advantage of the opportunity to propose – loudly – in the middle of the cafeteria.

But Bella wasn’t about to give in to him, no matter how embarrassed he made her. ‘No,’ she said clearly so that the entire student body could hear and resumed eating her lunch. Mike’s eyebrows shot through his hair and Jessica made a noise that sounded like a kitten dying. Angela just reached over and patted Bella’s hand.

‘If you don’t want to get married, that’s okay with me,’ she said.

Edward glared at her.

‘Stop it,’ Bella muttered to him, glaring a bit herself. But Edward really wasn’t taking the hint. The Cullens all thought it was entertaining and assumed that – sooner or later – Bella would give in. She’d made her reasons quite clear after Edward’s sudden marriage proposal on the back deck a week after their lives had been unexpectedly saved from the Volturi’s version of justice. It wasn’t like she’d said no forever, but Bella had absolutely no interest in tying the knot before her change that summer. Edward thought otherwise. In fact, he had made it the condition on which he would change her himself.

Bella really thought he wasn’t playing fair.

‘Just give in,’ Alice told her, when the student lunch body had finally returned to their own business.

‘No,’ she muttered, so used to saying it now that there was no power at all behind the word. It sounded like a protest to the inevitable rather than a determined stance.

‘Please?’

‘No.’

‘I’m planning the wedding anyways, you know,’ Alice put in.

‘Go ahead. I’m sure Rosalie and Emmett wouldn’t mind getting married again.’

Alice sighed, exasperated, but let the matter drop. At least for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, Edward’s rather public proposal managed to reach Charlie’s ears inside of two days. During one of their few private dinners that Friday, Charlie abruptly asked:

‘So, Edward proposed?’

Bella’s fork somehow managed to find the floor. Blushing, she reached down to pick it up and spent entirely too much focus making certain it was clean.

‘Uh, yeah,’ she said.

‘Bella,’ her father began, but she beat him to it.

‘I’m not going to say yes. I don’t want to get married. Not now, at least. Maybe after college,’ she went on, lying about the last part. Although, maybe not. Maybe they would go to college in a few years when she no longer wanted to drink the entire student populace dry, and then after that they could get married.

‘Okay. Still, he proposed. That’s...pretty serious.’

Bella looked up at him. ‘Look, Dad, we really are that serious, but I still think we’re too young to get married. It can wait a few years. Edward’s just...very old fashioned.’

Charlie looked confused. ‘What does that mean?’

Cursing her choice of words, Bella blushingly stammered: ‘It means he wants to do things properly. To get married before...before...’ she trailed off.

Charlie, thankfully, got the message. ‘Oh,’ he said. And then, ‘Ooh. Right. Well, think I like that a little better now. Edward’s got the right idea. But I think you’re too young. Give it a few years.’

‘Exactly,’ Bella said, and that was the end of that conversation.

For about a week. As Bella knew was bound to happen, she eventually caved.

‘I am going to say this one last time, Edward. My answer is no. Not ‘no I will never marry you’, just ‘no, I won’t marry you right now’. Not before my change. Maybe I’ll feel different afterwards.’

‘Do you honestly think that, Bella?’ he asked her. They were sitting beside each other on the piano bench at his house on a typical rainy day.

‘I don’t know. But yes, I think so. I think I’ll feel differently about a lot of things when eternity is not just an option but a definitive.’

‘Are you saying no now because you think I’ll take advantage of it to delay your change?’ he ventured, fingers tapping out occasional notes on the keys.

Bella sighed. ‘Partly, yes; I guess the thought had crossed my mind. But mostly it’s just that I don’t want to get married and then promptly spend three to six months consumed by blood lust. Let me get through that first and then we can talk about a wedding.’

‘Okay,’ he agreed.

Shocked speechless, Bella turned to stare at him. ‘But...?’

‘I’m not trying to trick you. I am also not making an attempt to delay your change. I promised the timing would be your choice and I meant that. I mean that,’ he rephrased.

Bella smiled. ‘How about this? Ask me again.’

In a flash Edward was on one knee in front of her. ‘Bella Swan, will you marry me?’ he grinned.

Teasingly, she smiled. ‘Yes, Edward, I’ll marry you...next summer.’

‘You aren’t trying to trick me?’

‘No,’ she promised him.

‘You’re getting married!’ Alice screamed as she danced into the room. ‘I’m going to need the whole year Bella! There are so many things to – ’

‘Yes there are. You better get right on them,’ Bella cut her off, making a shooing motion back out the door.

Alice took the hint. She danced back out of the room humming ‘Here Comes the Bride’ while Bella drew her – fiancé – up for a kiss.

‘Mrs. Cullen,’ he addressed her.

‘Nope; not yet. Let me get used to not being Bella Swan anymore first. Then we can worry about Mrs. Bella Cullen. Next year, Edward, I mean it,’ she reiterated.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he managed to get out, before the rest of the family milled around them with offers of congratulations.

‘I love June weddings,’ Alice stridently announced over the hubbub. ‘We’ll plan it well before your birthday too!’

‘Thanks for that,’ Bella told her, in all sincerity. After so many weeks of determinedly saying no, it felt like a rather large relief to finally say yes. And she hadn’t caved; not like Edward had wanted her to. A year was plenty of time and being a vampire would change things. After that, what did the pomp and circumstance of a wedding matter? It would be a small affair, after all.

Chapter 1

The next few weeks passed in a blur. Bella wasn’t sure what other, normal students felt as they approached the end of their high school career. Perhaps if they didn’t have things like becoming a vampire and getting eternity with their soul mate to look forward to, they paid more attention than she did. As it stood, Bella walked out of her final exam not really remembering much of the month of June. And she in no way felt sad about the fact.

‘Done!’ Alice danced around her, rather too happy considering that she hadn’t studied at all and was now on her ninth time through secondary school.

‘Finally,’ Bella agreed. ‘I hope it’s never that mighty of a chore ever again.’

‘Oh, no,’ Alice assured her. ‘Now you can just have fun. It’s not like you’ll have to worry about studying and homework, and with you around, Edward will be much less of a bore the next time we head off to school.’

‘Bore, am I? We’ll see about that. I plan to never be a bore about anything ever again,’ Edward announced.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Bella said by way of greeting.

‘How did it go?’

‘How do you think?’ she retorted.

‘I think Alice saw straight As and therefore it went well,’ he told her with a smirk.

‘Course it did! Like she’d get anything else,’ Alice assured them both, in a voice that spoke more about her confidence in Bella and less about her ability to know for certain. ‘We should celebrate tonight.’

That was all fine and good, except that it was pouring beyond the cover of the Forks High entrance and the rain was supposed to continue well through the night. It also felt cold and damp and Bella was bundled up in three layers of warm clothing just to keep from shivering. June should not be like this.

‘Why don’t we save the celebrating for graduation?’ Bella asked, because it was only a week away. ‘That’s better than celebrating the end of exams. It’s the big one anyways, right?’

Alice looked momentarily like her plans had been completely upended, but she rallied well. ‘Oh, I already have graduation planned; don’t you worry! It’s going to be epic. And it’s also going to be sunny.’

Bella skipped right over the meaning of the word ‘epic’ and went to ‘sunny’. ‘I hope so. I’ve had enough of the rain. I can’t wait until we’re somewhere nice and warm.’

‘Soon, it won’t matter what the temperature is, love,’ Edward whispered to her. Bella smiled. He was right; soon even the coldest temperatures would have no effect on her. What a wonderful thought.

***

Bella decided not to ask Alice what she had meant by ‘epic’. Whatever it was, the pixie vampire wasn’t about to change her mind, no matter what Bella said. And besides, it was really going to be the last hurrah they had before Bella was whisked away to be changed. The last chance to see any of her (sort of) friends. She knew she’d miss Angela at least, and probably Jessica too. But she was giving that up for something so much better.

The day of graduation, Bella dressed herself in the blue dress that Alice had left on her bed, put on the strappy but at least not stupidly high sandals, and submitted herself to an hour of having her hair and makeup done. The overall affect at the end was beautiful, or at least pretty, so Bella supposed it was worth it. She might as well look good in her graduation photos, as they’d be with her a very long time indeed. Probably until the photo paper on which they were printed finally faded away and she misplaced the electronic versions because of some futuristic computer crash. Or something. The idea of soon being able to think that far ahead was still very much a novelty that was chasing around her brain.

The gym was decked out in Forks High colours, in that gaudy way that only small town schools quite manage, complete with a wide variety of balloons tied to every possible surface. They actually had gowns to wear, which sort of surprised Bella a bit when she learned about it the week before. She expected it from her high school back in Phoenix, but not from the graduation class of thirty-five at Forks. It seemed a bit…much. Also, they were bright, bright blue, which was not in any way preferable over black. Still, Charlie smiled at her and said she looked pretty in it, so Bella just shrugged and went along with it. Especially when Edward took one look at her and gave her that look that she really hoped meant he was undressing her with his mind. She had yet to figure out if that was true or not. But it did keep Bella smiling through the ceremony.

A ceremony which was blessedly short, since it was such a small school. Charlie beamed like a thousand watt light bulb when Bella got up on stage to accept her diploma – without tripping. Afterward that he wanted to snap about a million pictures of her to keep for posterity when she’s away at college. Bella suffered it all with a smile on her face, because a few pictures is the least she can do for Charlie, knowing what is coming. It is only in that moment that the full reality of the situation descended on her and Alice is at her side instantly, turning her away with a few light words and a desire for her to join the Cullen photo shoot. Charlie didn’t see the miserable look on Bella’s face. And Alice made certain Edward didn’t either.

After that, the next couple of hours were a blur. Bella was whisked away by Charlie to dinner at the diner, a concession she had agreed to only because it got her away from any potential that Alice might ambush her into another dress. The black flowing thing that she had handed to Bella a few days before for the actual graduation event had been not bad – by Alice’s standards – but Bella had a feeling that post-grad party dresses tended to have more glitter and things on them.

Dinner was quiet, though they weren’t the only people there from the high school. Charlie seemed to keep wanting to say something and then think better of it and Bella didn’t have anything to say. The silence continued until her dropped her off at the Cullen house outside town. The place was flooded with light and music and people. Amazingly it wasn’t raining, though it wasn’t particularly warm for the end of June, even by Forks’ standards. People were spread across the front clearing. The entire graduating class and then some, by the looks of it.

Charlie sighed as he put the cruiser into park. ‘Right. You’re staying the night?’

Bella nodded. ‘Yep. Alice and I are having an extended slumber party after this one’s over.’ Which was the biggest lie she had ever told her father. Because Alice was planning a weekend off with Jasper as soon as the party finished, and she would most certainly be spending the night in Edward’s bed with Edward and little ‘slumber’ would be had. Even if what she really wanted wasn’t going to be had either.

‘Okay then. You let me know if you need a lift in the morning?’

‘Will do. Night Dad.’

‘Yeah. Night,’ he managed as she climbed out of the car with her sleepover bag in tow. One had to maintain appearances, after all.

Inside the music was even louder, something hip and modern and not a song Bella knew. Alice was standing just inside the foyer, waiting to take her bag. ‘Clothes are upstairs! And you’ll look gorgeous, so don’t argue.’

Bella sighed heavily but headed upstairs to Edward’s room nonetheless. He was waiting inside the doorway for her and greeted her with a kiss.

‘See, today wasn’t so bad.’

‘Not over yet,’ Bella countered as she glanced at the dress Alice had laid out on the bed. It looked pretty short. And it was a shimmering green colour. And the shoes below were most definitely not flats.

Edward followed her look. ‘It’s for an hour or two, nothing more. We smile, we dance a lot, and then they all go home.’

Actually, when he put it like that, it sounded entirely doable. Bella headed over to the bed, stripping off the shirt she had changed into between graduation and dinner. She heard Edward cough lightly behind her and knew he’d turned around. A split second later the door shut behind him. Honestly, sometimes he was so ridiculously old fashioned in his views. It was only after this thought crossed her mind, as she was reaching for the dress on the bed, that she realised she could hear breathing. Turning around in shock she discovered Edward leaning against the closed door, smirking.

‘Well, then,’ Bella said with a shrug and turned to undressing the rest of the way. She took a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing Edward’s light amber eyes darken just a bit. Still, he seemed even more pleased once she’d shimmied into the dress.

Bella presented her back to him, silently asking for a hand with the zipper. He pulled it up slowly and then rested cold hands on her shoulders, followed a second later by a kiss on the back of her neck where her hair was pulled over to one side. Bella closed her eyes as a trickle of pleasure coursed through her.

Edward sensed it. ‘Soon, love, very soon.’

Which only served to increase the feeling. There was still a week to go before they left Forks and longer still until she was actually turned. Until they could be together.

With a sigh of regret for having to wait, especially until the night was through, Bella stepped away to lean down for the shoes.

‘Let me,’ he said, taking them from her hands. Bella sat down on the edge of the lounge and held her right foot up. He gave each leg a caress as he slipped the strappy death traps onto her feet and then helped her stand on wobbly legs.

‘Right, this is going to be fun,’ she quipped.

‘I won’t let you fall.’

‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘Let’s do this.’

He led her out the door and down the steps, moving cautiously to ensure she didn’t stumble. By the time they reached the ground floor Bella had a bit more of a handle on the fact that she was three inches taller than she was used to.

Downstairs the music had cranked up again, to something hip and loud and not at all what Bella wanted to dance to. Edward led her carefully through the rooms to where they’d set up a bar area – without liquor of course, since they were all under age and Dr. and Mrs. Cullen were responsible parents. He poured her a coke.

‘Finally. How long does it take to get dressed?’ Alice announced her presence in her usual fashion – loudly.

She and Edward shared a look. Alice knew very well why it had taken so long. Although had it been Alice and Jasper it would have taken even longer.

‘The music, Alice?’ Bella interrupted.

The pixie looked confused. ‘What about it?’

‘Perhaps something more conducive to a slow dance?’ Edward prompted.

Alice paused for a moment and then her eyes lit up. ‘Oh! Oh, sure!’

Bella shook her head gently. ‘Sometimes, I wonder about your sister.’

Edward smirked. ‘She’ll be your sister too soon. And I never stop wondering about Alice.’

The music changed, pouring out a track by Lifehouse.

‘Better,’ Edward decided. ‘May I have this dance?’

Bella set her untouched drink down on the table and allowed him to lead her into the next room, where most of the people were dancing. He tried nothing fancy, considering her tottering heels, but just wrapped his arms around her waist and swayed with her to the beat.

Bella sighed happily. She wondered if things would still feel like this after her change. If they would ever be able to attend another high school dance with this same feeling of perfect young love and contentment. She hoped it would be even better.

Chapter 2

The next few days suddenly became a blur of organisation. As far as Charlie, Renee or anyone else that Bella knew outside the Cullen family was aware, the plan was simple. Edward, Bella, Alice and Jasper were heading to Vermont at the end of the week, to move into the house where they would live while they attended Dartmouth. Dr. Cullen and his wife would follow in a few weeks, once Carlisle’s contract finished at the hospital. And Rose and Emmett were still off in New York enjoying their newly renovated condo. Bella tried not to think about them too hard.

The reality was much different, however. Bella had wanted to see the world. By which she had meant that, after she became a vampire, she wanted to see the world. Edward had taken her a bit more literally, however, and decided that – Volturi aside – they could spare a few weeks to just go travelling. He wanted Bella to enjoy a bit of the world while still human – while food and sunlight had a useful meaning. Bella had only argued a bit when he’d broached the subject after she had agreed to his marriage proposal. Still, when Edward talked about the beauty of South America, she had sort of gotten caught up in the whole idea of it.

They had intended to go to Isle Esme for Bella’s change anyways; the wonderful private island that made Esme’s eyes sparkle when she talked about it. Bella couldn’t conceive of anyone buying her an entire island off the coast of Brazil, and had gone to as far as to make Edward swear he’d never waste money on such a thing. He’d pointed out to her that Esme had never once considered it a waste. Still, no islands; that was the deal. Instead, Alice, Jasper, Edward and still-human Bella were heading down to the west coast of the continent and would spend a few weeks working their way across to Rio. Edward wanted to show her some of the most beautiful areas in Peru and Bolivia before they entered Brazil. Then, once Carlisle’s contract was finished, they could all meet on the Isle and Bella would be able to begin the rest of eternity surrounded by her family.

Bella was rather giddy with excitement in the days right before they left. Charlie attributed the bounciness to the fact that she was moving across the country with her…fiancé rather than to the real reason. Bella was grateful for that. She really hated lying to Charlie. She hated even more that she couldn’t wipe the smile of anticipation off her face. She knew she was leaving him – for good – and that it would be weeks before Charlie knew about her ‘death’. It would be the worst thing he likely ever experienced in his life. Worse than losing her to Renee the first time. But Bella had made her choice. She couldn’t regret it. But she could regret that Charlie was going to have to mourn a daughter who wasn’t really dead.

Instead, Bella was trying to focus on the positives. The afternoon the day before they left Bella asked – for about the hundredth time – where they were going.

‘Peru. And Bolivia,’ Edward said. As he had every other time.

‘Alice?’ Bella turned to her nearly sister instead.

‘Uh….no,’ the pixie decided. ‘No, I don’t think so. You’ll find out tomorrow. That’s soon enough! Does it matter anyways?’

No, it didn’t, but that had never stopped Bella from wanting to know the answer.

‘We should get you back to Charlie’s,’ Edward interrupted, more to distract her than anything.

It worked. ‘Yeah,’ Bella agreed with a sigh. It was hard to put on a show and make Charlie believe that this was the last night he’d see his little girl until Christmas, not the last night ever. And she had never been a great actress.

Edward wrapped an arm around her as they walked out to the car, sliding into the – at least for Bella – cold seats. It hadn’t stopped raining for a single moment all week and besides everything else Bella was just looking forward to seeing the sun.

‘Love,’ he started and then seemed to think better of it. Instead he threw the car into gear and barrelled down the gravel drive at the same speed he usually did everything: much too fast. Soon, it wouldn’t matter. Soon, Bella would probably be driving cars the exact same way. Well, probably not.

He pulled up to Charlie’s driveway not too many minutes later. The lights were on in the house, to combat the gloom of the outside. Bella made no move to leave the car.

‘Bella,’ Edward started again. ‘Do you want me to come in? Stay the evening?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I have to do this. I have to spend this last evening with him. For him, not for me. I know that. This is for Charlie. I just…keep wondering if I’m suddenly going to break down in tears.’

‘As far as your father knows,’ he said, turned in the driver’s seat to face her, ‘you are moving across the country for school. That would precipitate tears in most people. I don’t think Charlie will find anything amiss if you seem to be a bit sad about leaving.’

She sighed. He was right, of course. But she wanted Charlie’s last night with her to be a happy one. A good memory. Not a memory of her crying the entire time.

With another half sigh Bella shoved the door of the Volvo open and climbed out. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, leaning back down to see Edward on the other side of the car.

‘Goodnight. I love you.’

As always, Bella felt everything else fall away from her at those words. For a moment it was just she and Edward and no one else in the world. ‘I love you,’ she replied, and shut the door.

Taking a deep and steadying breath Bella trudged up the drive and steps and through the front door into the light beyond. ‘Hey Dad,’ she called, hearing the noise of the TV from the living room.

‘Hey,’ Charlie answered back, half distracted. He was probably watching the sports channel, as usual.

Bella hung up her coat and kicked off her shoes – for the last time. She had changed at the Cullen’s before she left, seeing no reason to wear the dress back to Charlie’s, especially when Alice probably wanted to pack it or something. In socks she padded into the other room and took her accustomed place on the sofa. Charlie was indeed watching sports, or rather sports news.

‘How was the party kid?’

Bella ignored the ‘kid’ title. Charlie could call her whatever he wanted tonight. ‘Pretty good, actually. Better than I thought.’

‘No tumbles or injuries?’

She smiled; it came more easily than expected. ‘No Dad. It was all fine.’

He turned his head slightly to look at her and for one second of panic Bella thought she’d let something slip into her voice. ‘Guess you were bound to have an injury free night eventually.’ He grinned.

Bella relaxed with a sigh. ‘Yeah, guess I was due for it. Anything on tonight?’

He shrugged, eyes back to the scores on the TV. ‘Not much. You want to, you know, do anything?’

Bella let out an entirely believable long suffering sigh. ‘It’s after ten o’clock Dad. I think it’s a little late to do much.’

He didn’t respond for a moment, eyes focused on the screen. ‘Yeah, guess you’re right. And you’re leaving pretty early right?’

He was fishing for something but Bella didn’t know what. ‘Not until ten.’

‘Right.’

Another lengthy silence descended. Normally, Bella would have no problem with that. She’d stick around for a bit, maybe read a book and then head off to bed. Charlie was usually there himself by eleven. Tonight, it didn’t feel normal, but she could just be projecting that onto the situation. She didn’t really know what to do, any more than she had in the car before she left Edward.

‘Think I’ll just sit here for a bit. You can watch the sports if you want,’ she finally said. After all, it was the spending time together that was important. That much she could do.

‘Sure kid.’

Bella smiled. At least, afterwards, Charlie would have this night to remember.

Chapter 3

It was a long flight to Lima. In fact, since they didn’t get to Seattle until around noon and the flight left mid-afternoon, it was in fact late evening by the time they landed. It took nearly an hour to get through security, get their bags, and find a taxi. It all seemed to Bella to be very normal. Like how the rest of the world travelled. She understood the need for the later flight; it had been blazing sun all day in Lima. Alice had, however, promised a few days of cloud, after which they would head into the mountains. It was winter here, though they were only just south of the equator. There was more likely to be cloud, fog and even rain at higher elevations.

Bella had asked about Machu Picchu, but Alice had dashed her hopes by telling her it was going to be at least partly sunny there for the next seven days.

‘You’ll get to go one day. I promise! Just think of all the time we can spend travelling after you’re changed.’

‘Yeah,’ Bella agreed, not quite understanding why that didn’t sound as exciting as it should. She had been dead set against Edward’s idea of ‘human experiences’, except for this trip, but suddenly the idea that she would not get to see the fabled Incan site until she was a vampire seemed like a disappointment. She tried her best to shake it off.

Bella went to bed immediately after they arrived at the upscale resort hotel. She was too tired to be aware of her surroundings as Edward checked them in and then guided her through the resort to their room. She barely managed to get her shoes off before she collapsed into bed, completely oblivious to his ‘what about getting changed?’

Bella woke to birds, sun, a gentle breeze and Edward staring at her. ‘Have you been doing that all night?’

He smiled, sweeping aside a lock of hair that had fallen in her eyes. ‘As always. It’s a lovely morning.’

‘Alice said it would be cloudy!’ she exclaimed.

‘It will be,’ he assured her. ‘It’ll cloud over about mid-morning and then rain most of the afternoon. Not too much though. I think we can still go out and sightsee. It’s quite warm.’

Bella sighed. No matter where they went there was going to be rain, apparently.

‘Then I should probably get up and have breakfast.’

He looked at her softly, and she lay back down against the mound of pillows the hotel bed had come with. Last night she hadn’t even noticed. ‘Or I could stay here a bit longer.’

Instead of answering he leaned over to kiss her. At first it was just a gentle good morning, as he usually did, but Bella wouldn’t be dissuaded. She kissed back with more intent, surprised when Edward returned it.

The sharp knocking on the door followed by Alice’s musical ‘You’s better not be doing what I see you doing!’ interrupted the mood.

Edward laughed, shaking his head. ‘Guess I’ll have to get used to this. The others have suffered interruptions for years.’

‘That’s what siblings are for, right?’ Bella asked. ‘Come in Alice.’ She pulled the sheet up over her tiny tank top, which someone must have put her in last night. It wasn’t what she’d worn on the plane.

Alice bounced in wearing the brightest floral sundress ever seen, flip flops and sunglasses it’s only accessories. ‘Good morning! Right, we have seventy-two minutes until it’s completely cloudy so that gives you time to shower and have breakfast. Edward can order room service. Then we’ll have just over two hours before the rain starts. Enough time to see a bit of the city and then stop for lunch.’

‘You have it all planned out, don’t you?’

‘Always!’ She sing-songed the word. ‘Get going!’

Bella sighed as soon as the door swung shut. ‘Are we going to have some time alone on this trip?’

Edward’s face practically lit up. ‘Oh yes. As soon as we leave Lima we’re heading up to Cusco in the mountains, and she and Jasper are going off for a bit. They’ll meet us in Rio. It will be just you and I across Bolivia. Well, you and I and a bus load of tourists.’

‘That sounds like heaven,’ Bella told him, sincerely meaning it. She groaned as she clawed her way out of bed. Clearly she’d been so tired she hadn’t even moved as she slept. She felt stiff and a little sore after the long flight. ‘Shower.’

‘By all means.’

The shower was an architect’s dream of bright tiles and granite corners. Bella tried not to think about how much the room cost per night. She’d promised herself not to ask such questions on this trip. Edward had made a good point: if she couldn’t accept the luxury the Cullens tended to travel in, eternity was going to be very long indeed when money always got in the way.

The hot water on her sore muscles felt even better than the place looked. Bella stood under the waterfall until her skin was pink and her fingers wrinkled, trying out each of the bath products provided. Once out in the steamy room she towelled dry and changed into the outfit that had – magically – appeared on the dressing table. Then she took the time to blow her hair dry. It was a silly luxury as it was likely to get wet later in the day again anyways, but it felt nice to pamper herself, however briefly. Maybe they could find a spa somewhere before Rio for a relaxing afternoon. The thought of watching Edward get a mud bath was amusing enough to make her laugh aloud.

‘Everything alright?’

Bella giggled at his voice through the door. Speak of the devil…

‘I’m fine. Just…thought of something funny,’ she said as she opened the door.

‘Care to share?’ He arched an eyebrow, casually leaning against the decorative pillar outside the door.

‘Nope.’

‘Well then. Breakfast?’ He held out a menu.

Bella snagged it, trying and failing to dance gracefully around his reach. Thankfully, Edward caught her before she stumbled to her bare knees.

‘Careful now, I’ll have no injuries on this trip.’

Bella shrugged. ‘Well, I’ll try my best. But you’ll have to be there to catch me.’

‘Always,’ he whispered into her ear, hands tight about her waist. He kissed her hair.

‘Do you want me to eat breakfast or not?’ she countered, twisting out of his hold. He let her go easily.

‘Is this what I’m going to have to put up with for eternity? You’ve suddenly become a teasing minx!’

Bella stared at him, menu hanging forgotten from her slack fingers. ‘Did you just call me a…a minx?’

Edward frowned. ‘It’s not an insult Bella, I…’

But she was already laughing with a giddy air. ‘Seriously. You can be so…so...old sometimes!’

He frowned harder. ‘Okay, now that’s an insult.’

‘Has anyone…’ she managed between gasps, ‘used ‘minx’ since the 1920s? Except you?’

‘Okay. I’ll make a mental note not to use any word invented before 1950 from now on, shall I?’ He stepped up to her, taking the menu from her hand and setting it down on the table. ‘Not if it’s going to result in you laughing at me.’

‘It was funny; admit it,’ she said, calming down with a smile.

‘It is good to see you laugh,’ he reasoned, and kissed her again.

‘Keep using words like that and I promise to keep laughing. Now, I’m hungry and Alice will get mad if she comes back and finds we aren’t ready.’

Sighing, Edward let her go, handing the menu back. ‘I hate when you’re right.’

Grinning, Bella stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Better get used to it!’

She moved away from him and over to the room phone, but still managed to hear his muttered ‘that’s what I was afraid of.’

***

An hour later, ready and fed, they met Alice and Jasper in the breathtakingly beautiful lobby. Now fully awake, Bella could truly appreciate how expensive a resort they were staying in.

Edward was eyeing her knowingly.

‘I’m not saying it,’ she countered.

‘But you’re thinking it.’

‘But I’m not staying it. So that’s a step, right? By the time we get to the island, I promise to stop making wide-eyed looks at really expensive things.’

‘Right,’ he said, which clearly meant the opposite.

‘Come on!’ Alice whined, every bit the five-year old she hadn’t been in a century. ‘Cloudy now! Raining soon!’

Edward and Bella shared a look of complete understanding. Jasper just sighed.

Alice clearly had a game plan. A game plan that included three museums, an art gallery, five historical building facades and the harbour. She only stopped for lunch when Edward reminded her that yes, Bella was still human. She needed food.

‘Not for much longer,’ Alice said, grinning like she hadn’t just announced her soon-to-be sister would soon be a blood-craving vampire.

‘Don’t bother.’ Said human stopped her fiancé before he could retaliate. ‘Not worth it. Besides, she’s right.’

‘That doesn’t mean she has to be so…gleeful about your death.’

Bella arched an eyebrow because were they really having this conversation again?

‘I’ll stop.’

‘Thank you.’

Afterwards there was more architecture, more beauty, more everything that Alice wanted to see. Apparently she had never been to Peru. And she promised more the next day. ‘But then we’re off to Cusco and you’ll absolutely love it Bella! It’s up in the mountains on the way to Bolivia. It’ll be amazing.’

‘I’m sure it will.’ Hopefully it will also be a whole hell of a lot smaller to walk around. And have a few less cultural aspects for Alice to drag them to. Even Edward was looking tired; or as tired as a vampire could look. Though Bella hadn’t been looking forward to the rain, being wet actually felt nice when it was hot and humid outside. Still, she wanted the air conditioning in the suite and a shower. And dinner. Walking was really hard work when she was used to driving almost everywhere. Or being driven.

Her legs made it well known the next day too. ‘Do we have to go sightseeing again?’ was the first thing Bella asked Edward the next morning. It was cloudy and slightly wet again.

‘No. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, you should know that. Alice doesn’t always need to get her way.’

The phone rang. Edward answered it with an exasperated ‘Alice….’.

There was a brief pause. ‘Yes, I’ll tell her. Have a good day.’ He turned to Bella, still lying tangled in the bed sheets, hair in disarray and entirely too much for him to handle. Soon, very soon, he had to remind himself. ‘How does a day at the spa sound?’ he asked her.

‘The closest to heaven I’m likely to ever get,’ she replied.

Edward decided to ignore that reference.

Chapter 4

Up until 2010 you could still get a helicopter tour of Machu Picchu, which included landing and touring the ruins on foot. Since then, they have outlawed all air tours because conservation is worried that the force generated by a copter’s blades could damage the ruins. Remember this story takes place in the summer of 2006, just like it would have in the books.

Alice had apparently had some grand idea about renting a car and driving to Cusco the next night. It was a distance of only about seven hundred miles, which at Cullen speed could easily be done in a night. However, when it came to it, Edward thought flying might be a better plan. Bella, who still wasn’t used to the Cullen speed test, readily agreed. It was only an hour flight and that sounded much better than a night spent in a car speeding through the mountains at twice the legal limit. So they hopped a small airplane promptly the next morning and were up in the mountains with plenty of time to explore before lunch.

It was very civilized, Bella thought. At least for the human. The next time they visited South America, she promised Alice they’d drive. Or run.

Cusco was a stunning city. For Bella, the combination of architecture, mountain backdrops and row upon row of streets nestled against the same mountains was simply beautiful.

‘I like it here,’ she told Edward as soon as they landed.

‘I thought you might. You might like it less, though, once you spend a day being dragged up the hilly streets by Alice.’

He had a point. A very good point, actually. By dinner time Bella’s legs were screaming in protest and Edward was promising a massage before bed. It wasn’t a bad trade off all told, but Bella would have preferred the massage without having to worry about the shin pain first.

‘More hills tomorrow?’ Bella asked at dinner, grateful to be sitting down on the patio of a restaurant overlooking the Plaza de Armas.

‘Only if you want to,’ Alice explained, busy making a go of perusing the wine list. ‘Jasper and I are leaving you.’

‘Oh, right. Well, I guess it’ll be just us two,’ she said to Edward. ‘So no more hills?’

He regarded her for a moment. ‘Do you have an aversion to helicopters?’

Bella shook her head. ‘I’ve never been in one. It would be neat to go. Can we fly up to the mountains?’

He grinned. ‘That is the general idea. How does a helicopter tour of Machu Picchu sound?’

‘Fantastic!’ Bella exclaimed, so loudly the neighbouring diners turned to them with annoyed looks. She looked apologetically around her. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But I thought Alice said it would be sunny?’

‘Yes, I did. Too sunny for hiking at least, or to take the train, but you can get a helicopter ride out around the site for just a few hours and, coincidentally, it’s going to be cloudy all tomorrow morning. I already booked the trip for you.’

‘Thank you Alice!’ Bella said, being sure to keep her voice slightly quieter this time. ‘That’s really great.’

‘So, you don’t mind that it cost a lot?’

‘Since I get to see Machu Picchu without having to hike all day? No, I don’t mind. Or rather, I do, but I’m trying not to think about it.’

Alice nodded sagely. ‘Yes, good attitude. Just…remember that next time too, okay?’

Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Next time…?’ Bella intoned.

‘Well, bus travel here isn’t much fun, so I figured you and Edward could fly to La Paz. I booked a private plane so you’ll be able to fly lower over the mountains and have a great view.’

‘How far is it from here to La Paz?’ Bella asked, trying to sound innocent.

‘About the same distance from here to Lima. It would be a very long day on the bus.’

‘I want to do it,’ Bella decided. ‘And I’m not just saying that because I don’t want you spending money on a private jet. I just…all the experiences, right?’ She turned to Edward. ‘It’s only a day. I can manage a day on a bus. As long as the weather won’t be a problem?’ This she directed at Alice.

The pixie shrugged. ‘It’ll be even cloudier further east. I guess if you want to go, that’s okay. You will get a better view of the scenery that way.’

‘What do you think Jasper?’ Bella asked him, since he had been his usual quiet self for most of the day.

Jasper gave her a small smile. ‘I think this is your trip, Bella. If you’d like to go by bus, then you should go by bus. As long as Alice doesn’t see a problem.’

His wife’s eyes seemed to glaze over slightly as she looked forward. ‘No, I don’t think so. I certainly don’t see weather problems or the bus breaking down, and that’s what matters!’ Her smile was infectious as she all but bounced in her seat, seeming quite happy with the sudden change in plans.

‘Then we go by bus?’ Bella turned to Edward.

‘Love, we will do whatever you would like to do. This is your trip. We can stay here a few days and enjoy the old city and then head further east.’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ she agreed.

***

They rose early the next morning in order to be at the heli-pad by nine. Alice had promised cloud until nearly one o’clock, and after that only patchy sun. Still, it would be safer to be back in the hotel by then.

Their pilot was already waiting for them, sitting in his seat and running through a pre-flight check when one of the airport staff lead them out to the waiting helicopter. He gave them a brief nod over the sound of the blades starting up.

Edward exchanged a quick word with their guide in Spanish, who nodded to them both before retreating back across the tarmac to the administration building.

‘Ready?’ Edward asked, near shouting now over the sound of the noise above.

‘Yes!’ Bella said, having no need to shout back for him to hear.

He helped her up in the back of the helicopter and strapped her in, almost like he’d done this before. ‘You’ve been up in a helicopter?’ she asked as soon as he moved on to his own straps.

He nodded to her in confirmation before handing her a headset, making sure it was settled over her ears firmly. Once he had his own on, he motioned to the pilot that they were ready.

‘Right. Off we go then,’ the guy said, in a perfect Australian accent. That surprised Bella enough that she laughed.

Despite being in the midst of take-off, he turned around and grinned at her with a wink. The chopper rose steadily and then they were up in the air, heading away from Cusco into the higher mountains. It was stunningly beautiful in every direction.

‘So this was a good idea?’ Edward asked from his seat a foot to her right.

Bella couldn’t stop looking, trying to see everything at once in every direction. ‘Yes!’ she cried, not caring that it sent a burst of feedback through the com system because of the volume level.

She didn’t notice Edward watching her, in that way he always did when she slept. Full of love, but also surprise each and every time. He could watch her every day of forever and never get bored.

The mountains rose ever higher as they climbed into them, skirting through a valley over pristine forest and spires of rock. Bella wasn’t sure she wanted it to end, despite what lay before them. She was hardly aware of the time before suddenly their pilot was motioning off to their right. ‘Over there!’ he called back.

Bella tore her gaze away from the mountain to her left to gaze where he pointed just as the helicopter veered in the same direction, pulling a clear view of the mountain city into her view through the door on Edward’s side.

‘It’s huge!’ was the first thing out of her mouth.

Edward snickered. ‘Well, you’re not wrong.’

They flew two full circles before moving lower, coming in to land at the helipad just below the city walls. Everywhere she looked Bella could see tourists scrambling amongst the ruins, dots of colour moving here and there.

They landed with only a slight jolt and then the insane noise of the motor was dying as the pilot shut the helicopter down. He pulled off his headset.

‘You’ve got a full hour here. Sorry it’s not more, but we’ve only got one helipad amongst three companies doing tours. This is our slot for the morning.’

‘Understood,’ Edward told him, as he helped Bella out of the seat onto the paved ground. ‘We’ll be back on time.’

‘Then enjoy it mate!’ The guy nodded. He threw Bella another wink.

‘Shall we?’ Edward turned to ask her. He offered her his hand.

Smiling, Bella slipped her warm hand into his cold one, feeling the rock hard grip. ‘Lead on.’ She motioned with her other hand.

Edward had never actually been to Machu Picchu, but he seemed to know the way anyways. He never once let go of her hand, keeping a tight grip as Bella stumbled across cracked stones and tumbling walls, his eyes firmly on her and not the ruins. Bella’s eyes, however, were fixed on the wonder about her.

Finally, Edward tugged her back outside the city walls. ‘Hour’s almost up I’m afraid.’

‘No, no that’s okay. I mean, I could stay here all day, but that’s not fair to other people. Do you think we can fly around the site again once we take off?’

‘I’ll ask Mark,’ Edward said.

Mark readily agreed. ‘I’ll give you guys another good go around. The next helicopter is about ten minutes out still,’ he explained, busy flipping switches. The drone of the rotors started up again as Bella and Edward slipped their headsets on.

He flew lower this time, keeping a good few hundred feet from the actual ruins, while still affording them an amazing view. ‘It’s incredible,’ Bella shouted over the coms.

‘Yeah it is,’ Mark agreed. ‘Been doing this seven years and it still amazes me every time I fly up here.’

They were silent once more on the way back, since Bella was still trying to see everything she’d missed on the way up. She curled into Edward’s side, as much as the seatbelts would allow. ‘Thank you,’ was all she said, just before they touched down back at the airfield.

Instead of answering, he pulled her headset off, careful of tangling it in her hair and then kissed her.

‘I’ll take that as ‘you’re welcome?’,’ Bella asked.

‘Very,’ he replied. Once again he helped her down as the whirl of the blades above them slowed. ‘Thank you very much Mark,’ he told their pilot. The two men shook hands.

‘Enjoy the rest of your time in Peru,’ the Aussie told them.

Bella gave him a last wave as Edward led her towards the admin building. ‘That is going to be the highlight of this trip.’

‘You think so?’ Edward asked her.

‘Yes. Wait, you don’t? What are you planning?’

He managed to look innocent. ‘I’m unlikely to tell you, seeing as it’s a surprise.’

Bella stopped walking abruptly. ‘I don’t like surprises.’

He tugged her arm gently and led her into the building before replying. ‘But you will like this one. Alice promises. You only need to wait until we’re in Bolivia. The surprise is before we leave for Brazil.’

‘I suppose that’s okay. I mean, if Alice knows I’m going to like it, I can’t really say differently can I?’

His eyebrows drew together thoughtfully. ‘I suppose if you chose to not like it that would change things. But since Alice knows you will, why would you choose not to?’

‘To teach you I don’t like surprises?’ Bella wondered. ‘No, no, I promise to like it. There, see? All decided. Liking is guaranteed now.’

He smiled back at her, quickly signed off on the last of the paperwork from the tour and then led her out to a waiting car. ‘How about lunch? Alice and Jasper are leaving in about an hour, but they’d like to hear all about our morning first.’

‘Because Alice doesn’t already know.’

‘She still likes to hear,’ he explained.

‘Lunch sounds good,’ Bella agreed, climbing into the back of the taxi with him. It sped off towards the city centre at nearly Cullen speed.

Chapter 5

Edward and Bella enjoyed a quiet day together after Alice and Jasper headed off to…well, wherever they were headed. Bella wasn’t quite sure and didn’t really think she wanted to know. They’d meet in Rio in a week. Until then, Bella supposed the two of them deserved some personal time away from the rest of the family, like Emmett and Rose and Carlisle and Esme were enjoying. And like she and Edward would be enjoying for the same week too.

‘All alone,’ she whispered to him that night.

‘Yes.’

Bella just grinned.

Their next and last day in Cusco was spent relaxing as much as possible, which wasn’t particularly hard since the sun was out most of the day. Bella spent a bit of time by the pool, but mostly sat inside the suite with Edward watching poorly dubbed Spanish movies.

The bus, when they caught it bright and early the next morning, was exactly what Edward had feared and Bella had hoped. Cramped, somewhat smelly, and very, very human. Half of the people on board seemed to be backpackers in their late teens and early twenties, so the couple fit in quite well. Bella struck up a conversation with the two girls in the seat in front of her and seemed to enjoy the experience. Despite the fact that the press of humans wasn’t bothering Edward – he had spent the night out in the forest hunting just to be safe – it was obviously not what he was used to. Still, Bella seemed happy, so Edward just played along and decided to covertly plan a charter a plane from La Paz to Santa Cruz; their last stop before they headed to Rio.

It was late and dark by the time they reached La Paz, but at least they had a very nice hotel suite waiting for them. Bella went right to sleep and Edward, despite being a vampire and therefore not able to get tired, was quite happy to curl up next to her and rest until dawn.

In the morning she seemed refreshed and ready and willing to see the city. It was quite a bit cooler, being winter on this side of the equator, but Alice had made certain Bella would be prepared. And it did make for great sightseeing weather. The clouds Alice had promised were still there, hanging low enough to just brush the tops of the rocky peaks surrounding the Bolivian city. They had today and tomorrow and then the sun would appear again. Bella intended to see as much as possible before they were stranded inside for a day.

‘We could always leave for Santa Cruz early.’

‘Alice said it’d be sunny there too, though,’ Bella reminded him.

‘It’s a smaller city, however, and we have a nice villa. Very private. The sun wouldn’t matter as much.’

‘Oh. Well, that sounds very nice. Very, very nice,’ she decided, leaning back against him.

‘I was thinking we could take a small jet there. It’s another all day through the mountains by bus on some…less than safe roads.’

‘But you can call Alice and ask if things are going to be alright, can’t you? I really liked the bus. I got to see so many things. I was really surprised by how close to the road some of the animals got.’

They had seen rather a lot of wildlife on the long bus ride, it was true. And Bella had obviously enjoyed herself.

‘As long as the sun won’t be a problem for us the day after tomorrow.’

He capitulated, because of course he would. ‘I’ll text Alice and ask.’

Of course, he didn’t need to. Merely thinking about it was enough. Bella was just finishing up breakfast in the posh restaurant with a stunning view across the city from the thirtieth floor when Alice texted them.

‘She says it will be cloudy on the roads between here and the east side of Bolivia. And she doesn’t see the bus tumbling off a cliff at any time.’ Edward frowned deeply.

‘Stop. You asked. She responded. It’s fine; stop worrying. Enjoy, right?’

Sighing an apology, Edward put his cell away. ‘Right. Bus it is and I promise to enjoy it this time. It’s probably safer than being up in a plane above the cloud line in the sun, too.’

‘See? Things always work out for the best. Didn’t you tell me that?’

‘And you listened. Smart.’ He winked.

‘I try. Come on, we’ve got two days and, by the looks of it, a lot to see.’ This time she was the one to grab his hand and tug him away.

They didn’t, of course, see everything the mountain city had to offer, but they gave it a good go. Each night Bella was so tired she fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed.

Their third morning did dawn sunny, but thankfully the bus to the east left just as the sun came up and Edward situated himself in the shadiest part he could find, content that a hat and sunglasses would be enough. Bella sat by the window looking out at the cold, clear morning as the crowded bus set off. The roads weren’t as nice this side of La Paz, since it was less often travelled by tourists. Still, there were a few other backpackers on the route as they wended their way through already bad traffic and out of the city, climbing further up into the rocky promontories that characterized Bolivia.

By mid-morning Bella was flagging. The further up they got elevation wise, the cloudier it had gotten and now the visibility was barely a few hundred feet ahead. There wasn’t much stunning scenery to see. She was learning against Edward with her headphones in, bobbing along to her music. Most of the other passengers were being quiet as well.

The clouds drew down even further and the bus driver slowed – a bit. The sharp drops to valleys below were weighing heavily on Edward’s mind, but he reminded himself that Alice hadn’t foreseen a problem. Of course, even Alice couldn’t see everything. He was ready to make a move if the bus started to slip sideways. If he moved quickly enough he could have Bella to safety before the vehicle fell off the highway to the rushing waters below.

Edward was so busy concentrating on the potential for disaster that it took him a moment to realise the bus had come to a stop. At first, he wasn’t certain why. Visibility was down to less than a hundred feet, and from his position near the centre of the bus it was hard to see if there was anyone in front. There were no other vehicles out the back window, however. His ears listened for the slightest sound, but it was unnecessary; a beat later loud angry shouting erupted from in front and to the left, on the side away from the cliffs.

Bella sat up quickly, ripping her headphones out of her ears. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Shush!’ He silenced her with a sharp look. His mind was racing. Why hadn’t Alice seen this? Had they decided last minute? His fingers closed around the phone in his pocket and he drew it out to see there was no signal. Great. No warning either, even if Alice had seen something.

‘Stay here,’ he cautioned Bella, hoping that for once she might listen. Keeping low, he crept up towards the front of the bus. Outside, five men with rifles were standing guard while a sixth had a heated argument in rapid-fire Spanish with the driver. Edward’s Spanish was perfect, but he only understood half of what they were talking about. The context made little sense, but it didn’t need to. He could guess what was going on. Angry despite knowing it was no one’s fault, he crept back to Bella.

‘What’s happening?’ she whispered.

He gazed at her tightly for a moment, long enough for Bella to know something was very wrong. ‘I’m not completely certain, but I would say we’re about to be kidnapped and likely held for ransom.’

Sure enough, as soon as he finished speaking and before Bella could utter a word, an armed man appeared at the front of the bus. He started shouting in Spanish.

Bella looked at Edward for help; her Spanish wasn’t good enough to follow along.

‘All foreigners are to get off the bus,’ he translated. Barely containing his rage, Edward looked for a way out. He was just starting to contemplate attacking – he could take all six before anyone was likely to get injured – when the gun-toting kidnapper on the bus levelled his rifle at the two German backpackers nearest him. Edward rethought his plan. The man’s finger was on the trigger.

The two Germans took the hint. They rose slowly and stumbled down the steps. Immediately, two other gunmen knocked them to their knees and pointed their own rifles at their heads. Edward had no chance now. It was too much of a risk that someone would be injured or even killed. He would do anything to protect Bella, but now was not the moment. Once they were off the bus and into the jungle it would be a better time to act. Safer, he told himself.

The lead gunman started shouting again and now the other passengers – three more foreigners besides Edward and Bella – got off. Edward was just getting Bella up to lead her out as well when a shot rang out. Outside, one of the German men was on the ground moaning in pain, clutching his arm. The gunman standing above him looked livid. He raised his rifle towards the bus and opened fire. But he wasn’t aiming for people, just shooting out the windows to make a point. Glass rained down around them as Edward tried to shield Bella’s frail skin.

She was shaking in his arms, trying desperately to keep it together. ‘Come on,’ he whispered to her once the glass stopped flying. Slowly they made their way out of the bus, only to be pushed immediately to the ground. Bella cried out as she landed hard on her knees, but it was the sharp rush of her scent, noticeable to Edward even over the blood of the German man, that alerted him that she had landed on a piece of glass. The ground slowly stained red around her right knee.

It took all of Edward’s control not to attack the men at that moment.

The leader began to speak again, gesturing wildly into the mountains. The injured German was thrust to his feet and pushed forward into the fog-shrouded trees. Each of the other prisoners was treated similarly. Edward made a show of helping Bella to her feet. Her right knee was a mass of blood and dirt and Edward could see the piece of glass that had cut her. It was long and sharp and had obviously been pointing upwards, slicing a wide and deep cup right below her kneecap. Unsurprisingly, Bella faltered when she tried to stand.

‘Lean on me,’ he whispered to her, just before he was shoved forward by the butt of a gun in his back. He clutched Bella to him and began to walk. The six men surrounded them, one in front, one behind and two on each side.

Edward kept alert for any opportunity to move. He could get Bella out of there in a second and he wanted to, but that would leave five other innocent people behind. He knew he could live with that, but Bella wouldn’t be able to. She’d probably never forgive him. He had to save everyone.

Chapter 6

Their captors lead them along a narrow dirt track, the forest pressing in on all sides. Rain up in the mountains had turned the dirt to mud which clung to their shoes. It made walking all the harder and after the first few hundred feet, Bella tripped. Edward had been too focused on their guards, particularly the one walking right behind them. It was only Bella’s sharp cry of pain as she landed on all fours that pulled his attention back. He’d let go of her for only a moment, but apparently that had been enough.

He pulled her up immediately, noting that her legs and arms were now caked in dark brown mud. If the cut on her leg wasn’t infected from the dirt on the road, it certainly was now.

‘I’m alright,’ she whispered to him.

The gunman behind them shoved Edward on the shoulder. He was not budged by the sharp movement, of course, but the man made no outward sign that he had noticed. Edward took the hint however, gently urging Bella forward while making sure he had a tight grip on her arm in case of further falls.

It started to rain. It wasn’t heavy, and most of it was caught amongst the dense trees above their heads, but as they continued to move ever upwards along the path, the raindrops became heavier. By the end of the first hour it was pouring down and the temperature was dropping. Bella started to shiver.

Suddenly the forest disappeared below them. The path had taken them to the edge of a sharp decline. A hundred feet or so below them, nestled in the trees, was a small encampment. Edward could make out what looked like five buildings clustered around an open space. Around it all was a high wooden fence. It was a typical hideout for the gun and drug smugglers that inhabited the reaches of South America’s wilderness. And Edward knew it was a very long way from help.

He kept one hand on Bella, but his eyes scanned in all directions as they were lead down a carved path, complete with stone steps, to the camp below. As they entered it, the inhabitants stepped away from buildings to observe them. Their captors exchanged words with the other men – there were no women in sight – in sharp tones. Edward counted seven other men besides the ones that had taken them from the bus; he knew there could be more as well.

Across the camp was a simple one room shack to which they were led. A heavily locked door was opened and one by one they were shoved inside. The room had no windows and the only light filtered in through the small gaps in the wood siding and roof. It was damp and cold inside, just as it was outside. The floor was rough wood beams suspended a few feet above the ground.

And then the door slammed shut, the lock was drawn tight and they were left in near-darkness, except for Edward.

Immediately he moved Bella to the wall and eased her down. In an empty shed there was no way to get her dry or warm and both of those would become very real problems very quickly. Instead, Edward pulled off his outer shirt, still wet from the rain, and began to clean the mud from her limbs as well as he could. He used his equally wet undershirt to clean the deep cut. It was still sluggishly bleeding and though not serious, it needed stitches to keep it closed. Stitches and disinfectant and antibiotics. There was no doubt in his mind it was infected.

Bella sat silently through it all, except for the occasional chatter of her teeth. She was trembling, but Edward didn’t think it was entirely from cold. She was half in shock, if not more so. When he was done cleaning her up he sat down beside her with his back to the wall. Not daring to let their skin touch and add to the coldness, he simply grasped her hand.

Bella turned wide eyes on him. ‘Edward?’ she whispered.

The other prisoners had settled against other walls. The German man who had been shot was sitting in one corner while his friend used strips of damp shirt to bind the wound. Edward knew he should have a look at it but, just like with Bella, there wasn’t really anything to be done. The smell of blood was sharp in the room, but he ignored it. Still, it was a good thing he had hunted so recently.

‘Edward?’ the quiet voice beside him whispered again.

‘I’ll get us out of this. I promise.’

He watched her gaze flicker around the darkened room. ‘Them too?’

Edward shut his eyes, trying for a moment to block it all out. Alice, please, he pleaded silently. ‘Yes, them too.’ And he knew that he would keep that promise. He knew Bella needed him to.

He needed to find a way out. He could get them back to the highway easily; the path was fairly obviously, but more than that he could follow the scent of humans, even if it continued to rain heavily. The path was well used, and the old scents of the kidnappers had been obvious. No, getting back to the highway wasn’t a problem, but getting out of the camp was. The wooden fence was high enough to pose a problem for the humans. Edward tried to weigh the scenario. With only thirteen men in camp, he could easily take them all down. Once night fell, some of them would sleep, secure in the knowledge that their prisoners were behind a locked door. The lock would pose no problem to Edward’s strength and he could incapacitate all the men before any of them could get near the other captives. As long as no more men showed up in camp, at least. He was fast, but dealing with even two dozen men before someone got trigger happy could be a challenge.

He was not worried about revealing himself to the other prisoners. They would be so happy to be free, they wouldn’t care how it had happened. An hour back to the main highway was plenty of time to dream up a good cover story.

He would need to act tonight. Even by tomorrow, Bella and the German man would be suffering and the walk back would become even harder. It would be cold in the mountains, though. They would need to take clothing from the armed men before they left. Hopefully Alice would see his plan and she and Jasper could race to them. Alice hadn’t been positive of where they were headed when they parted in Cusco, but Edward was fairly certain she and her husband were still on the west side of South America. They could reach them in a night’s run.

‘We’ll leave tonight,’ Edward whispered in Bella’s ear. ‘Until then, just rest. We’ll have a long trip back to the road in the dark.’

Already exhausted, Bella just nodded in the dim light. She edged herself a bit closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder, while keeping most of the rest of her body away from his cold skin. Her wounded knee was stretched out in front of her.

Slowly the day passed into evening. Bella’s shivers did not stop and the other captives were clearly uncomfortable. Edward could tell the German was not doing well. As the sun set behind the trees, the interior of the shed grew too dark for human eyes.

The prisoners seemed strangely quiet. Bella’s mind was, as always a blank in his head, but the others were very focused on one specific thing: whether this was the end or not. The German’s companion was running his own version of escape plans in his head, all of which would end in disaster and death if followed through. Edward would have to make certain he didn’t attempt any of them.

Edward was running through different plans his head, trying to decide when it would be best to act, when the quiet outside was broken by the sound of many voices. The noise was enough to jolt Bella out of her uncomfortable dose.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ He moved himself out from under her moved and towards a small gap between two boards near the door. He could easily observe the scene outside. He had heard group of men arrive in camp. Quickly he counted, finding ten new faces amongst the others. They were carrying what looked like provisions and just as many guns.

Edward didn’t often swear, but this situation called for it. The men were all happy to hear about the new addition of prisoners and not a single of their thoughts was anywhere near pleasant.

Bella’s voice had taken on a frantic edge as she asked again: ‘What’s happening Edward?’

He moved back to his place beside her. He was aware of the other people in the room listening in, so he didn’t try to keep his voice low. They needed to be involved in whatever was going to happen.

‘Another ten men just arrived. Also heavily armed.’

‘What was the plan? There was a plan, right? Alice…’ Bella trailed off, aware the others could hear.

Edward shook his head in the dark; even though he knew she couldn’t see, he was hoping she could feel the movement. ‘I have no cell reception out here. I hope she knows.’ He shrugged against her. ‘I have no way of knowing that, however.’ A year ago he would have lied to her point blank and told her everything would be fine. But he had promised never to lie to her again.

‘But you still have a plan?’

‘I was going to wait until most of them were sleeping and then go through the door. I had hoped to incapacitate them before anyone of us could be injured, then follow the path back to the highway.’

To Bella, this seemed very logical. To the others, however, who didn’t know they had a not-entirely-human captive in their midst, it probably sounded stupidly brave – or just stupid.

‘They’ll kill you,’ the German man said from beside his injured fellow. Edward thought the other man slumped in the corner looked barely conscious. That would make the escape all the harder. Edward knew he would have to carry Bella, but hoped the two Germans could help each other.

‘I’m well trained,’ Edward countered, having already thought of the excuse. He could not explain to them his advantages, of course, though right now only one of those advantages was of any use: speed.

One of the others, a forty-something woman, spoke for the first time. Edward thought she might be Mexican. ‘Military?’

‘Of a sort,’ he answered, trying to be as vague as possible. ‘I could handle a dozen, if half of them were sleeping. But with nearly two dozen…’ Edward knew he’d be hard pressed to get all of the men contained before someone pulled a gun.

‘Someone will come looking for us,’ the man beside the Mexican woman stated.

‘Yes,’ the German agreed. ‘We are due in Santa Cruz tomorrow. If we do not arrive, they will look for us.’

‘Likely,’ Edward agreed. ‘But the civilian authorities won’t find us; not up here. It could be days before they find a trace of us. Your companion will not last that long.’ There was no point in being anything other than blunt. These people needed to know the odds. They also had to be willing.

‘Maybe some of the men leave tomorrow? We wait a day,’ the woman suggested.

The idea had merit. This was a smuggling camp – for people or drugs was hard to say – and the men wouldn’t make much money by sitting around camp waiting. Some, at least, would probably leave again the next day. It might be better to wait. Though Edward was loath to do so, especially for the sake of the German, he seriously considered it. Another day would give Alice and Jasper plenty of time to arrive. Between the three of them they could deal with even a full two dozen men.

‘Tomorrow night, then. We hope some of the men leave during the day, and more don’t arrive. Until then, keep quiet and do what you’re told. Don’t anger them. They’re already too quick to use a gun.’

They lapsed into silence then with the weight of the injured man on their minds. Despite the cold, Bella cuddled closer to Edward. ‘Another day isn’t that long. I can manage.’

He knew that. He knew that, even if the wound was already infected, Bella could last a few days without treatment and still have a good chance of recovery. But the combination of the cold temperatures and lack of suitable clothing worried him more.

‘Yes, but not in this cold. Bella,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I want you to go and sit with the others. You need to stay together for warmth. Being close to me won’t help matters.’

Logically, she knew that was true. ‘Okay,’ she agreed, after a pause. It hurt to move. Already her body ached from the cold air and hard floor and her knee sent shooting pains through her leg as she moved it. Slowly Bella edged along the wall until she hit a corner, and then along the next until she encountered a semi-warm body. ‘For warmth,’ she muttered when the man started.

‘Everyone should sit together for warmth. It’s all we have,’ Edward announced, glad for a moment that the humans would not be able to see that he had not joined them.

There were a few minutes of scuffling and painful exclamations as the six humans moved close together. When they had settled, Edward took a place a foot away from Bella; close enough that she could touch him, but not close enough to add to the cold.

Slowly, they settled down for the night, as did the men outside. Edward concentrated on the slowing pulse of the injured German as the night stumbled along and the hopeless thoughts of their cell companions.

Chapter 7

He didn’t last the night. As dawn crept over the horizon, Edward heard the man’s heart stutter to a stop, unable to deal with the blood loss of internal injuries. Edward shut his eyes tightly, willing himself anywhere else. Willing Bella anywhere else. Her shivers had finally stopped during the night, but he knew well that was not because it was suddenly warmer. Instead, a slow fever was gradually setting in as the infection in her knee grew. There was nothing he could do.

The rest of them woke to a pounding on the door and shouted Spanish telling them to move to the far wall. They were already there anyways, and no one had the strength to put up a fight as armed men entered the shack and dragged them outside. They brought the body too, before they realised it was dead.

Once they did, they tried to drag the dead man away, but his friend wasn’t having any of it. Edward finally stepped close to him when a gun was levelled in his direction.

‘He’s gone,’ Edward whispered in German in the man’s ear. ‘You cannot help him now, but getting yourself shot will not help any of us.’

Glumly the man nodded, letting go of his tight grip on his dead friend’s shirt.

Bella buried her face in Edward’s bare chest, her words only just loud enough for him to hear. ‘You should have fed. He’s been dead for hours, hasn’t he?’

Edward nodded above her. ‘I’m fine,’ he added. And even if he wasn’t, there wasn’t a chance he was going to descend into the madness of drinking human blood once more. Even if the blood belonged to a no longer breathing human. He wasn’t about to let their captors take him to that level.

Bella didn’t respond to that.

Once the body had been dragged away, they were forced to a corner of the fence out of sight of the main camp. There was a hole in the ground. The men gestured towards it. Edward didn’t need to read minds to figure it out.

‘What?’ Bella asked, leaning heavily on Edward and trying not to put weight on her swollen leg.

He lifted an eyebrow.

‘Oh,’ she said.

The men standing guard weren’t about to turn their backs. Bella only went after the Mexican woman had done her business, caught between blushing in embarrassment and in anger.

They were then taken back to the shack and handed a cup of water each. If that was all they got for the day, it would barely sustain the humans. With Bella’s fever inevitably growing worse, it wouldn’t do any good at all, even though Edward gave her his water as well.

Then they were shoved back inside and the heavy lock was drawn closed.

After that, there was no more contact for the day between captives and gunmen. Bella grew more uncomfortable as the day progressed and her low grade fever turned worse. Edward could do nothing more than offer his cold body against her flush one and a cold hand against the pulsing wound. And pray that Alice was coming. He set his mind to concentrating on the men outside, but that was annoyingly unhelpful. Reading minds was a useful gift in situations like these, he would have guess, but it was proving useless now. It seemed hard to get a read on any one person and unpleasant when he did. The minds of them men were not a place he wanted to me in for very long. They told him little; most of them were wrapped up in their own thoughts; concerned with the next meal, the next payday and the next kill.

The four other prisoners seemed lost in their own worlds again. The surviving German man hadn’t spoken a word and was staring off into space, lost, his thoughts a confused jumble. The Mexican woman was praying nearly constantly, the litany of Hail Mary’s running through Edward’s mind until he finally tuned it out. The two men were now attempting to come up with escape plans; most of which were very similar despite the fact they weren’t talking to each other. Most of them were very bad ideas.

We should have gone last night. We should have risked it, he thought to himself, ignoring the unhelpful thoughts of the others.

In his arms, Bella moaned in pain.

There was no point asking the guards for help. They hadn’t seemed to care about the German man, except that now they had a body to deal with. Whatever the true purpose for their kidnapping was, keeping them alive was not at the top of the to-do list. Which was very worrying to Edward. He needed Alice. And Jasper and Emmett. And Bella needed Carlisle. Or a hospital at the least. Edward made a rough guess that, if she continued to deteriorate at the current rate, Bella had maybe two days before the wound turned septic. And after that, recover was a far cry from guaranteed.

He’d change her before that. He knew it. But changing her here, locked in this shed, was ten kinds of a bad idea. For one, there was no telling what screams would make their captors do, and it would certainly keep the other four prisoners awake for the next three days solid. Edward couldn’t deal with a vampire in transition while trying to get the others out alive. And if Bella woke a vampire before they got out, the other captives would be dead in minutes and she would never forgive herself.

No, he couldn’t change her until they got out.

But they had to get out soon.

They were given another cup of water that night and a hunk of bread to share between all of them. The other prisoners seemed ready to give up their food for Bella, but there was no point. She turned her head away at the very smell of it. Edward could not risk feeding her and having her vomit it; she couldn’t afford to lose what little water she had left in her body. He coaxed two cups of water into her in slow measured sips, but her fever continued to climb.

Even knowing there was no point, Edward took a look at the wound in the last fading light of their second day as captives. It looked awful, to put it simply. He revised his estimate; they needed to get out by the next night or it really might be too late.

As the sun set again, Edward observed the camp. A few of the men, probably a small hunting party, had left in the morning, but that still left nearly eighteen armed and dangerous criminals. However, their thoughts revealed that another group would be leaving the next day, to meet up with another camp to the north. It sounded like less than a dozen would remain – more than enough to look after locked up and disheartened prisoners, especially when one was severely injured. The next night would be the best chance they would have to get away.

Edward spent that night, as the humans about him struggled to sleep and Bella tossed and turned in his arms, shivering and sweating in equal measure as the temperature dipped and her fever climbed, running contingency plans in his head. If Alice had seen what had happened by now, she would hopefully also see his decision to go the next night, and the fact that there would be fewer men around. With just her and Jasper, it would be enough to incapacitate the men and get the humans to safety, as well as Bella.

But Edward hoped it wasn’t just Alice and Jasper who were coming.

Morning came eventually. Sometime in the night the Mexican woman had curled up with the German man; Edward had heard her quiet sobs. Quickly, far too quickly, captivity was breaking their spirits. Even the other two men made no effort to get up when the door was unlocked the next morning.

Instead of dragging them outside, a jug of water was slapped down on the floor, spilling nearly half the contents, and the door was left open. Edward knew it was a joke; that any move outside would be met by at least one gun trained on each person.

They shared the water between themselves. Edward tried to rouse Bella from sleep, but he couldn’t more than half wake her. She was in far too much pain; lost in a fever haze.

‘Bella, please,’ he begged quietly. He dribbled a few drops of the cold water between her lips, but she gave no indication that she noticed.

‘She is bad,’ the woman said, coming to sit next to them. ‘I am sorry.’

‘She’ll be fine if we can get out of here.’

The woman arched disbelieving eyebrows. ‘If the army comes, perhaps, but I do not think the army will come.’

Well no, Edward thought; at least not the military. But an army was coming. He had to continue to believe that, so he made no answer.

‘I will hold her. You must go outside, no?’

He didn’t need to, but he also didn’t want anyone to start questioning his movements, especially their captors. Drawing any attention to the fact that he was different could end badly. So Edward eased Bella’s hot body from his arms into the gentle grip of the woman, pressed a soft kiss to her temple and went with the other men outside to ‘relieve himself’. Their captors seemed less attentive today, but the guns were no less obvious.

He had just returned to the shack when the commotion started. The woman began shouting in high-pitched Spanish. Edward pushed past the other captives to stand in front of the building. Outside, in the dirt, the woman was kneeling over Bella’s body, trying desperately to shield her. How the two of them had ended up outside in the first place made no sense, but it didn’t matter. The two guns pointed at the woman mattered.

‘No!’ Edward shouted, rushing forward to stand in front of her. ‘Please,’ he said, knowing it was begging and not caring.

The Bolivian in front started jabbering in Spanish. ‘She’s dead. We got no need for dead captives. Put her with the other one.’

Edward literally saw red. It took every ounce of control he’d ever possessed not to attack the man. Sanity invaded his consciousness. There were guns trained on the woman and Bella. He couldn’t take the chance.

‘She’s not dead,’ he said, aware his voice sounded weak even to his own ears. ‘She’s not,’ he repeated.

The look the Mexican woman threw him was one of utter pity.

Their captors hesitated, exchanging quick glances and then one of the shrugged. ‘He want the dead girl, let him have her.’

One of them stepped forward, obviously moving to grab Bella, but Edward beat him to it. He pulled Bella’s unresisting body into his arms and climbed the stairs into the shack. He was aware that the other prisoners were being herded inside as well. The door was slammed shut and the lock drawn home.

‘By tomorrow,’ the woman said, ‘they won’t let you keep her.’

Edward had no intention of letting them. He also had no intention of any of them being in camp come the dawn.

Chapter 8

Bella was unresponsive. Her breathing was shallow and laboured, her heartbeat struggling against the infection invading her body. The wound on her leg was a horrible thing to look at, but the already obvious lines of infection streaking off in every direction was making Edward’s non-beating heart clench in his chest. Blessedly the dim lighting in the locked prison wasn’t enough for any of the other captives to see how bad it was. But they didn’t need to.

‘Just hold on,’ he whispered to her, voice barely loud enough for even another vampire to hear. ‘Just hold on.’

He was trying to come to terms with the situation. He knew, logically, that Bella was likely beyond help. Even if they could get her to a hospital in Santa Cruz or La Paz, there was no guarantee she would recover. And he couldn’t take the chance that she wouldn’t. They would have to change her as soon as they got the other humans to safety. Edward was toying with whether to try to make it to the Isle before he bit her or to do it here, as soon as Alice got them out. It would be a challenge, but they could probably still make it to the Isle even with Bella in transition. It would be safer to change her sooner rather than later. It was her life, her eternity, and Edward wasn’t willing to take the chance that they would be too late. Her heart would soon struggle to keep up with the evil invading her body.

The sun was setting. Edward shifted the form in his arms as gently as possible; even so, Bella gave a low moan, agony clear in the sound.

Outside the men were settling in. A large group of ten had left in the afternoon, as they had been discussing the day before. With the hunting party still gone, there were only seven men left in camp clustered near a burning fire in the centre. Very soon it would be time to act. Edward hoped Alice would send him a sign that they had arrived, but an hour passed, then two. Edward could tell some of the men outside had retreated to their cabins to sleep. There was never going to be a better time. The others still at the fire were not paying attention to anything except the liquor in their cups.

Edward called softly to the woman. ‘Will you take her?’

He got no verbal answer, but he watched in the darkness as the woman shuffled over to them, bumping into Edward’s leg. With his night vision he easily shifted Bella’s limp body into the woman’s arms. Without hesitation she cradled Bella gently.

‘Thank you,’ Edward whispered, standing up and heading over to the door.

It was obvious the other occupants of the shack wanted to ask what he was up to, but the short time as prisoners had already engendered a tendency towards suppression.

Edward took advantage of it. Outside, he could see three men still sitting around a fire, passing a bottle – likely alcohol – around. The others had disappeared and were asleep – four men in a cabin to the far right of camp. The men at the fire were occupied in their discussion. Edward paid attention for only a moment, enough to be certain he could catch them off guard.

For a moment longer he hesitated, pondering once more whether to wait for Alice and Jasper. A soft moan behind him made him flinch. He leaned his head against the hard wood of the door. No, he would not wait a moment longer.

Edward’s hands curled into the gaps around the door on either side and he took an unnecessary breath. He would need to be fast to incapacitate the three still awake men.

Edward! Alice’s voice screamed through his mind. He was so shocked he stepped backwards away from the door, blinking stupidly in the darkness.

Edward, we’re here. All of us. I’m so sorry it took so long but we’re here. We’ll take care of the men. Give us thirty seconds.

He waited, counting the seconds and hating every single one of them. He could hear the minds of his family. Emmett was entirely too gleeful for the situation as usual. Rosalie was determined to make the men pay, her thoughts quite clear. Jasper was efficient, as always. Alice was standing back with Esme, waiting. And Carlisle.

‘Edward,’ he said, speaking on the other side of the door. Edward grasped the wood once more and wrenched hard. The wood splintered around the lock with ease and he pushed the pieces aside. Carlisle was standing on the threshold, gold hair shining in the distant firelight.

Only one thing came to mind. ‘Bella,’ Edward breathed.

Carlisle looked past him into the darkness of the shack, his eyes immediately finding Bella where she lay in the Mexican woman’s arms. He turned back only briefly to meet Edward’s eye and read what he needed to in them before he moved into the confined space. Behind him, Alice appeared.

She drew Edward into a hug, despite his rigid protest. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ she whispered into his chest, as close to tears as a vampire could be. For a moment, Edward just let her get on with it. He knew it wasn’t her fault; it wasn’t anyone’s fault except the men out there who were, if not dead, at least wishing they were. But he could not give in right now. Bella still needed him to be strong, for a little while longer.

Awkwardly he patted the pixie on the back until she released her tight grip. She stared around him into the interior of the space, biting her lip at the scene.

Edward took a deep breath and turned around himself.

Bella still lay in the woman’s arms as Carlisle crouched next to them. Edward knew the hope blooming in his chest was useless the moment it occurred; he could read Carlisle’s expression just as well as his half-veiled thoughts. They were out of options.

‘Emmett and Rosalie are going to take the men to Santa Cruz and turn them in. They’ll meet us in a few days. Rosalie wants to track the others who left yesterday.’

Edward nodded above her, not really paying attention to what Alice was saying, out loud or in her head.

‘Jasper and I will take the others to La Paz. We’ll make sure they’re safe. You and Carlisle can…I looked, Edward, and it’s the best option. You can reach the island in less than two days. You’ll be there before she wakes up.’

He squeezed his eyes tight, as if this pronouncement was unexpected. He knew, but hearing it from Alice and Carlisle was still hard. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

‘Edward?’ Carlisle spoke softly. ‘We need to get these people away from here.’

That snapped him back into full awareness. ‘Yes.’ He turned to the other captives. ‘My sister and brother will take you back to La Paz. They’ll make sure you get there safe. Please go with them. The men have been…taken care of.’

He thought there might be questions, but was surprised when no one spoke. The men rose and moved towards the door, the German man at the back. ‘Danke,’ was all he said as he passed Edward. Edward just gave him a nod. There was no need for words. They had both suffered a loss here.

He stepped forward to where Carlisle was still kneeling. Ever so gently he took Bella’s form in his arms. The woman squeezed his shoulder gently and leaned in to peck his cheek. She offered no words, convinced there were none, but at the door she stopped beside Alice. ‘I will pray for her, but I know that she will soon have peace.’

Alice gave her a slight smile, but Edward couldn’t even garner up that much.

‘Now?’ was all he asked Carlisle.

‘Yes,’ he whispered back, though his thoughts went one step further. It may already be too late.

‘I….I can’t,’ the bronze haired vampire said, a mountain of grief in his voice. ‘She wanted me to, but I can’t.’ A small hand on his back was all the comfort Alice could give; her thoughts were running in multiple directions and there was not yet a clear future.

My son, Carlisle said to him. She will understand.

Logically, Edward knew that. He leaned down and kissed her burning lips softly before he nodded. Gently the two men laid Bella’s form on the floor. Edward hated it, that this place would be her death, but maybe there was something in it. Better here, under cover, than out in the jungle. And they wouldn’t be staying long.

The doctor brushed fingers across Bella’s sweat-soaked forehead for a brief moment. Alice’s hand tightened on Edward’s shoulder and he reached up to grasp it in his impossibly trembling one.

It took almost no time at all. Whether a blessing or a curse, Carlisle was familiar with how to do this. Bella did not react as teeth sliced into her throat, first one side and then the other. The scent of her blood grew almost unbearable in the room. Above him, Alice had stopped breathing, but Edward couldn’t. He couldn’t bear to not breathe it in, the last few minutes of his beloved’s life.

They waited impatiently for the venom to start to spread. It seemed to take forever, and even Alice’s thoughts had no yet solidified in the first moments. But then…

‘It’s going to be alright,’ Alice sighed. At the same moment Edward saw the vision coalesce in her head. Bella shinning in the sun on Isle Esme; eyes red as blood. He choked on a sob even as the struggling beat of the human heart suddenly increased. It nearly pounded in his ears, echoing around the enclosed space. The prison.

‘Out,’ Edward hissed. ‘Get us out,’ he begged.

Carlisle scooped Bella’s still body in his arms as Alice pulled her brother to his feet. Then they were outside in the cool air of the night, surrounded by trees and mountains and sky and still he couldn’t breathe. Esme’s comforting presence wrapped around him and he shuddered in her arms.

‘She’s safe now, Edward. She’s safe and soon she will be well. Soon, nothing will ever hurt her again.’

He was aware of Rosalie and Emmett and Jasper nearby, of the sounds of the captive men who would never hurt another living soul. Of the humans shivering in the cold. For a minute it all passed him by as he was surrounded by his mother’s arms. But then reality returned. They were not entirely safe yet.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied as he drew back from the embrace.

Esme smiled sadly at him. It was a lie, but she knew it was a necessary one.

‘Alice,’ Edward turned to the small figure beside him.

‘We’ll take care of it. You best start running if you want to make it to the island in time,’ she smiled and it reached all the way to her eyes.

Edward couldn’t help but smile back.

Chapter 9

He gave it four hours before he started to worry. Jasper and Alice had quickly taken over the four surviving captives, ensuring they were fed and had water. Then they led them from the camp. Alice had foreseen sun later the next day and they needed to get them to safety before then. The drug runners who had survived – all three of them – had been tied up in one of the buildings. Once the two vampires had delivered the foreigners to a town and ensured the authorities were contacted, they would return to assist Rose and Emmett in finding the other men who had left camp the day before. Hopefully that would not take long. They would be no more than a day behind when they headed east to Rio, and without being burdened by Bella, they would hopefully reach the island before she woke to her new life.

But Edward wasn’t worried about that. The pressing concern was that it had been four hours of slow progress through the mountainous jungle and Bella had not uttered a single word. The thought of her screaming in pain horrified him, but it was almost preferable to the silence.

‘Why isn’t she…why is she so quiet?’ he whispered to Carlisle. They were keeping a steady pace, but Esme was not the fastest amongst them, and Edward was loath to run too quickly with Bella’s body in his arms, fragile or no.

Carlisle glanced at him as he replied. I am unsure Edward. But her heart is strong; you can hear it. I don’t believe there is any reason to worry.

It wasn’t the reassurance Edward had wanted. He clutched Bella tighter as they passed the south border of Bolivia into Paraguay. From there, they would run straight east to Rio. But the sun would be rising soon. Alice had estimated they would only have until mid-morning before they would reach more populated areas as the sun made an appearance. Their pace would slow while they made sure to take routes that kept them out of human sight. Even with their speed, they could still be seen; shining streaks passing by. There was no need to temp it, Alice had shown him, before she and Jasper left with the German, Mexican and two other men.

You’ll need to stop at mid-afternoon. It’s going to be too crowded and too sunny. You’ll need to wait until evening when the clouds come in again. Then you’ll have a straight run to the city before dawn. They’ll be a boat waiting at the usual dock.

By the time they made it to the island it would be barely a day after Bella was bitten. She would burn for much longer. They would be safe on the island. There was enough game for a few vampires and the rest could hunt on the mainland. It was the ideal situation, which was why they had chosen it. But there had been weeks of holiday in South America planned; to give Bella a human experience and let her see the world and now that had been cut short. What should have been an intimate experience – and a promise kept – had been torn away because of a few criminals in the mountains.

We should never have come, Edward told himself, knowing how useless hindsight was. Hold on Bella. I promise it will stop soon. He had no choice but to believe that she was experiencing the pain. He remembered it with a shocking clarity, the burning agony. He was not optimistic enough to think that she would be spared. Something was keeping her quiet. Maybe her own desire and will was enough. Carlisle, after all, had managed to remain nearly silent in a rotting potato cellar. It was possible. And Edward knew how strong his fiancée was.

Fiancée, he said, savouring the word in his head. And soon my wife. For eternity. They had only this last hurdle to overcome and then they would have that. Forever.

‘Just a few more days,’ he whispered in her deaf ear, not caring if she could hear him or not. He had been aware of Carlisle’s voice as he turned; a vague sense of peace and calm and spoken words and clearer thoughts. Hopefully, Bella could hear him too and know he was there.

Alice’s prediction had been right, of course. By mid-morning the clouds had cleared and they were running under a brilliant blue sky. The villages were still sparse in this area, but that would not last forever. Indeed, as morning waned into afternoon, they saw more buildings and ploughed fields as they ran. Around three it because impossible to continue. There were few areas of forest in which to conceal them and it was better they not be seen. At the last thick patch of trees they reached, Edward called a halt.

‘We stop here until sunset.’

Carlisle nodded. Esme looked relieved. Vampires could not tire like humans, but she looked worried and mentally exhausted from what had no doubt been a hellish few days since Alice had alerted them to the kidnapping.

Edward found the bowl of a fallen tree and eased himself down. Bella’s arm flopped limply down next to him. Her heartbeat was strong and fast and beautiful, but he wished she would make some independent motion.

Carlisle settled down next to him and Esme leaned against him on the other side. She reached a hand up to stroke through Bella’s tangled and dirty hair.

‘We’ll get that washed before she wakes up. She’ll prefer to be clean.’

Edward frowned. ‘I don’t think she’ll even notice Mom. Not with the thirst.’

‘Still,’ Esme said, as if ignoring what he’d said completely. ‘I’ll wash it.’

‘Her heartbeat is faster,’ Carlisle remarked out loud.

‘I know,’ Edward agreed. They could both hear the continuing worry in his voice.

The afternoon passed in near-silence. The forest around them was full of life, though thankfully not human. None of them wanted to risk a hunt, however, with humans so nearby. The forest area was surrounded within a few miles by farms and collections of villages.

Instead they sat against the fallen tree and listened to the sounds of insects, birds and larger mammals, and the strong thrum of Bella’s dying heart.

The cloud returned an hour before sunset and Edward made full use of it. ‘Alice said we should reach the coast by early morning if we leave now.’

‘We’ll run as fast as we can, Edward,’ his mother assured him. He smiled at her gratefully while he adjusted the still-warm body in his arms.

‘Will you let me take her a while?’ Carlisle asked.

Edward shook his head. ‘No. Thank you, but no. I need to do this.’

The blond vampire gave him a measured look for a moment, but then he nodded. Very well.

They ran again. Darkness pervaded the world as they headed east, racing the next day’s sun. It was shortly after five in the morning, local time, when the lights of Rio appeared below them. They’re usual dock was south of the city, away from where the big cruise ships parked. Rio was a city that never slept, and so they went slower now to avoid being seen, keeping to the outlaying neighbourhoods to the south. They reached the coast a few miles south of the docks and used the beach to reach the boat. Alice had shown Edward the specific details in her mind. He called on those now as he led the way to a waiting motorboat.

Carlisle took the wheel and within a few moments they were racing out through the harbour, passed anchored boats and into the open ocean. At full tilt it was well over an hour to the island, but they had time before the sun rose. Time enough.

In his arms, Bella made no sound beyond her pulsing heartbeat.

***

Dawn was a glimmer on the horizon line when the island came into view, the dark shape looming out of the black ocean, invisible to anyone other than vampires.

‘We’re here, love,’ Edward whispered. He felt a marginal sense of relief. They were safe on this island, separated from the rest of the world. Bella would be safe until she woke from the transformation.

Bella, of course, made no sign or sound that she had heard him. The boat came to a gentle bump against the dock. Esme jumped out first to tie the boat up as tightly as possible, and with a helping hand from Carlisle, Edward managed to climb up onto the stable wood without jostling Bella at all.

They walked slowly up to the house, as if there was no longer a great rush. They were here, and apparently Edward’s feeling of relief was shared by his parents. Instead, Esme ran about flicking on lights. It never used to be that easy, but since solar power had become readily reliable, the island ran off the panels on the roof. In the tropical climate just south of the equator, that meant nearly unlimited power.

Edward made his way to the bedrooms, choosing to lay Bella down in the smaller room rather than the master suite. It was the first time she had been out of his arms since they’d left the camp the night before and he was almost loath to let her go.

Esme appeared at his elbow as soon as he’d laid her down against the mountain of pillows and soft linens. ‘She needs a bath. She’ll be much happier to wake up without the stark reminder to what’s happened.’

His mother was right, of course. Bella was covered in dirt and no small amount of smudged blood. Her clothes were a write-off too. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered to her.

Esme softly combed her hand through his bronze locks. ‘So do you,’ she suggested with a slight smile.

‘Later,’ Edward promised her.

For the first time in days, Edward left Bella. It almost physically pained him to do so, but he actually needed a moment apart. He needed to breathe.

Carlisle was standing in the light of the living room lamp, gazing out at the dark ocean. ‘Alice called.’

‘She did?’ Edward asked, surprised. He hadn’t heard the phone or the conversation.

‘The other captives are safe back in La Paz with the authorities. You’ll have to wait for the full story at a later time, as Alice sounded in a rush. They found the hunting part and have…taking care of things,’ he went on. There was a slight note of disgust in his voice, warring with a much more prevalent one of satisfaction. Even drug runners and kidnappers were people and Carlisle hated violence of any kind. ‘Emmett and Rosalie are still after the other party; however Alice saw that they should catch them soon. Apparently there was rain in the mountains which temporarily threw off their scent.’

Edward nodded unnecessarily, his thoughts and senses attuned to the bedroom where Esme had undressed Bella and was working on a sponge bath.

‘She’ll be fine, son,’ Carlisle said, picking up the train of thought with ease.

Edward looked slightly sheepish. ‘I’m listening.’

‘I know,’ his father smiled. ‘Alice plans for the four of them to arrive in Rio tonight. I’ll take the boat to meet them. We should return before dawn.’

‘And Bella? Has she seen…’ he trailed off as the blonde vampire nodded.

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘That’s soon,’ Edward said, because he wasn’t entirely certain what else to say. The declaration left him feeling like a human who couldn’t breathe. Soon, too soon, something’s wrong.

‘Yes, but then, Bella has always defied explanation,’ Carlisle went on with a quirk of his lips, eyes shining. It clearly said: Stop worrying. ‘Her heartbeat is strong, Edward; you can hear it. The wound to her leg was already healed before we reached Rio. I have no simple explanation for why she remains so silent, but we can consider it a blessing. She’ll wake in just over a day and we will all be here for her when she does.’

Edward nodded.

Edward, Carlisle continued silently. He took the few steps forward required to reach his son and embraced him tightly. Edward clung to him. We reached her in time. All will be well. This is what she wanted; what you both wanted.

His son gave no answer, but Carlisle could feel him relax marginally.

‘I believe Esme may have something in our room for Bella to wear. Something comfortable that will not be a burden for her on the first hunt,’ the doctor went on. He hoped that discussing the situation logically and sticking to facts might help keep Edward grounded.

‘I’ll have a look,’ Edward agreed, drawing back from the embrace.

His parents always left something in the house. It wasn’t much, because on a tropical island one didn’t need much. Especially a private island, his brain continued before Edward firmly reined in that thought. Not really the time for it. There was a light pair of lounge pants and a t-shirt. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. Likely whatever Bella wore for her first outing would end up a mess anyways. And Alice would have clothes soon enough.

The idea of hunt rolled around in the mind-reading vampire’s head. Edward couldn’t quite help the slight smile that tinged his lips at the thought. In another day, Bella would be like him. They would be equals, physically. She had been his better in every other way since the day he had met her, but it would be wonderful not to worry about a paper cut.

Esme wasn’t quite done washing the blood and dirt from Bella’s skin, so Edward just set the clothes by the door and wandered back to the living room. Carlisle was out on the deck now, still gazing at the waves. In the spare room, Bella’s failing heartbeat raced on.

Chapter 10

For a day the three vampires moved about the house, never straying far from Bella. Esme tidied things that didn’t need tidying. Carlisle pretended to read. Edward paced the beach when he was told to step away for a moment, but the rest of the time he sat by Bella’s side.

Her skin was already pale and physically she looked quiet vampirish. The wound had healed before they reached the coast and with the blood and dirt washed clean, there was no trace of it. But she was still silent and still, even as her heart pounded towards its completion.

The sun set and the moon rose. Carlisle left for the mainland after poking his head in the door to tell Edward goodbye. His son only nodded softly. Edward was aware of time passing, but nothing drew him from his vigil until Alice’s excited voice echoed through the living room.

‘Come on!’ his small sister called, voice much louder than any other that had been spoken in the house since they arrived. ‘You can leave her a few minutes, I promise.’

Edward rose, because he knew she would just drag him out anyways. He kissed Bella’s cold forehead gently and then followed the pixie into the other room.

They had stopped on the way. That much was clear as soon as Edward saw his siblings. Their clothes were much too presentable for a multi-day race through the forest hunting members of the Bolivian drug cartel. There were also bags of what looked like shopping sitting by the sofa. It screamed ‘Alice’. Edward was grateful.

‘How did it go?’ he asked, since obviously Alice had wanted him in the living room for a reason. He might have just listened in from the bedroom.

‘All kidnappers present and accounted for. And mostly in jail,’ she went on. Edward didn’t need to ask what ‘mostly’ meant. The look on Rosalie’s face – pure, unaltered satisfaction – was enough. ‘We managed to retrieve the German’s body from where they buried him. His brother was very grateful. He sends his condolences for your own loss,’ Alice went on. ‘And the Mexican woman, Marta, does too. They have all been put up in a very nice hotel in La Paz and the authorities are working to retrieve their belongings from the bus company. Everyone else on the bus reached Santa Cruz safely, by the way.’ She was all but grinning that everything had worked out. ‘And now we’re all here and Bella will wake up in less than four hours!’

‘Alice….’ Edward started, because he’d been doing the same sort of thing since the day his prescient sister had walked through their door sixty odd years before. He couldn’t not question her, especially where Bella was concerned.

‘Not a word,’ Alice countered, as she usually did. ‘I’ve seen it; it’s crystal clear, look yourself.’ Edward did. ‘Happy now? Three hours and fifty-two minutes. It will be fine. Trust me,’ she grinned.

The last little bit of anxiety finally left him. Now there was only impatience for Bella’s waking.

‘I’m glad we’ve settled that, finally,’ the pixie went on. ‘Right, Rose and I will get Bella changed.’

‘Esme already changed her,’ Edward felt the need to point out.

‘Into sweatpants and a shirt. Honestly, Edward, you think I’d allow my little sister to wake up in that?’

It was so very Alice. So very normal and funny and perfect. It was still a surprise when Edward laughed at her. ‘Right, I’m sorry. Of course. Please put her in the designer dress you bought so that she can ruin it an hour later.’

‘Thank you,’ Alice preened. She and Rosalie grabbed up the bags by the sofa and disappeared down the hall to the spare room.

‘Why do you even bother?’ Emmett asked.

Edward shrugged. ‘Habit,’ he decided.

It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for the two vampires to re-emerge from the bedroom. Edward began to wonder if they were trying every single outfit Alice had bought to see which looked best. He wouldn’t put it passed his sister. He also knew better than to stick his head through the door and complain that Bella, hours away from her new life as a vampire and probably in agonizing pain, was not a Barbie doll for them to play with. He’d lose.

Finally, the two emerged. ‘It won’t be long now, Edward. Why don’t you sit with her?’ Alice suggested.

Inside, Bella lay against the pillows in the centre of the bed. She was dressed in a knee-length gown of soft pale green fabric. It looked ridiculously expensive. Her hair had been brushed and fell about her head in soft waves, the dark brown making her skin look even whiter. Her heartbeat was starting to struggling, racing fast, and then skipping beats. Alice had timed it well.

Edward took a seat in the chair they had placed by the bed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. And waited.

Outside his family waited too.

Edward didn’t need Alice’s excited thoughts in his head to know when it was time. They could all hear the sudden intense racing of the last human heartbeat in the house. It sounded like the muscles were stumbling over themselves attempting to beat quickly enough.

And then, suddenly, there was only silence. Edward leaned forward on his chair until his face was only a few feet from Bella’s. He didn’t want to crowd her. For a moment he tried desperately to read her thoughts – any thought, but heard nothing. They knew it was likely that her silent mind would carry over, but he had hoped, however impossible it seemed.

Pale eyelids blinked open. He saw the bright red irises focus on the smooth wood ceiling. A second later they shifted sideways to meet his. Edward held an unnecessary breath.

‘Bella?’ he whispered after a beat.

She moved like lightening. It was no quicker than the average vampire, but Edward was so used to her clumsy human motions that it caught him off guard. She was pressed back against the corner wall before he could blink, crouched in what his brain told him was a defensive position.

He stood up, but remained on the far side of the bed. ‘Bella?’ he tried again, almost desperately.

Red met gold and then she relaxed. ‘Edward?’ she asked, the most beautiful, clearest voice ringing out of her mouth. It sounded like the most beautiful music he had ever made on his piano.

‘Yes, Bella, I’m here. We’re all here.’

She stood slowly, still in the corner. Slowly she held each hand out in front of her and then ran them over her face and hair; touching, exploring, understanding.

‘I know it’s a shock. I don’t know if you remember what happened…’ he trailed off.

Her eyes met his again. ‘Yes. I…we were at the camp and…’ her hand went to her knee, perfect and whole. ‘It was too late?’ she asked.

Guilt shocked him to the core. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. There was no choice.’

She looked at him for a second longer and then she was over the bed and in his arms, wrapping so tight it physically hurt and he didn’t care at all.

‘Careful Bella, he’s the breakable one now,’ Alice’s voice cautioned from the doorway.

If she had still been human, she would have blushed. The look she gave her was still adorable. ‘Sorry,’ Bella said and relaxed her grip, but she didn’t let him go completely.

‘Don’t apologise. You won’t actually break me. Just…you’re stronger than all of us now. Probably even then Emmett. You just need to be aware of it.’

‘I will be,’ she promised.

‘Uh, Jasper would like to see you,’ Alice interrupted and then stood aside for her husband.

Bella had never seen Jasper so…wary. ‘Is everything alright?’ she asked.

The southern vampire blinked at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. ‘How do you feel?’ he finally asked.

‘Strange. Everything is so…clear. And easy.’

He frowned. ‘Are you thirsty?’

Bella considered that a moment. There did seem to be a strange burning tickle in her throat. ‘I guess? I guess that’s what I’m feeling.’ She paused. ‘Are we on the island? There’s no humans here?’

‘None,’ Edward assured her.

She seemed almost hesitant to ask her next question. ‘Then I think I’d like to go hunt if, if you’ll come with me,’ she said to him.

‘I’m not going anywhere without you for a very long time,’ her fiancé promised.

Bella smiled. ‘Then can we go hunting? You’ll have to show me what to do.’

‘Just follow your instincts,’ Alice suggested.

Edward took Bella’s slim, perfect hand in his. She was the same temperature now. He pushed open the French doors that led onto the deck and the sound of the ocean crashed over her. ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she exclaimed.

‘Thank you,’ Esme put in. The rest of the family had joined them in the bedroom.

‘Come on,’ Edward prodded. ‘That thirst must be unbearable by now.’

Bella shrugged, the motion graceful and easy, just like it was for Alice and Rose and Esme. ‘Not really. I mean, it’s there, but it’s not driving me nuts or anything.’

Jasper frowned behind her.

‘Still, let’s find something to eat,’ Edward said again and pulled gently on her hand. Bella followed him out the door into the waning moonlight. ‘Just follow my lead,’ he said and then he was off. To human eyes he would have been a blur in the darkness, but Bella could follow the motion easily now.

Smiling, she looked back at Alice. ‘A dress? Really?’ she asked and then she was off after Edward, laughing at the sheer novelty of it.

‘Don’t overthink it, Jasper,’ Alice turned to her husband. ‘It will all be fine.’

‘It’s impossible,’ he reiterated. ‘No newborn has that sort of control.’

‘Bella does,’ the pixie stated as a matter of fact. ‘Just go with it.’

‘Well I think it’s pretty awesome!’ Emmett shouted into the answering quiet. Rosalie rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, idiot. They’ll want some alone time when they get back. Let’s go to that rock we like.’

That was really all it took to get Emmett’s attention most days. He followed after her into the darkness eagerly.

‘Rosalie has a good point. Let us give them some time together,’ Esme reasoned. She took her quiet husband’s hand and led him back to the living room.

‘There’s that tree…’ Alice said, tongue between her teeth suggestively. Jasper was clearly still distracted by the whole conundrum of Bella-the-new-born, but that could wait. A very long time, if necessary. Alice knew everything would work out fine. ‘Jasper,’ she whined at him and finally he followed after her.

Chapter 11

Jasper continued to look worried and confused for the next week, despite Alice’s reassurances that nothing was going to happen. It probably helped that there were no humans or even human scents on the island, but Bella seemed mentally more in control than any other newborn Jasper had known. And he’d known a lot of newborns.

‘It just shouldn’t be possible,’ he mused again, a week after Bella had woken up. They had all admitted, most of them with barely concealed smiles, that Bella had taken to vampiric life like she was born to it. Already it seemed like she’d been awake for months rather than days.

‘Stop trying to rationalise it against what you know,’ Edward said, sounding snappish.

‘Don’t be mad. He’s expecting exactly what I worry might happen,’ Bella chided. Edward was never going to get tired of listening to the new music in her voice.

‘Thank you,’ Jasper told her. ‘It’s not that I want you to be newborn crazy, I just have never met anyone who wasn’t.’

‘Carlisle wasn’t,’ Edward butted in again.

‘I would contest that,’ the vampire in question said, appearing in the living room. ‘You were not even born then Edward, but I spent many of my first years in what one could consider less than a sane mentality. The first months were the worst, of course.’

Bella turned still red eyes on her soon-to-be father-in-law. ‘But you were stable enough to avoid humans, right?’

Gold eyes met hers and Carlisle came to sit down in a spare chair. They had mostly congregated in the living room since that first night. Contrary to Emmett’s catcalls and innuendos, Bella and Edward were not spending all of their time in the bedroom. Emmett seemed disappointed by the fact, though that might have been more because he’d clearly lost a bet with Jasper over it.

‘Yes, that is true,’ Carlisle admitted. ‘But until I learned to feed from animals, I spent several weeks nearly insane with the thirst. You did not seem bothered by it as I was.’

Though Jasper was worried that Bella was suddenly going to go crazy, Carlisle had spent the week intrigued by the conundrum that was their new family member. Bella thought it was more amusing than anything. She’d spent the first day apologising that she wasn’t…crazy.

‘Alice brought this up before, but maybe that’s a gift? I mean, can control be a gift?’

Jasper shrugged, as he had the night before when Alice had mentioned it. ‘It’s not one I’ve encountered before, but then, before I met Alice I didn’t know a vampire who could see the future. It’s always possible. If so, it’s a pretty good gift, darlin’,’ he told Bella.

‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘I’m not complaining.’

‘Me either,’ Edward told her, cuddling her hard body even further into his lap. Since Alice was sitting in Jasper’s, Bella seemed to be okay with the blatant show of affection in front of the family.

‘Since we’ve settled that,’ Rosalie cut in from her place near the door, ‘it’s probably a good time to say that Emmett and I are leaving tomorrow. We’re going back to New York.’

‘Must you go?’ Esme asked.

‘This island was never made for eight of us, no offense Esme,’ the blonde told her mother. ‘It’s too crowded and you don’t need us.’

That much was true. ‘If you’d prefer,’ Carlisle nodded.

‘And we’re leaving too,’ Alice cut in.

‘What?’ Bella exclaimed.

Alice smiled. ‘Oh, you don’t need us here, and Rose is right: this island isn’t big enough. We need to go to the mainland to hunt anyways. You two should have some alone time, I think. Jasper and I want to see some more of South America since we’re here. We can all meet in Vermont in the fall. In a few months, Bella, your eye colour should be just as gold as ours.’

‘But my control might not be. I mean, we won’t know until I test it.’

‘Then you can test it. There are plenty of remoter places along the coast Edward can take you to. But I don’t see a problem. Seriously,’ Alice said; exasperation clear in her voice. She’d been saying the same thing all week, after all. ‘I think by Thanksgiving you’ll be fine at the house. And it’s not that close to the neighbours anyways. With all of us there to hunt with you, we’ll manage. It’ll be nice to be together there.’

It would be, Bella agreed. ‘Okay. Yeah, okay, I’m good with that. What about…what about Charlie?’ she asked, voice catching on his name. She’d been wondering it all week, but hadn’t wanted to ask.

‘That’s one of the things Jasper and I need to take care of. We’ll handle it.’

‘Okay,’ Bella whispered so low a human would not hear. ‘Okay,’ she repeated.

‘Bella?’ Edward asked.

‘I’m okay, really. I just…I knew it was coming, but it’s still hard to know Charlie’s going to have to deal with that.’

‘It’s the best way,’ Esme said, coming to sit down on her other side. She laid a motherly hand on Bella’s back. ‘It will keep him safe.’

And that really was the whole point. Not just safe from Bella, but under the protection of the wolves and safe from the Volturi. ‘I know,’ Bella agreed. She leaned against Esme, grateful for her presence.

‘Jasper and I will take care of it,’ Alice repeated.

‘Thanks,’ Bella said, not quite sure why. It was too late to change things now, anyways.

‘We’ll go with Rose and Emmett, if someone can take us?’

Carlisle nodded. ‘I’ll take you over to the mainland. Esme and I can hunt while we’re there.’ He turned his golden eyes on Edward and Bella with a smile.

Emmett snickered.

In the early hours before dawn, they said goodbye to the others and watched them disappear across the ocean towards Rio.

‘So, alone time, huh?’ Bella said.

‘Carlisle and Esme won’t be back for a day.’

Bella danced away from him, revelling in her new grace. ‘Whatever shall we do?’ she wondered aloud, a second before Edward tackled her into the sand.

With Jasper, Alice, Rose and Emmett gone, things were certainly quieter. Carlisle and Esme were a known presence, but in the evenings they made for good company, and during the day Edward would take Bella to various corners of the island so that they wouldn’t bother his parents.

It seemed to Bella like paradise. They had not talked about what had happened in Bolivia, and Bella was very happy to continue that way. Most of it was only vague memories of pain and fear and she didn’t want to hold on to those as the last moments of her mortal life. What mattered was that she was here now, with Edward, a vampire, and they would have their eternity together. Ensconced on a private island leagues from the nearest human, Bella felt safe. There was enough game to keep her and Edward fed, and every week or so Carlisle and Esme would take off for the mainland to hunt. Bella suspected very little hunting was actually involved. Edward had explained that the island was not quite large enough for him to be outside the distance where he could read his father’s mind. Bella really didn’t care what the reason was, she was just happy they had ‘alone’ time once a week. There was no one to kick up a fuss about how loud they were being. And Bella had discovered she was actually pretty loud as a vampire. Edward had been nonplussed by that and told her she would have been as loud while human too, if they’d ever gotten that far.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that they had done things out of order and that her change hadn’t happened on Edward’s or her terms. Bella didn’t care about any of it.

They had been on the island nearly two months, though Bella hadn’t been paying much attention to the days. She had discovered that a vampiric quality was to have an innate sense of time passing, but it didn’t really matter if time passed or not. So she was rather surprised to return with Edward to the house one evening to find it lit with candles and far too many voices.

‘Surprise!’ Everyone cried when they walked through the door.

‘What?’ Bella asked.

Alice smiled. ‘It’s you birthday, Bella. Did you forget?’

‘No,’ she said, because of course she couldn’t forget things now. ‘But why does it matter? I’m never going to actually be nineteen right?’

‘Too bad,’ Alice shrugged, ‘we’re celebrating anyways.’

There really was no arguing with Alice. And there were very few ways this birthday could end as badly as the last one had, Bella told herself.

The others had returned from New York and, apparently, Chile for the occasion. There were no silly decorations or cake this time, blessedly, but there were presents.

Rose and Emmett had brought her a gift from Tiffany’s. Bella made a face at colour of the box, but she was rather surprised to open it and find a very simple – though very expensive – diamond earring and bracelet set. The earrings were studs and the bracelet was a simple tennis design. They were rather understated for Rosalie’s taste, but clearly her pseudo-sister knew Bella better than she’d thought.

‘Thank you, Rose. Emmett. It’s a beautiful set,’ Bella said honestly. Edward helped her put the bracelet on as Bella changed out her earrings. She’d been wearing only simple studs, the same one’s she’d had on since before her change.

Jasper produced another book – a hardbound second edition of Gone With the Wind – that Bella couldn’t wait to read. She hadn’t read the book in years. Alice had gone for clothing, of course. It was a beautiful dress of hand painted cotton from Argentina in nearly every colour of blue imaginable. It looked perfect for island wear. It was only when Alice cocked her head to the side that Bella took a closer look. The print was beautiful, but as she looked closer she realised it was covered with a repeating pattern of stylised Es and Bs as well as interlocking hearts.

‘You had this made?’ Bella asked.

‘I found this little shop that creates patterns. I thought you might appreciate this more than an entirely new Prada wardrobe.’ The way she said it made Bella wonder if the Prada wardrobe wasn’t already sitting in the house in Vermont. She’d worry about that later. There was always Christmas.

‘Thank you,’ Bella said and meant it. ‘This will be perfect for the next couple of months here!’

‘Well, I’m not sure you really need to worry about clothes, since we’re leaving again in a few days, but your choice!’

Bella hadn’t quite become comfortable with running around the island completely naked. The bikinis Alice had magically produced the morning Bella woke up from the change had come in handy. Though more than one of them had ended up in…pieces.

‘You’ll have the island to yourselves for a while,’ Esme announced. ‘Carlisle and I have discussed things and we think it’s time we headed back to the States. Carlisle would like to take up that position they’re holding open and it will be nice to get properly settled in the house.’

‘Oh, well…I mean, of course!’ Bella stuttered, as much as a vampire could. ‘Of course you should go. I’m so grateful you stayed here as long as you have. Edward and I will be fine on our own for a bit. We can come up to Vermont for Thanksgiving, right? That was the plan.’

‘That’s the plan,’ Alice agreed. ‘I see nothing wrong with the plan.’

‘Great. I should probably, well, make a test run to the mainland soon, right?’ Bella asked, trying not to let the fear show in her voice.

Edward didn’t look at all concerned. ‘I think we can try that tomorrow, if you’d like. We can take everyone to the pier and then head down the coast a few miles. The wildlife is significantly better on the mainland.’

Bella’s eyes lit up. Already the red was fading. They were now an interesting colour of burnt orange. Edward thought that they’d be at least amber by Thanksgiving and it would be safe enough, by appearance, to travel. As long as they could make sure Bella wasn’t going to attack the first person she came across.

‘Okay. Tomorrow. Right.’

‘Or we can wait,’ Edward suggested.

Alice seemed very unconcerned when Bella looked at her. ‘No, no, we should try. Just…somewhere really remote.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘Right, now the last gift!’

‘What about Edward’s?’ Rose asked.

‘I already gave it to her,’ he winked at his sister. Emmett wolf-whistled rather convincingly.

‘Emmett,’ Esme chided. ‘Here you are, dear,’ she said, handing Bella an envelope.

Envelopes could hide the most expensive things ever, Bella had learned. She was right. Inside was the paperwork for a new car. ‘You and Edward will need something to drive in Vermont.’

‘Thank you both,’ she told her pseudo-parents. ‘This is great.’ It was; it was a proper, safe, normal 4x4 in dark blue. What other students might drive. There was no need to be ostentatious and stand out.

All in all, it was one of the least painful birthdays she had had. It would also hopefully be the last. At least until, like, she turned fifty. They could celebrate that.

Chapter 12

But the next day, which was cloudy and wet, when everyone was getting ready to leave, Bella suddenly decided to stay. ‘I’m just…I’m just not sure yet. I don’t trust myself.’

‘You can trust us,’ Alice needled. ‘It’ll be fine.’

‘No. Maybe in a few weeks we can try. I just…not today.’

‘Whatever you want, love,’ Edward cut in before his sister could start whining about it. ‘I’ll be back in a few hours,’ he promised Bella.

She watched the boat disappear into the horizon. For the first time since before they had left Forks, she was alone. It felt pretty good. Deciding to go for a run, Bella set off along the beach around the island. She and Edward had run it many times, always racing, and Bella always won. But now she could just go flat out and see how fast she could really run. It was rather liberating. As the sun rose behind dark clouds, she raced around the island. Once, twice, three times. Stopping at one of the natural bays on her fourth time around, Bella sat down on the wet sand. The rain was no bother to her, except that her sundress was plastered to her body. She lay back and let the raindrops hit her face, relishing in the sensation.

As such, she didn’t immediately pick up on the boat that made its way around the side of the island and into the bay. The bay faced east, out across the Atlantic on this side. The sailboat was struggling in the wind that was rising, and clearly looking for calm harbour. The bay wasn’t the best, but this far from the mainland it would have to do to ride out the storm that was brewing.

Bella lay in the sand watching the palm trees sway violently above her. She hoped Edward wouldn’t be stuck in Rio for very long and have to wait for the storm to blow through. Alice had said it would be sunny the next few days, hence their quick turn around on the island. They’d managed a very narrow window without having to worry about travelling at night.

The boat sailed into shore, pulling down the sail and dropping anchor. They had obviously pulled up the rudder and centre board to allow them close to shore where the sea wasn’t as rough. It was a bit protected now. Over the crashing waves on shore, Bella missed all of this.

It was only when she sat up, intending to continue her run, that she noticed the boat. The wind was blowing across the beach, so any smell was being pushed away from her. Thankfully. But just as she stood up, intending to disappear into the trees before – hopefully – she was seen, the wind changed direction. A gust of it, laden with the scent of humans, washed over her.

Bella, literally, saw red. She was in the water, stroking to the boat before any further thought entered her mind. She was already half way there when reality crashed down. Not even stopping to consider it, or even be thankful for the reprieve, Bella ducked underwater. Away from the scent she could think. She pushed off in the other direction, away from the boat, keeping to the water and away from shore until she had turned around the head of the bay and was swimming at depth along the shore. She stayed underwater for a few more minutes until she surfaced, swimming to the sand. The bay was long behind her to the north. Drawing her pale limbs onto the sand, Bella choked back unshedable tears. She buried her face in the wet sand, relishing in the scent of nature. She had nearly…God, she had nearly killed those people. She had been seconds away from taking a life.

Alice was wrong. There was no way she could move to Vermont now and be so near humans. Someone would end up dead and then they’d have to move. And she would have to live with what she’d done.

Bella remained on the beach as the morning passed and the storm blew harder. Finally, the winds began to die. It was only Edward’s frantic shouts of her name that finally drew her from her stupor. Bella ran into the woods, following the sound of his voice. They nearly crashed into each other at speed.

‘Alice saw, but we were nearly at the harbour and she knew I wouldn’t get back in time. And then the storm was so bad they wouldn’t let me leave port again. I’m so sorry,’ Edward said, holding her in his arms. ‘I’m so sorry I left you.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine. I nearly…I nearly killed them.’

‘But you didn’t.’ Edward pushed her away to arm’s length. ‘You didn’t, Bella. Do you understand that? You shouldn’t have been able to do that. You shouldn’t have been able to stop. Once we catch a scent it’s…even I would have a hard time stopping myself.’

Bella looked at his miserably. ‘Let’s get you back to the house and dried off. How about a shower? Or a bath?’

She nodded as he led her back to the west side of the island. ‘You stopped. You stopped before you reached the boat. I’m so proud of you. I don’t know how you did it. You stopped yourself without anyone here.’

‘I nearly killed them, Edward. I nearly got on that boat and drained every drop of blood from them.’ The horror was clear in her voice.

He stopped and turned to face her, taking her face between his hands so that she had no choice but to look at him. ‘But you didn’t. You understand that? You didn’t do it. Bella, it should have been impossible for you to stop, but you did.’

‘I’m not going to Vermont,’ she told him.

‘We aren’t leaving for nearly two months.’

‘I’m not going. I’m staying here for at least a year, until I can control this.’

‘But you can; you did!’ he argued back, trying to get through to her.

Bella pulled away from his grasp and stormed off towards the house. ‘Not until I won’t kill someone!’

He didn’t try to catch up with her. By the time Edward got back to the house, Bella was already in the bathroom with the water running. He stopped to turn on the lights out of habit. The grey sky outside made the interior of the house dim. Not for a vampire, but he was so used to turning on lights to make it seem like he was human.

Bella was in the shower for nearly an hour. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, dressed in sleep pants and a t-shirt she looked slightly less horrified.

‘I’m sorry. I got angry with you and it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault other than mine.’

‘It’s not your fault either,’ Edward reasoned. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘Nearly.’

‘But you didn’t. Bella, can you understand this? Emmett killed three humans in his first month as a vampire. Even Esme…even Esme slipped once, and that was in her second year. Jasper…don’t even get me started. Bella, there are only two vampires I know who have never killed a human.’

‘Carlisle and Rosalie?’

‘Exactly. And Rose, well, that’s a fine line. She did kill more than a few humans, but she didn’t do it out of thirst.’

Bella finally moved away from the wall and came to sit on the sofa with him. ‘I know the story. It’s not the same. The fact that she could kill them and not drink from them proves she had it under control.’

‘She did. She still does. And Carlisle has always been unique. But you, you’re even more unique. Bella, the fact that your thirst does not control you is unheard of. You heard Carlisle before; even he suffered in the first months. It drove him nearly insane. It’s not been a problem for you. And today you did something that should have been impossible for even one of us. Once we catch a scent, it’s nearly impossible to stop. It took me years to handle being around other humans. You’ve been a vampire for two months, love.’

‘I just don’t think it’s worth risking the residents of Vermont on a chance.’

‘You heard Alice, it’s not a chance.’

Bella levelled him with a thoroughly annoyed look. ‘And did Alice see today? Not until it happened and then it was too late. You can be with me every second of every day and even if you are I could probably get away from you. You said yourself that I’m still stronger.’

Edward sighed. ‘I just don’t think it’ll be a problem. I was planning on hiring a plane to get us home. Even that long on a commercial aircraft gets to me. We can leave at night and avoid most human interaction. As long as you don’t breathe it will be fine. It was the smell today that did it, right?’

Bella nodded, still clearly miserable. It was almost adorable, except that Edward knew this was a serious matter. It was something every single one of them had faced at one point and it was up to him to get Bella through it.

‘Don’t breathe and it will be fine. Before then, however, I think we should do a test run to the mainland. But we can wait a few weeks for that, if you’d like.’

‘Yes please,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t want to…I just want to stay here for a while.’

‘Not until October then. There’s no rush, really. I don’t want to force you, Bella, you know that right? I just honestly believe you can handle this.’

‘Okay,’ she whispered into his shoulder. ‘Can we stop talking about this? I don’t want to think about it anymore.’

Edward grinned at her, happy to change the topic. ‘That almost sounded like a challenge.’

‘Oh, good call,’ she told him. It was the last thing he let her speak for quite some time.

***

Despite Bella’s continued protest, in early October Edward put her in the boat and took her to the mainland. It was well after sunset when they left the island and by the time they arrived at the coast, fifteen miles south of Rio, there wasn’t a single person in the fishing village still awake. Edward drew the boat up near shore and dropped anchor a mile north of the village. The wind was blowing from the west, but he couldn’t scent any humans around.

Bella refused to let go of his hand as they swam to shore and disappeared into the jungle. He didn’t want to risk her in the presence of a human, but the scent of them would be all around the village. The point was to get her used to it.

She smelled it first. He could tell when she froze beside him in the darkness. ‘Edward,’ she whispered, pleadingly.

‘It’s fine. Are you feeling thirsty?’ They had hunted right before leaving the island.

She shook her head. ‘Not really.’

He drew her closer to the houses. ‘It’s alright, I’m right here.’

They managed to get within sight of one of the buildings. The scent of humans pervaded everything, even the forest around them. Bella wasn’t breathing. ‘Try a breath love.’ He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

Slowly, Bella took a small breath of air. Her body was rigid, fighting against its nature, but she didn’t struggle in his arms.

‘Again,’ he told her.

She took another breath. And then another and another, until she was breathing normally. Edward slowly relaxed his grip, but Bella remained where she was.

‘Any desire to, you know, run into that house and attack?’

Bella chewed on her lip, one of the endearing human motions that had carried over into her new life. ‘No,’ she admitted.

‘I think, as long as you aren’t actually exposed to blood, we’ll be okay.’

‘Really?’ she asked, nearly amber eyes shining in the darkness.

‘Really,’ he promised. He believed it too, she could tell.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay. We’ll leave in a month then. Thanksgiving at the new house sounds nice, doesn’t it?’ Edward asked her, taking her hand once more to lead her back to the boat.

Bella nodded. ‘Yes, it does sound nice. It’s been a long time since June.’

It had. For Edward, it seemed like a lifetime had already passed since graduation. For Bella, one life had ended and another had begun.

‘Whatever happens, I’ll be right here with you, you know that,’ he told her.

Bella pulled him to a stop on the edge of the beach. Above them the only light was from the moon, casting a shimmering silver pattern on the ocean. ‘I know that. I’ve always known that.’

‘We haven’t talked about this again,’ Edward started, looking uncertain, ‘but I wanted to ask you. Things have changed since June but, I’m hoping your answer is still the same.’ He knelt down in the sand.

Bella’s eyes widened. ‘Edward –’ she began, but he interrupted her.

‘Please? Bella Swan, will you marry me?’

For a moment she just looked down at him, marvelling once more that this was her life. That this man she loved was hers and would be hers for eternity. Together.

‘I will never stop saying yes,’ was how she answered him.

Epilogue

Bonus scene. Dedicated to my beta reader who has been amazing on turnaround times! Thank you cliodna_bright! Unexpected surprises are unexpected.

Bella had not ventured far from the house for their first months in Vermont. Thanksgiving and Christmas had passed quietly, though at both she had felt the loss of her father closely and wondered how he was coping. Alice had attempted to hide the obituary, but Bella knew very well how to work a computer. She sat for over an hour, desperately wishing vampires could cry.

The cold winter that had settled over the north-east kept many humans in doors, and that helped. Bella still refused to venture out hunting without Edward, but she was getting better at trusting herself. Mostly, they passed the long winter with each other and their family, which was all Bella really wanted.

Still, Alice had started pushing again in the spring about Dartmouth. She and Jasper had delayed their acceptance until January, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying being in college again. Apparently it had been a few years. The cold and snowy winter also made going outside easier on them both. Alice had also delayed Bella and Edward’s acceptance by a year, which meant that Dartmouth was expecting them in September and Alice still expected Bella to go.

It was May before Bella finally caved. A few hunting trips in the now spring air – and a few near encounters with humans – and Bella was learning to trust her control. As long as there was no blood, Edward was certain she could manage it and some part of her was beginning to trust that belief.

But before college started, Edward wanted the one thing Bella had promised him. A wedding.

Bella had given in to that a lot more easily. In fact, the hard part had been getting Alice to let go of her elaborate wedding plan she’d been formulating for a year. It wouldn’t work anyways. They could not risk humans at the wedding, if they could find any to invite, so that left the Cullen family and the Denalis. A small, quiet, intimate affair.

Just what Bella had wanted.

They married on a sunny June afternoon at the back of the house in Vermont. Bella wore a knee-length dress of chiffon and Edward wore a tie-less suit. And there were about a million flowers to decorate the yard. But Bella didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered was that – with Jasper quickly certified to conduct the ceremony – Bella was allowed to pledge eternity to Edward in front of their family.

‘I love you,’ she told him at the end of her vows.

‘I will love you every second of every day of forever.’

It was a promise she knew they would both keep.

There was dancing afterwards, because Bella could dance as gracefully as a ballerina now. Thankfully, the compliment of vampires meant that food and dessert and even alcohol wasn’t needed, so Bella had only protested the truck-load of flowers for a brief second. The yard did look beautiful, after all as the sun set and Alice flitted about lighting candles.

‘This came for you today,’ the pixie announced when the place was glowing by the flicker of candlelight. She held a small box wrapped in gold and silver paper out to Bella.

‘Who’s it from?’ Bella asked.

Beside her Edward looked uncomfortable. ‘It is a wedding gift from the Volturi. Alice saw it arriving days ago, but I didn’t want to worry you. The card that came with it expressly states for you to open it on your wedding day.’

‘Our wedding day,’ Bella added absently. She would have a little talk later about the ‘didn’t want to worry you’ part of Edward’s explanation.

Taking an unnecessary breath Bella unwrapped the paper and opened the matching gold and silver box almost as if it were a bomb. Who knew what Aro considered a suitable wedding gift?

Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, was a necklace. The heavy chain was made of no-doubt real gold and it supported a shining stone the size of an egg. Tucked to one side was a folded piece of parchment. Bella plucked it from the box and unfolded it to reveal a few lines of elegant writing that reminded her of Carlisle.

On the occasion of the wedding of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, it pleases us to send this gift. May you wear it with beauty to represent an unshakable bond between two mates. Our apologies that we could not be with you on the happy occasion. ~Aro, Caius, Marcus

‘That’s…worrying.’

‘It’s a hollow threat,’ Alice cut in. ‘I’ve looked and I don’t see any unexpected visits. I think it’s just a warning that we shouldn’t forget them.’

‘Like that will happen,’ one of the Denali sister’s – Tanya – comment dryly.

‘Quite,’ Carlisle agreed. ‘I would not let it concern you, Bella, especially today. Aro simply wishes to make a statement.’

Bella put the note back in the box and shut the lid. ‘Well, statement made. Alice would you get rid of this? Stick it somewhere I won’t find it.’

Alice grinned. ‘My pleasure,’ she hummed and disappeared with the box. Bella didn’t watch her go.

‘Now if that’s the last interruption I have to deal with,’ Bella started again, sounding amused. ‘How about a dance, husband?’

It was Edward’s turn to smile. ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he winked at her.

Whatever Aro’s plan had been with the gift, Bella wasn’t going to let it bother her. Today was her wedding day and tomorrow was her honeymoon and even the Volturi themselves could wait on that.

She had eternity to enjoy first.