✓ | 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒, Volturi Kings

chapter i *



I just want him alive. After everything we've been through, this is as much as I can give. Even if he's always getting into trouble, causing a scene in places where he should know will get him killed. I can't see the motive. Even if Bella were dead, why would he want to die for her like this? She wouldn't want this! She would want him to move on, find another epic love or something stupid and sappy like that.

My friend isn't dead. She's right here in front of me, looking dazed and entranced by the sensations happening around her. Bella's long, dark hair was knotted in multiple places, mainly around the back of her neck and scalp. She was a ghost, pale and unkempt in the way she dressed. I felt her brush past me as we made it out of the fancy car Alice decided we steal.

She wasn't always like this. While quite and often reclusive, Bella brushed her hair nightly. She'd even put on the face masks that her mother mailed to her every so often. She had no wrinkles or pimples. In many ways she felt impenetrable by human forces. Vampire boyfriend be damned, she was unstoppable for a year.

Until he left her. Then came this ghostly, unkempt, unlikable and traumatized Isabella Swan. Ungrateful for any help Charlie tried to give her. No matter what I did to help this version of her, it wasn't enough. I'd do this for her, coming to Italy to save a crazed and suicidal Edward Cullen, if it meant I'd get my Bella back. The one who saved me from myself. The one I watched graduate and even party with her friends. The one who said please and thank you. The one who apologized properly and didn't flip from one emotion to the next.

Edward was her key to happiness, it seemed, and I'd bring him back to her. Even if I didn't exactly know who the Volturi were, or why Alice hated them so much.

"Alice, what is it that you think is wrong with the Volturi? On paper they seem like a normal vampire coven. Should I be afraid?" I asked Alice, who'd parked and swiftly left the red car on the side of the street. "They don't like humans much, do they? That's why Edward hid Bella and I from them, isn't it?"

"They want nothing to do with humans on a personal level. You and Bella are good people, but they just see you as blood bags. Drinking from humans is wrong! They are people with their own lives and families and Vampires shouldn't come around and ruin that for them!" I felt the thunder in Alice's voice as she continued the rant, "What's bad about them is that they drink human blood and kill anyone who doesn't agree with them. They have vampires with so many different powers. They rule over us, call themselves kings."

Every history has two sides, I knew that very well. Every person has two sides. I couldn't help but wonder why they acted the way Alice described. Surely, three vampires couldn't just rule over hundreds over other without some sort of standing beforehand. Then again, dictators can rule over millions without the people realizing what they do is wrong. Plus, Carlisle said that vampires he's personally friends with drink human blood still. It's simply their nature, whether or not humans realize it, animals have families too, and we tear them apart regularly. So, who is in the wrong? I couldn't tell, so I stayed as quiet as I could before Bella shouted as loud as she could for Edward.

If we're being completely truthful and honest here, I thought this whole thing was stupid. Edward didn't have to try this whole thing after a single vision. He hadn't even called Charlie to see if Bella was okay. He knew the number by heart, his immortal memory not faltering with this depressive episode he's been in as of late. So what if Charlie was going to a funeral? He would have told Edward if Bella, his own daughter who he'd been taking care of for the past year, was dead.

Edward leaving in the first place was the start of this mess, I had to remind myself. That wound was still open. He'd treated me like family. Carlisle said he thought of me as his own daughter. Then, all of a sudden, they'd left and never came back. I'd gotten all but a few letters that I keep with me at all times. I didn't get a chance to properly say goodbye, and from what the letters said the leave was an idea of Edward's. A stupid plan to try and protect Bella. What good had it done? She was on the verge of a full psychological break and decided to cliff jump without equipment!