Disclaimer: The author does not own any of the characters from the Twilight novels and movies, which will be barely recognizable here. He does, however, own the fuck out of this plot.

My entry from the Red Eyed Edward Contest, which took SECOND PLACE in the public vote. Y'all rock. NOTE: Minor edits have been made.

Chapter 5

Edward sat on the edge of his bed and flexed the muscles in his arms. His knuckles popped. His knees creaked as he stood, and the tendons in his shoulders and ankles stretched tightly as he bent to retrieve his boots from the floor.

He slid the boots on, grabbed his backpack and checked the contents one more time. He put two more pints of chilled blood in. Grabbed the can of precious gasoline that had been left outside his room and walked slowly toward the hole in the fence he'd made the night before.

"Thank you," Jasper said as he worked on patching the hole.

"It must be done, and it's safest if I do it."

"I don't just mean burning the dead," Jasper said. "I mean all of it. We wouldn't have made it last night if not for you. The prisoners, they're safe here now."

Edward turned away. "You would have made it without me."

The truth was that he wasn't sure they would make it now, even with the victory the night before. Aro was no ordinary opponent, and now that he had presumably discovered Edward's presence, there would be no stopping him. Edward would have to leave, and he would have to do it right now. His only regret would be not saying goodbye to Bella. He knew he couldn't do that, and he knew as well that he couldn't stay. He had no choice but to go.

He finished pouring the gasoline on the pile of vampire corpses and struck a match.

"You might want to step a little further back."

"Bella," he said, and he caught himself smiling again. "Why are you out here? And more importantly, how did you get out here without my knowing it?"

Bella smirked. She was dressed in her tight leather again, with guns strapped to her thighs and extra ammunition around her waist. She looked like a demon ready for battle. She approached Edward, ran her fingers over his freshly shaved face, and looked at the pile of bodies. "Will they ever stop?"

"No."

"Why do we keep going on, then? Why do you keep doing it? Do you ever ask yourself that?"

"No."

"That's it? Just 'No'?"

"Yes."

She pulled her hand away from his face and turned away. "Fuck you," she said.

Edward's jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

"Dammit, Edward. Talk to me! Tell me you hate me, tell me you love me, tell me you're going to kill every last one of them, tell me you're leaving on a boat to China tomorrow. God dammit, just tell me something. Anything. You haven't said two dozen words since you got here. And now? It looks like you're leaving. Is that what's going on?"

Edward closed his eyes, and he exhaled, dipping his head.

"We exist," he said, "and that is the only fact that matters. We exist in a world that we did not make, and that we do not control, and that tries to kill us at every turn. We exist, and he exists, and that cannot continue to be, Bella. In answer to your question, I continue doing what I'm doing because I can't not do it."

"Wait," Bella said, putting her hand on his chin and lifting his face. "Him? Do you mean him him? Aro? He's alive?"

"He is. I saw him last night, as the smoke cleared. He was there, Bella. I swear it."

"That can't be," she said. "I saw him killed. I saw you kill him, all those years ago. How? How is this possible?"

"I don't know, and it doesn't matter. It is a fact, and it will be dealt with."

"What's that mean? It will be dealt with by whom? You? Alone? I don't think so."

Edward looked into her eyes then, and he saw that same determination he had seen so long ago, in the eyes of a young woman who had grown up too quickly, and he knew. He knew that she would join him, and they would either succeed in their mission or they would not.

But either way, the world would change.

N*N*N

"You never told me how you were turned," Bella said as they walked down the road, deserted but for abandoned cars littering the shoulder.

"Does it matter?"

"No," she said. "I guess it doesn't."

They walked in silence for a while.

"I was 22," she said. She shook her head. "Five years had passed since the rebellion, since you disappeared. I was with a group not unlike the one we just left behind, smaller but no less determined."

She looked away. "They attacked us at night, no warning. We didn't have the security like the place we're in now. Just a bunch of campers, essentially."

"You don't have to do this," Edward said.

"I want to." She took his hand in hers as they walked on. "I was badly wounded. I was dying, Edward, so I begged one of them to turn me. I was ashamed of that for a long time, ashamed that I was too afraid to die."

"Don't be," he said. "It is not our purpose to die, Bella. We do what must be done to survive, and no one should ever apologize for that."

They walked on as the sun began to rise higher into the sky.

"Where do you think he went?"

"He is watching us now," Edward said, scanning the environment with all his senses. He slid his knives from their slots in his backpack.

Bella looked to the trees, dense as ever.

"Be ready," Edward said.

She pulled her guns from the holsters on her thighs as they stopped in the middle of a desolate intersection. They'd traveled perhaps ten miles from the rail depot. The mid-day sun broke through the clouds, and a slight breeze kicked the leaves lining the side of the road into the air.

Edward slowed his heartbeat down and he listened to the world as it tried to speak to him. The rustle of the leaves. The branches swaying. The insects, the birds, the slow dissipation of the morning dew as the sun rose higher into the sky. They all told a story, and Edward knew that he must read it properly or he and Bella would die in this spot on this day.

He quickly grabbed Bella's hand and spun her around. He put his arm around her neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her, whispered in her ear.

"My seven o'clock," he said, his lips brushing her ear.

Bella nodded softly and kissed him back. "Ready."

Edward turned and streaked across the street as Bella rained gunfire on the spot he had pointed out. He heard bullets striking their target as he slashed his way into the brush.

A vampire came at him, teeth bared, blood rage in his eyes. Edward spun and sliced its head off without losing his stride. He turned and two more were coming at him. He twisted his knives in the air and went at them, gutting one while holding the other in the air, a knife entering under its chin and protruding from the top of its head.

He stopped to catch his breath and wondered what had become of Bella. He heard no more gunfire.

"She is here."

Edward turned and saw a half dozen dead vampires, their bodies riddled with bullet holes. Among them stood Aro, and he held Bella by the throat, his long, yellow nails already drawing blood from her neck.

Bella plowed an elbow into Aro's stomach, but the old vampire didn't budge. "Careful now, young lady," he said, smiling and looking into Edward's eyes the entire time. "You're too precious to harm. Not yet, anyway."

Aro had always been the strongest vampire, the only one Edward had never defeated, apparently, though he thought he had until he'd seen him last night.

"You're all alone now," Edward said. "Let her go, and I will let you live."

Aro had Bella pinned to him, her back to his face, his left arm wrapped tightly around her torso to hold her arms down, his right arm on her neck, his claws digging into her skin. Blood ran freely from her wound, and Edward knew that she would need human blood to heal if this went on much longer.

Aro dug his nails in further, and Bella lost consciousness.

"OK, stop," Edward said. "I'll give you what you want."

"Ahhhh," Aro said, "but you do not have what I want, Mr. Cullen."

"And what is it you want?"

Aro smiled and looked into the sky with wide eyes. "Everything," he said.

"I'll give you myself, then. Just please, let her go," Edward said. "You must have wanted revenge all these years. It was me who destroyed what you had. I'm responsible, no one else. Not Bella, and not any of the humans still left on this planet."

Aro paused, as if he was considering Edward's offer.

"Bwahahaha!" he bellowed. He shed a tear as he bent over in laughter, still clutching Bella's limp body. "That was perfect! Just perfect."

"Here," Edward said. He smiled gently and put his hands out as an act of contrition. He bent at the waist and he placed one of his knives onto the ground. He looked up and when he saw Aro blink he looked into Bella's lifeless eyes.

Silently, he told her he was sorry for what he was about to do.

He roared as he flung his remaining knife through the air. It whistled as it spun. It struck Bella in the soft flesh just below her sternum, off to one side. The stainless steel sliced its way through her skin and kept going, missing her vital organs. It exited through the fibrous muscle of her back and already Bella was beginning to collapse.

The military grade knife punctured Aro's red overcoat. It sliced into the thin layer of the skin covering his breastbone, shattered his ribs, and tore through his heart muscle as if it were not there. The knife continued onward, undeterred, the force behind it was so strong. It sliced cleanly through arteries and muscle and slowed only when it struck and shattered the hard bone of Aro's spine. Still it continued on, severing nerves and bone, before exiting, cutting through the overcoat once again and embedding itself six inches into an oak tree.

Aro collapsed.

Bella collapsed.

Edward ran to her, tore his shirt from his body, and pressed it to her wound. The tight leather was already doing a good job holding her skin together. Edward reached for Aro's limp body with his other hand, retrieved his knife from the tree, and removed the man's head.

Bella opened her eyes, blood bubbling from the corner of her mouth. "You're something else," she said before passing out again.

Edward picked her up, careful not to make her wounds worse, and retrieved the chilled blood from his backpack. He kissed her gently. "So are you," he said, feeding her.

When she was done, he took off running, her semi-conscious body slung over his shoulder.

N*N*N

Bella was fully awake before they arrived at the railyard.

"You can put me down now," she said.

He did.

She stood on shaky legs, still a mile from home. He put an arm around her waist and led her along, slowly.

"I'm going to be fine, you know," she said.

"I know."

"Which means you can let me go now."

"Never again."

She smiled and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

When they arrived at the railyard, the gate swung open for the first time in years. Jasper, Alice, Rose and Emmett came running.

"Get her some blood," Edward said, handing her off to Alice.

He turned to go.

Jasper put a hand on his shoulder. "Going somewhere?"

"Not far, and not for long," Edward said. "I have something to take care of."

He made it to the spot quickly, and he found Aro's corpse right where he left it. He waved away a swarm of flies and picked up the head in one hand, the body in another. He slung the body over his shoulder, and headed back to the railyard.

Across the way from the gate, he found the right tree. He removed his backpack, found a length of rope, and strung it over a good, strong branch.

When he was through stringing Aro up, the severed head dangling on a separate rope, he pulled two pieces of paper from the pack. The one in the yellowing Ziploc, he put aside. On the other, he wrote a note and pinned it to Aro's red overcoat.

Consider this a warning

There will not be another

- The Lion

He sat down on a nearby rock and picked up the paper in the plastic bag, a photograph he had been carrying with him for ten years, one he had looked at in this very manner every day since the rebellion that had freed her, and led her away from him for so long.

He stared at her face as if he'd never seen it before, as if he hadn't seen it just a half hour ago.

And this time, he shed tears of relief.

-30-