Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.

Rated: T.

Author: xPaige Turnerx

Summary: "Trust me, dating a vampire and having a wolf for a brother are the LEAST complicated aspects of my life. Every now and then my nose reenacts the elevator scene from The Shining, and I randomly wake up in the woods. Normal was shot to Hell a long time ago."

Valhalla

There were certain things Bella had missed growing up, that she never noticed. Things that, if she had been paying attention, probably would have hinted at her... greater nature. Besides those headaches that truly redefined the word agony, Bella never got sick. Never had a fever, never an upset stomach, she had never dipped below the solid 100% health meter.

Except for those pesky headaches, where she swung low to a frightening 20%, but those never lasted long enough to cause worry. For her, at least.

So, having never personally experienced a hangover, she could only assume that this was how it felt.

Like she'd been hit by a bus... and then again, when someone threw it in reverse.

Bella groaned into the stone floor; a pitiful sound that she might have been more embarrassed about if she wasn't in such pain. She cracked open bleary eyes only to squeeze them shut again at the blinding light, her surroundings too fuzzy to make out clearly. Made only worse by the ringing in her ears.

God, is this what dying felt like?

Her first instinct was to shield her eyes but - chainlinks jingled behind her back, shackles digging into her wrists.

"... Give me a break, already," she muttered into the stone with a deep sigh.

It was tempting, the idea of just laying there on her side for... maybe the rest of her life? Really tempting. But there was a voice in the back of her head, little and reasonable and all around unwanted, that kept nagging her to get up. The desire to shut it up outweighed temptation. So with a grunt, Bella rolled onto the flat of her stomach, and used her forehead to push herself up to her knees.

It might have taken one or two tries.

Or four.

She was panting by the time she finally sat back on her heels, shaking the hair out of her face, and blinking up at the ceiling. The light was still painfully bright, though she was beginning to see that the room was rather dark, and she was forced to squint at everything. The ringing in her ears got louder each time her eyes skimmed the brighter spots of the room, to the point she tried her best to avoid looking at them.

The room tilted and she almost face-planted back into the floor, but managed to catch herself at the last moment and only swayed a little.

Fuck. Concussion?

It made as much sense as anything, at this point, especially considering-

Stone fists slammed down onto the hood of the truck. Bella jerked forward in her seat, felt the seatbelt dig into her body before the entire vehicle was airborne.

The images were fast and choppy, flashes of memories she knew were there but was having trouble hanging onto. Like trying to grab smoke. There one second and gone the next, replaced by-

"Would you be a pal and hold this for a minute?"

The cold metal easily slid into her skin, pain blooming like a flower in spring, flowing from his hand, through her abdomen.

She leaned back to try and get a better look at her own torso, half expecting to see the twisted metal still sticking out of her like a human shish kabob. Her shirt was... ruined, to say the least. Covered in blood from the ribs down, ripped open over her wound. A wound that was too bloody to see, dark and dried. So that had to be good? She wasn't bleeding anymore, right?

With her awareness, the pain came surging back in. Centered around her abdomen, yes, but reaching everywhere. From her fingertips, down to her toes.

She swayed forward again with another groan, this one more guttural with anguish.

"Bella, you need to stay conscious."

The voice was silky smooth, a soothing balm against her many wounds. It didn't stop the ache, but it took out the sting, and quieted the ringing in her head. Enough to blink and look over, and-

"Rose!"

Bella jerked towards the vampire, the chains attached to her shackles the only thing holding her in place. If she stretched, she could just skim Rosalie's personal bubble and for the first time in her life, she desperately wished someone would breach hers. Rosalie, specifically, in this moment.

A source of comfort that Bella, in a million years, never would have guessed at.

Black eyes traced over her face, lingered on the dark bruising around Bella's left eye and cheekbone. The cuts and scrapes on her face, her hands, the busted lip. Bloodshot eyes that were a deep, rich brown with rings of amber, clearly dizzy.

But she was awake. Finally, she was awake.

Thought eventually caught up to Bella, after she finished trying to rip her hands off leaning towards the blonde, and settled back on her ankles again. She eyed the shackles around Rosalie's wrists that bound her hands behind her back, patiently and elegantly resting on her knees as well.

"Dude, can iron really hold you?" she blurted.

Rosalie's eyes narrowed very slightly, a sneer tugging her lip up, tilting her chin up. "Never," she declared with surprising weight. "If it makes our hosts feel more comfortable, however, I'm not opposed to pretending."

"Sure," Bella nodded and then blanked, "wait, what?"

Rosalie jerked her chin to the other side of the room.

It was the brighter side, so Bella had to force herself to keep looking. Clenched her jaw against the increased ringing in her head, forced her eyes to focus. Once they did, she wished she hadn't.

Two tall women stood on either side of the door against the opposite wall. Well fit and lean, their muscle looked like it was carved from stone, which could be said about their equally sharp and stoic faces. Leather straps, cloth, war paint, and silver plating - they looked like they were cosplayers. Deadly cosplayers, with very real, very sharp looking spearheaded staffs.

Bella leaned sideways towards Rosalie again, looking between the two women. "Where the hell are we?"

"I was hoping you could shed some light on that."

"Me?" Bella echoed and looked at her. "I just woke up!"

"Yes, but they were after you, specifically."

Her shoulders jumped up, as did her voice. "Who are they?!"

"Again, something I was hoping you could tell me."

"Oh my god, tell me why you think I magically know all the answers," Bella groaned with a roll of her eyes.

Black eyes narrowed with aggravation. "Because," she drawled darkly. "You've been warning us for weeks that they were coming for you." Bella's eyebrows furrowed. "This is where they find me."

"I..." Bella shook her head, her jaw slack with dread and surprise. She swallowed roughly, a new wave of dizziness washing over her. "I also said that was where I died. Am I dead?" She swooped forward again, the room spinning, and rested her forehead against the cool stone. "I'm dead. Oh god. I'm dead and in Hell. Alice isn't here. Hell is real and I'm there, and it's not fair. I was a pretty decent person," she told the floor. "I never kicked puppies, I returned every DVD I ever borrowed, I let Billy think I broke his backup wheelchair when we all know it was Jake."

"As much as I appreciate you thinking I'm worthy of also ending up in Hell, we're both very much alive. Well. Some more than others."

Bella huffed, tilting her head against the stone enough to glare at Rosalie petulantly. "You're not in Hell with me, you're part of Hell."

Golden eyebrows jumped up in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"You know why," Bella snapped and Rosalie was startled by the honesty of it. That this wasn't a joke, not the girl's humorous way of coping. That she was being very serious. Bella grunted, forcing herself back up to her knees, and shuffled to the end of her chain again. A foot away from Rosalie. Just out of reach. Dark eyes drifted up and down Rosalie before defiantly locking with her gaze. "How could this be anything other than Hell?"

Rosalie shook her head, blinked and lowered her gaze. Possibly the first time in one hundred years that she backed out of a stare down first. She wasn't even entirely sure why, she just couldn't keep looking at the raw emotion in Bella's eyes. The haunted edges bleeding through. "Bella, you have a concussion and they put something on your wound-"

Bella winced at the ringing, folding in on herself in pain again. "Bring it on," she ground out through her teeth. "I lived through nineteen years of hell, you think the literal thing's gonna beat me now?"

"No, Bella-"

"I'm ready," she challenged, and shuffled back towards her corner where she woke up. The wall was just close enough to fall sideways against, leaning most of her weight on it. A good angle to glare at the women by the door. "I'm ready."

"Bella. Bella!" Rosalie called to her. But she might as well have been yelling into the void, her words bouncing off of the girl. Something was... something was wrong. Obviously. But her pupils were huge and - Rosalie glanced at Bella's bloody hands behind her back, fingers trembling.

This was more than a concussion. This was...

"What did you do to her?" Rosalie barked at the women guarding the door. "What did you do to her?" she snarled, leaning up on her knees.

Two pairs of stormy blue eyes landed on her, hands tightening on the spears.

Rosalie blinked slowly, easing back down again.

.

.

.

Forks

Chaos flooded the house around her, people yelling and running around. All of it noise, just white noise in the background to her own growing horror and despair. Every now and then she knew someone came to check on her, usually Esme and Jasper, but Jessica and Edward popped by once or twice. She couldn't exactly know for sure what they were saying to her, couldn't get her mind to focus on their words, on their voices, try as she might. A numb cloud had fallen over her body, everything felt slow and heavy. Like she was living in slow motion, and by the time she caught up to one thing, everyone had moved onto the next.

Being behind everyone else, late, unable to keep up. That was new.

She didn't like it.

So she gave up and simply sat there, at the large dining room table. Her black eyes slowly dragged across the long surface, up and up and up, until they met an equally dark, dull pair. Emmett sat motionless across the table from her, his face void of the usual joy and boyish charm. He looked very much like a man then; the saddest man to have ever lived.

A mountain of sorrow casting a shadow of loss that she could never outrun.

Her heart clenched painfully in her chest again and she dropped their gaze, back to the safety of the table. No broken heart staring back at her, reflecting her own pain for her to see.

Until it, too, cracked and splintered. A pale fist slamming down in the middle, Alice watched the wood split out away from the impact, little chips flying up into the air while the rest of the table caved in muted destruction. She blinked a few times, looking up at the culprit, and was surprised to see Esme's face contorted rage and despair. Dark eyes wet and narrowed, glaring down at what was once her table, heart-shaped lips pulled down in a fierce frown, eyebrows drawn together.

"...taken from us...both of my daughters, and you're saying there's nothing I can...get them back then..."

Her voice swam in and out, bits and pieces sinking through the fog in Alice's head. Enough to piece together, a puzzle of pain and regret.

Fiery red curls fell into Alice's line of vision as someone came to stand in front of her. A moment later Victoria's face was there, the young woman's hands on both of Alice's shoulders. Golden eyes were calm, gentle, and full of concern. Alice blinked apathetically.

Painted red lips moved, formed her name, she knew that. Recognized it. She'd seen it enough times over the years, had memories of the way Bella's lips moved around each syllable, how they tugged up in the corner at the end as she failed to fight off the smallest smile each time she said the pixie's name.

"Alice... Alice, can you hear me? Alice. I need you to focus now. Alice?" Eventually Victoria's voice caught up to her words, and Alice met her eyes again. The barest hint of relief reflected back at her. "Hey. There you are, ma petit cœur brisé."

"I swore to her that she was safe with me," Alice said quietly. Her voice was flat, dull, and a slap in the face of Victoria who flinched back. Such a stark contrast to their usual cheerful pixie. "I swore it, time and again. Now she's gone."

"Oui," Victoria murmured gently. "But I do not think this is your fault, nobody here does. Afterall, our little Bella is nothing if not unpredictable, no?"

Alice's chin fell to her chest, head hanging low with sorrow and shame. "I should have," she whispered with a broken voice. Victoria's comforting grip on her shoulders tightened. "I know I could have, even without my visions. Of course she was going to go help Jacob. Of course the nomads would strike when she was alone-"

"Of course the very forest itself was going to be ripped open, where a winged warrior would appear from blinding light, swoop in, and kidnap both Rosalie and Bella?" Victoria huffed with a humourless chuckle. She shook her head, looking up into Alice's face. "My dear sister, not even you could have predicted this. It is... beyond us, beyond our understanding."

"Then how do we get them back?!" Alice cried and flung herself into Victoria's arms.

The redhead hugged the pixie close, squeezing her tightly as her little body shook with dry sobs. Her eyes lifted, over the back of Alice's chair, to Jasper's own amber ones. He gave a nod and disappeared up to their bedroom. Victoria rubbed Alice's back, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. "Jasper will get in contact with Peter, the teleporter. If they, themselves, did not teleport, it was something very close. He is our first step in retrieving our family members."

With a sniffle, Alice slowly nodded. "Okay," she said miserably. "What do we do until then?"

"We hunt down those nomads who started this," Jessica hissed, never ending black eyes narrowed into a glare. She ran a cold, wet cloth over her mate's face as the smaller cracks were slowly beginning to heal. His prone figure lay along the length of the couch, clothes torn and every patch of skin that showed, cracked. Fresh new scars littered his body, well on his way to Jasper's level, with two distinct new lines running down through his right eye, cheek, off his jaw, and down his neck. Forever marring his beautiful face.

Edward patted Emmett's broad shoulder, jostling him with an encouraging smile. Never one to turn down a fight, he'd hoped this would spark some life back into the friendly giant. A fight, a goal, something for Emmett to hold onto. Alas, Emmett only let his shoulder be shook, face blank, black eyes staring off into space.

On the other side of the destroyed table, Carlisle had his arms crossed. His face was thoughtful, pensive, and he hummed under his breath. "If we're to track these nomads, perhaps it would be best to get Jacob and a few of the wolves to help. Quil and Embry, maybe even this Leah girl they've mentioned. I will go to Chief Swan and seek out their phone numbers."

"Charlie!" Esme gasped in the same moment Alice did. The two exchanged wide eyed looks, Esme's hands coming up to cover her mouth. "Oh no." The motherly woman crumpled, catching herself on the chair as her heart cracked further. Carlisle looked on in alarm and she shook her head. "How do we tell Charlie that his little girl was taken from him?"

"Bella was what?!"

Everyone in the room turned towards the front foyer where two wolves stood tall.

Bloody, battered, and bruised, Jacob rolled his neck as his body prepared for another fight. Ready to tear apart anything that stood in his way of his brother. He dropped his duffel bag, stalking into the room in quick, stormy motions as he locked eyes with Esme.

Victoria stepped into his path, hand raised, mostly calm but with the glow of a fire in her eyes, ready to explode. Even the air around her issued a warning Jacob heard, his gaze snapping to her instead.

Leah's hand latched onto his shoulder, jerking him to a stop. "Not your enemies," she reminded him in a rough and scratchy voice. She looked back at the vampires, rolling her shoulder and beating down the urge to Shift. "Start from the beginning."

.

.

.

Valhalla

Silence is a funny thing. No literal weight behind it, but potentially heavy with tension. The kind of heavy that breaks backs. That breaks people. Especially the kind of silence that you felt in your ears, that made a room feel more empty than it was. That made you feel more empty than you were.

Bella shifted her weight to her other hip, trying not to crush her fingers in the process. Her head never left the wall, her body heavy, movements sluggish, but she was awake. Still awake. She turned her head until she caught a flash of blonde from the corner of her eye, but her focus landed on the small window up high in the wall.

Immediate wonders and questions died out long ago. Now it was delayed reactions. A foggy mind trying to keep up. Screaming from the bottom of the ocean as you watch people dance on the surface.

We've been here before.

"How long have we been here?" she muttered, squeezing her eyes shut tightly.

There was quiet ruffling, the clinking of chainlinks against each other. "Oh, so now you're talking to me again?" Rosalie asked in a voice that was much too polite. "Am I no longer a demon of temptation here to torture you?"

Bella sighed and bumped her head back against the wall. "That sounds regrettably familiar."

"Sounds like whatever was in your system is nearly gone now. Some kind of opiate, by the smell of it."

"Was I-"

"High as a kite? Yes. And somehow even more insufferable than usual. Quite the feat." More rustling and Bella glanced up briefly to see she had all of Rosalie's attention. Attentive, particularly. "How do you feel?"

Licking her chapped lips, Bella winced as her tongue passed over the bruised cut. "You know when you get guck on the bottom of your shoe and you want it off, but you definitely don't want to touch it? So you scrape your shoe on the sidewalk, on the grass, on the edge of a step. If it's stubborn, you might even find a twig to poke and stab at it? I'm the guck, in this scenario. That's how I feel."

"Well it hasn't been a picnic listening to your inane rambling," Rosalie scoffed. Her poise was still as perfect as Bella remembered from the first time she woke up. She tried to think of a time she ever saw the blonde slouch and her eyes widened when she realized there were none. Black eyes peered at her curiously. "You're quite familiar with the bible."

"My-" Bella shifted to look more fully at Rosalie, grimacing at the pain in her side. "My grandfather, Renee's father, is super Catholic. Religion is literally the only thing I've ever talked about with him. I don't subscribe, but they're interesting stories."

"You don't subscribe, yet you've translated all the passages into Italian?"

"He doesn't speak a lick of English, so yeah. I don't know how to ask when the next bus is coming but I could probably Baptise your baby." She squinted up at the little window. "How long?"

Rosalie barely spared a glance to it. "That's complicated. The sky is light for twenty two hours, and dark for thirty four."

Bella's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What the hell, man. Okay. That's... okay. How many times has the sky been light?"

"Four."

"Nine days?!" Bella gasped. She squeezed her eyes shut, bouncing her head back on the stone wall again. Nine days. Nine days away from Alice. Nine days lost here, with Rosalie. Nine days the others probably searched for them.

"And you've been unconscious for seven of them," Rosalie told her. Black eyes watched Bella closely and the teenager wasn't sure what she saw in them, but there was a flash of... something. Something new, something she'd never seen from the blonde before. Concern, perhaps? "I didn't think you were going to wake up."

"Obviously you jinxed it, so thanks for that, asshole."

A smile threatened to crack Rosalie's face.

Bella sighed, long and deep, and looked around the room again. Same old, same old. Some kind of cliche gallows from a castle. Ugh. Were they actually in a castle? "Why haven't you broken free of the chains yet? Tore through this place like a tornado of blood?"

The women at the door didn't even blink, they remained ever impassive, and somehow that was more intimidating. Rosalie shook her head dismissively. "I don't know where we are, you were dying, I can hear many people, and the woman who brought us here ripped open the sky to do so."

"So, basically, you're too lazy to do it yourself."

"Bella, I swear to God, this is your fault to begin with-"

"My fault? How is this my fault?"

"She came for you!"

"I'm so sorry my bleeding to death inconvenienced you!"

"That was-!" Rosalie finally turned completely, whirling around to look at Bella in disbelief. "That was your fault, too! Who goes running off alone when there are vampires chasing them?"

"First of all, rude. Secondly, they were after me because they were after Victoria. And they were after Alice, well, because of Alice. I am the innocent bystander, here."

"Excuse me?" Rosalie blinked while Bella groaned, curling in on her throbbing guts. "What did you say? Why are they after my sisters? Bella. Bella, look at me."

"Something about," she groaned louder, jaw clenching painfully while she struggled to drag air in, "about vengeance, or something. I'm bleeding again. That can't be good, right?"

"Bel-"

The door to the room swung open with a bang, one of the women staggering forward. A man sprinted in, with a small group of shorter, more petite women following. He barked out something in a language neither girl could understand, and the spears were crossed in front of Rosalie, blocking her from Bella and the others.

Chains jingled and shackles fell away from Bella's wrists. Rosalie watched in alarm as she was hoisted up into the man's arms, while the women pressed cloths against Bella's wounds. There was enough time for Rosalie to watch Bella's icy blue eyes roll into the back of her head, before the entire group was gone again.

The door swung closed with an echoing bang, the women taking up their positions again. Their brows were furrowed, this time, and Rosalie suspected that this wasn't planned. Too chaotic, too spur of the moment. They were confused, or as close to being confused as Rosalie had seen them so far.

One pair of blue eyes landed on her, calculating and mildly curious. A very humanizing trait. They dragged sideways to the woman's partner, before returning to a point across the room. Her grip on the staff tightened.

Rosalie ran her tongue against the back of her teeth, clenching her fists once, twice. She closed her eyes and focussed on her hearing, following the rushed footsteps down the hall until she latched onto Bella's erratic heartbeat.

.

.

.

Yo, whaddup, fam?

Been a while, been a while. Apologies and all that. I wanted to finish writing this story before I started posting it, like last time, but life gets in the way, you know? Figured now was as good a time as any, even if it's not finished yet. I write better with active feedback, anyway.

Assuming y'all are still around.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, hope you're still psyched about this story, hope you're having a good monday, nerds.

peace,