Jacob was gonna murder her, but only if Charlie didn't get to her first. Here she was, running through the streets of Volterra to save her ex-boyfriend from suicide by fire and dismemberment, and if asked why the only reason she could come up with was 'it seemed like the right thing to do.'

As Bella caught sight of the previous light of her life (and current bane of her existence,) cold water from the fountain she was running full tilt through spilled over into her sneakers and she was struck by how sickly Edward looked. It appeared that after he was denied his death at the hands of the Volturi, he really let himself go. For someone who had left her, he was doing a remarkable impression of a man who had been rejected and abandoned.

Just as he took a step fully into the light, Bella slammed into the stone of his chest, wrapping her arms around his steel neck and trying futilely to push him backwards.

"You have to move!" She pleaded with him as he sighed heavily and embraced her. The irony of him choosing now to hold her, now when it was not the time and it was too late and not when she had begged him to do so was not lost on her, but she dismissed the thought as she continued desperately to attempt to push him to safety. "Open your eyes, look at me! I'm alive! You have to move!"

Finally, as if coming out of a trance, he pulled her backwards into the corridor he had just exited with a gasp, never once releasing her body.

Bella released a sigh of relief as she brought her arms down in front of her and attempted to take a step back and get some distance. Edward seemed unwilling to release his hold, but he loosened it at her insistence, allowing her to put a few precious inches between them. She took deep gulping breaths as she tried to calm her heart rate from the sprint she just engaged in.

"Bella," he whispered reverently, "it's you."

"Yes," she said, rubbing her temples to attempt to stave off the stabbing pain threatening to split her head apart. With more force and a severe look that she had only recently mastered, she pointedly took another step backwards. This time, he did release her, though it looked as if it physically pained him.

Bracing herself, she looked up into his perfect features and felt... very little. It wasn't love anymore, just a little echo of the loss of her innocence. He was still and would always be painfully beautiful; he would always be her first love. But he would also always be the boy who used her biggest insecurities to try to break her and leave her desolate in the forest.

"I just needed you to understand I'm alive," she told his chest forcefully, refusing to meet his eye. "You don't have to feel guilty or hurt yourself, or whatever this is. I'm alive, and you see that, okay?"

He looked down at her with that familiar mix of unconditional love and condescending superiority and she felt herself bristle before she could remind herself that he didn't get to make her feel anything anymore.

"Bella, I lied," he breathed as if it explained everything. "I love you. You just believed it so easily."

She blinked up at him, her anger draining away as incredulity flooded her. What, she was supposed to have assumed the man she loved would hone in on every weakness, every insecurity she had and falsely exploit them? It was reasonable to think she would know he was capable of emotionally devastating her with falsehood, that he would "hurt her to help her?"

That wasn't fair. She had trusted him, she had LOVED him, and he had destroyed her. Fighting back absolute rage at his implication, Bella crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yes, Edward, I believed you," she told him through clenched teeth. "You were my boyfriend, my first boyfriend; I trusted you. I took you at your word, and it decimated me."

She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. "For a little while. But that does not mean that I want you to die. That seems like a bit of an over-"

The arrival of two vampires she had never seen before cut off her words as Edward shushed her and forced her unceremoniously behind his back. After the depression ebbed, anger had been her constant companion when she considered her ex-boyfriend and his continued treatment of her as if she was three was making the urge to smack him in the back of the head a very difficult force to ignore. She did, though. It would, after all, only serve to make her hand sore.

"Gentleman, I won't be needing your services after all," Edward told them, cold dismissal permeating his voice as his hand held Bella steady by the hip.

The MASSIVE vampire in front paid him no mind. "Aro wants to speak with you," he said gruffly, taking a step forward with his hand slightly extended. Standing head and shoulders taller than her, his sharp jaw clenched a bit and his eyebrow raised when Edward failed to move forward.

"No rules were broken," Edward retorted in a voice bordering on desperation, forcing her backward as he pressed closer to the crowds and the light behind them.

"Never-the-less," the second vampire said with a sigh, "We should take this conversation somewhere more private."

He stared at Edward pointedly with a look that said in no uncertain terms that they expected his compliance. He pushed a few strands of shoulder-length hair out of his face as red eyes flashed to hers, almost passing over her until they stalled and the vampire's face flashed with surprise. His gaze shifted from passing to intense as a small smirk graced the man's face, before moving back to glitter dangerously at Edward when he began to growl quietly.

Bella swallowed, fighting fear and an overwhelming urge to petulantly kick the yellow-eyed creature in front of her. These men worked for Aro, they obviously did, and the danger they were in at this moment was not going to be soothed by his acting out. He had begged their help, and when they denied him, threatened unfathomable disobedience. To think he'd escape that without consequences was unforgivably naive and if Bella knew that as a human, he should certainly know it as a vampire.

"Of course," Edward replied softly, with another push to her behind him. "Bella, why don't you-"

"Edward, enough," she whispered to him quietly. "Aro, the king, wants to see us. I came here to keep you alive and, for better or worse, I intend to."

He shot her a warning look. "Love-"

A sliver of fury raced down her spine as she pressed her lips together in a hard line. She stepped sideways to move around him but his hands clasped onto her waist, restraining her. When she spoke, her voice was furious and colder than his skin.

"Remove your hands from my person or I swear I will find someone to remove them for you."

Edward's eyes widened but his arms dropped to his side, the expression on his face warring between shock and hurt.

"I am confident," she hissed, "that the ruler of your entire race has better things to do than be kept waiting. I suspect he would perceive that as disrespect and personally, as a human who he could crush with a whim and a flick of his pinkie, I'd rather not anger him."

Alice fluttered in behind her, but Bella was really not in the mood for a lecture from the pixie at the moment, so she ignored the woman who used to be her best friend in the world. Instead, she stepped towards the red-eyed vampires who could easily make her lunch and very well might still do so.

"I'm ready when you are," she told them with a forced smile, glancing between the two.

A tense moment passed, then another, before the big one snorted and eyed his companion.

"She's got much bigger balls than the fur muncher, D," he said with mirth sparkling in his crimson irises, his teeth sparkling dangerously in what may have been a disarming smile had they not been quite so sharp looking.

'D' had her fixed in his unwavering gaze, a smirk still playing across his face.

"She most certainly does," he agreed simply, extending his hand to her with a raised eyebrow. It felt like he was daring her to take it and never one to make good life choices, Bella placed her warm hand in his gloved one. She watched with a bit of awe, the kind a human could not help but to feel in a vampire's presence, as his smirk turned to the smallest of grins.

Edward hissed something behind her but before she could turn to beg him to be silent, a small teenage angel-faced girl walked into the corridor, her face set in a mask of irritation.

"Enough!" She hissed. "Demetri! Felix! The Masters are waiting!"

Bella was drug along behind who she now knew was Demetri, and had she not been equal parts angry and petrified, she may have had more to say about the stunning architecture. Volterra was beautiful, and in another life, she would have loved to visit and explore the rich history here. In another life, she would be visiting Italy and sightseeing, reading from a tourist guide book and taking crumby pictures with the camera she had been given. But that was not this life, she reminded herself as she felt the gloved hand unpausingly moving her forward. That was not her life.

Felix was eyeing her speculatively as Bella attempted to keep from stumbling, leaving her feeling nervous and afraid under his gaze. After tripping a fourth time, the vampire snorted and took a deep breath, scenting the air as if sniffing a delicious pie. Of course, to him, she reasoned with no small amount of dread, that's probably exactly what she was.

"Oh, dibs," Felix said with a sinister smile that showed all his teeth. Bella stiffened, adrenaline and terror running freely through her veins before Demetri paused and turned slightly to face the bigger vampire. One eyebrow raised in apparent question as he stared, eyes pitch black and hard. Felix swallowed as his eyes fell to the floor and seemed to take an involuntary step back.

"Or not," he mumbled quietly, raising his hands in a surrendering motion. Demetri remained immobile, the air thick with some terrifying sense of threat she didn't understand for a few more moments before he turned without a word and beginning to lead her again. If anything, her ever-rising fear increased her stumbling.

Jane, as she learned the girl was called, pushed open two heavy wooden doors to reveal three men seated upon a dais in what could only be described as thrones. Demetri released her hand with an oddly gentle squeeze and moved to stand beside Felix at the back of the room, leaving her beside Edward and feeling oddly exposed without the red-eyed vampire. The room was empty aside from the Kings, who she recognized from Carlisle's painting, and one additional vampire who motioned for Jane to join him.

"Ahhhh," exclaimed the man she recognized as Aro as he rose and moved towards them. His skin was paper-thin and his eyes were somehow more burgundy than the others, an aura of age and power rolling off his every step as he moved closer. It was not hard, she realized, to understand why he among all the others was a King.

"What happy news!" he continued, striding towards them with the air of a man who owned his space, owned the very air that caressed your skin and therefore had a right to all of it. "Bella yet lives. This is a surprise."

Without asking, he took Edward's hand, his eyes unfocusing slightly before he released it and surreptitiously rubbed his fingers together. His head snapped to the side, fixing Bella in his penetrating gaze. She fought not to buckle under it.

Alice had lectured her in the car on the Volturi, telling her among other things that Aro's gift was soul reading. He could, she had said, read everything with a single touch. She immediately averted her eyes from the King in front of her, some survival instinct driving her to appear as small and submissive as possible. She was not an idiot and these were not the Cullens. These were real vampires, 'Cold Ones,' and not only capable of serious damage to her person, but much more willing to inflict it than the golden-eyed figures she had once called family.

Before she could blink, Aro stood in front of her and extended his hand, a benevolent smile gracing his face that somehow increased her unease rather than soothed it.

"May I?" He asked in a tone that sounded very little like a question. A growl erupted from Edward's throat, a hiss from Alice's, and Bella found her eyes straying back to the vampire of whom she knew nothing exempting his name. Demetri's eyes met hers and he nodded, granting a sort of calmness to her she had not known she was asking for.

"Of course," she murmured, turning her attention back to Aro. She couldn't help watching his face as he bent over her hand, noting with distant fascination as his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up to his forehead. Aro released her hand with a soft sound, somewhere between elation and discomfort.

"I see nothing," he said, turning back to the thrones as Bella frantically tried to decide whether or not this boded well for her. He seemed to be thinking before he turned back towards her, fixing her with a curious sort of expression. "I wonder if she is immune to all our gifts..."

He was turning towards Jane when Demetri spoke unexpectedly from the back of the room.

"Master, that won't be necessary," he said firmly, in a tone that bordered on menace. "She is untrackable. I can attest to it."

Aro studied him with a look of surprise and slight anger. "Demetri-"

"Brother."

Marcus' gravelly voice rang through the room and Bella fought hysterical, highly inappropriate laughter as every vampire in the room started. She hadn't even known vampires could startle. Marcus extended his hand for Aro to touch and as he did, several things happened simultaneously.

Demetri took a step forward to stand at Bella's side, between her and Edward.

Aro turned back to look at Demetri with excitement in his eyes.

And Edward snarled and shook his head, attempting to reach around the larger vampire and pull Bella behind him.

Demetri was faster, however, and quickly enough that it made her a little dizzy she was across the room, looking into the wide expanse of Demetri's back as Edward lunged and was quickly restrained by Felix.

"No, you are monsters!" Edward was snarling, arms pulled behind him as he fought the confines of Felix's hands. "You cannot do this!"

Aro fixed him with a glare that had a shiver running down Bella's spine, even across the room. "You will find, young man, that I can do a great many things," he said softly, authority making his quiet words ring through the room as if he were shouting. "Especially when one such as you has violated so very many laws, that it is impossible to pick just one to punish."

Aro glanced towards her before turning his stare back towards Edward. "As it is, you must know you have damned her, as you see it, or condemned her to certain death."

Bella closed her eyes and fought down the whimper at the realization that she had been aware, deep down, was coming. She had known, of course she had known, that she was never going to leave Volterra with a heartbeat. It was guaranteed from the start.

So why had she come here? Oh yes, because 'it seemed like the right thing to do.' She had come to rescue the man who had told her she was nothing, worth nothing, and left her to die in the woods. She didn't fancy herself stupid, she didn't, but this choice might prove otherwise.

Demetri's back was rumbling with a growl as he pulled her closer to him by her hip.

Stupid, she was so stupid! Why did she come, why was she here, why-

"I left so she could have a normal life! I left to keep her safe!"

Edward was shaking with righteous indignation, pulling frantically at Felix's hold as he stared around him with wild eyes. "I'll not let you do this to her! Don't hurt her! Don't-"

She was going to die, she was going to DIE, and it was all. His. Fault.

Bella lost it.

"How dare you!" she screamed, rage and pain ripping through her throat as she forgot herself and pushed against the steel back in from her. "You did this to me! YOU! None of the vampires in this room brought a vulnerable human into this world of supernatural predators, but you did. You told me the secret, you revealed the vampire race, you left me with knowledge that is illegal for me to have! But it wasn't enough, that wasn't enough, because you abandoned me! Victoria is still out there and you left me to the pissed off mate of a vampire you and your family killed. Who, as you know, now is obsessed with the idea of 'a mate for a mate,' blissfully unaware that you left me in the woods and vanished from my life! And today, Edward, TODAY you were going to condemn every single human being in Volterra who saw you sparkle in the sun to certain death!"

She tried to rush around the obstacle in front of her, to bite or kick or claw the slack-faced, speechless vampire in front of her but an iron arm held her back and she contented herself with more verbal vitriol.

"Do you ever, for even a moment, consider the consequences of your actions?! THEY are going to kill a human to protect the entirety of their species. They kill humans to eat. YOU were going to kill humans for a very public temper tantrum, and you condemned me to death for a love that wasn't even important enough for you to stick around for! I didn't pick this, I am innocent, but if you want to blame someone for the fact that I am going to die here in Italy, you need look no further than-."

Aro startled her from her self-righteous monologue by clapping his hands together and squealing as if she had simply done the most delightful trick. Demetri's growl rose in volume until she could feel her whole body vibrating right along with his and she blushed to realize that she had quite literally been trying to climb around him in her quickly cooling rage to attempt to inflict damage on her ex-boyfriend.

Aro looked to the guard and smiled indulgently. "Demetri, now, there is no need," he assured the man softly. "The sentence is death, my friend. However, whether her heart ceases to beat today, or in three days, I leave entirely up to you."