EPOV

It has been more than a week since I met my new mistress, and I can't help but wonder what the hell I am doing here.

For example, right now I am sitting in the tiny prison room annexed to my Lady's chambers, as I have been for several hours, watching the dust motes swirl as I breathe. I don't have to breathe, of course, but doing so makes the dust motes swirl, which is how I get my kicks these days.

It has been little more than a week, but the monotony has already left me bored and bitter.

I report for my feeding every day and suffer the humiliation of being watched as I simultaneously sustain and poison myself. Invariably, the chef twists his already unsightly face in disgust and hurls insults at me, verbally or mentally.

I return to my chambers (what I will now be calling the repurposed broom closet in which I live) and I brood.

I try not to brood too much, but it's part of my nature. Carlisle used to tease me about it, and I would give what little I had left to see his sardonic smile again, or to feel the soothing tenor of his thoughts in the back of my mind. I consider brushing my teeth again – for the seventh time today – just for something to do. All they left me in this place, besides my chains of course, were my new clothes (courtesy of Alice), my pills, a toothbrush (which I suppose is now mine) and some toothpaste (also mine now). I tried to remember exactly how long it had been since I had had worldly possessions, but I quickly decided it didn't matter.

I remind myself I could be much worse off. My chambers are small, but it's not as though I require much space. I don't get stiff, or cramped, or sore, so I can stay sitting or standing in this space comfortably for a long time. The poison drains my energy and dulls my senses, but I'm still not alive. I'm less like an invulnerable predator and more like a marble slab.

I see little of my new mistress. Perhaps I scared her more than she let on when we last spoke. Perhaps she simply doesn't like vampires. Perhaps she simply doesn't like me.

But being alone has never bothered me much. I miss Carlisle's companionship, but short of that I hardly want for company. It's rather a relief to be free of stinging clubs, biting words, and awful tasks.

She has not yet required me to take pills to slumber. The last time I saw her she told me that they would not be necessary, as long as I stayed inside my room and stayed quiet while she was sleeping.

"But how will you keep me from escaping?" I had asked, confused at her obvious disregard for her safety, "Or killing you in your sleep?"

She had looked at me with a rather cold, level stare. "I don't really think you're that stupid, Edward. Even if you killed me, how far do you really think you would get?"

She sat down on a tiny wooden bench with a velvet seat, turned almost far enough to face me. She began taking off her frankly excessive jewelry and makeup as she continued in an almost bored tone, "I'll lock the door, and unlock it in the morning. If I have to sedate you, you may end up waking me with your..." her mask of nonchalance cracked for a moment, but she hid it by wiping her face with some kind of cleanser. "...With your dreams. And I don't want to have to send someone to unchain you every morning - I won't have the time."

I stared at her, trying to understand.

When she finished removing her decorations, she sighed and turned to face me, looking years younger.

"Look, Edward. The truth is, I don't want to chain you up. It's not pleasant. I don't like inflicting pain. Just... stay in your room and don't make this difficult."

So I have been staying in my room - rather, my chambers- and generally not making things difficult. And I am bored out of my mind. But I continue to be confused and intrigued by the conundrum that is Miss Bella.

Also, I have managed to learn some things about my enigmatic new mistress from the heads of those around me. Mostly, that meant Alice, the gentle yet strange – and somewhat annoying – seamstress, and the Michael the man-child who prepared mine and Miss Bella's sustenance.

Most notably, this lavish house she lives in is not just a house. It's not just a mansion. It might as well be a palace.

Not only was I a slave for a well-to-do daughter of the vampire-subjugating revolution, oh no, I was a slave for its goddamned princess. The sweet yet feisty young lady whose bedroom I haunted was the heir to an empire built on the mechanism of our subjugation. Lovely.

I'd heard chatter, from various mouths and minds, as I was transported to this extravagant prison, but I hadn't cared very much to sort it all out. Fatigue from the poison of the synthetic blood and ongoing beatings dulled my wits, and I hadn't paid any attention to the circumstances of my servitude.

Part of me wondered if it mattered. I was a slave. I would likely never again leave this house – this miniature mansion on the fringes of a great estate. So what difference did it make to me what my mistress and her family did away from me, or what industry paid for the opulence around me? What difference did it make if I was purchased with money made from selling the weapons that beat me and enslaved my entire species?

Pragmatically, it made no difference at all. But I couldn't shake the feeling of disgust.

Perhaps this was why it bothered me how little I had seen of Miss Bella. While she was out of my sights, she was no doubt orchestrating a more efficient and effective method of torture for myself and my compatriots.

I brooded on this at length.

I tried to reconcile this knowledge with the image I had of my strange teenaged mistress in my head. She was human, and so she was despicable – her lifestyle was forged by the suffering of slaves – though she didn't seem any crueler or viler than the others. She didn't make me take the pills. She didn't make me wear chains. She seemed embarrassed by me, more than anything else. But I now knew she was worse. She had to be, because she was not just a passive participant, swept away by the sins of the era. She, and indeed the whole of her damned bourgeoisie-cum-royal family, was directly responsible for everything I hated about the world.

I shook my head. The dust motes swirled attractively against the rays of sunlight squeezing through cracks around the door. I wished that my skin cells sloughed off like human skin, so that I could make more dust for myself to watch. It struck me that this was rather pathetic, even for me.

I brooded on that at length.

More action coming soon – but nobody broods quite like Edward.