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Dream's Shadow

Summary:
This is my take on the over- and usually poorly- done plot. Edward leaves Bella again. She is changed and they meet again in the future. There will be a big twist! Requested by Iris. Banner by Iris!

Notes:
Try it! I know stories like this usually stink, but I thought I'd give it a try. I own nothing. Stephenie Meyer owns all.

71. Chapter 71

Rating 0/5   Word Count 517   Review this Chapter

I have no choice. Immediately, I turn and run for the interior of Volterra. I don’t know yet what I will find on my return. Will they not have even noticed my departure? That’s a possibility, though not a very likely one. Will they have killed her already?

Despite my pessimistic brain, I admit that’s no more likely. She’s an asset. So is Jasper. And so am I. They aren’t willing to risk alienating all of us so Aro can play his sick little games.

“Edward,” I whisper. “I love you.” It would be crazy to pretend he can hear me, and yet I do. I imagine he can help me now. “What do I do?’

I run purposelessly and inanely through the dark and unfamiliar streets- I rarely travel the city, except to hunt. I don’t know much or anything about how to navigate, and certainly not in my panicked state. I dash aimlessly through the cobblestoned streets, only entwining myself further in this catacomb.

A human mother rushes by, with her two children clinging, each to one hand. She notices my distress, and, kindly, stops and says, “What can I do to help you, dear? You look lost.” It isn’t in English, of course, but I speak Italian now.

“I… I don’t… the clock tower?” I hope I can find my way home- I shudder at the word- from there.

“Just through there, dear. Here, let me show you.”

“I can’t thank you enough!” or pray enough for her to leave. God, I can’t stand the smell of it! I can feel the warm venom rushing down my throat, hear their hearts pounding- they sense danger, even if they can’t imagine that this slender girl poses any. They know, in the repressed instinctive part of their minds, that they fear me, but they refuse to act on that knowledge.

Just as I know when I see them one thing so clearly. Food. I should feed on them, I know. The predatory parts of me insist it. But consciously, I say instead people. They have lives and dreams and hopes, and I am no one to take it away from them.

Never mind the smell.

The little boy on her left promptly plops his thumb in his mouth as his mother leads me to the central court where the tower is. “You see it? Right over there.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Not a problem, dear, not a problem at all. Now, I’m going to head on home. You all right?” she asks kindly.

“Yeah, I am. Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome.”

The woman leaves. I see her head off toward the direction from whence she came and feel a brief pride for not killing her.

And then I realize I’m still lost. I don’t have the faintest idea where to go. “Great,” I whisper, and then I hear something so unexpected that I gasp aloud into the dark, cool air of the night.

“Left, love. It’s to the left.”