The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (15 page)

There was one voice, higher and clearer than the others, that I could hear most easily.

“Another five minutes,” I heard whoever it was
say. I was sure it was a girl who was speaking. “And Bella will open her eyes in thirty-seven seconds. I wouldn’t doubt that
she can hear us now.”

I tried to make sense of this. Was someone else being forced to keep her eyes shut, like me? Or did she think my name was
Bella? I hadn’t told anyone my name. I struggled again to smell
something
.

More mumbling. I thought that one voice sounded off—I couldn’t hear any ring to it at all. But I couldn’t be sure with Jasper’s
hands so securely over my ears.

“Three minutes,” the high, clear voice said.

Jasper’s hands left my head.

“You’d better open your eyes now,” he told me from a few steps away. The way he said this frightened me. I looked around myself
quickly, searching for the danger hinted at in his tone.

One whole field of my vision was obscured by the dark smoke. Close by, Jasper was frowning. His teeth were gritted together
and he was looking at me with an expression that was almost… frightened. Not like he was scared of me, but like he was scared
because
of me. I remembered what he’d said before, about my putting them in danger with something called a Volturi. I wondered what
a Volturi was. I couldn’t imagine what this scarred-up, dangerous vampire would be afraid of.

Behind Jasper, four vampires were spaced out in
a loose line with their backs to me. One was Esme. With her were a tall blonde woman, a tiny black-haired girl, and a dark-haired
male vampire so big that he was scary just to look at—the one I’d seen kill Kevin. For an instant I imagined that vampire
getting a hold on Raoul. It was a strangely pleasant picture.

There were three more vampires behind the big one. I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing with him in the way. Carlisle
was kneeling on the ground, and next to him was a male vampire with dark red hair. Lying flat on the ground was another figure,
but I couldn’t see much of that one, only jeans and small brown boots. It was either a female or a young male. I wondered
if they were putting the vampire back together.

So eight yellow-eyes total, plus all that howling before, whatever strange kind of vampire
that
had been; there had been at least eight more voices involved. Sixteen, maybe more. More than twice as many as Riley had told
us to expect.

I found myself fiercely hoping that those black-cloaked vampires would catch up to Riley, and that they would make him
suffer
.

The vampire on the ground started to get slowly to her feet—moving awkwardly, almost like she was some clumsy human.

The breeze shifted, blowing the smoke across me and Jasper. For a moment, everything was invisible except for him. Though
I was not as blind as before, I suddenly felt much more anxious, for some reason. It was like I could feel the anxiety bleeding
out of the vampire next to me.

The light wind gusted back in the next second, and I could see and smell everything.

Jasper hissed at me furiously and shoved me out of my crouch and back onto the ground.

It was her—the human I’d been hunting just a few minutes ago. The scent my whole body had been focused toward. The sweet,
wet scent of the most delicious blood I’d ever tracked. My mouth and throat felt like they were on fire.

I tried wildly to hold on to my reason—to focus on the fact that Jasper was just waiting for me to jump up again so that he
could kill me—but only part of me could do it. I felt like I was about to pull into two halves trying to keep myself here.

The human named Bella stared at me with stunned brown eyes. Looking at her made it worse. I could see the blood flushing through
her thin skin. I tried to look anywhere else, but my eyes kept circling back to her.

The redhead spoke to her in a low voice. “She surrendered. That’s one I’ve never seen before. Only
Carlisle would think of offering. Jasper doesn’t approve.”

Carlisle must have explained to that one when my ears were covered.

The vampire had both his arms around the human girl, and she had both hands pressed to his chest. Her throat was just inches
from his mouth, but she didn’t look frightened of him at all. And he didn’t look like he was hunting. I had tried to wrap
my head around the idea of a coven with a pet human, but this was not close to what I had imagined. If she’d been a vampire,
I would have guessed that they were together.

“Is Jasper all right?” the human whispered.

“He’s fine. The venom stings,” the vampire said.

“He was bitten?” she asked, sounding shocked by the idea.

Who was this girl? Why did the vampires allow her to be with them? Why hadn’t they killed her yet? Why did she seem so comfortable
with them, like they didn’t scare her? She seemed like she was a part of this world, and yet she didn’t understand its realities.
Of course Jasper was bitten. He’d just fought—and destroyed—my entire coven. Did this girl even know what we were?

Ugh, the burn in my throat was impossible! I tried not to think about washing it away with her
blood, but the wind was blowing her smell right in my face! It was too late to keep my head—I had scented the prey I was
hunting, and nothing could change that now.

“He was trying to be everywhere at once,” the redhead told the human. “Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do, actually.”
He shook his head as he looked at the tiny black-haired girl. “Alice doesn’t need anyone’s help.”

The vampire named Alice shot a glare at Jasper. “Overprotective fool,” she said in her clear soprano voice. Jasper met her
stare with a half smile, seeming to forget for a second that I existed.

I could barely fight the instinct that wanted me to make use of his lapse and spring at the human girl. It would take less
than an instant and then her warm blood—blood I could hear pumping through her heart—would quench the burn. She was so
close
—

The vampire with the dark red hair met my eyes with a fierce warning glare, and I knew I would die if I tried for the girl,
but the agony in my throat made me feel like I would die if I didn’t. It hurt so much that I screamed out loud in frustration.

Jasper snarled at me, and I tried to keep myself from moving, but it felt like the scent of her blood was a giant hand yanking
me off the ground. I
had never tried to stop myself from feeding once I had committed to a hunt. I dug my hands into the ground looking for something
to hold on to but finding nothing. Jasper leaned into a crouch, and even knowing I was two seconds from death, I couldn’t
focus my thirsty thoughts.

And then Carlisle was right there, his hand on Jasper’s arm. He looked at me with kind, calm eyes. “Have you changed your
mind, young one?” he asked me. “We don’t want to destroy you, but we will if you can’t control yourself.”

“How can you stand it?” I asked him, almost begging. Wasn’t he burning, too? “I
want
her.” I stared at her, desperately wishing the distance between us was gone. My fingers raked uselessly through the rocky
dirt.

“You must stand it,” Carlisle said solemnly. “You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will
save you now.”

If being able to tolerate the human the way these strange vampires did was my only hope for survival, then I was already doomed.
I couldn’t stand the fire. And I was of two minds about survival anyway. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want pain, but what
was the point? Everyone else was dead. Diego had been dead for days.

His name was right on my lips. I almost whispered
it aloud. Instead, I gripped my skull with both hands and tried to think about something that wouldn’t hurt. Not the girl,
and not Diego. It didn’t work very well.

“Shouldn’t we move away from her?” the human whispered roughly, breaking my concentration. My eyes snapped back to her. Her
skin was so thin and soft. I could see the pulse in her neck.

“We have to stay here,” said the vampire she was clinging to. “
They
are coming to the north end of the clearing now.”

They? I glanced to the north, but there was nothing but smoke. Did he mean Riley and my creator? I felt a new thrill of panic,
followed by a little spasm of hope. There was no way she and Riley could stand against these vampires who had killed so many
of us, was there? Even if the howly ones were gone, Jasper alone looked capable of dealing with the two of them.

Or did he mean this mysterious Volturi?

The wind teased the girl’s scent across my face again, and my thoughts scattered. I glared at her thirstily.

The girl met my stare, but her expression was so different from what it should have been. Though I could feel that my lips
were curled back from my teeth, though I trembled with the effort to stop
myself from springing at her, she did not look afraid of me. Instead she seemed fascinated. It almost looked like she wanted
to speak to me—like she had a question she wanted me to answer.

Then Carlisle and Jasper began to back away from the fire—and me—closing ranks with the others and the human. They all were
staring past me into the smoke, so whatever they were afraid of was closer to me than it was to them. I huddled tighter to
the smoke in spite of the nearby flames. Should I make a run for it? Were they distracted enough that I could escape? Where
would I go? To Fred? Off on my own? To find Riley and make him pay for what he’d done to Diego?

As I hesitated, mesmerized by that last idea, the moment passed. I heard movement to the north and knew I was sandwiched between
the yellow-eyes and whatever was coming.

“Hmm,” a dead voice said from behind the smoke.

In that one syllable I knew exactly who it was, and if I hadn’t been frozen solid with mindless terror I would have bolted.

It was the dark-cloaks.

What did this mean? Would a new battle begin now? I knew that the dark-cloaked vampires had wanted my creator to succeed in
destroying these
yellow-eyes. My creator had clearly failed. Did that mean they would kill her? Or would they kill Carlisle and Esme and the
rest here instead? If it had been my choice, I knew who I would want destroyed, and it wasn’t my captors.

The dark-cloaks ghosted through the vapor to face the yellow-eyes. None of them looked in my direction. I held absolutely
still.

There were only four of them, like last time. But it didn’t make a difference that there were seven of the yellow-eyes. I
could tell that they were as wary of these dark-cloaks as Riley and my creator had been. There was something more to them
than I could see, but I could definitely
feel
it. These were the punishers, and they didn’t lose.

“Welcome, Jane,” said the yellow-eyed one who held the human.

They knew each other. But the redhead’s voice was not friendly—nor was it weak and eager to please like Riley’s had been,
or furiously terrified like my creator’s. His voice was simply cold and polite and unsurprised. Were the dark-cloaks this
Volturi, then?

The small vampire who led the dark-cloaks—Jane, apparently—slowly scanned across the seven yellow-eyes and the human, and
then finally turned her head toward me. I glimpsed her face for the first
time. She was younger than me, but much older, too, I guessed. Her eyes were the velvet color of dark red roses. Knowing
it was too late to escape notice, I put my head down, covering it with my hands. Maybe if it were clear that I didn’t want
to fight, Jane would treat me as Carlisle had. I didn’t feel much hope of that, though.

“I don’t understand.” Jane’s dead voice betrayed a hint of annoyance.

“She has surrendered,” the redhead explained.

“Surrendered?” Jane snapped.

I peeked up to see the dark-cloaks exchanging glances. The redhead had said that he’d never seen anyone surrender before.
Maybe the dark-cloaks hadn’t, either.

“Carlisle gave her the option,” the redhead said. He seemed to be the spokesperson for the yellow-eyes, though I thought Carlisle
might be the leader.

“There are no options for those who break the rules,” Jane said, her voice dead again.

My bones felt like ice, but I didn’t feel panicked anymore. It all seemed so inevitable now.

Carlisle answered Jane in a soft voice. “That’s in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw
no need to destroy her. She was never taught.”

Though his words were neutral, I almost thought
he was pleading for me. But, as he had said, my fate was not up to him.

“That is irrelevant,” Jane confirmed.

“As you wish.”

Jane was staring at Carlisle with an expression that was half confusion and half frustration. She shook her head, and her
face was unreadable again.

“Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle,” she said. “He sends his regards.”

“I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him,” he answered.

Jane smiled. “Of course.” Then she looked at me again, with the corners of her mouth still slightly holding the smile. “It
appears that you’ve done our work for us today… for the most part. Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there?
They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle.”

She spoke of jobs and professionals. I was right, then, that it was her profession to punish. And if there were punishers,
then there must be rules. Carlisle had said before,
We follow their rules
, and also,
There is no law against creating vampires if you control them
. Riley and my creator had been afraid but not exactly surprised by the arrival of the dark-cloaks, these Volturi. They knew
about the laws, and they knew they were breaking them. Why hadn’t they told us? And there were more Volturi than just these
four. Someone named Aro and probably many more. There must have been a lot for everyone to fear them so much.

Carlisle answered Jane’s question. “Eighteen, including this one.”

There was a barely audible murmur among the four dark-cloaks.