The Girl Who Was Taken (Renesme Cullens Twin Sister)

Forty-Four

Stormy

Renesme Carlie Cullen punched Alec Volturi in the face. She punched him so hard, a cracking sound rang through the ballroom. He fell down to the floor, holding his mouth. She brought her hand back down by her side.

She looked out at the crowd with new red eyes. A smile on her face. The sweet, innocent, goody-two-shoes was alive with human blood running through her system. She was awake and crazed. I could feel her mind bouncing around, her excitement, her bloodlust.

"Edward," Bella said. But he didn't move.

I shook out of their arms, and made my way across the room.

"How does it taste?" Aro asked, giddy laughter erupting from his chest. "Has it been worth forgoing your entire life? Don't just stand there show me. Show me what it was like to taste blood for the first time."

But Renesme wasn't listening to him. She was staring at the glass of blood in his hand. Without asking she took it from him, and lifted it to her lips. She tipped the glass up and swallowed it too fast, forgetting to savor the drink. The glass fell from her hands when she was done, it shattered on the floor.

It was weird seeing her in person. Before I didn't think it was possible for her to make mistakes, to be a vampire. A monster. But the look on her face made it clear that she was in a blood craze. Absolutely no regard for consequences.

She dashed for one of the tables with a bodyon it. Renesme dug her face into the neck of a nearly dead woman. Ripping with her teeth, clawing at her skin with her nails. Bella ran past me and pulled her off of the woman before Renesme could rip her head off.

Bella held her in a tight embrace, she didn't even seem to notice the human blood her daughter was drenched in. Renesme struggled to get away. "You don't want to hurt people," Bella kept whispering into her ear. Shushing, softly humming, trying to calm her down. "You don't need to drink blood."

Renesme's breathing slowed down. She stopped struggling as she looked at Bella's face. She swallowed,  dark red dribbling off her chin. Bright red eyes flickering around, animalistic, fight or flight.

"Your love for humans astounds me," Aro said. "That you could have respect for anything that weak?"

Bella didn't look up from Renesme, breathing in and out slowly and dramatically as if to sync her breath with Renesme's. Bella was different from the other vampires. She looked more alive, she mimicked humanity as if it came naturally to her.

Aro clapped his hands, looking around at the vampires throughout the room. His lips curled over his teeth, his cheeks scrunched up all the way to his stony eyes. But his eyes were a far cry from cheery. They screamed silently of death, of destruction, of greed and cruelty. He looked down at Alec who was still on the floor, only now beginning to get up. Alec kept his gaze down, and stepped back in line with the crowd, to get out of sight.

"We were all human once," Carlisle said carefully. His hands were clenched in fists. Suddenly his soft understanding voice had a boiling undertone. He was angry. "Is it weak to have restraint? To show respect for humanity.  We would be nothing without them. Do you agree?"

Aro sneered at Carlisle. At some point he had forgotten whatever performance he was putting on. He was more animated than I had ever seen him be. Renesme was like a drug for him. "You're boring, Carlisle," Aro said. "In case you were wondering why we banished you from the court all those decades ago." Aro's lips curled into a small sour smile. "It was because you're a boring excuse of a vampire."

Carlisle looked at Aro in confusion. Eyebrows knit together, lips slightly pursed, only slightly. "I left the court on my own free will."

Aro burst into laughter. A rough gagging escaping his lungs. I swear I could see dust floating out of his lungs with every hack. A coughing laugh trying to escape his body, he was really coming out of his shell tonight. Then he stood up straight with a serious face. "I wouldn't have let you live if it had been solely your decision for you to leave the court."

Carlisle regained his composure quickly, waving his hand dismissively. An amiable smile back on his face. "The past is past." But his face was frozen. Everyone knew he didn't really mean those words.

Edward put a hand on my shoulder, walking up from behind me. I looked up at him, his eyes slowly scanning the room. Then he looked over my head behind me right before another hand took hold of my other shoulder. I looked up to find Demetri there. And just like that I was caged in. I didn't even get a chance to do anything. I ground my teeth and waited patiently as the two men silently fought over me. Right above my head.

Aro nodded. "Yes. The past is the past." He paced a few steps and then turned back to Carlisle with a demand. "I want Renesme."

"Y-" Carlisle started loudly, but cut himself off before he could say anything stupid. And in a nicer voice he said, "She belongs to my coven."

The entire room was still and silent. The band had stopped playing. The two hands on my shoulders squeeze tighter. Clamping down on my bones. Bella looked up now from Renesme, who was still in her arms. Renesme's heavy breathing was filling up all the silence. Not that she spoke, not that any noise came from her vocal chords. Just her breathing, rasping, hunger for blood. She was still trying to crawl out of Bella's arms.

"We could do a trade. You can have my little Ember, and I'll take Renesme," Aro offered. He clapped his hands together. "Oh, what a great idea."

But this didn't just shake the Cullen's, the entire Volturi guard had shifted at his words too. Questioning his judgment. What sense did it even make to let me go, with my mind compulsion versus her memory sharing? Logistically, it was a terrible move. But as Demetri's hand squeezed tighter and tighter on my shoulder, I realized that Aro wasn't thinking logically at all. He was too wrapped up in his emotions.

I reached up to stop Demetri before he broke my shoulder. At my touch, his hand automatically loosened, and slipped off my shoulder and into my hand. I squeezed his fingers to let him know that I wasn't going to leave him. Not now. Not after everything we'd been through. Not even for the family that I didn't know.

"No," Bella said from the floor. But she was cut off by Demetri.

"Stormy's mine," Demetri said. "She's mine. You cannot give her away."

My stomach dropped at his words. Rolling around with a sort of fuzzy caterpillar, butterfly wing spiral as I processed what that meant. Not that I didn't know that already. Because I had always known, since the first time I saw him. I knew right then that I was his, standing in that hospital hallway so long ago, talking about finding the squiggly little souls that he and Felix had lost. I had always known I had belonged to him. But to hear him say it out loud...

Aro turned to Demetri, his eye twitched. "You're mine," Aro said, taking a step closer, his voice growing louder with every word. "You belong to me. She belongs to me. Everyone in this room belongs to me, and will do what I say."

Behind Aro, on the thrones, Caius and Marcus were exchanging a glance. Their features emotionless. Besides the thrones, and slightly back against the wall, stood Chelsea in a grand lavender gown. Her lips were painted a dark red, and were pouted in confusion as well.

"But if you must," Aro went on, "you can go with her, spend some time with the Cullen's. After all, like I said earlier, we are all family." He was smiling with his teeth again. Happy all of a sudden. Just like that.

Demetri and Edward shared a look over my head. I couldn't tell what it meant, but I couldn't imagine Demetri in a house, being docile with a bunch of "vegetarian" vampires.

"No," Bella yelled again. She stood up from Renesme, leaving her on the ground. Renesme started crawling away towards some blood, but Bella put her foot down to stop her, not even taking her eyes off of Aro. Bella was wearing sneakers. "You have done enough damage to my family. And you are going to let us leave here tonight, with both of my daughters."

Aro walked right up to her. He was slightly shorter than she was. They were nearly touching noses in their stare down. "Is that so?" he asked.

"Yes," Bella said. She just left it there. All in that single word. 

Aro lifted his hand with lightning speed, faster than anyone else could react. It clawed onto Bella's throat. His sharp claws dug into her porcelain skin. "Don't forget that you belong to me," he said under his breath.