There mysterious girl

Chapter 24

Bella flew across the countryside, Laurent somewhere behind her, struggling to keep up. They hadn't left the UK yet. Bella was hesitant to follow the other vampire to places unknown, and despite his claims to know her mates, she felt strongly that he could not be trusted.

Her memories were still trickling back in, but Bella was having a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality. It all felt like a partially forgotten dream. Although there were obvious holes in her memories, there was enough to piece a picture together.

There was a bedroom with a twin bed and a purple duvet. A shared bathroom with a man bearing a mustache. Charlie, she thought. He was her father.

There was a boy, a vampire, who watched her as she slept. He was beautiful, with a strong, chiseled jaw and tousled copper hair. Easily the most attractive man- human or vampire- she had ever seen. When he kissed her, it felt the way she thought base-jumping would. Dangerous and exhilarating- forbidden and freeing all at once. It was no wonder that a teenage girl had fallen in love with him.

He told her that she was his entire world.

The memory of Laurent and the other nomads slotted itself into place here. Edward almost didn't get there in time. He claimed he would have done something drastic if she'd been taken from him, and she (naively) believed him.

More memories came, though, dissolving any romantic feelings she may have had for Edward Cullen. A party that went spectacularly pear shaped, precipitating his abrupt departure. His assertion that he did not love her as much as he'd once claimed.

Months of darkness followed. She moved from one activity to another as though on autopilot, not dead but not living either. A human boy with dark hair and tanned skin, wearing a lopsided smile kept her company, made her laugh, until he, too, disappeared from her life.

Bella took to reckless activities. Jumping on the back of a stranger's motorcycle, falling from a cliff- all to hear his voice. All for a boy who was in love with the idea of her, but not Bella herself. It all seemed so clear to her now, how had she not seen it at the time?

Then the plane ride to Italy with a tiny vampire with spiky black hair. Racing through the countryside in a stolen Porsche to save Edward from himself.

She remembered a cavernous throne room in a grand castle. Had it been a dream, or was it real? She strained to recall more, but the memories evaporated like water on a hot highway, slipping through her fingers like sand.

Laurent had caught up to her by now. She was perched in a tall tree, looking down at a woman with white hair who was walking a dog. The sound of her heart pumping her sweet life's blood through her body made Bella painfully alert, but she was able to resist the urge to rip her throat out. Blood would always be available if and when she desired it, and she had recently fed. There was no reason to slaughter a seventy-year-old (give or take) woman.

They were closer to civilization now, Bella could hear cars on the road, and the hum of a television a mile away. There were other adults and at least two toddlers in the house. Did the dog walker live there? Perhaps they were the woman's grandchildren. One shrieked with laughter, the noise loud to Bella's sensitive hearing.

"She is a good target," Laurent remarked, looking down at the greying woman with the border collie as well. "We are a long way from the road. No one will hear her scream. They will easily believe it was an animal attack."

Bella nodded, her thoughts had been along the same vein. If she'd wanted, she could easily drink the woman's blood and stage the scene.

Hunting, it transpired, came very naturally to Bella. She was swift and precise, tearing into the throats of her victims without spilling so much as a drop of their precious blood.