Better Than Revenge

LIZZZZY!!!!
Bella slammed on the breaks and the Ferrari came to a screeching halt. Emmett’s jeep stopped an inch from the back bumper just as I was climbing out. The little abandoned village honestly reminded me of the square in Volterra with the parched fountain in the center of the cobblestone street. Some of the buildings still stood but most of them, the ones that I assumed used to be houses at one point, were weathered with age giving the entire place a ghost town feel. My heart was pounding a million miles a minute and I felt like I did when I was a little girl and my mother had taken Bella and me to all of the major haunted towns in Arizona like Jerome and Tombstone. Except this time the monsters waiting for me in the shadows were very, very real.
“All right, I’m here!” I yelled even though our arrival definitely hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Now where is my daughter?”
In a movement too quick for my eyes Aro was right in front of me. He grabbed my hand and patted it gently and I went totally stiff and tried desperately to keep my mind totally blank just in case Bella’s shield wasn’t covering me. “My, dear Elizabeth, how you’ve grown.”
I swallowed hard and let my bitchy self- the side of me that I’d thought I’d outgrown when I was 21- shine through. “No shit, dipstick. That’s kinda what humans do.”
“Lizzy,” my sister hissed from my side.
“And Bella, my dear one, immortality suits you rather well.”
“Yeah, yeah, Bella’s a hot vamp and I got old. Cut the crap, Aro. Where is Andrea? I want to see her.”
His fake smile never once left during my outburst. “To be perfectly honest, Lizzy, I don’t know. Your daughter is quite unpredictable and just as resourceful as you were. She ran away and was somehow able to hide her scent.”
My eyes were wide and I’m pretty sure my heart stopped. “She’s not here,” I muttered. “But the venom…”
“She’s already dying,” Jane said gleefully suddenly appearing at her master’s side. “It’s too late for you precious daughter.”
Jacob took one massive step so that I was half behind him. I’m not sure if he was pissed enough to challenge the little blonde bitch or if he was just stepping in as a buffer so that I didn’t do anything completely stupid. Either way, it took my focus from the ancient vampires and shifted it right to what was important: my fear for my little girl and the wolf that possessed my heart.
This was a mistake; Aro and Jane were way too calm confronting our large party, especially when their powers wouldn’t work while we had Bella. They knew me just as well as they knew the Cullen clan and Jane’s brother had done enough spying to know the wolves; they had known all along that there was no way I would have arrived on my own. No, Aro had a plot in place that was going to be hell for my family. I had been stupid, my natural survival senses making me take back up when I should have just gone alone like she’d said. Fuck.
*Edward? His eyes flickered to me quickly but it was so subtle that I doubted anyone else noticed. *What does he have planned? Am I right to be worried?*
He lifted his chin just a fraction and I would have missed it had I not been paying very close attention. Fuck.
I swallowed back the saliva that was quickly forming in my mouth from fear, although I’d never in a million years admit to being afraid. I gathered up all of my courage and tried to hide the fact that my stomach was like a giant pretzel. “So where’s the rest of your crew?” I said hoping to make Aro show whatever cards he had hidden up his sleeve. “Jane gets outsmarted by the idiot human so I know that she’s not your only defense against the Cullens and Jake and me.”
She hissed at me. I’ll admit that I got some smug satisfaction from getting under her skin.
Aro sighed almost sadly but I knew that it was total bullshit. “Oh, dear Elizabeth. You were always one to get right to the point. Is it that you genuinely enjoy being in the midst of fights or are you just that short tempered?”
I didn’t waste my breath with an answer. Actually, in all honesty, I wouldn’t have been able to answer if I wanted to. At that moment dozens of vampires appeared from the buildings surrounding the village square all pale and luminescent as the moon. There were more of them than I’d ever seen and I was actually stunned into speechlessness. How had they all stayed clear of Jacob’s radar or any of the Cullens’ senses? One thing’s for sure: I was a dumbass.
Fuck. My. Life.