AN: Just a couple things to mention. This story is mostly canon aside from three things: 1) No special vampire gifts, 2) no wolves, and 3) no Volturi. These changes are to avoid needless plot mechanics and narrow the focus to Bella and Victoria. The title of this story is from a song.

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Inside the Fire

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Chapter 1:

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Four months she had been stalking her. Watching her. Dressed in jeans and a hoody with the hood up to conceal her flaming red hair, her blood red eyes. Waiting.

In the morning she would be outside her house, sitting inconspicuously at a bus stop several houses down the block. Observing first the father leaving while it was still dark and waiting another two hours as dawn broke over the neighbourhood, cold and gray and bearing with it a fog that moved in like a plague. The girl would then emerge from the front door with her bookbag slung over her shoulder, dressed much like the stalker herself in jeans and a hoody. Locking the door behind her and trudging across the dew soaked grass, slumped, dim, apparitional in the mist. As if part of her had already passed on and left only this residual image in the world. Climbing into her rusty red truck and coaxing the engine to life in fits and starts and pulling away from the curb and driving to school.

She had memorized the girl's routine. Such routine as it was. Most days she simply went to school and home again. In four months she had no contact from the coven who used to occupy this area. They seemed to have abandoned her. That was good for Victoria. Very good.

That afternoon she followed the girl to a grocery store and watched her wander the aisles with a basket in the crook of her arm. Victoria kept her hood up to conceal her distinctive hair and pretended to examine a packet of batteries on a rack, her eyes staring at nothing but the girl. Watching her take down a box of cereal from a shelf and read the back of it. Observing her pale face, the small movements of her large dark eyes. Her long dark hair. Her scent was very faintly discernible in the still air and it filled Victoria with thirst, her red eyes all but glowing under her hood. Finally she let the batteries slip from her fingers and sauntered out into the aisle. She approached the girl swiftly, surely, not taking her eyes from her. The girl was setting the cereal into her basket and she turned around directly into the hooded stranger.

A small collision, a puff of scent. The box slapped on the linoleum floor.

"Oh," the girl said. "Sorry."

"No problem," Victoria replied.

The girl had bent to fetch up the box. Victoria did not step back. She allowed the girl to kneel directly at her feet, looking down at the back of her head. She could kill her any time she wished. Even now.

The girl rose and looked at the stranger uncomfortably. She saw the red eyes under the hood and the white face. White like pearl and as lustrous. Victoria heard her heart skip a beat but she did not seem to recognize her. Then she turned away and continued down the aisle and did not look back.

—

Bella when she got home with the groceries still could not get those eyes out of her head. Vampire eyes. But she didn't know of any vampires in Forks and did not know what to do about it even if she did, so she did nothing. She made dinner, marinating the steaks and peeling potatoes before sitting down at the kitchen table to do homework. Jotting notes and pausing midsentence as her mind wandered to those eyes. So red. So bright. She cooked the steaks after her father came home and they sat down together, her dad tucking a napkin into the collar of his uniform shirt. He was the local police chief. They started eating and after a while he noticed his daughter's quietness.

"You okay, Bells?"

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"About him?"

Bella shook her head. As she did so, her eyes flickered at the refrigerator where a photograph from prom was pinned down with magnets. Her and Edward. Smiling. Happy. Him in his tuxedo and her in her blue gown. Her hair styled and earrings in her ears. She looked away and back at her plate.

"No," she said.

"So what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I thought I saw something at the market."

"Saw what?"

"Nothing. Just something weird."

He nodded, not pressing it. He sawed off a section of steak with his knife and ate it and took a drink from a beer bottle. Bella hadn't touched her own steak and was only eating the vegetables. The silence stretched and finally her father set the bottle back down.

"So how are you feeling these days, anyway?"

"I'm alright."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, dad."

"I'm just worried about you, Bells."

Bella hadn't looked up from her plate. She knew what he was worried about. She was worried about the same thing. There used to be a straight-razor in a bathroom drawer but he had gotten rid of it. She knew because she had looked for it.

Those red eyes stayed with her for the rest of the night but were mostly gone the next morning. Nothing much stayed with her these days. Movies, TV shows. Music. School. Life largely seemed to be passing her by at this point. As if she was only watching it unfold and without even much interest. Driving to school in rain or drizzle and home again in the same weather or worse.

Sitting through classes with friends or acquaintances that she hardly talked to anymore and whom hardly talked to her either. Following them through the halls and corridors, up the stairs, standing with them at their lockers or in line in the cafeteria. No idea what they were talking about. Some boy who was an asshole. Bella knew all about boys who were assholes. One of them in particular.

They sat with their trays at one of the tables and Bella ate woodenly, her eyes drifting to a certain other table. An empty table in the corner which had once been known as the Cullen Table. Where Edward used to sit with his family and pretend to eat while constantly sneaking glances at her. Now he was gone and it was Bella sneaking glances at nothing at all.

"Bella," Jessica said. "Hello?"

Bella turned to her. Not startled, not annoyed, not bored. Just turning to her. "Yeah?"

Jessica looked at her with disgust on her small rat-like face. "Jeez, were you even listening?"

"No. Sorry."

"You know, no offence, Bella, but it's really pathetic to be this depressed over a boyfriend. I mean, seriously, get over it already."

"He was more than a boyfriend."

"What was he then? Your soulmate? Jesus. That's even more pathetic."

Bella shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich. Angela was watching me with sympathy.

"Hey, we were gonna go see a movie afterschool," she said. "Wanna come?"

"Nah, it's alright."

"Come on, come see a movie."

"Nah, I better not."

"Please?"

Bella wound up going. They took her truck, neither of her friends with cars of their own. The movie was a romantic comedy that came out a week ago. The theatre was utterly empty aside from the three of them in one of the middle rows. Jessica had her phone out and wouldn't stop talking about how crap the movie was. Bella just watched it. Admiring the male lead wistfully. Until after a while she had to use the bathroom and rose to her feet. Behind them someone else had entered the theatre and taken a seat in the back row. Just a dark hooded shape back there. Bella watched it as she went by and as she went by the hood turned slightly and beneath it was a pale face and a pair of red eyes that glowed like jewels in the pale light of the movie. Bella continued out of the theatre and into the bathroom. Her heart had started racing. She didn't know what to do. Finally she washed her hands and went back into the theatre. The hooded figure was gone but she kept looking over her shoulder for the rest of the movie.

—

Victoria after leaving the theatre went directly to the girl's house, knowing that neither her nor her father would be home. She had waited months in order to be sure the other coven would not return and now she could wait no longer. She had let the girl notice her twice and the third time would be the last.

She had stolen a key a long time ago and now she let herself in through the front door, pushing back her hood to expose her bright orange hair. The father's police cruiser was not parked outside but she stood in the foyer anyway, listening for any kind of sound that might react to her closing the door. There was nothing. She wandered in. It wasn't the first time she had been here but she explored a bit anyway. Strolling through the living room and trailing a hand across the back rest of the sofa. Where the girl and her father would watch football games while the girl read a novel. She continued into the kitchen and looked at the photograph on the refrigerator. The girl and the murderer of her mate. Victoria stared at it. She had no photographs of her own mate. No likeness but what she kept in her heart. She stared at it for a long time and then she pulled it off the refrigerator and scrunched it into a ball and left it laying on the kitchen floor.

Upstairs she went directly to the girl's bedroom. Where her scent was thickest. The smell made her throat burn and filled her with even more anger. She stood there looking around. There was a desk in the corner with a computer on it and posters of certain rock groups on the wall behind it. Disturbed. Avenged Sevenfold. Demonic imagery of bats and blood. Beside the keyboard was a small cluster of nailpolish bottles. Victoria took one up and examined the shade. Black. Nice. She set it down and took up a small A5 notebook. The covers were black leather and the insides were filled with various attempts at poetry. The script was in black ink and almost every line contained words scrubbed out and changed. Victoria flipped the pages. There was one small unfinished verse toward the end of the journal that caught her eye.

Fire,

All I desire.

As I begin to turn cold and run out of time.

Sever,

Now and forever.

Surrender my soul and…

And that's as far as the girl's wit had carried her. A poem about suicide. Interesting. A shame she would never have the chance to finish it. Victoria closed the notebook and set it back on the desk. The bed was against the other wall. She sat down on it and felt herself descending into a sweet miasma of the girl's scent. She closed her eyes for a moment. They were darker when they opened. She looked at the bed and brushed her hand across the sheet. As if to correct the wrinkles. Then she took up the girl's pillow and lifted it to her nose. Her eyes fell closed again. Her throat burned. The girl had a scent unlike any human she had ever encountered. She could understand why her mate had wanted her so. She wanted her in the same way. Victoria lowered the pillow and set it back where she got it from. From downstairs came the click and clatter of the front door opening and she smiled. Her eyes were now fully black.

—

The bedroom door was open and Bella just walked in and tossed her bag by the desk.

Then she noticed the woman sitting on her bed.

She froze and stared, every bone in her body locking into place. It was the same woman she had seen at the grocery store a few days ago only this time her eyes were black and the hood was down to reveal the fire of her long orange hair. It was the hair she recognized. Bella's heart commenced slamming against her ribcage.

"You," she whispered.

The woman smiled. Then she rose from the bed.

Bella inched away, circling toward the desk. Slowly, cautiously, trying not to panic. As if she didn't want to make any sudden movements. The woman pushed the door closed and turned back.

"Can you guess why I'm here?"

"No."

"My mate was a hunter. He never left a hunt incomplete. I'm here to finish it for him."

Bella didn't move. She was standing by the desk, trembling just slightly like a leaf in strong wind. She hadn't taken her eyes off the intruder. The intruder tilted her head.

"You're not going to scream?"

"I don't know."

"You look like you might."

"Why are you here?"

"I just told you."

Bella tried not to break down. She bit her lip and looked away. The woman followed her gaze across the room as if to see what was there and turned back to her.

"I see your protectors have left you," she said. "I must admit I'm curious why."

"They said it was too dangerous for me to be a part of their lives."

"How ironic."

"Tell me about it."

"You've been depressed. I take it the breakup wasn't mutual."

"What do you care?"

"Because I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be happy to inflict the same pain on your mate by killing you as he inflicted on me by killing James. That's why."

"Then I guess you're gonna be disappointed. He dumped me."

The woman had her arms folded loosely under her breasts and now she snorted. As if she was disappointed to hear that but it didn't really matter. Bella's eyes had filled with tears and she still hadn't moved a muscle.

"Do you have any way to contact him?" the woman asked.

"No."

"None at all?"

"No."

"Would he notice if you were to disappear? Do you suspect he's keeping tabs on you?"

"I don't know."

A tear dropped onto her cheek which broke her paralysis as she reached to wipe it away. She sniffed. The woman observed this with a certain coldness and Bella noticed the blackness of her eyes had faded to a deep burgundy. Then she sighed and unfolded her arms.

"Well," she said. "We'd better leave before your father gets home."

"What do you mean?"

"It's too risky to leave a crime scene, particularly within the house of a police chief. Luckily, your depression will lead people to believe you simply went off somewhere to commit suicide."

"No," Bella said as the woman advanced on her. "Nooo—!"

She tried to squirm past and get to the door but the woman grabbed her and threw her into the desk, knocking the monitor over the edge and some of the nailpolish bottles, before wrenching her back around by the hair.

Those eyes had gone solid black again and they filled Bella with fear.

"Listen to me," the woman hissed. "You are mine now. Resistance will only make it worse for you—and for your father. Do you understand?"

Bella winced in pain from the hand clenching in her hair.

"Nod if you understand."

Bella nodded desperately. The woman stared into her terrified eyes for a moment more and then released her. Bella whimpered, her scalp burning.

"Fix the desk," the woman told her. "There can be no sign of abduction."

The monitor was still working and it was hanging over the edge by its cord. Bella picked it up and righted it and then she picked up the nailpolish bottles as well.

"Good," the woman said. "Do you have the keys to your truck?"

Bella took them out of her jeans pocket and handed them over. The woman took them, watching Bella as if wary against any more escape attempts. Then she turned slightly to make way.

"Let's go," she said.

Bella stood there helplessly. She looked at the door and at the woman. Behind her in the window the sun was beginning to set and there was an orange cast to the glass. She lifted her tearfilled eyes and shook her head.

"Please, don't do this," she said. "Please…"

But the woman just took her arm and shoved her out into the corridor. "It's too late for any of that," she said. "Go."

Bella stumbled down the corridor and down the stairs. She was sniffing back tears and wiping her nose. Outside the wind was cold and the sun was continuing to set. She looked up and down the street but there was no one on the sidewalks or on any of the lawns and nothing anyone could do even if there was. Vampires had superstrength and they could move at the speed of sound. No one could help her.

They drove toward the dusk until the sun was gone and the world went dim and then they kept driving. They were leaving the town behind and headed into the forest. Bella was staring out the window and the window had glazed over in the darkness. She could see her reflection racing among the trees. Pale. Darkhaired. There were no more tears in her eyes and not much fear. She blinked slowly. Many nights she had fallen asleep thinking about death but she had never imagined it like this.

After a while she began to recognize the road they were on and soon she saw the old Cullen house emerge from around the bend. It sat there above the road, looming in the moonlight in its small grove of trees, a large mansion of steel and glass sheltered away from the world where the inhabitants could live in isolation. She glanced at the woman as she pulled up in the gravel driveway.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

The woman opened the door. "The house is still under lease. We won't be disturbed here. Get out."

The house inside still had some furniture. Bella could see the shapes of the living room in the darkness. Then the woman flipped on a lightswitch. All the family's personal effects were gone and all that remained was the glass coffeetable, the creamcolored couch, and the ornate steel screen in front of the empty fireplace which was black and held the patterns of leaves.

"Sit down," the woman said.

Bella did, on the couch, composing her hands in her lap and watching the woman from under her eyebrows as the woman went over to the windows and pulled back the curtain to look out.

"I have to admit, this is a bit awkward," she was saying. "I had expected you to be more resistant."

She turned back to Bella. In the white light of the livingroom her eyes were bright red, as if the lack of a fight had taken all the blackness out of her. Bella took just a little bit of hope from them.

"You don't have to do this," she said, almost in a whisper.

"I'm afraid I do. James never left a hunt incomplete."

"He's dead. Who cares?"

"I care."

"But this isn't fair. None of this is my fault. I never did anything."

"I never said you did."

Bella shook her head, finally beginning to become scared again. She looked up with fresh tears in her eyes. "Please. Don't do this. Just let me go. I won't say anything to anyone. I know what it's like when you lose someone."

"You do, do you?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. James and I were lovers for over three hundred years. Can you even comprehend that? He was my mate. Now I have nothing. Nothing."

"I have nothing either."

"You are nothing. Just some stupid girl who got involved in things she shouldn't have."

Bella started crying. A sob came out of her and she lowered her face into her hands. The woman sighed at the display and then she took off her hoody and tossed it on one of the sofas, waiting for her to calm down. She put her fingers in her ravishing red hair and fluffed it out and sighed again. Bella stopped crying after a while and looked up bravely.

"Can you at least make it quick?" she asked.

The woman turned, her eyebrows lifting in something like surprise. Bella sniffed one more time to herself.

"I'm not afraid to die," she said. "I'm really not. I've even thought about it. I just don't want to suffer."

The woman studied her, her eyes flickering up and down that frail form huddled on the couch. "I'm sure you don't," she said. "But I'm afraid it's not that simple. Your blood won't pump if your heart stops beating and the terror and adrenaline will make it pump even more."

Bella's face went chalk white and she looked down.

"Oh god," she said.

The woman continued to study her for a moment. Almost smiling. Then she came around and sat on the corner of the coffeetable under the chrome frame where the glass wouldn't break, right in front of Bella.

"Look at me," she said.

Bella looked up. Under the fluorescent light the woman's hair was a halo of fire and her skin was marblewhite. There was a slight smile to her lips or a smirk and her lips were naturally a rich red color. She tilted her head slightly and let her sparkling red eyes move over Bella's frightened face.

"In all honesty, I do feel sorry for you," she said. "A messy death is perhaps an indignity you don't deserve. So I'll tell you what I'll do. I must kill you to honor James. But I don't have to feed from you. That way it'll be quick and relatively painless. How does that suit you?"

Bella didn't answer. She just sat there on the couch, trembling, shivering, watching the other woman's face.

"Will you make sure my father never finds me?" she asked.

"I hadn't planned to," the woman said. "I can't leave any evidence, anyway."

Bella nodded. She realized she had just given permission for her own murder and her heart sank into her stomach.

The woman rose from the coffeetable and took a seat beside Bella on the couch. Bella watched her, shrinking back until the woman put an arm around her. As if they were snuggling down to watch a movie on a date. Then she lowered Bella's head into her lap and wove her fingers into Bella's hair in order to get a good grip on her skull.

Bella was still shivering, almost shuddering by now. She couldn't believe she was about to die. She was laying with her cheek on the woman's thigh, as if for a nap, and she could feel the woman's cool fingers almost caressing into her scalp. Then she heard the soft sound of a deep breath.

"It is a shame, though," the woman murmured. "You do smell delicious."

Bella lay there. Her eyes darted across the room, the white walls, the furniture. The woman's fingers were practically massaging her scalp, as if to coax the scent out of her hair.

"What are you waiting for?" Bella whispered.

The woman looked down. Bella looked up from her lap. The woman's eyes were a dark color like wine and she seemed oddly hesitant, as if this was all wrong and she didn't know why. She looked at Bella and studied her face and said:

"Do you believe that man was your mate?"

"Edward?"

"Yes. Edward."

"Yes. He was."

"And he left you. Why did he do that?"

"To protect me."

"So you said. Yet here you are."

Bella didn't answer. She continued looking up at her for a moment and then turned away. "Just do it."

Then she closed her eyes. And waited. And waited. She wasn't even afraid. Almost eager for it to all be over. But it didn't happen. The woman continued to hesitate and then she exhaled in frustration and pushed Bella's head away.

"It's pointless," she said. "Just go."

Bella rose up, her hair all dishevelled. "What?"

"Go. Get out."

"Are you sure?"

"Now."

"But does this mean…"

"Leave!"

Bella stumbled backwards off the couch, almost crashing into the coffeetable. She got to her feet and stared wildly at the woman there on the sofa. She had crossed her legs and turned away, sitting with a chilling elegance as she gazed out the window in the far wall. Nothing out there but darkness.

Bella spun and ran out.

The keys were still in her truck and her heart hammered the entire drive home. She kept thinking the woman would come chase her on foot and tear her out of the cab. She kept her eyes on the rearview and both sideview mirrors but there was no sign of her. Just the endless staccato dark of the trees whipping past.

Soon she was back in Forks. She didn't have her phone with her and she wasn't sure how late it was. She figured she had to have been gone for at least two hours. Her dad would be home by now and wondering where she was. And what to tell him? That she had briefly been abducted by a redheaded vampiress bent on honoring her fallen mate by destroying her? Bella wiped her eyes with her fingers and turned into her neighbourhood. She didn't know what she was going to tell him. She didn't even know if the woman had truly let her go or if this was just a momentary reprieve.

Her dad must've heard the truck pull up because he had come to the front door. Bella saw him as she came in, wearing a worried frown, and tried to give him a smile.

"Hey, dad."

"It's late, Bells. Where've you been?"

"Nowhere. Just driving."

"Driving?"

"Yeah, sorry. I left my phone in my bag. I'll get started on dinner in just a second, okay?"

Then she trotted up the stairs and left him there.

He didn't mention it again for the rest of the night. Neither did she. She made dinner and they ate together quietly, not speaking. The pasta was like eating shredded newspaper with spaghetti sauce and after they were done she gathered up the dishes and washed them in the sink. While she was drying them, she noticed something on the floor in the corner. It was a balled up photograph. She picked it up and smoothed it out. Her prom photo with Edward. She looked at the refrigerator and realized that it must've been that woman who took it down. She was going to put it back but it was all creased and ruined and eventually she just tore it up and threw it in the trash.

After brushing her teeth she went into her room and checked to make sure the window was locked. It was. She wasn't sure how that woman had gained access to the house or if she would do it again and that night after going to bed she lay for a long in the dark and wondered what she was supposed to do. Her father was a police chief but he couldn't protect her. Edward could, but he was gone. Without so much as a phone number or an email address. Now she was alone. She had no one, nothing, and after a while she fell asleep.

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