Dear Diary (Lorena)

“And then the fiery tangle of hair was no longer connected to the rest of her body. The shivering orange waves fell to the ground, and bounced once before rolling toward the trees. I forced my eyes – frozen wide open with shock- to move so that I could not examine too closely the oval object wrapped in tendrils of shivering, fiery hair.

Edward was in motion again. Swift and coolly businesslike, he dismembered the headless corpse.”

-Eclipse

If I were still a human, looking at the vicious, red-haired vampire crouched before me, I would have believed she was Victoria. She was identical. Almost. My vision is sharp now that I’m a vampire, and I could easily see the very slight differences.

For one, the vampire standing in front of us was alive . . . as alive as a vampire could be. Victoria is dead. Being turned did not take my memory of Edward disassembling her body away, unfortunately. In fact, it’s one of my more prominent human memories. Again, unfortunately.

I stretched my shield over Edward and almost got to Charlie, but before I could, something entirely unexpected happened. Charlie turned toward me, his lips pulled up from his teeth, his piercing red eyes now vicious. He wanted to attack me, that I could tell.

“Charlie, don’t. She has used her power on you. You don’t want to hurt Bella. This vampire has the ability to turn anyone she wants against whoever she chooses.” Edwards voice was steady, calm. He didn’t want to startle Charlie while he was in such a malevolent state, under the control of this vampire’s power.

The red-haired Victoria lookalike fastened her eyes on Edward as she spoke. “You know me quite well. I assume you can read minds. I guess I don’t have to explain to you why I’m here then.” She smirked and crouched even lower, ready to attack.

“I don’t read minds,” I hissed, shifting my eyes between her and Charlie. “What do you want with us? Are you related to Victoria?” It sound more like a demand than a question.

I could hear the pouncing of wolf paws growing louder and closer. She would be cornered, with no way out, which is why I couldn’t understand how she could still be crouched there, not running, so brave.

The entire time I was struggling to blanket Charlie with my shield. For some reason I became extremely mentally drained trying to get it over him, but eventually I did. He snapped out of it and was no longer under her control. No longer trying to kill me.

“Actually, yes. I was related to Victoria. That is until your partner, Edward, killed her and her lover James, trying to protect you.” She put heavy emphasis on the ‘you’ and snarled at me in complete disgust, then continued. “Victoria was my twin. We were turned together but went our separate ways overtime. I just got the news of her destruction, and you could say I’m not happy about it. Regardless of where we were in life, or what we were, we always had a connection. Now she is gone, forever, because of you, Bella.”

She lunged forward and placed both of her hands tightly around my neck, her teeth exposed, glistening, and in a blur Edward pulled her off and had her pinned on the ground within seconds. Charlie and I crouched above her as the wolves came sliding in, creating a fog from the dirt and gravel being stirred up.

“It’s funny,” she hissed. “You’re giving me exactly what I want. I’m coming to you to be destroyed. Being alive, or whatever this is, gets old after a while. I’m tired of living, and now that I’m aware of  Victoria’s destruction, I believe my time is up, too. My original plan was to kill Bella, to ensure her lover here”–she shot her red eyes at Edward–”would come after me and give me what I want. So go for it. Finish me off. After all, I did turn your friend Mike into a meal. He has lovely tasting blood, by the way.” Her eyes flickered between me and Edward, hastily.

I began to wonder if this was some kind of reverse psychology thing. I knew Edward could read her mind, though, and if she were bluffing, he would be the first to know.

“Maybe we should get more acquainted before we agree to follow through with your request to be destroyed,” Edward hissed. “First of all, what is your name?” His eyes narrowed, and he had a glint of empathy in his expression. I could tell he was thinking back to a time when he wanted to be destroyed because he felt like he had nothing to live for.

“It’s Lorena!” she spat. “Now that you know my name, will you please get this over with? I promise I won’t put up a fight. If you don’t do it, I’m sure these wolves would be more than happy to tear me apart.” She was getting more submissive with each passing second.

The wolves paced around Lorena’s body, which was still pinned to the ground by Edward. He didn’t need to use force, she really was giving up, but he did just to be safe. For a few seconds no one said anything, it was almost too quiet, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing.

Charlie broke the silence. “Well, should we deliberate or something? Come to some sort of decision?”

“You do not have an option, really,” Lorena began. “You see, you either destroy me now, or I will come after the child that these two have together.” She pointed at Edward, then to me. “Not before attacking Bella first, which would cause you all to protect her, and destroy me anyway. Do we really need to do this the hard way? I know an eternity is a long time to live, but are you so bored that you would rather battle over this?” She rolled her bright red eyes, then closed them tightly.

She would never open them again.

With one abrupt movement, Edward twisted Lorena’s head, removed it from her body just like he did with her twin, Victoria. His lips were pulled over his teeth and his eyes flooded over with an anger that I had never seen before. The wolves started to bite at the corpse, tearing her apart, piece by piece. Charlie helped, too. I didn’t join in . . .  yet.

Everything seemed to be going in slow motion, despite their fast, seamless, movements. My sharp vision began to blur and my head started to overflow with flashbacks of when Edward dismantled Victoria. It was like watching it all over again. This time my father, Charlie, was helping.

Lorena‘s words echoed in my head, over and over: “You see, you either destroy me now, or I will come after the child that these two have together.” I closed my eyes and took in one, deep–but unnecessary–breath. I exposed my teeth instinctively, and with one powerful spring, I leapt forward and landed smoothly on the grass right beside what was left of Victoria’s twin sister.

I pulled her torso apart so fast that it would look like nothing more than a blur to a human’s feeble eyes. When she was entirely dismantled, Charlie ran into our cabin and grabbed an pack of matches.

We lit a fire.

The smoke was think, sweet smelling. Edward kept his hand tightly around the small of my back as we watched the fire come to a radiant blaze, then eventually burn out as the rain began to wash over us. That’s right, I almost forgot, it’s always raining in Forks. I miss it.

The smell of the rain was intoxicating and brought back so many memories that will forever be etched into my mind. The smell of the dirt turning into a cement-like mud reminded me of the early morning, before school, when I was human. It was usually the first thing I would smell when I opened the door in the morning and headed into my barely-running truck, and off to school to see the beautiful pale-faced boy with the golden eyes. The boy I thought hated me.

I snapped out of it when Edward kissed my cheek, keeping his lips pressed against me longer than normal. The wolves were still there, too, watching the blaze go out. The last flame flickered, then died out, and the sweet-smelling smoke cleared almost instantly after.

“Jake, we’re going to be heading back to New Hampshire tonight,” Edward began. “Charlie, Bella and I are going to head up to the house to get Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, and Jasper. Are you coming back with us?” Edward’s golden eyes focused on Jacob as he read his mind. “Good, we will meet you at the house in an hour.” I assumed that was a ‘yes’ from Jacob. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that Jake missed Renesmee.

When we got back to the house in Forks, the big white house the Cullens used to live in, Edward briefly went over everything that happened. Alice saw it all coming, of course, and she also saw that we were in no harm. It happened too fast, within seconds, for them to have made it to us–not that we needed their help.

“Lets just hope they weren’t triplets,” Alice joked, her voice excited and musical. I half laughed, knowing that in my world, anything is possible.

-Bella

♥ EDIT: Looking for a new love story to read? I have written a novella called, ‘My Darrling.’ (This is not the Willow series I’ve been working on, rather it’s a small side project. The first book in the Willow series will be up in the early portion of this year). For now, I’m so excited for you to check out the novella I’ve written:

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Lots of love,

Krystal