Starless Night (A Twilight/Stranger Things Fan Fiction)

Chapter 9: Intruder

I was standing at the sink in the guards' bathroom two days later, looking in the mirror.

The bathroom was only lit by my flashlight—this was the fourteenth one, and I really hadn't even made a dent in my boxful of them, which I was sure Alice would have little trouble replenishing when she returned from wherever she was. All this felt far away from me now, though. For all my protests, all my attempts to make myself seem like I could be useful to Alice, I hadn't touched the book about theoretical science in two days now. Or, at least, I was pretty sure it had been two days.

I knew I needed to keep reading. It was the only thing that would keep my mind off him. But I couldn't bring myself to touch it, couldn't bring myself to start reading. I felt like an empty shell; I spent hours in my room on my cot, in the dark, only turning my flashlight on every now and then to check the clock, shocked when hours had passed.

This, the realization that time was passing, even for me, was the only thing that had managed to catch my attention in two days. When I realized just how thirsty I was, just how dehydrated, I had forced down a few bottles of water and another bowl of cereal.

Finally, after two days, I'd stumbled here—to this bathroom—and only then realized how much worse I looked. I had barely slept, and it showed in the circles beneath my eyes. I wondered dully what Alice would think when she finally returned.

With a shuddering sigh, I took my flashlight and turned to leave the bathroom. I was numb. I knew it wasn't a good thing; in this alternate world, I needed to keep my guard up and pay attention, or I wasn't going to be able to protect myself. (I already couldn't, of course, but less so.)

Still, the numbness was like a blanket around me—not a soft one, not a comfortable one, but one that kept the cold at bay. Anything was better than the cold.

I went back to my cell and sat on the cot, numb, thinking of nothing. I didn't notice it when the hours passed or the dehydration returned. But eventually, I did notice something.

A noise, coming from outside of my cell.

At first, I brushed it off as nothing. I was certain I wasn't beyond fabricating things with my mind. After all, when I'd felt sure I was about to die at the hands of that creature a few days ago, hadn't I heard Edward's voice calling out my name? And he'd been nowhere to be found. A hallucination.

But then I heard the noise again: a soft clanging. Like something was beating against metal.

My heart jumped into my throat.

Alice had said the creatures wouldn't be able to get in here, that their brute strength wasn't enough, even if they could track my scent. What if she was wrong? What if they were about the barge into my cell and tear me to pieces before I could ever see her again? My hands shook as I reached for the flashlight by my leg; I rose as quietly as I could (and then tripped over an empty water bottle) and went to the door.

Bad idea, bad, bad, something in my head said. Going toward the source of danger surely would not be useful, would it? So what was I doing? I was going to get hurt this way, I was sure. I thought of Charlie, in Forks, worrying over me; he had no idea where I was. Renee, dropping her plans to fly to Washington so she could be there when somebody found her missing daughter's body.

Except my body wouldn't be found.

Still, I twisted the knob of the door open. My hand shook, clammy, and I stepped out into the dim cell block, looking back and forth.

The doors lined each side of the hall for a long way; one door, larger than the rest, stood out at the end of the hall, and this one had a tiny window. When I shone my flashlight on this door, my heart dropped in my chest.

Thud. Thud. The sound came again. As it did, the door began to give. I saw the dents, even in the meager light. I took a breath and tried to make myself turn back to my cell, go back and lock myself in, but I couldn't move.

And then, like magic, I heard it.

"Bella," his voice hissed, simultaneously softer than crushed velvet and coarser than rock. Angry. It was deliciously angry—the kind of angry I used to hear in his voice when he was frustrated with me for undervaluing my own safety. "Bella, lock yourself in the damn cell!"

I turned and... well, now I knew I had lost my mind.

Edward stood next to me, his face as flawless as that of a statue carved into perfect fury. I knew instantly that he wasn't real; there was a haziness to his picture, an imperfection born of my obviously imperfect recollection of him. Still, I thought dazedly, it was worth seeing him one more time before I died, even if he wasn't real.

Thud. Thud.

The sound was growing clearer; the creatures were closer to breaking into the cell block. Edward growled at me, but didn't move toward me; a dead giveaway that he wasn't real, as he would have shoved me into my cell and locked the door by now if he was. "Bella," he said. "You promised. Nothing reckless."

I had promised. Finally, I made myself move, but the pain in my chest was too great when he vanished. I hesitated again, and then the door flew off its hinges, clattering to the floor just inches from me.

I was preparing myself, again, to turn tail and bolt for the cell, but before I could bring myself to do it, I realized this... wasn't one of the creatures. The being standing in the entry to my cell block wasn't animal at all—rather, it was shaped like a human.

I shone my flashlight on him, and I felt my mouth open in shock. The man's eyes glittered a dark maroon that bordered almost on black, and they were cloudy like a human's might be when filled with cataracts. His hair was black, unkempt, and he wore a cloak that covered whatever else he might be wearing underneath.

Understanding came to me quickly.

Of course. Of course. The creatures hadn't cared about eating Alice, I'd realized that much—because they desired only the blood of living creatures, and Alice was a vampire, who could not only defend herself from them easily but also wasn't appealing to them at all.

I'd wondered if, maybe, there were any humans still alive in this place—humans who had the resources and the wits to survive these creatures, to survive the end of the world as we know it. How could I not have realized that vampires, the vampires who had already existed in this alternate world, would have survived much more easily?

I heard Edward—my hallucinatory Edward—hiss when the vampire took a step forward, but I didn't move. He began to speak, this vampire, and I felt fear thrill through me, into my bones.

"Hello," he said.

My voice shook, but I did what I could to steady it. "Who are you?"

His brows furrowed in confusion, and I wondered why. "My name is Demetri," he said, almost gently. "I am here on behalf of Aro."

Aro. The name struck a chord in my head, but I couldn't place it for a moment.

Then it hit me: Aro. One of the members of the coven in Italy that... he had mentioned. The Volturi.

"And you, my dear," he said, his voice as dangerous as the soft click of the safety latch of a gun, "are Edward's human. How, exactly, are you still alive?"