Ad Vitam by Ahizelm

It burns.

It feels like fire all over the skin of my throat, all heat and fast moving and indescribable, and I nearly wretch, but then I realize I can't. No, not that I can't, but that I won't. My eyes are clamped closed so tightly that I'm seeing stars of cerulean and neon green. Bright swatches of color swim behind my eyelids. The noises that surround me are amplified and reverberate in my head thanks to the cloak of blackness that my closed eyes assure me, and then I jerk my head downward, my chin pressing into my chest, and she shouts.

"Hell fucking yes, Bella! That's how you do it, baby girl!"

Rosalie is standing near me in some joke of a bar and I eye the empty double shot glass in my hand as I suck on the lime that had previously been wedged onto its rim. Her Southern accent is magnified thanks to her semi-inebriated state, and after I throw my decimated lime onto the bar, I look at her and grin. "I am so glad you approve, bitch," I say, and waggle my fingers at the bartender. "Another one, please."

He nods, and Rosalie and I begin to chatter. It's been too long; we have plenty to catch up on.

I'm visiting her in New Orleans for ten glorious days. We met when we both went to the University of Massachusetts; she was my assigned dorm mate Freshman year, and it was a match made in heaven. Physically, we couldn't be more opposite. I have nearly black hair, and she's a natural blonde. I'm only 5'4" and she's 5'10". But in every other way, we complemented each other, and as a result, we were inseparable from the start.

She partied and hated Math and loved boys. I loved Literature and writing and dancing. We shared everything, knew all of each other's secrets, and were truly the best of friends. So, when graduation came, and she moved back to her hometown of New Orleans while I stayed in my native Boston, I had immediately promised her that I'd pay her a visit.

Now, six months later, I'm following through on my promise, and getting wasted to boot. It's hotter than sin here in NOLA, even though it's fucking March, and a Hurricane sounds like exactly what I need to cool off, so I toss a bill at the bar, despite the fact that the bartender never did give me that second round of shots. I don't even check to confirm whether it is a ten or a twenty, because, frankly, I kind of don't care, and I yank Rose out to the street, where a slight breeze twists its way between the masses of people on the street, making a marked difference in my skin's temperature.

I pull my hair up and hold it in place with my hand as I look at Rosalie. "Where are we going next?" I ask, and she shrugs in response. I begin to laugh, and then I exclaim, "Jesus, woman, you could have done a little planning for my visit. Whore!"

Rose lifts her perfectly arched brows at me and, suddenly, I'm being pulled down the street so quickly that I can scarcely keep up, thanks to her Glamazon legs. My heels are clicking loudly on the sidewalk even as the music and general noise of debauchery spills from the doors of the clubs around us. I know better than to question where we're going - Rose wouldn't take me anywhere terrible. When we step into the entrance of Pat O'Brien's - home of the Hurricane - and the waves of cold air, thanks to the amazing invention of air conditioning, caress my skin, I almost weep with gratitude.

"Let's go, B," she says, smiling at the door man like she knows him. I know she doesn't, but still, he gets all twitterpated and stupid and just lets us walk past him and into the actual bar without carding us.

I giggle as we near the bar and a tall blond approaches us. I'm certain he wants to talk to Rosalie, but it's me he stands next to, his dark blue eyes focused on my face. "Hey there," he says, a slight twang behind his words. It's barely noticeable, probably thanks in part to my semi-drunken state, but I still manage to act like an idiot in response.

As I titter at him, I fucking bat my eyelashes and get all dumb and girly. "Hey yourself," I say, like the genius I clearly am.

Rosalie smirks at me and conveniently makes herself busy as the Blond begins to talk to me. "I'm Jasper," he says, his eyelids dropping down as he focuses on the beer in his hand instead of my face. "What's your name?"

"Bella," I manage, and I still look like an idiot, because I can't seem to wipe the grin off of my face. It's like every filter I've ever had has disappeared, so I'm standing here in front of Senor Sexypants grinning like I've never fucking talked to a boy before.

He's tall - really tall - and lean. His hair is messy and dirty blond, and his eyes are a beautiful pale blue. His mouth is just pouty enough that I can't help but stare at it, and he is wearing a shirt that is just fitted enough to showcase that his waist is narrow and trim. I surprise myself by thinking that I'd like to pull him to me and straddle his waist just to see what happens, audience be damned.

He interrupts my completely innocent train of thought.

"Well, Bella, order a drink on me, will you?"

Much to my chagrin, I blurt out, "Are you trying to get me drunk? Because I'm already well on my way..." in response, and he grins as his eyes shift from me to Rose and then back to me.

"You could have fooled me, sugar," he says lightly, and although I know he's teasing me, he is also staring into my eyes for the first time and fuck me running, I can't even manage a response. My heart is beating so loudly, I can hear its rhythm in my ears, and my stomach is churning in knots so that I kind of want to make a quick exit and run to the ladies' room to vomit up everything I've imbibed tonight. However, if I do that, I won't be staring into his eyes anymore, feeling sort of like he can see straight through me and down into my soul, so instead of reacting, I continue to meet his gaze.

He takes a half step toward me. Before I know what I'm doing, my hands are clamped around the back of his neck, and he's only inches from my face.

I hear the bartender ask us if we need anything, but I am focused on the way his body feels so close to mine, and speech isn't necessarily possible. He simply stares down at me, and I hear Rosalie order some stupid girlie drink for the two of us.

He's so close that I can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, and suddenly, his lips break into a smile, and the effect on his face is simply amazing. "Where are you from, Bella?"

"Boston," I reply, and he is visibly disappointed. "I'm here visiting my best friend. Rose, this is Jasper. Jasper, Rose," I say, not even bothering to look in Rose's direction as I "introduce" the two of them.

We spend an inordinate amount of time at that bar. By the time we leave - about an hour before closing - Jasper has done a body shot off of my collar bone, another from between my breasts and, toward the end of the night, I even manage to position his hand on my hip so that it slips beneath my shirt. The feeling of his warm fingertips on my bare skin is enough to make me moan aloud, and he chuckles in my ear. "Slow down, sweet thing," he says.

"What if I don't want to?" I respond, my voice only slightly slurred.

He says nothing at first and slides his hand into my back pocket. As he pulls my cell phone out of my pocket, I look at him curiously, wondering what the fuck he wants with my phone. "I'm going to put my number in, Bella. You're here for a few more days. Why don't you call me? Then maybe...uh...somethin' can be arranged."

It strikes me, as he is typing his digits into my phone, that he is alone and has been all night. "Hey, where are your friends?" I ask, and Rosalie laughs loudly at me.

"You're just now realizing that?" She is laughing so hard that she's about a second away from falling off of her bar stool, and I wonder if I shouldn't just surreptitiously kick the leg of her seat so that she gets knocked on her ass. At least then, I'd have a reason to laugh.

Then, I realize that my doing anything surreptitiously while I am three-fourths intoxicated is unlikely, so I decide against it.

"They're over there, actually," Jasper answers, and turns to his right. I follow the direction of his gaze, and there are two guys and a girl standing there, grinning at us. "They know I rarely approach women at a bar, but when I saw you two come in..." He pauses and sighs, running a hand through his hair, which only serves as a reminder that I want to feel it between my fingers. "But, we've gotta get going, beautiful. You gonna call me while you're here?"

I smile at him as he hands my phone back to me. "Yeah, I think so, baby," I say.

After giving me a slow smile, Jasper leaves with his friends, and Rosalie decides we need a new scene, so we walk out of Pat O'Brien's in search of a less trendy bar, something more local than touristy.

I decide not to focus on the fact that I kind of want to follow Jasper as he walks down the street just so that once he's home, I can ravage him. There's always later in the trip for that, I think to myself, and Rose and I turn left on a whim.

We're walking aimlessly, it seems, when we come across a nondescript building in the midst of all the chaos. It's gray and squat, and the curtains over the windows are black and appear to be thick velvet or something of the like. The sign simply reads, "Fortunes Told," and instantly, I am excited. "Let's go!" I command Rose, and begrudgingly, she follows me.

The inside of the building is just as plain as the outside was...at first. We walk into a small corridor and are forced to make a sharp right, and once we do, the interior of the place changes drastically.

Everything is swathed in dark material, and while it's clear from the hallway that the floors throughout the entire building are concrete, it is not visible here. There are three or four rugs covering every inch of available floor space, and none of them remotely match. One is paisley and another plain red, and when I look at the curtains, they are, as I suspected, a deep purple velvet.

A small cough interrupts our gaping at the strange room before we are even able to look around far enough to take in the corner, where she sits.

Her table is round, just like you always see in the movies, and a plain, black cloth covers it. There is a neat pile of cards on the surface, a few inches away from the most petite right hand I've ever seen. On her left hand is a kind of ridiculous bauble - it's so large that it doesn't sit correctly atop her finger, and it's a single piece of amethyst. Even from across the damn room, I can tell the damn thing is shimmering, and I wonder if it's possible that it is the reason the room is so dark aside from the few candles that are placed throughout it.

The woman, though, has me fighting the desire to simply stare, slack-jawed. She's tiny, to be sure, but her eyes are so pale, they almost appear to be colorless. Even from across the small room, in spite of the lighting, I can tell her eyes are heavily lined. Her lips are painted a blood red shade, and her head is wrapped in a turban-like set of cloths, covering her hair and part of her forehead. She wears a shawl over her shoulders, which stops me from being able to really see her clothes, but none of that is what makes me want to stare like a halfwit at this person sitting diagonally across from me.

She is astonishingly beautiful. And when I say that, I mean, Rosalie Lillian Hale has nothing on this bitch, and that's really saying something. There's something otherworldly about her, like she's from another time or place, and before I can manage a single word, Rose takes my hand, squeezing it nervously, and the girl speaks.

"Well, sit down, please." Her voice is heavy with the same accent reflected in Jasper's, and it is as clear as a bell, ringing through the space of the room like a pleasant melody of sorts.

I'm convinced this woman is a witch or something, and for a moment, I second guess having my palm read or whatever the fuck it is she does.

But, Rosalie pulls me forward, and before I know it, we're sitting before this darkly angelic creature, and she speaks again.

"I am Alice. Your names?" We answer her and she smiles serenely. I am struck by the way her porcelain skin is completely unmarred by laugh lines, flawlessly smooth. I wonder if she's somehow immortal, given her absolutely perfect skin, but then realize how ridiculous the thought is.

She focuses on me, and though I'm gazing down at the table, when her eyes land on me, I feel it. "You are not from here," she says matter-of-factly.

I lift my eyes to meet hers. I shake my head and feel my eyes widen just slightly as she nods almost imperceptibly.

"Give me your hand," she says softly to Rosalie.

My best friend's hand is trembling as she extends it to the woman. Alice brings both of her petite hands to Rose's and contours her four fingers along the the back of Rose's hand. She is staring intently at the palm before her and begins to gently graze her thumbs along Rose's skin. I watch as she smiles slowly and says, "Excellent. One moment, please."

She places the deck of cards before Rosalie, and I feel a little bit like an idiot because it took her doing that to make me realize they are tarot cards. "Cut the deck anywhere you'd like, darling," Alice says.

As Rose parts the deck, I realize that even sitting down, Alice is smaller than we are. It's almost like she notices that I've had this silent realization, because she flits her gaze to me, but then a troubled look appears in her eyes, and I am instantly confused, wondering what she could be thinking.

Alice refocuses on the two stacks of cards and then begins to flip them out, creating a line before her. She makes several pleasant humming noises, and as I listen to her, it hits me that none of the cacophony from outside is audible in her small building. We are sitting in absolute silence, and finally, she speaks again.

"Rose, you will have a long life, filled with happiness and love. I see problems bearing children, initially, but rest assured that you will have a family. And this man, the one you are intended to be with, will come along soon. Be prepared for change - good change, but change nonetheless."

I can almost feel Rosalie sigh in relief, and then Alice pauses, puts her cards back into a single pile, and places it on a small table to her right that is several inches shorter than the one she used to examine Rosalie's palm. She picks up a fresh deck of cards and places it before me on the table.

I move to split the deck, but she shakes her head and grabs my hands with hers before I can reach forward. "Wait, Bella," she commands, and I feel some kind of chill overtake me at the mere sound of her words. They sound empty, hollow somehow.

Alice stares at my palm, and I watch as the carefully blank look on her face morphs slightly, finally becoming something akin to disbelief. "No," she murmurs, and somehow, I know better than to ask what's going on. It would seem...disrespectful or something, and besides, I am suddenly anxious without reason.

Well, "without reason," aside from the fact that a goddamn fortune teller just had a negative response while trying to read my life line.

"Cut the deck, Bella," Alice orders, and this time, her voice is full of foreboding. Suddenly, I don't want to touch the deck. I want it as far away from me as possible, and I want out of this stifling room. I want to get away from Rose, away from Alice, away from New Orleans, but instead, I lift my hand and mechanically break the deck of cards into two uneven piles. Alice swallows hard before placing her hands on the two independent stacks of cards and then doling them out just as she did for Rose.

The room is silent when she finishes, and I notice her hands are trembling. She stares at a single card in front of her, effaced with a knight of some sort who is riding a horse and carrying a black flag. "Bella, how old are you?" she asks in a hushed voice. It is barely above a whisper.

"Twenty-four," I reply.

She inhales sharply, and everything within me wants to ask what the fuck is going on, but I find further speech impossible.

Alice lifts her eyes to meet mine, and terror is running through them. "Leave town, Bella. Leave, and never come back. Your future is too dark if you remain here."

I stare at her, incredulous, and then stammer, "Wh-what? I'm visiting Rose, I'm not going to..."

Alice cuts me off, her voice tremulous but somehow strong. "You must leave, Bella. Tonight. Now."

I shake my head, speechless in the face of this spritely woman banishing me from New Orleans. "Come on, B," Rose says quietly, and as we stand together, I am overcome with a desire to know exactly what she saw.

"What did you see in those damn cards?" I ask, my voice louder than I intended.

Alice is quiet for a beat, and then she says, "You don't want to know, I can assure you. And it is so dark, I'd rather not repeat it. Please go back to Massachusetts."

Rose drags me from the building, and as soon as we're outside again, the noise and chaos of Bourbon Street is all I can hear. That changes when she hugs me to her tightly and whispers in my ear, "Don't you worry about what that crazy bitch said, okay, Bella? She probably just wanted to say something to counter the happy little fortune she gave me."

I nod, and we continue down the cement walkways, back to a slightly more populated area of Bourbon Street.

It isn't until we're setting foot in our intended destination, a bar named Sam's, that I remember something that shakes me to my core.

I never fucking told her I was from Boston.

+~+~+

Thirty minutes later, Rosalie has found her own version of Jasper in the form of a hulking, handsome, smooth talker named Emmett. I, on the other hand, have found more tequila, and I can't shake the feeling that someone is watching me. When I look around the room, it doesn't appear that anyone is looking at me, and I wonder if I'm just paranoid because Alice, the crazy witch lady, not only gave me a creeptastic 'fortune' but somehow knew I was from Massachusetts, too.

I'm musing on the shitty turn my evening has taken when I look to my right and see that Rosalie and Emmett are exploring one another's throats thoroughly, so I walk through the crowd and toward the door, intending to take a break and get some fresh air. I consider telling Rose that I'll be right outside, but how fucking awkward would it be to tap her on the shoulder mid-make out for that announcement? I decide not to, and walk out of the building quickly, still uncomfortable because I swear to whoever is listening, I can feel eyes honed in on me. It's a sensation similar to what I just felt sitting across the table from Alice, and I wonder if maybe everyone from Louisiana except Jasper and Rosalie are fucking creepy.

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I shove it away, realizing it's just me being a bitter cow because my night of drunken fun has turned into a night of drunken bullshit, and I don't even have Jasper to molest.

I am staring across the street blindly when that feeling, the one of being watched, increases fifteen-fold, and it's almost like my skin is crawling, I'm so damn creeped out.

I focus, shaking my head just a bit, and directly in my line of vision stands a guy who is staring right back at me. He is too far away for me to really see what he looks like - all I can tell is that he has some crazy ass hair, he's lean and tall, and his eyes are fixed on me with an unswerving focus.

Something in me just intrinsically knows that he was the reason for my discomfort as Rosalie was giving Emmett a tonsillectomy. I wonder who the hell this guy thinks he is, and how on Earth I didn't see him in the bar. For a few minutes, my mind is elsewhere, scouring my memories of the seedy little place Rose is still standing inside, and I am positive I would have spotted him. That hair would be a dead giveaway.

As soon as I realize he's still fucking staring, I determine that I want to give him a piece of my admittedly drunken mind, and begin to make my way across the street in his direction.

He smiles as I look at him and backs away. When he smiles, there's something that flares up in me. It's a kind of "Good-God-woman-get-the-hell-away-from-here" warning, but I ignore it because I'm suddenly really annoyed by this pompous ass who thought it would be okay to give me the goddamn heebie-jeebies all fucking night.

The closer I get to his previous position, the further he seems from it. He's moving backward, not even watching where he's going, and when I see him turn down a street, I don't have a second thought about following him.

Liquid courage, I suppose.

There are still people milling the streets, but it's markedly less crowded here. It seems we've slipped into some quiet neighborhood, and as soon as the noise from the party crowd is gone, he calls out softly, "Hello. Is it wise, do you think, to follow me as you have been?"

His voice is low and melodic, and I find myself surprised at the soft timbre of it.

Before I can think, I spout off, "Well, maybe if you hadn't been staring at me like you were, I wouldn't have felt compelled to give you a piece of my mind."

He laughs lightly and beckons me forward. "You're sassy. I like it. I'm Edward."

"You know, buddy, now is not the time for introductions," I say flatly, and then I want to kick myself because I am moving forward though I could have sworn I had no intention to close the space between us.

When I get closer, I realize that this man is so attractive that it's mildly disorienting, particularly to my alcohol-addled mind. He's tall and thin, but I knew that before I neared him. His hair is the color of a penny, and his eyes are dark and presumably brown. I can't really tell, given the shadows we're standing in. His cheekbones are impossibly high, his lips perfectly shaped, and the lines of his body beneath his clothing are enough to make me wonder what he looks like without any on.

After I feel like a whore for even considering that, given my recent interest in Jasper, I realize something else.

He reminds me intensely of Alice. They look nothing alike, and while he is almost frightening somehow, where she was not, they both appear to be from someplace else. Then, I think about the way he spoke: proper and with a bit of an antiquated tone, and I find myself wondering if he's an old man trapped in a young man's body. As ridiculous as it is, I can't shake the thought, and when he speaks again, it actually takes me a second to respond.

"Well, would you like to follow me a bit further?"

I swallow hard and say, "My friends are back at the..." but he cuts me off.

"I promise to have you back at a reasonable hour," he says, and then he smiles, and once again, I ignore the "Get-the-fuck-out-of-here, Bella" warning that seems to sound in my head. "Come with me, milady. I have something to show you."

I wonder what this man who doesn't know me from Eve would want to show me. I wonder if maybe he has some fucking weird collection of things, or if perhaps he wants to show me his house. Before I think too deeply about it, I find myself nodding, and I say, "Alright, yeah, sure."

"Excellent," he replies.

I walk up to him, slowly becoming more steady on my feet, and he lessens his smile until it is nothing more than a soft grin, and then he extends his left hand to me. I place my palm against his and almost recoil because his skin is oddly cold. It's what my hands feel like after I've dunked them in freshly fallen snow during a Bostonian winter, and the sensation actually makes me want to shiver. Part of me wants to ask if he's feeling okay, but I don't. How I still have some sort of filter after drinking so much fucking tequila is beyond me. Instead, I allow him to lead me to his right side. He places my hand just inside the crook of his elbow and quietly speaks again. "It's only a few blocks this way."

His arms are just as cold as his hands. I can feel it through the material of his shirt.

I nod, and as we walk, he makes polite conversation. As we move, I'm pretty certain that this is a far cry from the creep who was staring me down from across the street, and part of me wants to call him on it, but I don't. I don't. Instead, I focus on his lilting manner of speech, and the way he seems to be hyper aware of bumps and cracks in the sidewalk as we walk over them. My buzz is slowly lessening, and I'm feeling more normal...and confident that I should be walking the other way, but something in me doesn't want to turn back.

At one point, I lose my balance and trip and, in a movement so fast it nearly has my head spinning, he catches me. Edward's arms are around my waist and his breath is cool against my cheek as he whispers, "I've got you."

I thank him for catching me, and he replies, "Well, we can't have you bleeding on the concrete, hmm?"

"Uh. I guess not," I say, a little thrown by his mention of blood instead of falling, and then we're there.

"This is it." Edward leads me down a quaint pathway, and I'm suddenly glad that my intoxication seems to be wavering, if only slightly, because I feel less woozy than I did before.

We walk down the trail for just a few minutes before we come upon a small cottage. It's ancient and covered in ivy, and before I can ask, he offers an explanation. "It was my father's before mine, and I've recently come back to New Orleans to live here for a little while. Would you like to see it?"

There are a million things wrong with going into this house with Edward. There are a million reasons I shouldn't, but still, I don't voice any of them. Instead, I walk with him, heading toward the house instead of away from it, and before I know what the hell I'm doing, we're in the entryway, and Edward is grinning down at me. "By all means, please come inside," he says, stepping through the door just before me.

I follow through with his request, and before I have made it three steps away from him, I hear the door close behind me. "The living room is just that way," he says.

My nerves are firing on all pistons as the gravity of this situation hits me. I'm blocks away from Rosalie in a house with a man I don't know, in a city I'm not familiar with. Jesus Christ, Swan. What are you doing?

He asks me to sit on the couch, and then if I'd like some water. I nod, and take a seat, and in less time than I think is humanly possible, he has returned. "Here you are, nameless girl," he says.

"Oh. Bella. It's Bella," I respond, and then place the glass he's given me on the table before me.

Edward sits down next to me, so close that his thigh is touching mine. We sit in silence, and I allow myself to stare at the art on the wall before me. It is old, just like the cottage, but it seems out of place. "Who is that?" I ask, pointing.

"My father and some of his former...ah, business partners," he answers.

I give him a strange look. The painting is obviously at least one hundred years old. There's no conceivable way that one of the four men depicted in the picture could be his father. "I meant the artist," I reply, uncertain of whether it would be wise to call Edward a liar when I know nothing except that he has a staring problem but somehow was still able to lure me into this house with him. Alone.

He shrugs and meets my gaze. The light from the moon is bright enough that finally, I can discern the color of his eyes.

And as my mind processes what I see, I want to run.

They are red.

Blood red.

It's the stuff of fucking terrible horror movies that no one could ever have paid me to watch.

And as this realization washes over me, I can tell Edward knows.

I stare at him for a moment, pondering his ethereal beauty, and I know that this was his plan all along. He wanted to get me here, to manipulate me with his Old World charm.

"How old are you?" I whisper. My throat is parched, suddenly, and I find that I am having trouble swallowing. He chuckles. It is a dark sound, and I shiver in response.

"Twenty-one, Bella," he says, and leans toward me. I am petrified as he grazes his nose along my jawline, and I feel his breath on my ear. "Forever."

That's all it takes.

Faster than I've ever moved before, I am running for the door, and all the alcohol I had previously imbibed has no impact on my ability to just fucking move. I scramble around the couch and toward the door, my eyes darting between the floor and my intended destination. If I could just get outside, I could scream for help, I think to myself.

"It will do you no good, love."

I jerk my face upward and my eyes grow wide as I realize that Edward is standing there, blocking my exit.

How did he...

"I read minds, dear Bella."

I stare at him and suddenly, Edward is a blur of movement too fast for my eyes to comprehend. I feel his hands clamp around my wrists before I can focus on his face, and at the very thought of him being so close to me, I want to scream...but I can't.

I'm paralyzed with fear, but I manage to make one request.

"Tell me what you are," I say.

"I'm a vampire, Bella. And you have the sweetest blood I've smelled in nearly a hundred years."

In the next instant, his arms become an iron vice around me, and I am barely cognizant of him lowering his head so that his lips brush the curve where my throat meets my shoulder.

He whispers in my ear, "Close your eyes, if you please."

I am still frozen with fear when he bites me, and though I always thought that, in a moment like this, my whole life would flash before my eyes, I can only focus on one thing.

It burns.

+~+~+