Completed Fic of the Week: 3/26/12

Torn by TheRainGirl

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6877798/1/Torn

Review by AnonymouslySufferingFromOCD

Rating: M
Genre: Angst/Drama
Characters: Edward/Bella

Summary: What if Edward was too late? Twilight alternate ending. Following orginial Pre-BD canon. Rated M for mature, dark themes, and violence. Angst and lemons throughout.

If there is one thing that people have learned about me in the past year of reviewing for Indie, it is that I am not a fan of angst. I feel like there is enough angst in real life and that stories are my way to escape that. Now, that is not to say that I never read angst, or that I never enjoy stories that have angst in them, because I do, I just tend to stay away from those stories. When I read the summary of this week’s Completed Fic of the Week, I will admit, I was a little nervous. That being said, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

Torn starts out at the point in Twilight where Bella leaves to go try to stop James from hurting her mom, making the ultimate sacrifice. The difference is, Edward doesn’t make it in time and believes his Bella to be dead. We find out quickly that Bella isn’t dead, although she may wish to be. Instead, James has taken her and turned her to be a sort of pet for him and Victoria to play with and enjoy watching her do their bidding and become everything Edward wouldn’t have wanted her to become.

James and Victoria turn Bella into the worse kind of monster imaginable, she doesn’t have any true clear memories of her past and James manipulates that to use it to his advantage. He allows her to feed whenever she wants and Bella believes everything that James tells her.

"Well, well, Isabella." I jump at the sound of a voice and crouch down ready to attack, cocking my head to the side to take in the form emerging from the tree line. "If James could see his little pet now, dining like a pig on her knees." 

I lunge without thinking and nearly tackle the familiar man with the accent looming too near my kill. I'm able to get a hold of him even though he's much bigger than me and I pin him to the ground and ready to bite. 

"Ah, Ah, little one." He says calmly as he throws me down above his head and I land on my back with a crack. My feet have knocked a tree into the others. He stands astride me, his feet on either side of my arms. "Calm yourself, little girl. I don't want to kill you." 

Edward leaves the Cullen’s to go searching for James to kill him for taking his Bella away from him, what he finds while tracking him, is almost as devastating as believing her dead.

I know the others now know I'm here. The other three are further away having chased down fleeing victims, slaughtering them as they ran for their lives. Slamming Laurent against a tree, I am surprised at how easily I gain the upper hand. He is strong, but having just eaten, he's sloppy and slow. I try to rip him apart, but then I hear Bella cry out. 

"Mine!" 

I'm too late for the men; most of the dozen are dead. I'm torn between trying to help the last few who will die and my vision of Bella, bloodied and snarling. 

My mind returns to the vision of Bella as I see and hear James speaking to her. "Sweet girl, let's go." He brushes his hand over her cascading dark hair and she smiles at him. I hear him coo, "My little pet" then my vision goes black. 

This story is a short one, only fifteen chapters, and our favorite couple has a lot of angst and drama to deal with to get back to the couple that we know and love, but TheRainGirl does a great job of keeping us interested from start to finish. I have to say I was really impressed with this one, I was warned before I read it that I probably wouldn’t like it, but I am so glad that I gave it chance, I hope you will too.