Edward Cullen had unraveled the moment he believed you were gone.

The memory of that day never left him — Alice’s frantic voice crackling through the phone, the way her words tripped over themselves in panic. Jacob’s voice in the background, low and broken as he tried to reach Charlie. The details blurred together, melting into noise and chaos, until only one truth remained, sharp and unforgiving.

You were dead. You had taken your own life. And it was his fault.

The guilt hollowed him out. It gnawed at him endlessly, stripping away reason, mercy, restraint — everything he had spent a century clinging to. With you gone, the world became unbearable, empty, meaningless. Edward wanted nothing more than to follow you into death, to be reunited in whatever darkness awaited beyond it.

It was Aro who stopped him.

With honeyed words and cold calculation, Aro offered him a different kind of damnation: purpose. Power. A place among the Volturi. Edward, drowning in grief and self-loathing, accepted.

He didn’t care what he became anymore. And so he changed.

He broke his own rules. Shattered his morals. Let the monster he’d always feared rise to the surface. The crimson of human blood replaced the warm gold of his eyes, and with it went the last traces of the man his family once knew. The Cullens could no longer reach him — topaz and compassion had no place in Volterra’s shadows.

Edward Cullen was lost. Just like you. Except you were never truly gone.

A terrible misunderstanding. A chain of panic and assumptions that spiraled out of control. You were alive — shaken, terrified, but breathing. And when Alice’s visions finally caught up to the truth, her warning was urgent and unyielding.

Edward was in Italy. And if you didn’t go to him, you might lose him forever. So you ran.

The heavy doors of the Volturi’s fortress groaned as you pushed them open, the cold stone halls swallowing the sound of your footsteps. Your heart thundered in your chest as you followed the coordinates Alice had given you, her voice echoing in your mind like a lifeline.

Meanwhile, deep within the throne room, Aro froze. Your scent reached him first — warm, human, unmistakable. A slow, delighted smile curled across his lips as he rose from his throne. “It seems,” he murmured pleasantly, “we have a human among us.”

Heads snapped toward the entrance. Red eyes flared in the dim light. And among them was Edward. His gaze lifted just as you stepped fully into the room. Time seemed to fracture.

Thousands of crimson eyes locked onto you, but Edward saw nothing else. His breath caught. His jaw tightened as he rose slowly from his seat, black Volturi robes hanging heavy from his frame. His eyes — red, dangerous, inhuman — widened in disbelief.

Softness flickered there. Awe. Horror. Longing.

Aro turned slightly, amusement dancing across his features. “Edward,” he said smoothly, “someone has come for you.”

And in that moment, Edward Cullen stood face to face with the ghost that had destroyed him — alive, real, and standing right in front of him.