SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW ➻ DEMETRI VOLTURI

T R E

"What about Nikolai?" Esmee asked. Cecilia looked at her mother, their eyes meeting for a brief moment. Though her mother sent her a reassuring smile, one that made her heart glow with warmth, she noticed the distress in her honey-coloured eyes.

Nikolai was a Russian vampire with a special gift. As long as somebody was within a distance of a few feet, he was able to hide that person. Not physically, but mentally. It meant that Aro could comb everyone's mind out for days and still not find a memory of her. His gift made Nikolai obviously very valuable to the Volturi, which was why he trekked through the entirety of Russia, never staying too long in one place. That made him hard to locate and even harder to reach out too. She'd met him only once, ten years ago, when the Volturi had planned to visit as well.

Alice seemed to zone out for a minute, but from the blank look on her face, Cecilia already knew it was hopeless. "I can't see anything, it's all black. Like he's in some kind of cave."

"Benjamin," Cecilia breathed out, a low chuckle escaping her mouth. "If that isn't some A-class irony."

Emmett looked up in wonder and Rose gave him one of her classy are-you-serious-right-now looks. "The nomad who picked a fight with Benjamin, it was Nikolai. He's somewhere in underground Russia right now."

"Yeah, Nikolai has always had somewhat of a short fuse," Emmett said, nodding to himself as he was lost in his memories.

"Can you see something in Benjamin's nearby future that might give away his location?" Cecilia tried.

It was quiet for a moment, but then Alice shook her head, an expression of unease settling on her pixie-like face. "The nearest vision is in over four days, in Egypt."

"We could leave for Egypt with Cecilia right now," Carlisle said, looking at his wife. Even though the rest of coven was getting more and more distressed with the second, her father was still his calm self. It helped lowering Cecilia's own sense of panic. "Take the chance that Benjamin and Tia will be there already and still know where they buried Nikolai."

"You won't be back in time, even if you left this second," Alice said. "Aro will know something is up."

"And if Rose and I go with Cecilia? They won't miss us," Emmett proposed.

Once again, Alice shook her head. "No, they'll still be suspicious."

A wave of unrest crashed over Cecilia. For seventeen years they'd managed to dodge the bullet that was the Volturi and now, only a year away from her turning, everything seemed to slip through their fingers like water. She cleared her throat, immediately feeling six pairs of eyes on her human frame. She only focused on her fathers. "You could turn me right now, dad."

His eyes shifted from her face to Alice's, who zoomed out another second, before shaking her head the umpteenth time in the last couple of minutes. "Without Nikolai they'll know we've been hiding her for so long. Even if we turn you right now, Celia, they'll still want to make an example out of you, that nobody should ever defy the law and expect to get away with it. They'll go after Benjamin and Tia too."

"I'll try to contact Amun," Carlisle said, slipping from the living room quietly.

Jasper let go off Alice as well, probably overwhelmed from all of the negative emotions everybody radiated. "I'm going to call Edward."

Cecilia let out a loud sigh, falling with her back to the couch. She pushed the locks that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ears, rubbing her face tiredly. First the whole shipping trip, now this. "That escalated rather quickly, didn't it?"

"You could say that," Emmett muttered. It was not often that the big vampire was for a loss of words and the defeated expression on his face didn't help the situation either.

"I'm sorry, Celia," Alice said. She went to sit next to Cecilia, her cold hand grabbing her warm one. "It was a last minute decision."

Cecilia gave a soft squeeze, enjoying the coldness of Alice's hand over the clamminess of her own. "That's not your fault. They're just a bunch of suckers."

"Who are coming?" Emmett asked.

"The Old Ones and the Elite Guard."

Emmett seemed to consider those odds for a moment. "With Bella as a shield we should come a long way."

"No," Cecilia immediately said, shaking her head. "Not happening."

She was glad when her father entered the room again, hoping he could talk some sense into all of them.

"Benjamin and Tia are in Egypt already, they're going to lay down for a while," Carlisle said. A soft, entirely human sigh escaped his lips. "Benjamin is very sorry about the whole incident with Nikolai."

"Oh well, he couldn't possibly know," Cecilia said, shrugging. She felt more guilty about the fact that not only her family but also Benjamin and Tia were in trouble because of her, than the incident with Nikolai. Though the vampire himself might think otherwise. "Besides, this is some true Shakespearean irony."

"Really not the time for jokes, Celia," Rose muttered under her breath.

"Anyway, I'm going to put away my new clothes and sleep after that," Cecilia said. She stood up from the couch, stretching and yawning, enjoying the way her muscles rolled underneath the tension. All of it was an act, of course, but both for her own sake and that of her family, she performed it gladly.

"Good night, honey," her mother said, giving her a small kiss on her left temple. "I put your bags in your room already."

"Thanks," she called over her shoulder as she rushed up the stairs to her room.

She turned on the heater first, before methodically cutting of the tags of her new clothes and giving them a place in her closet. She couldn't help but wonder if she was doing it all in vain and with a soft sigh she took a seat on her bed.

She knew her family would be scheming and plotting throughout the night, something she wouldn't be able to help with. She would spend the night rolling around in her bed, her mind scheming and plotting in endless loops on its own.

Bella and Edward would be home tomorrow by the time she would wake, if she would be able to sleep at all, and the whole scheming would start over from place one.

She loved her family dearly and she knew they could be extraordinarily smart and cunning, but she had a feeling that this time they wouldn't win from the Volturi.