The Girl Who Was Taken (Renesme Cullens Twin Sister)

Sixteen

Renesme

When I saw Jacob in the driveway, I quickly ran down the stairs. It's Billy's birthday party today, and both packs were going to be there. It was going to be a huge party and Jacob was taking me because they didn't want any vampires there, but mom said I could go because Charlie was going to be there too.

I made it to the door when my stomach flipped. My hand was on the handle, turning it, and I felt like I was going to be sick. So I closed my eyes for a split second, but then I was gone.

Forks Washington disapeared and I found myself in an office. There's a man. Caius. I recognized him from the battle field a couple months ago. The Volturi.

His hand was on my shoulder and he flipped me around so he could glare at me. "Siediti. Adesso."

He pushed me over to a little chair in a corner. I was shaking, but I manage to sit on it. I couldn't understand what he was saying. It was in another language.

"Non voglio spaventarti," he said breathlessly. He sat himself down behind a big desk, and sulked over a large pile of paperwork. I took deep breaths to calm down.

Caius impatiently tossed some of the papers to the floor. "Ne a te a me piace questa situazione. Dovrei essere l'ultima persona a farti da babysitter." He plopped his feet on his desk and huffed. "Cosa verresti fare allora? Hai Ragione. Questa," he waved his arms dramatically, "può essere fatto da quella segretaria incompetente."

I had no idea what he was saying, so I just stared at him wide eyed.

"Ti ho davvero spaventato così tanto?" he mused, "Ember, il moccioso ostinato è finalmente al verde. Smetterai di lamentarti e ci aiuterai ora?" He looked at me like he expected an answer. "Ember?" he asked again.

Ember. I didn't know who Ember was. My hair fell over my face. It was my hair. I looked down at my hands. They looked like mine. My ring was missing. Instead of Jacobs necklace, I had a tiny jar full of sparkles. And I wore a black dress now instead of my favorite pants, and my feet were bare. No nail polish either. I had just put on green nail polish this morning.

The door opened before Caius could get angrier at me. A boy popped his head in. I recognized him too. He was Alec. One of the witch twins that my dad and mom had been so afraid of. "Adesso posso prenderlo," he said to Caius.

Caius gave a wave of his hands, as the go ahead, obviously annoyed with me. Alec took one more step in the room, grabbed my hand and pulled me to safety. I hoped. I still couldn't understand what was happening. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but it had never been in another country before with languages I didn't understand. It had never lasted so long either.

"Scusa se non sono tornato prima," he said. He smiled at me though, and I couldn't help myself, I needed to do something because I couldn't believe I was with the Volturi right now. I reach out my hand and touched his cheek. I focused really hard and tried to show him what was happening.

He stayed still for my touch, and looked at me oddly. "che cos'è?"

It wasn't working. My memories weren't transfering to him. I blinked at him, defeated, and then I forced myself to talk even though I detested it. "Can you please speak english?" I asked. "I know you can."

He smiled, friendly enough at my request. Then he lowered his voice as he spoke to me now. "Alright," he said. "Quietly though, so we don't get you in trouble. Just our little secret." He led me forward then, to keep walking down a hallway. A very grand and dark hallway. "Jane's still with Aro, but they won't be gone long." We stopped at a door, "Grab your cloak."

I waited a moment, unsure of where the cloak was, but then I realized he meant I needed to get it from the room, so I opened the door. My feet felt heavy on the cold bricks. There was a giant canopy bed in the room, a dresser, and an open window. It was very bare otherwise. There was a black cloak laying on the floor, crupled up. I picked it up tentatively.

"Hurry up, Amber, we need to get going. I want to show you something special."

Amber now? What happens to being called Ember? He led me through the castle, down a thousand steps. As we descended, the stones grew wetter and colder. The windows disappeared awhile ago. We came to the bottom.

There was a door. I could feel my fingers tingling. I was excited for Billy's party, but this was tantalizing. I never got the full taste, I needed to know why I was here. Who Amber or Ember was. I had an idea. Dad had told me I had a sister, and he was going to rescue her, but then he came back with auntie Alice and they seemed clueless about the whole thing.  I needed to know for sure. They denied that I had a sister. I was the only one that were still looking now, the only ones who had any hope that she wasn't dead. That she didn't drown at sea. And mom never even knew that I had a sister, they said it would make her sad to know, and that I wasn't allowed to tell her.

Now everyone thinks that I've made up an imaginary friend.

But here I was, in Voltaire, with Alec of all people. He was holding my hand again. I squeezed tightly onto it to make the tingling go away. He held just as tight.

The door opened into a sewer. It was a relatively nice sewer, better than I thought a sewer would be. Dark. With rats and a retched smell. But the walkway was clean.

Water ran in the river, the sound reverberated all throughout the tunnel.

Tinkling, bubbling water rushed along. I wanted to ask where we were going, but my voice was lost, and I didn't think showing him would be wise.

We walked in silence. The tunnel started to flicker with light, reflecting off the water. There were candles. Lined up on the path against the wall in little glasses. Then rose petals scattered over the bricks. And I wondered if he had put hem there, and he looked back as me with a smirk that told me he did.

Was he my sisters boyfriend?

There was a boat floating in the river, held in place by a rope. "Would you like to go for a ride?" Alec asked.

He helped me into the boat, sent it off down the river, and jumped in after me. The sewer opened up into the ocean, the sudden brightness hurt my eyes. He had a pair of ores and was rowing us far into the blue.

We came very far out. Our boat was spinning, and the sun began to set.

"This is the surprise," he admitted. I studied the sunset. It was definitely the prettiest one I've ever seen. "You've been awfully quiet. You're never this quiet."

I didn't know how to answer that, so I continued my silence, hoping my blushing would calm down. His eyes were shy, but he moved closer to me. The sky and water shown red. His face was alive with a thousand diamonds, mirroring the sunset right back.  And that's when he kissed me.

I couldn't believe that I was having my first kiss with a boy that I had practically just met. Just months ago he was part of the army that wanted to kill me. But here we were. And I kissed him back, surprised at myself, already forgiving him in my heart. But then I realized that this was a stolen kiss. I shouldn't even be here. This was my sister's place, Amber, not mine.

I jumped out. Back to my place. To my body and my life.

When I opened my eyes I was face to face with Paul. He was in his wolf form. He was so close that his nose was touching mine. What did she do this time?

The look in his eyes shifted suddenly though, lost a sense of love? He urgently backed away, startled. Like I had turned into a monster. Without warnin, he turned and leapt off the cliff.

I looked around me. I was on the diving cliff. The sun was still up in the sky over here. I crawled over to the edge. Both packs were laughing and swimming down in the water like they had never split apart. Jacob looked up and saw me. He raised his arms above his head as if he was going to catch me.

I laughed. Hoped that my twin would forgive me. And I dived straight down into the deep dark sea.

A/n

So, um, any thoughts?

I went back to previous chapters and edited a few things. mostly name stuff. Aro, Marcus, and Caius all call her Ember. Everyone else just sorta started calling her Amber, like a pet name or something. . . .not anything you really need to re read at all.

love, me