Forget Me Not | ✓

24 | Pure Agony [Pt. 2]

Jane's plump lips quirked up into a slight smirk. "I see you've done our work for us." She stared at Carlisle with her piercing crimson eyes, knowinf full well that she wouldn't intimidate him. "Impressive. I've never seen a coven escape an assault of this magnitude."

A wry smile flickered across Carlisle's face. "We were lucky."

"I doubt that." She deadpanned. Alice shifted uncomfortably beside Jasper and he sent a wave of tranquility over her.

"It appears we missed an entertaining fight, sister." Alec spoke softly, but his smile was as sharp as broken glass. No one would known they were twins if it weren't for their similar noses, cut-throat gazes, and sharp smiles.

"Intentionally." Adele muttered loud enough for them to catch it. Jane met her eyes and the woman locked gazes. Jane's piercing eyes met Adele's fierce ones, and niether of them wavered as they glared.

Hoping to diffuse the tension, Edward chimed in. "If only you'd arrived a half hour earlier, you could've fulfilled your purpose here."

Without breaking her stare, Jane bared her teeth. "Pity." Her tone oozed with sarcasm.

"Yes, what a pity." added Adele with a curt laugh. Her coven shifted uneasily around her. They thought their staring contest would go on for hours until Jane averted her attention to the young vampire looming by one of the smoldering heaps. She rested her curious gaze on Bree Tanner and smiled wickedly. She'd get to witness a killing after all.

"It seems you missed one."

Carlisle stepped in for the sake of his wife. "We offered her asylum in exchange for her surrender."

Jane glanced at him. "That wasn't yours to offer."

"The hell it was." Adele hissed. It took a lot of self-control for Jane to dismiss her.

Bree apprehensively neared the group and Jane approached her. As she bared her teeth, Bree cowered in fear. "Why did you come?" Brew collapsed onto the grass and screamed as Jane inflicted pain upon her for sport. Bella flinched and shut her eyes. Edward tightened his grip on her.

"They came to destroy us -- to kill Bella." Esme intervened despertaly. She hoped to recruit Bree and teach her the ways of their coven. She was only a little girl. She didn't deserve any of this.

Jane enjoyed watching her suffer, so she simplt ignored Esme. Carlisle put a hand on Esme's shoulder as a discreet warning. "Who created you?"

"You don't have to do that!" Esme pleaded, despite Carlisle's advisement.   "She'll tell you anything you want to know!"

"Oh, I know." Jane responded blithely with a fleeting smile. Esme's pleading gaze fkickered to Adele, but the young woman didnt meet her eyes. She was staring at the sight without any emotion on her face and it unnerved them. She would have looked for any reason to antaganoze Jane, but she wasn't. She wasn't even defending this innocent girl. Jasper couldn't sense even an ounce of humanity within her and it scared him.

"I d-don't know! Riley w-wouldn't t-tell us." Bree cried out and took in greedy gasps of air when Jane stopped. "He said our thoughts weren't safe!" She caterwauled again and her entire body lurched with the agony of it.

Esme stepped forward to intervene but Edward cut in before she couldn't do anything to get herself killed. "Her name was Victoria...perhaps you know her?"

Bree collapsed as Jane stopped and turned to him with an unnerving smile on her young face. In a blur, the  other three joined her, hungry for a fight. Seeing the antagonizing expressuon on their faces, Carlisle interceded calmly before things could get worse. "Edward, if the Volturi had knowledge of Victoria, they would have stopped her." He looked assuringly at her. "Isn't that right, Jane?"