Now You See Me [Jasper Hale story]

XXX. The End Justifies the Means

"Is she alive?"

"Of course that she's alive." Muffled sounds of two exceptionally beautiful (and strangely familiar), female voices came to my ears. I had no idea where I was or what was the time; soon though, memories of what had happened in the square - the girl I talked to, who thought Edward was a fairy, Edward's sparkling skin and Bella's rescue action - started coming back. Someone dragged me away from there and apparently stunned me while doing so. In other words, I was kidnapped.

"So why is she not moving?" The second person, whose voice seemed to be more nervous, asked. "What if you hit her too hard? What if she won't wake up? Oh my god, Ianthe, I told you not to hit her that much! You may have killed her!"

"She's fine; calm down Corin," the first person answered serenely, as if nothing had been happening. A sound of rustling followed, and I figured that one of my kidnappers turned some printed matter to another page. That pissed me off. I was lying there, having been unconscious until a few seconds ago, while the guys who decided to take my personal freedom away from me wouldn't stop reading. I felt the urge to frown and wanted to shout at those people, that I was worthy of more than a bare half of their attention.

You see, not even your kidnappers give a shit about you, Callaghan, - I thought matter of factly, before I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. It was apparent that at least one of my kidnappers didn't want me dead, according to their dialogue. That meant I had a fair 50% chance to survive this.
I found out that I was closed up in a small, pretty dark, stony room. The only sources of light were a hole in the wall, which was (most probably) supposed to take place of the window, and a huge, gothic chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. In all honesty, I felt like jumping into Edgar Alan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum, just without the pendulum and rats. Although who knew if there weren't some...

"Ugh, geez," I huffed, trying to get up. That appeared to be a difficult attempt though, mainly because I started feeling a prickly pain at the back of my head. After a few seconds of struggling, I managed to sit up. My hand immediately fired to the place on my head, where the wound was supposed to be. Fortunately, there was no blood (finally, a positive news).

"Ianthe, s-she is waking up!" One of the two women squeaked and before I managed to notice, she was standing right in front of me, observing my face. "My, thank God, you're alive, kid! We were so worried!"

"Uhm..." I backed off from the woman, in order to claim my personal space. Alright, I admit that major part of me didn't care about personal space anymore (trust me, if you lived among vampires, you'd reorder your priorities too); I was just excessively curious about what the kindapper looked like, thus, I had to pull away to take a proper look at her.
It was a petite brunette, not much older than me. She was very pale and very beautiful, while her eyes had a dark, crimson colour. She was, without doubt, a vampire; human blood drinking one actually. The realization hit me hard then - she was a part of the Volturi coven.

If the little thought process of mine was right though, why would she say she was worried about me? Her attitude didn't make any sense! All I've heard about the Volturi so far was that they were cruel brutes, who had never been attached to anyone besides themselves. Everyone said they followed their aims over people's dead bodies, of which I assumed that they were typical examples of Machiavellian political science scheme: "The end justifies the means." In the case of this particular vampire however, I was only able to name the means - she hit me and then kidnapped me. The end was still hidden under a veil of mystery for me.

"W-who are you? Where am I?!" I blurted out without even thinking. "A-and why on earth did you kidnap me?"

The brunette breathed in to answer, yet, she was interrupted, "Corin, could you give us a moment?" the other woman spoke up. I was still unable to see her, since she must have been sitting in one of the medieval chairs that were standing alongside the opposite wall. The brunette in front of me pouched her lips a little thoughtfully. Afterwards, she sighed and rolled her eyes.