"That was horrible," Cecilia breathed out as she finally stumbled into the living room. Her entire arms were covered in bags, all of them leaving red welts on her skin. She dumped the bags near the hallway, telling herself that she would take care of those later, and with a loud thud, she let herself fall on the couch.
"Horrible is when you miss the perfect dress by the second because somebody was more invested in waffles than looking good," Alice called back.
Emmett, who was seated on the other end of the couch let out a loud snort and held out his fist for Cecilia to bump it. She did so gladly. "Nice one."
They'd left for Anchorage when it was still dark and now, upon their return, it was dark outside again. Cecilia hadn't been exaggerating about Rose trying on every item in every store, but the worst thing was, she only ended up buying barely enough clothes to fit two bags. Cecilia had made sure she'd bought enough clothes to last her a lifetime if that meant no shopping trips for the coming several months.
"You can be such a whiner," Rose said, though the smile brightening her already beautiful face told her she meant nothing of it. She grabbed Cecilia's legs and lifted them ever so slightly before sitting down and draping them over her lap. "But it was fun, right?"
Cecilia was positive that at this point she hated shopping than she did yesterday, but she absolutely loved spending time with Alice and Rose, even if it was seated on a bench watching the vampires change from one outfit into another. "Yes, the parts with the waffles, the club sandwich and McDonald's were the best."
"Pig," Rosalie snorted.
"Says the supernatural creature that-"
Cecilia was abruptly cut off by the sound of a vase shattering in hundreds of tiny pieces as it landed on the floor and like she'd been stung by a bee, she shot up from the couch, looking at Alice with a worried expression on her face.
Jasper was already by Alice's side, his arms enveloping her in a gentle hug. It had been a while since she'd been taken aback by vision in such away, which Cecilia guessed couldn't mean any good. She shared a look with Rose, who wore a matching expression of wonder and worry on her face. Her glance shifted to her mother, who'd swept away the shards of glass so fast, Cecilia hadn't even seen her doing it.
"What do you see, Alice?" Carlisle asked, his voice calm and his posture ever so collected.
"It's the Volturi," Alice said. She sounded out of breath, her gaze staring away in the distance at something only she could see. "They're here in two days."
"Do you know why?" her father asked again.
"Yes, they just want to see Renesmee after all these years," Alice said, still locked away in her vision. "But they're going to find Celia..."
"And?" her father pushed.
Alice finally seemed to snap out of the vision, her eyes shifting to Cecilia in a way that made the girl shiver in fear. "They want to make an example of her."
The silence in the Cullen house was deafening, especially with the only sound being the slightly panicked breathing coming from Cecilia. She knew enough about the Volturi to make her skin crawl in fear. They were supposed to be both the royalty and the law enforcers of the vampire world. The most important and the only truly enforced law was that vampires weren't supposed to expose themselves to humans, something her family had done twice. They'd let Bella off, but Cecilia wasn't so sure she would get the same easy route out. Come to think about it, she was positive the Volturi were still sour about the standoff with Renesmee almost seventeen years ago since, contrary to humans, vampires had time on their side to hold very long grudges. They'd probably do anything to make her family sing a couple of tunes lower, including chopping her head of, or whatever kind of ritual they had.
"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.