Chapter 1: A New Beggining
"Hmmm..." An uninterested voice murmured from beyond the trees. As soon as she had spoke I knew that it was the dark cloaks. I would had run if I could move.
"Jane." The redhead greeted the so called 'Jane' in a cold voice. There were five of them. The darkest cloak almost black was in the front. I could see Jane's fece under the shadows of the dark hood. She looked at me in the eye. Her eyes were dark. Though they were still red.
"I don't understand." She said in a voice that was slightly annoyed.
"She surrendered." The redhead said in a less then friendly voice, clearing up the confusion.
"Surrendered?" Jane snapped. Two of the cloaked figuers shared a glance. The yellow-eyes had said that they had never seen anyone surrender before. Maybe the dark cloaks hadn't either.
"Carlisle gave her the option." He shrugged, passing it off. He seemed to be the spokespeson or the leader of the group even though I had sworn that Carlisle was.
"There are no options for those who break the rules." Jane replied, her voice unemotional again. This time Carlisle answered Jane.
"That's in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught." Altough his words could mean a couple of things, I almost thought that he was pleading for me. But my fate was not in his hands. I wish that it was.
"That is irrevelent." Jane confirmed.
"As you wish." Carlisle replied. Jane stared at him. Partly confused, partly frustrated. Then her face was blank again.
"Aro had hoped that we would get far enough north to see you, Carlisle. He sends his regards." She said.
"I would appretiate that you would convey mine to him." He answered. Jane smiled.
"Of, course." She was still barely holding the smile when she turned to me.
"It appears that you have done our work for us today... for the most part. Just ou of proffesional curiosity, hoe many were there? They laft quite a wake of destruction in Seatle."
She was talking about work and proffesions. So then it must be her job to punish. Then if there were punishers, there must be rules. Carlisle had said 'We follow thier rules. There is no law about creating vampires if you control them. Riley and my creator had been afraid, but not surprised when the dark cloaks ha shown up. They must had known about the laws and that they were breaking them. They hadn't told us. Why? There were more of these Volturi then just these five. There must be many for these yellow eyes to fear them so much. Carlisle responded to Jane's question.
"Eighteen, including this one." The dark cloaks behind Jane murmered among themselves.
"Eighteen?" Jane sounded surprised, or was she faking it?
"All brand new, they were unskilled." Carlisle replied. Unskilled and uinformed thanks to Riley.
"All?" Jane snapped. "Then who was thier creator." As if they hadn't met. Jane was ane even bigger liar than Riley, and she was much better at it, too.
"Her name was Victoria." The redhead said.
How did he know that when I had no clue who she was? Riley had told us that there was a mind reader in the group or was that a lie, too?
"Was?" Jane asked. The redhead jerked his head toward the east I looked up and saw a cloud of dark smoke.
Was. I felt immense pleasure.
"This Victoria." Jane said slowly. "She was in addition to the eighteen here?"
"Yes, she had only one other with her. He was not as young as the others here, but no older then a year." The redhead said confirming Jane's suspicions.
Riley. My pleasure intensified. Diego's death had been avenged.
"Twenty." Jane breathed. This was ether more that she had expected or she was a very good liar.
"Who dealt with the creator?"
"I did." The redhead said coldly.
Whoever this vampire was whather he kept a pet human or not, he was a friend to me. Even if he was the one who ripped off my head, on the end I would still owe him. Jane turned with narrowed eyes to look at me.
"You there." She said harshly. "Your name."
I would end up dead one way or another accordingto her. Why should I tell this lieing vampire anything?
She smiled at me, the smile of a bouyant young child. Then the pain is everywhere. It felt like I was in the middle of my coven's fire flames on every sid of me. Courseing through my every vein. Eating away at my bone marrow. I arched into an inhuman shape. I screamed a scream that could break even a vampires eardrums. Though I could barely hear over the pain in my ears.
"Your name." Jane repeated.
As soon a s she spoke the fire evaporated as quickly as the pain had appeared.
"Bree." I said as quickly as I could though the human probably still understand. I was still gasping from the pain that was no longer there.
Jane smiled her inocent smile again and the fire was everywhere. How much more pain could I endure before I die of it? It sounded like the screams weren't even mine anymore. Why wouldn't somebody just kill me already. Why don't they just rip off my head nice and easy? Carlisle had to be kind enough to do that, didn't he? Or what about the mind reader? He or she must know how much pain I was in. The redhead flinched beside the human.
"She'll tell you anything you want to know," the redhead growled. "You don't have to do that." Then as if Jane had flicked of a light switch the pain was gone.
"Oh, I know." Jane replied cheerfully. She turned back to me.
"Bree?" I shuddered when she called my name.
"Is his story true? Were there twenty of you?" Jane asked. The words flowed out of my mouth.
"Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don't know! Sara and the one whose name I do not know got in a fight on the way..." I let my voice trail off and waited for the pain to punish me for not having a better answer, but it didn't come.
"And this Victoria -- did she create you?"
"I don't know. Riley never said her name. I didn't see that night... it was dark, and it hurt!" I shuddered. "He didn't want us to be able to think of her. He said our thoughts weren't safe." Jane flashed her eyes over to the redhead, then looked back at me.
"Tell me about Riley," Jane demanded. "Why did he bring you here?"
I recited Riley's lies.
"Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here. He said that it would be easy. He said that the city was theirs, and that they were coming to get us. He said that once they were gone, all the blood would be ours. He gave us her scent," I jabbed a finger at the human. "He said that we would know when we had the right coven, because she would be with them. He said whoever got to her first could have her." When I said that the redhead had flinched.
"It looks like Riley was wrong about the easy part." Jane said, I heard a hint of teasing in her tone. It seemed Jane was pleased with my story. I had a flash of insight. I understood that she was relieved that Riley hadn't told us about her surprise visit. This was the story that she wanted the yellow-eyes to know -- The one that didn't involve Jane and the Volturi. I could play along. I hoped that the mind reader was already in the know.
I nodded, agreeing to Jane's little joke, I sat up because I wanted the mind readers attention, whoever that was. I continued with the version of the story that anybody in my coven would be able to tell.
"I don't know what happened." that part was true.
The disaster on the battlefield was still a mystery to me. I had never even seen Kristie's group. I wonderd if the secret howler vampires got to them. I would keep that a secret from the yellow-eyes.
"We split up, but the others never came. And Riley left us, and he didn't come to help like he promised. And then it was so confusing. And everyone was in pieces." I shuddered at the thougt.
"I was afraid. I wanted to run away." I nodded at Carlisle.
"That one said they wouldn't hurt me if I stopped fighting." This wasn't betraying Carlisle I thought to myself. He had already told Jane just as much.
"Ah, but that wasn't his gift to offer, young one." Jane sounded as if she was enjoying herself.
"Broken rules demand a consequence." I was still playing dumb so I just stared at her like I didn't get it. She looked at Carlisle.
"Are you sure that you got all of them? The other half that split off?"
Carlisle nodded.
"We split up, too." So it was the howlers that got Kristie. I hoped that the howlers were really scary. Kristie deserved it.
"I can't deny that I'm impressed." Jane said sounding sincere. I geussed that this was the truth.
Jane had been hopeful that Victoria's army would do some damage here, and we had clearly failed.
"I've never seen a coven escape this magnitude of offensive intact. Do you know what was behind it? Considering the way you live here, this behaviour seems drastic. And why was the girl the key?" What did she mean by the way you live here?
"Victoria held a grudge against Bella." The redhead answered her.
So the strategy finally made sence. Riley didn't care who got killed he just wanted the human dead. Jane laughed pulling me out of my reverie.
"This one," She smiled at the human just like she had smiled at me. "seems to bring out bizzarley strong reactions in our kind."
Nothing happened to the human. She didn't scream or go on fire like I had. Maybe Jane didn't want to hurt her. Or maybe it only worked on vampires.
"Would you please not do that?" the redhead asked in a controlled, but furious voice. Jane laughed again.
"Just cheking. No harm done aparently."
I tried to keep my expression looking like I didn't uderstand what was going on and not look like I was interested. So Jane couldn't hurt this human like she had hurt me. I could tell that this wasn't normal for her. She may have been laughing about it now, I could tell that it was driving her crazy. If this was why the human was tolerated by the yellow-eyes, that she was special in some way? Why didn't they just change her?
"Well, it appears that there's not much left for us to do," Jane said, her voice dead again. I could tell that my time was almost done.
"Odd. We're no used to being rendered unnecessary. It's too bad we missed the fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch."
"Yes," the redhead replied. "And you were so close. It's a shame that you didn't arrive just a half hour earlier. Perhaps then you could have fufilled your purpose here."
I fought a smile. So the redhead was the mind reader. He had heard everything that I'd wanted him to hear. Jane wasn't getting away with anything.
Jane stared back at the mind reader with a blank expression.
"Yes. Quite a pity how things turned out, isn't it?"
The mind reader nodded, slowly. I wondered what he was hearing inside of Jane's head.
Jane turned her blank face to me. There was nothing in her eyes. I knew that my time had run out. She had gotten what she had needed from me. She didn't know that I had given the mind reader everything that I could. I owed him that. He had punished Riley for me.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and thought, Thanks.
"Felix?" Jane said lazily.
"Wait!" the mind reader yelled out.
He turned to Carlisle and spoke quickly.
"We could explain the rules to the young one. She doesn't seem unwilling to learn. She didn't know what she was doing."
"Of course," Carlisle continued eagerly, looking at Jane. "We would be ready to take responsibility for Bree."
Jane's face looked like she didn't know whether they were joking or not, but if they were they were funnier than she gave them credit for.
I was touched to the core. These vampires were complete and total strangers and they had had gone out on this dangerous limb for me. I already knew that it wasn't going to work.
"Fine." She said in a partly amused voice. I just gawked. "But we don't give second chances and definetly not third chances. It's bad for our reputation. Which reminds me... Caius will be so interested to know that your still human, Bella. Perhaps he'll decide to visit."
Her smile had widened into a grin when she had turned to the human and said that. She obviously did not like the yellow-eyes very much. Still human. So they were going to change her. I wondered what they were waiting for.
The tiny dark haired vampire spoke up.
"The date has been set," She said in a clear voice. "Maybe we'll come to visit you in a few months."
Jane's smile evaporated as if someone had wiped ot off. She shrugged without looking at the tiny vampire, and I got the feeling that she hated this little vampire as much as she hated the human.
She turned to Carlisle with the same blank expression as before.
"It was nice to meet you, Carlisle -- I'd thought that Aro was exagerating. Well, until we meet again..."
The cloaks turned and faded into the mist. I could feel all of the tension lift off of the shoulders of everybody in the clearing. The mind reader let out a sigh of relief.
"Come, Bree. We have to go. Follow me." Carlisle said to me.
He took off into the trees. I followed him until we came up to a huge white building. Carlisle slowed. This couldn't possibly be where they lived.
"Is this where you live?" I asked Carlisle. He nodded. I raised my eyebrows.
"It helps when your a doctor and you have eternity to work on it." He smiled sadly.
Then opened the door for me. I stepped into the door and into my new life.