Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ I Know My Duty ❯ Connect ( Chapter 3 )

Twilight and New Moon are the invention of Stephanie Meyer.

 

 

"You know her, Jacob. You connect with her on a level that I don't even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you." -Edward, Breaking Dawn

 

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"Alice?"

"We have to go now."

I nodded to the left and we both started running.

We weren't going to get out the way we'd come in. Alice and I made a beeline for the exit I'd seen in Demetri's mind—the real exit. The Volturi compound was a maze. The outer sections were designed to leave human visitors with the impression that there was nothing to see while herding them away from the more incriminating parts of the building. The inner sections, where we were now, were designed to keep human visitors in.

The entire lobby was a prop, like Esme's kitchen or Rosalie's schoolbooks. It gave the impression that there was an outlet to the street nearby, but there was only a corridor leading back toward the feasting hall. Alice couldn't read my mind, but she had fifty years experience reading my body language. We ducked left toward the stairwell. Alice followed my gaze and yanked the door open without breaking stride.

I could still feel her skin against my lips. I could still taste the cold sweat there. My heart clenched bitterly. I should have told Gianna just what I'd do to her if anything happened to Bella. I should have held Bella's hand for one more second. I should have put my lips to her ear and told her that I was coming back—

"Edward!" Alice hissed. I forced my thoughts back into line. I couldn't think about Bella, not now, not if I was going to be any use at all. I pushed it to the back of my mind an let it smolder, then followed Alice through the stairwell.

Half a floor down, we reached what looked like a fire exit. I'd barely brushed my fingers against the bar before Alice's hand pulled mine back, her thoughts quick to follow. An alarm, Demetri sent away from the feast to investigate, interrupting our escape. The exit was a decoy.

I'd nearly ruined things in the first two minutes. I should have been paying more attention. I should have spent every second of our trip here picking our escort's brains. I should have had three escape plans ready before we even reached the lobby.

Edward, we really don't have time for this. You aren't perfect. You get distracted.

I shook my head. She was right. I searched my stolen memories. It had seemed so clear in Demetri's memory, a door nearby. I looked along the walls, seeing the answer right away. To my sharp eyes, the real door's outline was perfectly apparent, but it was placed and painted in such a way as to discourage notice by casual viewers. A human running in panic would go for the alarm trigger long before finding the real way out.

I grasped the hidden handle and stepped out into the thick shadow of an alleyway that served as the daytime exit to the street.

Alice followed me, and I stared up at the wall behind us. The compound took up the better part of a city block. From the outside, it looked like several different buildings, only connected underneath. A few dozen people didn't need all that much space, especially if they never slept, but even monsters liked a few amenities.

It had felt like Jane and Demetri had taken us a long way through the tunnels, but Volterra was a small town, scarcely covering a hundred square miles. We were still within blocks of the Piazza dei Priori.

It was amazing what a few vampires could do with unlimited time and a few seats on the city planning board: It couldn't have been much past two in the afternoon, but the close-set buildings protected us. From here there were five paths out of the city. Two went underground. Three kept to the surface. I'd seen that they were meant for use at different times of year, different times of day, but I hadn't learned enough to tell which was which. The March sun was pale but the sky was clear. There would be no clouds to make the light forgiving.

On any other day, we'd have stolen a car, rubbed dust into the windshield, and slipped away from the city camouflaged in daily traffic. This morning, Alice had barely been able to get Bella to the Piazza before the roadblocks and burgeoning human barriers had forced her to abandon the car. Now, the crowds had only grown thicker. We would have to get as far as we could on foot.

Now for the hard part. Demetri, Felix and Jane hadn't spent much time thinking about the surface paths. I'd had to catch bits and pieces stuck onto other thoughts. This was where Alice came in. Triggering my sister's gift on purpose was tricky. Emmett had never mastered it, and even Carlisle was hit and miss, but I was almost as good as Jasper.

I started walking west, my mind completely focused on the path ahead.

Alice saw us ducking safely past the festivalgoers until a block past the Cattedralle. Then a newly vacant construction site broke our shield, forcing us to turn back, lose precious time, get overtaken by Rolfe and Felix just as she was hotwiring the hatchback— I stepped south, again putting the force of my will behind the decision. She saw us moving fitfully, breaking into a true run whenever my own gift told us it was possible to dodge watchful eyes. South it was.

I rubbed the fibers of Felix's robe between my fingers. Whatever this stuff was, it seemed to pull the light into it, muffling any reflections like a pillow over the mouth of a trumpet. I motioned for Alice to walk on my left side, deeper in the shadows as we set out at a maddeningly slow human pace. Now for my end of it. As we moved out of the alleyway and onto the shadowed side of the street, I kept my mind turned outward into the crowd. There were still a few latecomers headed to the Piazza, but they were moving in the opposite direction, and the street wasn't long enough for anyone to keep us in view for more than a few moments. We could run at what would have been a human's top speed and not gain more than a little notice. A young girl in a gray dress paused to wonder where we were headed in such a hurry, but not long enough to cause me any concern.

Marcus hadn't been obvious in his city planning. The buildings were close together here, shadowing a greater fraction of the street. There were only a few windows facing out in our direction, and they were mostly stairwells and hallways, not places where people would congregate or linger. They really had thought of everything.

 

The shadowy path cut to the left in front of us. We would turn east to avoid the park, hugging the north side of the street for two blocks. Then, we'd duck across the street to another string of alleys. After three blocks, or... I grit my teeth together. Three? Looking back, the flashes of streets I'd seen in Jane's memory were all starting to look the same. I should have been paying closer attention. I should have been, but I'd had her in my arms and she'd been warm and frightened and alive and that last fact had filled all the universe.

Alice squeezed my arm again. I tried to shake it off. It was too late for Bella. What was left of my family needed me more.

We turned. The chorus of thoughts and noise form the Piazza was a slowly diminishing roar behind us. It was almost comforting to know that most of the city's attention was elsewhere. There were plenty of people still at work or stuck at home, but our street was speckled with stragglers, some in cloaks like mine, some in costumes from other versions of vampire lore. Only a few of them paid us any real notice, but it meant we had to walk at a human pace.

The slowness was driving me mad. Behind us, I knew, the Volturi had finished off the first course, the loudest and most troublesome prey. Then Caius would take his time parceling out the sweetest blood to vampires who'd served him well. Felix had been looking forward to it. His thoughts had lingered on a previous feast, a young German girl who'd smelled like— I couldn't think of it. I stared at the road.

In the distance, I could see a lone building, taller than the rest. Its shadow stretched all the way across the narrow street exactly—I counted—three blocks ahead.

"My complements to Marcus," I murmured.

"Hm?" Alice asked, eyes pointed straight ahead.

"Marcus is the one who takes care of all their public works," I said conversationally. "Renovates parts of the compound to keep them all camouflaged. Designs new buildings and safehouses. This morning, he was thinking about replacing the east wing."

"Ah," she answered.

"I got the impression that Marcus is more attached to the city itself than Caius or Aro," I went on. It seemed to help, as if my agitation were escaping through my mouth into the air. "But it might just be that he took up architecture as his personal hobby sometime during the Roman Republic."

Mom would have loved hearing about this, thought Alice.

"I know." I said, picturing Esme's face. Volterra was a marvel. Carlisle's stories had never fully done it justice.

A cluster of partygoers in vampire dress was moving down the street, thoughts full of the party in the square. To them, the shadow reaching across the road was nothing at all. They paused in the middle of Alice's and my walkway as one of them turned on the spot to tell the others a joke. I had to force myself not to glare, itching as badly as I ever had behind a slow driver in the leftmost lane. We'd stopped in the middle of the sidewalk for what looked to all the world like no earthly reason.

They're going to look, Alice warned me. With a hard-earned ease that came from no fewer than eight different high school cafeterias, I formed my face into a smile and reached out to mess up Alice's hair. She gave a genuine yelp of protest and I heard a laugh from the human teenagers in the street. They began to walk toward the Piazza again, but just for good measure, I grabbed Alice around the waist and picked her up as she kicked her feet in the air and I scouted the humans' minds. They saw exactly what I'd wanted: a happy brother and sister with no deadline but curfew. They didn't even notice that we were headed away from the party.

The humans moved away, I set her down again, hugging her much more tightly than I needed to.

And then no one was looking. No one at all. I grabbed Alice by the hand. She didn't have to wait to see me nod. We ran full-tilt across the street and through the alleys. The city's skyline rose and fell on either side of me. We covered a decent stretch before a flash from Alice's mind had me skidding to a natural pace. Alice gave me a warning look and held the image firmly in her thoughts: me before Aro, facing punishment for being seen.

I looked up at the buildings around us, listening until I heard the thoughts of a woman wiping spots off her office window. I tilted my head in her direction. "There?" I asked Alice. She nodded, and the vision evaporated as one future died.

We walked no faster than two human beings in a desperate hurry. The rest of the way we managed in stops and starts and infuriating slow gaps, breaking into a run when I sensed the way was clear, stopping when Alice sensed it wasn't. It felt like hours.

 

It couldn't have been ten minutes.

"Here?" I said quietly.

Here.

Alice looked around, head turning left and right. The road out of the city was only a few streets away, still blocked and guarded. The officers were still under orders to turn lone cars back, but there was a parking lot outside the gate, and a faltering stream of tourists coming up the hill on foot.

 

By now, the sun was in the northwest. Volterra itself cast a shadow, albeit a short one. I looked at Alice, but nothing said we'd fail. Just to be safe, I threw the edge of my gray cloak around her and we walked together, almost hobbled by her short steps, past the guard, out of the city proper, and down the path toward the waiting escape.

That one. Alice pointed at the string of cars parked alongside the residential street. Many Volterrans had invited renters or relatives into the city ahead of time, and every legal and illegal space was full. I didn't look at any of the license plates, which were mercifully hidden by the tight parallel parking. It was bad enough that I would know the make and model of whatever Alice was taking out of the city. Alice hurried toward a dented dark blue sedan. It's unlocked and the owner's going to get very drunk tonight, she thought, yanking open the door. No one will notice it's gone for a day and a half. A fleeting memory danced through her mind—her sweet yellow Porsche, the damage that she'd done hotwiring that work of art, Bella gnawing her fingertips in the front seat as the clock blinked mercilessly toward noon, Alice, just as agonized but not at liberty to show it. Alice was more in tune with me than with any other member of our family except Jasper. That gave her visions of me more depth and clarity. The whole way here, she'd seen me torn apart and burned alive, over and over, with no way to close her eyes against the sight.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, looking away.

Alice stopped. It's not your fault, she thought. We both knew it was.

Her fingers ducked beneath the steering wheel. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Let me," I said. Rosalie was the master mechanic of the family, but I was pretty good.

"Edward..." she trailed off. I ignored her, and the engine roared to life. Now to ride with her as far as the city limits, read any guards, tell her which lie to tell—

No.

I'd slip out of the car as soon as it was safe, turn back on foot—

Do I need to tell you what happens if you don't make it back in time?

She didn't, but the visions came anyway. I closed my eyes against the onslaught, fingers denting the edge of the car door as I tried to hold myself steady. I returned to the compound after Demetri had already left. He brought Alice back an hour later. You have to get back to her before anyone thinks we're gone, Edward, and you won't be able to move as fast as we did on the way out.

I didn't want to answer. I hated that I didn't have to.

This was the end for me. Alice would have to go on alone. Accepting it was like turning my own heart to soot.

I watched her jaw move slightly as she ground her teeth, finally meeting my eyes. I didn't flinch away as she threw her arms around me. I hugged her back. Alice, my sister Alice... When would I ever see her again?

"Thank you," she said, eyes like all the ocean in their sadness. "Thank you for helping me save Jasper."

"Tell them I'm sorry," I said.

She nodded against my shoulder.

What am I going to do? she thought. God, Edward, what am I going to do without you?

Why was it these moments, I thought. Why did it take something like this for us to realize what we really meant to each other? Jasper was the love of Alice's life, but I connected with her on a level that he couldn't even understand. He would always know how she felt about her visions, but he couldn't share their weight the way I did, work in concert with her like he was made to her measure. He didn't know what it was like to see things that he didn't want to see and be responsible for whether or not they came to pass. Alice could remember being alone, and she didn't want to be.

"You won't be alone," I promised. "You're going to find that you can do this without me." She pulled back and stared at me with doubting gold eyes. "I'm sorry that you'll have to," I said, "but I know you can do it. You've scouted without me before."

"It's not just that," she said. And you know it. The things I see, Edward.

"You'll be all right." And God how I hoped it was true. Alice played the pixie but her years with Carlisle, Jasper and me had made the fissures in her fractured mind knit strong. It wouldn't be easy. She'd suffer more than she would if I were there, but she could pull it off. She could hold it all together.

I could see what I'd looked like to her, this past hour. There was a blackness behind my eyes that had nothing to do with food or thirst. It went straight to my bones. She'd seen it before, and she didn't like that it was back. Today, I had been her same dark purposeful brother whose joyless strength and cold insight had been her family's quiet weapon these past fifty years. Today, I'd been that boy who could stare for decades at the world and see nothing beautiful, not unless his smiling sister made him look.

After I'd met Bella, I'd needed Alice less, but she'd only been happy for me. I blinked back tears that would never be there. How did I manage to surround myself with noble, selfless women? How did I manage to fail them, again and again?

"I couldn't have asked for a better sister," I said, squeezing her back. "I love you so much."

But not enough to stay alive. Alice pressed her eyes shut. I'm sorry, Edward. I don't mean it.

"You do mean it and you're right to. I deserve it."

She pulled away. "God help me, Edward, but if you spend the next thousand years telling yourself that you deserve to be ground beneath Aro's feet, I will come and burn you myself."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to demand to know what she meant. I wanted to jump in the car with her and go home. I wanted her to come back and stay with me through whatever was coming. I wanted none of this to have happened in the first place.

I closed my eyes. We couldn't linger. I had to accept what had happened and come through it as best I could. This time, that meant going back and facing Aro, and letting my sister go.

She slipped into the driver's seat and I closed the door behind her, feeling the lock snap shut.

The intensity of the vision nearly felled us both.

"Edward..." Alice breathed out loud.

My brother is lying on his side. His clothes are strange, not like the ones I choose for him. His arms lie limp in front of him, like a tiger sleeping off its last kill, too heavy to lick its claws clean. His head is propped up on something.

 

A smooth, white finger brushes his hair off of his face, but he flinches back and the hand draws away. Something about him contracts, splinters, twists into a new shape. The tiger has broken its last fang on the bars of its cage. It shrinks down until the cage seems big enough to be the world.

 

My brother's eyes open—

"No!" I shouted, hearing metal squeal and tear as I staggered back. I drew in ragged breaths that couldn't comfort me. I shook my head. No.

"It could be nothing," she said, too quickly. "Everyone lapses. It could be a lapse, that's all. It might not even happen—"

"Go," I whispered, stepping away from the car.

 

"Edward," she said, her voice shaking, "it doesn't have to happen—"

"Just go!" I shouted.

The last I saw of my sister's face, she was full of fear, of me, for me; they were both the same now. She pulled the sedan out of the parking space and drove away, her thoughts like a thousand sparrows flying in different directions.

Alice was gone. Alice was gone, and I didn't know if it was going to be all right.

I looked down at my hands and found six inches of blue metal in my grip. Part of the window frame. I looked up, still dazed. Alice would have to ride away with the window open. My feet moved of their own will, my eyes barely seeing the path in front of me. I twisted the piece of Alice's escape in my hands, rubbing coin-sized flakes away with my thumbs, remembering to kill the evidence, forgetting to kill the fear inside me.

Alice's last gift still shivered in my mind. The edges blurred into an uncertain mist, but the focus of the vision stayed mercilessly clear.

My face, pale in the gray light.

My eyes an evil red.

 

I pulled in a breath and pushed it back out again, backing deeper into the shadows as if I could back away from what I'd seen. I breathed again, drawing in the taste of the city to flood my mind. I separated its scents and counted them, like a woman carding wool fibers: Pavement. Exhaust. Humans. Pigeons. Rats. Rock. I pushed the vision away.

 

My work wasn't done yet.

 

I barely felt my legs move, one foot in front of the other as I turned toward the center of the city. From here, Volterra seemed to loom, modern, medieval and ancient silhouettes blurring together into one jagged chimera waiting for its next meal.

 

I drew a last deep breath, took stock of the shadows, and began walking steadily down its throat.

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Sorry for the half-measures earlier. I had ended this chapter with Alice's vision of Edward, but then it became apparent that Edward's journey back to the Volturi compound wouldn't quite jive with the next chapter. Then that didn't work either... So here we are.

 

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu