Twilight Fan Fiction / Twilight Fan Fiction ❯ I Know My Duty ❯ Character ( Chapter 2 )

Twilight is the intellectual property of Stephanie Meyer and her chosen publishers. I have composed this fanfiction myself.

 

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"I am surprised by how it ...pleases me, his success in this unorthodox path he's chosen. I expected that he would waste, weaken with time. I'd scoffed at his plan to find others who would share his peculiar vision. Yet, somehow, I'm happy to be wrong." - Aro, New Moon

 

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The sounds coming from her throat weren't words. The ones coming from me barely qualified. I rocked back and forth, murmuring nonsense, her name, anything as I held her still-warm body against me.

I tried to take her all in. She'd changed over the past year. Her cheeks were thinner. There was a scar near her hairline that hadn't been there before. She was wearing the same shirt she'd had on the day they'd done blood typing and I'd carried her outside. Her eyes were a wild mix of pain and fear and other things buried underneath. I had never wanted so badly to know for sure what she was thinking, even knowing that there was no way that she could not blame me for her current pain. These were my Bella's last moments. Even if she remembered being human at all, the memories would be dulled. Had she forgiven me for all I'd done to her? Did any part of her love me still?

While Bella remained agonizingly silent, the thoughts of the other vampires in the room beat against my mind like rain against a rock, pounding away at me without leaving a mark. How long, how many centuries before they wore me smooth?

My God, he actually did it. I'd wondered what Master had in mind, setting up a botched turning right before the feast.

...flinched at the thought of mating her. At least we're not bringing a pervert into the ranks.

Smells fucking sweet. Alec or Demetri I could understand; they've earned a treat, but better to toss her round and give us each a taste than let this stripling freak have it all.

Can we just get the theatrics over with so we can eat? What is keeping Heidi?

...wasn't the human why he wanted to die in the first place? Distracted as I was, I nearly started at the clarity of the thought. Demetri... What does Aro want with either of them? They're both trouble.

Skinny little scrap of a thing, thought one of the one of the women to Demetri's right. She remembered me making my request to the elders this morning.  At the time, she'd supposed that my human plaything must have been a great beauty. Through her mind's eye, I could see that Bella was plain and disheveled, sniveling like a drowned rat. And I was a fool, a strange, mad boy petting some wretched, dirty creature that had followed him home.

Yes, I was a fool, I thought, hands stroking uselessly down Bella's arms. Her eyes stayed focused on me, but there was no way to tell how much she was really seeing. Rosalie had stayed conscious the whole time, but Emmett had gone in and out. They'd both begged us to let them die...

Edward.

She would never say my name in her sleep again. I would never lie perfectly still beside her waiting for the rush of warmth when I heard it. I'd never wonder at the sunlight against her human skin or find out what she'd be like as a girl of nineteen or a woman of twenty-nine. It was all over.

Oh Edward...

I shook my head.

"Edward," Alice said out loud.

I looked up. My sister had one hand on Bella's shoe, as if she were afraid to touch any more of her. The gesture seemed too close, too intimate, but I couldn't tell her to stop, not with her neck bowed toward the floor and her shoulders shaking in time with Bella's cries.

You have to focus, she told me through the scattered rain of her own thoughts.

I stared back at her, not comprehending. Bella gave a lurch in my arms and I looked down again.

Edward, Alice thought firmly, and I began to understand. The storm of thoughts in the room was affecting her as well. There were too many decisions being made and unmade as they watched our grotesque little scene. Her visions were changing, flickering like a strobe light on overload, and for one brief moment I shared them. Aro stood with Alice at his right hand and me at his left, Bella and a fourth vampire whom I did not recognize behind. There was something about the sight that reminded me of a pyramid with a square base, complete and stable, strong enough to weather the centuries. The vision shifted and I saw Jasper. He was somewhere far away and all alone.

My lips parted. I closed them again. I was sinking. I was sinking down into the earth. I tightened my grip on Bella's arm, rubbing her sleeve with my thumb. How many lives had I ruined by coming here?

"Amazing..." Aro all but clapped his hands together. "Such control. My dear ones, we are all blessed to have witnessed such a feat. Young Edward, you truly are your father's son, though I doubt even he could have done as you did."

I opened my mouth to answer just as Bella gave a stifled thrash in my arms. The tiny sound echoed in all the emptiness inside me, tearing me just as if it had come from my own throat. Her body had only started to change and it felt as if her soul were already fighting its way out, when a minute ago she'd been human and healthy and strong.

No, Carlisle could not have done it.

I let myself see through Aro's eyes. Through the prism of his curiosity, I was a rare thing, a precious thing: a vampire with a truly disciplined mind, the best he'd found since Demetri. Bella was a gnarled oyster that might be hiding a pearl or only sand, but he would pry her open just to be sure. Oh but Alice. Dear Alice. Alice was unique in all the world. Alice eclipsed us both. With Alice, it was as if the last piece of some confounding puzzle had turned up years after being given up for lost.

Aro saw me watching. To my surprise, I found that he liked that I could read him. Like a toddler learning to use a lightswitch, he was fascinated with the prospect of a follower who could do his will without a word. When he wondered if it would work on Alice, I couldn't help but turn my eyes toward her.

What is it, Edward? Alice asked me. What's he doing? I gently tensed the muscles in my shoulders, meaning that I would explain later. It was a code we'd worked out long ago.

Aro noticed this time. His lips spread in a delighted smile as he watched the interplay between Alice and me. A matched set, he thought, like Jane and Alec, already so in tune with each other. It had taken him, Caius and Marcus years to develop a similar rapport and here we were, ready-made.

So I waited. I watched the delighted amusement bloom in his mind as he realized what I was doing.

Is that how this is going to work, then? His question was a little too clear. Aro's thoughts spelled out each word, like a luddite using a telephone or voice recorder for the first time.

I ducked my chin, so slightly that no one who didn't know what to look for would notice. Aro was curious and childlike, and I could guess that codes and secrets would appeal to him.

How delightful, he thought at me, but it would look rather strange if you just got up and left the room, almost as if you were breaking your word and leaving us—Beneath Aro's deliberate thoughts, I picked up the words "after I showed you mercy."—and I suppose dear Jane or Felix might overreact to that. Again, not deliberately, Aro thought of me shuddering under Jane's gift as Felix pulled the dregs of Bella's human blood from her body. Besides, it's only fitting to say this part out loud, don't you think?

"Well this is an unexpected joy, isn't it brothers?" Aro addressed Caius and Marcus. "Just hours ago, we debated the sad prospect of dispatching one of our number—" I noticed Felix's thoughts sour with disappointment. "—but instead we see our little family grow by leaps and bounds."

"Yes..." Caius agreed, but his skepticism was clear in his voice as he eyed Alice, Bella and me. Marcus was still watching with that same tolerant detachment. Off to my left, I heard Jane's mental snarl. She wasn't happy about having a new brother and sister, especially not ones that kept her master so interested. "But that's if she lives, brother," he finished.

"Oh I don't think we need to worry about that," said Aro. "Edward did quite a masterly job with dear Bella. Just listen to her heartbeat."

"Yes," Caius said pointedly, "that was rather what I meant." I stroked Bella's cheek with the backs of my fingers as Caius touched Aro's hand. "Heidi will be here with the feast any moment," he said as my mind filled with foreign images of an unfamiliar, pain-blinded human being ripped open by four vampires at once.

"Ah," Aro said quietly. "Yes, accidents do happen, don't they? Young Edward," he said to me in a louder voice, "perhaps you had best take our little Bella out of harm's way for the time being."

I nodded stiffly, gathering Bella in my arms as I rose to my feet.

"He's not going to stay and eat, Master?"

I turned, even though I already knew who'd interrupted.

"No Demetri," said Aro. " I think it might be better for Edward if he did not have to make too many changes at once, don't you?" I felt my shoulders go stiff.

"I see, Master," agreed Demetri. His thoughts were thick with suspicion, and not only of me. He was still wondering what Aro wanted with Bella and me. Demetri was proud of what he did, I saw, and the idea that someone would have to be forced to join the Volturi offended him. He didn't want to believe it.

Wait for us below, Aro told me. When the feast is over, you and I will discuss your duties further. His thoughts were like a soft cloth wrapped around a knife.

"Wait," Aro called. I stopped. I kept my expression as mild as I could as Aro motioned Felix forward. "We do not stand much on ceremony here," he said as he unfastened Felix's gray cloak, "but take this."

Welcome to the family, young Edward.

Aro stepped toward me and threw the garment around my shoulders, tying the cords below my throat. Bella was still moving fitfully in my arms, but she didn't seem to get in Aro's way. He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. "It suits you," he said with a smile.

I managed to stretch my lips in return. We were being watched, after all.

"Master," Demetri said in a low voice as I turned to leave. In my mind's eye, I could see Demetri cock his head toward us. "Do you want me to keep an eye on him?" he asked. Easier to keep him from running off now than to track him later. No sense making more work for myself... he thought.

"I don't think that will be necessary," I heard the answer as Alice and I made for the high double doors. It wasn't as if I was going to run away, Aro knew, not with Bella in such a state. The Saint Marcus's Day festival was hardly Mardi Gras. A man carrying a moaning, semiconscious teenaged girl would attract the attention of the police ...and a vampire using his abilities to avoid them would bring down the wrath of the Volturi.

I looked down at Bella as I turned to go. He'd seen the depth of my connection to her in my own mind and in Marcus's gift, and that the events of the past two days had put me far past risking her safety. She was my heart, Aro knew, and she anchored me to Volterra more surely than an iron chain.

Alice's hand on my elbow brought me back to myself. I could sense her apprehension as we passed through the high double doors. As soon as they closed behind us, we broke into a run.

"Not fast enough..." I heard her mutter.

The crowd reached us before we reached the vestibule, a gaggling throng of humans led by one vampire—Heidi. She turned to watch us, her eyes seeming eerie and detached through the scratched haze of her tinted lenses, but most of her concentration was on herding the sheep, who had only started to figure out that they weren't headed back to the meadow. Some of them stopped to look at us as we passed. One woman even stepped out of the crowd, taking three steps toward us as Heidi looked back in surprised annoyance. I couldn't understand her words, but I could read the meaning behind them: her own fear was breaking on the concern she felt for this young stranger.

Heidi called the woman back and I could hear the power in her voice and see it in her smile. Alice touched my arm. I did nothing.

This was the truth that Bella had never understood. Demetri and Caius and Laurent looked at Carlisle and me as if we were freaks and deviants because we were. Vampires were predators and murderers who loved the hunt or loved the kill and covens like our family existed because the rest of our kind permitted it. I watched Heidi's catch file obediently past me toward the end and I did not move one finger. It wasn't that I could do nothing; it was that it was my duty to do nothing.

More than killing prey, being a vampire meant killing your own compassion. I felt Bella's body go tense as the sounds of the Volturi's own Saint Marcus's Day celebration began behind us. I ran faster and I didn't even have to tell Alice to keep up.

We found our way back to the decorated reception area without incident and Alice practically dragged me toward one of the couches beside the wall where she immediately collapsed against me, embracing Bella tightly around the waist.

"Careful," I breathed in surprise.

"Oh Edward, I can't h-help it!" Alice's breath hitched. She remembered the blackness in her memory where her human life should have been. What if she doesn't know me?

"She'll know you," I promised. "You're unforgettable."

I squeezed Bella's hand, hoping she would squeeze back or look at me but the pain had made her vague. Her eyes were pointed at me, but the rest of her face was taut and unreadable. Alice squirmed into an upright position and took Bella's other hand. Bella seemed less focused now and her cries seemed quieter, though that might have been that we were in a room with rugs and upholstery instead of hard stone. I pressed my lips against her hair, closing my eyes against her human scent.

"How long do we have?" I whispered against Bella's skin.

"Just under an hour," Alice spoke as if the words gummed the back of her throat. "They like to linger."

I kissed the end of Bella's nose. I wanted her lips. I wanted to feel her softness against me one last time, but I'd long since lost the right.

Why is he wearing Felix's cloak? I looked up to see the young human receptionist watching us. Her thoughts were quizzical but her expression was blank as she gracefully stepped clear of her counter and came closer.

That was what she noticed? Not the girl moaning in pain or the agony on Alice's face or the gruesomeness walking past her in Heidi's wake. She noticed that I was wearing Felix's clothes.

I suddenly burned with hatred. A woman who could watch innocent people led to their deaths without batting an eye was permitted to keep her soul and her heartbeat while Bella shook with every breath. This shriveled harpy had a better chance at... I glared at Gianna, and I had to give her credit in that she did not shy away.

"Can I do anything for you?" she asked professionally.

I wanted to tell her to take a good look at Bella's sufferings and what they meant for her plans. I wanted to tell her that Aro had never, never turned a human servant and had no intention of turning her, that all the horrible things she'd done would buy her nothing.

I held Bella in my arms and kissed her hair, the top of her head, her nose, her fingers. Alice and I were trapped in Volterra. We were now the pride of Aro's morbid collection, sealing the present and the future to his will.

Now that the churning minds of the Volturi guard were otherwise occupied, Alice's vision came through clear. The Volturi would grow stronger. In our own coven, years would pass and Jasper would become more and more distant, eventually leaving on his own journey of self-destruction. Without a scout for the future, thoughts or moods of their human neighbors, Carlisle, Esme, Rose and Emmett's lives would turn dark and furtive.

Alice looked meaningfully at me. I looked back. I knew what I had to do. It was only...

I took a deep breath and worked my arms under Bella's leg, ready to lift her up. Alice's vision changed again. It was shorter this time, I noted, watching Demetri and four others drag the three of us back before we even reached Rome.

Aro knew me as well as I knew myself. He knew every choice I'd ever made and it was well within his intellect to predict what I would do next. He thought he already had. I had watched him come to the conclusion. He had made only two mistakes this afternoon, perhaps in his entire life, and, so far, I hadn't been able to put them to work for us.

"Edward, please..." Alice said softly.

To fool Aro, I would have to do something very, very out of character.

"Yes, Gianna," I said. "There is something you can do for me."

"Of course, sir," she said calmly.

I placed a kiss on Bella's forehead.

I was trapped in Volterra, Alice saw. I was the new addition to Aro's morbid collection, sealing the present to his will. And he was angry with me for helping my other half get away. But I had done some fast talking and he couldn't send Demetri after her or Carlisle, not without showing more of his own character than he wished to reveal.

"Look after the young lady," I told Gianna as got to my feet. "I have to go."

 

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