Disclaimer: The characters used for this fanfic from Twilight are the sole property of Stephanie Meyer, as are any characters of TrueBlood/The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Alan Ball and Charlaine Harris respectfully. This fanfiction is rated M for violence, language, and sexual innuendo. This fanfiction also contains slash fiction (homosexual relationships) and will include explicit scenes of gay sex. If this is not your thing, please do me the courtesy of not reading this and flaming me, or if you are clearly underaged (you know who you are!). I'm open to all reviews on my fanfics, including constructive criticism, but I will not tolerate any flaming. Any chapters I deem extremely explicit, I will mark in bold above the chapter to warn you in case you either do not enjoy reading sex scenes or scenes of an incredibly violent nature. Now, enjoy the story!

Zoe's Point of View

Fear had now managed to completely envelop what was previously anger and shame. Now, even as the sun attempted to break through the heavy clouds in futility, I attempt to break through the wall of emotion that has kept me keeping watch at the top of the palace, hoping, praying for Jasican and Jacob's safe return. My line of thought has gone unbroken now for about six hours, when the last of the explosions had quelled from the south.

Of course, the news reports have been nearly nonstop since then, the sudden eruption of Mt. St. Helens earlier last night, approximately five hours after I had unwittingly released Raymond from his prison. The surrounding cities had promptly began evacuating as the eruption began, and thankfully, the worst that came from it was property damage and extremely poor air quality for the humans. I feared for what they would find should they decide to search the crater, whether it would be the remains of any vampires, or a single shifter, and knowing if either Jasican or Jacob perished, it would certainly be my responsibility.

I shouldn't have followed...him. I had seen him die right in front of me, Jasican, Lydia, and the rest weeks and weeks ago. I don't know what I was thinking, or rather, what I was hoping for. My love for my fallen friend had been my undoing, and I had simply desired to see him one more time, perhaps to speak to him, assure me that we were all going to be okay. The more I thought about it, and the more everyone had tried to consul me, the more I felt more like a fool for going after what I knew shouldn't have been real. My judgement clouded, and before I had even known where I was, it was too late, and the price of my blindness became apparent in that instance.

It happened so fast, within a moment, Raymond stood in front of me, his eyes mocking me for believing that the image of Godric was real, before simply telling me he was glad to see me. His entire person changed, and I was staring at a mirror image of me, before changing into a spot on image of Jasican, and reverting to his original image a second later. While I was still frozen in shock, Raymond slammed into me, sending me flying to the opposite wall. As I moved to stand up, I heard a new noise, and looked up to see Jacob shouting for me before spotting Raymond. Before I had a chance to say, or do anything, Raymond had coiled his body and used it to drill his way through the roof to the ground floor above, and Jacob shifted to quickly pursue him, leaving me unable to warn him about what I had just seen him do.

When I got to the ground floor, few had seen the disturbance, but none had seen where Raymond and Jacob went. While I was relatively unharmed, the weight of what had just happened bore down upon me, even more so after I called Jasican, knowing full well he would abandon his mission to find Jacob before he succumbed to Raymond's trickery. And that's where my knowledge had ended; since then, I had been waiting at the palace, hoping for meaningful news of any kind to reach me, and here it is, morning, and there has been no word from either Jacob or Jasican.

Lydia had teleported back here shortly after I called Jasican, confirming my fears. It was hours before Micah and the others returned from Madam Beaufort's retreat, as they had to return on foot. When we became aware of Mt. St. Helens erupting, our original plan was to search the area, but was quickly deemed too risky, as the humans had cameras and crew down on the scene, further escalating our collective worries. So far, none of the reports have been out of the ordinary, save for the unexpected eruption, but we all knew that Raymond's escape was directly correlated with the event, and all we could do was wait.

I was assured that if it wasn't me who followed the image of Godric, it would have been anyone else tricked. No one had known Raymond had a special ability, no less one that helped him in his deception, and it was no wonder the Volturi had made him into a valuable member of their coven. Raymond could have literally been amongst us the entire time, listening for the right moment to hatch his plan, whichever one best suited him. I feared his original intent was to kill me, posing as Jasican, but why he would show himself copying me, I haven't exactly been able to figure out. None of the ideas I had translated into anything but twisted deeds centering around breaking us apart, and ending all we had suffered for.

Suddenly, the loop of the constant shifting of scenery was broken by a new sight, miles away in the distance. I saw a person, but was still too far to make out it's features, only that I the majority of it covered in red. Before I noticed who it was, he was walking at nearly a human's pace, perhaps just a bit faster, and I was eventually able to make out Jasican after a moment. I jumped from the top floor of the palace and landed quickly, hoping that he was the real one and not Raymond in his form as I ran to him. As I drew closer, I quickly grew cold as I realized his was almost completely covered in blood, his eyes looking horribly dead.

Before I had a chance to test him, his voice rang through my head, in little more than a murmur, saying, Sorry I worried you.

I nearly stopped dead at these words, completely opposite of what I would have expected him to say. "'Worried me?'" I restrained myself from calling out. "What about you?! You're covered in blood for God's sake! What happened? Please tell me!"

Jasican just simply stopped in front of me, not even making the effort to raise his head. A frozen bolt felt like it had pierced my heart as what I feared seemed to come true. He looked up as he noticed my face, and I asked, "Is he...?"

He waited a moment before finally looking at me and said, "I don't know."

The chill receded, but was instantly replaced by confusion. "What do you mean 'you don't know'?"

He swallowed, and started speaking in slow, sorrowful monotone, "He...I...Even if he was...there would have been something, but I can't find him. It's like he's simply vanished, and I haven't been able to find any trace of him."

In that instance, I was quickly joined by Lydia and Micah, whom were probably keeping an eye on me as I was on the rooftop, and noticed my sudden departure. I glanced backwards to notice them, but Jasican made no such attempt to acknowledge them.

Lydia was the first to speak after absorbing Jasican's appearance, "Oh my God," as Micah shouted at the same time, "Dude, what the fuck happened to you?!"

Jasican didn't even respond, or even give off an noticeable reaction outside of returning his head to cast his gaze downward again. I turned to Lydia and Micah and said, "Let's get him back to the palace. Lydia, can you teleport Jasican directly to the office?"

"I can, but consider this a favor," Lydia replied sourly. "I don't exactly like teleporting more than my own being, as the concentration needed isn't exactly easy to obtain, and I don't fancy being in a wall today." She went to Jasican's side and grabbed his arm, and after closing her eyes for a moment, had disappeared along with Jasican in a converging circular wisp. Micah simply gave me a severe look as we turned around and returned to the palace. I attempted to ignore, not only the new pang of dread in my stomach, but also the stares I received from the few vampires leaving as I entered the foyer and made my way to Godric's office, where Lydia had managed to sit Jasican down, and I closed the door behind me.

Jasican's gaze hadn't changed the slightest. His demeanor suggested he was in deep shock, and I had to assume the worst, which, of course, only amplified my dread and guilt. I sat down next to him, hoping I could maybe get something out of him. "Jasican?" I said to him.

He blinked slowly once, and after bowing his head for a few moments, raised it back up to look at me. I dared to make an attempt, "What happened?"

Jasican sighed, and began to reply, "Raymond got to Jacob before I could. When I finally found him, Raymond had morally wounded Jacob."

Fuck. I knew my mistake wouldn't go without consequence. I tried to hold myself together as I continued, "You said you didn't know where Jacob was, though."

Jasican groaned and placed his bloody face into his hands. At first, I though I sent him back to whatever mental dungeon was keeping him, but he relented and said, "Well, I guess I should start from the beginning. He was still alive when I got to him, but I could feel the pain of Raymond striking him down miles away, and he was already very faint. When I did find him, he had a terrible wound in his abdomen, and Raymond was just behind me, of course admitting everything."

I could see the inevitable flash of malice cross Jasican's eyes as he continued. "He tried to stall me, telling me how futile it was to carry out Godric's mission, and..." He trailed off, but when he didn't finish, I asked, "What, Jasican? What happened?"

"I don't know if was saying this...honestly, I don't even know why I would even consider this to hold any truth at all...He was clearly just stalling me...but..."

Another moment passed before he said, "He told me Godric turned me on purpose to use me as a weapon, as some form of experiment. He used his projection skill to 'keep tabs' on Godric when he was out of the palace and watched him send humans after me to fatally wound me and give me a modified version of his venom."

I took this in with disbelief. My mind automatically clicked to accept that this information was simply a falsehood planted in Jasican's then-vulnerable mind. Unfortunately, parts of my rationale were telling me, citing Jasican's significant growth in power that it could be a viable theory. However, accepting that would mean accepting that Godric was using less-than-noble means to advance his revelation, and thats only putting it mildly.

Clearly, Jasican was, too, trying to shake that thought as he quickly moved on. "He then started gloating again, basically, about how much of a fool I was to cross him, switching his image from Godric, and then turning into me. He was hoping to use your image, Zoe, to frame you for killing Jacob, and vice versa, leaving us broken...me broken when I came back. It would have been a matter of time before Raymond would simply slide back in and we would have been none the wiser. He told me next that he used my image to kill Jacob."

His hands went up again to bury his face in. The guilt within me was reaching phenomenal heights, and I had to say something. "Jasican, I'm so sorry, I-."

"Don't, Zoe, I know what you're going to say, and if it wasn't you, it would have been anyone else," Jasican quickly retorted, lifting his head up to look at me. "It could have been much worse if it had gone any other way...not that this is any better."

"So what happened to Raymond?" Lydia finally chimed in, before I could say anything else.

"I blasted the mother fucker," he nearly whispered, but with an intensity that gave me a chill. "My anger towards him gave me enough power to essentially vaporize him, which, in consequence, broke Mt. St. Helens. Needless to say, he'll never harm anyone again."

"And what about Jacob?" I dared to ask. "Did he actually die?"

I received another desperately blank look on his face before he answered in a low voice, "I honestly don't know. After I killed Raymond, I rushed back to Jacob. His body hadn't changed in the slightest, and his heartbeat was nearly zero. I...I did the only thing I could think of to try and save him."

I drew closer to him and asked, "What did you do?"

"I tried to turn him."

There was a lot less of a reaction to his statement that I would have imagined. I simply closed my eyes and bowed my head, while I only heard breath escaping from Lydia and Micah. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure how to react to that, since our general understanding is that our venom is poisonous to shifters. "Did you think it would work?"

"I had hoped," Jasican replied sadly. "We had already defied everything about how shifters and vampires come together, and if what Raymond said is true, and the venom that resides in me is modified, then there may be a chance...Of course, I have to accept that if it didn't work, either way he was going to die.

"Then...that's when the Quileute pack showed up."

We all straightened up for this, and I nearly dropped my mouth. I don't think any of us were expecting this. "I can only assume Raymond lured them down again, using...whatever...to bring them to us. I figured Raymond knew he was going to kill more that was, even if he, himself, had died by my hand. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be the only one."

The chill from before now became significantly more pronounced, as I now put the blood covering his clothes and body to its source. I oddly found that I wasn't able to say anything, and judging from the shocked reactions of Lydia and Micah, I can postulate that they were just as speechless. "If it were any other situation, any at all," Jasican continued, "I probably would have ran, or avoided conflict however best I could. In that instance, though, sitting over Jacob's lifeless body, with thirty or so shifters ready to kill me...all bets were off. Within moments, with the mountain breaking around us, as I...broke, I left no survivors."

Silence had now become prevalent as we absorbed the story. In a single night, we seem to have gone from having a stable leader to the out-of-control explosive he claimed he would become. I tried to fathom how a single vampire would have enough power to kill an entire pack of shifters, and frankly, I grew terribly frightened. Nobody knew what to say at this point, and we found ourselves sitting completely still for what seemed like forever.

Jasican finally broke the never-ending quiet and said, "When I came back to Jacob, his body was gone. I spend the entire night searching for him and anyone...or anything else that could have moved him. I found nothing...and here we are now."

I finally had the urge to stand up, presumably to help eliminate the very human-like sick feeling that was growing in my stomach. I paced around the couch, facing opposite of everyone, in an attempt to digest everything I had just learned. I had no idea what would come out of this, of whether or not, Jacob was actually still out there, of if he was dead. Jasican, being as grief-stricken as he is now, wouldn't be properly functioning for a while, and I wasn't sure how we were going to move forward from this.

Turning back to face Jasican, I asked him, "What are you going to do now?"

Jasican sighed and said, "I haven't searched north of here yet, and my best hope is maybe to find Sarah in her village and see if she knows anything."

"What would she know?" Lydia asked him.

"When she first arrived here, she used a form of mental connection to reform some sort of bond between her and Jacob," he replied. "If anyone can help me find him, it's her."

"Please tell me you're not stupid enough to go looking like that," Micah pointed at Jasican's bloody attire.

"Hmm, of course not," Jasican said. "But I have a distinct feeling none of it will matter, and they'll be able to tell that something's up. May as well try anyway." He then stood up slowly and began walking to the door, "There's no use for me sitting here while Jacob is out there, and someone may have him. Either way, the more time I waste, the less chance I have of bringing Jacob back, assuming his is actually still alive."

I nodded and opened the door for him, checking the foyer to make sure there wasn't anyone out there to see Jasican in his disheveled state. I walked him up to his room and we stopped at his door, and I tried to find something to say to him. All I could settle on was, "Would you like me to tell the others?"

His hand stopped a the doorknob, and he responded with, "Just the other guys, and Bill, if you want to call him. I'm not sure if the Cullens should know yet."

"And Seth?" I asked with concern.

A shadow crossed his face as he said, "I'll have to tell him personally...but not now."

I swallowed as he opened the door to go in, "I'm leaving as soon as I get cleaned up. Hold the fort down for me, okay?" I could only nod my head as he closed the door, and the sick feeling in my stomach only got worse.