Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight


-Chapter 2-

My eyes fluttered open hours later and tried desperately to regain my bearings. The gentle purr of the engine that had lulled me to sleep was absent now, replaced by the clipped tones of an irritated Alice. I glanced out the absurdly tinted windows and realized we had arrived at an airport, and Alice was arguing with someone on the phone about plane tickets.

"Sometimes I wish he didn't care so much." she murmured as she snapped the phone shut

"What's wrong?" I asked, my words slurring as I tried to wake myself up. "Do we have the wrong tickets?"

"No, but Jasper's afraid we do. He thinks Edward will be closer to the other airport, he's having a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that anyone would expose themselves in front of so many people. He thinks Edward is more likely to choose a smaller town instead of the center of the city so his attacks would be less likely to be picked up by national news." Alice rolled her eyes, we both knew that if Edward was going to do this, he would want as many people possible to be watching.

"Well, I guess we better get going." I sighed; these next few days were going to be torture. I kept fighting with the idea that we were already too late and this was all just a pointless chase meant to keep our hopes up so they could fall even harder when we got to the end.

I glanced over at Alice wondering why she hadn't responded, or moved at all for that matter, and found her staring blankly through the windshield. A horrified expression came over her face and I wanted desperately for the glazed look to leave her eyes so she could give me some kind of explanation.

I tried to stay calm as I leaned over the seat to gently shake her shoulder, but her posture remained rigidly frozen. Forcing the slight waver out of my voice I asked, "Alice? What happened?"

Alice's head suddenly snapped forward "He's just going to walk outside..." she whispered, her tone horrified and slightly awed. "He's just going to walk into the sun..."

My mind flew back to the hours we had spent in the meadow, the golden sunlight reflecting off of Edwards skin as if he had covered himself in diamond dust. The odd feeling in the pit of my stomach the first time I saw him like that, the one that confirmed for me forever that he was not human. I knew what she meant now, that was Edward's plan. He was going to walk out into the sun, probably in a big courtyard or square, and all the people there would see his unnatural beauty, his sparkling skin. It would cause a huge uproar, the Volturi would be there within moments.

We could no longer expect to have time when we arrived in Volterra. Once Edward arrived in the city our time was up, if he wavered in his decision we might gain a few minutes, an hour at most if he made an effort to search out the biggest and most crowded square. But we could not count on this time. Unless a miracle occurred Edward would be gone before we could ever find him again.


A/N: It's a little short but I felt like this needed to be its own chapter. Please leave a review, as I'm in the process of revising your input is incredibly important!