Chapter 3: Conversation

EEK! I realized while looking at my reveiws and writing this and reading over the last chapter that I originally called the weirdo man Daniel, then referred to him as David for the entire rest of the chapter -_- I guess we should just go with David, considering I wrote this whole chapter with him as David before realizing.. I'm really sorry, you guys! Please forgive me!

Aside from that, I hope you guys really like this chapter. It's definitely got more to it than the last, and it's pretty long. Lots of questions get answered too, but....well, okay, some new ones get brought up. xD I hope you love the little bit of humor thrown in there. And I hope you understand the conversation, it's kind of complicated, but I trust you guys are up to it.

Enjoy!

Jasper's POV.

"He has a power, too."

"What…what do you mean?" I asked, feeling faint.

Edward's face went hard. "He's some kind of shield. But…he can control it."

"Wait," Bella interjected. "A shield like me?"

"Yes, but…different. It's like he can just sleect what gets in and what doesn't. As soon as he'd asked about the wolves, he cut me short." Edward shook his head. "It's truly quite peculiar. Like he has a sense of who posses what powers around him, and can almost turn them off."

"What do you mean?" I asked, nearly shaking.

"I mean, when he shut me out, he shut me off. I couldn't hear anyone."

"What?" Emmmett exclaimed. "Is that even possible?"

"Apparently," Edward muttered. "But it's back again- it came back as soon as he was out of the room. He suddenly turned to Esme. "Carlisle isn't aware of this," he stated. "Maybe you could let him know?"

She nodded, disappearing for a moment. When she returned, she looked flustered. "He knows now," she said, "and asked me to tell you not to try and intrude upon the conversation. He thinks that maybe that it'd be better to play to David's….trust."

"Trust?" I nearly shrieked. "He's here to hurt Alice, and Carlisle wants us to trust him?!"

"Now, Jasper, nobody said he was here to hurt Alice," Edward corrected. I growled at him. Always the voice of reason. "And, you know Carlisle would never let pain come to Alice. I'm sure she'll be fine." Angry as I was, he was right.

I felt defeated; I wanted nothing more than to protect my love, but the objections against my action were too clear. Touching my shoulder gently and giving me a warming smile, Esme ascended the steps, followed by Bella, who was no doubt going to check upon Renesmee. Edward gave me a warning glance before he departed with them.

I slumped upon the steps, head in my hands, wanting to tear myself apart. I was supposed to wait here while that...that thing hurt my poor little pixie? Just wait, helpless, for her to come back, unshed tears in her eyes?

That's when I came up with my idea.

"Emmett, do you still have that spy gear Alice gave you as a gift two Christmas' ago?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think it's stuffed in my closet somewhere." He snorted. "What would I ever use that for, anyway?"

I smiled.

***

"What do you mean, they've gone to hunt?" Edward asked Esme.

"Don't ask me. Rosalie came and told me a few minutes ago." The large funnel we'd stuck to the wall made their words perfectly clear, something even our senses wouldn't have managed outside the house.

I sat outside our mansion, my ear pressed against the reciever of the sounds amp from Emmett's spy gear.

"I'm sure that you could go and catch up to them if you'd like."

"Crap," Emmett said, but I shushed him.

"No, it's fine. Thank you, Esme. I'd better go back upstairs to Bella and Renesmee." And with that, I heard his quick and light footfalls up to the second floor.

Emmett cackled quietly, rubbing his dusty palms together. "This is sweet, dude. A stakeout. I like it."

"Emmett, this is serious," I said, sparing a glance at him. "I need to know what they're talking about."

"Whatever," he said, eyeing a five-point buck out in the edge of the woods down the driveway. I noticed it too, but my attention was, for the moment, focused wholly on only Alice's safety. "I'll be right back," he muttured, and slinked off after his next meal.

I sighed as he left, glad to finally be alone. Shifting the cone, I refocused on the conversation at hand.

"I've come to speak with you about a quite…pressing matter," I heard an eerily quiet voice rasp. David. I hissed involuntarily. There was murmurring, and I heard Carlisle say something I couldn't quite catch. I sighed, frustrated, and adjusted the cone.

"I've been researching your case for quite some time," he said, and I was frightened. The only thing in Alice's past was the asylum. I heard paper's rustling, and Alice gasp. Keeping myself from lunging through, yes, through, the walls and into the dining room, I pressed the device firmer into the siding, waiting.

Alice's POV.

Sitting at the ornate dining room table felt odd. We almost never used this room, as it was meant simply for show. But now, my cold palms hidding under Esme's precious antique table, I looked over it at the figure I'd seen in my vision, only many times more cold in person.

Carlisle sat closer to me, on the opposite side of David, who sat on my right, down three or four chairs. I was glad that he'd kept his distance.

"My business here is rather simple," he began, adjusting his top hat upon his head. "Alice, I've come to speak with you about a quite…pressing matter. Is has to do with a few things in your past that aren't quite cleared up." He tried to be friendly, but his tone did not sway me. I gripped Carlisle's hand tighter beneath the polished oak wood.

"What kinds of things?" I asked innocently, not sure I wanted to know.

"Keep in mind," he said, ignoring my question altogether, "that I am not here to hurt you. In fact, my proposal is strictly of peace."

"Uh-huh," I said. Like an overpriced knock-off handbag, I wasn't buying any of it.

"Please, David, if you will be so kind as to elaborate upon that for us?" Prompted Carlisle, always the perfect and polite host to the creepiest of threats.

He reached into his suit coat and brandished a manilla envelope of papers, black and white and flecked, as if they'd be crewdly copied in a rush. I felt my amber eyes narrow. "Well, you see, I know a little…more than you probably do about your past in the asylum, Alice. But I have come across a few clues to some things I did not know."

"Excuse me?" I asked, taken aback.

"I've been researching your case for quite some time," he said with a smile, "and I must confess, you are quite lucky to have been changed to a vampire when you were. In fact, your euthanization was scheduled for the next month."

I felt myself shake. I was sentenced to die? And this made him…smile? Furious, I stood, snatching the wad of papers from him. He sat patiently, like I was an angry and defiant student who would soon realize how wrong they were.

Bad move, buddy, I thought. Very bad move.

Sifting through the papers at lightning fast speed, it all suddenly becamse very clear. These looked quite similar to the ones that I kept locked upstairs in my room, the ones I'd stolen from my old asylum. These papers recorded my past, every day recorded for future reference. I scanned the pages quickly. Mainly, they listed the drugs I was on, changes in my medication or behavior. Some told of the times I was electrocuted, and there was even a note that said, *Remember to have execution papers signed by state by 21st. I shuddered as my past came flooding back to me in this paper form, the images and memories taking shape in my head like I was reading a story book.

It was some while before I finally set the papers down, unable to say anything, to voice how I felt. Carlisle took them quickly, scanning over them with the eyes of a doctor. If he was surprised, he hid it well. I barely noticed as he set the files down and pushed them across the table toward David. A little, masochistic part of me screamed, told me to take them back, to know more. But at the moment, my brain did not work with the rest of myself.

David was bright enough to realize that any kind of smile would surely have sent me hurtling for his neck, as his stone face gave away. But he didn't put the papers away. He simply pulled another item from his jacket; a piece of metal, rusty and old. I was dimly aware of my surroundings as he pushed it across the table, but, upon seeing it, I snapped back to reality.

"This is something I found in the files as well. Can you tell me what you remember of it?"

I dared not touch the dusty, yellowed ID bracelet before me, its burgundy cross looking like blood, the clasp like a shackle. "I…" I began, but could not continue.

"I understand, child. No need to stress over this. It was obviously given to you when you were admited, something you can not be expected to remember."

I seethed at his newfound understanding. "How do you know about me?"

For the first time, he showed genuine surprise. "Well, I kept watch on many of the patients at your hospital for a time, and when you disappeared, I was very aware of it. You see, I worked there, in the medical and therapeuticc department, a vampire, but only secretly, of course," he said with a chuckle.

I screamed, fully and audibly, at this. "WHY. Why were you watching me?" I yelled.

"Alice, calm down," Carlisle said, restraining me from lunging for David. "I'm sure this will all become clear in good time."

"Alice, you must understand something about me," David said quietly, calm as ever. "As a human, I was a doctor, much like Carlisle. I helped a lot of people, and loved what I did. I was, however, not very good at taking….failures. I felt connected to each and every one of my patients, and when one out of a handful would die, part of me died, too.

After many years, I just couldn't stand it. I jumped in a lake I'd found deserted many miles out in the forest." David's expression was blank as he spoke, leaving me, and I was sure, Carlisle, suspicious. "I remember being pulled out, the searing pain…then a few days later, I awoke, a newborn vampire. Since then, I've tried to help people, feeling like I always had the option of…changing someone to fall back on. It took me many years to come to look at my profession the same, but with my new assurance, I forged ahead."

David grimaced, although the painful part of his story was over. "I had always been bad at shutting things out, little annoyances in my life. But when I became a vampire, this changed. I have a power as well; the power to shut out or 'turn off' others powers that affect those around them."

I stiffened, my eyes slipping to Carlisle, who didn't look the least bit worried.

"I worked at your asylum, like I said, to help take care of the patients. You were, as I also mentioned, scheduled to be euthan-"

"You turned me." It was more a statement than a question.

David shook his head fervently. "No, certainly not. I only changed those who couldn't be saved. But I did prevent you from being completely killed. You see, that vampire James found you, took you away. He was a tracker, so I followed him, managing to scare him away before…." suddenly, David went cold, like he'd remembered something important.

"Well, you can probably draw your own conclusions on that one," he said curtly. He shoved the folder into his jacket in an almost angry fashion. "You can keep the bracelet," he said, using his chin to point to it. "Maybe you'll understand better from it."

"What is this all about?" Carlisle asked.

"Alice, my point here is, you are not safe from your past. There are people out there that know about you and want your powers." David's eyes were narrowed, focused on my reaction. I simply stared at him.

"Go on," Carlisle said after a moment.

David sighed, and I resisted the urge to sock him in the gut. "You see, I was not the only one watching you in the asylum. There were others, rivals of James, actually, that wanted to turn you and then use you. Now that you're already turned, they've decided that if they can't have you, nobody can.

"What?" I asked. This was impossible. I'd known the Volturi wanted me, but now somebody else did? Man, was I a hot commodity of the worst kind.

"I'm willing to take you to my coven and offer you protection. I live with a group of vampires that all possess similar gifts. We fight to protect people who could be used as vampires for a….less than cordial purpose."

"I've never heard of such a group," Carlisle said softly.

"Ah, we're fairly new. There's about ten or so of us, but we'd love more. There are vampires out there who have decided that if they can't create a newborn army, they want the most skilled vampires they can find. Mainly, to take down the Volturi."

"But why? How doesn't the Volturi know about this?" I whispered, things moving too fast for me to put the puzzle pieces together. Someone was out to get me? To either take me away or kill me?

"They're very secretive."

"Why not alert them?"

"I'm sure you understand that the Volturi aren't the most democratic vampires around. They will kill anyone involved, regardless of what side they're on. This means that telling them would be digging our own graves. So we've decided to…leave them out of it. The fact that they would love to turn around and use anyone with powers even after having just exterminated other vampires who tried to do so is another reason. They'd essentially be killing their rivals. It's hypocrisy, really, so we choose not to bother them."

"So, what am I supposed to do about it?" I asked. The way he made it seem, we were being let in on a whole other war we'd known nothing about.

"We need your help, Alice. If you don't come with us, someone will make you come with them. Either the one's creating the army, or the Volturi themselves," David said simply. Then he stood.

"Leaving so soon?" Carlisle interjected smoothly.

"Yes," David said. "As I said, I have other places to be. Think about this offer, Alice. I'll be back for your decision when I get the chance."

I stared blankly as he walked out of the room, Carlisle walking him to the door. As I heard quiet goodbyes exchanged, it all hit me.

Someone was out there. They were creating an army. They would kill to have me. The Volturi would do the same. I was dead.

I slumped upon the table.