DSAJDHSANDJ. I'm so sorry I have taken forever to update this. I've been so fucking busy lately, and I know I say that every time but yeah, well, I just do, okay! :3 But I have a plan, I have a 2 week break and I'm going to try and update this story, and hopefully my other one, as much as possible. Uh, also, just a warning, I'm pretty sure I've changed the present I am writing in this chapter. I haven't written properly in a while and I started trying to write in past-tense like my other chapters are written in and for some reason it didn't feel right. I think it's because I've just finished this series of books written in present-tense and I kinda adapted to that style of writing. I just liked the way it flowed. Don't hate me! I promise I'll write the rest of the story in this tense so as to not confuse you guys anymore.

And, without further adu, Chapter 3.


Nessie (Charlotte)

Through the darkness I hear a noise. No, a voice. Soothing me, a cool hand stroking my forehead. The sensation is familiar, and I feel a pulsing urge to murmur out the word "Momma?" but the sensation leaves me almost as quickly as it came. My Mom is dead, my new family told me so. It couldn't be her. I don't even know what she looks like anymore, let alone what she sounds like.

I blink open my eyes, letting them adjust to the dim light of the room. My room, my memory tells me. I can't remember how I came to be in my bed, did I fall asleep?

"Did I fall asleep?" I repeat out loud to the woman stroking my head. She's one of the Volturi wives, Caius's, I think. She may be slightly gentler looking than the others, but her eyes are still a cold, sharp red. Unchanging, like the rest of her. I assumed, from her appearance, that she was probably turned around her late 20s. She is relatively young looking, but she has just a little too much maturity about her smile, or her eyes, to have been in her late-teens or early 20s. Her long, fair hair falls in wavy tresses down her shoulders as she reaches her arm out to the table beside the bed.

"Not exactly, you had a blackout, dear." She explains to me, calm, a little too detached to allow me to feel comforted, but I have to get used to it eventually. We are vampires, we are made of stone, we are not supposed to get attached, to show fear, to show compassion, especially to humans. It doesn't make sense, in a way. If we want to be a strong clan, shouldn't we create close bonds with each other? But I don't dare question it out loud. "Here. You need to regain your strength."

"A blackout?" I furrow my eyebrows as she holds the glass in front of me.

"We'll explain everything to you soon, but drink up first. We don't want you fainting on us again." She says simply, a small smile appearing across her thin lips.

I take the blood from her and bring it to my mouth, savouring every last drop. I didn't realise how thirsty I was until the blood hit my tongue, and then a fire blazed up inside my throat, as if gasoline was lingering there waiting to be set alight by a match. I gulp down the blood like it's the last blood on earth, wishing I could get at the red, liquid heaven on the bottom and sides of the glass. But I stop myself and set it down beside me.

The woman has left my side and she opens the door a crack, giving someone on the other side a small nod before opening the door and revealing someone who brings a smile to my face. I feel a little shot of happiness surge through me and I can't tell if it's the blood I just drank or Nahuel's face, but either way, I feel happy for a little moment. I feel…the same. The same as what is what I can't figure out.

"Hey." I smile a small grin.

"Hey." He murmurs back, and I swear I hear a little sigh in his response, but Nahuel always seems a little off.

"What time is it?" I suddenly ask.

"3pm." He replies.

I shake my head. "I swear just an hour ago I was-"

"You blacked out." He tells me curtly.

It annoys me that this seems to be all everyone is telling me. I get it, I blacked out. But why?

Nahuel seems to sense my annoyance, adding "Your memory problems seem to be causing you to black out sometimes."

I nod, gulping back the lump in my throat. I hate all this confusion. I hate it. I just want to know who I am, where the fuck I came from, what the fuck happened.

I have to lay down to keep myself from punching something, my fingernails digging into the sheets beside me.

"Uh…actually, Charlotte, your memory problems are what I'm here to talk to you about…" He seems to struggle getting the words out. I watch him, noticing how he's tapping his fingers against his jeans. I've only known Nahuel as long as I've been with The Volturi, but something tells me it's a nervous habit of his.

He perches himself on the end of my bed, clearing his throat.

"Do you know…well…why you have them?" He asks me.

I shake my head. "Not really." They've only told me that my parents died in a fire. They were attacked and then the house was set alight while their strength was down. I somehow escaped, but not before someone attacked me. Apparently when I was found my wounds were healed but I had blood all over my face. The Volturi took me in. I couldn't remember much of anything when I woke up.

"Well, uh, you know your parents died in a….fire." He says, as if to go over the story again, to remind me.

I nod.

"Well, the person who killed them was after you." He adds. I sit up this time, my eyes widening.

"What?" I choke out, hoarse, barely there.

"He was…obsessed with you. Wanted you all to himself. You fought back. He nearly had you but The Volturi stopped him and locked him away." The way Nahuel explains this to me is as if he is simply typing out dot-pointed facts, he's not looking me in the eyes. But his words still sink in like needles piercing through my flesh. My parents died because of me?

"His nickname for you was Nessie." He seems to blurt that fact out. As if he is risking saying this. I see a flicker of hope in his eyes as he glances down at me. It confuses me, as the story he is telling is supposed to be upsetting. I feel a slight piercing in my skull and I collapse back into the bed again, gasping for air. My body feels heavy and my head feels light.

"You know the prisoner? The one who does everything you say?" He asks me, but my mouth can't comprehend words at the moment for some reason so I simply nod. The prisoner. The one who fills me with something, a mixture of pain and relief. When I see him something opens up inside my chest, a hole waiting to be filled, and it never is, and then it hurts but I don't seem to care. The one I feel connected to. The one I don't like to hurt.

"It was him." As Nahuel spills the words out, I wonder, I hope, I have drifted back off to sleep, that I am only dreaming them. But I suddenly feel more awake then ever. Pain ricochets through me. I can't escape this nightmare. I want to cry, to scream out, but my throat feels dry. It couldn't be him. I don't want to believe it. But there is no other explanation for why I feel such a familiarity with him. As to why he is locked up. Suddenly the comfort I feel with him has turned to a disturbed storm inside my skull, the care I feel for him tears at my insides until it turns to utter hatred.

The pain is almost too much to bear. I feel as though I could die from it. I need to stop it. I should not care about this anymore, should not care about him, about anyone. I should turn to stone. And then suddenly, I do. I seem to have built a wall inside myself. I can hear the faint sounds of pain kicking at the wall, throwing their sticks at it, but I am strong. I am a vampire, I am made of stone, no one can break me.

I sit up, Nahuel is still there. The swirling in my brain has stopped, I feel cold even though my temperature is raised higher than a vampires or even a humans.

"Thank you for telling me." I say. And then I stand up, racing out of the room and down the hall to Alec's room.

There is another woman in there. She's human, the receptionist. I'm too pissed off and thirsty to care about the fact we'll have to find a new one, and I find myself delving into her veins before she has time to even turn around and look at me.

I hear the shower shut off as I let her body drop, wiping my mouth of her blood. It seems to have made the wall stronger, but also the pounding of my human self, the part of me that cares, louder. I fight back the tears. Statue's don't cry.

"Charlotte, you killed my fuck. Are you jealous?" Alec smirks at me, not even seeming to care about the dead body on the floor. I remind myself I shouldn't either, but I can't help remembering her muffled screams as I killed her. Wondering if she had family who loved and cared about her. Of course she did, there had to have been someone.

"Just shut up. Don't talk, please." I say as he walks over to me, about to add something else. I shut him up with a kiss. He doesn't seem to argue. Good. I need a distraction.

He slams me against the wall, causing the room to shudder against the weight of our bodies.

He tears off my clothes in no time at all, and I kick his towel off his body. I just need to feel good. This is as close as I can get to pleasure, to happiness, in this world. I was stupid to think I had found anything with the prisoner. We hadn't even spoken to each other in private, I had no idea who he was, and now I know I wish I'd never even met him at all. I never want to see him again, I hope he rots in that prison cell or gets devoured by hungry vampires. But even that won't amount to what he has taken from me. I hate him.

The more I hate, the more I kiss and bite and grasp at Alec. But the more I do so, the more I think of the prisoner, and I think of doing the same to him. Of kissing him angrily, hungrily, of biting down against his skin, not to kill him, but to simply hurt him a little in a midst of passion.

I feel hot tears streaming down my face at the pain crashing like waves against the wall I am trying so desperately to keep up. Luckily, by now, I am no longer facing Alec. I do not want him to see me like this. To see me weak. I don't want anyone to know how weak and broken I feel, especially that goddamn prisoner. I am stone, I am a statue. That is how I will stay. Forever.


Nahuel

One. Two. Three. HIT.

One. Two. Three. HIT HIT HIT.

I throw my punches at the leather bag, breaking holes in it. I don't even know what the point of this is, I could break it with one hit if I wanted to. But I'm saving that one for the last punch. For his face to appear in my brain. And when it does, I'll smash it to pieces. It makes me feel better temporarily for not being able to defeat him. To stop all of this from happening.

WHACK. That was to The Volturi.

SMACK. That was to Alec for using Nessie like a toy.

WHACK. That was for them calling her Charlotte, making me make her forget who she was.

SMACK. SMACK. WHACK. That was to myself. For succumbing to the control and making her forget.

WHACK. WHACK. WHACK. WHACK. More to myself. You monster. You prick. You coward.

I breath in and exhale deeply, feel the anger boil inside me, bubbling with hatred from every corner of my body, right at the core of my soul.

That's right, I have a soul! I scream at him in my head, hitting the bag with my bare hand and splitting it in half, sending it flying across the room.

I let out an exasperated sigh and crouch down, my hair in my hands as tears sting my eyes. "I have a fucking soul." I whisper, to myself, indirectly to him.

You don't! You're nothing without me! Nothing, you hear me! The memories tear through my head.

"You have a soul? Fine. Prove it to me. Disobey me. I bet you can't. I know you can't" His dark voice snarls at me, it's wickedness licking the air with a manic twist.

It's true, I couldn't. I can't disobey him. It's physically impossible, no matter how much I hate what he asks me to do. I'm tied, cursed, to him in the same way Jacob is to Nessie. Only Nessie is good, she loves Jacob, she broke through the barrier my power had set and remembered him, stopping herself from doing anymore evil. That was until he showed up and forced me to wipe her again. Forced me to feed her lies about Jacob, who she now despises. The one controlling me would have no sudden breakthrough and stop what he's doing like Nessie had previously, because he's aware of what he's doing, he is himself, through and through. He has no good in him, if there was any to begin with.

And so Nessie is back to being Charlotte and that cold, detached edge has returned to her dark brown eyes as she falls deeper and deeper into this life everyday. Although, at night, when she thinks no one is listening, I hear her cry. She cries into her pillows until there are no more tears and then she sleeps, waking up occasionally muffling a scream into the dark.

Sometimes, when she cries, I cry silently too. I listen to her begging sobs and her yearning and aching as she searches for something she can't find, thinks of something she can't remember. And it's all my fault. The tears are Nessie, trapped in her own brain, screaming into the darkness that she needs to remember.

Despite being a monster and being shun to darkness forever, I pray to God that Nessie will one day be strong enough to remember and that she will get out of this. I know she's capable, she just has to remember that.

"Wow….wouldn't want to be in your bad books." I hear a melodic, familiar giggle. Except it now has a seductive, confident, dark twinge about it. Not that it's a bad thing, it just isn't Nessie.

I hear her footsteps make their way over to me and I push my tears back into my eyes.

She picks up the busted leather punching bag and laughs at me as she pops her head in between the split I've made.

"What's up?" She asks, chucking the bag to the side and plopping down in front of me.

I smile softly at her as she blinks innocently at me. It reminds me of the days Nessie and I would just chat about random things, laughing, so carefree…

She's wearing a short, tight, black dress and some high heel boots which a pair of fishnet stockings disappear into. Around her neck is a necklace which has a V embedded on it. The Volturi cress. That's how she identifies herself now. One of them. To her, they are her family. If only she knew.

"Not much." I smile softly, looking to the side as my tears vanish.

She leans back, letting her long, reddish-brown hair fall over her shoulders as she looks at me in silence. It is as if she is analysing me, but not in a 'checking out' way, just curiously, in wonder.

"That's a lie." She murmurs, pursing her full lips at me.

"What?" I ask, looking up at her.

"There's a lot 'up' with you at the moment." She analyses.

"Mmm." I shrug, no longer looking her in the eyes.

"Don't worry. I won't ask you about it." She smiles, looking up at the roof as she shakes her feet about. "Just remember, it's okay not to be okay…." She says softly, almost to herself. It's times like these I'm not sure if she is remembering or not. If Nessie is talking.

She sighs, scratching her fishnet leg with the heel of her boot. "I'm so bored."

"Wanna do something fun?" I suggest, not really knowing what.

She glances up at me, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Yes!" She jumps up, twirling her arms at her side. "Come on, where to?"

I stand up slowly, facing her. "Um….I don't really know…I…" I stutter. I haven't really planned this, and there's not much to do in the castle.

She inches towards me, touching my shirt flirtatiously with her tiny hands. "Oh?" She raises an eyebrow. "That kind of fun?" She murmurs, raised up on her tiptoes, her mouth inches from mine, breathing onto each others faces.

I sigh, closing my eyes.

It's not that she isn't beautiful, or that I wouldn't want to…be with her if the circumstances were different. But it's the fact that they aren't different. I would only feel guilty, I can't use her when she's not even sure who she is anymore. She thinks she knows what she wants, but she doesn't. She uses sex as a distraction from the empty, hollow feeling I'd left in her brain and heart from my wiping. She wouldn't benefit from this, she'd only confuse herself more.

I feel her hands graze down my chest and near my waist.

"Charlotte, No-" I begin, only to have her place a finger swiftly to my lips.

"Shhh. Just go with it." She whispers.

"I don't want to go with anything." I try to pull her off me.

She grabs me roughly and slams me against the wall, twisting my wrists towards her. "Why don't you want me?" She hisses, forcing my hands down her curves. "Don't you want me, Nah?" She asks, her voice innocent again as she grazes herself against my jeans.

"Charlotte….I can't….please." I argue, trying to struggle out of her tight grip as she pins me against the wall with her bare hands.

She glares up at me, fuming.

"Fine." She hisses, pushing herself off me and running her hands through her hair. "Suit yourself."

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then simply laughs in annoyance and begins to walk away.

"Wait! Charlotte!" I felt the N about to slip from my tongue but then realise my mistake.

She stops in her tracks, sighing. "What?" She calls back, not turning around.

"We can have fun without…having sex." I murmur.

She knows this. She's just in the mood for a distraction. I can read her better than she thinks. It's been a week since I told her the lies about Jacob because I was forced to. She's been a blank wall waiting to break ever since. I saw her put a sheet up over her feelings the afternoon I told her. I saw her chocolate brown eyes haze over. I know she went to Alec's room after that. He's a distraction to her. He doesn't ask questions, try to be her friend, get her to open up, he just fucks her and leaves. That's all the thinks she needs. But she also knows it's not enough. I know all this because I'm the one listening to her calling out at night, and sometimes I swear I catch her in moments no one else has in this place.

She spins around, it appears that tears were burning in her eyes. "How? What is there that we can do? There's nothing to do? We're just trapped here! This place is…life is so boring! Why do we have to live forever? Why can't…when can we-" I see her stop, biting back the word die.

It pains my fast-beating heart that she is having such thoughts so early in her eternal life. I have them all the time now, but I am 160 years old. She is barely 16.

A thought suddenly comes to me. "Have you ever seen Italy at night? " I ask curiously.

She shakes her head. "I'm not allowed out of the castle unsupervised." She shrugs, and I see the annoyance at that fact flash over her face.

I am unsure if I would be allowed to take her out of the castle, if I would count as adequate supervision or if it would be feared that I may run off with her. The idea fills me with such joy I nearly jump up and down, thinking I could do it, but then something else holds me back down to earth again. The command. I remember it.

You are never to leave the borders of this city.

But that doesn't mean I can't explore the city.

"Well, now you have your supervision." I flash a playful smile at her and hold out my hand.

She stares at me for a moment, as if processing something inside, as though she is a machine filing something away. Then, suddenly, her face seems to light up and she grabs my hand eagerly, interlinking her small fingers with mine.

There is nothing sexual about the way she touches me then. It's simple, friendly, innocent. It sends flutters through my body. It was Nessie.

Although there is no rule against leaving the castle at night, or at any time, really, we still seem to sneak our way down to reception, passing the new receptionist quietly. She smiles curiously at us. The last one seemed to have gone missing last week, most probably killed.

Then, as we hit the end of the large hallway, I practically dance to the door and drag Nessie…well, Charlotte, along with me. I hear her carefree giggle behind me, it sends delight through my body.

Then we are out in the open air. Although there are windows in the castle, both of us seem to be taking big gulps of the night air, as though it is different. And in a way, it is. It is free air, away from the confinements of the castle, from all the pain, and the death and the prison cells downstairs. It is freedom.

Nessie-I've decided to think of her as that tonight-lets go of my hand and runs down the stairs, spinning around the fountain in front of the clocktower, lifting her face and smiling as the water sprays at her a little. She sighs a breath of what seems like relief, as though weights are lifting off her shoulders.

At one point she looks back and smiles at me with such a beautiful expression that I think I might fall over. I've always secretly felt something for Nessie, although I knew she was destined to be with Jacob. He deserves her too. I've done nothing to deserve her. Wiping her of her memories and helping these bastards make her believe she should be someone else didn't exactly earn me the right to have her heart. But she has mine. I can't stop that. Even now, as she acts differently, I still see my friend, Nessie. It's still her in there, and I still love her.

I make my way down to her and she suddenly splashes me playfully with some water from the fountain, giggling. She squeals as I try to do the same to her, racing down the street a little more, towards the lights and music that drift from the main square.

I hurry down next to her and she jumps up on my back, ordering me to piggy back her down the street, her laugh echoing in my ear, her breath hot on my neck. It sends tingles through me. I used to carry her like this sometimes, but somehow this feels a little different.

I feel her slide off my back as we enter into a huge, light-filled, lively section of Volterra.

Her arms stay wrapped around my arm as we walk into the place. I can tell we're both in awe. I may have been alive a long time, I may have seen the Seven Wonders of the World more than seven times, stood atop the largest buildings in the world and looked down at the glittering city below, but something about the atmosphere in this small, Tuscan town fills me with something I don't think I've ever experienced before. Perhaps it's because the music and the buzzing of voices from restaurants and from the square, is harmonised by Nessie's laughing of wonder and joy.

"Beautiful." She suddenly says. I glance down at her face and my heart flutters faster than it already does as she soaks in the light and the music and the people. Things she has never actually experienced before. Yes, she has heard music, she has seen people, crowds and lights, but Renesmee spent a majority of her 15 years in Forks. You don't get to see that much in Forks and it's bordering towns. This would be a new experience both to Nessie and Charlotte. The thought makes me smile wider.

We spend a little while just walking around the square, her arm linked through mine. We look like a couple enjoying Italy together, going on a romantic walk after dinner. I try to push the thought away, but I can't help from letting a smile creep across my lips.

"Why won't they let me come out and see this?" She wonders aloud.

Her question lowers the mood suddenly, but I was stupid to think I could stay happy forever. I don't deserve that.

"They think you'll run away." I reply.

She doesn't answer straight away. She doesn't have to, I know what she's thinking. She's thinking that they are probably right to think that. I know Nessie, at least, would want to run away, if not Charlotte.

Her eyes remain straight ahead. "Oh." She simply says.

A busker in the street stops us suddenly, grinning, a tooth missing, moustache and all. His accent is strong as he grins "You and your lady, you dance." He nods, encouraging us as he begins to play a song. I recognise it instantly as That's Amore, laughing. How typical. Nessie seems to furrow her eyebrows a little as if she recognises it. I know she would, everyone has heard this song at least once. Charlotte wouldn't know it, but Nessie would.

"May I have this dance?" I ask, bowing down a little as I hold my hand out to her. It's funny to remember how this was once a way of asking 'Can I have your number', and I was there. I courted ladies this way. Never intending to marry, of course, how could I? But if I spotted an attractive lady, I would ask her for a dance and it scored me a few lays. I know women in those days, according to history books, were supposed to be fragile and frigid and conservative, but that is far from the truth. Some were even wilder than some women today.

Nessie laughs a little, the smile, much to my delight, meeting her eyes for the first time in a while, before taking my hand. "Of course." She begins to play along, smiling still. I smirk fingers interlink and my other hand finds her small waist while hers touches my shoulder. Eventually she nestles her head into my chest as the music carries our dance, sighing contently. I sing the words softly into her hair and suddenly she looks up and asks.

"What's Amore?" She inquires.

"Love." I respond, my eyes not leaving hers. There is something about this closeness between us, this moment, where I don't feel nervous anymore, I kind of wish she knew how I felt.

I see something flash inside them, I'm unsure what, but she rests her head back down on my chest before I have more time to try and figure it out.


So, yes, what do you think? I've actually just recently had a huge rush of muse after reading these books called Delirium and Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (seriously, they are amazing, check them out!) so I think I may even write the next chapter later tonight or tomorrow. I dunno, but it will be up soon.

-Tay