A/N: I keep checking, but no, I still don't own Twilight. Here is the last consecutive BPOV for now. We meet some familiar faces.
Update - Just discovered that my chapter breaks have mysteriously disappeared in my earlier chapters. I'll be fixing those along the way. For readers who are encountering weird breaks between one paragraph and the next, that's the reason why it seems so awkward. Hope to have it all spotted and fixed soon.
Chapter 3 – Down the rabbit hole.
I climbed back into consciousness to the sound of blaring alarms and a blinding light shining into my eyes.
Instinctively, I tried to adjust my grip on the flight stick only to find that I wasn't holding anything. In fact, I wasn't even sitting in a cockpit. I tried turning my head away from the light, but couldn't. My body felt heavy and numb, as if a great big boulder was sitting on top of my chest. As I became more alert, I realized that the sounds were not the familiar warning bells of my flight instruments, but something else entirely. Medical equipment maybe?
I struggled to concentrate and focus my thoughts, but they kept slipping out of my reach. My vision adjusted more to the light, and I was aware of blurry faces hovering over me. They seemed to be frantically doing something to my body that I couldn't see due to my immobilized head. Their hands moved in blinding speed, too fast for me to track. I suspected that it seemed that way because I have a concussion and it was affecting my sight.
A little more focused now, I could make out the features of the man standing closest to me. That's when I realized that I must be dead.
This man looked exactly like a painting of an angel I saw in my art class back in school, from his blond locks, haloed by the blinding light, to his flawless pale skin. There was a look of compassion and concentration on his handsome face. The only thing off were his eyes…his golden shining eyes, piercing even in the long shadows across his face casted by the light. I guess I never pulled the plane out of the dive after all. I wondered why exactly I couldn't move in the after life. Maybe this was some sort of waiting room, and they have to prep me first.
I felt a pang of regret on what this will do to my father. He's now lost both of the women that mattered most to him in his life. I hoped that he will eventually forgive me for what I had to do to complete the mission. I hoped the packages Mike carried will make a difference. And if we do manage to turn the tide of the war, I hoped the history books will have a footnote about what the Swan family sacrificed to help win it.
My eye lids were growing heavier now, a sense of calm flooded through my body. Ironically, the alarms seemed to scream in increasing urgency the calmer I felt.
I'll just take a nap while they finish whatever they are doing. I thought tiredly. Just a short rest to get my energy back up. I closed my eyes and soon the lights and sounds faded into a distant dream.
##################
I found myself in a pristine white hospital room when I regained consciousness. The room was softly illuminated by overhead fluorescent lights, and housed nothing more than my bed, a chair, and a crap load of machines emitting beeps that reminded me of my radar panel. I spied a network of wires running out of the machines and traced their path, jolting in shock when the wires all ended with me. Some of the wires ended visibly with electrodes attached to my head or arms, some ended with IV needles in my hands or wrist. Then there were others that disappeared into my hospital gown, and I stopped myself from shuddering as I imagined their final destination.
I tried getting out of my bed but found my limbs caught on something. Shifting my blanket slightly, I caught sight of the restraints circling my arms and legs where they aren't covered in thick bandages. I lay confused for a second before the harsh reality crashed down on me.
I deep over enemy territory when my plane went down. There was no way for friendly search and rescue to mount a mission that deep into the east.
I was a prisoner of war.
The machines betrayed my moment of panic by beeping harshly, echoing across the tiny white room. What I wouldn't give for my side pistol to shoot these things, I thought darkly. As I force myself to calm down, I heard the locks turning by the door. I observed that it was the only entrance and exit to the room – there were no windows or air ducts that I could make out from the bed.
I held my breath in anticipation as the door swung open, the sound of my heart pounded loudly in my ears. In walked the angel from before, he was wearing a doctor's white coat and holding clipboard in his hand. It looked so normal that I almost laughed. He walked to my bed and looked directly into my face. Guess I didn't hallucinate those golden eyes.
"Hello Miss. Swan, how are you feeling today?" he inquires pleasantly. "My name is Dr. Carlisle Cullen, and I'll be your physician for the duration of your stay. Oh, and don't bother trying to activate your cyanide capsule, we removed it during surgery. I hate to have had to work so hard for you to take your own life now."
I stared at him in shock. All military personnel were implanted with suicide capsules in case of live capture. After the things we witnessed the leeches do to their prisoners, the capsules became a welcome addition to the established doctrine. Damn.
He stood patiently by my bed. I realized that he was awaiting my answer to his question. There's something very disarming about his bedside manner. I decided to be honest.
"I feel like shit."
The doctor chuckled. "I can only imagine! You did have a couple of large holes in you when you were brought into my care. You flat-lined so many times I was worried for the power grid given how often we had to shock your heart to keep it going. I'm surprised how fast you are recovering, you are very resilient. We pumped you full of a cocktail of drugs to stave off infection and manage the pain, unfortunately they will make you groggy for quite sometime." He laughed again, it had a light musical quality. Christ, I thought only their official media representation looked and sounded like that. Was being beautiful a basic vampiric trait as well?
"Well, I'm glad my human frailty amused you. Does that mean I get a cookie and a pat on the head?" I snarled back. Despite his facade, he was still the enemy.
Dr. Cullen appeared un-phased by my hostility. "Well, this is a hospital, so I'm sure I can find a cookie around here somewhere. I would pat you on the head, but I'm afraid that might aggravate your head injuries. Maybe when you heal up in a few weeks."
"I thought you might be interested to know your current condition?" He radiated such a sense of professionalism and openness that I dropped my death glare and gave him a curt nod. "Well Miss. Swan -"
"Captain Swan," I interrupted him.
"Captain Swan. You are an extremely lucky young woman to have survived your injuries. You suffered second and third degree burns to your lower back and legs. We put skin grafts to speed up your recovery. You had shrapnel wounds to your upper right shoulder and lower left hip. The shrapnel didn't hit any major arteries, but they did break your collar and pelvic bones. We have insert pins to secure the breaks, and they should heal up in time. There was some muscle and ligament damage. We may have to do more exploratory surgery to determine the extent and severity, but I'm cautiously optimistic that with physical therapy, you should retain full mobility and range of motion. Your helmet absorbed most of the impact from your crash, so you were fortunate not to have suffered anything worse then a mild concussion. You may experience some mild dizziness and blurriness of vision, but that's all treatable."
He ran down the list of my injuries with clinical precision. I swore pain flared up in each part of my body he mentioned as he went on describing my injuries. By the end even my hair hurt.
"Geez, guess that Swan luck really held up." I muttered mostly to myself. Or not, considering that I was in more pain then I have ever been in my life and I was a "guest" of humanity's mortal enemy. "What about my CSO?" Dr. Cullen had a slightly puzzled look, so I elaborated, "Lieutenant Angela Weber. She was sitting in the seat behind me in the cockpit, how is she?"
The look from the Dr. Cullen said it all even before he opened his mouth, "I'm sorry. Lieutenant Weber's injuries were just too severe. She passed away before the rescue crew made it to the crash site."
I choked back the scream in my throat and blinked back the oncoming tears. Keep it together Bella, there will be plenty of time later. "Thank you for letting me know," I whispered.
Dr. Cullen stood silently, giving me time to compose myself. I was finding it harder and harder to hate this man in front of me. Clearing my throat, I attempted to continue in a normal voice. "So, what's next Doc?"
He smiled that angelic smile of his, "well, I won't lie to you. The next couple of weeks will be very painful for you, Captain. You'll have to undergo couple of reconstructive surgeries to completely repair your internal injuries. Then the physical therapy is not going to be a walk in the park either. You are looking at a very long hospital stay, at least six weeks."
"And then?" I didn't know why I was so morbidly curious about my future. There's nothing good to look forward to anymore.
That smile fell off Dr. Cullen's face and he grimaced, which just seemed unnatural on this man's face. "Well I'm afraid that you are in military custody. While you are undergoing your recovery here I have been told," He grimaced harder if possible, "that you are to be made available for questioning for your war crimes."
I was surprised by the sarcasm in his voice. I guess those videos of me shooting down civilians weren't as widely believed as I thought.
"However, rest assured that you are still my patient first, and a military prisoner second, as long as you are in this hospital. I will guarantee that nothing will happen to you within these walls, not while I'm still here." His features lighten back into his pleasant smile, "and I never leave."
"Thank you doctor." I was surprised that I meant it.
"Please," Dr. Cullen grinned back, "call me Carlisle."
##################
Nightmares plagued me through the entire night, jolting me awake repeatedly and leaving me covered with cold sweat. I could hear Angela screaming, blood rushing out of her wounds from the explosive shells which shredded the cockpit. She's screaming my name, then crying Ben's name, to help her, to stop the pain. Then her screams cut out to a mere gurgling as the blood poured into her lungs. She's drowning in her own blood, and there was not a damn thing I could do.
Her face would change, turn into that of my mother's. Suddenly I was in my mother's helicopter as it spun wildly toward the earth. It's Mom's dying screams I hear, her desperate call for me to help her as her copter plunged out of the sky. I was immobilized, unable to reach out while I watched helplessly from the passenger seat as plane slammed into the ground.
Needless to say I was not at my best when the cloaked figures came into my room in the morning.
Through our intelligence, we learned long ago that their organization was driven by an oligarchy. There were apparently three leaders serving lifetime appointments, which was impressive given the new definition of lifetime in vampiric civilization. We know their names were Aro, Marcus, and Caius, but had no reliable images for any of them. They have never left their fortress, which was allegedly located in a remote city in Italy, nor have they ever appeared on any of the vampiric broadcasts.
The public face of the Triumvirate was their elite guard, the Volturi Guard. They were purportedly the strongest vampires in existence outside of the Triumvirate and acted as enforcers of the Triumvirate's will. Their word was obeyed as if it came straight from the leaders' lips themselves.
The Volturi served in dual roles as the head of military command of the invasion and as the civilian leadership for the occupied areas. It came to no surprise when we learned vampires adapted Roman titles for their ranks, given their Italian origins. Hell, they probably invented the names in the first place. In the U.S., they have assigned one of the most notorious Guards of the Volturi to act as provincial governor and Legatus of the American vampire legion, Legate Jane.
Our Intel directly linked her to the massacres at Two Hills and New Haven. But what really made others fear her, humans and vampires alike, was her position as the head of the Order of Inquisitors – their intelligence agency. They were in charge of prisoner security and interrogations, and they were exceedingly good at their jobs. Many of their ranks were selected based on their talents – living lie detectors, mind readers, empaths, or just demented creativity in breaking people's wills. And Jane was the most ruthless and sadistic of them all.
Rumor had it that she surrounded herself with a harem of slaves, both human and vampire, who were personally broken by her in her years as an Inquisitor. The Inquisitors were distinguished by their uniform, a deep red cloak which obscure their face and body, adding to their mystique. I certainly hoped that I never had to see those cloaks up close, like I was forced to do now.
Two figures stood past the foot of my bed, faces hidden behind those overly large hoods. The one who stood in front was short, almost child like in built and height. The other hung back several feet so it was tougher to gauge his or her size. The one in front pulled back her hood with a flourish. I took in the small child like face, the long straight blond hair, and the hateful ruby eyes and gulped as fear flooded into my system. Why was Legate Jane standing in my room?
Jane's lips upturned into a vicious smirk, exposing her fangs. She was clearly enjoying my discomfort at recognizing who she was. "Well, well…I hope you are feeling better, Isabella." Her girlish voice, while still musical, held none of the warmth that Carlisle had when we conversed the day before.
"Legate Jane, I appreciate it if you address me as Captain Swan." I emphasized my military rank. Having her address me so personally was making my skin crawl.
"Oh, but Isabella, you should know that the Empire has never recognized the human resistance as a formal military organization. It would hardly be appropriate for the Legatus to legitimize your military by addressing you by rank." She chided me, the same smirk still on her face.
"You must be curious as to why I'm here aren't you?" She prompted. I was disturbed by the maniacal glee I see on her face.
"You're a candy striper?" I decided sarcasm was better than fear.
Her face darkened, the parody of a smile fell off her lips. I didn't think she could look any more sinister. I was wrong. "Do you remember the mission you flew in Montana a few months ago?" She inquired in a tight voice. I was thrown by the sudden change in tone and topic.
I attempted to recall the memory, "Yes…it was a rescue mission to liberate prisoners in a secret Inquisitor camp."
"And do you remember your role in that mission?" Jane asked. I was confused that this was what she was here to learn. After all, I'm sure the Inquisitor reports would have capture all the details she would have ever wanted. I saw no harm in answering her questions.
"Yes, I took out the guard barracks and watch towers with precision missile strikes and blew the front gate for the ground crew to evacuate the prisoners." We had saved over a hundred prisoners that day, although half of them would be undergoing physical or psychological therapy for the rest of their lives for what the Inquisitors did to them.
"You see, Isabella, you picked an unfortunate day for your attack. Unfortunate for me, because my Inquisitors were visiting that camp when you destroyed it. Unfortunate for you, because my brother was also among the ones you murdered that day." She grounded out.
"So you see, I have had a special interest in you for quite some time. I was quite happy to learn you survived your accident mostly intact. I have big plans for you, Isabella. Big plans. And I look forward to sharing them with you very very soon. I have decided to personally take over your Inquisition. Once you are released from here, you will face a public trial for your crimes. I'm confident that by then I can convince you to publicly confess to your atrocities against the Empire and your fellow humans. And then," she paused for effect, "and then you will be mine, Isabella."
I tried to stay outwardly emotionless, to not give her the satisfaction on seeing how scared shit-less I was, but those damn monitors hooked into my body betrayed me yet again with their frantic beeping. Though even without them Jane's senses were sharp enough to have picked up my elevated heart rate and uneven breathing. Her maniacal glee was back on her face.
"Glad we have an understanding. Rest up, you are in for a long recovery." Jane headed to the door. I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I barely noticed her unusual pause at the door as she turned to face her silent companion still standing unmoving in the room. She raised an eyebrow and waited impatiently. Her companion, a body guard? suddenly seem to sprang to life and swiftly trailed Jane out the door.
The only bright side of Jane's visit was that at night my nightmares had nothing to do with Angela or my mother.