Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything you recognize from this amazing Twilight universe.

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And here we go... =)


"Close, low, bright eyes, fading faster than stars falling..." --Mastodon.

Alice listened carefully, trying to hear what they were saying above. The sound was muffled, even with her incredible hearing. She figured that they might have went outside to speak.

She could hear nothing that made sense. Finally, their footsteps seemed to get closer to the house.

"Est-ce qu'elle ecoute?"

"Oui--shh. We will speak more later." Raoul.

Alice sighed, trying, to no avail, to figure out what was going on.

They had traveled quickly through the night, just making it to their destination before daybreak. If her senses were correct, they were in Texas. She had traveled to Texas with Jasper a few times, and it smelled like Texas to her. She tried not to lose herself in the good memories that she had of Jasper here.

The three vampires had taken Alice to a huge house in the middle of nowhere. Raoul and the woman had then escorted her down a set of stairs into a basement. Alice thought that they would leave her there, but instead, Raoul had walked to the corner of the basement and opened another hatch that was built into the floor.

"Down there, please, ma petite chérie," Raoul had ordered, amusement glinting in his eyes.

Alice had glared at him, but went down the second set of stairs into a room with concrete walls. She could smell the mud that was behind the walls and knew that she was way below the ground.

The woman had followed behind Alice and now stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking bored. Alice guessed she was waiting to be summoned again.

"They'll need us. I'm following as back up. You can stay or you can come."

She blinked, coming out of the vision. Renesmee? Alice knew Jasper better than she knew herself-- he wouldn't want Renesmee to come; it would be too dangerous. Nessie was defying him and coming anyway? And who was she speaking to?

Alice sighed and tried not to think about it. She was in enough of a predicament as it was.

She decided to focus more on her present situation and stop worrying about the future for a moment.

Jasper had told her that it was important to know the enemy when fighting. Alice straightened up, took a breath, and slowly walked over to where the woman stood.

The woman tensed, ready to fight, but Alice put her hands up.

"I'm not going to try to fight you. I was just wondering your name?" Alice asked, her voice ringing.

The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Pourquoi?" Why?

Alice sighed, "I'm just curious. I haven't asked why I'm here yet or what is happening… the least you could do is tell me your name."

She scrutinized Alice. Finally, she apparently came to the conclusion that Alice was just genuinely curious.

"Je suis Aurelie," the woman said simply. I am Aurelie.

"I know you speak English, Aurelie," Alice said.

"And I know you speak French. What does it matter?" Aurelie replied coldly.

"I guess it doesn't," Alice said flatly, for lack of a better answer.

Aurelie was gorgeous. She was thin and tall, standing at least a foot above Alice. Her white-blonde hair was wavy, flawlessly falling to her shoulders. She wore a simple powder blue summer dress and a ring on her right ring finger.

As Alice examined Aurelie, she held in a gasp as she noticed Aurelie's legs. Around both of her ankles were deep, crescent scars. They weaved together like an ankle bracelet and then a chain of them led down both of her feet, stopping at her toes. They were neatly checkered on the tops of her feet.

Alice looked at her more closely and noticed the same style of scars around both of her wrists, running up her inner arms. They were hauntingly beautiful, much like Aurelie.

Aurelie watched her staring and smiled bitterly."You act as though you had never seen scars like these before," she said, her French accent thick. She rubbed at what looked like a fresh one on top of an older one on her inner wrist. "But your Jasper is covered in them, no?"

"His are different," Alice admitted out loud, her eyebrows pulling together in thought.

"How so?"

Alice figured she had nothing to lose by continuing to talk with Aurelie; so she answered her honestly.

"His are more random…they're battle scars. Yours look more…planned. Like they were put there, in that design, on purpose."

Aurelie's look pierced her, but she did not respond to Alice's comment.

"Just go fetch her for me. I'm bored and have yet to meet her." Alice heard a woman speaking upstairs. She sounded close.

"Are you going to tell her why?" Raoul.

"I don't know yet."

"Can I tell her why?" His voice was cruel, cold, but uncharacteristically excited.

"No, not yet," the woman's voice answered, "And why are you still standing here? Go get her!" She sounded annoyed.

Aurelie had heard, too.

"Raoul is coming. Stand over there, please," she ordered.

Alice sighed and backed up, away from Aurelie and the stairs. She heard Raoul's approach and swallowed. Stay strong, she told herself.

Just as she expected, Raoul arrived just a few seconds after she had heard him speaking.

"Bonjour, Aurelie. Elle est…?"

"She is fine. She has behaved," Aurelie told Raoul, glancing over at Alice.

"Pity." Raoul smiled at Alice. His look send shivers down her spine. Alice was used to Jasper sharing others' feelings with her; she wondered what Raoul's what have felt like right then.

"Come, Alice. There is someone who wants to see you," Raoul said, his scarlet eyes dancing in excitement, "This will be...interesting."

Raoul brushed past Aurelie to come further into the room.

Alice glanced at Aurelie, and at her nod, she approached Raoul, who led her up the crooked stairs, through a maze of dimly lit hallways, until bringing her to a room.

She wondered who could possibly want to see her. Briefly, she was afraid that they had caught one of her family members, but then she shook that thought away. She definitely would have seen it.

Raoul had led her to an intricately designed door. He turned the golden handle gently, opening it.

As they entered, Alice immediately realized why he had seemed so excited. She knew the person who he had led her to. A sense of foreboding filled her as the woman approached.

"Hello, dear Alice. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Maria.

Alice's steely glare became fiercer. "You," she whispered in disbelief. Maria had been behind this?

"Me. Yes, me. I was hoping Jasper would have been with you…killed two birds with one stone… but you'll do for now. I'm sure he'll be arriving shortly. God forbid he be away from you for a few hours, let alone days," she smirked, rolling her dark eyes.

"Leave him alone, Maria. I swear I'll destroy you right now--" Alice growled, trying to free herself from Raoul's grasp. The sight of this woman had infuriated her beyond reasonable thought. How dare she try to come back into Jasper's life? How dare she take Alice away from him? She thought only of Jasper's well being as she struggled with Raoul.

Aurelie joined Raoul, and between the two of them, they had managed to grab Alice by the wrists and hold her away from Maria.

"Calm down, Alice. We'll have much time for destroying and all that fun stuff later. I just wanted to personally welcome you to my current residence before Jasper came and threw a fit over me taking you from him. Please don't make us hurt you… he has quite the temper and I really don't feel like dealing with it anymore than I already will have to," Maria said smoothly, coming closer to them.

Alice glared daggers at her, but stopped struggling. If they hurt her, she couldn't help Jasper. If they hurt her, Jasper might lose touch with his senses. Alice needed him to stay focused. They were in a serious situation right now; Maria was wild. She was cunning. And she was lethal.

Maria saw her calm down slightly and smiled approvingly, "Thank you." Then, her dark eyes looked her over.

"She's a pretty little thing, isn't she, Raoul?"

"Ah oui, tres jolie, Maria. Jasper always seemed to stumble across the good ones," Raoul answered in his French accent, inadvertently complimenting Maria while his eyes inspected Alice as well.

Alice watched as his gaze lingered at her chest, and she let out a low growl.

Maria laughed, clearly amused at their interaction, her gorgeous face illuminating.

"A little feisty, though, too," she observed, leaning down, her dark scarlet eyes gazing tauntingly into Alice's black ones, "another thing you and I have in common."

Raoul joined in her laughter. Alice's glare did not waver.

"Besides our height, we have nothing in common," Alice said sharply, daring, able to stare her in the eyes.

Maria cocked an eyebrow and circled her before coming behind her and whispering softly into her ear, "Our height, our strong personalities, Jasper…we share a lot, Alice, dear. We're more alike than you'd like to admit, I'm afraid."

Alice clenched her fists at Maria's tone, but knew that this was not the time for a fight. She had to think of Jasper.

"I am nothing like you," Alice spat.

Maria smiled, "You might feel differently after you get to know me a little better. We'll have time," she said simply before turning to Raoul.

"Take her below, I'll deal with her after I return from hunting," Maria told Raoul dismissively.

She then looked over to Alice, "And if you behave, maybe I'll bring you something to eat too," she said, her eyes glinting maliciously.

Alice stared back at her, trying to look unafraid, but said nothing. Jasper had taught her that a good soldier always knew how to pick his or her battles.

Raoul approached Maria. "That's it? You mean we aren't going to--"

"Not now, Raoul." Maria silenced him.

Raoul sighed, "But then why did we even…"

"Enough," Maria hissed, "just take her below and then join me."

She then turned to look at Alice. "I'll see you soon."

As Maria exited swiftly, Raoul motioned with his head to the other guard, the one with the rust colored hair. He joined Raoul and Aurelie, and together, they held Alice's arms and guided her down to the basement.

She tried to struggle at first, determined to keep some dignity, but Raoul yanked her out of the other two vampires' grasps roughly.

He pulled her close to him. The back of her head was pressed against his stomach as he squeezed her to stop her writhing.

"I wouldn't fight this if I were you…" he whispered into her ear, "the harder you struggle, the more control over you I'll have to take. And right now, the only thing stopping me from taking full advantage of you is Maria. Think about it, ma cherie."

She stopped wriggling as his smooth voice sent chills through her.

"Much better," he said, kissing the top of her head.

Alice stared straight ahead, her eyes trying not to betray her as fear creeped into her system.

Aurelie met her gaze and, to Alice's surprise, gave her a slightly regretful warning look before glancing away quickly.

The other guard chuckled. "Be careful, Raoul. Maria said we're to take it slow…"

Raoul only smiled. He led her single-handedly down to the basement and this time, the other male guard, the one with the rusty hair, was the one to stay below with her.

"I'll bring you food soon," Raoul promised, kissing her forehead.

"Don't bother," Alice said sharply, flinching away from him.

"What kind of host would Maria be if she didn't feed you?" he taunted with a laugh before leaving her with the guard.

She went to stand in the corner, away from the guard, and pressed her back against the smooth concrete wall. She slid to the ground and curled herself into her knees, closing her eyes to look for more visions of Jasper.


Sorry if this seemed short/fast and also, sorry for the longer wait! It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to include in this chapter. Plus, I beta for a story, [mentioned on my profile page], and between working in real life and then beta'ing, life's been busy. But thank you to all who've stuck with me so far. I promise, I have more ideas for this... will you stick with me a little longer? Review please, and let me know how you're liking it, whether it is praise or constructive criticism... I welcome both! Thanks =)