Hey, guys, what's up? I'm so sorry about the delay… But, hey, congratulate me, I saved my school year ! Welcome, Junior Year ! I'm so, so happy to be finally free after six months of the purest anguish. Now I've got two months of freedom ahead of me and I promise I'll update soon.

Enjoy!

XOXO

Crush Crush Crush

The plan seemed to be working. Aleida was soon summoned by the Trio to explain the rumours that circulated about her. Through Chelsea, who still thought innocently that I was trying to find out if there was a conspiracy against her best friend, we learned that Aleida was clueless about who could be behind the stories, and not only that, she was scared. The mental suffering we were inflicting on her was a side effect we did not expect, and therefore a nice surprise.

The villagers kept their word and spread every single thing we ordered them to. When we considered they'd done enough, we dispatched them. But despite how our plans were developing I noticed Alec was tense and worried, so I asked him why he was feeling that way.

"When He touches us, he'll know we are the ones behind everything, Jane. How could we not think of that? Aro has full access to our minds and the moment he realizes the conspiration is ours he will kill us."

I looked straight into Alec's eyes and held his hands. "Don't you worry about that. I'll show you what to do."

The point was, over the years I had seen myself in the need of learning a way to hide my thoughts from Aro, because I couldn't risk him seeing what I felt for… oh, never mind. What mattered here was that I had a few years of practice on deceiving the master mind reader, which now proved more than useful as I taught my brother how to shield himself. When he asked me how I had developed the technique I evaded him.

"It's just that, well, you have to be prepared in case anything happens, see now how it's helping and-"

"Jane, stop. You know you cannot fool me. You did it because of Him, so he couldn't see how very much in love you are." I looked down. "There you go. But why are you afraid of letting him know? Don't you always talk about how magnanimous and comprehensive he is? About how necessary you are to him? Then why can't you tell him how you feel?"

"Because… because I …"

"Because you know he doesn't love you back. You know you're wasting your time and your beauty but you don't want to admit you know it. This isn't the Jane I know. My sister would never allow herself to be stepped on like this. Forget him, Jane, can't you see how much he's hurting you?"

"Alec, please, stop. Stop. He's my first love. My only love."

"That's why I'm saying this. I will not allow anyone to make you feel less than the absolute queen you are." He hugged me. "Don't you see you're the only thing I have? In the years we have lived, we have lost and won again and again and again, but the one thing that has always remained ours is each other. You're my twin sister, we're halves of a whole, if you suffer I suffer. Our strength lies in our confidence and our independence from everyone else. This love is crushing you, making you weak. Don't let it happen, Jane, please don't. You truly are the only thing I have."

"I promise I won't. But that doesn't mean that it's turned out to be quite useful to be lovesick." I smiled at the end and managed to make him smile, too. Things would improve after this whole situation was over.

And they seemed to improve, even before we were done. One evening, Aro called me to his study. He didn't do this very often, and I wondered if he had somehow found out about our schemes. But when he saw me, he smiled.

"I do not know what you have been doing, Janette, that you come to meet me with such a worried face. But there is nothing to fear, I'm not going to accuse you of anything or even ask you what mischief is in that conscience of yours," he patted my cheek. "Jane, I need your advice."

"Mine?" I asked, surprised.

"Absolutely. This is important, and you are probably the one being I trust in the entire world." I bowed and curtsied slightly. "I'm sure you have heard the rumours concerning Aleida," he said finally.

"Yes, Master."

"You don't like her, do you?"

"Well, I …"

"Do you?"

"No, Master. But I assure you I am not the only one."

He laughed again. "I know, I know. That's why I called you. Your disliking of her, combined with your intelligence and, why not, your feminine intuition, will give me what I need. Tell me, Jane, do you think all these rumours about Aleida are true?"

I considered that for a moment. What could be the right answer to that? If I said yes too quickly, he would know that I knew something and that I was either keeping that information or plotting against her. If I said no, he would get suspicious, too, given that I had just admitted I didn't like her. After thinking for a minute I finally spoke.

"I think she's capable of doing it, Master. Whether she did do all these things or not, I don't know, but that she could, I'm sure of."

It comforted me that I wasn't actually lying to him. I would have hated that, deceiving my Master more than was necessary. But when I really considered the question I realized how possible it was that she had done everything we had set up. I allowed myself a little self-congratulating smile.

There was a silence after I spoke. Aro looked thoughtful, more serious than I'd ever seen him, and it was a while before he addressed me again. "Very good, kid," he said. "Go now. You have been very helpful. Like always."

I bowed and turned around to leave, but before I could move he stopped me. He made me face him again and leaned down. Ever so softly, his lips brushed mine.

"You are my little sunbeam," he whispered.

For a split second, it seemed that my heart would beat again.

The next few days were peaceful and quiet. There was very little to do except wait for more results and Aleida's fall. Then the unexpected, the unthinkable, the entire hell fell over me one sunny morning.

"Jane, could you come, please? I would like to talk."

It was Aleida. She looked at me peacefully, a soft smile on her face.

This isn't good, I thought. Go back, Jane, go back, this cannot be good. Still, I went with her and we walked to the garden.

"So?" I asked after a few minutes of silence. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Um, maybe... maybe about your gorgeous little plan to bring me down?"

"What?"

"Don't think I don't know about your little plot against me, Jane. Oh, I have found all about it. So moving, Janie."

This wasn't happening. This just couldn't be happening. "I have no idea what you mean, Aleida."

"Of course you do, you little bitch. I always knew it was you behind the rumours. I didn't know how to prove it, until I heard you that day, talking to Aro and playing sweet. You were so tactful, careful not to say anything compromising. And then he praised you… and kissed you. That's when I knew you had started it all. You are in love with him."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. And that's why you want to crush me. You know that now he prefers me over you and you're scared I might steal him from you, so you are trying to get me out of the way."

"Obviously not, Aleida. I want you out of the way because, in case you haven't noticed yet, everyone wants you out of the way, because everyone hates you, absolutely everyone. You think I'm scared of you? Me, scared of a piece of rubbish like you? How could I possibly be scared of someone who sleeps with some loser like Demetri? For your information, he tried to make a move for me first, and the only reason he's with you is because I turned him down. You are only a lame consolation prize for the things I dump. You could never compete with me."

All of a sudden, she held both my hands as tight as she could.

"What the hell are you doing?" I roared. "Let me go!"

But she wouldn't. I began one of my worst rounds of torture ever, but she still wouldn't let go. Instead, she closed her eyes as if concentrating very hard on something and held my hands even tighter. Then I felt a kind of dizziness, and everything around me became blurry. I fought as desperately as I could against the sensation, but in the end I had to close my eyes. When I was able to open them again, it wasn't the garden anymore, but the shabby street of a village I remembered only too well. So this was time travelling.

"Oh, Jane, so you know where we are?" said Aleida in a mockingly sweet voice. I turned to her furiously, and released the full strength of my talent. To my horror, nothing happened. She smiled cruelly before continuing. "No, Janette, your little trick does not work here. It's the past. You couldn't do that in the past. You are completely in my power now, and believe me, I'm going to make you feel every angle of it."

She touched me again and I didn't know if it was more time-travelling or simply vampire speed, but soon I found myself in the one place I had never wanted to be again. The miserable little house of my childhood. I could feel we were in a past before that, a past before Alec and I were born. It all came in a succession of little explosions.

Flash.

My father beating my mother while she was carrying us. She curled herself around her huge stomach, protecting us from our father's wrath.

Flash.

The same scene, but now there were two baskets pushed against a wall, a wailing bundle in each of them.

"A girl!" howled my father as he hit my mother again. I recognized his drunken voice.

"But there's a boy, too," she whispered. "A strong, beautiful boy. You have an heir, Santino."

"But the other one is a girl! A stupid girl. There's nothing in this world more useless than a girl. She'll be just as annoying as you, I'm sure." He hit her once more and kicked one of the baskets across the room. The cries inside it became impossibly louder. I winced, knowing who was inside that basket.

Flash.

I was twelve. My mother was recovering from an almost child my father had killed by beating her up, so I was the one in charge of the house. As I went to buy groceries I noticed there was a party going on in one of the houses. I discreetly glanced in that direction and saw that they celebrated the birthday of one of the most popular girls in town, a girl more or less my own age. When her mother realized I was looking, she closed the door. Of course, there were no party invitations for us, the weird children, the phenomenon kids.

"Poor, poor Jane," came Aleida's voice from behind. "No one has ever wanted you, ever. Your father despised you because you were a girl, you had no friends because you were a freak. Now, who is the one that everyone hates, huh?"

"I tortured that girl and her mother to death, the night my brother and I got our revenge," I said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I know. What about these?"

Flash.

Alec and I, captured and separated. All the tortures we were put through, one by one, until the last detail. The eyes of those guards and judges, filled with pleasure as I screamed. And here it is: me alone in my cell, and the iron door opened and two priests came in. They approached me slowly, savouring my terror. My vampire self watched the little girl hide her face and curl in a ball, and watched also as the men's eyes dripped lust and desire. When their disgusting hands finally came in contact with my skin I cried. They laughed and one of them held my arms as the other began touching me under the already torn gown I was wearing. I writhed and shook, and even though I now could recall how slowly, painfully I'd made them die, I still wanted to cover my ears and look away and scream. Yet the horror of the memories and my defencelessness held me frozen in place.

Then the bishop arrived. The two priests looked up, but did not let me go. Maybe they thought they would only have to share. The bishop began to reprimand them; did they really mean to perpetrate the infernal union with a servant of the Devil? Corrupt their bodies with that of a sinner? And me, most sinful witch, wasn't it enough to pollute my soul with my very own brother, that I sought to drag these sons of God to perdition, too? Sinning in prison, where I should be praying and trying to find redemption in the Lord's eyes. I was punished with twenty lashes. When the holy bishop tied me to get my penitence, his hands lingered on my waist a second too long, holding me a centimetre too close to him. The lashes came and two days after that the burning.

Flash.

Back to the street. This past was after our revenge: there was barely a street at all. Marks of the flames are quite notorious, as well as destroyed houses on both sides. Aleida and I looked at each other without a single word. She knew she'd hurt me beyond any limit, maybe she could even see the desperation in my eyes that was almost becoming madness. The past, that past that I'd been trying to run from for so long was back as if it had never been gone in the first place. Seeing myself and my brother so meaningless in the world, two lost children abandoned to be played with, was like an acid that burned its way to the very core of who I was. Even Aleida couldn't find something to say. Then everything was blurry again until I found myself safely back in the present of the garden, in Volturi land.

I was so grateful to see the familiar surroundings that I almost fell to my feet in relief, but I had something more important to do: I looked at Aleida and unleashed the strongest, most powerful current of torture I had ever produced. While I usually only felt a tickling now I had a sensation of burning, so powerful was the energy that exploded. In no time I had her on the grass, rolling and writhing, and though at first she tried to play proud I was finally able to break her into long, piercing screams. I knew that people in the castle would know what was going on, but I also knew they wouldn't mind.

It went on for quite a while. Then I stopped; after all I wanted her to be alive and sane for the next part of what was waiting for her, because, of course, this she would pay with more than her life. Unsteadily, she got on her feet and as soon as she was within my reach I slapped her across the face. After that she walked away and as soon as she could not see me I turned around and escaped, too. I went to my orchids, which were growing beautifully under my care and now provided me with the perfect hiding place. I couldn't see anyone, talk to anyone. I slipped under the bushes, curled into a ball, and just let pain take over. In two minutes fifteen years of trying had become nothing and I was back to zero I don't know how long I stayed there; I had lost all sense or concept of time. No one looked for me, anyway, so it didn't really matter.

When I was finally ready to face the world again, I had a new plan. No one could hurt me without paying it a thousand times, and this wouldn't be the exception. However, now I wouldn't be able to work alone, or only with my brother, and the plan we already had wouldn't be enough, either. I needed something bigger, something she couldn't possibly survive. I went into the Hall and then found just the person I was looking for in a hallway.

"Demetri, darling…"