Hello again! I hope you're all doing well.

This is it, then. The end for Julia is nigh. The question is, will she go down fighting?

Enjoy...

LookAliveSunshine03

WARNING: some violence and language

Chapter 20:

Justice for Julia

The Treehouse was swaying dangerously; the triplets did not move. They sat in their circle of bowing wood.

Hazel looked exhausted. "This is my fault," She rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand. "You've said it many times already, Jools, but -"

Her sister snorted. "Well, you should have ended it when you had the opportunity. "

"God. Please, Julia!" Michael sighed, grabbing her shoulder and squeezing it. "What you're asking is…this is so hard. We love you. You know that, don't you? If things were different –"

"But they are not!" Julia's face seemed to collapse. "I'm…tired, Mikey. The fears are choking me.

She showed them. The fears were malicious wasps, spitting out voices made to chill bone and stutter hearts, and they swarmed above the trio. Here in the Treehouse they saw,with dark humour,that all of their own fears were the same.

The world screamed silence back at them. Alone.

"We know." Michael's visions, on the other hand, danced insistently around their shoulders,weightless fairies. Hazel saw the faceless man stride past him. She smiled, fully aware that it was his desire.

A scowling brute lurked behind Julia, brushing her neck possessively and grinning. He was Anna's biggest fear, reincarnated.

"Despite what you all think," Julia said, watching the fears spiral faster and faster above them. Their voices were a rainstorm. "I was happy with Darius. He was a bastard, but he was mine. So do it. End it. I can't do this anymore." She moaned as the fears began to descend. "Make them stop."

The Volturi Guard looked impassively on as Michael pulled her close to stroke her hair. "Okay. Okay. Ssh."

"When I… Changed you," Hazel rasped quietly, "I thought it was the best thing for us. Really, I was …I was afraid. I couldn't imagine a life without both of you with me. I still can't."

"Because you can't have a Lewis without all three," Michael whispered.

"Yes, you can," Julia answered stonily, flinching as the fears began to tug and catch at her clothes and face. "Starting now…you will be alright. Without me weighing you down, you will keep living, because you are the better ones."

"Julia, don't say that."

"Do…do you think Mum and Dad are waiting for me?" she asked quietly. Her brother and sister gave astonished, tired smiles over the top of her head.

"Yeah, Jools," Michael said. "I think they are."

"So say hello for us, right?" Hazel added. "Tell 'em we miss them. Don't forget."

Julia grinned, happily.

For Beth and Demetri, it was a very unsettling scene to enter into. To the untrained eye, the triplets appeared to be re-enacting some bizarre kind of séance, but Beth felt dread trickle messily down her back like a broken egg. The Volturi surrounded them like vultures.

Demetri saw her tense. "Don't – "

It was pointless. Michael and Hazel were taking Julia's head in their hands, and Beth sprang up in a panic. "No, don't! Wait!"

Cursing, Demetri shuddered at the confusion and the outrage this evoked. Beth was shaking from head to foot, with her glamour-wisps twisting and tumbling around her. She didn't meet Anna's eye as all heads turned to find her.

"Don't kill her yet! I deserve to know why!"

Anna gave a low moan. Julia was laughing again.

"Come on out, Beth!" she sang, struggling in her siblings' hold. "Come out. Come out!"

"Enough of this, Julia!" Demetri bellowed, forgetting himself for a moment. "Tell her and you can get what you want."

She blinked, absurdly innocent. "Tell her what?"

"You fucking bitch!" Beth spat, furious and terrified, "Why do you – you want to kill me?!"

"Oh, she doesn't know!"

Anna snapped. "Then answer her, Julia!" The temperature of the room plunged painfully, like the worst brain-freeze. It effectively silenced Julia's giggling at the cost of everyone else's composure.

"Please, Lady Anna." Michael gave a whimper. "If I could explain, could you maybe…stop this?"

"Certainly, I could." Staring at Julia with open loathing, Anna blinked. The Hall thawed. "Be quick, Michael. Be concise. Are you listening, Beth?"

Beth's skin was prickling with something that wasn't the cold. "Y-yes."

"She must die," Julia grinned, "because Darius wanted her to!"

"Oh, for fu – that's not the only reason!" Hazel gave her a rough shake. "Stop it, Julia! Michael, just do it!"

Michael nodded. He looked at Anna, nervously, imploringly. "My Lady, your sister has done something we never thought possible. The Guard? The Cullens?" he said in a rush. "She is the – the common constituent! All that power…"

("She is still here," Julia said, in a dramatic stage-whisper.)

"I have no power!" Beth cried indignantly. Besides this!

"No – they have power, and a lot of it, idiot!" Julia gave a cry as Hazel struck her across the face. "It's true!"

"Antoine saw this happen," Michael continued fervently. His eyes were glossy with tears now, as he looked around for Beth. "Lady Anna stopped Darius the night he attacked you, Beth. Antoine wrote about it in his journal. Darius –"

"He destroyed it so she would never know!" Julia said smugly. "He told me everything! Ye-heh-es!"

"Something is coming," Michael answered breathlessly when Anna scowled. "We don't know what it is yet, but if Julia's memory serves –"

"Shut up, Michael!" she grumbled.

"The word of a mad-woman is hardly sufficient!" Caius crowed and Julia hissed like a cat.

"Perhaps you should try asking Master Aro before passing judgment," Hazel said with an icy calm. "Master Caius."

It was then everyone realised that Aro hadn't said a word since Beth's impromptu arrival. Suddenly Anna's fury made a lot more sense: the things Aro had seen in Julia's mind had disturbed him, perhaps.

Poor guy, Beth thought and meant it.

The wordless conversation flowed between the Queen and her husband like palpable energy; by the time they let each other go, Aro almost looked like his normal self.

"Other secrets have been revealed today," he explained with a hint of mockery that warmed Beth, "Darius had heard of a rumour of a…unique vampire. A talented immortal, living in Prague. That is all he knew."

"And I'm guessing he was going to use them for whatever dastardly deed he was planning," Beth said waspishly. "It still doesn't explain what that has to do with me. Why I am so god-damned important in all this!"

"Because you would have stopped Darius, Beth. Because you did help stop him," Anna replied. "Antoine saw it happen."

"What did he see?"

"What has already come to pass," Aro answered patiently. "The end of Darius Tuono."

"And I will stop you!" Julia cried, as petulant as a child asking for attention.

"Yeah. Okay," Beth said with a sigh. She had the feeling that Anna and Aro weren't telling her the whole truth, but that could wait. She squared her shoulders. "Julia, there's one thing I don't understand. With your gift, you could have stopped Darius, easily! Right? You could have destroyed him, if you felt like it, just like you did with Demetri! But what did you do? I'm genuinely curious."

"I loved him," Julia said with relish.

Beth snorted. "Really?" She looked behind her to see Aro grimace. "Are you sure he didn't make you love him?"

"Oh, quite sure," Julia answered, and with a wild pirouette she pulled free from her sister's grasp. Snarling, Hazel punched her in the jaw; she flinched at their shared pain, before Michael caught Julia in the stomach, blasting the redundant breath from her body.

"D-don't make us do this," he sobbed.

"Mikey, listen! We could use him!" Julia wheezed, rolling away. "The immortal in Prague! If the rumour is true, he could set us free!"

"What are you on about?" Hazel shouted, but Jane was making them hurt again. "N-never mind! Fuck, Julia!"

Jane's power was still in effect, but Julia was, amazingly, moving, even with Alec blinding her. She was too fast. Renata was pushing Anna and Aro back. She needed to stop this. She could –

No one, not even Demetri, could have anticipated what happened next. Beth watched this, feeling sick. To hell with this. She planted her feet, and when Julia was close enough, her fist moved.

Julia's nose shattered. The sound was like a gunshot; Michael cried out in her pain.

"You are really annoying." Beth caught her by the throat, almost lifting her off her feet. "All this, for him? It's a waste."

Julia spluttered and gasped in response.

"Beth," Aro admonished quietly. "Release Julia."

Beth laughed. "Why? She wants to die!" A jagged necklace was already beginning to blossom between her fingers.

Hazel croaked. "But we do not!" She was scrabbling to stem the crack around her neck. Michael's nose was bent at a strange angle.

"Please, Beth," he said thickly.

Oh my God. Her glamour slipped, and part of her was disappointed to see the crack already knitting itself back together in Julia's skin. "Is this what will happen when you die?" Beth hissed at her. "'If I go down, I'm taking you with me'?"

"No," rasped Julia, massaging her neck. Her eyes were hooded now, as wary as an animal's. "If they do it, it won't hurt them –"

"What, asking your brother and sister to kill you? Yes, it bloody will! You're – you're unbelievably cruel!"

"They don't need me."

Beth raised her eyebrows. "You're still their sister. It'll still destroy them to...to let you go."

"Darius – "

"Oh, say that name and I'll punch you again!" Beth growled. "Whether you loved him or not, he is dead."

And she threw Julia from her. Michael caught her before she could fall.

With a jolt, Beth felt Demetri's hand on her arm, and numbly let him draw her back behind Renata's protective wall. There was something like static in her brain.

Julia's death, now inevitable, would come easily; the Guard could see it in her siblings' eyes as they brought her back into their folds. They kissed her goodbye, sobbing dryly.

Just like every other death Anna and Beth had witnessed, it was shocking in its speed and simplicity. Were it not for Hazel and Michael's howls of grief, Julia could have been mistaken for a wax model. Silently screaming.

Between Felix and her remaining siblings, Julia was taken away to the furnace beneath the castle.

Michael couldn't seem to stop whimpering, and Hazel, brittle with grief and rage, carried her sister's head. Her silence was monstrous.

So Beth finally gets to show what's she made of (rage, mostly). Thoughts? What's next for our poor vegetarian vamp?