Note : I do not own Twilight!!!

Chapter 20

I Am Fear

Sarah stalked from one shadow to the next with the grace that was inherent to all cats. Her silent paws carried her with unnatural speed along the narrow alleys as she followed the scent of her prey. She wasn't reckless in her pursuit; the focus of her vast mind was split between monitoring the boy, feeding information to Alice, and scanning for any nearby humans. Avoiding detection by the locals was just as important to her as finding and rescuing the frightened boy.

She was very concerned for the little one now. The uni-dimensionality of the human mind made it easy for Sarah to tell the boy had slipped into unconsciousness. He was also having difficulty breathing, in part because of his broken nose but also because of illness. She'd caught his scent and tasted it with her Jacobson's organ in the alley; the boy suffered from asthma and was in desperate need of his inhaler. She didn't need to be a doctor, like her father, to know that his situation wasn't good.

The scent trail wound through the heart of the old city until it brought her to a more remote industrialized area. She finally found the car used by the two thugs parked outside a warehouse near what looked to be an abandoned factory. She remained in the shadows, scanning her surroundings with both her eyes and her mind. She detected the presence of four humans inside the warehouse, the boy and three adult human males.

Slowly she slipped from the shadows and dashed across the open expanse towards the shelter of several stacks of shipping pallets to the right of the building. Her assessment of the building's façade showed only two entry ways, a second story office door accessible by a rusty set of stairs and a large roll up freight door. Both were shut tight and entirely too obvious anyway.

Sarah took her time wandering the perimeter of the building. She allowed her eyes to wash over the exterior for possible ways in. Though she was anxious to get inside, she managed to wall that emotion off and maintain a level head. On the back side of the warehouse, she found the break she was looking for; high on what looked to be the third floor was a small open window.

Stacks of steel drums and old shipping pallets gave Sarah a make-shift ladder to climb, but it left her several feet short of the window. She stood on her hind legs and braced her forepaws against the corrugated steel wall. Her nose and eyes barely cleared the window ledge giving her only a limited view within; she could see nothing but the open metal rafters and a few light fixtures. Mentally, she sighed with frustration as she sat down on her haunches to think.

Irritation made her tail twitch as she glanced back up at the window, so close and yet so far. She could jump through it of course, but she didn't know what, if anything, was on the other side. As a vampire, a fall wouldn't injure her and she doubted it would cause her harm in her shape-shifted form either, but the noise would alert her prey.

Just then she noticed something she hadn't before. From her current angle, she could see an open skylight on the building's roof. It was an easy leap to the top of the building for her from her current perch. In an instant she was padding across the rooftop to peer in through the skylight. A shaft of silver moonlight illuminated a narrow catwalk almost twenty feet directly below the opening. Inwardly she smiled as she calculated the distance and launched herself into the air.

* * * *

Carlisle cursed himself mentally as he drove the rental van at a ridiculous speed along the narrow, twisting road. What was she thinking, he wondered angrily, and why had she gone off on her own? He couldn't help his irritated growl . . . the whole sordid affair was his own fault, and he knew it.

He had given his blessing to his daughters' excursion into Florence in the first place. Deep down, he knew better than to place his three older daughters in charge of their younger sister but he couldn't help himself. When Sarah mentioned shopping for a wedding dress, his fatherly heart melted like ice in mid-summer heat. Sarah was his baby girl . . . Daddy's little girl . . . and there was precious little she could ask for that he wouldn't bend over backwards to try and give her. Only his beloved mate held more sway over him than his youngest child.

Carlisle cast a brief sideways glance at his wife, her features showed her worry. He should have insisted that they take Esme along but he thought that Bella, having experience as a parent, might be able to handle her younger sister. It wasn't that Sarah was bad, quite the contrary, she was very well-behaved for a newborn. In fact, she tended to be what psychologists called a people pleaser. She wanted nothing more than to make those she loved happy. But . . . and it was a very big but . . . she also tended towards being impetuous and unpredictable, especially when her emotions got the better of her.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, drawing him from his thoughts. When he answered it Alice's voice greeted him.

"How close are you?" Alice asked flatly. "Sarah's located the warehouse where they're holding the boy and she's found a way inside."

"What do you see?" He wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

"Still unclear," she replied, "I don't think she has a solid idea of how she plans to proceed. She wants to help the boy, it seems to be her sole purpose, and the men holding him are just in the way." Then Alice paused, and in that short span of two breaths, a chill ran up his spine. "Carlisle, you need to hurry. The boy is unconscious and having difficulty breathing . . . she's contemplating biting him."

"God in heaven," he moaned.

* * * *

Sarah made her way along the catwalk until she found a set of stairs. Slowly she crept down them as she kept her hearing tuned on the three thugs and the boy. The new member of the gang spoke English with a thick British accent. This forced his companions to speak English, too, as their comrade obviously didn't know much Italian.

She kept a part of her mind focused on them, listening as they played cards. With another part of her vast mind, she listened to the boy, his breathing was ragged and he was wheezing. His heart beat was wildly erratic. Concern filled her heart even as rage washed through the rest of her. How could these men sit there idly playing cards while this poor child barely clung to life? The growl that rumbled from her throat made the windows in the building rattle.

"Did you hear that?" the Englishman asked. She could smell his nervousness.

"It's just an airplane," the gruff-voiced Italian answered. "We're close to the airport."

"That was no airplane," the Englishman insisted. "My brother is a pilot with the RAF. I know planes of every sort when I hear them and that . . ."

"Enough!" the raspy-voiced one hissed. "You watch too many horror movies . . . they fill your head with ghosts and ghouls and make you spook easy . . . like an old woman."

The two Italians started laughing and Sarah heard the Englishman sigh. The conversation ended and they went back to cards, but the seed of an idea was planted and growing.

From the deep shadows she watched them. Their table and chairs occupied the only well-lit corner in the vast warehouse. The rest of the interior was cast into pitch blackness that was punctuated by occasional shafts of moonlight from the open skylights. Just such a moonlit patch fell halfway between her hiding place and the thugs. A wicked smile curled her feline lips. Moonlight, like sunlight, sparkled in pearlescent hues when it was reflected off her tawny coat . . . but the moon's effect was much more eerie.

On silent paws she crept forward until she stood in the square patch of silver light. She roared softly, but still the windows shook. When the three men turned to face her, their complexions instantly blanched. They tripped over themselves and cursed under their breath as they rushed to put the card table between them and the luminous apparition.

"Bloody hell!" she heard the Englishman hiss. He stood slack jawed while the two Italians crossed themselves in an effort to ward off the presence of evil.

Mentally she laughed, her appearance was having the desired effect, but she wanted more. They were scared, she wanted them terrified. Sarah roared again, this time louder.

One of the Italians got up the nerve to pull his gun. She hadn't considered this. Papa pierced her thick lion hide with a large gauge needle; a bullet might just as easily do the same. Fortunately the thug was so frightened that he couldn't shoot straight and he emptied his gun's entire clip without coming close to her. Sarah didn't even flinch.

"You're the ghost expert, what the hell is that thing?" the gruff-voiced one asked.

"I don't know," the Englishman whined, "some kind of poltergeist . . . maybe."

"I am the howl of the wind in the trees on a dark, stormy night." As she projected her words into their minds, a constant window-rattling growl rumbled from her throat. "I am the creak of footsteps outside your bedroom door when you're home alone. I am the eyes that watch you from the deep shadows of empty alleys, waiting for the moment to strike. I am the icy blast that instantly chills a room and then vanishes just as quickly as it came. I am the voice that speaks to you from the darkness and calls your name. I am a scream. I am a shiver. I am the chill that runs up your spine . . . I am fear! And tonight you shall know me better."

As she finished the last line she projected a roar at a painful volume into their minds even as she let the same sound escape her mouth. It made the whole warehouse shake and the ground beneath their feet tremble.

* * * *

They were racing down a narrow alley; the warehouse was in sight ahead of them, when Carlisle heard gunshots. His already dead heart turned to lead in his chest. If Sarah was in her natural form, her vampire form, bullets would have no effect on her. In the shape-shifted form, however, injury couldn't be ruled out. That would mean he might have two injured to deal with and, if given the choice between saving a nameless boy or saving his little girl . . . his selfishness would prevail.

Carlisle and his family were picking up their pace when they were stopped in their tracks by the mother of all roars. Like an earthquake, it traveled in waves and shook everything around them. Windows shattered, burglar alarms went off and he found himself knocked to the ground by the force of it. When the shaking ceased and everything was quiet again, he hauled himself from the ground and they moved on.

For the first time in his 300 plus years of existence, Carlisle truly knew the meaning of fear. Not even facing his immediate demise at the hands of the Volturi had he know such a haunting force. It had a taste that coated his tongue and a smell that filled his senses to the exclusion of everything else. It had a physical presence that weighed on him in both mind and body. It was a cold heaviness that spread through him, slowing the movement of his limbs. It made time crawl along in impossibly painful seconds. Fear was a real and palpable thing and that knowledge made him shudder. Fear was the horrible wrath of his youngest daughter . . . unbridled and unbound.