Disclaimer: Everything in the Twilight universe belongs to Stephenie Meyer.
AN: Sorry for the long wait. I did warn you that I was going to take a while.
Thanks to ChieriAn9eL for writing the 100th review of The Cold War! And, really, thanks to all of you reviewing, favorite-ing, alerting, and just reading. I'm enjoying the process, hope you all do, too. The reviews I have gotten are amazingly detailed, and I have enjoyed reading and responding to them.
As usual, edward-bella-harry-ginny did an amazing job fixing my mistakes and adding clarity. THANKS!!!! By the way, her story Heart and Soul is complete – go read it!
I hope you guys don't feel cheated because a bunch of this we've already seen from other POVs in the last chapter. I just had to because, well, he's Edward.
"Emmett, I promise you, if I ever have to hear you sing 'Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves' again I will destroy every game cartridge you own," snarled Alice. "And no more 'Afternoon Delight,' either."
"What about that 'Convoy' song?" asked Eleazar. "That was the worst thing I'd ever heard."
I could hear the tinkling sounds of Bella and Renesmee's laughter as the van stopped before the house. Edward and I went out the front door to greet them.
"'Convoy' is all right," Alice said grudgingly. Bella and Renesmee were laughing harder now.
"Welcome to my nightmare," Edward told Alice with a smirk as she stepped out of the van. "He sings those all the time in his head. I swear I do not know what he likes about seventies pop."
"Hey, driver always gets to pick music," insisted Emmett.
I couldn't help but smile. My family, together.
Ch. 21. FracturedIt was such a relief to have everyone back together again. I hugged Bella and Renesmee simultaneously, taking in their scents, until Nessie started to push me away.
"Air, Dad. I need air, even if you and Mom don't." It's good to see you, too.
I loosened my hold around Nessie, and she put a hand to my cheek out of reflex. She gave me a fast-forward version of the van ride after Jasper and I had left. Emmett had kept everyone from sinking into depression with his seventies hit parade. Alice had given them frequent updates on our whereabouts, so everyone in the van had stayed much more relaxed than we had been.
Jasper strolled out the front door, finally finished with his computer work and cleaned up from our footrace from Boston. Alice and he were exuberant enough to be smiling at each other, and Jasper's mood was infectious.
"Where's Rosalie?" demanded Emmett plaintively.
"I think she's with Carmen over at the Den," said Eleazar sadly.
"And Garrett, too," said Kate.
"Jasper, turn it down," said Emmett, becoming annoyed. "I miss Rosalie enough all by myself. I don't need any assistance from you."
Bella giggled at Emmett's discomfort, and hugged me harder. "I don't know Emmett, I'm enjoying Jasper's assistance."
"I could rein it in if you promise my wife you'll never play Cher or Starland Vocal Band again," suggested Jasper.
"Uh uh. I'll promise about Starland Vocal Band, but I can't promise about Cher. She's got too many classic seventies hits under her belt."
"Enough," said Carlisle, but it was clear he wasn't angry. "We have a lot to talk about tonight. I understand we're all under a lot of strain, but we have to remember that a lot of families lost loved ones tonight because of us."
"No, Carson, we didn't take down that plane," said Bella. "All the blame goes to the Volturi."
I sensed something in Carlisle's mind, some measure of guilt or confusion or…it was gone so fast I couldn't be sure what it had been. I thought he was hiding something, which was not unusual. Almost everyone I knew intentionally hid things from me, and in general I tried not to pry since there was usually a good reason they didn't want me to know. I looked away from him casually, trying to block him and not let on that I had noticed the slip in his thoughts. Carlisle read my reactions almost as well as I could read his mind. My eyes passed over Alice and Jasper, and I saw Jasper was looking at Carlisle with curiosity. His eyes popped to mine.
That was weird. I've never felt so much conflict from Carlisle.
So it wasn't my imagination; Jasper felt it as well.
Eleazar was talking to Carlisle, letting him know some of the details of what he had sensed at Randall's apartment. I relaxed as I felt Carlisle's mental voice match up with his outer appearance. It may have been simple guilt over the destruction of all the innocent lives. I felt some guilt about it, too. Jasper and I had put together the plan to book the flight to Paris with compromised passports; if we hadn't, Demetri wouldn't have targeted that plane.
I pushed down the feelings of guilt. Bella was right; it was the Volturi who were responsible. I looked down into her golden eyes, and I knew what we both wanted required us to get to our house.
"Do you want to head home?" asked Bella casually. "We could drop Nessie off at the Den."
Edward, you can't leave. Rose is about to call with some bad news. I glanced over at Alice, but she was still apparently absorbed in Jasper.
"Sorry, love. Apparently we have new plans." Bella sighed, also glancing over at her adopted sister.
Carlisle's cell phone rang, and Alice, Bella, and I turned to see what was about to transpire.
"Hello, Rosalie?"
"Carson, we've got a problem. We think Josh has left in his car." We could all hear Rose's voice through the cell phone speaker.
"How did he get away from Tanya?" asked Carlisle, clearly concerned.
"It's complicated."
"I can locate him through his cell phone GPS," murmured Jasper.
"Rose, his cell phone can be tracked," Carlisle said, nodding at Jasper to get him started. Jasper disappeared into the house.
"You think Jasper can find him that way?" asked Rose.
"He thinks he can find Josh that way. We'll set up the tracking and be by to pick up Tanya. Maybe we can straighten this out before any more tragedy strikes."
"Okay. Tanya will wait out front." Rose hung up the phone.
"Everyone back in the car!" shouted Emmett, a bit too gleefully. Felix is mine, I can just feel it.
"I'm going with you this time," said Carlisle to me. Josh may require my skills. Carlisle disappeared into the house, reappearing a second later with his medical bag.
Jasper followed a moment later. "Everything is set. Josh is headed out on the turnpike. Looks like he's going to his apartment."
We piled back into the van. This time I let Emmett drive while I sat on the back row with Bella and Renesmee. Kate and Garrett sat in front of us, and Carlisle and Jasper sat in the first passenger row. Alice sat in the front passenger seat, diagonally opposite Nessie. I could have driven, but I wanted to sit with Bella and Nessie on this trip.
Emmett's mind was humming with excitement as we pulled out of the drive. Alice was scanning Emmett's future as well as her own since I was sitting too close to Nessie. She was getting a lot of images of Emmett driving the van while she sat in the passenger seat. Even Jasper was a little too close to Nessie for her to pick up more than random images of him sitting in the van. I could tell she was getting frustrated, but I had insisted we needed Nessie's talents during this mission.
My daughter was sitting, apparently calm, looking out the window. Inside, she was roiling with excitement. She was worse than Emmett! The family, and I didn't just mean Bella and me, protected her fiercely. She had not had contact with outside covens other than the Denalis, Nahuel's family, or the Amazons since the incident in Forks when she was a baby. Even Peter and Charlotte concerned me; I was worried Peter would lose control and bite her. While my parental instincts were screaming at me to leave her with Esme, I couldn't avoid the logic that her presence would be helpful when we met the hybrids.
I glanced at Nessie who was still turned to look out the window. Bella caught my eye and smiled reassuringly. She couldn't lift the shield that let me see her thoughts while she was expending effort to shield all of us, but I could tell she knew I was worried about our daughter. She squeezed my arm, and I smiled back.
Edward, don't alert anyone else. I don't want to alarm Tanya or anyone else without cause, but I just realized what happened earlier tonight when I could suddenly see our future at Randall's empty apartment. It happened right after Jasper decided not to visit Joshua's apartment.
Not alarm Tanya? I was fairly alarmed myself. I shifted intentionally so as not to telegraph my alarm to Bella. Alice was suggesting that we had no future at Josh's apartment, indicating a hybrid was present. They might be lying in wait for Josh.
I caught Tanya's thoughts before we were at the Den. Her primary thought was to avoid thinking about anything she didn't want me to know. Jake was still fuming that Jasper and I had blocked him from going on the trip while asking for Renesmee to accompany us. He wasn't upset that Nessie was going; he was a better man than I when it came to overprotectiveness. He was annoyed that he wasn't going to be part of the action.
We pulled into the parking lot, and Tanya climbed into the van, settling in next to Kate.
"How did it happen?" asked Eleazar, his polite tone belying his disgust that she could lose an entire human being. She has one job to do, and it isn't even a very hard job. All she had to do was get him the bedroom... I hurriedly blocked Eleazar's thoughts.
"I was distracted, and there was a lot of noise from the get-together, you know, the one designed to keep Josh busy? The one populated by beings with superhuman hearing?" Tanya was defensive, and she was hiding something as well.
"Distracted?" asked Eleazar.
Vampires are no good at respecting privacy, thought Tanya in annoyance. I snorted, thinking she was probably aiming that thought at me.
"We may have had an argument of sorts," said Tanya. She then launched into a very intense memory of a salad, of all things, followed by thoughts about various cheeses. Her thoughts were quite vivid; each type of cheese was accompanied by a stunning visual of the cheese arranged with appropriate crackers on a plate with charger and an unpleasantly accurate olfactory stimulation.
"Who started it?" asked Eleazar, briefly interrupting the parade of cheese.
"We both contributed," answered Tanya. "It may have been my fault that we separated." The parade continued in its full Technicolor, smellovision glory.
"Let's just focus on what we need to do now," interrupted Carlisle. This bickering is pointless.
"Yes," agreed Bella, leaning forward to comfort Tanya. "We can't go back and undo the argument. Or whatever it was."
"Where are we going?" asked Tanya. Thank goodness a new topic. The smell of the cheese was about to kill me. Tanya's thoughts were relieved.
I sighed heavily. She was the one thinking of the cheese; I was the one stuck with it against my will. I thought the smell would have killed me, no small feat considering my recent beef jerky experience with Jacob
"The GPS showed he was about halfway to Boston," said Jasper. "We might catch him; we have a few advantages that he doesn't." Emmett's lead foot. Alice's prescience. Edward's telepathy.
I searched out around us, finding no law enforcement thinking about speed on the highways. I also looked for two minds that I knew well. One of the two was highly organized and goal-oriented: Demetri. The second was nearly a cesspool: Felix. His thoughts were disgusting with no external stimulus, but his thoughts around Bella the two times our paths had crossed had been nothing short of disgusting. Both minds were unique enough that they were easy to search for.
"No traffic cops until Boxford on I-95," said Alice confidently. "But I still don't see us catching him."
"Can you see what he is doing?" I asked Alice.
"No, I'm not seeing him at all. I haven't had one flash solely about him. You know I don't do well with humans. It's even worse with humans I don't know well."
"How fast can you make this hulk move, Emmett?" asked Eleazar.
"Rose is a wonder," said Emmett proudly. "I've gotten the van up to 200 km/hr."
"Yes, and it certainly doesn't vibrate badly back here," I called out. My voice shook from the vibrations under my seat.
"Well, all vans have a back-end vibration," said Emmett defensively.
"I lost our future just now," said Alice grimly. I watched with her as the Emmett's future simply stopped with him still in the driver's seat of the van. Beside me, Bella gasped.
Physical silence descended on the van, but the mental noise was near deafening. Tanya was worried about Josh, and feeling responsible for whatever danger he was in. Alice, unable to see any of our futures past the van ride, had switched to checking on Rosalie and Esme. Emmett was, as usual, unconcerned. Carlisle was virtually unreadable to me. There was something on his mind. I backed away from his thoughts, trying to give him the privacy he sought.
Jasper was trying to calculate whether Demetri could be back in Boston already, given his probable location at sea some two hours ago. The tension was bothering Jasper, I could tell. He was becoming concerned about Tanya. I refocused on her, and realized she was beginning to panic about Josh getting killed before we could get to him. Jasper used his gift to calm her.
"There are ten of us. We have the upper hand," he said, looking back at Tanya.
"It's the timing. We're going to be too late," she said, her voice breaking. Jasper turned up the intensity of his calming influence.
"You should have taken your sports car," Tanya said to me. "You'd have been there by now."
"I thought about it," I told her, "but we need Bella with all of us. Demetri has known I wasn't on the plane almost since it blew up. I doubt he's back already, but he could communicate how close we are to the others. I can only seat two, and we know that may not be enough based upon how many others are involved. We scented three vampires and two hybrids in Randall's apartment."
"Two-on-one works for me," said Jasper. "I'd prefer three-on-one."
"That might prevent any need to fight," agreed Carlisle.
"I was thinking more about total annihilation, but anything which prevents our side from casualties is a victory of sorts," said Jasper. "Three-on-one would leave too few in Wolfeboro."
"I told you that Esme's future is very certain," said Alice. "No one's going to the house except Rosalie."
"No one's decided to go to the house," corrected Jasper. Alice turned around and stuck her tongue out at him.
"In any case Esme is right where we left her, in front of the computer screen," said Alice, her eyes glazing over. "Rosalie is there, too. At least, that's where they are one minute from now. Josh appears to be arriving at his apartment according to the GPS map."
We were nearing Boston, and I had to expend more effort scanning for law enforcement, Demetri, and Felix. I knew from Alice's vision of the GPS map that we were still too far for me to find Josh.
"How much longer?" asked Tanya. I don't even know where we're going, exactly.
"We've got about 15 more miles. The time will depend on Alice," I told her.
"It's not like I'm the one putting the cops there," argued Alice. "If you want, I can let you find them instead." Geez, Edward. I know you can tell how much effort I'm putting into this.
"I'm listening for other things," I told Alice. "You're doing a better job than I can do, anyway," I added, attempting to placate the little pixie.
Our approach into Boston was complicating my efforts to scan for anyone. The noise of millions of random voices could be shut out of my head with effort, but actively searching for a single voice required me to sift through all the noise. I couldn't shut it out if I was trying to find something buried in it. Bella's hand started to stroke my arm soothingly. I had scrunched up my face, squeezing the bridge of my nose, so I supposed I did look like I needed soothing.
I heard Josh's mental voice come into focus; he was distraught over Tanya. Apparently the argument she had managed to avoid thinking about was the only thing Josh was thinking about. He was falling in love with her? I had a brief surge of annoyance. Tanya was supposed to babysit Josh, not seduce him. Well, I had imagined seducing might occur. She wasn't supposed to make him fall in love with her. No wonder she was avoiding me. What had prompted the argument? It was clear from Josh's thoughts that Tanya had pushed him away. Perhaps she had realized she had gone too far with him?
Josh was alarmed by the sense of his apartment, and I saw Randall appear in his bedroom doorway.
"I can hear him," I said aloud, not bothering to qualify who "he" was. "He's with Randall. No, he was surprised by Randall. They're both in his apartment, but no one else is there, yet." I followed Josh's thoughts and realized Randall had not been invited in. I could see Randall's face, but he wasn't speaking.
"Can you hear what Randall is planning?" Carlisle asked urgently.
Finally, Randall opened his mouth, accusing Josh of not returning calls. Maybe I had been wrong and his interest in Josh was something entirely different. He sounded like a jilted lover. I was sifting through the voices, trying to match something to the voice I had heard through Josh's mind, but nothing matched. Opening myself further to all the voices around made the entire group increase in volume, to the point of pain. I couldn't find a reverse match to Josh, someone looking at Josh's face while he was looking at Randall, but I knew it wasn't because the thoughts were shielded. I could see thousands of people's faces flashing one by one through my head; there were so many I couldn't find the right one.
"I'm trying. I can hear what he's saying in Josh's head, but I can't find anyone who matches what I'm hearing from Josh. There are so many voices." I was straining harder, trying to find the voice and Josh's face. The voices increased in volume, different faces flipping through my mind faster and faster. It wasn't working; there were too many people. I went back to focusing on Josh, shutting out the overwhelming cacophony.
Josh was shoving Randall, and discovering that Randall wasn't the average human. The situation was escalating out of control.
"I can tell that Josh is getting scared," I announced. Now Randall shoved Josh back. Time was running out if Randall was deciding to get violent. "Pull over. I'll get there faster on foot. I don't think we have much time."
Emmett pulled the van into an alley so I could get out.
We'll be right behind you, bro. Go save your human buddy.
The building on the left had a fire escape that ran up to the roof five stories above. My memory of this part of Boston suggested I could get to Josh's without ever descending back to street level.
If Demetri and Felix arrive before you do, you are not to fight them alone. Carlisle looked back at me, and I nodded slightly. I thought I could take down one or the other, despite Felix's size and Demetri's experience. Tackling them together would surely be suicide.
"Demetri will see you, alone. I can't shield you from that far away," protested Bella, squeezing my arm. I looked into her eyes, golden now, but still as deep and expressive as they had been when I had fallen in love with their brown depths. I didn't have the time to tell her everything I wanted to say to her, and even if I did, I wouldn't have done it in front of everyone in the van.
"You'll all be there so quickly, I don't think it will matter," I said, trying to convey with my eyes to her everything I was leaving unsaid. I climbed from the back row of seats to the sliding door, and shot over to the fire escape. I was on the roof in less than a second. I began sprinting towards Josh's apartment; by the time I was on the fourth roof over, my family's thoughts winked out. I had left the confines of Bella's shield.
The most direct path to Josh's apartment was not feasible; two buildings of more than 30 stories forced me to divert slightly, and one building had people on the roof. They were in bright lights, so my movements on the nearby darker roofs were not obvious. They were also inebriated, which further prevented them from noticing my illicit activities.
I circled around the obstacles, running quickly but controlled; I didn't want to punch a hole through one of the flat roofs. Meanwhile, Randall's behavior was quite alarming and became more disturbing by the second in Josh's mind. I didn't understand why Randall's thoughts weren't coming into focus yet; I was getting close very quickly which should have improved my ability to find him.
I was now only two buildings away, and Josh's life was clearly in immediate jeopardy. Randall was preparing to bite him, and I didn't think I would make it in time. I decided to try scaring him off.
"Randall St. John, this is Edward Cullen. Leave the human. We've got you surrounded," I announced in a slightly above-normal tone of voice. I assumed I was telling the truth; the rest of the family couldn't be too far behind. I felt confident that Renesmee could have heard me at that distance, so I hoped Randall's hearing was equally acute. Through Josh's mind, I could see Randall had indeed decided to abandon his attempt. At nearly a full run, I leapt from the top of the closest building, balling myself up so I would fit through Josh's bedroom window when I hit it at full speed. I impacted the glass square on and hit the floor running. I tackled Randall before he was able to exit the bedroom door and secured his arms, pressing my knee into his back. I turned to look at Josh in time to see his eyes roll back as he passed out.
I could hear Josh's heart beating strongly; I wasn't overly worried about him. There was, of course, the possibility of a head injury, but there wasn't anything I could do about it with Randall writhing underneath me. I scanned for the approach of Demetri or Felix or my family, but I primarily focused on finding Randall's thoughts.
I realized now why he had been difficult to find. Each thought was like a fragment. The glass littering the floor behind me had once been a window; with effort, the pieces could be reassembled like a puzzle. His thoughts were similarly fragmented and broken, different ideas merging with others, then breaking apart. His perception of his sensory input mixed with his internal monologue. Different trains of thought were spawned by each new sensation, the trains departing rapidly and simultaneously from the roundhouse, some then circling back to collide and spawn new ideas. It was bewildering, and I wasn't sure how I would learn anything from the morass.
Jasper and Carlisle appeared behind me, having entered through the window I had broken.
Are you all right? Carlisle's mental voice broke into my head. I hoped that meant Bella was close enough to include me in her shield and not that Carlisle and Jasper had also left the rest behind.
"Carson, I think he needs medical attention," I told Carlisle, motioning with my head towards Josh.
The rest of the family entered the room in the conventional manner having come through the apartment building.
"Emmett, Jasper, restrain Randall for me," I requested. They took the struggling man from my grasp as Tanya rushed across the room to Josh.
Bella came up to me, and brushed her hand down my arm. "I hate it when you do that," she said.
"Do what?" I asked. I had a hard time focusing on her words when she looked up at me.
"You know what," she said with a small smile. "You have a need to run off and take care of things on your own."
I kissed Bella on the top of her head, and then motioned Alice to join me under the broken window. We were as far as we could get from Randall and still be in the same room. Between us, Carlisle and Tanya were tending to Josh. Kate, Eleazar, and Renesmee stood out in the hallway.
"He's not gifted," pronounced Eleazar. I was relieved. Thus far the people I had met with highly unusual minds had been gifted, but it would have been highly inconvenient to discover that Randall had a shield or offensive weapon at his disposal.
Randall was standing now, Jasper holding one arm and Emmett the other. He was watching me intently, but every now and then his eyes would cut over to Josh. He looked like he was planning something, an escape or an attack, but I couldn't find the key to it in his fractured thoughts.
"Is your name Randall St. John?" I asked straight out. Josh had needed specific questions to direct his thoughts; I wondered if it would work with Randall. The swirl in his thoughts was blank to me.
"What is your name?" I said, trying a different tack.
No name. What is a Rose? Unnamed, does it smell? Roses are red, books are read, blood is red. Josh's blood.
The short dialogue emerged from the swirling thoughts. I could see myself looking back at him momentarily in his mind, and then my image split, swirling like a kaleidoscope.
"Your name is not Randall?"
No name. Sarah says no names.
"Carson." He turned to look at me.
Josh will be fine.
"No, I need your assistance." I grabbed paper and a pen from Josh's desk, and rapidly scribbled a note to Carlisle. "I think he's schizophrenic, but it seems magnified a thousand fold from the strength of his hybrid mind. I don't think he was ever named."
Bella looked over our shoulders at the note and gasped.
"How old are you?" I asked aloud.
Age to age, still the same. Things change, they stay the same.
"Randall, how long has it been since you were born?" I asked.
I was hit with the image of a dying woman, bloodied, reaching for him, and then collapsing. His birth mother, I assumed. The images dredged up my own memories of Renesmee's horrifying birth and how Bella had nearly died. Well, Bella had died, in truth.
She was weak. Sarah makes me strong.
"How many years have you been with Sarah?" I asked, trying again.
Sarah! It hurts! The words came with images, fast-forwarding through childhood and adolescence. Our daughter had passed through the accelerated childhood typical of hybrids knowing at every moment that she was loved by us, by our entire family, by her doting grandparents, and by Jake. Randall, or whoever he was, had measured his time with pain.
I scribbled to Carlisle. I estimate between 5 and 6 years. He's quite young, but he doesn't look that young.
Ask him what the plan is! Jasper demanded.
I shook my head at Jasper in annoyance. If I couldn't get Randall to think coherently of his name or age, a plan was not going to be decipherable.
"What is your job?" asked Josh suddenly. In my distraction with Randall, I hadn't realized Josh was fully conscious. Scanning Josh's thoughts, I realized that Randall had used the term "job" repeatedly during their confrontation.
You have a job. Responsibilities. Randall's thoughts sounded almost lucid in response to Josh's question.
Josh had found the magic word, a key into the labyrinth of Randall's mind.
"What is your job?" I repeated.
"You have a job to do. You must learn. Read. Recite." These were Randall's first words aloud since I had tackled him. He was reciting a lesson to us. His mind was roiling with the pain he knew would come if the answers were incorrect, and he was waiting for the next question.
I said it again. "What is your job?"
"I have to be Randall," he said, and his eyes began darting around the room. He fixated on Josh for a moment, then back on me. This time, my image remained stable in his mind. Somehow, the litany of his duties was stabilizing his thoughts.
I said it again. "What is your job?"
"I teach Joshua. He learns from me, then he recites," said Randall, his eyes flicking repeatedly to Josh. I could tell that Randall wasn't done; there was more to his list of duties.
From Josh, I sensed confusion and revulsion. He had recognized earlier that Randall wasn't normal, but he had been unable to make the leap that Randall was not human. Now, looking around the room at the impassive, imposing people, he was questioning what he knew about us. He was watching me, particularly, and I was surprised at how authoritative and emotionless I appeared to him.
I was about to repeat the question once again, when Randall interrupted me.
"You are Edward Cullen."
"Yes, that is my name," I agreed. I tried to analyze what I was hearing from him, why he had chosen that moment to take the initiative in the conversation, and in his mind I heard the echo of the words I had said to him when still out on the roof.
Randall St. John. NOT ME. NOT ME. NOT NOW. This is Edward Cullen. Leave the human. We've got you surrounded. NOT THEM.
Randall had to know about me, but he had apparently never seen me or even a photograph of me before. I supposed that wasn't surprising considering our rule of leaving no evidence. We didn't even leave behind yearbook photos. His eyes flicked around the room again, taking in each
vampire present as though he were just realizing the breadth of the situation.
Cullens. Edward Cullen. Alice Cullen. Carlisle Cullen. Jasper Emmett Alice Bella Rosalie Esme Carlisle Edward Renesmee Jasper Emmett Alice Bella Rosalie Esme Carlisle Edward Renesmee
He didn't know who we were, individually, except now for me. He wasn't aware that Tanya wasn't a Cullen. He was more aware of his precarious situation, but not necessarily concerned for his safety. I couldn't understand his motivation.
I don't understand Randall. Jasper was trying to make sense of the emotions he sensed radiating from our hybrid prisoner. His emotional state changes more quickly than should be possible. Rage? Fear? Eagerness to please?
Randall's thoughts still bounced around, never focusing on any given thing or individual for more than a fraction of a second. I decided it was time to try another tack. If he was eager to please, I would offer him something in return.
"Nessie? Are you ready?"
"Sure, Dad." Nessie slipped into the room. I didn't like this part of the plan, even though it had been my idea. She was entirely too close to Randall, and he had proved himself dangerous.
"Don't let his teeth get anywhere near my daughter," I warned Emmett and Jasper.
Geez, Edward, like we couldn't figure that out on our own. I rolled my eyes at Emmett.
I was concentrating on Nessie, but noted that Josh was evaluating the two of us with the new information we had given him. Secrecy now with Josh was like closing the barn doors after all the walls had fallen away and the horses had long escaped.
Emmett used one hand to grasp Randall's chin, ensuring he couldn't suddenly lunge. Nessie walked up to him gingerly, and placed her hand against his face. Because of Emmett's grip, Randall's face was turned slightly away from her, but his eyes were focused solely on her. Nessie's gift had two components; first, she could place her own thoughts into another's mind with physical contact. She preferred palm-to-face contact when possible, although she could place her palm anywhere on the other person's skin. The second component was the compelling nature of the transfer; memories she transferred were believed unequivocally while her opinions were understood to be sincere. I listened to both sides of the transfer.
"What is she telling him?" asked Bella quietly, putting her hand on my shoulder.
"She's showing him her life with us, that hybrids can live as equals with vampires and humans," I responded absently, intent on the flow of information.
Randall's response was, like his other thoughts, difficult to decipher. His eyes were now unfocused as he tried to process Renesmee's message, which was surprisingly undistorted until he thought about it. His ordinary sensory input was confused even before he considered its meaning, as when my image swirled in his mind. He actually saw the swirled image. Renesmee's memories of me as her father and Bella as her mother seemed to spark something in him, though. I tilted my head, trying unsuccessfully to hear what he was thinking, trying to make sense of the meaningless.
Something's happening Edward; his emotional state just changed rapidly to determination. Watch what happens. Be ready to move. Jasper raised his eyebrows at me, checking to ensure I had heard him. I nodded slightly.
Alice had been standing next to me, trying to watch what she could of the future for herself, Bella, and me. We were the only ones in the room outside the fuzzy zone created by Randall and Renesmee. Abruptly, our futures vanished.
Randall jerked away from Emmett and Jasper, shoved Renesmee aside hard enough that she stumbled into the wall, and lunged toward me, teeth bared. I knew I was not his target. His entire mind was focused on an image of Bella's face.
AN2: So, uh, what do you think Randall's fate will be?