Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all the basics.
Rated M for several reasons.
Part One
Chapter 25 The Quickening
APOV
Manacles off I scowl miserably at my wrists and hands. It took me an age to wriggle out of them and I could really do with Edward's miracle cream right about now.
All the while I was worrying at my wrists I was focussing on the door, terrified it would open to admit a bespectacled man in a white coat carrying a clipboard. But now I'm free I'm just crouched here, staring at my damaged wrists while my mind whirls like an engine out of gear. I had a goal, I still have a goal but suddenly I feel as trapped here as I did when I was chained.
I need to get up and get moving before somebody comes for me. I need to find the others. And I need Jazz.
I don't know whether it's the pull I feel to him or my 'feelings' but I know where I need to go and what I need to do, so strongly it's almost visible in my head like a movie promo on a loop. I just can't quite seem to capture it well enough to slow it down and actually watch it . . . .
With a frustrated growl I get to my feet and take a deep breath.
Alright then. I'll be leaving this padded room. Any moment, now . . . .
RPOV
Em sits beside me holding my hand while Edward and Jasper stare at me with pained expressions. I feel so bad, I lost everyone but worse than anything I lost Alice and Bella.
"What do we do?" Em asks Jasper after a while.
"He up for this?" Jasper asks Edward but tilting his chin to Em.
"He's made of strong stuff." Edward replies with a faint smile. "And he's been eating most of our rations, I think he'll cope."
Em snorts in disgust which has Jasper also managing to crack a faint smile.
"Alright then." Jasper decides, serious again, blue eyes positively flinty. "This is what we're goin' to do . . . ."
BPOV
Some things I have learned.
The chairs are bolted to the floor and probably wouldn't move if we were hit by a San Andreas style tsunami. Whoever tied me up knew what he was doing. I can say cunt out loud. You can breathe, vomit and scream if the circumstances demand it.
But the jury is out on whether watching a friend get carved up is worse than having it done to yourself, apparently I'll get definitive proof on that later.
He took part of her inner thigh, her belly and the back of one of her arms and then he filleted it and fussed around so he could pan fry it. He also cheerfully informed me not to worry about her blood loss since the best cuts are always from veal calves.
I shall go mad, absolutely mad, before this nightmare is over. The pain in Zaf's eyes will haunt me, and he wants me to try the soup in a minute . . . .
APOV
The familiar corridor is empty which gives me a scary but strangely comforting sense of déjà vu.
Freezing cold and silent as the grave I hit the stairwell and start down, crossing an unfamiliar level that I also saw in my head. There's a cache here and, with my eyes darting round like the prey I undoubtedly am, I strip out of the hospital gown and wriggle into some grey sweats. Then I take off again, cursing my bare feet as I start down to the next level where I'll have to cross again.
Maybe I have gone finally and irrevocably insane? This is like watching the movie promo and living it, it's so weird, like I'm here twice. But not always at the same time which means I'm forced to slow down so I don't trip over my own feet. And, hello nausea . . . .
RPOV
Em and I wait on the stairwell while Edward and Jasper search the warehouse where Bella was snatched and after an interminable fifteen minutes Edward returns to beckon us inside.
Jasper has the control box in bits and is muttering to himself as he fiddles with the wiring, grunting to himself in satisfaction when it hums into life and the platform starts to descend.
The boys hop on before it even comes to a stop but I hang back.
"Wait."
"What?" Edward demands impatiently.
"Where the fuck is James?"
"We don't know." Em sighs, beckoning for me to join him, which I do. "He wandered off when he was supposed to be on watch. We looked for him but we didn't want to go too far before you guys came back."
"Shit." I groan.
"Shit is right." Jasper growls as the platform starts up into the concrete ceiling.
We switch on our flashlights as the warehouse lights cut off below us, the harsh white light allowing nothing to hide in the enclosed space, and after a moment I drop my eyes to the wooden floor. They look different to me now. Jasper, knife edge sharp and focussed. Edward, older and more experienced somehow. And Em, he looks different too, more here, more important to me. I couldn't see accusation in anyone's eyes but I still feel guilty, especially with Em's solid bulk beside me again. We were together, almost there and now, where are they all . . . .
The platform thunks to a stop but we stay where we are, flashlights sweeping the dark slowly and carefully. About ten feet away is a discarded flashlight, the broken glass glinting in the light and on our other side, almost opposite, a lone stiletto heel which was Jessica's.
"Which way were you running when you fell onto the platform?" Jasper asks quietly although it's totally and eerily silent up here once again.
"I don't know." I reply with a hopeless shrug. "That could be my flashlight?"
"It's as good a direction to start as any." He allows. "Keep the lights sweeping around us, we don't want any surprises."
"Yes sir!" Em responds with a smart salute and Edward chuckles.
It doesn't take us long to reach the broken light and Jasper reaches into his pack producing a glow stick which he snaps on and drops down beside it. On the edge of our light, to the left, we can just about make out what looks like a pack on the ground so we head for that next.
It is a pack and Jasper crouches down to search through it until he finds a bar of Kendal Mint Cake. Alistair's . . . .
He drops another glow stick as Edward shoulders the pack but there is nothing to see within our lights this time so we continue on in what we hope is a straight line, eventually reaching a concrete wall. The boys confer quietly and I glance back to where I can just make out the first glow stick. Jesus, this place is huge, we could shamble around here forever without finding anyone . . . .
We turn right and follow the wall for what feels like an age before Jasper instructs us to stop.
"There's something against the wall up ahead. Stay here while I check it out."
Our lights follow him but he's blocking our view.
"Edward." He calls quietly.
We follow on Edward's heels and I gasp, clutching Em's hand tightly when I see what Jasper's found.
"It's Siobhan." Edward sighs, bending down to move her hair away from her face. "Her neck's broken."
"Shit." I whimper and Em squeezes my hand, hard.
There's blood all around her body and the drag marks leading away in two directions.
Without a word Jasper marks the spot with one of the glow sticks and we follow the trail of what looks like boot heel marks back into the huge black space until we find a huge messy area of blood which was obviously the site of a major scuffle. Siobhan's short dagger is here, Jasper picks it up, wiping the bloody blade on his pant leg absently as we stare off into the beams of our flashlights.
Nothing. There's nothing but bloody drag marks leading off in every direction.
"Fuck." Edward groans.
With nothing else to follow we make our way back to Siobhan's body and the wall, intending to keep tracing it but we've only gone a few steps when a banshee wail rends the air . . . .
APOV
After I upchucked everything seems to steady as I rest my forehead on the steel railing, eyes closed.
Reality? Check. Movie promo? No longer playing out behind my eyes.
Shit!
Oh no, wait, it's still there.
Oh my god!
Groaning I sink to my knees, assaulted by images that have nothing to do with the movie promo but keep intruding on it like subliminal messages.
Me finding the boys and Rosalie. Me in a shopping mall, teasing the unseen person I'm dragging along behind me. Me in a padded cell. Me in an enclosed dark space. Rosalie in a wedding dress. Me finding the boys. Bella screaming as a knife carves slowly into her flesh. Me finding the boys and Rosalie. Me in an enclosed dark space. Me finding the boys and Rosalie. Bella screaming as a knife carves slowly into her flesh . . . .
I vomit again, not even caring that I've splattered myself with it, just letting the cold steel cool my forehead as my mind clears again.
I am on a stairwell in the Facility.
I need to keep moving to find Rosalie, Jazz, Edward and Em.
And then I think, no I'm sure, that we have to find Bella!
If only I knew, could see, how . . . .
BPOV
I must have passed out because now I can't see Laurent, only hear him murmuring to someone behind me, and I can't see Zaf, her chair is empty, the ropes coiled underneath it like recumbent snakes.
He didn't force me to drink the soup but I can still feel it, vile and disgusting, dried and crusted against my lips, chin, throat and cleavage.
I remember him taking her, limp and almost unprotesting, muttering about foie gras and how he hadn't had time to fatten us up.
My stomach heaves painfully because its empty and I won't be getting any relief from puking any time soon.
"Bon!" Laurent exclaims suddenly. "Then we are ready! Thirty minutes? Excellent, I have time to pack my ingredients."
He appears in front of me, stuffing a radio into the pocket of his whites.
"Ah Isabella. Welcome back. We are ready and my menu is finalised. Soon you will be making culinary history with me!"
"Fuck you." I rasp through my dry lips.
Not that it does any good. 'Chef' Laurent is in his own happy little world, seemingly oblivious to the atrocities he's committed and is about to repeat. I wish I was a superhero or hadn't left my Dad's gun back in my crappy one room apartment, because I want to kill him with the passion of a thousand fiery suns . . . .
APOV
When I reach the huge dark space where I will find the others my pent up emotions and fears release themselves in an inhuman harrowing sound I didn't know I was capable of making. This. This is where I know my sight will coalesce into reality!
"Jazz!" I yell.
"Ali?" His voice calls from the darkness.
"Alice?" Rosalie.
"Jazz! Rosalie! I'm over here, at the door!"
"Stay there!" Jazz urges. "Don't move. But keep talkin'."
I laugh, sounding like a complete lunatic but already having seen how this will go.
"Jazz?"
"Yeah?"
"Why did Sam call you Major Whitlock?"
"Youngest Major in the armed forces since the Civil War Mary Alice."
"The Digital Cowboy?"
"My little brother Pete ma'am. Total waster."
"He your only family?"
"He is now. Our parents were in a car wreck."
"I'm sorry Jazz. Why are you here Major Whitlock?"
"Ah now, Ali, that's a long story."
"You'll tell me?"
"I will. I promise."
"You'd better fucking tell me too!" Rosalie growls and Edward and Em laugh.
Much closer now.
"Keep talkin' Ali." Jazz urges.
"Are you okay Doctor Masen?"
"Yes thank you Ms Brandon." He replies with a chuckle. "Do I have some explaining to do too?"
"It fucking sounds like you do." Rosalie snarls.
"I don't mean to be rude." I interrupt before they can go at it. "But you really need to hurry."
"Why Ali?" Jasper demands as I hear their footfalls pick up and their flashlight beams hove into view.
My mind flips out for a moment, scrolling through dangerous and unacceptable images without my permission.
"Ungh." I groan, fighting the urge to double over.
"Ali? Why?"
"Alice are you okay?"
Closer, almost here.
Here . . . . Jazz's arms close around me and I bury my face in his chest as his nose nestles in my hair.
And then I pull away from him, his warmth, his comfort, using every ounce of strength I didn't know I possessed.
"We have to go!"
"What?" Edward demands as Rosalie throws herself at me.
"Ali? Why?"
"Bella's in trouble!" I hug Rosalie back as I urge them. "We have to go! NOW!"
"Wait! Ali! What's happening . . . ."
Rosalie catches my urgency and releases me.
"There's no time Jazz! You have to trust me!"
He does. They all do! We're moving, running, heading up and we just might make it . . . .