SETH
The second I was awake her face is what took up my whole view, I had to restrain myself from sobbing. She was here. She was right next to me, and I felt half alive. I didn't know what to do; I waited for my heart to calm down before I allowed my hand to reach for her.
Our skin met with a spark, but to my horror she didn't flinch like she usually did even when she slept and that made a hallow feeling in my stomach ache.
I pressed my face into her hair, breathing her in and praying that I wasn't dreaming. I prayed that she was here and I wasn't going to wake up and have to be drugged again. I hoped.
I forced myself up, groaning a little finding how sore and restricted I really felt. It was like I was asleep for half a century.
I looked at her, fighting with myself not to shake her awake and beg her for forgiveness. I focused on her.
She wore silk pajamas that were a deep emerald and mostly covered the scars that marred her skin. My eyes ran down the side of her arms, each paw line and vivid red streaks making a sick feeling crawl and writhe in my stomach.
I didn't know what was wrong with her. No one was in the house who could explain to me and I wondered why they left her alone with me since their scents were only hours old. For punishment? They wanted me to see what had happened to her and feel horrible?
I was glad for it. I should feel worse than horrible; awful, monstrous, vile.
But it didn't make me feel better, and for that I was glad. I didn't want any excuse or outlet to rid my guilt. I wanted sole blame. And to live with it.
Not that it would justify anything that had happened, but it should be a start to what's to come.
Her face was serene. Calm. So still and beyond sleep that it made my heart clench painfully with the thought of Iza being so far away from me that I wanted to throw up.
I settled with stroking her hair and as much as I wanted to get up and find someone to tell me what's going on, I couldn't bring myself to leave her.
I don't know how long I had been there, touching and murmuring how sorry I was but it was dark by the time I heard running in the woods.
I listened to the sound, but it was only recently familiar. It wasn't the sure, light steps of any Vampires I've ever some across. And it wasn't the heavy footfalls of my brothers. It was clumsier and seemed to slash through brush than easily go through it.
Something tugged on my memory, screaming at me to remember and making me shake. I felt the change of air all around me. I could feel the shimmer and pulling that usually caused me to phase when something was wrong.
Werewolves.
I had Iza in my arms instantly. My foot made contact with the glass of the window making it implode outward. I tightened my hold around her, ready to fall for the ground when it was too late. I saw them dart out of the trees across the lawn through the back doors of Avery's house, making a shattering sound as they crunched through the glass inside.
My heart sank, but fear was quickly wiped out as anger brewed to the brim. Boiling over and making a heavy growl rumble threateningly through the silent room.
I placed Iza on the bed gently and phased before the door exploded. I had the one by the shoulder first, my teeth sank in and a torrent of sickly warm blood filled my mouth and made it burn. Poison.
It snarled under me as the other one rammed me off and sent me crashing into the pillar across the massive bedroom. I rolled quickly up and back on to my feet. I didn't pause as I lunged again just missing the white shape of something dart pass me in a blur and into the other werewolf, leaving me the wounded one I started off on.
After taking the throat out of the thing underneath me, I looked up to see a white Panther.
It had startling green eyes and snow white body flecked with rubies of blood on its muzzle and dainty paws.
It retracted its nails out of the corpse of the werewolf and unphased. The body of a woman with tumbling black hair appeared in front of me, the green eyes the only recognition I had of the snow white Panther. Remora.
"Take Iza South," She said as she whirled around the room throwing a pair of shorts that landed on my muzzle at me and started packing a bag. I unphased and changed as I listened to her. "Go as fast as you can to Oregon and meet Collin and Brady, they have the girls from La Push. Fake ID's and money is in the car."
She shoved the duffel bags into my arms, and that's when I saw the blazing fear in her jade eyes.
"What's wrong?"
One word is all she said, but it made all the pieces fit together like a corrected puzzle piece. It was a word that made me pick Iza up and flee with her, desperate to get away. It was also so obvious that I almost laughed.
"Volturi,"
***
The purring of the car turned into snarls as I peeled out of the driveway and out on to the road. I watched as the speedometer dart onto ninety instantly and continued to rise on the empty freeway. My heavy breathing was the only sound that accompanied the growling engine. Thousands of thoughts spun and churned in my mind. I wondered where everyone was. I wanted to talk to Jacob or Sam and get news from them. I wondered where Avery and the Cullen's were. Why this was all of a sudden and no one had a clue.
I was so caught up in my thoughts that when her soft groaning reached my ear, I hit the brakes so hard I had to hold a hand out to catch her before she went through the windshield.
"Damn," She hissed as the wind knocked out of her from when I pulled her to my chest.
I pulled her out of the car with me and set her down on the hood. I kept her hands in my face, looking for signs that she was okay.
"Are you okay?" I asked, tilting her head up to me so that I could see her eyes.
She had a light smirk on her lips for some reason, but I didn't know why. She nodded.
"Iza," I breathed into her hair, ignoring the fact that a cell phone was ringing somewhere on the passenger seat.
Her arms wrapped around me and she nuzzled her face into my neck, her breathing becoming hitched and labored.
"I'm so sorry, Iza… you don't know how sorry I am."
She pulled away from me, her brow puckered.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," She said wiping at my cheeks then kissing them. "Seth, I need to talk to you. Get the phone,"
I let her go and watched with worried eyes, wondering why she can just wake up and act normal. She came back around but I noticed that she wasn't all there, she was kind of slow and her skin seemed too pale.
My fingers brushed her cold ones, and I took the phone from her.
"Hello?" I choked out, baffled on how I was functioning.
I said as I pulled her to me again, inhaling her hair.
It was Collin.
"Alice somehow saw that you were going to be up, where are you? " He asked, the sounds of talking on the other side.
"On my way. Iza's up." I couldn't stop myself.
I heard him exhale. In relief "She is? Oh my God Seth, that's awesome." There were some muffles as he told whoever it was around him, and then screams and a struggle.
"Iza!?!" I heard Claire squeal as the phone was taken from him and then another when I heard Kim snap at her. "Give me the phone!"
There was the shift of wind and the slam of the door. I could hear Collin's footsteps running.
"Sorry," He breathed into the phone. "How long do you think it'll be before you get here?"
I looked at the speedometer, "An hour or two."
"Great. Call before you get here and I'll give you the directions to the hotel."
"Collin," I said before he could hang up. "What's happening?"
It was a moment before he said anything. "I'm not sure. The note Emelia wrote was wrong. We were attacked by surprise, and that's about all I know except that the Volturi are on their way."
It was a second before I could compose myself.
"Did you know that Avery's old pack is phasing?"
"No, I didn't. I thought they couldn't?"
I nodded though he couldn't see me. "I did too. Legend says that they'll die even if they attempt."
Called hissed through his teeth. "I really loathe legends." I laughed, and we hung up.
I looked to Iza, but she had a strange look on her face. "What?" I asked, worried by her expression.
"Seth, you need to turn around."
I looked at her, not understanding. "Iza, there's a war back there. It's too dangerous, the Cullen's and the pack will take care of it. Don't worry."
She shook her head. "Seth, they have Avery and Renesmee."
My foot smashed against the pedal again, and this time Iza was ready and her nails dug through the leather of the seat and tearing the soft material. I winced because I wasn't entirely sure who owned the car by the unfamiliar scent.
"What are you talking about,"
She looked back towards forks. "They day I was attacked; they found me in the woods with another Vampire. I killed the other two before I noticed her. I thought I was dying, and I was on the ground when she stepped from the trees. She thought I was dead and put her hand on my face for some reason, but something happened. I saw everything she was thinking. What they were planning and why she was there and other stuff. I knew the woman better than I knew myself. They were coming for me or Ave, but now that she thought I was dead they are going to get Ness and her. She touched me because she wanted to see what I knew, but that can only work if you're dead. She went away but she did something to me and said she was coming back, and that's when I ran for the house."
I expected her to be scared or sad or something. But her only reaction was anger.
"Iza," I said, unable to think of anything to say. I couldn't say anything not because I was sad, I was murderous and talking seemed to take too much energy I would need to kill bloodsuckers.
I did a complete three hundred and sixty degrees in the car, speeding back towards forks with Iza and our hands gripped in the middle.
***
AVERY
I watched as Nessie's thin, beautiful fingers braided the string. It was a Quileute promise bracelet. She wore one every day since Jacob made her probably a couple thousand of them since the day she was born. Some of the really tiny ones she would sometimes wrap around her fingers.
I liked the way she could make the leather and beads coexist when I know that if I tried, it would be a disaster. The one she was making was entirely too long for her dainty wrist, making me doubt that it was for her. Turquoise, silver, and brown beads that mingled with the thin leather made a design much like the ancient ones I studied with Charles. It was intricate and complicated and hard for my eyes to follow, but I tried.
She was humming a song that sounded much like lullaby, and I found myself enthralled by it not only because it was beautiful, but because her voice could literally put you in a trance like it did to me. And I was impressed because, in fact, it's kind of hard to impress someone like me.
"Who are you making that for?" I asked, embarrassed on how my voice differed by her angelic one. Mine was entirely too soft.
She stopped humming and looked up, her father's lips curling on the corners.
"For Jake," She held up her wrist for me to see the white and purple one on her wrist. "He makes one for me all the time; I want to make one for him as one of his wedding gifts."
She blushed, and then looked less enthused at making the bracelet.
"That's such a good Idea," I said, encouraging her to resume braiding. "And it's beautiful too."
She looked at me, and smiled. She shrugged. "Yeah, well I thought I'd start him out on this. He doesn't like to use any of our money or anything so once we're married I think I can convince him to loosen up a little. God, the gifts my family is getting him are going to make him completely freak. Jasper and Alice for one bought him that car he dreamed of for starters. And Emmett and Rose bought him a speed boat from Australia, it the fastest model in the world. I even don't want to think about what my parents bought…"
She sighed wanly and started to mutter. I smirked at the thought of the presents she didn't even know about yet.
"Em is kind of the same way. He just thinks that by using any of my money is like taking advantage of me." I shrugged. "I think he'll relax a bit after the babies are born."
Nessie nodded thoughtfully and continued on the braid, "They're all raised to be so differently from you and me. Some days if feels like Jake and I are the same person, and sometimes when I see him with his brothers and stuff, it makes me feel like we're from entirely different worlds. And that I don't even deserve a fraction of him, which if he never imprinted on me, we wouldn't even be together."
I thought about what she said, looking at her in all her magnificence and wonder how she could ever feel any type of insecurity.
I snorted a nice, lady like sound. "How can you say that?" I said curling my legs towards me and resting my knees on my chin. "He loves you, and I'm sure that just because he's your imprint doesn't mean just that entirely. You and Jake have things Embry and I don't and I'm jealous of that. You became friends first, when Em and I could barely keep away from each other the second we met. It was like stronger than magnets. It wasn't even a conscious choice, not that I regret it in the least, it's just… it's nice that the both of you have that. Em and I never got to really know each other or love each other in different ways at first. We got together before we even knew who we really were. But now, we're doing this faster than normal and you know what, I have total and complete faith in him that it's almost comical. I don't know what his mother's first name is but I'm more thousand percent sure that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Ya'know?"
Nessie stopped braiding and looked at me wanly. "Yeah but, don't you ever think about it? About why and everything?"
I nodded. "All the time, but in the end I just ignore it. It really doesn't matter, does it? If we love them, and they seem to love us, why look for reasons and just accept it?"
She sighed and finished with the bracelet that she stuffed in her pocket. She lay back against the pillows and looked at the ceiling for such a long time that I was sure she forgot about the whole conversation.
"Then why do I feel so guilty?" She spoke to the ceiling, but then looked at me alarmed when I started laughing.
"What?" She said, her cheeks flaring red.
I sighed whimsically in between another giggle. "Because, my sweet Renesmee, you are Edward Cullen's daughter."
Her eyes narrowed at me. "Why is it that it seems like you know everything?"
I shrugged and stood, on my way to pee for the seventh time that day. "Because I usually do,"
I pressed my lips to her hair, and tossed her the remote.
***
I drummed my fingers on the side of the fridge door. I stared at the supply of food that was dwindling fast, although I went shopping yesterday, and frowned.
Long arms encased me where I was pressed to his back, and the lean fingers wiggled at my sides. I squealed, but then growled.
He kissed me. "What?"
I pouted. "I don't like that I can't hear you coming anymore. I feel incompetent." I sighed dramatically.
He smirked dangerously, and I felt my knees give a little. "I'll wear a bell if it makes you feel better,"
My pout became a smile, and I laughed. "You're such a weirdo."
He nodded and pecked at me lips. "I know."
I swatted his hands away once that started to writhe on my ticklish spots. "Did you eat?" I asked as I opened the fridge door again, only to frown.
"Yeah, Emily fed us." He said somewhere from behind me rummaging through cabinets.
"There's nothing to eat here," I whined just as he walked by. He snorted. "Honey, you spent four hundred dollars at the grocery store yesterday. What don't you have?"
My frown started to become more serious. "Everything I wanted to eat yesterday."
He laughed somewhere behind me, and when I turned around to do some cabinet rummaging myself, I found him eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I rolled my eyes.
"I thought you said you ate." I said taking out a couple slices of bread from the bag on the counter.
He nodded and tore another bite. "I did, this is just a snack."
"God," I said, jokingly. "I don't know how any of you don't explode."
"Because that would leave a huge mess for you to clean up"
My nose wrinkled and I looked up at him, his long hair falling into his face and bare chest glistening from the rain outside. He smelled extra woodsy, so I knew he'd phased today.
"Do you have to be morbid?"
Flicked a crumb on the counter and rested his forearms on the marble. He watched me chew. "When the occasion does arise."
I changed the subject before we started to get into our conversations that lead nowhere.
"What happened at the meet?"
He lifted off his arms and started to clean up. "Well, mostly future planning. Sam and Jared are going to step down after everything…settles down now that Emily and Kim are starting to catch up to them."
I nodded thoughtfully. "That's great. Do Emily and Kim know?"
He nodded. "Neither of them likes the fact that they want to age, but they're coming around to accept it."
Ness bounded through the door just then, tugging on Embry's hair and sitting down on the island next to me with her Laptop and putting it in front of me.
"Look at these," she whined and stabbed a finger at the different invitations on the screen. "Alice wanted me to pick these up yesterday but I forgot and now she's flipping. Can we run to Seattle really quick?"
I took a glance up at Embry with worry. I wasn't entirely sure if I should leave, if it would be okay. He nodded but I was still skeptical. "I don't know Ness, is it safe?"
She rolled her eyes and snorted. "We're getting wedding invitations, not biological warfare. Come on. If I ask my mom and she says its okay will you go?"
"Ask Alice," I said as her fingers ghosted over the keys of her phone. She nodded as Alice answered the phone and sighed. "Yes, go ahead. You guys look clear. But just don't get too close to Ave every once in a while so I can keep an eye out."
Ness shut the phone with a smug smile and said, "I'll go get your purse."
***
The shop was small and the parking lot even smaller, but I managed to park the Viper next to the beige minivan. Nessie skipped ahead of me back towards the car with a box full invitations that were a hundred dollars each, neatly stacked in their box.
"Can we stop by the mall really quick?" she begged before I could turn the key in the ignition.
I sighed. I knew she was up to something. "Sure, why not?"
The mall was crowded but the expensive boutique we entered was virtually empty. I slinked all through the aisles and random while Nessie had all the sales people sprinting from one side of the store the other. But it was fun. I liked watching her seethe when the sales lady brought her the wrong size, or when they didn't have the color she wanted. She was so much like her father if I had met her someplace else and didn't know he in fact was her father, I would have swore it anyway. I didn't know Bella very much. I loved her just as well as I loved every single one of them, but there were things in Ness that I didn't see in Edward which I accounted Bella for. Like how she'd blush as if on cue. Or roll her eyes and mutter. But there was a lot of Jacob in her too. Like when she'd laugh, I could swear that everyone in the store would stop and stare at her because it was such a beautiful sound. Or when she'd smile, it was like she was competing with the sun.
There were other things that made me want to bite her too, like when she'd make me march all over the mall for four hours straight when I was pregnant and I wanted to eat everything the food court had to offer.
"I swear to God Ness, if you buy another shirt, I'll start making a scene."
She smirked and looked at me from the side as we took the escalader down.
"How hungry are you?" she asked.
"I could eat a half vampire right now."
But instead I had Chinese food and forced Nessie to eat too since I always see her family do it, I'm sure there was a good reason for it.
"Nessie, it's a piece of chicken. Not a piece of a child's finger, eat it,"
She turned her head to the side and mashed her lips together. I sighed and put the fork with the said offensive chicken in my mouth.
"What's the big deal?"
She rolled her eyes and made a scoffing sound that sounded much nicer coming out of her than it did out of me. Of course.
"Imagine eating this," She pointed to the mouth watering food like it had maggots crawling in it, "And then trying to eat dog food. Sure, it's tasty and edible, but it's gross!"
"Number one," I said around a mouth full of my egg roll. "That's a gross analogy. Number two, your parents make you eat the stuff all the time; so, it's got to mean that it's good for you."
She flicked a piece of rice off my shirt. "I never said that it wasn't good for me, I just said I don't like it. It's gross."
"Ness, just eat the rest of my egg roll and I'll let it go. You've got to be starving. You're staring at people like they're walking buffet tables," I thought about that one. "Well, actually to you they are…"
She smacked me on the arm playfully, but took the egg roll. "No I'm not, just because it nauseates me to watch you stuff your face in dog food doesn't mean I'm watching people because I want to eat them."
She took a bite of the rest of my roll and grimaced, paused chewing, then resumed.
It was a moment before I added, "Well, actually, you could call it cat food."
We were laughing so hard, that somehow, we both ended up on the dirty floor of the food court.
"Oh, my, God," She breathed as we used the table to heave ourselves up. "That's was such a bad joke, that it was funny,"
I went to reply, but something in her face made me stop.
She was looking at something behind me, with a dark and reclusive expression. I went to turn around to see what she was looking at, but she hissed. "Don't move."
I paused, the gravity of the situation dawning on me. The last time I saw that look on her, we were in battle.
"What is it?" I hissed back.
Her fingers trailed up to my face.
Do you know these men?
She showed me an image of four men sitting down a table next to some teenagers. They were staring at us with hard looks of predators seeking prey. I instantly knew who they were without ever meeting them once in my life. I didn't the senses that were lessening the longer I hadn't phased. All it took was the look in their eyes to know.
Werewolves.
I grabbed her hand tightly and waited until her large brown eyes met my own.
Run,
I mouthed to her.
She left her bags and we stood without cleaning off our table.
Her hand reached my face again as we walked as fast as possible through the mass of people.
Should we run? I think I can run us both out of here without anyone noticing.
I shook my head. I didn't want to tell her that we virtually had no hope. I knew they would get to us. We were so far from Forks that getting to the car without them getting us first would be an accomplishment. I took a fleeting glance behind me to make sure. To make sure that there was an actual reason that my life seemed to be crashing in from all around me.
And there was. They kept a certain distance but pursued to keep up with us.
I whipped my head back forward and hissed at Nessie. "They're following. If we run, they'll just run too. Don't reach for your phone, or walk too fast."
She nodded, but fear started to paralyze her face. While I wondered why Alice's visions were being screwed up?
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