Narrator's POV
Patches held up no resistance as he trailed behind the tracker, for he knew that to try and fight him would only delay the inevitable. Demetri's grip was as cold and unfeeling as a rock's, and it seemed to only tighten the closer they approached to the castle. To keep from looking at that hated place, Patches kept his eyes on the cobblestone path and focused on the small slits of dirt that were barely visible under the oppressing slabs of stone. He idly wondered if small insects were trapped underneath, trying to come up to the sunlight but to no avail; the stones kept them from living. Dragging his boots against the path, he made a move to kick under a slightly larger crack to see if he could overturn a rock. Demetri glanced at him and gave his arm a harsh jerk forward. "Quit fooling around," he growled warningly, having neither time nor patience for childishness.
"Sorry," Patches apologized, but Demetri never offered a second chance. Pulling the boy even closer to him, the tracker easily lifted him up and folded him in half over one shoulder. In this position, Patches couldn't see the castle anymore, but the fact that he knew it was coming nevertheless prompted his anxiety. He began to whimper softly, wishing that Demetri had a needle that would knock him out unconscious as if this was all a bad dream and he only had to wait for it to pass.
"We're here," the older vampire announced as they entered the main doors. Patches began to see the eerily familiar red eyes of several vampires in the Guard that he knew despised him for one reason or another. The eyes only watched; they didn't say anything that Patches didn't already know: You're doomed.
They passed through several hallways and corridors, traveling deeper into the heart of this evil place. Patches confirmed that he was in the ninth circle of Hell as he heard an unmistakable voice that plunged into his ears like knives.
"Welcome, my dear boy. You've been expected." Demetri flung Patches backwards on the cold marble floor before the thrones as if he was a diseased rodent. He made no move to get up as he saw that the throne room was fuller than ever as if every guard was assigned the task of keeping him right where the Volturi leaders wished him to be. Closing his eyes, he accepted his fate. Do what you want with me; I don't care anymore. "Who do we have to thank, Demetri?" Aro asked in the most casual of tones.
"I found him with Emmett and Edward Cullen, sir."
"Then it seems that we owe them a kindness." Aro looked around the room, recalling that Edward's girlfriend planned to give birth any day now. "We shall spare the half-blood creature that is destined to arrive." To his right and left, Marcus nodded in agreement whereas Caius was more hesitant to answer, but gave his consent nonetheless. A deal was a deal after all. Aro rose from his throne and directed his attention to the vampire boy at his feet. "Have you forgotten who I am, Patches?" Patches looked up at the ancient vampire with defeated eyes and slowly shook his head. "Alright. Who am I?" Patches took a labored breath and sighed.
"Aro."
The vampire king thought upon that answer and frowned disapprovingly. "No, that will not do…Jane?" The most petite of vampires stepped forward from the still crowd and stood at attention beside her honorable leader.
"Master?" she responded smoothly in her chilly soprano voice.
"Will you please help Patches improve his answer?" Jane nodded without a second thought and stared down at the already defeated soul on the floor.
A searing flame began to erupt in the boy's skull, a sensation that was equivalent to being burned in scorching fire after soaking in gasoline. The terrified shrieks and flailing limbs was an immediate reaction to Jane's power at its highest degree. The surrounding crowd of guards idly stood and watched with passive faces. They had seen this punishment a thousand times before, and they wouldn't dare to step forward and subject themselves to the same treatment. Patches rolled on the floor to get closer to Aro as experience trained him to appeal to this individual above all the rest. "Please! Please make it stop! Wha-Why are you doing this?!" Jane kept Aro's face in her peripheral vision for his cue, but his pensive expression never wavered. Aro knew what was going on, and he was looking for something specific. He didn't even have to touch the boy to see that his influences—the nomad vampires, no doubt—undid everything that he instilled in Patches since the beginning of their relationship. Patches was afraid, but only grudgingly accepting his fate. Aro needed his full compliance in order to keep him forever under the Volturi's power.
Patches was sobbing now after a whole two minutes have passed, screaming so hard that the blood of his last meal began to gurgle in his throat. On this indication, Aro raised a hand to cease Jane's torture. His screams gently receded to small, weak whimpers of a broken spirit. The ancient vampire king knelt down to Patches' level and asked softly, "Who am I, Patches?" The boy looked up with the same, slavish eyes from when Aro first rescued him from the band of evil men—the large pleading eyes that both feared and adored.
"Ma-Master…Aro…" came his feeble reply. Upon hearing this answer, Aro was pleased and smiled with approval.
"Very good, Patches." Aro extended his hands to him just out of reach. "Come to me, and all will be forgiven." All will be forgiven? Who could resist such a simple request for such a reward? Struggling to his hands and knees, Patches lowered his head and crawled to the open arms. Aro took him gently and drew him to his chest, lightly stroking his head and back like a shepherd reuniting with a lost sheep. Patches acted on instinct, quickly accepting affection as a sign that he was home. Aro saw that he did not shy away from his touches and observed from his thoughts that he was broken enough to be recreated once more. "Welcome home, Patches. My good, loyal, special boy."
At his words of praise, Patches cried once more, but not out of sadness or fear. Jane's power reduced his will to the most basic of necessities: love and safety. In happiness he sobbed over Aro's shoulder and couldn't bring himself to stop until Aro made a motion to stand up. The Volturi leader's eyes swept around the room with swelling pride and authority as if to say, "You see, even this runaway can be broken back into loyalty. Our coven grows ever stronger." He motioned for Corin and Chelsea to come forward and guided Patches into their arms. "Take him back to his room and attend him," he ordered in a calm tone of resolution. Corin began to work her magic at once to quell his cries, quickly deleting his ability to fear until he couldn't care where he was going. It stung just as before, but once the emotions began to disappear, fuzzy calming sensations took their place, leaving him dazed as if in a sleepless trance. He remembered the good times he spent in the castle, particularly the memories of relaxing on Aro's office floor, or the treats he used to get from Aro after a good training day on his self-control in his newborn years. He left with the women without resistance into the castle he knew and remembered by heart, yet he sensed that something important was missing…
Ethan's POV
I flew for miles before catching the blue hue of my mate's hoodie. The cloaked head of Demetri Volturi plagued my thoughts with my worst nightmares as I saw him disappear into Castle Volterra with Patches in tow. I could feel so strongly through our unique mating connection that he was scared and in trouble. Aro would have his way with him, no doubt, and it killed me to even imagine what horrors he would put him through. Below me, Angel and Rose raced to the castle with their heads held high as I was their guide. I wildly thought to turn around and try to lead them out of the danger zone, but I knew from previous experiences that they were the type to proudly laugh in the face of danger for a loved one. Please be smart, I thought to them, hoping they wouldn't be so thoughtless as to barge right through the front doors. Search and rescue missions rarely go well if the rescuers are caught and captured.
To save them from such a fate, I swooped down to the castle grounds and made a brisk landing atop the tallest tree in the garden. The rest of the rescue team had to walk due to being out and about in the public town, so I not-so-patiently waited for them to meet me at the tree. Angel tilted his head up to the castle and mapped out certain high points where he assumed Patches would be—like a noble knight on a quest for his princess. He frowned and shook his head. "Alright. We're already in this deep. We just need to figure out where and when we should commence our search." Rose quickly glanced around for any passing guards that might be passing the area, physically appearing more nervous than her husband at the risk of being caught and killed.
"There's no better time than now, dear," she muttered with a rushed urgency. "As for where…anywhere." She began to pace around, her fisted hand propped between her chin and her neck as if she expected a hanging noose to fly over her head at a moment's notice. "I don't care if we die anymore, Angel. I just want our boy back as soon as possible!"
You won't die, I wanted to tell them. Captured, maybe, but not put to death. Aro would never waste that kind of power. In truth, I refused to change into my vampire form for the sake of my own survival. When I was a true member of the Volturi, I was their best secret agent, a spy of a million disguises. My animal scents overcame my vampire scent in most cases. Furthermore, a dove can fly away at the first sign of danger whereas a vampire can only hope to exceed his opponent in brutal strength. I don't consider myself a coward for not changing my form to match Angel and Rose. On the contrary, it'd be stupid to not utilize any advantage that I might have over the Volturi. Fairness reminds me of one of Aro's greatest hypocrisies. The Volturi leaders always enjoyed watching a fair match or duel and would even critique another team's advantage…except whenever they had to fight. Suddenly, all "cheating" was allowed. So it is with all systems comprised of winners and losers. Naturally, when competition becomes status quo, everyone will feel compelled to "cheat" at least once to get ahead of the rest. Why duel with a revolver when you have an auto?
"Then let's get this over with," Angel said with resolution, gesturing to the garden door into the castle. He glanced at his wife and smiled with bold optimism. "Ready?" Rose took his hand in hers and nodded.
"Ready." With my tiny bird eyes, I watched them run in, breaking the door down with a smashing force. You can do it, you guys, I whispered to them in my thoughts. I secretly hoped that they would succeed in finding Patches. Unable to wait for their move, I spread my wings and flew around the castle, peeking in every open window for any sign of my mate. Because of the castle's sheer size, it took me a whole ten minutes to look inside from every possible angle. I couldn't see anything that revealed his presence, but from a hallway that led to the center room, I heard a lonely voice sing in accompaniment to the music of a grand piano.
I had to get in there. Only one person that I knew could sing so lovely while playing at an impressive virtuoso level. The window nearest to the sound had a small hole near a corner, but too small for a dove to slide through. Sighing with the prospect of what I had to do next, I shrank myself in midair from a graceful bird to a lowly fly. I only lost about twenty feet in the morphing phase, but I quickly recovered and found my way through the hole in the window. I knew that people hardly looked at ceilings when they passed, so I made a priority of flying up to the ceiling panels as I followed the sound to its source.
Around two corners, I found him. His back was slightly hunched over the ebony piano where he must have been sitting for a while, his eyes glazed with a dead tiredness that pleaded for a break. As he fingered the keys in a steady rhythm, I noticed that his tune wasn't consistent. He kept changing the notes and chords around to find one that he liked. However, the words that came out of his mouth were the same. The papers in front of his eyes were not music, but the laws of the Volturi with the special few given to the Lower Guard. He wasn't exactly singing, but merely repeating the words for the sake of memorizing them, no less. The most disturbing part was the single chain that connected the stem above the piano pedals to a steel shackle that locked around his right ankle. For the most part, he just looked lost—both in his music and in his surroundings. No matter what he played, the music never made the words sound any better; no matter how he sang them, the laws always left a bitter taste in his mouth. If this wasn't prison, I didn't know what was.
"Patches?" I heard a sharp female voice call from a hallway opposite to the one I passed through. In a few strides, Chelsea entered the room in her full evening gown and looking like she had a thousand things better to do than baby-sit her captive. My mate ceased playing at once and turned his full attention to the woman.
"Yes?" I could not detect any fear in his voice.
"Are you playing your piece in the way I told you to?" Patches bit his lip and shook his head.
"I'm sorry. I do not know what the national anthem sounds like." Clearly, his assignment was to play and sing the rules that he must obey to the tune of the national anthem. I felt like I could vomit. "Perhaps if I could have the sheet music for it…"
"No music!" Chelsea snapped at him, perhaps a shred harsher than she intended. "You must feel it in your mind and soul—the loyalty to your country and coven." She began to walk away in the direction that she came. "Until you find the anthem, you are not leaving that piano!" She marched off, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she rounded a corner. Patches tensed up for a split second, then relaxed as if nothing happened. He began to experiment with the notes once more without protest in a lost effort to make his superiors happy. When I was sure no other vampires were around, I changed back into my vampire form. A closet nearby supplied enough material for a decent outfit. I crept back into the room, now fully dressed, and tapped my mate on the shoulder.
"Patches?" I asked calmly, trying my hardest not to alarm him. He paused playing to look into my face. I could sense that he knew I was familiar, but his expression was once again lost and very confused.
"Ethan," he said, recalling my name. His voice was monotone and emotionless.
"Yes, Patches. It's me; I've come to break you out of here." I would have thought he'd be excited to be rescued, but now he only looked sad and depressed.
"I can't go," he told me in an honest, straightforward tone. He turned back to the piano and stared at the words on the papers. "I must play. Master Aro wants me to. He'll be happy. And I want him to be happy. So I must play." To him, it seemed like a perfect argument: Do what authority says because…authority. To me, I could tell that this was not Patches—not the Patches that I know and love. Here was a dehumanized object that had no will of its own, and it broke my heart to see what my mate had become. It made me…angry. A fiery rage swept over me so intensely that I had to take action into my own hands.
"No. You are coming with me." I bent over the chain under the piano and ripped it apart with my vampire strength. Against Patches' small protests, I tore the shackle off his ankle just as easily and picked him up in my arms as I always did: bridal-style with his head against my left pectoral.
"Master Aro won't be happy, Ethan. Please put me back." Now there was a fear in his eyes. It was small, but manageable—just enough to instill a strong sense of loyalty to his coven, but not enough for him to remember just how badly his coven was using and abusing him as it had been all of his immortal life. All I could do was hide him as long as I could, hopefully long enough to refresh his memory on what Chelsea and Corin must have pushed out of his mind by force. Chelsea most likely blocked his memories of he and I at our most loving, intimate moments to make room for Aro's loyalty, and Corin must have expelled all negative emotions from his mind to subdue any rebellion within him.
"No, Patches. We're going far, far away from here, okay? You'll thank me for this later, I promise. I'll keep you safe." He looked hesitant to trust my words, but held up no resistance as I carried him through a path less traveled by where I knew an exit often stood unguarded. He stared up at me with those big ember-red eyes and rubbed his forehead against my arm, urging himself to remember and feel emotion once more. "I know you're lost, Patches. And it's okay. I'll help you, alright?" I lowered my chin and kissed his forehead. "I love you."