Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.

Author's Note: Well here's the next installment. We're getting really close now. Only a few more chapters yet and then the epilogue and we'll be done. I'm not going to give a specific number of chapters because sometimes the story ends up taking on a life of its own when I least expect it, but we're almost there.

I didn't get much writing time while on vacation and ended up spending what time I did have on the way down beginning an idea I had for an entry in The Age of Edward contest. It's an M rated story that takes place during World War II. I posted it yesterday if anyone who is old enough to read it is curious. I'm so glad to be home though. It was great to spend time with family and friends, but it was a long week.

Thanks to my Beta Mel for her work on this story. She's not only nice to work with, but she's so supportive and I really appreciate all of her help.

Well without further ado…welcome to Chapter 38 and please take time to review and give me your opinions!

38. Family Meeting Revelations

Within half an hour of waking from my latest horrific nightmare, the entire Cullen family along with Jake and three of his top pack members were assembled in our living room for a planning session. Edward carried me downstairs to take part in the meeting laying me gently on the couch and covering me with a thick blanket insisting that it was chilly downstairs. I smiled up at him grabbing his hand as he went to walk away and squeezing it. He squeezed back reassuringly before I released him so he could take his place between Bella and Nessie. Sarina had been sent upstairs to take care of Gabe and also to attempt to shield her from the situation.

Seth paced the floor in the middle of the room as everyone settled into place for the meeting finally stopping next to me and reaching down to take my hand before starting to talk while still looking intensely into my eyes.

"We don't know how or why, but Lina's dream tonight shows that something has changed. For the first time ever Gabe was not safe behind friendly lines, but instead he was clinging to her leg in the middle of the Volturi guard. We need to come up with a strategy to keep that from happening. Any ideas?"

The family began to immediately burst out into a rumble of comments and questions wanting more details about the dreams. In an attempt to keep life as calm as possible, the content of my dreams and the things I had learned from them were pretty well kept between my father, Edward, Seth, and I. Nobody else knew what odds we faced or the fact that I was pretty sure that I would not walk away from the confrontation alive.

I started weaving the tales of my dreams slowly, connecting all of the dots for them that I had managed to put together through my journaling and analysis of my dreams. When I was done they all looked at me with matching faces of fear and worry.

"But I don't understand Lina," Alice finally piped up from across the room. "I know I can't see any of this because of the inclusion of the whole pack, but why are you standing there alone and why does your vision just stop like that? If you can see all of that, then why don't you see how it all turns out?"

I swallowed hard and sighed as I studied the pattern on the blanket that rested over the lower half of my body.

You have to tell them…all of it. Edward thought for my benefit. I looked up to lock eyes with him.

I can't. What if Aro gets one of them without Bella around to shield them? It will all be for nothing if they discover my plans.

They have to know Lina. They need to know what you are walking into and what has to happen or else they will end up making it worse and possibly ruining everything.

They're really not going to like it.

He nodded with a sad look in his eyes. None of us like it Lina. It took Dad, Seth, and I years to even begin to accept what has to happen, but if they don't know then they will most definitely get themselves and possibly you killed before it can be done. It's time.

I sighed and felt the tears welling in my eyes as I looked up to meet the faces of the rest of my family and friends.

"Alice, everyone, it's time you learn the real plan and what I am going to have to do. You're not going to like it. Matter of fact you are going to hate it and you are going to fight me every step of the way on this, but we've analyzed every other option and this is the only way. I don't know exactly why I don't see the outcome, but I suspect it is because I won't be making it out alive."

The entire room save the three men who already knew sucked in audible gasps of air in unison before breaking out in a cacophony of hysterical questions and arguments. A wave of anxiety rushed through the room as Jasper reacted to my news before the regained control and pushed a wave of calm shortly afterward. The room began to quiet but every pair of eyes in the room were cast anxiously on my face and I could tell that if they were capable of producing tears, my mother and sisters would be crying. I took a deep breath and continued on.

"I've known from the first time I had this dream at sixteen that I had to do something. In every single dream I might not have known what I would do, but I always woke up just as I started to take action. For many years I was frustrated with my frail humanity knowing that I was completely hopeless and helpless. Over the years I continued to try to think of ways that I could balance the playing field, fight back, and actually provide some sort of assistance in the conflict. A couple of years ago as I walked by a chemistry class in the middle of an experiment I got an idea. I asked Dad if anyone had ever experimented with crystallizing or changing the chemical state of venom."

The eyes watching me widened as they began to put together my thought process. "Dad, Edward, and I started soon after researching all types of materials and how they would interact with venom in an attempt to create some type of weapon, but all of our attempts were useless. It wasn't until I became pregnant again that a new epiphany struck that we found a possible solution. When venom works it transforms human cells into the razor sharp and impenetrable skin and teeth of your vampire bodies, and so it made sense that somehow manipulating that process on unspecified human stem cells could possibly have better results."

I saw a hint of pride shine in my family's eyes as they listened to the work we had put into the process of discovering our secret weapon, but the pride immediately fell into fear and panic as I outlined the remainder of my plans. The instant I was finished the room was once again filled with the thunderous arguments of my family members. The newly informed were yelling in great anger at my father, Edward, and Seth.

"How could you allow her to do this?" "There has to be another way." "You can't let her do this!" "This is just so wrong." "No! No way in hell is my baby sister going to sacrifice herself like that! We don't even know if it's going to work. Over my dead body are you doing this Lina!"

Then the whole room fell into silence as one voice of reason spoke above the rest. Bella's voice called out from her spot where she was clinging to Edward's arm frozen solid and staring into the void of space in front of her.

"This plan could never work unless I'm there to shield you the entire time. Otherwise the second Aro touches you he will know everything and they will take you out before you can take your first breath in his presence."

The entire room froze only their heads moving as their gaze shifted from Bella to me and back to Bella. I felt the smile spreading across my face and leading to the room falling into stunned confusion when their faces turned once more back to me.

I chuckled a little with a smug smile. "Well, there is just one more thing you guys don't know. I discovered it some time ago, but I've been keeping it to myself until I could perfect it a little better."

This time every single face in the room drew into a perplexed expression, but Edward in particular.

"I discovered it on accident one day while carrying on one of our special conversations with Edward when I found myself wishing I could make him hear one thing when I was really thinking another. To my amazement he responded to what I wanted him to hear instead of what I was really thinking."

I looked at Edward whose face was drawn into a deep brooding frown and gave him a small smile. "I promise, I only did it with insignificant things as I practiced honing the new ability. I never kept anything major from you." I saw him sigh looking a bit hurt but in his thoughts I could see him appreciating the need to keep the fact to myself and the benefits the new ability would have before I addressed the group as a whole again.

"It's very limited. I can't seem to make it extend to other people and it seems to only work with mind reading abilities, but basically I can shield my own thoughts and replace them with something else, sort of like combining Bella and Nessie's gifts."

I could hear murmurs of surprise. "I know it works with Edward, but my only hope is that it works with Aro too…but right now the most important issue is Gabe's safety. There is no way I can do what needs to be done if he is there with me. I can't risk his life like that. It's way too dangerous. So what we need to do now and stop arguing about the things that cannot and will not be changed and focus on the things that we may just have some chance of fixing. How can we keep Gabe from ending up on that side of the line with me?"

We debated back and forth for the next hour before it was decided that the family was going to move into the house with us for the time being. Gabe would go nowhere without a minimum of two vampire family members in tow.

We had just wrapped up the debate and the ladies had all gotten up and begun making their way toward the door to go to the main homestead and pack up any supplies they believed they might need for their extended stay. The house would be crowded, but at least we didn't have to worry about providing beds for the eight new houseguests that would be camped out with us for an unspecified amount of time. Before the ladies could leave Sarina came slowly down the stairs holding Gabe's hand.

Sarina brought him to me and he climbed up into my lap and curled himself around my stomach burying his tiny face in my neck.

"I'm sorry Aunt Lina, but he woke up crying and wouldn't stop until I promised to bring him to you. He kept talking about his dream and the scary men in black."

All movement in the room stopped as I felt my lungs freeze mid breath. I reached my hand up to stroke Gabe's hair away from his forehead noticing that his fever appeared to have broken as I soothed him and whispered in his ear. "Did you have a bad dream baby?"

He nodded and whimpered as he clamped his eyes closed and buried his face deeper in my hair. I looked up to lock eyes with Edward listening as he sorted through Gabe's memories of the dream that he was attempting to escape in the curtain of my hair. My breathing sped and my eyes began to water as I listened to Edward analyze Gabe's thoughts of standing next to me surrounded by towering figures in black cloaks as he cried and held onto my leg.

I pulled Gabe tighter to my body and kissed the top of his head as I fought to suppress the sobs that were building within me in an attempt to not upset him any further. I was beginning to lose my struggle when to my relief my mother stepped in and asked Gabe if she could tuck him back in and sit with him while he slept.

He hugged me closer and kissed my cheek as he whispered, "I love you, Mommy. I know you will protect me from the scary men. I saw it before I woke up." I squeezed him tighter focusing on the feeling of him in my arms before finally allowing my mother to take him with her back to his bedroom. The second he was out of the room I felt myself collapse as the dam crumbled and my sobs rumbled through my body.

Seth rushed to hold me and soothe me as I cried. I could feel a dozen emotions vibrate though me from his touch. My poor Seth felt so helpless and desperate to hold on to everyone he held dear. He still refused to accept the plan as being the only option for the survival of our loved ones. Every night he would plead with me to find another way, but I reassured him over and over that there was no other way.

His mood had just shifted into a heart wrenching compulsion to hold me close and never let me go before a thought from Edward trickled through the emotional onslaught. It was something he was seeing in Gabe's dream as he slept in his bed upstairs. He was once again safely on my family's side of the conflict and now Gabe, Seth, and the baby were flanked by Emmett and Rose behind and to his right, with Jasper and Alice to his left and in front of him. They were all in defensive crouches standing sentinel in front of my family. I smiled a little and sent up a silent prayer of hope that Gabe's dream would come to pass instead of my most recent one.

In Gabe's dream I look at them all one by one before Edward speaks on my behalf to tell everyone that I love them and I'm sorry before the Volturi side of the line begins to shuffle and rumble in confusion. The typically precise and stoic ranks of the guard appear to be in chaos for a moment before a ball of flame ignites in the middle of the line near where I had been standing. Seth's screams can be heard above the mournful cries of my family seconds before I hear my poor son screaming for me from his bedroom on the second floor.

An instant later my mother appeared once more at my side with a shivering Gabe wrapped in her arms. I reached out as he practically dove into my arms his warm tears drenching my shoulder as he grabbed tightly around my neck begging me not to die. Seth knelt in front of us wrapping us both in his arms, attempting to soothe both of us.

I took a deep breath and held him close. "Momma's going to make you safe my sweet baby boy. Momma's going to make it all better." I rubbed small circles in his back and hummed to him as I heard Edward relay Gabe's dream in a pained voice. Just as he finished sharing the details I felt Gabe's breath soften into a steady rhythm, as his body grew limp against mine.

Moments later I joined him in slumber and as my dreams began to unfold the events now mirrored what Edward had seen in Gabe's dream, but as usual stopped just before the physical confrontation began. I jerked awake as I felt someone pulling Gabe's weight from my body and I wrapped my arms tighter around his tiny body shaking my head no at my husband who was attempting to move Gabe back to his room.

He looked at me concerned before sighing and settling on the floor next to the couch and twisting so he could wrap his arms around our son and me. We stayed that way for the rest of the night as we slept together in one another's arms. I awoke occasionally when Gabe or Seth would shift in their sleep and each time I would send up a silent prayer that we could pull it off. I really didn't care about myself anymore. All that mattered to me was that I would be able to make my family safe once and for all.