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AsloPOV
4th July 2048
As soon as she disappeared, I felt the ache in the pit of my stomach as she took a part of me with her.
I had battled that ache for five years when we were apart. I had wanted nothing more than to be back by her side but I knew I couldn't. Not until I was the kind of man that could keep her safe. I had watched for decades as she struggled with what we were. And I knew it hurt her more than she said when I slipped. So, I promised myself I would never put her through it again. I would do whatever it took to protect her, even if it was from myself.
Now I was helpless. She was running headfirst into this thing and I couldn't do anything to stop her. And I knew what she was like. She thought she had fooled us all, pretending she would say her lines and play her part. She had no intention of doing any of it. I could see it clear as day.
"Aslo, calm down," Kate hissed, her eyes wide as I threw a nearby chair against the wall. "Sarelle will come for us when she needs us. We've gone over the plan a hundred times." She looked around the room, confirming her thoughts with the group.
They all looked so sure; it was frustrating.
"If you honestly believe that, Kate, then you don't know her at all," I said as I tried to control my rage. My fear.
"What do you mean?" Carmen asked in a small voice. I bristled as I looked into her anxious eyes. Of all the Denalis she had been the one I had warmed to least. I couldn't place my finger on it but there was something about her warmth that seemed superficial. I didn't trust it, or her.
"She's never going to come back for us, because she's going to try to save us all by herself." I spat, my hands dragging through my hair as I thought of the fastest way to Volterra.
"She wouldn't do that. She knows we would never allow it," Tanya declared. I shot a look in her direction. She knew as well as me what Sarelle was capable of hiding. She could be so stubborn when she thought she was doing the right thing.
"Then how convenient the plan relies on us waiting for her to come for us," Eleazar said as the pieces started to fit together.
"Exactly," I affirmed.
"But it was Carlisle who explained this," Tanya pushed. "Him and Jasper thought it was the best way to keep our element of surprise. To stop things from escalating if they didn't need to."
"And who wants to bet that it was our Tinkerbelle who planted that idea in the first place." Garrett said using his pet name for Sarelle.
I looked at the group before me. They weren't my family, or even my coven, but they were hers. They might not have known her well enough to see this coming, but they cared for her. I could see that much. I just hoped it would be enough. Because when push came to shove I would do anything for that girl. I just wasn't sure if they would.
"We have to get to Volterra. Now." There was no margin for debate in my words and by the look in their eyes they knew it.
The car flew silently across the tarmac, eating up the road before us at an insatiable rate.
Tanya sat in the passenger seat next to me, my only companion on this journey. The others were following in the car behind. She had been the only one to approach the car with me and I thought maybe it was because the others were uncomfortable in my presence. I had never shown them this side of me, but then again it only ever came out when Sarelle was involved. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, she triggered something in me.
"She'll be OK, you know," Tanya said softly as she turned away from the italian landscape outside the window.
I knew she was trying to console me, but her blasé tone irritated me. She couldn't know what was going to happen, whether Sarelle would be OK or not. It wasn't her assertion to make.
My silence spurred her on, "I know you love her, Aslo, but you must know we can't just run into Volterra?"
"I've lost enough to the Volturi. I'm not losing her too." I growled as my sire Derren flashed through my head. His death at the hands of the Volturi had been my first taste of true loss. The feelings of helplessness and devastation gripped me now just as they did then. I couldn't help him, but I could help her.
"So if by some miracle we all survive this, what then? You watch her walk off into the sunset with Edward?"
My hands tightened on the steering wheel, the leather squeaking in complaint. These months, watching her with Edward had been torture. Her happiness had been like my own but the source of it brought me to my knees.
"If that's what she wants," I said quietly. Even now my mouth couldn't fake it. The thought of her with him hurt me to my core. Not because I wanted her for myself. It was because she deserved so much better than being someone's second choice.
"Look at you, you can't even lie to me. How the hell are you going to convince her. Or yourself."
"You don't understand," I snapped, focussing on the passing yellow lines as they disappeared beneath us.
"We have time now, make me." Golden eyes challenged me in the same way they had countless times before. Sarelle had come up in conversation time and time again. We had both known we weren't built to last, but we respected each other enough to enjoy what we had and not ask for more. Still, in the moments after, when we lay together on expensive sheets sated and satisfied, we'd talk. After I had found out about Sarelle and Edward and reacted as I had, Tanya had been the one I had talked to. And eventually she was the one who made me see I risked losing Sarelle if I kept pushing Edward away. She knew how I felt about Sarelle, but she had never really understood it. I wasn't sure if she could. I didn't always understand it myself. I had just learnt not to question it.
I took a deep breath as I thought over the years Sarelle and I had known each other.
"It's indescribable." I started and Tanya snorted beside me.
"That's not a great start, Aslo."
I smirked despite myself.
"When I first met her she was young but feisty. So stubborn and curious. She'd look at me with those strange eyes and it was like she'd look straight through you, you know?"
"Completely, she can still do that now."
"Exactly, but back then she was just as open. Maybe it was her youth, her innocence, but she trusted people so easily. When she left I didn't think much of it. I missed her but I was so consumed by Mary Alice, well Alice as you know her, but I put Sarelle to the back of my mind."
I paused, unsure if I was really ready to let Tanya in this far. She just looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
"Anyway, a few years past and then one night she was back. And she was a mess. To this day I don't really know what happened, and maybe that's for the best. But that night I saw something in her I hadn't seen before. It was like she had this internal switch. One minute you could read her like a book, every emotion just laid out there and then the next there was nothing there. I think my heart broke a bit that night, seeing that."
"But you barely knew her, not even a year. That's nothing in the grand scheme of things."
"I know, and I don't know why her memory stuck with me the way it did. She just struck something in me, you know the way humans do sometimes."
Tanya nodded. Neither of us dabbled in the human world in the same way as the Cullens but we could both appreciate that humanity could still surprise you. Sometimes.
"I didn't see her again until the night I turned Alice. It was all so quick. One minute James was coming towards me and I was dead man. The next I'm standing in a forest with this blonde beauty standing before me."
"Love at third sight," Tanya murmured, and I shook my head vehemently.
"It's not like that. Not really."
"But you want it to be."
"No, that's what I'm saying." I sighed, exasperated. "Maybe at some point I wanted us to be together and some days it was like we were in all ways except words. But she's never seen me that way and I know she never will."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"No, because when I say I love her. I mean it."
"You've lost me, Aslo."
"I will always protect her and put her needs above my own. I'll support her when she wants it, and fight with her when she needs. And I'll do all of those things without expecting her to do the same. Because I love her regardless of how she feels about me."
Tanya just watched me for a long moment, a shrewd expression crinkling the space between her eyebrows.
"Look we've been all each other had for a really long fucking time. And when you spend that much time with someone… it's like they're a part of you. So as long as she's happy, I'm happy. That's the bottom line."
"OK," Tanya said, holding her hands up against the irritation in my voice.
"Like I said, it's indescribable." I finished.
She turned back towards the window and I fixed my gaze back on the road. I knew she would never really understand how Sarelle and I existed the way we do. I just hoped she knew why I would run into Volterra, either with or without them, and I wouldn't have a second thought about doing it.
Sometime later, as we passed the sleepy town or Orvieto, the phone rang.
"What's happening?" I asked as soon as the call connected.
"We don't know," Esme said anxiously. "They took the bait as we hoped, but they kept Bella and Edward."
I didn't have the heart to tell her I couldn't give a toss about Bella and Edward.
"We expected something like that might happen," Jasper interjected. "Aro would want leverage to make sure he has Sarelle under control."
I appreciated the calm tone in Jasper's voice. Empath or not he could read a room perfectly and more than anything right now I needed to know they had a plan. That they hadn't underestimated the Volturi or Sarelle as the Denalis had.
"So why hasn't she zapped them already?" Emmett countered. "Wouldn't we know if she had? Wouldn't she jump the three of them out of there already?"
"Unless she can't," Rose said. "What if the Volturi know what they're up against."
I listened intently as the conversation unfolded before me. I didn't care how they got to a decision, I just needed to know what it was.
Carlisle's voice joined the chatter, a soothing patriarchal tenor. "They know she can time travel, but I can't imagine they know the extent of her gift."
Where all the others fell quiet, Rose wasn't as easily placated. "So why hasn't she come to us? She could have come and gone and they'd have no idea."
"Does it matter?" I snapped, instantly sorry for losing my temper but not enough to apologise for it. "We can't just sit here and wait. She's in there and for all we know they're torturing her or worse."
The rush of our tyres hissed in the quiet that followed.
"Where are you?" Alice asked in trepidation. I was sure her mind was already searching for my future. For a split second I wondered what she saw there.
"We're driving to Volterra. We've just passed Orvieto."
"You can't just drive into Volterra! They'll have you surrounded in seconds," Alice argued.
Tanya shifted uncomfortably in the passengers seat.
"We're not. We're driving to the nature reserve near Mazolla. Then we'll approach on foot. There're too many points of access for them to guard them all," I said smugly but Alice was already armed with a response.
"I've managed to get glimpses of Edward and Bella and they're safe. Aro is planning to question them tomorrow. If you go in now Aslo, that all changes."
"She's right," Jasper cut in. "We can't all storm Volterra. It would be a blood bath".
I sighed heavily down the phone. I wondered if they could hear my fear. "Fine. We'll wait in Mazzolla," I conceded. "But the second Alice sees anything that shows she's in danger, I'm going regardless."
"And we'll be there with you," Alice vowed. "We'll wait for you at Mazzolla."
7th July 2048
The wait for Aro's decision had been one of the longest of my life, but it was easier with the Cullens around. There was something about their demeanour that was comforting. I could see their loyalty to Sarelle, and I knew that no matter what they would do whatever it took to get her back. It was that kind of determination and passion I had needed.
So when Alice told us of Aro's decision, and we set off tumbled through the trees towards Volterra, I stayed at their side.
I fought along side Jasper and Emmett as we tore through the Volturi ranks. The unfortunate souls who wore the cloak but weren't consider 'special' enough to be part of Aro's elite. They had crumpled haplessly at our onslaught.
We divided as we headed towards the inner echelons of the fortress. The Denalis had hung back to hold off any stragglers we had missed.
We navigated the endless doors and stairways, winding relentlessly through the halls. Finally, we converged at the centre of the castle. The great atrium.
The doors burst open before us. The others ran to the Bella and Edward as they sat huddled together. He looked badly beaten but it didn't stop the rage lighting a fire in my veins.
"You promised you wouldn't leave her side." I hissed as his words echoed in my head. I had trusted him to keep her safe. Protect her from them and herself.
You're pathetic I spat at the creature before me. I knew he'd heard me by the way he flinched. He wasn't a man anymore.
The place was like a warren, endless corridors stemming from the atrium. I tried to listen for voices, but the walls were too thick and the space too vast to hear anything. All I needed was a hint of the right way to go. Anything.
"What happened Edward?" Rosalie asked, wiping her hands across her jeans. If we got out of this alive, I owed her my life many times over.
"I tried to stop her."
I hissed under my breath at his excuse. If he had truly tried, he wouldn't have been sitting there in one piece.
I blocked their conversation as I searched the corridors ahead of us. A draft blew through the windows and with it came Edward's scent and that of three other vampires. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing.
"We have no idea what we're walking into," Jasper said but I was already halfway gone.
"It doesn't matter." I snapped, running off down the corridor. I'd found her, and I didn't care what stood in my way.
A/N: Thanks for reading
