Chapter Thirteen: The Nightmare
Alice (POV)
"Angela?" I heard her screaming at me. Were we just…
I looked around the living room, the house unusually empty. "Hello?" I called, hoping for an answer. I didn't want to be alone. I stood and walked towards the library, hoping to find anyone. When I opened the door, I knew I was late. Everyone was gathered. Bella held out a hand for me, which I took with a smile. Her other arm wrapped around Edward's waist, my eyes met briefly with Edward's and I could feel the mutual respect and love we felt for each other and for her.
I looked towards the center of the crowd, and at Carlisle who was leading the conversation. "Alice, any visions we should be aware of?"
"Nothing new." I said with obvious frustration, although I had no idea why I answered a question I didn't know the answer to.
"Right, two fronts. The wolves are gathering to the south-west. The newborn army was spotted by Garrett heading west towards us, likely from Seattle." Carlisle sounded tired, and nearly everyone looked hungry. Their eyes nearly pitch black.
"I counted thirty, but there could be more holding back." Garrett said with a frown.
"Our best strategy is to encourage chaos, with both sides converging on us, we have an opportunity to pit them against each other." Jasper said with confidence, his red eyes scanning the room.
"It isn't without difficulty. War is never predictable." Marcus said in his usual dry monotone.
"This should be easy, it's just mongrels and mindless newborns." Kate suggested with confidence, a confidence I didn't share.
"The Volturi will mop up what is left if we don't win outright." Tanya warned, and then looked at Marcus. "No offense."
"None taken." He cracked a small smile, which for him was an outburst of ruckus laughter.
"What about what Mason showed Rose, wouldn't that work for the rest of us?" Esme suggested to make the best out of a bad situation.
"I've tried to help Emmett the same way, and it doesn't work. I think Mason did something to me." Rosalie said shaking her head.
"He should be here." Angela said through clenched teeth, her anger still palpable… anger. Angela's angry with me.
Why was Angela angry with me?
Everything changed again, yet I was standing in the same spot. Purple smoke obscured my vision, thick and sweet it was a sight that sent waves of fear down by back, it was the smoke produced when one of our kind was burned. The sound of crackling flames combined with desperate cries of pain surrounded me. Just through the smoke I could see the ruins of a building, my home. My house was in tatters. Glass crunched beneath my feet as I started to wander around. Then a hand grabbed at my leg, and startled I looked down into Emmett's face, or at least half of it, the rest shattered and gone. I screamed as he collapsed.
I tripped my way across the battlefield, confronted with face after face of people I loved. Then the smoked cleared, and a line of black cloaks were revealed. Aro standing in the center of them, smiling in smug satisfaction. Three figures were on their knees in front of him, three that had survived.
"Join us Alice." Aro offered extending a hand.
"Never." I said defiantly.
"We don't give second chances." Aro said as I realized he was holding Marcus's head in his other hand.
"This can't be real." I said looking around at the Volturi guard, and then down at the three sitting in submission. I walked forward so I could see their faces. I had to know.
Angela's black eyes looked dead as if any life within her had been extinguished. Bella was staring at the ground her expression fixed in a permanent scowl. She glanced at me and grimaced, anger burning behind her eyes. I tore my gaze away from hers and found one person left. Rosalie didn't look angry or dead inside, she looked resigned to her fate.
"Join your sisters, we would welcome you." Aro pleaded with me.
"Alice? What the hell is this?" Edward's voice was unexpected, and I looked back at him in confusion and then back at Aro, who seemed frozen in the moment.
"Edward? I thought you were dead. From Bella's expression… I assumed." He was standing a few meters back and he looked as confused as I felt.
"Dead?" He looked around, and then noticed Bella and ran over to her. "What's wrong with her?" He asked desperately. "She isn't moving. Why isn't she moving?" He clearly wanted to reach down but hesitated. Edward and Bella weren't together, but they just were. No, that was the future… or was it?
"I don't understand, what's going on?" I asked, not sure if he could answer.
"This is a vision, I think. Mason just brought you and Angela to the house. You're in a coma. I was trying to get a read on you but couldn't get through, and was about to give up when I kissed you on the forehead and here I am." Edward shrugged, clearly unsure of anything.
"We need to go back. There was a meeting before this. Everyone was there, we could listen and get information." I begged, hopeful I could somehow find a way to stop this horror.
"How, have your visions ever worked like this?" He said clearly just as desperate for answers as I was. I blinked; this was just another vision.
"This? No. It's never been like this." I felt my mind return to me; this wasn't now. It was a future we couldn't ever let happen.
"How am I here?" Edward asked the better question, in the past he had always been a remote observer, reading my mind to see my visions.
"Great question, and I got a better one. How do we get out of this?" I looked around as the world shifted again. The house was still standing, Bella was laid out on a table looking extremely drawn and thin. Another Edward, Rosalie and someone I didn't recognize were standing over her as she tried to give birth, but something was horribly wrong.
"I don't understand." My Edward said reaching out a hand.
"She's human, and I'm sure that's your baby. I saw a glimpse of this before, this was your future if you had saved her that day." I looked over at him and realized I shouldn't have clarified. He looked broken and was visibly shaking with loss.
"I was always going to hurt her." Was all he could summon.
"No, you idiot, you had a baby with her. Here, let me show you." I pushed the vision forward effortlessly as they tore the infant from her and turned her into one of us, and the vision stopped abruptly the instant her eyes opened again.
"That's as far as I've ever seen. This world vanished right here." I explained, he looked over at me.
"It was all hypothetical then, one version of events. At this point my in my vision it stopped because that's when you chose not to save her." I looked away from him, his eyes were frantic and furious.
"I could show you more realities if you like, one where she married some wolf in La Push. Another where she never came to Forks. The worst one was when you fed on her, succumbing to your thirst. None of them, including this one is real anymore. They're shadows. Memories of realities we changed." I pushed the vision away and tried to conjure what we were watching before.
Instead the image changed, and the person on the bed was no longer Bella, it was Angela. A different group were surrounding her, Carlisle, Esme and Bella. She looked tired with dark circles under her closed eyes. Yet even in her slumber there was a sadness to her face that couldn't be missed. I couldn't see her very clearly, but she was hooked up to a ventilator and her right arm was in a cast.
"This is before the meeting." I explained. "I don't know how I know. This is like experiencing my visions in technicolor when before they were in black and white."
"Should we explore more or try to get out of here?" Edward had regained his sense of self again, but I could see the fear in his eyes.
"I want to see that meeting again." I said focusing my mind on that point in time. The world shifted, and we were in the library again.
"My god." Edward gasped looking around. "I've never seen such a gathering."
"Yeah, we must've called on friends. Yet for some reason Mason isn't here. Did he abandon us?" I asked and we were yet again pulled away from the meeting.
"Damn it." I cursed.
"You asked a question, I think the vision obeyed." Edward smirked. We found ourselves in the same room, but this time it was clearly a private moment between Mason and Angela.
"Don't go." She begged.
"I have no choice, the Volturi will come if I don't go to them first." He shut his eyes and leaned forward, kissing her lightly. She pushed into him and they started to kiss passionately.
"Okay. I wasn't expecting that." Edward said with wide eyes. "Should we try and stop that from happening?"
"No idea, but this moment. Something's wrong with this choice." I could see this was a point of catalyst, I just couldn't see why.
"It looks like a good kiss… oh maybe we shouldn't linger." The kiss started to heat up more and more and I started to feel like a voyeur.
"Right." I chuckled. "I don't want to lose this vision, but should try and get out?"
"Maybe." Edward shook his head. "What is it about this choice?" I looked back at them and paused the moment before we saw too much.
"He's leaving to maybe give himself to the Volturi? Are they hunting him?" I guessed.
"If Aro doesn't know he's alive that would make sense." Edward surmised, and shook his head. "We don't have enough information. We could look at this from every angle and still have no idea what we need to change."
"You're right. Lets get out of this." I focused on my vision and tried to force it to end. That's when I felt Edward's intrusion on my mind. "Edward you have to help."
"I don't even know what I'm doing." Edward said with a look of helplessness.
"Try to let go." I suggested, and he nodded once. In the next instant I felt his mind vanish and suddenly the vision surrounding me vanished. The world flooded back to me, and I found myself on a couch in my living room. The entire family surrounding me, and Edward who was picking himself up off the floor.
"That was nuts." I said out loud.
"We have trouble coming, and I have no idea what to do." Edward said rubbing his eyes and standing.
"What did you see?" Carlisle asked, concern turning his face dark.
"Horror, hope, pain. The path we are on leads to a massive battle where most of us die." I explained, not having the first clue how to describe what I saw. The room gasped in shock.
"What do we do?" Emmett asked, squaring his shoulders and looking ready for a fight. For an instant the image of his face, half gone appeared superimposed over his real face. I shut my eyes to banish the image away. When I opened them, I found Emmett was staring at me, I shook my head and he faltered for a second before hugging Rosalie closer.
"I think we have to let things play out, there are so many variables. We must be wary with whom we interact with, and how we present ourselves. Especially the wolves, we have to make peace." I tried to explain. There were so many moving parts that I couldn't even begin to guess what we should change first. Pull at one string and the entire reality I saw would unravel, just like that other world with Bella and Edward having a child together.
"I've called a parlay with Billy Black and the new leader of the pack down there Sam Uley." Carlisle interjected and I could feel a touch of hope.
"We need to play nice, if they were allies it might change everything." I suggested.
"Or at least reaffirm the treaty so that we don't have to worry about them attacking us." Edward offered.
"What if we can't do either?" Bella asked, folding her arms around her chest defensively.
"We die." I said somberly, and tried to repress a shudder.
