This time, the darkness brought no comfort. It was as though she was trapped in her mind, but it didn't conceal the agonised whispers of those she resided with from her apparent forced darkness. They came first, like murmurs on the wind, then they increased, until someone gave her a sharp shove and she bounded upwards, eyes flashing open as she attempted to take in and register her surroundings within her mind. Thick poles of white -vampire bone- were sequestered in a tight formation, surrounding her. A cage, she was in a cage made of the very thing that currently resided in her own body.
She glanced around, eyes widening a little when she saw those in the cage next to her. Relief flooded through her as she looked at those whom she'd came to save. It was consuming, but the anger that came from the dark haired boy she'd came to love was lethal, intoxicating, and infuriating. "What are you doing here?" He snarled. "What part of you are to stay away did you not understand?" He was livid, his normal red eyes now the blackest black imaginable. "Do you have any idea what they're going to do with you?"
His words ripped through her heart, and she ached to cry back at him, but she remained silent. Felix and Demetri were both stood against the bars that connected their cages, Jane stood beside her brother, her eyes sharp and focussed on where she was leant against the wall, not speaking to any of them. Her mind whirled with schemes. She remembered the discussion she'd had with Aro weeks prior when rumours of the Russian Coven resurfacing had been brought to the table. He had stared at her in silent concentration, fingers pressed to his mouth, and then he had wondered out loud if she could perhaps overload her gift. Only Jane and Santiago, as well as Renata lurking close by, had been in the room at the time.
And with the look the small vampire had on her face as she observed her, she knew she was putting the pieces together.
Alec continued, coming beside the cage wall that separated them. "Olivia," his voice sounded akin to a plea and her resolve wavered for a moment before she hardened it, making it unbreakable and lowered her head so she couldn't see him through the curtain of her thick hair. If she couldn't see him, he couldn't tempt her like the serpent did to Eve in the garden. His voice sounded once more, sounding desperate. "You said you wouldn't put yourself in danger, you promised me." She shifted, still unable to look at him.
And as if to make her resolve try to crack some more, the two tall men began to speak too. "He has a point, titch," came the giant's input, and she heard a sharp sound of agreement come from his albeit a titch smaller, but just as lethal, companion. "He does. What you've done is just give them more leverage, even if they still don't know your gift. To put yourself in danger such as this is both idiotic and reckless, Olivia."
The three males continued for what seemed hours, her mind whirling with their attempts to get her to speak to them. She found herself sitting on the floor at one point, the thought of standing irritating her. She rested against the wall, crossing her legs, and it was only then, when she moved, giving the impression she was very much coherent of mind and not pretending to be a statue, that the twin who had remained silent spoke, her voice calm, almost as though she had figured it out. "Why, Olivia, when you know the cost, would you come?"
Her words demanded an answer, and the resolve cracked for a minute, and she answered her just as calmly, looking at her clasped and intertwined fingers. "Because one life is not worth four."
A sharp inhale came from beside her, and she knew immediately that he too, as perceptive as his older sister, had discovered and unwound her plan before his own eyes. "You plan to overload your gift like you discussed with Master," his horror was plain to hear, and while she couldn't see his face, she knew the horror would be in dark eyes as they stared at her. "Olivia you cannot; Master stated it wasn't even guaranteed to work."
She remained silent, closing her eyes as she calmed herself, calmed what was left of her soul after all these years. She inhaled sharply, breathing in the scents of those around her. It would only be a matter of time before they came to get her, to slaughter her, or attempt to. Who knows what overloading such a volatile ability could do? She had an idea, and judging from the anguished sound of the angelic dark haired boy in the cage next to her, so did he.
Hours passed, her mind at rest, not able to hear the gates that opened for the entrance to the dungeons, and not able to smell the familiar, sweet scent of roses and daises that she been grateful enough to smell for the years preceding her introduction to the Volturi. It had been a beautiful smell, so light and heady, and its owner had been so precious, untouched and innocent, the opposite of herself.
While she missed the scent of the new arrival, she didn't miss the whispered, shell-shocked, almost as though the individual couldn't believe their eyes, breath of her name as someone came to stand before the cage that held her. "Sister?"
Ruby eyes shot open and she bounded to her feet, appearing before the cage in an instant, her resolve cracked, shattered, scattered into a thousand pieces as she stared at the sight before her, a sight so perfect and glorious had her heart been beating, it would have exploded in her chest. She reached through the bars, fingers hovering just inches from a far she hadn't seen in what felt like eternity, when in fact, it had only been a few decades. She choked. "Penelope?"
Born a few years after her own assimilation to this life, she hadn't quite so easily dismissed her human roots as her sire had commanded she would. Images of a rosy cheeked baby, blonde hair, green eyes, running through a field of wildflowers as her mother ran after her, plagued her mind. She had hidden in the trees, watching as, over the years, that rosy cheeked babe with the pale golden hair and jade green eyes had grown, becoming a woman who would have had men kneeling at her feet, worshipping the ground this beautiful goddess walked on.
But now, rosy cheeks dotted with freckles were smooth, pale as snow, flawless of imperfections. Pale golden hair was pulled back off her face, no longer weathered and ragged with split ends of the growing stands, but now straight, as sharp as a blade. Green eyes, once so beautiful in the innocence they held, now were widened with horror and revelation, and the prettiest red she had laid her eyes on.
The little girl who had bloomed into a beautiful young woman gave a pained cry. "Why are you in a cage?" She wept, fingers clutching at the bars before she clutched her face. The hands, soft and yet warm, felt delightful to her skin. Her younger sister, the one who she was sure no one but Aro knew about, although he didn't say anything to which she was grateful, stared over her before her eyes focussed on the necklace around her neck. Her mouth opened once; no words came of it. Words did when she opened it again. "You're a member of the Volturi?" She whispered, sounding betrayed, her hands leaving her face.
She stared at the young woman before her, taking in the dark blue and black uniform of the girl before her. "You're a member of the Russian Coven," she stated back and Penelope, her eyes wide and chest heaving with unnecessary gulps of air. looked at the intricate coat of arms stitched on her breast before back to her. "Since my twenty-sixth birthday." She inhaled sharply. " Sister, I thought you dead." She gave a weeping sigh. "But why are you in the cage? Yevgeni knows of your significance to me, I am sure of it. He would not put you in such a place."
Did she not know? Did she truly not know? She had turned twenty-six none too long after she herself was taken, perhaps five years after? That meant she was a member when her coven had brutalised her, all but tried to make her so destroyed mentally she would no longer function -she hadn't wanted to for a long time after what they did.
"Penelope," to say the name again felt like a prayer, a beacon of the innocence in the world. "I'm the one they've been after, the one they want." She let out a shuddering breath that rattled her dead lungs. She looked at her, witnessing the horror and the realisation that soon set in after. "You're the one who escaped years ago." She whispered.
It was no use denying it; she nodded. "They did dreadful things to me, violated me. I have never witnessed such brutality, not even at the hand of father." Another grimace. Penelope seemed to grasps her words for she shook her head. "Yevgeni would never do such a despicable thing," she uttered. She shook her head, as though the thought was too sickening to acknowledge. "He saved me from father when he tried to attack me too."
Olivia let out a shuddering breath, reaching for the sleeves of her uniform, pulling them up to expose the mutilated flesh, the dozens of bit marks all but covering her skin there. Her sister inhaled sharply, reaching through the bars to run her fingers over the crescent shaped marks, tracing one lightly with her finger. She floundered for words, this going on for minutes before Olivia reached through the bars and cupped the cheeks she had often longed to bathe in kisses to reassure the young child at the time that everything would work out. "You need to go,run, and save yourself from such beasts, such monsters. I couldn't bear to see this happen to you, my last flesh and blood on this earth."
Her sister, visibly battling internally with such words, pulled back before running from the dungeon, her eyes horrified and frantic, and Olivia sank backwards once more, aware of the spectators the private reunion had included, the questioning eyes upon her, Alec more so, seemingly wounded that she had never disclosed she had a sibling of her own to him during their time together, but she looked down once more, awaiting the judgement she knew would come.
Author note: Very late, but here eventually. In my first year of university, and it's been hectic. I don't have as much time anymore, as I work also, and while people want updates, I just can't get them out as fast as I used to anymore; my apologies, and enjoy this chapter.