Chapter song- Hypnotize by System of a Down

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"I'll be down in a few days. I'm going to wait for the Volturi visit and just hope that it's a friendly inquiry about Edward's availability to join the Guard. I'm sending Leah your way so that the shifters don't gain too much attention." Jasper's voice echoed on the wooden walls of the humble 'safe house'. The Swan sisters huddled on the dusty floor around the phone that was set to speaker phone. Mary leaned on Bella's shoulder, having managed to be sad enough over the past couple days that her vampiric sister didn't reject the physical contact.

"How did you cut the deal with Edward and Carlisle to go to the Guard and keep their mouths shut?" Bella asked, her voice hard yet curious about the fates of the men who'd been willing to sell them. She'd been getting progressively crankier since hightailing it out of town with Mary, and the thought of seeing Leah again drew a painful yearning in her chest that threatened to end her.

Being a vampire really sucked since it was fairly easy to feel so many shitty things all at once.

"After the others decided to let their miserable hides live," he responded with a fair amount of bitterness, "we made it abundantly clear that any future where Edward walks free from the Volturi is one where I actually do get to light the fire. Carlisle agreed to join him since Esme said, and I quote, 'I can't believe I married such a monster'."

"He deserves that. Wasn't it in his dumb doctor vows to do no harm?" She agreed readily.

Mary stiffened against her sister, but Bella chalked it up to hearing Jasper being so pissed off. Not that she could personally blame him since she also wanted the fuckers spit-roasting over a very hot flame.

"I gotta go; Rose, Em, and I are taking turns watching over those two until the Guard gets here. Hopefully, it won't be long." The phone clicked off without so much as a goodbye.

Bella ran her fingers through her sister's hair affectionately before standing. "Well, he sounds perfectly pissy about not having bonfire. Why don't we help Char and Peter unpack?"

Her tiny sister got up slowly, her eyes uncharacteristically grim.

"Hey." She stopped her with a gentle hand. "What's wrong?"

The troubled look on her face vanished as though Bella had imagined it. "I'm all right. It's just... I miss him is all."

She chuckled. "I guess not so much has changed then."

"Can he really make all of this okay? The Volturi aren't so easy to fool, are they?"

Chills went down her spine as she looked down at Mary. "How do you know that?"

"It's just a feeling." She shrugged off Bella's hand and stalked out of the beaten down house. It had been surprising to learn that Jasper had kept a property with Peter and Char without the Cullens' knowledge, but then again, paranoia had only served him well. The settlement was far off from prying eyes and was most vampires' nightmare with its constant sunshine and lack of prey, hence its heightened potential as a bug-out house. To add even more icing to the really fucked-up cake, she was almost certain that she'd overheard the couple mention an underground bunker hidden somewhere on the 200-acre strip of land.

But the hilarity of hillbilly immortals could hardly dent the sinking feeling in the bottom of Bella's stomach. Has Mary regained her vision? The thought was unsettling. Something about her face... It'd been so hopeless that it reminded her of all those weeks where her sister had been hiding something from her. Right before her life had imploded and she'd been horrifically beaten and Changed into a vampire.

"Bells?" The door creaked opened, snapping her out of her dark revelry. Mary stepped in. Her face was even paler than normal. "Peter said that they're going out hunting for a bit and will sight out some cattle ranches for you to go to. Said they're pretty sure that's what Jazz does when they're all out here. I'm gonna make some food now." She robotically moved toward the kitchenette and began to sort through a large amount of grocery bags on the counter.

The task looked mundane enough that Bella decided to flop onto her back and stare at the ceiling. Counting the number of cracks in the ceiling and listening to the creaking of the house against the random buffs of wind; somehow it helped take her mind off of how much she missed Leah, her concern for Mary, and the forbidden worry for their father that she had buried so far deep that it would likely never again see the light of day. Everything was looking so grim that it was difficult to imagine how anything would be okay.

Because Mary was right about the Volturi situation. Peter had told her enough about the Guard's powers and track record with covens for Bella to realize that much; how in the world could they fool a man who could know every thought in your damn head with a single touch? All he had to do was to touch a single Cullen to know about them. And Jasper was staying to take that heat and was somehow naively hoping they would be able to take care of themselves without him?

Reality was a dark rabbit hole to go down.

She bolted up when a scent wafted lazily through her nostrils. Her mask wasn't completely air-tight and merely served as a strong buffer between her and the outside world. It gave her just the edge needed to overcome the debilitating newborn urges that defined her new existence.

It wasn't intended to withstand the full naked force of human blood hitting the air.

She couldn't force herself to stop breathing, to stop the onslaught of pure hunger that ripped through the body that was no longer her own. There were no mortal forces on Earth that could've stopped the newborn Monster from breaking loose into a jarring sprint across the small expanse of flooring between her and her prey. Her clawed hands shot out and gripped reed-thin shoulder blades- she heard those crack with the pure force she exerted onto them - and brought that tiny neck pulsing with life to her mouth.

The moment that her fangs chomped into the delicate skin of her beloved sister's neck, she knew that she had killed Mary Alice Swan.

Liquid, hot and alive, seeped into her mouth and she exchanged every drop down her throat with the potent venom that every vampire possessed. Her sister's body managed to jerk in surprise once before it completely immobilized her struggle. Never before had she felt so alive as the Monster in her withdrew and for one damn moment she felt saved from damnation and an eternity of misery. If she could somehow drink like this forever, then she'd be in Heaven.

"Bells." Time seemed to stop as somehow her sister fought off the poison and blood to muster that one word.

Cold water doused her and the Monster promptly retreated back into the very recesses of her soul. She fought her body with every ounce of will in her and dropped her sister's abused and frail body onto the floor with a cold thud. Horror bloomed inside of her, banishing all of the shit that had led to the disaster.

"Mary Alice...!" The shriek left her throat as she fell on the ground over her, peering down. Warm liquid trailed down her cheeks, but she didn't bother to investigate as a fierce feeling took over her.

She can't leave me. The thought invaded her every pore. How could she make it better? Mary had probably lost too much blood, she knew that not all conversions were feasible if too much blood had spilled.

Her sister's green eyes, oddly accepting looked back up at her. How could she feel this way? Even as she frantically looked around the room for something to stop the bleeding, the scent almost overwhelmed her. It didn't help that the blood was still on her face. "I can't fix you!" She shook Mary when those green eyes began to close. Blood hit her upper lip. "Quit bleeding, please. You smell so good." She bit her hand through the sob that wracked her chest and cracked the skin in a desperate attempt to stop from licking the liquid.

A tiny hand cupped her cheek. "Bella, find Jasper. It'll be okay, I can see now... We need to run. Nothing works but running."

Mary's hand fell and then she didn't move another inch.

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Jasper leaned against the cellar door, grateful that the damn mansion had a windowless room where they could take out the garbage. He knew that the odds of their plan working was a long shot, but there wasn't a universe where he could save them without confronting this.

The Volturi had taken out hundreds of newborn vampires and the skilled covens pulling their strings in the twilight of the Southern Vampire Wars. It had been an unprecedented display of strength, and one that only a vampire of Jasper's origin could fully appreciate. The only way to escape them was to either fly under the radar or to join, and they had the misfortune of being right in the Guard's crosshairs thanks to the ginger fuck that he'd had the bad taste to call brother. He was hoping against hope that they all got lucky and Aro's ability didn't tip him off to the girls, although it was practically inevitable that Edward's mind would be probed eventually.

It had taken considerable persuasion on his part to convince Esme to leave old Eddie in a bag.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. The number indicated the burner phone that the girls were talking to him from. Just as he was about to answer, the heavy door of the upstairs hesitantly creaked open.

"Uh, Jasper?" Emmett's normally booming voice was abnormally subdued.

The soldier in Jasper immediately straightened. "What is it?"

"They're here."

He fought back a growl. "Understood. Help me escort the payload and make sure that Esme and Rosalie know to make no sudden moves." A single misstep could result in a rather deadly encounter.

The large vampire complied quickly to Jasper's orders, and soon the entire Cullen clan was assembled in a broken semicircle staring at the twin oak front entrance in morbid uniformity. Jasper held Edward in the sack, well aware that its scent would immediately tell all nearby vampires what was held within it. Emmett kept Carlisle in check with a single meaty hand on his shoulder.

Esme broke the semi-circle to stare at her mate with surprisingly hard eyes. "Our fates lie in your hands. Do not betray us again, you faithless man." She spat. Her grief hit Jasper in an intense avalanche.

Rose's full lips broke into a small smile even as the heavy knock of the door echoed throughout the mansion. Carlisle, subdued and as stiff as a board, strolled to open it. "Welcome." His civilized mask slipped onto his face with a practiced ease in an amazing show of control.

But, Jasper now recognized, the civilized doctor had always been a convenient cover for a man who put restraint and duty above all else. Unfortunately for them, that sense of duty had applied more to his firstborn 'son' than it had to the others.

"Carlisle." A large, dark haired vampire bowed deeply at their former leader. "Masters Caius, Aro, and Marcus await with eager impatience to see their old friend."

He inclined his head graciously. "I am flattered by such a visit by your Excellencies. Permission to bring my coven along?"

After an eager assent to the question, the Cullens followed the Volturi guardsman into the deceptively calm woods. Within minutes, they arrived to the familiar clearing where Jasper had beheaded the rogues who'd dared threaten the Swan sisters all those weeks ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since.

Fanned against the other side of the clearing in an amazing show of power, a force of at least thirty darkly attired vampires greeted them. The Ancients stood stalk-still in the center with decisively bored expressions.

Fuck.

It took one brush of his empathy to know that this wasn't a cordial visit or even one to just collect Edward and leave. Greed pulsed off of them in a continuous, steady rhythm that had not a single indication of hesitation in it. He prayed Peter upheld his end of the deal and gave the girls a fighting chance when he didn't show up to the safe house on the designated date. If not, Leah would at least do her damndest.

"Carlisle." Aro silkily said with a false smile through his white, sharp teeth. "How I do wish we could visit an old friend without having to be on business. You see, we found a large group of newborns not following the rules in a nearby city and were hoping to see if you had any information?"

Carlisle stepped forward and bowed deeply to the Ancients. "I'll gladly tell you what we know. A vampire named Maria-"

"Old Friend," he interpreted eagerly, "let us save time," he raised his paper-thin hand in an unmistakable invitation. Caius and Marcus could barely contain their bloodied smiles as Carlisle's face visibly fell.

And just like that, all of Jasper's foolish hopes for the future with his beautiful Mary came crashing down.

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I'd only gotten that tiny vision in before the Change stole my ability to speak. My eyes closed on my beautiful sister's panicking face, and I didn't even have the time to apologize for sticking myself with the knife so that she would bite me. Perhaps it would've been smarter to simply ask Charlotte or Peter to Change me, but it had been fairly clear that they listened and feared Jasper first and foremost.

Payback for my deception was fairly fucking swift.

My memories came back with a vengeance as my soul burned from the fire in my chest. The hot Arizona sun, my many grueling gymnastic lessons as a child, Bella's tendency to trip on every single obstacle, and my dad's obsession with fishing all roared back simultaneously in my head, nearly hurting me as much as the flames engulfing my body. Now I understood why Bell had acted like such a baby about losing her humanity.

It hurt pretty bad.

The last of my memories stopped in a rush of relief at the end of the first day of my Change. I could feel Bella's hand on mine and it was a huge relief to have that one tidbit of hope in my palm. Particularly since the burning was increasing its hold on me.

But, quite unfortunately, since the past was finally done with me, the future decided to get its two cents in as well.

Absently, I realized that I was probably really distressing Bella since I was writhing and screaming like a pussy, but it hurt like a bitch. Streams and stock-still pictures of a grim future marked in fire greeted me, and it was about identical to what the broad in the bathroom had shown me; Me and Bella rushing in. The Cullens being burned alive. Us getting taken forcefully by the Guard, only this time I wasn't so human that I got fanged by a bunch of strangers.

Despair hit me, but I struggled with everything in me to see past the concrete wall that the vision presented. No future was immutable, and the Volturi sure as hell didn't have someone with my Gifts. It had to tip the scale in our favor somehow.

Pushing myself past what felt possible, I finally struck the weakest, blurriest possibility alive of what I'd seen before. What if we didn't rush to Forks?

Jasper's strikingly handsome stared at me dispassionately through bars. He was a ridiculously qualified asset to the Guard, and they had shoved him behind bars so that he wouldn't be able to interfere as they checked out the location of the safe house that they'd forced out of his head. They were coming for us with a tracker who had the reddest eyes I'd ever seen. We didn't have a prayer against him finding us.

In all likelihood, Leah Clearwater would be brutally murdered and Bella and I would become puppets of the Ancients.

The third day came and with it my heart stopped. Bella still hadn't left my side and it was with not a small amount of impatience that I fought to force my eyes open.

"Mary!" Bella's wide gaze met my own. It was fairly obvious that the last few days had been rough on her.

A silent Leah had her arms wrapped around Bella as if she'd been attempting to hold my sister together by pure force.

There was no time left. The tracker would be here any moment. With determination, I forced myself to sit up and get used to the bewildering and utterly overwhelming changes to my senses. I'd been out of commission and so helpless for so long that it was difficult to not be a little disgusted with myself.

My name is Mary Alice Swan. It was about fucking time that I saved the day and got my man.

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About freaking time I missed her sooo much...