I DO NOT OWN THE TWILIGHT SAGA
"Mom, why is the Volturi coming after your friends?" Judith questions me in between bites of her hot fudge sundae. I sit opposite her in a small booth at a diner on the other side of Forks from the Cullen house. I knew that it's not a good idea for me to be in the same house as them right now. Everyone just needs to cool off, and then I know for a fact that I'll need to explain everything to them. I haven't told my entire story to anybody. Not even Judith.
"Did you see that little girl who was with that tall man?" I ask her. She nods her head and tucks a strand of her brown hair behind her ear. "Well, she's just like you, Jude. And unfortunately, the Cullens weren't able to keep her a secret. The Volturi found out about her and now they're coming for all of them because…because they think that she's an immortal child." They didn't tell me that outright, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that that is what's going on. Judith's eyes widen and I hear her heart start to beat faster than it already is.
"Does that mean they're coming after me, too?" Her eyebrows pinch together, and she's forgotten about her sundae. I don't like to worry her about these sorts of things. But I'm not going to lie to her. I've learned that lying has never gotten anybody anywhere.
"No," I reassure her quickly, I reach out and place my hand on hers and squeeze it slightly. She's so used to the temperature of my skin that it doesn't even bother her anymore. Back when she was just born, she would flinch every time I'd touch her. "I promise you that they won't even give you a second look."
"What are you gonna do?" I take a deep breath, the air not giving me any relief, but the reflex helps me keep my cool.
"I'll create the illusion that you're just a normal vampire. I'll make it so you look a few years older and then…make it seem like you have all the normal characteristics of a full vampire. That way they won't even have a reason to take a second glance at you." What I don't tell her is what I plan to do if it comes to a fight. I've never had to subdue that many vampires before, but if it came to it, I'd have to render them unconscious. They wouldn't actually be asleep, but their bodies would be…in a state of rest, I guess you could say. It's kind of like sleep paralysis.
"I know you'll keep me safe, Mom," Jude says. I smile at her with so much love that I can feel the worry lift off of both our shoulders. At least for now.
The sun is setting by the time we make it back to the Cullens' house. I know that everyone is aware that the two of us are back, but I can't bring myself to care. Jude is tired and I have to find somewhere for her to sleep. Plus, I'd like to shower the smell of the elements off of me from three days of traveling.
We walk through the house and I ignore the looks that are sent our way from the other vampires. But it's not long before we run into Esme.
"You're back!" she exclaims, the relief clear in her voice. I give her a soft smile and nod. Esme has always been sweet towards me. She reminds me so much of my own mother, and I find that I'm quite fond of her.
"Yes. I need to get this one cleaned up and into bed. We had a long journey here."
"Of course. Come with me and I'll set you guys up in Edward's old room." I've never seen Edwards old room, but I have an idea of what it looks like. It'll probably be filled with CDs and music everywhere. What I don't expect is the huge ass bed sitting in the middle of room, with a comforter and pillows and everything. What the hell would a vampire need a bed?
"It was for Bella when she was still human," Esme explains when she sees my confused face. "Edward was a little overprotective of her when she was human and while we were dealing with the newborn army he wanted her to stay here while he went hunting." I remember when the Cullens had called me to help them with the newborn army earlier this year. But I wasn't ready to share the existence of Judith with them yet, and I obviously couldn't leave her alone in New York. "You guys can have this room for as long as you wish." Esme flashes me one last smile, and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
Over the next twenty minutes, Judith showers and gets into the pajamas that she had packed. I towel dried her hair and then brushed the knots out of the brown strands. And then she crawls in between the covers and I sit by her and tuck the covers around her. Her blue eyes don't leave my face, and I can practically hear the gears working in her head. Suddenly, her eyes widen as she practically runs me over while jumping off the bed.
"What are you doing?" I question her as she runs to the corner of the room where her bag sits.
"I almost forgot!" she answers as she digs around in the bag. She comes up with a flat object that's wrapped in red tissue paper, and I automatically know that it's a present for me. Jude climbs onto the bed pulls the covers over her legs again before holding the present out to me. "Happy birthday, Mom." Metaphorical butterflies fill my stomach and my non-beating heart nearly starts beating again. I haven't received a birthday present in decades. Since that first year after I was changed. If it were possible for me to cry, I would be bawling my eyes out right now.
"Thank you, Sweetie. This…this really means a lot." I open the present with her watching me. The present turns out to be a picture frame that's decorated with seashells and fake pearls. In the picture frame is a drawing (a rather good drawing) of…me. I look back up at the little girl. "Did you draw this?" She nods.
"You know how my art teacher has said that I've been distracted lately? This is why. I've been working on it for two weeks." The drawing is amazing and realistic. It's almost like an actual photograph. It's a black and white drawing of me, staring at an imaginary lens of an imaginary camera. I have a serious expression on my face, but I don't look sad or mad or anything. More like neutral. My hair is parted to the left and the strands on the right are tucked behind my ear, and I can see that Jude drew the locket I always wear.
"It's beautiful," I tell her. I lean over and kiss her on her forehead, and she yawns loudly. "Thank you, sweetheart. I'll keep it forever." I put the picture in my bag for safe keeping, say goodnight to Judith, and leave the room, closing the door behind me.
Having the whole night in front of me, I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing. It's at times like these that I wish I could sleep. To escape the prison of my consciousness for a few hours. I'm not planning to hunt until the night before the Volturi come. But I know that I need to clear the air with the Cullens and everyone else. They need an explanation and I need to tell them. It's been long enough, and they're my friends. I can trust them.
I make my way through the house and down the stairs to find everyone milling around and doing their own thing. If there were a human here, they would quickly get bored around a group of vampires during the night. Of course, not this night. They'd be getting a story.
When he sees me, Edward turns his attention away from his wife, who also looks towards me. "You don't have to share this with us," he tells me. The others turn towards me and I can practically see the scene that I made earlier today running through their minds.
"Max," Carlisle starts as he and Esme walk into the room. "Let me extend my sincerest apologies for how my family and I treated you this afternoon. We were in no place to place judgement on you and your decisions." My gaze softens at the man. He was apologizing to me even though he didn't do anything wrong. "You don't owe us any explanation." I take a deep breath and shake my head.
"I do. You guys are my friends. And even though I'll do everything in my power to make sure all of you come out of this thing alive, on the off chance that things go wrong, I want you all to know." I walk over to the loveseat and sit down on the arm, crossing my legs as every single vampire in this house focuses their attention onto me. Esme sends me an encouraging smile and I return it before beginning.
"My father was a Russian Catholic and my mother was a Polish Jew. They met when they were just twenty-two. My father had traveled to Poland for work and met my mother while she was out with her family in the park. They fell in love almost instantly. Though they had no support from either of their families due to their religious differences. But they wanted to be with each other. So, they cut off all contact with their families and ran away together to Sejny, Poland. There, they got married and moved into a small place, in which they had to share with two other families.
"My brother and I were born two years later, on December twenty-second, nineteen twenty-two—"
"Wait," Emmett cuts in. "You're a twin?" The Cullens look at me in surprise. I know that I've never told them, but someone being a twin shouldn't be the most shocking thing in the universe.
"Yes," I answer. "Noah was born ten minutes before me, though he acted like he was ten years older. He was always bossing me around and was so over-protective that he put our own father to shame. The one time I ever had a crush on a boy, Noah found out and immediately threatened the boy's genitalia if he ever went near me." I laugh at the memory. At the time I had been pissed. The only guy I've ever really liked, and he was scared away by my brother. Noah wasn't a big guy by any means. Standing at only five foot nine, and one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, he was more of a lover than a fighter. But good god could he throw down if he wanted to. No guy ever went near me after what happened.
"A few years after that, Helena was born. Safiya was the youngest. She had been born only about a year before Germany invaded Poland. She was a surprise baby, one that my parents hadn't really wanted at first. We were lower middle class by that time. And while we always had a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on the table, we were far from rich. Adding another mouth to feed was something that nobody thought we could handle. But we did.
"In September of nineteen thirty-nine Germany invaded Poland. It was one of the scariest things to have gone through. Knowing what was happening but not being able to do anything about it. Having two younger sisters looking to you for answers but not having any. A lot of bad things started to happen, and by November of that year, every Jewish person over the age of ten was required to wear a yellow star on their clothing.
"We tried to hide. We had non-Jewish friends that offered to hide us in their attic. And my father used the fact that he wasn't Jewish to go out and get food and supplies for us. But that only lasted a short while. We were found in January of nineteen forty-two, when I was nineteen. They arrested our friends for hiding us. They arrested my father for being married to my mother. I remember the day they put us on the trains. It was raining and I could almost smell the desperation in the air. Children were crying. People were crying. Helena cried for our father. I was just numb. My heart was beating so fast I feared that I would have a heart attack and die right there. You would think that I'd want that. To spare myself of what would come. But I knew that I needed to be strong for my mother and sisters and brother. My brother kept ahold of Safiya because my mother was trembling so hard she could barely hold herself up." I inhale through my nose and close my eyes, practically seeing the scene in my head. It's almost like I'm there again.
"We didn't truly know where we were headed. We had heard of camps in the east and their conditions, but other than that, we were in the dark. The conditions inside the train was inhumane. They were so tightly packed that for some, it was nearly impossible to sit or kneel down. There was little to no food or water. The only way you could relieve yourself was in a bucket, which quickly became overfilled. The smell of vomit and shit and piss combined with the fact that there was no windows or ventilation made it near torture to be inside. Many people died of dehydration, starvation or suffocation. And, of course, the added smell of decaying bodies didn't help much.
"As soon as we arrived at the camp, the men and women and children were separated." My jaw clenches as I try to contain myself and my anger and sadness. "That was the last time I ever saw Noah. I wasn't able to find out what happened to him. It was like he never existed. And I guess I'll never truly know." My eyes open and I see people looking at me with sadness etched onto their faces. But they don't interrupt. It's as quiet as a mouse, as my dad used to say. "I cried then. I couldn't help it. I cried when they took Noah, because even then I knew that I would never see him again. Soon after, my mother and Safiya were taken away, and at the time I didn't know where they were going. But now I know that they were sent straight to the crematorium to be burned to death. My mother never would have just given Safiya up to be killed alone. I guess she felt a sense of calm, knowing that Helena and I had each other. And we did. We had gone from a family of six to a family of two within less than a week. But as scared and sad as I was, I was thankful that I at least still had Helena.
"We were then registered and given a prisoner number. From then on, we were known as that number instead of our names. And it was tattooed onto our skin." I rub my arm where the tattoo used to be. The venom in my cells has since dissolved the ink, but I still remember the exact spot where it used to be. "We were also assigned to a barrack and work detail.
"We were told to undress, at that point. I remember not wanting to. Remember being embarrassed about being naked in front of a bunch of strangers. But nobody was even worried or paying attention to each other's nakedness. We were all simply scared and starving and tired. At this point, we were forced to have our heads shaved and shower in front of each other and the SS guards. That whole process was meant to dehumanize us." I let out a laugh, and quickly wonder if I've gone hysteric. If only they knew just how dehumanized I would become not even two years later. "God, that sounds so ironic, doesn't it? Considering what I am now." I bite my lip and take a second before continuing. I consider going into more detail of what I went through while I was there, but I decide against it. I don't want to live through it again. Not a single day of it.
"Then in August of nineteen forty-three, me and the other women who were selected to die were marched to the gas chambers. We didn't know that that's what was going on. They didn't tell us. But when we arrived, they told us that we needed to bathe and be disinfected and told us to undress. We were then led into the gas chamber where they released the Zyklon B gas.
"I don't remember much after that. I know that I must have lost control of my limbs or something, because I remember laying on the cold, tiled floor next to the others. I remember being worried for Helena because she'd be all alone for who knew how long. I wouldn't be able to give her my rations anymore or try to keep her as safe as I could.
"The next part I have no recollection of. A female vampire, for whatever reason, broke into the camp, killed the soldiers that were there, and broke in. She had found me, the only one who was still clinging on to life. She took me back to her house and changed me. I don't remember the pain at all. It's like I was numb to it or something. But when I woke up no longer in pain and will a full head of hair, I didn't know what to think. I was confused. Zuzanna, the woman who changed me, explained everything to me. And she took me on my first hunt. From the first day I had hated what I had become. Every time I had to take a life I just wanted to die. After about three months I decided that I had to go off on my own and try to find another way to survive, or I would go to the Volturi and ask them to end my existence. About a month after I left Zuzanna I found the Cullens. And thankfully they were able to show me a different way of living. I was grateful for that. It allowed me to be less…disgusted with what I am. I stayed with them for a while, about eight years while I was learning to control my thirst and learning to act like a person again. In that time, I also got to meet Eleazar and Carmen as well as Kate, Tanya and Irina.
"I learned about my gift and they helped me as best they could to learn how to control and use it. The war had ended, and I was finally brave enough to see if my sister or brother survived. Unfortunately, Noah didn't make it. But Helena did, and she was living in New York. She had married a Jewish lawyer and was pregnant with their first child. I had to see her. I had to be a part of her life. So, I left, and I reached out to her. To say that she was surprised to see me alive would be a massive understatement. She had had a good idea of what happened to me. And she fainted when I walked in. Luckily, she was on the sofa, so she wasn't harmed, but when she regained consciousness she was confused. And I knew that I needed to tell her what I was. I knew that if worse came to worse and she told someone I could always erase their memories. And I once I figured out how to control the illusions, I was able to stay with her for an extended period of time. But yeah…" I pause for a second, looking around at all the faces peering back at me. Esme and Carlisle have grave expression on their faces. Edward and Bella look like someone just told them that their dog died. And I can't decipher the expressions on Emmett and Rosalie's faces. Everyone else around me I couldn't care less what they think. I don't even know the names of half the people here, and it's likely I won't see them again for another hundred years or so.
"I'm sorry that happened to you," Carlisle says, finally breaking the silence. "I can't imagine what it was like to go through something like that." I shake my head at his apology and look down at my pale hands.
"It was a long time ago. I'm not nearly as bitter about it as I was." I sigh and look up at my friends. I'm getting uncomfortable at all the attention. I hate being at the center of attention and would rather be overlooked. At least then I don't have to worry about being judged. "Besides, I got my revenge." I think back to the one time I hadn't felt guilty about taking a life. About taking someone's free will away from them. I made him and his wife kill themselves while I watched. I enjoyed watching the life leave their eyes. Hearing their heartbeats stop. Knowing that they couldn't hurt anybody ever again.
I didn't even blink an eye. And I hadn't felt bad afterward.
A/N: Hey guys! So, I want you to know that I tried to do as much research as possible while writing this chapter, and any information I put on here is just stuff I found on the internet and compiled into my story. Also, there's a poll up on my profile. Please go and vote! It's important that I receive the results of the poll before writing the next chapter. Please review!
~Gina