Disclaimer: Nothing in this story except for Charlotte belongs to me. I have altered certain aspects of the original story to fit my plot, such as the powers and abilities of the vampires.
Philia: love without romantic attraction, occurring between friends and family members
Storge: love built upon deep emotional connection, occurring between parents and children
Pragma: deep love built over many years, occurring between romantic partners
It wasn't really like waking up from a deep sleep. More like waking up from a vivid dream, if anything. The kind of dream where you don't know you're asleep until you're blinking up into the darkness of your room. Or even like being in sleep paralysis, and slowly feeling movement drain into your body.
Whatever the case, by the time my shattered thoughts finally pieced together into full consciousness, I found myself sitting in the front seat of Angela's teal blue Hummer, watching gray drops of rain streak down the front of the windshield.
Angela was in the driver's seat, knuckles white from how tightly she was holding onto the wheel as she steered us down the highway. She looked even paler than she usually did, and far less composed. Her dark hair was a messy knot at the back of her head, she was wearing pajamas, and her glasses were nearly slipping off the bridge of her nose. She had a styrofoam cup of coffee pressed tightly between her thighs, and I could see the drink tremble from how hard she was shaking.
I didn't know if she was shaking because it was too cold in the car or for another reason entirely. It was certainly pretty chilly, even as the heating vented stale gusts of warm air up into our faces. Sweat plastered my naked back to the faux-leather upholstery of the car, and when I leaned forward it peeled off with a loud sticking sound. I was in a hospital gown. Why was I in a hospital gown?
"Why am I in a hospital gown?" I asked Angela in utter bewilderment. At the sound of my voice she let out a loud shriek and jolted in her seat. Her thighs slammed together and the styrofoam cup indented and sprayed coffee all over the interior of the car.
"Charlotte!" Angela gasped. Her hands startled on the wheel and the car swerved dangerously.
"Jesus, Angie!" I yelped as she pulled us back into a straight line. The last thing the both of us needed was a trip to the ER. The ER… the hospital. Memories flashed like strobe lights in the back of my mind: Being checked over by Carlisle Cullen, arguing with Angela, snuggling into my dad, visits from Eric and a spider necklace. My hand went up to my neck, relieved to feel the comforting weight of the charm against my collarbone.
Angela cursed under her breath as cold coffee soaked into the crotch of her flannel pants. I watched in bewilderment. Angela never cursed.
"Did you kidnap me from the hospital?" I asked suddenly. It was a silly thought, but Angie was acting weird and I couldn't really think of another reason I would be in a hospital gown with my bare ass pressed into the pleather seats of her dad's car.
"Did I what?!" She hissed, whirling on me like a wild animal. For a second her face was twisted with anger but as soon as her dark eyes met mine they froze with another emotion entirely. She suddenly grew very pale and very silent, and turned her head to stare out at the stretch of road ahead. I sat there quietly and thought about how that other emotion looked a little too much like fear.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Angela Weber wasn't afraid of anything except for her parents and bad grades. And even if she was, she certainly wouldn't be afraid of me.
Because Angela had decided to commit herself to being about as engaging as a brick wall, I decided to spend my time going over the litany of injuries I remembered acquiring from my little stunt in the school bathroom. My sickness seemed to have gone down, except for the profuse sweating, which was nice. I didn't have a headache anymore either, and the back of my head only hurt when I brushed my fingers over it. Even then, it was only a light twinge. The cuts on my hands had healed into thin red lines that would probably fade to white scars in a couple of weeks, and when I peered down the front of my robe to check my bruising I saw it had lightened to a runny yellow-green like mouldy egg yolk. The only injuries I had that I didn't remember getting were the shallow scrapes along my shins. They weren't deep but they were fresh, and blood was beginning to bead up along the edges like crimson pearls.
"Hey," I said to Angela. She didn't turn her head but her eyes flickered over to look at me. I wiggled my legs at her. "What'd I get these from?"
"You jumped out the window," she said, returning her gaze to the highway. I looked at her with wide eyes, but she didn't explain any further.
"Wait, what?" I remembered the small half-opened window in my hospital room. I didn't think anybody could fit through that, much less survive the fall. "From the second floor?"
"What?" Angela said, the anxiety in her voice colored with light irritation. "No, the first floor." I furrowed my brows.
"My room wasn't on the first floor."
"Yeah, I know," Angela sighed. "You had to sneak downstairs. It was part of the whole breaking out of the hospital thing."
"Breaking out of the hospital thing?" I asked, mind whirling. "Isn't that illegal? Wait, you helped me. That's illegal. That can like, go on your college report thing."
"I know!" Angela yelled. I looked at her, a little scared to see her eyes growing shiny with tears. "I know that! I wouldn't have done anything if you hadn't jumped me!"
"Jumped you?" This was a lot of new information. "Wait, like sexy-jumped or—"
"No! Not sexy-jumped! Like murder-jumped!"
"Murder-jumped." I leaned back into the chair, wincing as I felt the cool pleather press against my bare back. Angela was beginning to sniffle and I looked resolutely away from her for privacy, focusing on her instead on the windshield wipers that scattered raindrops in a fine silver spray. Angela didn't like people seeing her cry. In fact, the last time I had seen her cry was in the third grade when she broke her thumb, and she nearly decked me when she saw me watching her.
"You— you really don't remember?" Angela said in a small voice. It sounded almost broken, and I suddenly felt very, very bad for involving my friend in whatever this mess was. I resolved to buy her a coffee from Forks's shitty diner as soon as everything settled down.
"Nope." I sighed, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the seat.
"You think you have, like, head trauma or something?"
"Maybe." I frowned to myself. "My head feels kinda funny. Like, airy, or something."
"Yeah, I think you're high. On pain medicine. Laughing gas. Whatever it's called. You're, um, really calm for just randomly waking up in a car."
"Yeah," I sighed, opening my eyes and looking out the window. We were almost at the end of the highway, the section of Forks that had all the little mom-and-pops and bistros and school buildings. I watched the cheery little red-bricked elementary school slide past in a spray of silver rain. "Where are we going anyway?"
"You, um, wanted us to go to the high school." I scrunched my nose.
"I did?"
"Well, not you you, like, rabid dog you." I looked at her with wide eyes.
"Rabid dog? What, was I drooling? Foaming at the mouth?"
"Uh, yeah. A little bit." I made a noise of dissent and wiggled in my chair. Angela let out a last sniffle and wiped the water from her eyes. She tightened her hands around the steering wheel, soggy pants squishing as she shifted in place. I shivered as a drop of icy sweat slid down the small of my back, leaning forward and venting the hot air up into my face.
I watched the collection of buildings that made up our high school approach from the corner of my eye. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, all clustered in front of our gymnasium for some sort of sports game or science fair. It made hypothetically sneaking in far easier than anticipated, the school always left some of the surrounding buildings unlocked so participants could use the bathroom.
"Does this mean we can go back to the hospital?" Angela said hopefully. I gave her a weird look.
"Uh, yeah, I don't see why not. I mean, I must have been having some weird amnesiac breakdown or something." Angela let out an audible sigh of relief and focused her eyes on the upcoming U-turn. "Why did I even want to go to the high school, anyway?"
"Oh? Uh," she mumbled, eyes flashing almost anxiously to the high school as we passed by the drive-in. "You just wanted to get your phone, or something."
I jolted in my seat, ramrod-straight. A flurry of memories burst in my mind like fireworks, and seared their afterimages into my brain just like the colorful explosives. A full week of laying in my bed, tossing and turning, forcing smiles whenever my friends and father and occasionally sister came to visit. A full week of sweating and twitching and crying as the image of my Nokia burnt itself into my retinas.
"Turn back," I said lowly. Angela shot me an incredulous look.
"What?"
"Go back to the high school." She let out a shrill laugh.
"Like hell, Lottie! I am not getting held back from Upenn just because my friend can't go a couple of days without her cell phone." She made for the U-turn and I stiffened in my seat. My stomach grew very cold and I felt my veins pulse with heat. At the back of my jaw, I could feel my teeth start to ache.
"You will go back right now or you will face the consequences," I growled. I don't remember choosing to speak the words, but they came out anyway, harsher and darker than I thought my body was capable of making. Angela turned to snap at me but took one look at my face and blanched white. I don't know what my expression was, but it was enough for her to pull the brakes. We skidded for a bit, the tires screeching and spraying a fine mist all around us. Luckily, there were no other cars on the highway, and she was able to back up far enough to pull into Forks High.
Angela refused to look at me, but from what I could tell from her profile she was scared shitless. Her hands were trembling from where they clenched on tightly to the wheel. I felt guilty as hell, but I couldn't apologize. In fact, I couldn't move at all. I sat frozen in my seat, arms twitching and eyes glued to the approaching building.
I took it back. When this was all over, I was getting her a coffee and a pastry. Hopefully some shitty decaf and a greasy croissant could make up for making the two of us into juvenile delinquents.
It didn't occur to me that I was pretty much naked until the two of us had gotten out of the car and the wind was spraying icy rain against my bare back. I eyed the cluster of cars carefully as Angela and I shuffled past them— the last thing I needed to finish off this god awful week was to flash a group of soccer moms my ass. The mothers in Forks were like elephants: they never forgot a slight. Or, in their case, the chance for potential gossip.
By the time we made it to one of the buildings, however, only flashing my butt was a pipedream. The rain had weighed my hospital gown down until it was near-transparent and pasted to my body like a second skin. Angela kept her eyes glued safely ahead as we finally pried open the door and slipped inside.
"Jesus," I hissed under my breath. The air conditioning was on full crank, and I could nearly feel the water on my skin turning into ice. "It's barely spring. Who the hell decided AC was a good idea?"
"Mm," Angela said, staring resolutely at the white brick as I shook off my curls.
"Mm," I responded eloquently. "Alright. There's like, one lost-and-found per building, right? I'll go check the one in the back and you see if you can see my phone through the classroom doors." The teachers often confiscated items like phones from class and kept them as war trophies on their desks until the students came to claim them. I didn't remember having my phone taken before I went to the bathroom, but illness and head trauma weren't too great for recollection.
Each of Fork High's six small buildings had one lost-and-found located near the back exit, usually in the form of a laundry basket on a stool. But kids generally didn't look for things they misplaced, and when something made its way into the dreaded basket, it was lost to the sands of time. When I made my way to the back of building one, I decided that nobody had touched the thing since September if the smell it was emitting was anything to go by.
The laundry basket of doom, upon further exploration, held an eclectic collection of items, ranging anywhere from winter hats to water bottles, smelly lunch boxes to even smellier sweaters, all marinating in the unmistakable odor of BO and food left out to sit. I couldn't find my phone but I did manage to recover a letterman jacket. It was for our school's football team in the Forks High colors of yellow and purple, and must have been recently deposited because the smell hadn't fully saturated into the fiber of the fabric. Most importantly, it was long enough to cover all the appropriate parts, and I could ditch the soggy paper gown and put on something that would only cause a minor scandal.
There were only a few classrooms per building, so by the time I made my way back from the lost-and-found Angela was already done. I found her leaning against the wall near the bathrooms, fiddling around with her phone.
"Hey," I told her. "You find anything?" Angela startled so badly she nearly dropped her phone and snapped her gaze a good three feet above my head. "Chill, it's fine. I'm dressed." She lowered her eyes a little cautiously, and narrowed them when she saw my jacket.
"Is that Tyler's?"
"What?" I frowned, looking at the big white thirteen on my sleeves. "Huh. Small world."
"He'll want that back," she told me. I snorted.
"Well he's not getting it right now." I fidgeted as the rough material of the jacket scratched at my skin. I wished there was underwear in the lost-and-found as well. On second thought, I really, really didn't. "Did you find it?"
"What?" Angela asked absentmindedly. I narrowed my eyes at her.
"My phone," I said slowly. I watched her shake her head and glance towards the phone in her hand. Suspicion coiled in my stomach like a snake. "You weren't texting anyone about this, were you? You can't tell anyone about this. Not anyone." I spit my words out like hot bullets. I don't remember making the choice to say them, but I didn't think I could hold them back if I tried. My voice was that same low, impossible growl that made Angela pale and sent a shiver up my spine. It scratched at my throat a bit and I coughed as soon as I was done.
"No!" Angela squeaked. She quickly showed me the screen of her phone. She was playing Snake.
"Oh," I said, anger hissing out of me like air from a balloon. That lingering apprehension remained, however, and I felt it itch through my veins. The sight of Angela's phone reminded me of the absence of mine, and I wanted nothing more than to go and find it. "Do you have any idea where it might be?"
"Well," Angela said, still looking a bit scared. "You passed out right before lunch, right? And you were in building two, for Mrs. Wallace. Maybe you left it there?"
"Maybe," I said. I scratched at my arm. "Thanks, Angie." She nodded quickly, looking a bit relieved. We both turned to face the front door, and I jumped a bit at the tall dark silhouette looming down at us from the glass window.
Well, looming down at me. Angela was too tall for anything to loom down at her. But it was looming nonetheless.
"Shit!" I hissed as the door swung open, and ducked quickly into the nearest bathroom. Angela let out a squawking noise but was too slow to follow me. I pressed my ear to the door, which was probably extremely unhygienic but allowed me to hear the soft clicking of heels against tile as the person neared.
I could practically feel Angela vibrating with nerves as the clicking paused just outside the door. I held my breath as the two waited in silence.
"H-Hey!" Angela finally squeaked out. There was a pause.
"Hello," came a cool voice. It was silky, soft, undeniably feminine and horrifyingly recognizable. I swore under my breath before clapping my hand under my mouth. It was barely audible but I wasn't taking any chances, especially considering who might have heard it.
Rosalie Hale was standing barely five feet away from me. And despite Emmett's massive muscles, Edward's broody expression, and Jasper's infamous death glare, she was the scariest Cullen by far.
"Uh," Angela stammered. "What are you, um, doing here, R-Rosalie?"
"I'm using the bathroom, of course," she replied in that smooth, more than slightly condescending voice.
"Oh, n-no," Angela said. I could hear her take a deep breath, and knew she was steeling herself. Angela was timid around people she didn't know, and Rosalie was possibly the worst person for a self-conscious teenager to have a conversation with. "I-I meant at the school. I didn't think you were a part of the science fair."
"No. I'm not." Shocker, that one. "I was actually looking for someone." Something about the measured tone of her voice sent a chill up my spine. It seemed to affect Angela as well, if the way her voice rose an octave was anything to go by.
"Really? Wh-who are you looking for? I might have seen them."
"She's your friend, I think." The silky voice dropped dangerously, and my heart beat like a jackhammer in my chest. No, no, god no. "Charlotte Swan, was it? My father was concerned to see she had somehow managed to escape the hospital." She stressed the word 'escape,' as if I was trapped in a prison instead of a health treatment facility.
"That's funny." Angela's voice sounded like someone stepping on a cat.
"Yes. Funny." There was a long pause, and I felt like I was about to start hyperventilating. Judging by the muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door, Angela was close to it as well. "So?"
"S-So?"
"You said you'd tell me if you'd seen her." Rosalie sounded impatient. "Have you?"
I knew before Angela spoke what the answer was going to be. I had forced her to potentially sacrifice her good reputation to break me out of a hospital, acted like a deranged animal, and put her in the warpath of an irritated Rosalie Hale. Even if we were the best of friends, I wouldn't expect her to defend me. I felt tears prick viciously at my eyes, and tried to ignore the fidgety burn in my veins at the thought I might be stopped before I reached my goal.
"No."
Wait. What?
"Really."
Oh my god. No. This was too good to be true.
"Y-Yes. Last I saw her, she was in the hospital."
Oh my god. Oh my god. This was unbelievable. This was the most loyal thing a friend has done for me since Jessica openly bad-mouthed a teacher for not letting me hand in late homework in the sixth grade. She deserved more than bad coffee and a stale pastry. I was going to buy her an entire omelet. A heaping stack of pancakes. I was going to take her into a fancy restaurant and fucking serenade her, this was so ridiculous.
"Yes, I think that is funny." I froze, pleasant thoughts vanishing at Rosalie's suddenly icy tone. "I suppose it was rather presumptuous of me to accuse you for such blatant violations." Oh shit. "Especially considering the implications."
"Implications?" Angela said in a small voice.
"Oh, of course," she continued, syllables sliding as easily over her tongue as a serpent's hiss. That was the visual I got of Rosalie through the door: A great big snake coiled up and ready to swallow me whole. "The police would be informed. Reports would be made. It would all be a lot of trouble." There was the clicking of heels as Rosalie stepped forward. "Oh, and not to mention being in such a small town. God, would people talk." Angela was actually hyperventilating now, I could hear her breath puff in and out all the way through the wood. "They'd never stop. It would be the best bit of gossip in years." Angela's back hit the door. "It would just go on and on and on."
There was silence. I held my breath.
My body was pressed so tightly against the door, I could feel the knob twist against my side as it turned to open.
Oh holy fucking shit oh my god
I jumped away from the door at once and looked wildly around the bathroom, searching desperately for a viable escape route. I knew it was useless, the girl's bathroom windows were bolted shut, always leaving the rooms stuffy and humid enough that condensation beaded on the green tiles. But as I darted frantically around the room, there were blue tiles, fewer stalls than I remembered, the sharp smell of urinal cakes permeating the air—
"Boy's bathroom!" Angela squeaked.
"What?" Rosalie hissed, the knob paused mid-turn. It occurred to me that Angela must literally be blocking the door with her body, and I felt a sudden sharp pang of gratitude.
"Th-that's the boy's bathroom," she stammered. I didn't know whether she was stalling on purpose, but I took advantage of it anyway and frantically increased my searching. My eyes landed on the windows. It was school policy to have them sealed shut, as was the case with the girl's bathrooms. But for this particular one, a group of rowdy teens had pried the frame open so when they smoked pot the distinct smell of marijuana would filter out through the air. The gap was extremely narrow— far too much so for a teenage boy to wiggle out and ditch class.
But for a 4'11" underweight girl?
The windows were too high for me to reach on my own, but they were near the line of urinals. Not directly above them, but close enough that if I were to scramble my way on I could hop to the side and grab the ledge.
"I really don't see how it matters," Rosalie's cold voice said.
I made my way to the urinal closest to the windows and looked at it consideringly. I had never really seen one before, although I really didn't think now was the time to explore the fascinating new world of boy's bathrooms. It really was like a little shelf; just a scoop in the wall, slightly yellowed with a little pink patty resting at the base. Perhaps this would be easier than I thought.
"B-But it's against the rules!" Angela stamered. There was a tenseness to her voice, but it wasn't the usual edge she got when she was being a stickler about rules. She was stalling on purpose. God bless.
I took a step forward and my bare foot landed in something sticky, peeling up as I took another step. Bare foot. I wasn't wearing any shoes. I would have to put my feet inside of a urinal without anything to protect them.
Oh god.
"The current state of the girl's bathroom is displeasing to me," Rosalie said, the prim nature of her tone underlined by a harsh edge of impatience. "I wish to use the boy's room."
I put a hand on top of the urinal to steady myself, and tenderly placed one foot on the lip. My toes curled over the edge and I pushed myself up, balancing myself carefully on the wall. It wasn't damp. It wasn't. It was just the cool ceramic against my skin, I was imagining the moist, sticky feeling, I was. The open window was only a couple feet away, but to me it looked like miles. Keeping one hand steady against the wall, I reached, reached, reached out farther…
I wavered slightly, and took one step back. My heel hit the top of the urinal cake, and skidded out from underneath me. Then my legs were above my head, my fingers were just brushing the ledge of the window, and I hit the floor with a deafening crash, nose slamming against the tile.
"FUCK!"
The voices on the other side of the door suddenly grew very silent.
Fuck.
I jumped to my feet, and hopped into the urinal as quickly as I could. The urinal cake had broken to bits on the floor. I could hear Rosalie's and Angela's voices on the other side of the door— they were fighting about whether she could go in but the knob hadn't yet turned. I pivoted to face the window, bent my knees, and leaped.
My fingers grazed the ledge. I grabbed on tight, yanked myself up, and shoved myself through the gap face-first. The door to the bathroom slammed open just as I collapsed in a heap onto the dewy-wet grass outside.
The rain had lightened to a light mist that raised gooseflesh along my bare skin and clung to my curls. Rosalie's voice filtered out of the open window: high, irritated and shrieky, like the tines of a fork on a ceramic plate.
Building two was just ahead of me. I didn't look behind me. I ran.
Tyler Crowley was in a bad mood. Not that that was an altogether rare occurrence. Dr. Abrams, Forks's resident child psychologist, had told him he had a relatively mild case of 'Intermittent Explosive Disorder.' Mr. Greene, Forks High's resident principal, had made him a little plaque from construction paper to commemorate his third detention in a week after he punched out some douche for poking fun at Eric Yorkie.
Truthfully, he had been a hell of a lot worse in middle school, before he had found the sweet release of high school football. There, whenever his thoughts got tangled into a ball and his skin felt too small for his body, all he had to do was run faster, push harder, be better. He could pound out his anger with his feet against turf and the slap of a leather ball against his palms and the sweaty press of a team's worth of high school boys closing in for a touchdown.
Tyler wasn't stupid, far from it, but whenever he sat down to take exams his thoughts all knotted together like the world's most convoluted ball of twine. If he didn't have football, he would probably be shuttled off to the nearest community college as soon as high school had ended. But football had given him a drive, a purpose. He practiced until his body was aching and skin bruised purple, sprinted laps until his breath rattled weakly in his chest, lifted weights until his arms bulged with muscle. He became the star of the team by the time he was a sophomore and the best damn quarterback Forks High had seen in years. At the end of his sophomore year his coach had sat him down and told him very seriously about scholarship opportunities, big fancy Ivy Leagues where he could learn to get his anger issues in check or find a learning style that better suited them.
Junior year had been even better for Tyler. Their team won almost every game, and their losses never reflected back on him. He had pretty girls fluttering their eyelashes up at him, (though he only really cared for Lottie's sister, Bella) teachers turning blind eyes to his little 'slips of composure,' and parties practically thrown in his honor. In their final game, with their skin plastered wet with mud, the team had given Coach Clapp a gatorade shower and the surly man had laughed and clapped him on the back. That night the team had such a raging party Mike Newton had to keep him turned on his side to make sure he didn't drown in his own vomit, and he woke up with a hangover so painful he thought he was dying.
It wasn't until the hangover subsided did Tyler realize he had left his lucky jacket at the school. No matter, he supposed, he'd just get it after the weekend passed.
Except that when he did get back, he was so drunk on his own victory he didn't notice the wheels of his car skidding on ice until he had nearly flattened the object of his affections into the concrete. He had promptly gotten the both of them sent to the emergency room, received the scolding of his life from an enraged Chief Swan, and didn't have the chance to go to retrieve his jacket until nearly a week later.
So, yeah. Tyler was in a bad mood. He was forced to go get the jacket on Saturday, and the school was in the middle of the annual science fair on top of it. He didn't like the way all the geeks leered at him— well, maybe that was too harsh. Angela was a geek, and she was civil with him. Bella was a geek, and she was hot as hell. But maybe that was because the two of them didn't look at him like he was some dumb jock. Like he couldn't do just as well as them in class if his brain would just shut up for a second.
He was very grimly making his way to building four, the last place he remembered having his jacket, when he heard a shrill screech and a sound of crashing. He lifted his head from where he was glaring at his shoes just in time to catch Charlotte Swan booking it across the stretch of grass from buildings two and four, bare ass naked except for his very own letterman jacket.
Huh.
The distance between the window I had fallen out of and building two couldn't have been more than half a dozen meters in length but it felt like I had run a marathon by the time I was slamming through the doors. I dearly hoped no leery-eyed Forks mothers had caught my wild sprint. Luckily, the humidity in the air and sweat on my skin had kept the jacket pretty firmly pasted against my skin, so no unmentionables were exposed to the watchful eyes of Forks.
Small mercies, really. If I had been seen the story would be indubitably so twisted by the time it came round to me again that I would have been informed I had been prancing buck-naked around the school, flashing the poor science fair kids out of some conniving, lascivious machinations.
My panting breath leveled slightly as I slumped against the wall, and my heartbeat began to feel less like a jackhammer and more like a hummingbird. Laying in bed for a week had done no wonders for my general constitution. Still, somehow I felt better than ever. The strange prickling on my skin had receded, my molars had stopped aching, and the strange fiery feeling in my stomach and veins had lessened to a dull pulse. There was a certain heaviness to the empty halls of building two. It pressed along my skin like a blanket made of stale air and unfulfilled dreams.
The vision of my Nokia came unbidden, but this time less as a warning and more of a promise. It hovered in my mind's eye, almost corporeal in its vividity, and pulled at my brain like a dog on a leash. I followed, moving slowly along the white-tiled halls as the buzz of the air conditioning faded away.
What followed was a particularly strange experience— although, so many of the experiences I'd been having lately were strange so it was almost familiar. The sensation in my body faded just like the air conditioning, until I could no longer feel my legs moved underneath me. My eyes stayed glued straight ahead. It seemed as if I was staying still and the hall was drifting around me. Classroom doors slid slowly by, barely registering. All dark wood, all small shuttered windows on the front, all silver numbers posted neatly at the side. Mrs. Wallace's classroom danced forebodingly to my right, but I could not turn to look.
My vision pivoted to the left, and suddenly I was staring at another door. Same dark wood, but no little number to the side and no little window to peer into. A white sign was duct-taped neatly to the front. "Out of Order." A bit of sensation flooded back and I felt my hand on the knob. I jiggled it.
Locked.
A little bit more, and I could feel my legs step back and my hands tense at my sides. I turned so my shoulder was facing the door. I tensed, legs bunching underneath me. And then I slammed into the door.
Shit!
The haze in my mind began to clear a bit from the pain, but I still couldn't move my body. Or rather, control my body, as it was moving quite fine on its own. I gulped apprehensively as I felt myself shift backwards, shoulder once more tilting to face the wall, legs bunching underneath me.
A hand landed on my sore shoulder and I yelped a bit from the pain, turning to face my assailant. Tyler Crowley stared back down at me, eyebrows scrunched in concern. He mouthed something. It occurred to me later he was actually speaking to me but I just couldn't hear him.
I stared at Tyler. The haze in my brain recognized the bulk of his body, the swell of his shoulders. He was even taller than Angela, and had a frame to match. He began mouthing more furiously, and poked at my jacket. I poked at the door, then his biceps. They felt like rocks.
We had both established our intentions as clearly as we could.
Tyler looked at me. He looked at the door. He looked at the ceiling, opened his jaw in what could only be a sigh, and then guided me away from the door. I waited patiently as he took a couple steps from the door, tilted his shoulder to face it just like I had, and then sprung.
The door practically exploded off the wall, hinges rattling with such a noise it even permeated the haze of my mind. Tyler stumbled back from the now-exposed bathroom, rubbing his shoulder and mumbling to himself. He turned and looked at me expectantly.
The haze was happy with the removal of its obstacle. It flooded my brain once again. The leash was back, pulling somewhere at the back of my mind, and I was guided through the doorway.
The first thing I saw was the mirror. It hung just above the sinks, reflecting shards of light from the hallway back at me. The light came in fractions, rippling off the cracked surface of the glass. Because it was cracked— In fact, calling it a mirror was a generosity considering over half of it was littered across the floor in a fine powder.
"Jesus, Lottie," I heard a voice say in the back of my mind as I stepped forward. I was sure I was cutting the bottom of my bare feet bloody, but I couldn't feel a thing. "You did all that with your fucking head?"
The far wall from the mirrors and the door had a large indent in the drywall. I stepped closer, and stared at it. A phantom memory danced through my mind: the feeling of flying through the air, skidding across a bathroom wall, slamming into the plaster with force that rattled my teeth in my jaws. Drops of blood beaded on the floor at its base. Not fresh. Dry, and brown from the oxidisation. I leaned down to peer more closely.
The leash at my mind pulled insistently. Still craning over, my head tilted to the side. I could see under the bathroom stalls from here. I could see the far stall, and the dark familiar shape of something resting at the base of the toilet.
Like cotton candy in boiled water, the haze vanished from my mind. But not just the haze, every strange sensation I had been experiencing over the past week. The strange fire in my body, the itching at my nerves, everything. I felt just like I always had. Except, I mused, scrambling forward to retrieve my long-sought Nokia, significantly more bruised and battered.
"There you are Lottie!" Came a voice, familiar in cadence and squeaky with rage and anxiety. I turned, phone grasped safely in hand. Angela was staring in the doorway, face blanched white except for two hard spots of color on the apples of her cheeks.
"Angela?" Tyler asked in mild surprise.
"Tyler?!" Angela shrieked back.
"Woah," I said, rubbing at my temples. "That was really fucking weird. Like, really fucking weird."
"Oh, are you back then?" Tyler said snidely. "I've been talking at you for three minutes." I frowned at him.
"You have?"
"Yeah, you were just wandering around. Like a zombie."
"Oh no," Angela moaned. "She was in her rabid dog state?"
"Her rabid dog what?"
I was too busy fiddling with my phone to pay much attention to their conversation. I knew I really should be, considering the grievances I had put at least Angela through, but I wanted to know why the haze had thought it so important I found my phone. It had survived the bathroom incident relatively unscathed, with only a small chip in the casing to show for it. It still had power, miraculously enough. When I opened it up it looked like I had just finished filming a video.
Curiosity peaked, I accessed it and pressed play, holding it up close so I could hear the sound filtering out of the tinny speakers.
"Lottie, what the fuck are you doing now?"
The video finished. All the blood had drained from my face. I wasn't sure where it had gone, as my heart was pumping desperately in my chest and my fingers felt very, very cold.
"Lottie?" That was Tyler. He crouched down next to me, so close I could smell his musk of fresh sweat and old deodorant. "Hey, are you alright?"
"Hey," I said. My voice sounded weak and reedy and very far away. "You know what they said about what happened? About why I passed out and who found me and everything?" Tyler gave me a strange look.
"Uh, yeah. You fucking passed out and broke your head against the mirror. The whole school was talking about it." Angela shoved her elbow into his side and he winced, not so much from the pain as from contrition. "Shit. Sorry, I mean, that didn't really happen, I mean—"
"Watch this." I showed them the screen of my phone and they huddled around me, pressing warm and comforting against my sides.
The video started innocuously enough, with me shoving my camera up into Alice's face.
"What the fuck, Lottie?" Tyler asked, bewildered. Angela's response was more analytical.
"Where's her mouth?" she asked, frowning down at the scream. I closed my eyes and shook my head, memories beginning to itch at my brain.
"I dunno." We kept watching. Very suddenly, the camera was no longer pointed at the Cullen girl's face. There were a couple shots of the ceiling, floor, and walls as it tumbled through the air before skidding beneath the bathroom stall where I found it.
"Did— Did Alice do that?" Angela whispered.
The sound of breaking glass came from the speakers. I had the sudden image of an enraged Alice bashing my head against the mirror and by the anxious noises coming from my left and right it seemed my friends had the same idea. Then the sound of a door slamming open, and Emmett Cullen's unmistakably ursine growl.
"Did she bite you?"
My cell phone only had so many frames it could film at a time. The video ended right there, with the two Cullen siblings presumably hovering over my unconscious body as my phone filmed quietly from the stall.
For a few moments, there was quiet.
"Oh my god, Lottie," Angela finally said in a very small voice. "Do you know what this means?" She didn't wait for us to respond. I don't think any of us would have, anyway. "You didn't pass out. You were attacked."
"Shit," I said.
"Shit," they agreed.
Tyler let out a muffled sound of distress. Emmett was probably the only kid in the whole school he couldn't punch out his feelings on, and he had reservations about hitting girls. I shifted unconsciously, and hissed as I felt the bottom of my feet burn. When the three of us glanced down we saw the soles of my feet were slick with blood.
"Jesus, Lottie!" Tyler said emphatically. "That looks bad! We need to get you to the hospital. You could need stitches, or—" He was cut off by Angela's squeak of distress.
"The hospital!" She moaned. "Oh, I forgot about that. We're going to be in so much trouble…" Tyler stared at her.
"Trouble?" he asked. "For what?"
"For breaking her out of the hospital!" Angela said, burying her face in her hands. "Oh, this is bad. We could get arrested, or—"
"No you can't," Tyler said, like that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. She peered at him hopefully through her fingers.
"What do you mean?" He shifted awkwardly, obviously quite unused to being the only person to know something.
"The hospital can't, ah, can't keep you without your permission. It's called AMA discharge. One time I broke my thumb and they tried to keep me in the emergency room but I had a game." He shrugged his shoulders. "It got a lot worse than if I had stayed, but we won, so it was worth it, I guess."
"Thank god," Angela sighed, shoulders slumping. Her face grew angry. "So Rosalie lied to me!"
"Not entirely," a smooth voice came from the doorway. I felt my blood turn to ice and Angela let out a little squeak. "While not necessarily illegal, it is unadvised. And very, very rude."
We all turned as one to face the doorway. There Carlisle stood, an unreadable expression on his face and stethoscope curled around his neck like a silver snake. Rosalie stood to his left side, amber eyes black with thinly-concealed rage and something darker. Edward stood to his right, gaze fixed on the red soles of my feet. I felt Tyler's muscles tense in subconscious preparation of a fight.
Shit.
Marcus opened his eyes to look at his late lover's grave. Closing them in the first place was merely a formality. It was impossible for him to sleep, or even for his thoughts to drift. Vampiric focus kept a well-organized mind, and even daydreaming became something more like scheming, layered with machinations that kept him constantly on track. But sometimes the senses his body granted him became overpowering, and he needed to find a way to shut them down. He didn't need to be able to see an ant on a wall across a room. He didn't need to be able to see each individual leg and antennae and hints of the hairs that bristled its body. It was an overload that clawed at his mind, played at his nerves like piano wire.
Aro had built Didyme's room with Marcus's sensory overload in mind. Everything in it was constructed of the finest spider pink marble. The walls, floors, arched ceiling and even the sepulchre that housed Didyme's ashes were all a pure, blinding white broken only by threads of the most vivid rose gold. It was as beautiful as it was cold and uncomfortable. The beauty was to honor Didyme. The discomfort was Marcus's punishment.
Although Aro had compromised on the material, everything else about the room was constructed with his brother's comfort in mind. The room was cleaned extensively to be as scentless as possible, and the walls were carved as to funnel sound in a way that turned it more to white noise than anything. When Marcus closed his eyes and kneeled at the base of Didyme's grave he could almost pretend he was human again. Well, no. That was a foreign sensation. The last strands of his humanity had been swept away centuries before. But he could pretend he was floating in some vast void of his grief, tethered to the mortal (or rather immortal) plane only by the press of cold marble against his knees.
Marcus had long stopped trying to kill himself. He knew that was in part due to Aro's schemings with his covenmates Chelsea and Corin. It was never meant to be a secret. He saw the world, saw the connections between people in colored strings that floated lazily through his mind. He could see when Chelsea played with those strings, knotting his soul tightly to the Volturi. He could see when Corin layered her emotional manipulation on to him, settling her powers over him in a warm blanket of contentment. It had worked at first, kept him from seeking out ways to end his immortal reign. But Didyme had dealt with matters of the heart as well, and the happiness her powers inspired in him were far more pure and overwhelming then the mere tranquility Corin could muster.
Marcus wondered if Aro knew that enough exposure to Corin and Chelsea's powers rendered them useless. He knew Aro could see how the power had faded when he held his wife, pressed his skin against hers in bed. If Athenodora and Sulpicia wanted, they could leave that very moment and nothing Corin or their husbands could do could stop them. Even Chelsea's ties of loyalty could be dismantled with enough effort. Perhaps it was just fear, fear of losing the truest allies the three kings had.
The only connection purer between that of a Volturi king and his wife was a Volturi king and his brother. Marcus knew that fact intimately. Corin's layer of contentment had faded, thinned like a moth-eaten blanket. He had managed to unhook Chelsea's ties between him and the Volturi after a couple of centuries worth of effort. But he still did not want to kill himself.
Oh, he did not want to live either. Living was even harder than dying was. But his loyalty to his brothers kept him from trying. He would continue like he had since his wife's death, not quite living, not quite dying. Floating in that same vast void of grief.
As a subconscious reaction to thinking about the strings, Marcus let his powers come forth. It was like opening his eyes in a different way, pulling off a veil and letting a sea of strings flutter forth. Hundreds issued forth from his own chest, but most were so inconsequentially thin they weren't worth noticing. Like a webbing of rainbow light.
Some were thicker, of course. Jane, Alec, and Felix were the most apparent of the Guard, each about a pinky finger's width. Jane was a bright red, freshly-spilt blood. Alec slightly darker, as if reminiscent of the black vapor of his powers. Felix was a purplish sort of maroon. Sulpicia and Athenodora were next, about as wide as his thumb and pink. The former a vivid fuschia, the latter a pale rose.
Caius and Aro were the largest of all and the closest to his heart. As thick as his wrist and the blinding silver color only a soul-brother could attain. The length of Caius's string was interrupted with complex loops. Celtic shield knots, a representation of protection and commonly placed on battlefields. A symbol of their relationships, brothers in war. Aro's string was composed of a multitude of fibers, each so thin that when put together the whole thing looked smooth and strong as steel. The only disturbances were the fine strands of black that intercepted the blinding silver. They had started appearing after Didyme's death, but hadn't become noticeable until their number increased. There was still far more silver than black, but their presence at all was worrying. A representation of the slow poisoning of a bond.
Marcus knew Aro knew about their bond. Marcus knew Aro knew that Marcus knew. It was just another thing the pair would quietly recognize but never discuss, like Didyme's death or the ineffectiveness of Chelsea and Corin's powers.
Didyme's passing had destroyed the bond that linked them together, but it left a gap behind that had never been filled. Her bond had been the most gorgeous of all. Just as smooth and unbreaking as her brother's, but with the consistency of silk instead of steel and a rose-gold color that was unmatched in beauty. It was centered directly over his heart, and as wide around as his arm. Now there was only emptiness. Aro and Caius's strings got the closest, but the gap in the webbing remained. A visual representation of his barren heart.
Which was fine. He deserved it. He deserved to live with the grief and the emptiness, because he didn't deserve to live in a world where his beloved Didyme had already passed. But although there were many cruelties Marcus would gladly stack upon his shoulders, there were some punishments too harsh even for him.
He didn't deserve the bond he saw when he opened his sight, positioned squarely over his frozen heart. Just a single string, no thicker than spider silk. If he didn't have his vampiric powers of observation he wouldn't have even noticed it in the first place. But there it was.
He lifted his hand. Twisted it around the string. Brought it close to his eye and as the light reflected off of it he saw its color. A singular, blinding gold.
Gold. Marcus knew what gold meant. He knew when he looked at the so-close-so-far color that was Didyme's bond. He knew when he saw the strings between Chelsea and Afton, between Carisle and his pretty mate Esme. He had always felt quietly vengeful when he saw it, and desired more than anything for it to be reflected back at him in the bond with his wife.
Looking at it now, he had never seen a color so ugly. For the first time since Didyme's passing, Marcus felt something other than apathy.
And that was pure, blinding rage.
Hey guys! Apologies for the long wait. Hopefully this extra-chunky chapter will make up for it. I've had a lot of new work coming on, so I expected longer gaps between updates. What I didn't expect was getting the role of Juliet in my town's local production of Romeo and Juliet. While this is great for my burgeoning theatrical career, (ha!) it is not so great for the updates of this story. I don't know how often updates will be. Every two weeks is my best estimate, but it may be more or less depending on how busy I am. Nonetheless, I will keep writing as often as I came to supply you guys with updates!
On to the comments!
seraphina987: Thanks for the comment ;)
Hmz0975: Thanks for the comment! Angela's a teenager, they all have problems galore. And what is going on with Charlotte? Hmm, guess we'll have to find out!
Courtney-Tamara: Aw, thanks so much! I totally agree with you on Charlie, and we'll be seeing more of Jessica and Mike later. I'm trying to cover all of the Stephanie Meyer friend group because I felt like their personalities weren't explored enough.
rafaelalana0710: Thanks so much for the comment! And trust me, the only thing writers care about is that people are liking their story. Every review brings a smile to my face :)
angel9507: Thanks so much! Hopefully this satisfies
Skybreaker39: I loved reading your comment! One of my favorite things to do in a story is explore the characters. I hate perfect characters, which is why both Charlotte and side characters like Angela are going to be flawed. Angela is based off of a friend of mine, so I'm quite fond of her myself. There is going to be some suspension of disbelief in this story: Philia, Storge, Pragma is some bastardized mix of the books and movies with my own ideas thrown in. One of the changes I'm making is by making the vampires not quite so overpowered. And trust me, you don't need to worry about the Volturi kings being too similar. Marcus's, Caius's, and Aro's personalities are like night and day, and you'll definitely see that when interacting with Lottie. Overall, thanks for the long comment, it made my day!
See you soon and stay safe!
Jonkers