Mathus's death was the worst of them. It was hard to tell when they let people into the room. The little tree in the middle of the room stood at only four feet. The strength of the tree was the only way she could measure the passage of time. She also kept track of how many people she had murdered at their request. The bodies were always removed. Alec made sure that she couldn't fight back against those that were coming to clean up. Jane had been present a few times but it was clear that she was not to touch Charlotte.

Sixteen dead… She sat against the wall with her legs crossed. Her eyes were closed, and she couldn't bring herself to care as the door opened up. When she opened her eyes, the small blonde vampire stood in the doorway. A meer thirteen year old girl stood with big, bright red eyes. Her head slightly tilted in fascination. This newborn that Aro had been so keen on collecting was not impressed by them. The Volturi as a coven was a wonder within the vampire world. They were large and powerful. Other vampires either feared them or desired their influence. But this girl, she was offered the chance to be one of their greatest powers, and she had out right refused for months now.

They had brought a worshipper to her, one every week for the last four months. She had killed them all, but she had talked to each of them about their lives and about what it was like to be a vampire that so desperately wished she could go back to a human life. She had listed their names in the trunk of the tree she was growing. It was now tall enough to cast a deep shadow over parts of the room. Charlotte remained in its shadow wishing she could disappear into it.

"Will you join the Guard?" Jane asked flatly.

Charlotte didn't even open her eyes. Her caramel colored hair was tied into a loose braid that was pulled over her shoulder. "No. Will you set me free since I have done nothing wrong?"

Jane cocked an eyebrow at her and immediately Charlotte fell to her side in pain. She screeched, clawing at her skin as if she could find some way to rid herself of it. Charlotte's teeth were clenched desperately trying to stop the next cry from escaping her. This was the extent of her interactions with Jane. She came in every four feedings and asked the same question, got the same answer, and doled the same consequence. At this point, Charlotte was sure that Jane got some sick satisfaction of making Charlotte suffer. Aro's favor was not easily won, and Jane did not like that Charlotte had won it so easily.

Jane knew why Aro wanted this girl to join the Guard. With the abilities that she had, she could make a very physical attack on the Coven that the Volturi leaders feared most. Bella could not protect her family from Charlotte. In all of Alec's and Jane's shortcomings, Charlotte was the answer, but she had some weird loyalty to those people that had helped her walk into this life that Charlotte so despised.

"The Cullen's don't deserve your loyalty. You could easily over power them with some training, and all you're doing is stalling. Eventually we will use you against them." Jane strode across the room, her cloak billowing out like the train of a bride's dress, but hers was dark and a sign of death and destruction that followed her.

Jane let up for a moment and Charlotte gasped in relief. "I don't owe you anything either. My loyalty is to myself-"

"And the wolf," Aphrodite appeared in the doorway. She looked like a much more dangerous, aged version of Jane. Aphrodite smiled at Jane like a mother would a daughter as she crossed the room. Charlotte managed to push herself back into a sitting position. "Even now, thousands of miles away. There is a connection between the two of you. And while you are easily swayed by my abilities, whatever this connection is, it protects the wolf: Peter, was it?" Charlotte growled at her and Aphrodite chuckled to herself squatting down in front of her. "Paul doesn't want you. He thinks you're a monster, so why don't you stop protecting them and give them what they deserve. They abandoned you. You saved all of them, and they didn't want anything to do with you. Especially Paul."

The growl that rumbled through Charlotte made her whole body shake. She shifted into a crouch, preparing to pounce on this woman at the next word that came out of her mouth. When she lurched forward, pain erupted in her once more. She managed to contain her cries as Aphrodite and Jane stood over her.

"If you don't use love to your advantage, you don't understand it's purpose, mi amore," Aphrodite blew a kiss to her and then motioned to Jane to follow her out. On her way she kicked the tree swiftly making it crack at its center and then fall over. Both of them were gone in seconds leaving Charlotte gasping for unneeded breath where they had left her.

She didn't try to get up. No part of her wanted to save the tree in the middle of the room. If she could cry, this was as close as she could get. Her body wracked with sobs, and she wasn't sure if it was because of Jane or Aphrodite, or the reminder that her whole life would have to change if she was going to be able to exist with herself.

"Mom! Don't call me that!" Charlotte screeched as she stomped through the upstairs of her childhood home. Her mom calmly walked behind her with an amused smile on her face.

"It's your name, Charlotte," she nearly laughed at her daughter's antics, but knew that it wouldn't help her in their conversation.

"EVERYONE calls me Charlie, Mom, ugh!" Charlotte reached her room, spinning in the doorway to face her mother who couldn't quite wipe the smirk off of her face.

"That's what your father and I named you, so you're going to have to deal with it," her mom crossed her arms over her chest. The laundry she had been trying to fold in the other room all but forgotten.

"It's an old lady name, and I won't respond to it. So, if you want me to listen you'll have to call me Charlie-"

"Charlotte-"

Charlotte groaned and slammed the door in her mother's face bursting into a fit of ridiculous tears.

Charlotte was laying on the stone floor still, staring at the dead tree in the middle of the room. That little fight with her mom had been such a big deal then. Still after that day, her mom called her Charlotte, and the rest of the world called her Charlie. At the mention of her real name, she would roll her eyes. But now, as she laid on this floor she wished that she could hear her mom say her name over and over again. Not how the vampires said it, it was like venom on their tongues, laced with greed for her power. Instead she wanted to hear her mother whisper it as she hugged her. Her mother would run her hand over her hair as Charlotte cried into her shirt. Her motherly embrace to calm the most terrible of tremors from the sobs that would wreck her in times of distress.

What she would give to hear Paul say her name… The way he said it when he was worried about her always made her bristle with emotion. But the way he almost moaned it when she teased him. He would lean away from her and groan as if he had to physically say no as much as verbally in order to stop himself from ravaging her. There had been so many times when she had wondered what that night would have looked like if she had let him do just that.

That seemed so long ago.

The night before Aphrodite had walked into their lives and destroyed everything: They had been watching a movie in her cabin. Paul had brought over truly horrible chinese food, and they joked about how that restaurant must have been using horse or dog meat because whatever they ate was definitely not beef and broccoli. Paul complained his whole way through the romantic comedy they watched, slinging his beer around dramatically at the absurdity of the romance.

"No man talks like that!" he had cried looking back and forth between the screen and Charlotte who was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest next to him. She was bemused by his outcry, but only shook her head and sipped her beer.

"Maybe they should," she had shrugged, "it might get you laid faster." When she realized what she had said she balked at herself and locked her eyes on the screen. She could feel his heated gaze on the side of her face and tried to push back the blush that erupted over her cheeks. A color that would never return to her icy skin. "Not by me, Lahote. Just drop it."

"Charlotte," he drew out her name in a whine.

"Lahote, I said drop it-"

"I have been in love with you since the first time I met you," he began his monologue.

"Lahote-"

"And I know that you're it for me, Everly. I can't go on any longer. My heart-" She had straddled his lap before he could react. His next word freezing in his throat as she pressed her lips to his. The almost empty beer bottle dropped from his hand onto the rug as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her chest flush with his. Her hands had tangled in his hair tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck. This heat built between them for several long moments until Charlotte managed to pull herself away. "Damn…" he breathed, her lips tingled as his breath washed over her face.

"At least I finally got you to shut up," she muttered though she wasn't sure if that was the reason for the kiss at all. That's what they had been contemplating that morning in the woods. She had been so distracted by it that she hadn't even noticed Aphrodite following them. But, she let the memory end there. She knew what happened after that point, and she was living in it now. The week following. The hell that followed that. She would rather exist in the memory where she was straddling Paul and his hands were gripping her hips possessively so that she could not leave her spot.

It was the only thing that distracted her from the burning in her throat. There had been no more worshippers presented to her. She wasn't sure if she was relieved, or if she wished that they would at least come visit her so she would stop sifting through these memories that made her motionless heart ache over something she could never have.

But they didn't send anyone to her. She knew it was an abnormal amount of time because the burning in her throat was growing to unbearable levels. The tree that she had been watching over so carefully had turned brown, the leaves starting to tumble to the floor. She stood against the far side of the room watching the door. Willing it to open. Though it never worked. Roots erupted through the ceiling curling into the space like ineffective rescuers. She tried to use them to break down the walls, but they were solid in all directions, nowhere to be pushed. Only to be slowly dismantled, but then they would know and Alex, or Jane, would come in to stop her. So, for a long while she existed in this maze of vines and roots that took over the round room.