Revolving Worlds – Book Three

2060

Chapter Six

Another Goodbye

Renesmee's Point of View

Alice and Edward were only able to tell us that William and Penny had been in some sort of car accident. That was really all Alice could see. Technically she couldn't even see William, so she had no idea what happened to him, just that there was a blur next to Penny at the hospital. We weren't too worried about him, though. He was a former Wolf, having given up his Wolf decades ago, to grow old with his Imprint/wife, but none of us thought a car accident would be capable of hurting him. Alice saw that Penny was severely injured though and had been brought to the ER.

William's wife's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Littlesea, who thought of David as William's younger brother, instead of his father, road with him, Angelina, and Carlisle to the hospital, followed closely behind by Sepideh, Matthew, Jacob and me.

William and Penny's twin daughters, Eryn and Krissy, were teenagers now and had driven themselves to the church. They wanted to come with us to the hospital but we disagreed. Most likely here would be no news for hours, and being stuck in a boring Hospital waiting room would not be fun. They could worry just as easily, and more comfortably, at the church. That wasn't to say that we were dismissing their feelings for their parents, we were all concerned about them. We just didn't have any answers for them right now.

Alice and Edward stayed at the church to inform the guests of what was going on, at least as much as they were able to.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital my father called, asking for an update, but I had none to give him.

"How is Felicity doing?" She and Jennifer must but so upset. I didn't see them going through with the wedding now. Though she'd only met him a handful of times William was her nephew and my daughter loved him.

"I just got through telling everyone what Felicity and Jennifer decided," Edward began to quickly explain to me. "They are putting the wedding on hold for the time being. You know your daughter though. She wanted it made clear that everyone was more than welcome to go into the reception area." I had a feeling that those who ate would do just that, while the Vampires in the group most likely would be disappearing into the local Woods, not wanted to be cooped up with a bunch of humans and Wolves any more than necessary - not if a wedding wasn't going to take place today. He also mentioned that they promised to stay in the area, at least for a little while, to see if the wedding would be rescheduled for sometime soon or not. But that would depend on how severe Penny's injuries were, I guessed.

"I'm going to go see if I can find out what's going on," Carlisle said once I was off the phone. He headed off to the nurses' station while the rest of us tried to get comfortable in the stiff waiting room chairs. My grandfather didn't work at this hospital but was known in the area and would be able to find things out faster than the rest of us. Even though he was whispering with the nurses I could hear everything he was saying, while I tried to comfort Penny's parents.

There was a few vending machines nearby so to pass the time I bought the Littlesea's some coffee and a selection of chips and candy bars to choose from. They took them and had a few sips of the coffee, but didn't touch the junk food.

"Would it be possible if I were to just look over her charts?" I heard him ask one of the nurses, probably flashing one of his dazzling smiles, to get her to do whatever he wanted. It always seemed to work for everyone in my family.

Even though I couldn't see him, since he was around the corner, I heard pages wrestling, meaning Carlisle had achieved his goal.

"And could you direct me to the other cars occupant, I would like to speak with him," Carlisle added, trying to find out what happened to my grandson, William.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, doctor," the nurse replied.

"And why is that?" Carlisle asked, laying on the charm.

"Well... I really can't..."

"I assure you, you won't get into any trouble."

"No, that's not it... it's just that he's no longer... Err... You see the young man isn't... He didn't..."

"He wasn't brought to this Hospital?" Carlisle offered, trying to help the suddenly tongue tied nurse.

"No he was..." she broke off again. "It's just that now he..."

"Did he leave?" Carlisle asked trying to lead her again to get her to answer.

"No... No he..."

"Where is he?" Carlisle raised his voice. It was only slight, and the nurse probably hadn't heard the difference, but I could. It wasn't like him to get so agitated. I'd missed something.

She must have pointed or shown him something because I didn't hear another word out of her, just of her footsteps walking off and Carlisle's coming back to us.

When I saw his face I knew something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Penny!

"Did you find anything out? Is Penny going to be alright?" I asked for her parents' sake, already knowing that she most likely wasn't.

Carlisle spoke directly to them, but I knew it was for all of us.

"Mr. and Mrs. Littlesea, I'm afraid I have some upsetting news for you. And I need you to prepare yourselves." Mrs. Littlesea had been pacing around the room but now was huddled in the chair next to her husband. Carlisle continued, "The injuries your daughter sustained, in the car accident, were severe. They're going to be bringing her up to surgery in a few minutes." He continued to explain what was wrong with their daughter, after Mrs. Littlesea stopped crying long enough for her to hear him, but I could see him shaking his head so infinitesimally that only one with sharper than human eyesight would be able to see, that there was really no hope for their daughter.

"Why don't we leave the Littleseas, for a moment, to process this information," Carlisle told the rest of us. It was just a cover, though. Really we needed to go find William.

"I think we are going to stay here," Sepideh spoke for herself and Matthew. They all lived on the Reservation together and were good friends not only with Penny, but probably her parents as well. Their brother being missing wasn't as upsetting at the moment to the fact that their sister-in-law was dying.

"Sure, sure," Jake understood. "We'll let you know when we find out anything about William," he added too low for the Littlesea's to hear.

Where was he? I couldn't imagine why William wasn't with his wife. Hopefully he wasn't out, tracking down whoever had been in the other car. The ER seemed rather quiet and it didn't look like anybody else had been brought in, so whoever it was, must have walked away from the accident relatively unscathed.

"Were you able to find out where William is?" David asked, as soon as we were out of earshot.

"I'm taking to you to him now," Carlisle said as the five of us piled into the nearest elevator and he hit the last button I would have expected.

M

"Why are we going to the Morgue, Carlisle?" David growled.

"I'm afraid I don't have any answers for you at this moment. Please do not jump to any conclusions, but according to the nurse, William was already deceased when the ambulance arrived." David was struggling not to phase in the elevator. Jake wasn't doing that much better.

What other conclusion were we supposed to jump to other than William being dead?

"BUT," Carlisle yelled trying to grab Jake and David's attention. Angelina and I did what we could in the confined space, holding our Imprint's hands – my touch always calmed Jake down in the past, hopefully it would work now. "We must keep in mind that William was a Wolf. Even as a former one, he was stronger than the average human. To have him die in a car accident... it just seems so unlikely..." David and Jake seemed to calm down, at least they stopped shaking and were no longer at risk of phasing in the tiny metal box, "Being part Vampire; I'm hoping that his body went into some sort of vegetative state, like the rest of our kind does under stress. It is... possible, and in such a state the paramedics might have confused this frozen state with death, if they were unable to detect any life signs."

Yes, that made sense. It had to. There's no way a simple car accident could have killed him. No! There was no way my grandson was dead.

We all nodded our heads in agreement, some looking more convinced than others, as we continued our decent down into the basement.

"Maybe it isn't even him. The body in the morgue could belong to the other driver," Angelina surprised us all by suggesting.

"William would never leave his imprint. If he was alive," Jake had to pause for a moment to calm himself back down, "he would be upstairs with her."

"Maybe he phased on instinct and since he hadn't done so in years, wasn't wearing anything, so when the ambulance arrived…"

She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence. She didn't have to. None of us could imagine a situation where a Wolf would leave their injured Imprint, clothed or not.

The elevator doors opened right into the morgue. There were no winding hallways, not even a set of doors to slow down my son. David rushed out of the elevator and straight towards a woman who had the unfortunate timing to be in middle of washing the body. It was William. Was he dead or frozen? I didn't hear a heartbeat, but I was holding out hope that it was just too faint at this distance. A quick glance did tell me that washing him was all she'd done so far. If we'd arrived any later who knows what we could have been walking in on. She could have been performing an autopsy, or something. Not that I was even sure if she would have for a car accident.

"Take your hands off of him!" David yelled, slapping the sponge out of the poor woman's hand.

"I beg your pardon!" she yelled back, probably unaccustomed to dealing with grieving and angered family members. "You're not allowed down here and I would appreciate it if you didn't interrupt my work."

"Please pardon the interruption, Ms... Shade," Carlisle said, reading the woman's name off of her ID badge, in his most diplomatic tone, while simultaneously stepping between the two of them so that David didn't hurt her, intentionally or not. "You must excuse my friend's behavior. You see, the man on the table is his... brother."

Angelina grabbed David's hand and also placed herself between him and the woman, adding more distance between them, turning him around in the process so he didn't see his son lying on the table.

Carlisle did the same. Not with his hand but positioned his body in a way that made Ms. Shade turn, not only to face him, but also away from William.

With Ms. Shade and David distracted, I went and examined my grandson, looking for any signs of life. Jake joined me. He seemed to have calmed down and was back in control.

Carlisle really was the one who should be doing this, but he was busy, and I'd had enough medical training to see not only if someone was dead or not, no matter how faint, but also, in some cases, determine the cause. But that was about it. If William was alive I would have to tell my grandfather so he could revive him, if needed, and then we would have to deal with Ms. Shade. But after looking him over I realized that would not be necessary.

He wasn't breathing. And even with our enhanced hearing neither Jake or I could detect a heartbeat, not even a faint one. Moreover we could easily see the bones in his left tibia and fibula, his right forearm, and his left clavicle were broken. With a little poking and prodding I could feel that most of the bones in his neck had also been broken. That was probably the cause of death.

I shook my head, letting Carlisle know. When William's body was released Carlisle would probably want to do a more thorough examination, but we'd found out what we'd came here for. He nodded back in understanding.

In the meantime the morgue employee was still talking to him. "I do understand all too well." She sounded slightly less agitated, but I could tell she was still pissed off. "But family isn't allowed down here. You'll have to leave. When everything is done the body will be released and you can see it then." Her responses were cold and harsh. She didn't seem to be very good with people; probably why she worked with the dead.

"Of course," Carlisle seemingly acquiesced. "I was just wondering... they didn't seem to know upstairs, but can you tell me what happened to the person in the other car? We'd like to make sure that they're all right."

"Other car?" She seemed confused. "What other car?"

"We were told that William was in a car accident, we assumed it was with another vehicle."

"No," she replied, then went and grabbed a chart off a nearby table and began flipping through the paperwork. "It seems that the car's driver... oh, it looks like that was him," she said pointing to William, "he lost control of the car and wrapped it around a pole or a tree. Funny thing though," she started to chuckle before stopping herself, poorly attempting to cover it by clearing her throat, while flipping more pages. Her sense of humor was verging on the stranger side which told me that she probably had been working in the morgue a little too long. But that worked for us now. "According to the police report they couldn't find the tree."

That was strange. Not only the missing tree part but the thought of William losing control of the car... his Wolf reflexes should have made that nearly impossible. Something wasn't right.

"We should go back to the scene of the accident. See if we can learn anything more there," Jacob said. I think he was talking to me, but it was starting to sink in that my grandson was dead and all I could do now was stand frozen over his dead body. For how long - I didn't know. Eventually Jake dragged me out of the room. I didn't want to leave, but he was right, we needed answers.

I started to wake up more, halfway up the elevator ride. I was standing in between Jake and Carlisle.

"Where are David and Angelina?"

"David ran out just after you let Carlisle know William was gone. Angelina followed him. Don't worry. She'll take care of him," Jake told me.

"I should go inform Sepideh and Matthew," Carlisle told us as the doors opened back onto the Emergency Room floor.

"Maybe you should take a walk with them outside first, just in case," Jake suggested. He was right. The danger of Matthew phasing was too great in the hospital.

Carlisle agreed. "Would you like me to call Edward and let the rest of the family know as well?"

I had not thought of that. Of course they would need to be told, but we also needed to go to the crash site. We needed answers.

"No, we'll go there before we head over to William's car," Jake replied before turning to me. "Are you okay to go?"

I nodded. This was important. Falling apart wasn't an option. I needed to pull myself together. "What if everything is cleaned up by then? I think we should go directly there. We can call my father instead. Besides, Alice has probably already seen... something, and between her and Edward, everyone already knows, or soon will."

"You're right," Jake agreed with me.

With our car's doors closed we hadn't smelt anything as we drove to the crash site, but once we opened the doors we were immediately assaulted by Caius' scent. This was no accident. He'd attacked them.

"Careful, Caius could be hiding anywhere," Jake told me, when I began following their car's skid marks. It had somehow managed to end up off the road and a good thirty-two feet into the woods.

I didn't see Caius anywhere in the area. He wouldn't be stupid enough to hang around. His odor must have lingered from the initial attack on William and Penny. "Caius wouldn't come back here. He must know we would kill him for what he's done."

"His scent's too fresh," Jake disagreed. "I don't think he ever left." He started to growl, then his expression changed and he almost smiled... almost. "William must have caused almost as much damage to him as he received. Caius could be lying around here in pieces."

"You think William di... you know," I choked, unable to say the words yet, "before he was able to light that SOB on fire?"

"Let's go find out," Jake said as he followed me towards the car.

As we walked deeper into the woods, I picked up two other Vampires a little further away. "Do you smell that?" My eyes begin scanning the trees, the horizon line, around rocks. I didn't see anything, but that meant nothing. Caius' friends, subordinates, allies, whoever... could they be out there. Lying in wait. To ambush us.

We both froze. Instantly three Vampires stood before us, with Caius at the center. He wasn't dead. He didn't even look like he'd been injured. It was a trap.

My hand had instantly dove into my pocket the second we'd first smelt Caius and was still there now. It was part of the plan we'd come up with months ago to keep everyone safe, when Alice first had her vision of Caius planning something - always stick in twos, have a cell phone with you, and call for backup at the first sign of trouble. I was glad we'd come up with that now because I only had an instance to dial before Caius became aware of what I was doing. The only problem was I couldn't take my phone out of my pocket to look at it and see if the call went through, or if I'd even dialed the right number. Nonetheless I nonchalantly took my hand out of my pocket and gently grazed Jacob's arm letting him know what I'd done. I left the call open. If it had gone though our family would be able to hear everything.

"Caius! Our grandson never did anything to you," Jake screamed. "Why did you do this?" We needed to get him talking, to give my family time to get here. Three against two were not the greatest odds.

"Do you have any idea what it's like back in Volterra? You ruined everything!" Caius hissed back, taking the bait. "Once Aro was gone, his wife, Sulpicia tried to seize power. I didn't think she had it in her; she's been so docile this past millennium." He'd been standing on a high rock, some thirty meters away, but had jumped down and was now twelve meters closer. I'd never seen him so animated. "But then I guess it was Aro's own fault," he continued, stepping closer with every unnecessary breath. "He'd grown overconfident over the centuries, with Chelsea by his side, thinking he could control everything. Once she and Aro were gone the spell Chelsea had over his wife was broken and her true personality began to reemerge."

Was Caius no longer in control of the Volturi? Alice hadn't mentioned that.

"Well her and that other one, Tia," Caius spat her name as if even the sound of it was an insult to his ears. He was now a mere eighteen meters from us. His two henchmen even closer. "Did you know that the two of them became friends over the years? They're still there, you know." He seemed disgusted at the mere thought. "Benjamin and Tia. In Volterra. Benjamin has no desire to lead. But the other two," his disgust grew, "together with Marcus, their little trio seems to think that they will become the new Volturi. Not like that's going to happen." He leaped another seven meters closer, "I'll get Marcus back on my side and together he and I will find a new third... perhaps Amun, he was always good at controlling Benjamin in the past. I'm sure he'll be able to get him, and his mate, to do his bidding once again. Of course this time I'll be the leader, the heart of the Volturi, the NEW Volturi, like I was always meant to be."

"You know what Caius, I think we have heard enough." Jake yelled back at him, "because frankly my wife and I stopped listing a long time ago." I liked how Jake referred to me as his wife to Caius, instead of Renesmee, or Nessie, or even Ness. I knew as he did, that it would upset Caius simply because he hated Wolves and thought Vampires miles above them. And me being only half, mated and married to one, I was still far above my husband, in his eyes. The thought was simply revolting to him. Internally I snickered at his revulsion.

"So you're getting pushed out of the Volturi. Boo-Hoo. Nothing you have to say is any interest to us. No one cares about your stupid sob story." Jake's face grew angrier. "You killed our grandson and now you will die for that." He finished yelling, before leaping and phasing midair, catching Caius completely off guard. Jake managed to catch Caius right in the midsection but he was able to quickly throw Jake off easily, having previous experience in the past with real Werewolves.

Four more Vampires, one of whom I recognized from the group Aro had tricked into joining the Volturi, appeared from somewhere in the woods. They must have been hiding just out of our eyesight and downwind so we didn't catch their scent.

It was now seven to two. We were now completely outnumbered and my family was nowhere in sight. They should have been here by now. I was starting to think my phone call to my father never went though. Did I dare take my phone out of my pocket and redial his number? Making sure the call went through this time?

If I did someone might see and stop me before I was even done dialing. But if I didn't even try, Jake and I surely wouldn't have a chance. Not against so many. I had to risk it.

Jake had Caius and another busy for the moment. He was holding his own, but two others were near, looking like they were eager to get in on the fight. The other three were circling me. Backing me further into the woods. My hand swooped in and out of my pocket in a flash. But I was seen and one of Caius' henchmen grabbed the phone out of me hand.

"Look at this," he held it up for Caius and the others to see. But I could too and I saw that my call was still open, my father's name and number lit up on the screen. He must be hearing everything. "The little half-breed called her daddy for help." He started laughing then held it to his ear. "Say goodbye to your daughter," he snarled into it before crushing my phone in his hand, then tossing it aside.

Turning to run, the other two grabbed me before I could move an inch. Not being able to overpower them, my only shot was to use my gift and trap them in one of my tactile visions, like I had done with the guards in Volterra years ago. My hands snaked and wiggled around and around. It probably looked like I was trying to break free, but really I was attempting to find a piece of exposed skin, yet every inch of them, besides their face was covered, and the way they were holding me, I couldn't reach up that far. They were also wearing gloves, and whatever material they were dressed in, I couldn't seem to rip, though I tried.

Of course. Their choice of clothing had been purposefully made. Caius was there last time, he'd seen what my gift was capable of doing and had his men prepare for this possibility.

"Bring her to me," I heard Caius say.

Jake!

He'd been fighting Caius, but now Caius was twenty feet in front of me and still didn't appear injured. Where was Jake? Was he dead?

As Caius' goons dragged me toward him I searched to my left where I last saw Jake. Nothing. Then I heard some rustling and growling over to my right. There he was, further away, barely a blimp on the horizon. They had separated us, but Jake was still alive, still fighting. Yet now it was three against one, and it didn't look like Jake was holding his own anymore. The last I saw was him go flying into a tree before one of the ones holding me, threw me down at Caius' feet.

To be Continued...