Chapter 29
The vast forestry landscape that was slowly but surely becoming a winter wonderland moved by as nothing but a blur as Bella and Alice raced throughout the forest in a comfortable and understood silence. Both the hybrid and vampiress were busy formulating what they believed to be the best course of action on how to address this uncalled for and disastrous genocide, one that was caused simply due to their love for one another. Bella stopped short of the river that was the boundary line between her family and the family of her ancestor's, her ever changing eye color flickering as she felt what could only be described as chains slowly but surely breaking, link by link inside her conscious. Her eyebrows furrowed in thought at the sensation, she had thought for sure that she would begin to feel the overwhelming sensation of sinking into that dark abyss in her psyche that she had felt herself slip into involuntarily a few times as she learned how to adjust to her competing bloodlines, bloodlines that had never once been able to coincide outside in the world but were forced to within her being.
Her sharp eyes shot to the left as she looked at Alice, who was very clearly focused on the issue at hand. She stole a sidewise glance at Bella with a slightly raised eyebrow.
"This is our last chance to regroup before we jump into the battle. Please, tell me what you believe we should do and I will share my thoughts as well." Alice said briskly as she anxiously shifted on her feet, ready to make a difference.
When Bella had spoke to Carlisle about how ludicrous it was that he and the family chose to drink from animals to help maintain some sort of humanity and to protect humans but chose not to act when they were needed the most struck something inside Alice that she had never felt. She began to wonder just how much of her existence she had wasted by living passively, only reacting and making verdicts based off of the decisions of those who were braver than her, those willing to make decisions without understanding how it would all play out so she would not have to.
She had always held true to the thought she was making a difference by keeping her family safe, by making sure that they were happy and safe from fate's twisted turns. Now though as her darkening ocher eyes flickered from Bella's to the battlefield, she realized just how smallminded and selfish she had truly been. These types of occurrences happen all around the world, every day after all. Wars, genocides, plagues, and senseless killings were all to common in the human world. While she had altered her régime once finding the Cullens and knew she was saving humans by not living that lifestyle, she realized she could have been doing so much more. She bit down on her bottom lip as her gaze hardened with determination.
' If I make it through this, I swear. I will spend the rest of my existence making a difference in this world.' Alice thought to herself.
While Alice was having her own internal reflection time, Bella found herself watching the large snowflakes fall from the sky and onto the ground around her. Memories of the contents of the note transpired the front of her mind and kept reappearing just as quickly as she was able to dismiss them. Even without Alice's gift of fluid foresight, she knew without a doubt that regardless of the battle and the outcome that lay in front of her, there was one more that she would have to tend to. One that was not foretold by her ancestors, but one that was forged deep into her fate and her history. The very meeting of Edward and the events that had followed were merely her catalyst. The new gateway that had been born and forged from her shattered heart the day she had been abandoned in the woods, the pathway that led her to that fateful night when she attempted her own hand at ending fate's plan for her, the pathway that led to this very moment and been woven and intertwined to an absolute perfection. Bella lifted her gaze to the sky and the snowfall above her, before closing her eyes as she felt the remaining chain link begin to break.
'I have done nothing yet of significance with my life. I will fix this world, and unite worlds that have yet to be connected. All this bigotry and fear born from nothing but misunderstanding and deafness to the solutions we all seek shall be no more. Please, father and ancestors alike. When I call, please lend me the power needed to overcome and to fulfill the destiny that you have entrusted in me.' Bella thought as she reopened her eyes, seeing both Taha and Aurelius shimmering like a mirage against the bleak and barren cloudscape. She saw them both smile briefly as her last link finally gave in before her entire being was filled with a blast of ice that started in her chest and warmed to that of fire as it reached her fingertips. She blinked and the odd and foreign flickering sensation behind her eyes was no more.
Bella let out a breath that she had not realized that she was holding before meeting Alice's patiently waiting gaze.
" I want you to focus on the vampires as your gift will allow you to evade their movements and attacks as you will see their determinations the moment they make a decision, subconsciously or not. Jacob, you need to leave him to me. You are too vulnerable to fight him as he creates nothing but blind spots. If I know him at all, he will do whatever he can to separate us, but we cannot under any circumstance allow that to happen. Fate has taught us time and time again that we are stronger when we are together. This time, we fight as one." Bella said gently as she moved to the side and took Alice's hands into her own, moving forward so that their foreheads were resting against one another's.
Alice closed her eyes and bathed in the comfort of being so close to her mate. She let the comforting smell of her love waft over her face and bury themselves deep into her senses. Hesitantly, Alice licked her lips before opening her eyes and smiling at Bella.
"You and I had the same exact thoughts on the matter. I'm glad we agree," Alice smiled before taking in a deep breath, " Bella. No matter what happens here and now, loving you has been the most rewarding and fulfilling adventure that I have ever had the privilege in partaking in. Thank you for granting me this small piece of paradise." Alice purred out before angling her face and locking lips with Bella, both pushing as much love and affection as possible into the kiss, both very much aware that it could be the very last one they would share. They were going off course that they had created to take on the Volturi and there was no way of knowing how the change would alter everything much like how a small pebble against a water's surface is capable of sending ripple after ripple of change.
Bella and Alice pulled back from each other as they heard a large group of footsteps swiftly advancing towards them. Bella flicked her eyes to the side and put a defensive arm out in front of Alice as she stepped forward just a couple of steps, her focus on what could possibly be an incoming threat.
Much to her surprise and relief, she found the entire Cullen clan standing before her with an identical serene expression on their faces.
"What are you doing here?" Alice asked as she looked over at her family in shock. It was apparent that they had made a snap decision to join as she had not received a vision of their arrival.
"We discussed the points you brought up with vigor before taking off to the boundary line. While it is valid to say that you do not suffer from centuries of bias, misplaced as it may be, it was not an easy decision to make knowing that we are essentially flying off of the seam of our pants. We have never bothered to care for the engagements of the shifters before and with the issue of the Volturi still hanging over our heads, we believed, well, I believed that it would be the best course of action to stay on path and not deviate." Carlisle said softly as Bella raised an eyebrow in confusion and Alice huffed in annoyance.
" If this is your attempt to stop us from advancing, I will warn you now not to proceed. Bella and I are going, and that is final. We will not let anyone or anything stand in our way." Alice snapped slightly, her tone laced with a hint of frustration.
"Are you so eager to die that you cannot wait just a few more moments to hear this out?" Tanya argued back at Alice, her eyes squinting to match her tone.
"You have it all wrong. I am not eager to die as you call it, but rather eager to matter. To finally make a difference. Eager to end these heinous acts." Alice sighed back and crossed her arms, reluctantly nodding her head at Carlisle, giving her silent permission to continue.
"I will wrap this up. I know that time truly is of the essence. Bella, what you said seemed to resonate to a certain extent. We have decided that we will join you in this fight. You will have to excuse our previous display of reluctance. We should have been better beings than that and you were right to call it out the way that you did. Thank you." Carlisle smiled and Bella nodded in thankfulness, suddenly feeling much more at ease. There was no way of knowing just how many vampires there were.
"We were just reviewing the linguistics, but perhaps we ought to make some adjustments. The end goal is the same though. We simply need to wipe out these vampires and then, I will take care of Jake." Bella said after a few seconds before pausing to meet each of their stares, seeking confirmation that they understood, " I don't know how many there will be. I don't know how this will all play out but if it does indeed end here… I just want to say that I am proud to be a member of this coven."
The family, including the Denali's moved together and did one last final group hug before Bella moved to the front with Alice, hands intertwined and the rest of the family placing themselves behind them in a v shape formation. It was time.
The strong and almost overpowering stench of wet dog and sulfur hung in the air as ashes mixed in the snowflakes, slowly and nonchalantly falling around the vampires as they quickly moved into the village, or what was left of it.
Bella's eyes widened as she saw the absolute carnage and destruction that surrounded her. The majority of the cabins had been set aflame and were still burning, while a few had already turned into nothing but ash. The snow on the ground was streaked with mud and blood, creating a nauseating sight of various shades of brown. There was no time though to get bearings about themselves as they moved past the destroyed village to where they heard a haunting melody of screams and thundering heartbeats. Together, the family moved to the center of the village where they found the remaining tribal residents huddled together in small groups, bound in rope and chains, guarded by red eyed vampires. Bella came to a halt as she looked over the terrified expressions of the children and couldn't stop the growl that escaped her throat as she faintly heard a soft whimpering howl in the back of her mind.
In total there were fifteen vampires, all who raised their lips and let out warning snarls and hisses, the shimmer of their venom leaking down the corners of their lips and down their chins and onto the snow below. Bella's gaze turned away from the vampires to Jake who walked casually out from behind one of the nearly destroyed structures that had been the hut that Emily and Sam had setup for her so many moons ago before the fight with Victoria, his lips moving upwards into a menacing smirk as he crossed his arms against his bare chest.
"Well, hello there. Fancy meeting you here." Jake grinned as he watched Bella's fists clench together.
"Believe me when I say that the feeling is definitely not mutual." Bella growled out as she was overwhelmed with the feeling of loss, pain and despair. She wondered briefly when she had obtained the ability to be an empath like Jasper but shook her head, moving on to more important matters at hand.
"I was hoping that my little fun here would spark your attention. I had my doubts that the Cullens and their extended family would join you in the fight, knowing that you and you alone are the only one we want. Seems rather senseless for them to risk their lives for you." Jake sneered as he took a couple of steps forward so that he was standing in front of the crimson eyed vampires.
"Bella is our family and one of our own. Any matter that involves her automatically becomes our business." Emmett growled out as his eyes darkened.
"Still, such a shame for your lives to be forfeit. I'll tell you what. I'll give you one chance and one chance only. Hand over Bella to us and I will release these humans and preadolescent shifters and you will be free to go." Jake offered, causing Carmen and Esme to snarl out in protest.
"Hell will freeze over before I would ever hand over my daughter to the likes of you. You want her so bad, try to come and get her." Esme snapped as she forced herself not to lunge and rip out Jake's throat.
"What a shame. Well, if you are offering your lives, I will allow these newborns to take them." Jake shrugged almost indifferently, causing Jasper's eyes to widen.
"How on earth did you manage to recruit a newborn army without our knowledge?" Jasper yelled out in frustration. Newborns as they all knew were difficult to fight. Stronger, faster, void of feelings of pain or an ounce of self preservation. They would fight and they would fight to kill.
"Recruit? These were created for me. Handpicked and trained by a vampire that you all know. I just had to be the one to make the decisions so your precious little Alice didn't have the opportunity to get a vision from it." Jake laughed causing Alice to clench her teeth together tightly as she ground them.
"You bastard. You will pay for what you have done to these once innocent people. They did not deserve to be turned. You had no right, no right at all to take away their freewill." Rosalie snarled, her body trembling with an unknown and new level of anger.
"Where are Sam and the others, Jake? What did you do to them?" Bella asked, already afraid of the answer she would receive but had to know. More than anything she needed confirmation, the anxiety of not knowing was almost too much to bear.
"Sent them to their maker. Such a shame really. They had the offer to join us but refused. Without training on how to properly fight a newborn, they made short work of them. They gallantly threw themselves at me one at a time until they were no more." Jake said dismissively causing Bella to stagger slightly as the weight of the implication fell down on her. They were dead, all of them. Her friends, the people she had pushed away for fear of being hurt and betrayed, for fear of her family. The people who had been there for her when no one else was. The people who remained loyal to her until the very end, despite not truly having a reason to do so. She had not realized just how deep the bond had gone between them and herself.
"Why, Jake? This cannot simply just be because of your disgusting amount of jealousy and desire to be with me. There has to be another layer of reasoning behind this." Bella spoke out through trembling lips as she felt an odd and foreign sensation move through her body.
"My, you have truly become insightful. The answer to that is simple. You are right. At first, my goal was simply to take down everyone around you. If I couldn't have you, then no one could. However, as time went on, I realized that I had set my sights too low. Once we win this fight, you will simply be a consolation prize. With Sam now out of the picture, I took my rightful spot according to my birthright as the Alpha. I will wait until some of these children grow and phase. I will rebuild a tribe under the ideals that should have always been in place. We will not live in fear over the vampires. We will not stick to some ridiculous treaty, forcing us to stay on our land. We will train and learn and eventually we will spread out, killing every single vampire in existence who decides not to join our ranks and fall under my rule, including that of the Volturi. With your kind no longer a threat, the curse of the shifting will end and my kind will no longer suffer at your hand." Jake explained as he began to pace, Bella's eyes watching his movements closely.
"Jacob," Bella paused as she felt her eyes begin to flicker, " I understand what you are saying. I understand the pain that you and your kind have had to endure due to the seemingly impossible to understand chasm between you and the vampires. I understand that being forced to phase as the gene awakens, forced to live under the will of the Alpha, your freedom, being and independent thoughts stripped away is a terrible way to live out an existence. Truth be told, I would have gladly died if that meant future generations did not have to suffer the way you have, the way the others did. But how you plan on going about it is wrong." Bella tried to reason but Jake shook is head.
"You understand nothing. This is the only hope and chance we have left and I will fight until the end to make sure that it comes through, no matter the cost." Jake argued back.
"Jacob, if you follow this route, everything will become unbalanced. Don't you see? There does not need to be an unwarranted extermination of either kind here. I'm not saying that it will be easy but the ideals that your father believed in, I believe can come true. I truly do believe that we can unite our worlds. Will it be easy? Of course not. Will it take time to unlearn our past prejudices against one another before we will be able to look at each other in a different light? Of course. But this path, this route, this bloodshed, all of it is completely senseless. We do not have to do this. There is another way. Please, allow me to prove you wrong before you go down a path that I cannot get you back from." Bella spoke once more as she watched Taha shimmer to the left of Jake, and Aurelius to her immediate right.
"I'm afraid too much has already happened that we cannot come back from. This is the path I have chosen and I refuse to be swayed by your empty promises disguised as nothing but false hope. I have already been warned that you would try and cloud my judgement, and I refuse to let you get inside my head like that. If you will not agree to be on our side, that means that you are an enemy and a threat to the new world I am going to create. We will end you here." Jake argued back and Bella lowered her head in defeat, knowing her words would never reach him.
' Seth was right. There is no way to get through to him, he's simply too far gone. I must find a way to defeat him so that I can fulfill my destiny and create the correct path for every human, vampire and shifter to live to permanently end this downwards spiral of hate, once and for all.'
"You keep saying we, but who are you referring to? You as a shifter should not have control over these newborns. Everything in their system should be identifying you as a threat, and you should be dead. Who is the person actually pulling the strings here?" Eleazar growled out as his ancient amber eyes took in the situation unfolding in front of him with curiosity and concern.
"That person would be me." A sinister voice called out from the tree line and Bella felt a familiar tingle run down her spine as she instantly recognized the tone of voice and who it belonged to.
Slowly, the being emerged. His dark olive skin contrasted greatly against the slow but steady falling snowflakes around him. His glossy black braided hair was pulled back into a solitary ponytail. His crimson eyes danced with the feeling of excitement over the prospect of battle and the death of the person who had been responsible for the destruction and extermination of his own coven. His lips pulled back to reveal a flash of gleaming pearly white teeth, glistening with excess venom as his eyes locked onto Bella's, while the Cullens and the Denali's collectively gasped, snarled and growled out in surprise.
"Laurent."