Chapter Five: A Fire Burning Out

I huddled against the wall as he screamed, my eyes closed as I wished, willed, hoped for all of it to go away. I couldn't tell what she was doing to him now. Her own words were practically drowned out by the sound of his screams.

It was an agonized sound, the kind that came with a pain that was made to break people. Jane must have retreated at some point. I could barely listen to it. How could anyone stick around to watch?

Worse than the screams, though, was the begging. He had never pleaded for her to stop before. He cried out before, but he took it. He took everything that she gave to him- but not this time. From the first second, he sobbed, his voice broken as he begged for some level of mercy.

It was futile. The more he begged, the harder Audrey would go.

"Pl-ple-e-ase…" He whimpered, his voice barely there, the word choked through a sob. A strange smell had started to fill the air. Burning.

It took me a few moments to remember what flesh smelled like, and slowly, I was able to figure out what she had done.

He was on fire.

Only half an hour ago, if that, he had told me the story of how he and his sister had gotten turned. Like some kind of cruel call-back to the past, Audrey had taken that horrific event and made it a reality again.

"Keep begging…" She purred, and he screamed again. Something heavy and hard hit the floor. Him. I felt my heart jolt in my chest. The torture had gotten to the point that he was no longer able to stand up. I wondered if the fire would spread on the stone. She had to have used gasoline, or yet another form of flammeable substance in order to ignite him. Vampires just didn't combust on a whim.

And if the gas had spread to the floor, then the whole castle could be on fire before long.

"Au-Aud-drey… p-pl-please… please…s-stop…"

She scoffed. Audrey did not stop. Audrey did whatever she damn-well pleased and that never included stopping. That would mean not getting what she wanted.

"Oh, darling," She purred, "I can't stop yet. We aren't done yet."

He voiced my exact thoughts, "Done with what?"

Audrey laughed, and it wasn't quite the same cruel, bone-chilling laugh that I had become accustomed to. It was…amused, I wanted to say, as if he was a child who had just asked a rather entertaining question.

"Why, fixing you, of course." She answered, "Aro wants you to be the greatest soldier he's ever had. You will be infallible. You will speak when told to. You will do anything and everything he wants you to do…for you will know of the consequences should you decide to disobey him again.*

I felt surely, if I had any blood left in my system, it would have been all over the floor. I hated the way she spoke to him., like he was trash, something to be manipulated, to be played with. I sank to the floor and drew my legs up to my chest.

"Please…" His voice came out, broken and frail. He sounded like a child, younger than should even be suffering from such a life as we were. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I didn't know how old he was. I imagined that he was close to the same age as me, but that was just a guess, based on the sound of his voice. "A-Aud-drey… p-ple-please…"

An aching welled up in my chest. I felt as though someone had thrust their fist into my chest and had grabbed onto my heart. I often didn't feel many things there. The heart was quite an unlively thing after someone was transformed, but emotion- extreme and raw emotion, was often enough to cause the heart to react.

Audrey didn't say anything, but the screams started again. I closed my eyes, bracing myself against the wall. I couldn't bring myself to move to the other side of the cell. I had to be there for him, as soon as possible.

"It's going to be alright," I whispered, mostly to myself. I knew that he could not hear me at the moment. I doubted he could hear anything over the sound of his own voice. "You're going to be fine. We're going to get through this… please…"

I didn't believe in a God, per se, but if there was anything out there- any kind of benevolent force in the universe, I would adore the help.

He couldn't die. I couldn't be alone in this, and fire was the world's worst enemy for a vampire.

"There we are…" Came Audrey's voice, and for the first time, I was glad to hear it. "Now, why don't you think for a little while about what you want to do, and I shall be back tomorrow."

I let out a sigh of relief. Did that mean that she wasn't going to come to me?

Her footsteps echoed down the hall until slowly…nothing.

"A-Alec…" I breathed out, pressing my ear to the stone. I had to wait until I was sure that she wasn't going to come back before I went to check on him.

"Sao…" He whimpered. I felt my heart break over again. "I c-can't do this."

"Yes you can," I murmured, and I felt a lump well up in my throat. "You can. I know you can. We're going to get through this. I promise."

I wanted the wall between us to crumble. Never before had I wished for such a thing so hard. I needed to be with him. My voice could only service as so much of a comfort.

"I'm not as strong as I thought I was," He admitted. "Maybe I should just give her what she wants."

"No!" I screamed, my fingers digging into the stone beneath me. "Don't you dare. You're so much better than that. You can't give into her. Promise me."

"I don't think I should make any promises to you at the moment," He answered. The life had vanished from his voice. It broke my heart. Audrey had done something so bad, that his spirit, his fire was almost gone.

"We're going to get through this. I swear to you," I told him. I didn't believe any of it, but I couldn't have him leave me. "And when we get out of here, we're going to go anywhere you want. Tell me, Alec. There must be some place in the world that you haven't seen yet."

"Many," He answered, to my surprise. "All of our travel was regulated by the missions we were sent on. If we had to go to a place that was relatively bright, we had to be cautious."

"So where would you like to go?" I asked, rising up on my knees.

He went quiet for a few moments, pondering. "Iceland."

I raised a brow. "Iceland? You've never been to Iceland?" I'd been a hundred times, but then again, I had the power to choose where I went and when I went.

"There was never any reason to. Apparently there is a severe lack of idiots there. Aro doesn't like us to go further than the outside cities to hunt unless we're on an assignment," He answered. Gradually, his became steadier, not exactly hopeful, but it did not sound with as much pain as it had before. "I didn't leave the castle much, and certainly not by myself. Jane and I always had others that went with us, if we didn't go with one another."

"Well, when we get out of here, we are going to go to Iceland and you will see every bit of magic that it has to offer." I promised him. They were not empty words. I would see him in Iceland if I had anything to do with it.

He chuckled. Not the wondrous sound I'd heard before, but it was enough to lift my spirits a little bit. "Where did you come from?"

"Well, when my mother and father fell in love, they engaged in an act of pass…"

"I mean: Where were you born." He snorted. I hoped I'd amused him.

"Scotland." I answered. Faintly, I smiled to myself. It wasn't the place where I had my happiest of memories, but it was where I grew into the person I became. "You?"

"England." He answered. The grin on my face grew.

"Our birth countries weren't very good friends for a while. When I was born, Scotland and England hated each other."

"Around the reign of Queen Mary, then?" He asked.

"Mhm. It was a bloody affair. My mother was hurt terribly during it. She was a lady in Queen Mary's court."

"Must have been nice." He hummed, leaning back against the stone. "To have grown up in court, I mean. Not whatever tragedy had befallen your mother."

I shrugged, leaning my head back against the stone. In the time that we had been here, I learned to be grateful to have something to rest against. We couldn't sleep, of course, but it was nice to be able to rest the body- especially after Audrey had come to call.

"It was alright, I suppose. I didn't see the Queen very often. She had many things she had to do, but when I did see her, she was awfully kind to everyone around."

"We were poor as dirt." He said, "People didn't often have twins. If they did, one or both of the twins died in infancy. It was rare that me and my sister survived. Maybe that's what made people think us to be Witches."

"What about your father?" I asked, "Was he kind?"

"If he was, I didn't know it. My father left- or died, or something when we were babies. I don't remember anything about him."

"I hope he would have been kind. The world needs better fathers." I sighed, running a hand through my hair. If I ever had the change to have children, I would make sure that the man I married was kind and generous to our children.

"I'm sorry yours wasn't better to you."

I shook my head, more to myself than anything else, and rose up on my knees, facing the wall. "Will you do something for me?"

"I'll try."

"Are you facing the wall that's between our cells?"

"Yeah?"

I reached forward, and placed my hand on the stone. "Do you see the slab of stone three from the left and eight down from the ceiling?"

"Yes?"

"Put your hand there. Tell me when you've done it."

A bit of rustling, and then he declared. "There. Why?"

"My hand is in the same place. See, now we're only apart by a few inches of stone." I told him, my lips curling into a tiny smile. "We're in this together. Whatever happens, we will get out of here."

"You might. I don't think Aro would let me out… he wants to keep me too much."

"Can I ask you something?" I inquired, allowing my hand to slip off of the stone after a few seconds. "Why are you here? I mean…. I mean what did you do to make him so angry? Did you do what I did and try to rebel? Did you try to assassinate Aro…or one of the other kings?"

He snorted. A dry, amused sort of sound. "I didn't do anything like that, Saoirse. Until recently, I was as loyal as they make them. I was just like those people I talked about earlier."

"Then… then what did you do?" I breathed out, drawing my legs back up to my chest.

His answer could have sent me into shock, if my body had such capabilities. "I fell in love…with the wrong person."

"I don't understan-"

"It's a long story, Saoirse," He answered, and I felt my hope that he might tell it to me sink to the bottom of my stomach. What he added next, though, lifted it up. To be honest, I felt guilty, wanting so badly to hear of the reason he had been imprisoned. It had been gnawing at me ever since we came here- even more so when I'd learned that he was a part of the Volturi himself. "But… I suppose we don't have any other pressing matters in need of our attention, do we?"

"I won't make you tell me….but if you want, I'll listen. It's the least I could do."

He gave a low sigh, one that flowed into a small hiss. I imagined that he was still in a great deal of pain.

"A little over seven years ago, a…human and a vampire had a child together. Such a thing was unheard of. When we heard news of a little girl who could do extraordinary things, our first thought was that this couple had created an immortal child."

"But they hadn't…?"

"No. Eventually, we came to learn that they had had the child when the female vampire had still been human. Such a thing, I expect, should have killed her. But it didn't. She survived…at least long enough for her mate to change her."

"So….what, you fell in love with their daughter?"

He snorted. "I wish. That would have been easier. No, she was pretty enough, but she had the scent of a wolf all over her. My problem came with Aro."

"Seems to me like most people's problems come with Aro." I huffed, slumping down against the stone.

"Aro was never one to be shown-up, by anyone. He…couldn't stomach the fact that one of his main rivals had something that he did not. So, he set out to create a hybrid of his own. One of his own DNA."

I cringed. It was pitiful that some poor human girl had to carry Aro's child. The very idea of it could make me vomit.

"So he found a woman?" I suggested, "Did he force her? Rape her?"

"Nothing like that. Aro can be quite charming when he wants to be, and when he doesn't look like crumbling plaster, he can be handsome. He found a young girl, someone off the streets, a runaway, and took her under his wing." He laughed joylessly. I imagine the seduction didn't take long at all. Their daughter was born on the seventh of July that same year."

"And she was the one you fell in love with?"

"Not right away." He said, slowly, as if he had to think to find his words. "It would have been horrid for me to love a baby. But…she grew very fast. Aro entrusted me with guarding her and as her physical age grew closer to mine… yes, I started to feel an attraction to her."

My stomach churned. Suddenly, I felt quite miserable.

"Aro didn't like that a guard had fallen for his daughter, did he?"

"It was more that I'd started to shirk my duties in order to be with her." He answered, and the miserable feeling deepened.

"Do you miss her?"

"Some. But… I don't think our bond was a true mate bond. I've seen how mates can get when they're apart for so long. They're in practical agony.' He explained. "Besides, even if we were truly mated, its not as if Aro is going to suddenly decide he wants to welcome it with open arms."

I snorted. I didn't think, anywhere in the world, Aro would find someone worthy of his daughter.