A/N: Hi, everyone! I just want to say that I'm so sorry that this chapter took forever to get out. My writing program messed up for a while :/. So, for this I wrote it on Google Docs, so I hope you can forgive me if the formatting is a bit off. Thank you to everyone for the lovely reviews, follows and favorites!

Chapter Nine: Optimism/Pessimism/Realism

Like the howling fires of the Hell that I had, against my will, started to believe in, she came just a few hours later. I wondered how much she looked forward to seeing us. Surely, Aro did not need for us to be tortured every six hours or so. She never asked many questions. No, this was all for her personal amusement.

"Burn. Burn for me," That was the command that Audrey gave. Alec's screams ripped through the cells. It was a familiar sound by now, but gut-wrenching all the same. She had set him on fire for the first time only a week ago. Now, it was one of her "special" weapons- something that she didn't do all of the time. Burning was reserved, most of the time, and today, at least to her, was a special occasion.

I hated it, but I felt like he would choose fire over the men that had come in before.

Still, it sickened me. He wailed, begged- and he never begged, thrashing so hard against the ground that it shook the wall that connected our prisons together.

My head slammed against the stone, fists beating on it. "Stop! STOP! Pl-Please, STOP! Audrey! Stop!"

I knew, not too far back in my mind, that it was futile request to make. Audrey would not stop, not under my command. She was a force of nature. The sun would stop to burn and the earth would stop in its orbit, sending the moon into the abyss of space before she stopped just because I told her to.

At this rate, I would crack my skull open on the stone. I knew it would be sensible to calm down, and wait it out, but I couldn't.

For a split second, he stopped screaming. I froze, eyes deer-in-headlights-wide. As long as he screamed, I could believe that he was alive. Fire killed us, if we didn't extinguish it fast enough, and I had little trust that Audrey wouldn't let herself get carried away. As much as I despised to hear him in pain, she loved it a thousand times more.

"A-Al-Alec?" I stammered, voice a ghost of a whisper.

"Get up." Audrey snarled, and the tip of her boot hit some part of his body. I knew the sound of metal and stone well enough by now. "We aren't done. I'm. Not. Done."

"Fuck you." He hissed. My heart glowed with relief. He was alive. He could still fight. She hadn't broken him, not entirely. "Vindictive cunt."

She laughed, "You still think this is something personal, hm?"

He pushed himself up, panting hard. "You've been on me for weeks. Saoirse has barely heard from you. This might be cruel of me, but I would like a bit of a break."

"Believe me, sweetheart." She purred, in the way that a snake might purr. "This is quite the torture for her. Do you hear her, now? Here- get closer."

Without a warning, he slammed into the wall. I reeled, a gasp bursting from my lips.

"Sa-Saoirse?" He asked, his voice a hairline fracture- not quite broken, but nearly. I moved back to the wall, hands pressed to the stone. "Has she hurt you, too?"

"W-What?" I stammered. I sounded pathetic, weak- a sniveling little idiot. "No, no I'm fine."

"You're crying," He said, knowingly. Even through a wall, he was a million times more observant than most boys.

"I thought she killed you." I admitted. He laughed. Cold, angry, he laughed. I shivered internally, but didn't shrink from the stone as I so wanted to.

"I wish she had."

"Please don't say that." I pleaded, selfish in my reasons. I knew that it would be more merciful if he succumbed to the torture, fading away into either the Heaven that he believed in, or the numbing nothingness that I planned to find upon death. Either one, surely, would be better than this living Hell. But I couldn't.

Being alone in this dark corner of the world terrified me. I was not brave enough, not on my own.

"I won't kill you," Audrey purred, her footsteps growing nearer. How I wanted to punch my fist through the wall and tear her eyes out. "It's no fun to play with a corpse; they don't fight back enough."

"Leave him be." I hissed, rising to my feet. Even if we were separated by a wall, I would not be on my knees before her. "He's had enough. Let me… come hurt me for a while."

A silence. Audrey did not often pause to think, but when she did, it could mean the difference between torment and a small fragment of bliss- at least, for one of us.

Finally, she spoke in a slow, deliberate fashion. "I think, I shall consult with the Masters- see what they believe the next plan of action should be."

Alec breathed out an audible sigh of relief as she slipped away, footsteps fading bit by bit as she moved down the hall.

"Bitch'll get hers." I hissed, shaking. "How are the burns?"

"They burn." He said, shortly. I could have figured that much.

"Maybe she'll come and have a go at me for a while," I shrugged. Though, she did have a point. It was painful to hear him, and to know that there was nothing for me to do, but that wasn't the same. I didn't want him to suffer at all.

"I don't want her to torture you, Saoirse. But… I don't know how much more I can take."

I shook my head, and smiled at myself. "I know that. She's not just going to stop, anyway. So, it's going to be one or the other."

"What do you suppose the chances of us getting out of here, are?" He inquired. I almost scoffed at the suggestion alone.

"I think we'd be fucked if we tried to leave here. There has to be guards posted at the doors to the dungeons, of not ones every few cells. Unless we could teleport, or turn invisible or actually use our gifts, then we might have a chance. Otherwise, unless someone convinces Aro to release us...we're going to rot here."

"Have you always been this pessimistic?" He asked.

"I prefer to call it realistic. Reality just tends to be more unfortunate than fantasies."

"Still, there has to be a way out of here. Aro might be brilliant and even more so, ruthless. But no one is perfect. Not even Aro." Alec slid down the wall, back pressed to it. "Any idea how long we've been here?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "A month. Maybe two." It was impossible to tell, truly. Without sunlight, watches, or an internal clock to dictate when to sleep, time was almost non-existent. As a vampire, it was almost foolish to count years as humans did, for they were all together meaningless. The world shifted, changed around us. Fashions faded and rose, names fell from popularity into nose-wrinkling obscurity. Personal beliefs, beliefs to do with religion, race, gender, sexuality, drifted in and out of general societal importance.

We remained the same. Our bodies, frozen in time, would never know the weariness of old age. My knees would never go bad. I would never start to lose my eyesight, or my ability to hear from miles away. It was, almost, a saddening realization, to know that we would never experience the whole of life- the trials, the pain, the joy and terror of chance. We were alive, yes, but from the moment of change, we weren't living.

I found myself almost jealous. I would never grow taller. My breasts, hips, and waist would never fill out. It was like being trapped in a cage, where the cage was your body, and you could never escape.

"Surprised we've lasted for that long," He admitted. "Aro used to have prisoners down here all of the time, during the war with the Romanians. Most of them didn't last for more than two weeks before he ended their lives or they went insane from torture."

"Audrey wasn't around back then, though." I reminded him. "She likes for us to be kept around, for her entertainment."

"She didn't come to us long after the war ended and Aro took control of the supernatural world," He said calmly, as though we had started to talk about our favorite things again. "Aro was looking for someone who would act as a ruthless enforcer."

"Isn't Jane…" I trailed off, hoping that the mention of his sister didn't stir up any discomfort. It had to have been a week since Aro allowed her to come and see him.

"She is good at getting attention, at being threatening, but her power only works on one person at a time." He explained, "Audrey is methodical and purposeful. She's demented, but she gets the job done. Jane's power is based on rage, on control and fear."

"I've never thought of it that way." I murmured, drawing my knees close and hugging them to my chest. "Maybe she'll convince Aro to let us go. She's been his favorite, hasn't she?"

"Honestly? I'd be more willingly to believe that Aro will convince her that I'm traitorous trash. She's always been a bit attached to him. More so than anyone, except, perhaps, Chelsea."

"Pretty little linchpin?" I snorted. Chelsea had to be as close to a princess as the Volturi had. Without her, there would be no Volturi.

"Self-absorbed little twat." He snarled. "Chelsea isn't a psychopath, nor does she get off in ripping people apart like Audrey does, but she's a bitch."

"I'm a bitch." I said pointedly. In the eyes of a human, we were all monsters. "Bitch doesn't properly describe Audrey. It's too tame. Too… simple, and overused. I don't think I could conjure up a word that fully encompassed her level of cruelty."

"And 'indescribable' is a massive throw-away term." He said. I had to agree. People used the word far too often, when, in most situations, whatever they referred to with 'indescribable' was in fact, quite describable. It only took someone intelligent enough to find the proper term. "You're rather linguistic, aren't you?"

I chuckled, tucking a lock of hair behind my ears. "Words are intriguing. The simplest phrase can have six generations of origins. How many languages do you know?"

"Fluently? Six. Conversationally, fourteen." He answered. To be honest, I would have expected more. They had to deal with our kind from every country and some vampires wouldn't know English. "Aro made us learn the top spoken languages for diplomatic reasons. If I wanted to, I could learn a new one per week."

"I know nine fluently," I informed him, rather proud of myself. "Seventeen conversationally."

"Good for you." He said dully, but not coldly. "Was English your first?"

"No, actually, it was my third. Gaelic and Welsh was my first."

"Welsh?" He murmured, a note of curiosity in his tone. "Gibberish."

I narrowed my eyes with indignation. "It is not."

"I tried to learn it years ago, but I could hardly get passed a basic level. I don't think I could even hold a general conversation with someone in Welsh."

Welsh was a curious, true, and if someone didn't grow up speaking it, it would be difficult for them to pick up. Difficult, but not impossible.

"Maybe you just need a tutor." I said pointedly. "I could teach you, if you like. Welsh is exceptionally beautiful once you understand the basics of grammar and how to pronounce the words."

"I might take you up on that," He said without little thought. "What languages do you know, fluently?"

"English, Spanish. Welsh, Gaelic, French, Italian, Russian, Polish, and German." I answered. "I can hold a conversation in several more."

"Well, if Audrey doesn't come back soon and decide to rip my throat out, then we can start on those language lessons."

"Of course," I smiled to myself, and leaned up against the stone. "If she comes around and chooses to rip my throat out for once, do you still want to continue with the lessons? I think I could manage to teach even without my vocal cords intact."

"Good, good. We can use morse-code." He tapped out a few letters, the beats rhythmic and purposeful. To me, though, they were mostly meaningless.

I scrunched my nose up. My prowess when it came to written or sound-based languages and writing systems wasn't quite so strong.

"What does that even mean?"I asked, daring to allow myself to seem unintelligent.

"No idea." He answered simply, "I've never learned morse-code. Aro didn't see the need for it."

"Did you learn everything simply because Aro told you too?"

"I did." He sighed. "He dictated everything that we did. What we wore, what we learned. We had to have approval for nearly every aspect of our lives."

"That's horrid." I could never be tied to the whims of anyone. If someone told me what to wear or how to act, I'd kill them.

"To you, but to me and Jane, it was entirely normal. You have to remember, Jane and I have only known two types of lives, our human one, and the one in the Volturi. Until recently, neither of us truly understood that there could be anything wrong with the way Aro controlled us- or any part of the guard for that matter. He had been the center of our world for over a thousand years."

"Good thing you have me, then." I hummed, "Once we get out of here, I can make sure you don't end up dressing like a trashcan."

"I thought you didn't think we'd get out of here." He said in a smug tone. "You called it 'realistic.'"

"I like to throw in a little bit of optimism. Keeps everyone guessing."

"I'll be sure to rely on your fashion advice when it comes to it," He chucked. I was relieved to hear the sound. Audrey always came so close to breaking him. I could hear it in his voice each time she was around. But...it always took but a few hours for him to bounce back, to be able to laugh again. Part of me wondered if I had anything to do with it, if my presence had as much of an effect on him as his did on me. Did he worry that I would die, as I feared for him? Was he frightened of being left alone?

"Did he approve when you wanted to learn Welsh?" I inquired, for when he mentioned it, it sounded as though he had elected to try and learn it.

"I had to ask his permission, but it was my idea."

I nodded, a silent motion that would mean nothing to him. Some of the time, I hated the wall simply because it meant I had to speak in order to communicate. Generally, I didn't say a lot to anyone.

"Alec?" Without warning, a voice broke through the short silence that had befallen us. I tensed. I knew Kiersten, Audrey, Tamsin, and Jane, but whoever had spoken now, I didn't know them at all. But instantly, I feared them.

Arms locked around my knees, I awaited a new torture.