Chapter Eleven: Shattered

"Don't you touch her!" Alec snarled. I hadn't even realized that he had been listening (but, given our sensory capabilities, it would be hard for him not to have heard), but he broke in with a growl the second Tamsin had finished speaking.

Blinking, Tamsin turned her attention towards the wall, and her lips turned into a small smile. "I'm not doing anything, dear one." She hummed, her voice honey-sweet. "Do you truly believe that I could stop Audrey, even if I wanted to?"

Alec said nothing. No one stopped Audrey. I wondered, truly, if anything would be able to stop her. She was a force that no one could reckon with. A hurricane. Tornado, a storm of deviance and Hell. She was our personal Satan.

Tamsin's smile brightened. "I'll send word to Aro, to let him know that you are displeased with this development."

I trembled. What could Aro do? If she decided to listen to him, it was her choice to do so.

"Leave." I commanded, my expression darkening as I met her eyes. "Do whatever you want, but leave us be."

She seemed to ponder my demand for a moment. I was certain that it would be ignored, that she would find some reason to stay and continue to drill us with torment, but she didn't. With one last glance at the wall between our cells, and her lips curled into a smirk, she retreated. Behind her, the barred doors closed with a firm snap.

Immediately, I dropped to my knees next to the wall. I could hear him distinctly through the stones. Slow, long intakes of breath filled the air, but he wasn't crying. I'd heard that enough with Audrey's game to know what that sounded like. No, this was a different type of noise. Methodical. Purposeful.

A while past before he said anything. "I need to get out of here."

"I know," I sighed, lifting a hand to trace a pattern upon the wall. From the distance of his voice, I knew that he had retreated to an opposite corner of his cell. "But how? We talked about it, before. If we so much as try, we'll be dead."

"I don't care." He snapped, "I'll either die here, or die trying to get to Jane."

"What if she's alive?" I breathed out, biting on the edge of my lip. A rather human action, but I'd met many of our kind who tended to retain some small number of human habits. "What then? What if Tamsin just came in here to piss you off?"

"You don't know Audrey. Not like I do. She'll take any order and twist it around to turn it into an opportunity to kill." He rose to his feet, and when his voice became just a touch clearer, I knew he'd come to sit next to the dividing wall with me. "Even if Aro simply told her to bring Jane back to the castle, she'll bring her back in pieces and claim that Aro never clarified whether or not he wanted her alive. She's done it before. Many times."

"I can't imagine that Aro allows her to be on the guard."

"Doesn't have much of a choice." He answered, "With her powers, it's hard for anyone to do much of anything about her."

"I don't think her powers would really work on Aro, though," I scrunched my nose up, head tilted back. If Aro had the power to hear all of someone's thoughts at a single thought, then Audrey's ability to reflect that back would….what? Make it so Aro could hear his own thoughts? As if he didn't already do that?

Alec groaned. "Maybe not, but it's not as though she's going to leave, and if he orders any of us to kill her, she'll just reflect our own abilities back to us. She's like a disease that won't go away."

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"Well, Audrey's allegedly in Bosnia right now." I answered, leaning back onto my palms. I wanted to leave as much as he did, but if freedom risked instant death, then was it truly a risk worth taking? "If there was ever a time to attempt an escape, now would be it."

"She's only one obstacle. We'll have a dozen to go through just to get out of the cells. Then at least another dozen more to get out of the castle."

I sighed, and tucked a lock of tangled hair behind my ears. The thought of being out was as frightening as it was wondrous. After months of being underground, locked away and made into a nothing, the idea of being outside, free and a someone finally was...almost incomprehensible. "If Chelsea is injured like Corin said she was, then perhaps it will cause more ties to break. We could gain a couple of allies once all of the sheople realize how much of a psychopath Aro is."

He snorted, as though I'd just said something very funny. "Most of those we need to worry about are already perfectly aware that Aro is psychotic. They're just as bad as he is."

"I'm so happy to know that the Law is being enforced by a shit-ton of mental headcases and sociopaths."

"It didn't used to be like this," He sighed, scraping something into the wall. "When he started the Volturi, I… I think he had the best of intentions, but as time went on, power went to his head...and the more he had, the more he feared that someone would come around to take that power away."

"Fear doesn't excuse someone for being a monster."

"No, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that a monster won't emerge, nonetheless." He responded, his tone dead. I only hoped that we would be able to get out of here- get out, and survive. Then, if we survived, and luck favored us enough that we might find his twin alive, then maybe we'd get the chance to live. "He had already started to lose it when Jane and I came along."

"That was over a thousand years ago, wasn't it?" I asked, moving closer to the wall so that we were as close as absolutely possible. As cruel and sickeningly selfish as it was, I was happy that he was there, just a few inches away. I knew that if he hadn't been there, I would have given up a long time ago.

"It was, but the Volturi had already been in existence for over a thousand years. Maybe even two. He had Chelsea, Demetri and Felix. All brawn...perfect for defense. I suppose he believed that Jane and Alec would make for a good offense."

I sucked in a low breath, a bit back a growl. "He used you. Children take up less space when they die, anyway."

Something akin to a snarl erupted from his throat. "I'm not a child, Saoirse. I haven't been a child for a thousand years."

"I'm sorry." I murmured. "But my point still remains. He just wanted you to be part of his collection."

"I know that. I knew that then, and I didn't care." There was a bit of a scuffling noise and his voice was suddenly a bit further away. Moments later, he started to pace. "With his charisma and Chelsea's powers, neither Jane nor I really minded that we were mere objects in his eyes. He was the only thing we'd ever known. By the time we'd been in the guard for two-hundred years, we had each made at least two dozen enemies. I doubt we could survive on our own. Even with our gifts. He never did think it wise to teach us how to fight. Until a few years ago, when we faced off with the Cullens, we never have any issue in battle. Jane could take down the enemy one by one, and I wiped them out by the hundreds."

"What happened with the Cullens, then?" I asked. Perhaps, when we got out of here, I would be wise to keep up with the news that went around in our world.

He snorted. In my mind, I pictured that he rolled his eyes at my ignorance. It would be nice to be able to see him, to know the facial expression that my questions inspired, rather than having to imagine them. "They had a shield. The mother of the hybrid we'd been sent to destroy. She was-she is-able to block mental attacks. Since Jane's power is all in the mind, it basically fucked us over."

"I guess Aro was pretty pissed after that," I mused, my lips turned up into a small smile. If Aro was made infurious, regardless of the situation, it delighted me to no end.

"He didn't think it necessary for us to train in combat." Alec huffed, and the pacing stopped. With a sigh, he slid down the wall. Half of me wanted to ask about his injuries, but I feared any mention of them could bring up thoughts that he wanted to keep locked away- and I couldn't blame him, not at all. "That was the first time he really changed- at least, since Jane and I'd joined."

My brows furrowed. "Changed? How?"

"He...he was angry. He blamed all of us for the incident." He paused for a few seconds, and when he spoke again, the quality of his voice was different. "We flew back…. He said nothing until we were all back at the castle. Then he called us into the throne room and just… "

"Yeah?" I prompted, softly.

Again, he was silent for another moment or two. "He lost his shit, Saoirse. He went off on Demetri, Felix, me...Jane, Chelsea. But...mostly he was pissed at me and Jane. Somehow he got the idea that we had failed him on purpose. We had been the greatest weapons in his arsenal… he never took it into consideration that there could be someone, somewhere that could stop us." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "I have to admit, it was a bit of a nice surprise. After thousands of years of just watching our enemies drop like flies or writhe in pain, her presence did manage to make things more interesting than they tended to be."

"You said he lost it. What did he do?"

"A lot of screaming, at first. Aro's mostly calm in the presence of others, but on the occasion where he is angry enough to scream...he is terrifying. At one point he struck Jane so hard that she had a crack on her face for about a week."

"If something like the incident with the Cullens were to happen again, who knows how far he'll go?" I murmured, drawing my knees up to my chest. "We're talking chaos...and not just in the Volturi. Everywhere. Anyone who opposes him will be in danger."

"When he hit her... " He began, his words having a halting sort of quality to them, as though he had to pick them with great care. "I sort of blacked out. I was loyal to him, but Jane is my twin. I don't think I could ever… care for someone, to the extent that I care for her. I remember just… going at Aro. Then nothingness."

"I'm sure that didn't help his paranoia." I murmured, mostly to myself. With us, though, there was never a 'to ourselves', not when everyone can hear what you speak and some can hear what you think. "We are going to get out of here. We have to get out of here."

"When?" He snapped, "When? We have nothing. We don't even have a plan."

Ungracefully, I pushed myself to my feet and pressed a palm against the stone.

"We're gonna break down this wall." I declared. Three months ago, I could shatter stone with the tip of my small finger within the blink of an eye. I had been healthy, though. Blood filled my system and I had access to any resource in the world. Now, so thirsty the burn had turned numb in the back of my throat, I knew my strength was nothing close to what it had been.

I could do it, though. I can break this….

"I'm gonna be here when you come up with a decent idea." He informed him, and I heard him retreat. "I'm not just going to start beating away at some stones and alert the guards."

"Dammit. We aren't going to get out of here any other way!" Stepping back, I allowed myself to get a bit of momentum as I slammed my fist into the stone. I felt a few of them crack underneath the force, but it was nowhere near enough to cause them to shatter. I shook my hand, and stepped back again, repeating the same motion, on the same weakened spot.

"Saoirse, you're fucking insane." He hissed. Now that the stones had started to crack, his voice permeated them with ease. "You're insane, and you're going to get us killed."

I rolled my eyes, and ignored his comments. We weren't going to get out if we just sat still and talked about how we wanted to get out. That wouldn't get us anywhere.

When you want something, you have to get it. Even forever is too long to wait for some things to come.

"You know…" Punch. "I'm getting…" Punch. "Really tired…" Punch. "Of having to imagine…" Punch. "How you look…."

Shatter.

My fist hit the wall for a seventh time, and with it, the weakened stone shattered. It left a small hole, about a foot and a half tall, between our cells. I backed away, and held my breath. No sign of guard. Not yet, at least. No doubt that someone or something would alert them to what we'd done within the next couple of minutes.

Secrets don't exist in these walls.

"I'm about to have a mental breakdown." He hissed. I hadn't moved to get a glimpse of him. The moment that the stone broke, I stepped to the side. Suddenly, I didn't want to know what Audrey had made of him. I wanted the picture in my head to be my reality. "You need to sit the fuck down or figure out how to get this wall back in place."

Shaking my head, I swallowed my pride and shoved my fantasies to the side.

"We're going to Bosnia." I told him. I knew that the pride, the power, the resolve he once had still lived inside of him. Audrey hadn't broken him. Now, she wouldn't get the chance to. "We're going to find Jane."

I worked my way through the wall opening, internally thankful that I'd been changed at a relatively young age. If I'd been much taller, we'd be more fucked than we already were.

Once through the opening, I straightened up, and beheld him for the first time. The image I had in my mind shattered, and I slowly came to accept my new reality.

He was lovely, that was true. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with his appearance. His hair was just as he had described it- brown, dark, a color that wouldn't be that impressive on a human, but it was the way he held himself that hurt the most.

His clothes had been ripped. I'd never taken it into consideration that they made him stay in the clothes they'd done it in. He stood to cover himself, and when I'd realized this, I averted my eyes.

His eyes, and I figured mine were roughly the same, were entirely black. The color had even started to leak out of his irises and into the whites.

"Please…." He began, holding a hand out. "Please, don't come any closer."